"Come on back," the skipper said. "I don't feel too sturdy myself."
Ernest Hotaling was writing verse in his cabin when the lieutenant intercommed him. He had just written, in free translation:
A girl is scarcely long for the road
If passion'd arms make her corrode.
Ernest wasn't entirely satisfied with the rhyme, though he felt he'd captured the sense of it. The lieutenant's call interrupted his polishing. He touched the 'com and said: "Hotaling."
"Patrol's back, Mister Hotaling. You'll want to see what they found."
"Another heap of false starts? No, thanks."
"Not this time. They found some people. Two live people."
"Alive! Be right there."