"To the captain's cabin, sir." The huskies stopped short in amazement as that roar filled the room, but answered the question concisely.
"Let her go!" Then, as the girl fled back to the huddled group in the corner, he said, "Tell the captain to come out here and assemble every officer and man of the crew. I want to talk to everybody at once."
He had a minute or two in which to think, and he thought furiously, but accurately. He had to do something, but whatever he did must be done strictly according to the pirates' own standards of ethics; if he made one slip it might be Aldebaran I all over again. He knew how to keep from making that slip, he thought. But also, and this was the hard part, he must work in something that would let those nurses know that there was still hope, that there were a few more acts of this drama yet to come. Otherwise he knew with a stark, cold certainty what would happen. He knew of what stuff the space nurses of the patrol were made, knew that they could be driven just so far, and no further—alive.
There was a way out of that, too. In the childishness of his hospitalization he had called Nurse MacDougall a dumb-bell. He had thought of her, and had spoken to her quite frankly, in uncomplimentary terms. But he knew that there was a real brain back of that beautiful countenance, that a quick and keen intelligence resided under that red-bronze thatch. Therefore, when the assembly was complete he was ready, and in no uncertain or ambiguous language he opened up.
"Listen, you—all of you!" he barked, savagely. "This is the first time in months that we have made such a haul as this, and you fellows have the brazen gall to start helping yourselves to the choicest stuff before anybody else gets a look at it. I tell you now to lay off, and that goes exactly as it lays. I, personally, will kill any man that touches one of those women before they arrive here at base. Now you, captain, are the first and worst offender of the lot." And he stared directly into the eyes of the officer whom he had last seen entering the dungeon of the Wheelmen.
"I admit that you're a good picker." Kinnison's voice was now venomously soft, his intonation distinct with thinly veiled sarcasm. "Unfortunately, however, your taste agrees too well with mine. You see, captain, I'm going to need a nurse myself. I think I'm coming down with something. And, since I've got to have a nurse, I'll take that red-headed one. I had a nurse once with hair just that color, who insisted on feeding me tea and toast and a soft-boiled egg when I wanted beefsteak; and I am going to take my grudge out on this one here for all the red-headed nurses that ever lived. I trust that you will pardon the length of this speech, but I want to give you my reasons in full for cautioning you that that particular nurse is my own particular personal property. Mark her for me, and see to it that she gets here—exactly as she is now."
The captain had been afraid to interrupt his superior, but now he erupted.
"But see here, Blakeslee!" he stormed. "She ought to be mine, by every right. I captured her; I saw her first; I've got her here——"
"Enough of that back talk, captain!" Kinnison sneered elaborately. "You know, of course, that you are violating every rule by taking booty for yourself before division at base, and that you can be shot for doing it."
"But everybody does it!" protested the captain.