"That's an easy one. I predict you're going to ask for another beer—and that I'll give it to you. No conflict there." He opened a container that chilled itself automatically as he handed it to his superior officer.
Hawkins blew the foam from it and then took a long, satisfying swallow. "There are times when I'm glad I'm just an uncomplicated space officer," he said presently.
Broussard grinned. "Sorry if I seemed to be giving you a lecture, Captain. I'm afraid you would have enjoyed a good, healthy discussion of Freud much more. My own particular problem is that I'm much more interested in thinking about the remote possibilities of man's encountering new types of intelligences than I am in playing father confessor to a bunch of space rats. Back on Earth the social psychologists felt that Lewin's work offered a fruitful means of analyzing the motivational components in any alien society we might encounter. I guess my trotting out the vector charts was just a neat example of wishful thinking."
Captain Allen Hawkins didn't bother to answer the remark for some time. He was too busy watching something move slowly towards them across the grassy plain. Finally he half-whispered to his companion, "Don't put those charts away too soon, Broussard. You finally may have a chance to use them."
Bells clanged loudly. Red and yellow lights flashed insistently in front of the man, demanding his attention. The clattering noise of a computer working at high speed added to the unholy din of the small spaceship's control room.
Surveyor Lan Sur ran his deft fingers rapidly over the studs on the control panel in front of him. He scarcely looked at the controls as he manipulated them, concentrating instead on the screens before him—screens which showed the attack patterns of the seven large warships that surrounded him.
One of the attacking enemy ships loomed incredibly large directly ahead of him. Lan Sur's fingers hesitated, and then, at precisely the proper second, pressed the firing studs. The scout ship seemed to dance lightly upward as it passed high above the larger, slower enemy craft. Lan Sur whirled his ship around just in time to witness the total disintegration of the enemy.
"One down," he thought, but took no particular pride in his accomplishment. There were still six left.
The enemy regrouped, spreading out into a cone-like formation. He knew the trick well, and aimed his ship to make its next pass high above the open mouth of this formation. But the enemy opened up the top of the cone as fast as Lan Sur tried to avoid it. He fired a warning salvo and tucked his defensive screens in tight around him. But the uppermost enemy ship incredibly picked up more speed, sliding off into an extremely intricate maneuver. Lan Sur knew that if it could hold to this path, it would pass several miles above him, neatly sandwiching him between the enemy vessels below. He could have turned aside at once, but that would have been an admission of possible defeat, and he could never admit defeat. If he could beat the other ship to the topping maneuver, he would destroy not only it, but the ships at the small end of the cone as well when he came crashing down on them from above. For just a moment he felt certain that he could succeed.