Syd Palmer looked up in surprise as Chip let himself in the electro-lock. The chubby engineer gasped, "Salvation, look what the cat drug in! His high-flying Nibs! What's the matter, Chip? Night-life too much for you?"
"Never mind that now!" panted Chip. "Is this tin can ready to roll? Warm the hypos. We're lifting gravs—"
Palmer said anxiously, "Now, wait a minute! The men haven't quite finished plating the hull, Chip!"
"Can't help that! We've got important business. In a very few minutes—Ahh! There he goes now!" Chip had gone to the perilens the moment he entered the ship; now he saw in its reflector that which he had expected. The gushing orange spume of a spaceship roaring from its cradle. "Hurry, Syd!"
There were a lot of things Syd Palmer wanted to ask. He wanted to know who went where; he was bursting with curiosity about the "important business" which had brought his pal back from town in such a rush; his keen eye also had detected a needle-gun burn on Chip's coat-sleeve. But he was too good a companion to waste time now on such trivia.
"O.Q.," he snapped. "It's your pigeon!"
And he disappeared. They heard his voice calling to the workmen, the scuff of equipment being disengaged from the Chickadee's hull, the thin, high whine of warming hypatomics. Salvation looked at Warren quizzically.
"It smells," he ventured gently, "like trouble."
"It is trouble," Chip told him. "Plenty trouble!"
"In that case—" said the old man mildly—"I guess I'd better get the rotor stripped for action." He stepped to the gunnery turret, dropped the fore-irons and stripped their weapon for action. "'Be ye men of peace,'" he intoned, "'but gird firmly thy loins for righteous battle!' Thus saith the Lord God which is Jehovah. Selah!"