I yelled, "Lance, you knobby old son-of-a-scarecrow! Where did you come from? Where've you been? How did you two get aboard—"
Biggs—Lieutenant Biggs to you, upstart!—swiveled and grinned at me. Marriage might have worked wonders on the inner man, I wouldn't know about that, but it had not changed his exterior in any way, shape or form. He was still the old lean and lanky, gawky and gangling caricature of humanity I'd always known. Tow-headed and wistful of eye and blessed with a nervous, oversized Adam's-apple that bobbled up and down in his throat like an undigested billiard ball.
"Hello, Sparks," he said mildly. "We came aboard at Sun City. We've been honeymooning. But my leave is up, now, and I've reported back for duty."
I said, "And, man! am I ever glad to see you! We've been one hop-skip-and-jump from the loony-bin on this trip—and I don't mean could be! We can use somebody who has a few brains—"
Biggs looked puzzled.
"Why? What seems to be the trouble?"
"Pig-headed bureaucracy, that's what!" puffed Hanson irately. "Take it from me, son, the Major—"
Then suddenly his gaze, slipping past me, grew wary. His eyes veiled, and his arteries stopped hardening. Without a pause he continued in a milder tone:
"—major difficulty seems to be that we need brushin' up on the latest space practices. We're a bit rusty, you know. So the Corporation has assigned a very capable officer to—Why, there he is now! Come in, Major Gilchrist!"
And in slithered the efficiency expert, glaring like a teetotaller in a taproom. As usual, he had a nasty comment for everybody. To me he said, "Sparks, you left your battery on! A sheer waste of valuable current, sir—waste! Be kind enough to go aloft and attend to it instantly!" Then, to the Old Man, "And you, Captain—surely you know the Company rule against allowing women in the control cabins of space-craft?"