He discussed his project openly, and there was many an argument over dinner. He thought, correctly, that people of honest lives would be interested in the thoughts and methods of a policeman and he talked openly. He had been a zealous policeman, and his store of incidents seemed unlimited, and unlike many, these tales were not all told with Lieutenant Jeffries as hero. In order to avoid the personal pronoun, he often told stories about himself in the third person, giving credit to some unknown member of the force.
And so by the time that the Martian Queen reached turnover, Lieutenant Jeffries was well-liked. He enjoyed this thoroughly, though in his spare moments he hoped avidly for Black Morgan.
And, of course, Black Morgan was inevitable. The ship and its cargo had been well publicized, as had been his intent. It was a set-up generated for Black Morgan, and any pirate who thought enough of himself to take on that name would never deny the challenge.
Black Morgan came a few hours after turnover. The ship's personnel and passengers had—ritualistically—watched the heavens revolve about their ship and had enjoyed the captain's dinner immediately afterwards. The skipper had treated them with stories of his own and had explained that it had been the original intention to serve the dinner during the turnover, but all pilots were not as capable as the one they had now, and the turnover had been known to be rough at times—and no space line liked to have the job of removing spilled soup from fifty evening gowns, let alone the bad publicity.
The dinner was finished, and the dancing was in full swing when the alarm bells rang loud and clear above the pleasant strains of the music.
The acceleration dropped immediately to 1-G which gave several people an internal stomach-wrangle similar to that not enjoyed by the stopping of a high-speed elevator.
And there, a half mile from the Martian Queen, ran another ship. It was black and chromium and deadly looking because of a triple-turret of heavy rifles that led the Martian Queen by exactly enough to make a perfect hit. Marksman Jeffries knew it, and so did everybody who looked.
Signal Officer Jones nudged Jeffries. "There he is," he said bitterly.
"No myth, anyway," grunted Jeffries.
"Nope."