Graysen nodded at him, as taciturn as ever. "Your orbit, Captain?"
"Anywhere," Glayne replied. "Anywhere, just so long as we get far enough out of this system to drop into sub-space." He rubbed his bristly chin for a moment, thinking. "Make it eight G's," he added.
Graysen acknowledged and turned away. Almost immediately the inert screens were dropped and a floor began to build under Glayne's feet. By the time he had mounted to the Captain's Station, he was panting with effort. Automatically he jabbed an anti-thrust surette into his arm and felt his muscles relax instantaneously under the influence of the magic drug.
The inter-ship communicator phones gurgled over his head for a couple of seconds, then Brodis' voice issued from the speaker: "The General is floating up to his ears in verchromynal, Captain. They're putting his face back together right now. Give the word and I'll go to work on him, thrust or no thrust."
"No," Glayne replied. "We'll make sub-space in a few hours. Then we'll have all the time we need to pump him. And, Lieutenant...."
"Sir?"
"Prepare the General's very own treatments for him."
Brodis paused for an appreciable instant, then said, "Right, Captain," and cut off.
Glayne watched the globe of Sterle II diminish in his battle screen with deep satisfaction. The first step in his plan had been carried off with miraculous good fortune. Now the most pressing necessity was speed. Once the Algol was sufficiently far from mass to drop into sub-space, the mysterious power source of the Delbans would be only a couple of hours distant at the most. With Ganser under control and acting as a safe conduct, Glayne saw success dangling just within his fingers.
Yet deep within his nether-mind he felt a twinge of foreboding—as if he had forgotten some vital factor in his calculations. The dim awareness was almost on the threshold of prescience, but it was too indistinct for him to make out clearly. Uneasily he sought to ignore it but could not.