Frank went back to plotting orbits to every planet and satellite, as well as perfecting combat maneuvers. His math was rusty, so he spent long hours at his desk and found little time to make friendships with his shipmates to be. The other technicians were also a hardworking lot, far different from the roistering Big Shots who ran the planet. Hans had handpicked them and they were wise, ambitious and hard ... driven by a grim selfishness which made the astrogator quail. When, for self-protection, Sage aped their mannerisms and ways of thinking, he found himself growing as viciously efficient as a crouching tiger.
The only real acquaintance he made, among that crowd of automatons, was the foppish son of an Argentine who had escaped from the debacle which struck his country during the Atomic War. His name was Carlos and he warmed slightly when he found that Frank had picked up his beloved ... and outmoded ... Spanish language while working on the Sahara project. Carlos was second in command and obviously dreamed of supplanting Hans. He was a complete egomaniac. But Frank could discern no outward disloyalty to Wildoatia.
Of course the patrolman discussed the details of his work with half a dozen technicians, but the person he warmed to was one of the few women in the lab. She was a radar operator who had been cashiered from a mail packet for some disgraceful episode on Mars. Blonde and good-looking in a stocky way, she answered to the name of Greta, wore her harness with an air, swore like a trooper, smoked cigars, drove her subordinates until they dropped, and worshipped money as her only God. For some reason she took a fancy to "Dave" and overlooked many of his early errors while damning others for less serious mistakes.
In other words, Frank found himself getting nowhere with his plan to sow dissension among the crew. As in early stages of the three great wars, they were frantically loyal to their brutal ideals and leaders. If there had been rivalry involved, the spacemen felt he might have accomplished something. This idea, plus a longing to look at Sadie, caused him to pay a visit to the director. The latter, now but a bloody caricature of himself, still maintained his iron rule from a hospital bed.
"Sir," he proposed, fixing his eyes on the nurse instead of on the thing propped up in bed, "I've found that the Champ needs another trial run. Her controls aren't properly calibrated for close work among the planets."
"The devil you say!" Hans rose painfully on one elbow. "I calibrated them myself."
"There's an error of half a degree in the...."
"I know, dumbkopf. It won't bother us when we move against those S. P. tubs. Leave well enough alone; I can't make such a trip again. And I don't trust a single one of you congenital doublecrossers out of my sight. Now get back to work. I'm busy." He turned almost blindly to a mass of bloodstained papers spread over the bed.
