Tableware lay in mute rows and the only sound was the humming ventilator. Brace sat down in a chair to wait until the men had all filed in. They were cast in the same mold, and forged to the same temper as their Captain, brittle, hard, unyielding. When they had assembled around the table, Barrows closed the door.
"The ship's locked, Captain," Barrows said. "The girl can't escape."
Brace nodded, got up, and stared at his men, one by one, seventeen of the fiercest toughest men ever baptised in the maw of space and all threatened by a stupid girl. Brace's hoarse voice resounded in the room as he told about the night before, chronologically, neither adding nor detracting. They listened without comment.
"There's an out for some of you," Brace finished. "I can give you your papers and a note to Captains of ships which happen to be here now. They'll sign you on and the S.P. won't be able to find you guilty of anything. They won't even be able to prove you're my men. As for you, Barrows, you can sign on with Grant and he'll doctor it up so that it'll look like you signed on a couple of days ago."
"Naw, not me!" Barrows said, disgustedly.
A chorus of rejections went up at once. It wasn't loyalty to their Captain, just a mutual hatred for the S.P.
The second cook, however, walked toward Brace. "I'll take my papers, Captain," he said quickly.
The Chief Cook took one step. No one actually saw the fist land, but they watched the second cook slide across the deck and come to rest in a limp heap. Then the Chief Cook grinned at Brace, revealing two missing teeth.
"The second cook has changed his mind, Captain," he said.