Wilson sat in the dome room of the detector ship and cursed. The lights were still flickering across the presentation surface, flecks and streaks of spurious response. But with space cleared of the horde of searching spacecraft, the flickings and the streakings had diminished, although that cluster of spots still held its position.
Wilson said to Allison, "Seems to me we could have volunteered to stay out here and keep watch."
Allison was shaking his head when the dome went black again. "They wouldn't believe you," he said.
One of the techs readjusted something and the presentation returned.
"It's a damned funny business, this Space Service," said Wilson. "Any service, I guess."
"How so?" asked Manning.
"If I give a wrong order and you disobey, to keep from piling up, you get clipped for it. If you don't refuse to carry out the order and we pile up, I get busted—if any of us come back whole."
"I wonder if they have that trouble, too," Wainright said musingly, looking up at the cluster of dots that represented the enemy fleet.
"Probably. I hope so."
Edwards shook his head. "I'd rather fight an enemy that had no iron-bound discipline. Let 'em run wild, taking their own ideas as they come. Let 'em argue with the skipper. Let 'em quit if their commander doesn't play their way. That's the difference between a mob and a service, Ted."