"QX—give her the juice!" he snapped.
They gave it, and to the stunned surprise of all, she took it. The liner again was free!
"Kind of a jury-rigging I gave it, but it'll hold long enough to get you into port, sir," he reported to the captain in his sanctum, saluting crisply. He was in for it now, he knew, as the officer stared at him. But he couldn't have let that shipload of passengers get ground up into hamburger. Anyway, there was no way out.
In apparent reaction he turned pale and trembled, and the officer hastily took from his medicinal stores a bottle of choice brandy.
"Here, drink this," he directed, proffering the glass:
Kinnison did so. More, he seized the bottle from the captain's hand and drank that, too—all of it—a draft which would have literally turned him inside out a few months since. Then, to the captain's horrified disgust, he took from his filthy dungarees a packet of bentlam and began to chew it, idiotically blissful. Thence, and shortly, into oblivion.
"Poor devil—you poor, poor devil," the commander murmured, and had him put into a bunk.
When he had come to and had had his pickup, the captain came and regarded him soberly.
"You were a man once. An engineer, and a crackerjack; or I'm an oiler's pimp," he said levelly.