ad said levelly. "I'll back you,
Serge; you know that."

Serge Paulvitch had looked astonished. "Me? You think I'm crazy? Right
now, I'm a second-class genius working for a first-class outfit. You
think I want to be a second-class genius working for a second-class
outfit? Not on your life!"

Paulvitch could easily handle the firm for a few weeks.

Helen's face came on the phone. "There's a Captain Sir Henry Quill on
the phone, Mr. Gabriel. Do you wish to speak to him?"

"Black Bart?" said Mike. "I wonder what he wants."

"Bart?" She looked puzzled. "He said his name was Henry."

Mike grinned. "He always signs his name: _Captain Sir Henry Quill,
Bart._ And since he's the toughest old martinet this side of the
Pleiades, the 'Black' part just comes naturally. I served under him
seven years ago. Put him on."

In half a second the grim face of Captain Quill was on the screen.

He was as bald as an egg. What little hair he did have left was
meticulously shaved off every morning. He more than made up for his lack
of cranial growth, however, by his great, shaggy, bristly brows, black
as jet and firmly anchored to jutting supraorbital ridges. Any other man
would have been proud to wear them as mustaches.

"What can I do for you, Captain?" Mike asked, using the proper tone of
voice prescribed for the genial businessman.

"You can go out and buy yourself a new uniform," Quill growled. "Your
old one isn't regulation any more."

Well, not exactly growled. If he'd had the voice for it, it would have
been a growl, but the closest he could come to a growl was an Irish
tenor rumble with undertones of gravel. He stood five-eight, and his red
and gold Space Service uniform gleamed with spit-and-polish luster. With
his cap off, his bald head looked as though it, too, had been polished.

Mike looked at him thoughtfully. "I see. So you're commanding the
mystery tub, eh?" he said at last.

"That's right," said the captain. "And don't go asking me a bunch of
blasted questions. I've got no more idea of what the bloody thing's
about than you--maybe not as much. I understand you designed her power
plant...?"

He let it hang. If not exactly a leading question, it was certainly a
hinting statement.

Mike shook his head. "I don't know anything, Captain. Honestly I don't."

If Space Service regulations had allowed it, Captain Sir Henry Quill,
Bart., would have worn a walrus mustache. And if he'd had such a
mustache, he would have