"You're wanted immediately in the radio room, sir," said the orderly, saluting.
"Very well," I nodded, returning the salute and glancing at Kincaide. "Perhaps we will get a change in orders after all."
I hurried after the orderly, following him down the broad corridors of the administration building to the radio room. The commander of the Arpan sub-base was waiting there, talking gravely with the operator.
"Bad news, Commander," he said, as I entered the room. "We've just received a report from the passenger liner Kabit, and she's in desperate straits. At the insistence of the passengers, the ship made contact with Hydrot and is unable to leave. She has been attacked by some strange monster, or several of them—the message is badly confused. I thought perhaps you'd like to report the matter to Base yourself."
"Yes. Thank you, sir. Operator, please raise Base immediately!"
The Kabit? That was the big liner we had spoken to the day before Correy and I had seen the new continent rise above the boundless waters of Hydrot. I knew the ship; she carried about eighteen hundred passengers, and a crew of seventy-five men and officers. Beside her, the Ertak was a pygmy; that the larger ship, so large and powerful, could be in trouble, seemed impossible. Yet—
"Base, sir," said the operator, holding a radio-menore toward me.
I placed the instrument on my head.
"John Hanson, Commander of the Special Patrol ship Ertak emanating. Special report for Chief of Command."