Part 11 (2/2)

”Huh!” Beverly emitted a semi-ladylike snort. ”What's so smooth about showing off man-hunger that way? Any of us could do that--if we would.”

”Miaouw, miaouw. Who do you think you're kidding, Bev, you sanctimonious hypocrite--_me_? She has staked out the biggest claim she could find.

She's posted notices all over it and is guarding it with a pistol. Half your month's salary gets you all of mine if she doesn't walk him up the center aisle as soon as we get back to Earth. We can both learn a lot from that girl, darling. And I, for one am going to.”

”Uh-uh, she hasn't got a thing _I_ want,” Beverly laughed again, still lightly. Her friend's barbed shafts had not wounded her. ”And I'd much rather be thought a hypocrite, even a sanctimonious one, than a ravening, slavering--I can't think of the technical name for a female wolf, so--_wolfess_, running around with teeth and claws bared, looking for another kill.”

”You _do_ get results, I admit.” Stella, too, was undisturbed. ”We don't seem to convince each other, do we, in the matter of technique?”

At this point the Hilton-Bells _tete-a-tete_ was interrupted by Captain Sawtelle. ”Got half an hour, Jarve?” he asked. ”The commanders, especially Elliott and Fenway, would like to talk to you.”

”Sure I have, Skipper. Be seeing you, Temple,” and the two men went to the captain's cabin; in which room, blue with smoke despite the best efforts of the ventilators, six full commanders were arguing heatedly.

”Hi, men,” Hilton greeted them.

”Hi, Jarve,” from all six, and: ”What'll you drink? Still making do with ginger ale?” asked Elliott (Engineering).

”That'll be fine, Steve. Thanks. You having as much trouble as we are?”

”More,” the engineer said, glumly. ”Want to know what it reminds me of?

A bunch of Australian bushmen stumbling onto a ramjet and trying to figure out how it works. And yet Sam here has got the sublime guts to claim that he understands all about their detectors--and that they aren't anywhere nearly as good as ours are.”

”And they _aren't_!” blazed Commander Samuel Bryant (Electronics).

”We've spent six solid weeks looking for something that simply _is not there_. All they've got is the prehistoric Whitworth system and that's _all_ it is. Nothing else. Detectors--_h.e.l.l_! I tell you I can see better by moonlight than the very best they can do. With everything they've got you couldn't detect a woman in your own bed!”

”And this has been going on all night,” Fenway (Astrogation) said. ”So the rest of us thought we'd ask you in to help us pound some sense into Sam's thick, hard head.”

Hilton frowned in thought while taking a couple of sips of his drink.

Then, suddenly, his face cleared. ”Sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but--at any odds you care to name and in anything from split peas to C-notes--Sam's right.”

Commander Samuel and the six other officers exploded as one. When the clamor had subsided enough for him to be heard, Hilton went on: ”I'm very glad to get that datum, Sam. It ties in perfectly with everything else I know about them.”

”How do you figure that kind of twaddle ties in with anything?” Sawtelle demanded.

”Strict maintenance of the _status quo_,” Hilton explained, flatly.

”That's all they're interested in. You said yourself, Skipper, that it was a h.e.l.l of a place to have a s.p.a.ce-battle, practically in atmosphere.

They never attack. They never scout. They simply don't care whether they're attacked or not. If and when attacked, they put up just enough s.h.i.+ps to handle whatever force has arrived. When the attacker has been repulsed, they don't chase him a foot. They build as many s.h.i.+ps and Omans as were lost in the battle--no more and no less--and then go on about their regular business. The Masters owned that half of the fuel bin, so the Omans are keeping that half. They will keep on keeping it for ever and ever. Amen.”

”But _that's_ no way to fight a war!” Three or four men said this, or its equivalent, at once.

”Don't judge them by human standards. They aren't even approximately human. Our personnel is not expendable. Theirs is--just as expendable as their materiel.”

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