swelled into a roar and the others turned to stare at him in his turn. He was finally able to get out, “April Fool! We all bit again. April Fool!”
Spillane looked blank.
The faces of the others relaxed. Even the angular features of Johnny Norsen twisted themselves in a wry grin. He said, “You certainly caught us, Spillane.”
The messman looked anxiously from one of the ship’s officers to the other. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“What?”
Johnny Norsen scowled and said, “Run along now, Spillane. It was a good joke. Congratulations.”
“Joke, sir? What joke?”
Doc Thorndon had settled back into his chair now. “Oh, come along, Spillane. We—”
A new voice, pitched low, and somewhat timid, said from the doorway, “Could I come in, now?”
Johnny Norsen was facing the other way. He didn’t turn to look at her for a full minute. Instead, he closed his eyes and muttered in pain, “Oh, no. Forty-five men and one woman in a ship that’s to be in space for twelve months!”
She wasn’t beautiful, nor even pretty, as current tastes went—but she had something, very definitely. She was about five foot five and probably in her middle twenties. Her attractiveness lay in a certain eagerness, a brightness, an interest in what was going on about her, no matter what it might be. Yes, she had something, very definitely. It was hard to put your finger on it.
Right now, she was attired in a simple sports dress, wrinkled and somewhat soiled from her period in hiding among the supplies in compartment eight. Her eyes went nervously from one to the other of them and she self consciously brushed her clothes, avoiding her breasts and hips, as though not wishing to bring her sex to their attention.
Johnny Norsen blurted, “Holy Jumping Wodo, Miss! Do you know where you are?”
She looked down at the steel deck, toeing in like a little girl who’d been caught at something naughty. Her voice was very low. “Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“Oh, you do, eh?” Norsen rasped.
Mart Bakr spoke for the first time since the apparition had appeared. “Don’t pick on her, Norsen,” he said truculently. “Can’t you see the poor kid’s scared?”
The first officer spun on him. “Scared?” he said bitterly. “We’re the ones that ought to be scared.” He turned back to the girl. “Come on, Miss. Let’s go see the captain.”
Mart Bakr and Dick Roland, the latter’s eyes still popping, started to follow into the corridor. Johnny Norsen grunted, “You two had better stay here. This many of us can’t crowd into the skipper’s quarters.” He added, sarcastically, “Besides, it’s probably going to be a trifle hot in there.”
He made no protest when Doctr Thorndon followed and the three of them, ship’s first officer, stowaway, and ship’s doctr made a procession down the corridor past a score of open mouthed crew members.
“Oh, brother, a dame on board,” a jetman muttered happily.
“Knock it off, Johnson,” the first officer snapped in irritation over his shoulder.
They rapped at the Captain’s cubbyhole which doubled as his living quarters and the space cruiser’s office. A voice from within growled, “What the kert is it?”
Norsen fingered the door release and entered, followed by the two others.
There was a flat silence which Johnny Norsen broke by saying dryly, “A stowaway, sir. The crew found her in the number eight compartment.”
Commander Mike Gurloff had been relaxed on his bunk, staring unseeingly at the overhead. Now he spun around and came to an elbow, blinking.
“Holy Jumping Wodo!” he blurted.
“Yes, sir,” Norsen said. “That’s what I said. Probably the first female stowaway on a military craft since the beginning of intergalactical warfare.” He added, as though anyone needed reminding, “A year long cruise—forty-five men and one woman.”
Doc Thorndon closed the door behind them. He said, softly, “We’re only three days out, Mike.” He was the only man aboard who habitually called the burly commander by his first name. “We could turn back.”
The skipper brought his feet around to the floor and sat up. He stared at the girl, almost vacantly, then lowered his shaven head into his hands. He was a big man and toughened by the long years in the space service which had seen him rise to the position of the outstanding ship’s officer of his generation. He sat there like that for a full five minutes.
Finally he took a deep breath and brought his eyes up to her. “What is your name. Miss?” Then he cleared his throat and said, more gently, “Don’t be afraid. What’s your name?”
“It’s Kathleen…sir.” She added, after swallowing, “They call me Kathy.”
He continued to look at her, and she said, nervously, “Kathleen Westley.”
“All right, Miss Westley. Now tell us about it.” He indicated the swivel chair at the desk, the only chair in the tiny room. “You might as well sit down.”
She sat in the chair, knees together and her hands in her lap, and looked less frightened now.
Gurloff said, “Tell us about it.”
She swallowed once more and said, “I don’t sec why women aren’t allowed in the Space Service.” There was an edge of defiance in her voice.
Doc Thorndon said softly, “There are various reasons, Miss. Some of them medical, especially in intergalactic travel.”
“Well, I don’t see—”
Commander Gurloff said, “It doesn’t make much difference right at the moment, does it? What are you doing aboard my ship, Miss Westley?” His face was expressionless, almost as though he was too tired to care.
She tossed her head infinitesimally, and her lower lip protruded. “I…I’ve always wanted to be a space…well, a spaceman.”
Inadvertently, Gurloff’s eyes took in her full breast, her rounded hips. He said, wryly, “I’m afraid something went wrong with your ambitions twenty-five or so years ago.”
The girl flushed, but her face remained defiant.
Doctr Thorndon said, “To make it short, Miss Westley, do we understand that you stowed away on this vessel to prove that women are quite as suitable for space travel as are men?”
Her mouth tightened stubbornly and she nodded.
Commander Gurloff asked, “And did you know that this vessel was to be in space for a period of over a year, Miss? A year is rather a long time.”
Her eyes widened at that. “A…a year?”
Gurloff grunted, suddenly weary of the interview. He said, “Mr. Norsen, take our…our passenger back to the officer’s mess. I suppose she’s hungry.” He thought it over briefly. “She can have the second and third officer’s stateroom. One of them can bunk with you, the other in the ship’s hospital.” His mouth tightened. “See that the lock on the door is in good repair and that she has a key.”
The skipper’s eyes went back to the girl. He said, “Later—we’re going to have lots of time, Miss Westley—later, you can give us any further details about your decision to become a…a spaceman.” He motioned with his head and Johnny Norsen took her by the arm to lead her out.
Gurloff said, “Do you mind staying a while, Doctr?”
After the first officer and the girl had left, Doc Thorndon sank into the chair she had vacated. He waited for the other to speak.
Commander Mike Gurloff sank prone on the bed again and his eyes focused on a