Respectfully yours,
Haley, Cronk, & Touchwife,
Attorneys at Law.
per Jonas Cronk, LLD., MSL., PhD.
The Spaceship Vulcan lay on a tangled mat of vegetation. A thin haze of blue smoke drifted over it from the nearby Venusian village where several of the grass huts were afire. Under the bulging side of the ship twenty of the crew were boisterously herding a group of Venus Mutes, forcing them into the entrance port of the hold. There was very little trouble; only one of the Mutes balked, and a sting ray soon quieted that.
In the glittering control room of the ship Ray Burk, Navigator Unlimited, turned from the viewport with a frown.
"It seems a pity to burn down their shacks," he muttered.
He was a large young man with blond hair, carelessly dressed, yet still bearing that touch of alert authority characteristic of a crack spaceship man. Since it was his first trip on the Vulcan he was still a little out of place—not that he and Captain Lodar didn't understand each other.
Lodar, pacing restlessly back and forth, made no reply. His black eyebrows merely lifted sardonically as he continued his heavy strides. It was typical of Lodar, whose vast energy kept him ceaselessly active, but in the confines of a ship it was like being caged with a lion.
Ray turned back to the viewport. The village, burning sluggishly was desolate beneath the long column of smoke that rose in the still air.
Lodar's strides halted at the magnaflux, he twirled the detector impatiently. "Still clear," he muttered. Then, louder, "Fix a course for Earth, Burk. As soon as all are aboard, we'll take off."
Ray glanced quickly at Lodar, surprised at the sudden change of course, but he said nothing. This was Lodar's last flight, if all went well he was through. Perhaps that was why he was so savagely nervous. After all, it was time he quit. Luck had been with him overlong.