"Silas Teutoberg," sullenly complied the officer. "But don't be so excited. He has already resigned."
"Why?"
A crafty light appeared in the captain's eyes. He sensed a slight advantage in retaining this knowledge himself.
"I decline to answer," he stated.
The lambent flames leaped ominously in Winford's eyes. He toyed with the ray pistol expressively, then glanced up at a sudden interruption. The control room door had opened, admitting Jarl and Ragna.
"The crew is all accounted for," announced Jarl. "We imprisoned a hundred men and have control."
"Very good, Jarl," replied Winford calmly. "Ragna, take these two navigating officers down and lock them up with the rest. Jarl, you remain here. I have a little task for you."
"Awah," replied Jarl, using the Martian term for "very good, sir."
"Captain Robers here is going to strip off his clothing and pass out through the air-lock into space." Winford spoke each word with cold precision.
The officer jerked up his head in sudden terror. He had once witnessed the modern equivalent for the ancient piratical sentence of walking the plank and the vivid memory rose before him. He saw again the nude man cowering inside the air-lock as the inner door shut, the wafting out into interstellar space of his struggling body as the atmosphere inside the lock rushed out of the outer opening door, and the fatal bloating of the body from the sudden pressure from within. The horror of it unlocked the officer's tongue.