He said wearily to Gavin, "We're going on regular watches after all. The second has her leg in a cast. We've rigged a special chair for her."
Gavin nodded. "What's the little death, Mr. Villanowski? I've been hearing more about it, but no one seems inclined to explain."
The chief engineer passed his hand before his blood-shot eyes. "That requires considerable explanation, Mr. Murdock. I'm too tired to attempt it at the moment. Later." He gave Gavin the course and acceleration, adding that Miss Wilde, the second assistant-engineer, would relieve him and disappeared up the ladder.
With the one exception of Nadia Petrovna, the dossier of every man and woman aboard the Nova in the T.I.S. secret file was complete. Gavin almost knew them by heart. John Villanowski was a Terran of Polish descent. A scientist of interplanetary fame, he had held the chair of astrophysics at New Yale for a while. He had been instrumental in the development of the meteor deflector, the robot astrogator, and a radical improvement of the scanner.
General Atomic, though, had stolen all three of his discoveries. Villanowski had sued. False evidence had been trumped against him; his reputation had been blackened. Then General Atomic had used its influence to force him to resign from the university.
The injustice of his disgrace had wrought a shocking change in Villanowski. From a pleasant savant he became an anti-social, a dangerous man. He had fled to Venus where he had dropped from sight for a while, turning up again as chief engineer of the slaver, Nova.
Any startling development of the Nova's space drive, Gavin reasoned, would be due to Villanowski.
The televisor buzzed. Gavin snapped it on. "Engine room."
Nadia's features glowed on the screen. "Bridge calling." She flashed him a smile. "I'll be on the observation deck when I've finished my trick on the bridge, Mr. Murdock." The instrument went dead.
Gavin muttered something under his breath. He caught Jerome Fitz, the master mechanic, eyeing him with a grin and cursed the fat Terran roundly.