ou have taken it upon yourself to
exceed your authority to such an extent as to refuse to connect the
officer in command of the _Pleiades_ with the Chancellor, I cannot
report to him either the reasons why we are not landing at this time or
when we expect to return to Tellus. You are advised that we may leave at
any instant, just like that!" Belle snapped her finger under the imaged
nose. "You may inform the Chancellor, or not inform him if you prefer,
that our control of the starship _Pleiades_ is something less than
perfect. I do not know exactly how many seconds longer we will be here.
Commander Bellamy signing off. Over and out."

"_Commander_ Bellamy, indeed! Commander my left foot!" Miss Foster was
screaming now, in thwarted fury. "You're no more a commander than my
lowest office-girl is! Just wait 'till you get down here, you
green-haired hussy, you shameless notor...." The set went
instantaneously from full volume to zero sound as James drove the red
button home.

"Belle, you honey!" Garlock scrambled out from behind the davenport,
seized her around the waist, and swung her, feet high in air, through
four full circles before he let her down and kissed her vigorously. "You
little _sweetheart_! You're the first living human being ever to really
pull Foster's cork!"

"_What_ a goat-getting!" James applauded. "That will go down in history
as the star-spangled act of the century."

* * *

Belle was, however, unusually diffident. "I stuck my neck out a
mile--worse, Clee's. I'm sorry, Clee. I had to have some weight to throw
around, and I had only a second to think, and that was the first thing I
thought of, and after half a minute she made me so _damn_ mad that I
went entirely too far."

"Uh-uh. Just far enough. That was a _perfect_ job."

"But she'll never forget that, and she'll crucify you, as well as me,
when we land. She knows I'm not a commander."

"She just thinks you ain't. The official log will show, though, that
after only one day out I discovered that we should all be officers--one
captain and three commanders--with pay and perquisites of rank. I'll
think up good and sufficient reasons for it between now and when I make
up the log."

"But you can't! Or can you, really?"

"Well, nobody told me I couldn't, so I assumed the right. Besides, you
didn't tell her commander of what, so I'll make it stick, too--see if I
don't. Or else I'll tear two or three offices apart find