MILK RUN
By Robert Donald Locke
Captain Jock Warren came out of his drunken
stupor to check the flight of his ship. What he
found aboard made him dash for blessed oblivion!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
May 1953
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Two hours before the vessel plunged into minus point, building up for a hundred and fifty parsec jump through hyperspace, Capt. Jock Warren was so high on narcol he couldn't read his own manifest. Not unusual on this milk run. After two hours inside of minus point, his sober gray cells were functioning like blaster tubes—but by then, it was too late. The skags had taken over control of the ship.
—Charlie Guhn's Log.
The Star Rover, a rusty freighter that shuttled between Rigel and the home system, hovered above a transfer station some two million miles out from Rigel's twelfth planet, awaiting port clearance. Every crewman knew the skipper was oiled, but they knew the entropy barrier would set him back a full day, shocking him into cold alertness.
Second Officer Charles Guhn knocked at the captain's cabin, entered and saluted: "Sir, cargo's loaded and customs cleared."
The skipper, his face bagged like the Coal Sack, his blood-cracked eyes possessing chilling steel-blue irises that could blister a super-cargo's hide at fifty paces, was unable to focus on the papers handed him. He growled, "Blast off, Mr. Guhn! Blast off!"