I looked him over while he stood there, somewhat surprised—if one can ever be surprised at what his race did. He was hung with enough weapons to stop a division of Homonorms and I wondered, as I always did, at the origin of his race. His type always came drifting down from somewhere north, back home, and all our radar and planes had never found their homeland. None of them ever talked with humans except to nose in on our expeditions or break up our wars. This one was quite a specimen, maybe six feet, about 180 pounds, with the quiet and arrogant strength of his race. He took a deep breath, still leaning on the door frame.
"Get me some whiskey," his voice was hoarse from disuse and the Time-Warp, "and get it now."
"Now, see here," I began, "I'm Computerman and in charge of this ship and...."
I didn't finish. With the quiet sureness of a jungle cat he had crossed the room, taken a handful of my tunic and lifted me from the chair—in spite of the fact that gravity was nearly normal now because of the landing jets. His voice was almost velvety.
"Perhaps you didn't hear me. I will repeat once more." He paused while I considered striking him and then, sensibly, changed my mind. "Get me some whiskey." Then he dropped me back into the chair.
I'm not Computerman for nothing, so I computed the situation in maybe a thousandth of a second. No one could push me around, so to prevent being pushed around I got him his whiskey. He knocked off about a half pint at a swallow and in a few minutes his skin lost its bluish tinge. He was awake, and his quick eyes swept the gauges and the TV-Radar image.
"When do we land?" He made no attempt to be courteous.
I checked Brain One's tape, somewhat rattled. "Twenty-one minutes, four seconds," I started, resisting a strange impulse to say 'sir', "Near water, fresh, altitude under one mile from...."
"That's all," he said. "Thanks." He left the room like a cat, crouching slightly as he went through the door, leaping through and backing against the wall, but fast, once he cleared. His weapons, all of them, were so skillfully hung that he didn't make a sound. Somehow, I enjoyed watching the play of those muscles and felt rather glad to have him along, rough as he was. Outlying planets often have warlike combat organizations of their own, and Combatmen have saved many expeditions like this. Something in their nature, or training—or both—seems to make them invincible.