THE METHODS of operation of the Vortex Blaster II had long since been worked out in detail. Approaching any planet Captain Ross, through channels, would ask permission of the various governments to fly in atmosphere, permission to use high explosive, permission to land and be serviced, and permission—after standard precautions—to grant planetary leave to his ship’s personnel. All this asking was not, of course, strictly necessary in his case, since every world having even one loose atomic vortex had been demanding long and insistently that Neal Cloud visit it next, but it was strictly according to protocol.
Astrogators had long since plotted the course through planetary atmosphere; not by the demands of the governments concerned and not by any ascending or descending order of violence of the vortices to be extinguished, but by the simple criterion of minimum flight-time ending at the pre-selected point of entry to the planet.
Thus neither Joan nor Cloud had anything much to do with planetary affairs until the chief pilot notified Joan that he was relinquishing control to her—which never happened until the vessel lay motionless with respect to the planet’s surface and with the tip of her nose three two zero zero point zero meters distant from the center of activity of the vortex.
Approaching Chickladoria, the routine was followed precisely up to the point where Joan’s mechanical brain took over. This time, however, the brain was not working, since Joan was in the throes of rebuilding “Lulu” into “Margie.” On Chickladoria, then, the chief pilot did the piloting and “Storm” Cloud did the blasting, and everything ran like clockwork. The ship landed at Malthester spaceport and everyone who could possibly be spared disembarked.
Ready to leave the ship, Cloud went to the computer room to make one last try. There, seated at desks, Joan and her four top experts were each completely surrounded by welters of reference books, pamphlets, wadded-up scratch-paper, tapes, and punched cards.
“Hi, Joan—Hi, fellows and gals—why don’t you break down and come on out and get some fresh air?”
“Sorry, Storm, but the answer is still ‘no’. We’ll need all this week, and probably more. . . .” Joan looked up at him and broke off. Her eyes widened and she whistled expressively. “Myohmy, ain’t he the handsomest thing, though? I wish I could go along, Storm, if only to see you lay ’em out in rows!”
For, since Chickladoria was a very warm planet—fully as hot as Tominga had been—Cloud was dressed even more lightly than he had been there; in sandals, breech-clout, and DeLameter harness, the shoulder-strap of the last-named bearing the three silver bars of a commander of the Galactic Patrol. He was not muscled like a gladiator, but his bearing was springily erect, his belly hard and flat, his shoulders were wide, his hips were narrow, and his skin was tanned to a smooth and even richness of brown.
“Wellwell! Not bad, Storm; not bad at all.” One of the men got up and looked him over carefully. “If I looked like that, Joan, I’d play hookey for a couple of days myself. But I wouldn’t dare to—in that kind of a get-up I’d look like something that had crawled out from under a rock and I’d get sunburned from here to there.”
“That’s your own fault, Joe,” a tall, lissom, brunette lieutenant chipped in. “You could have the radiants on while you do your daily dozens, you know. Me, I’m mighty glad that some of the men, and not only us women, like to look nice.”