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Regulation way, and MY way. Now on this ship we are going to do things MY way. Is that understood?”
    O’Gandhi croaked, “I am forgetting the cultured plague bacterium from Centauri III! It will be killing you real quick, my captain!”
    “Shut up! Now, very soon—in a few hours, perhaps, we will be receiving new orders, and we will set out on our assigned mission. And we will complete our assigned mission! Successfully! Is that understood?”
    Rhodes shouted, “Aye-aye, sir!”
    Imperiously, Wanker surveyed the rest of his staff officers. “What about the rest of you?”
    Came the chorus: “Aye-aye, sir!”
    Wanker said with sudden despair, “I’m finished. It’s over, my career’s over.”
    He moped to the lift tube.
    “Would you like to see your cabin now, sir?” Rhodes asked.  
    “I’ll find it.”
    “But, sir, I’d be happy to—”  
    “I want to be alone. Besides, I’ll be slashing my wrists. It’s a personal thing.”
    Rhodes stopped, nonplused. “Slashing your wrists, sir?”
    “Yes. Send to the machine shop. Have them make me an old-fashioned straight razor. You know the kind? Long thing, about like that?”
    Rhodes said, “Er, yes, sir. Straight razor.”
    Tell them to make it of a good-tempered steel. None of that composite stuff. And it has to be sharp enough to cut right to the bone in one slice. Got it, mister?”
    “I hope the captain is joking.”
    “Hah hah,” Captain Wanker said sarcastically as he positioned himself under the lift tube. He raised his head and stared up into its shadowy interior.
    Up , of course, was an arbitrary term in space, but in this case it approximated reality, for the bridge was deep within the ship, almost at the center of its protective mass. Thus, every direction away from the bridge was “up” and out and through the ship. The ship did not depend on rotation for its artificial gravity; otherwise the bridge would have been “up” and the outer decks “down.”  
    Rhodes said, “Sir, please let me show you to your cabin.”  
    “Just tell me where it is.”  
    “A-Deck.”
    “Officers’ cabins are usually on A-Deck, Mr. Rhodes. Where on A-Deck?”
    “Aft Fourteen, Number Twenty-eight, sir.”
    “I’ll find it.” He looked up the blow tube. “God, I hate these things,” Wanker said, then in a louder tone added, “Transport tube, A-Deck, please!” He then touched the oversize red button labeled SUCK. “Positively loathe them.”
    “Well, sir, lifts are constantly shifting the center of mass, and back when this ship was designed, they didn’t know how to handle that.”
    “Thanks for the guided tour, Mr. Rhodes. Uhhhhhh!”
    Rhodes watched as the tube bore the captain upward. When Wanker cleared the overhead, he exhaled and turned toward his fellow officers.
    He forced a smile. “Don’t worry, y’all. He’ll come around.’’
    Everyone groaned.
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Captain David Wanker was blown upward, suspended by a strong parastatic field. He felt like acid reflux rushing up the esophagus.
    The tube vomited him onto A-Deck. He got to his feet.
    “One of these days I’ll learn to do it right.”
    He wandered around the almost deserted ship, meeting only one security guard, who directed him to Aft Fourteen, Number Twenty-eight.
    He approached the hatch to the captain’s cabin.
    “Who are you?” the hatch asked.  
    The captain of this ship,” Wanker said. “Get to know me.”
    “Prove it.”
    “Look at my authorization badge, you silly thing.”
    “I want to see your orders,” the hatch said.
    “Oh, all right.” Wanker searched his jacket pockets, found a microdisk, pulled the thing out, and shoved it into the slot in the hatch.
    There came a beep. Then: “Wanker, David Ludwig, Captain, United Systems Space Forces, assigned as commander of the U.S.S. Repulse. You may enter.”
    With a soft whine, the hatch rose into its slot.
    “Thank you so much,” Wanker said dryly. “I don’t believe