The old soldier’s tale of lost orders was a bit too pat. He looked too clever.
Besides, with his improper uniform and his failure to salute and his irritating insolence, he had ruffled my sense of military fitness.
“If you are a soldier!” I stepped in front of him.
“Have you ever been taught Legion courtesy and discipline?”
“Mortal well, Captain.”
He stopped, but still did not salute.
“For most of a mortal century, I’ve been offering Legion courtesy to officers who deserved it.
I’ve gladly saluted Commander Kalam and Admiral-General Samdu and the great John Star.
But I’m not saluting you.”
He blinked shrewdly at me, as if daring me to react.
“Giles!” The girl spoke for the first time.
Her low voice was lovely as her face, gentle in cool reproof.
“Don’t be a fool!”
“I mean no disrespect, sir,” the old man wheezed.
“If you had read those orders, you would know that I am honorably discharged.
We are here as special guests of the Legion—as civilians.”
“Nowhere Near has several missions.”
Now more annoyed than puzzled, I spoke stiffly.
“Our first mission is simply to warn shipping away from a dangerous and mysterious anomaly in space.
Our second is to observe and report every fact we can discover about the nature and the cause of that anomaly.
We have no facilities to entertain civilian guests.”
“Captain Ulnar—please!”
The girl stepped forward urgently.
“I’m sure Commander Star will arrive with our orders soon.
At least you must let us wait for him.”
I hesitated, because she troubled me.
She belonged somewhere else, I thought—perhaps in some fortress like the Purple Hall, along with old masters and old ivory and all the proud creations of man’s great past.
She looked too thrillingly alive, certainly, for this deadly exile at the brink of Nowhere.
“You’ll have to answer some questions,” I said.
“Captain Scabbard gave me a very brief account of an incident on the Erewhon.
He says the two of you killed three able spacemen.
He couldn’t learn how you disposed of the bodies.”
Old Habibula’s stone-colored eyes squinted blankly out of his pink baby-face.
The girl stiffened slightly, lovely and lean and grave, her eyes darkening.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“What happened to those three men?”
“Three pirates!” gasped old Habibula.
“They got what they mortal well deserved.”
“That may be,” I agreed.
“But I am responsible for the safety of this station.
I want to know exactly how they got it.
Nurse Adams, what have you to say?”
“A dreadful experience.”
Her head lifted proudly in her stiff white cap. Her tawny eyes met mine—alert, searching, somehow tragic.
“I can’t talk about it.”
The desperation in her voice touched my heart—but I was young enough to feel that my new duty at Nowhere Near required the same land of desperation.
I looked at old Habibula to recover my severity.
“You’d better talk about it,” I said, “if you want to come aboard.”
Neither spoke.
“Then I suppose that ends our interview.”