Mike shook his head. “I don’t know anything, Captain. Honestly I don’t.”
If Space Service regulations had allowed it, Captain Sir Henry Quill, Bart., would have worn a walrus mustache. And if he’d had such a mustache, he would have whuffled it then. As it was, he just blew out air, and nothing whuffled.
“You and I are the only ones in the dark, then,” he said. “The rest of the crew is being picked from Chilblains Base. Pete Jeffers is First Officer, in case you’re wondering.”
“Oh, great,” Mike the Angel said with a moan. “That means we’ll be going in cold on an untried ship.”
Like Birnam Wood advancing on Dunsinane, Quill’s eyebrows moved upward. “Don’t you trust your own designing?”
“As much as you do,” said Mike the Angel. “Probably more.”
Quill nodded. “We’ll have to make the best of it. We’ll muddle through somehow. Are you all ready to go?”
“No,” Mike admitted, “but I don’t see that I can do a damn thing about that.”
“Nor do I,” said Captain Quill. “Be at Chilblains Base in twenty-four hours. Arrangements will be made at the Long Island Base for your transportation to Antarctica. And”—he paused and his scowl became deeper—“you’d best get used to calling me ‘sir’ again.”
“Yessir, Sir Henry, sir.”