ILLUSTRATED BY H. R. SMITH
The captain had learned to hate. It was hisprofession—and his personal reason for goingon. But even hatred has to be channeledfor its maximum use, and no truths exist forever.
The battle alarm caught himin the middle of a dream, adream that took place in a whitehouse in a small town in Ohio,when both he and Alice had beenvery young and the grown adultshe now called his children hadreally been little more thanbabies.
He rolled out of his bed immediatelyon hearing the gong,as any good sailor would, andslipped into his pants and shoesand felt around the bulkheadfor his life jacket. He slippedinto it and tightened the buckles,then put on his cap with thecaptain's insignia.
He opened the hatch andstepped out into the passageway,blinking for a moment inthe unaccustomed light and tryingto shake away the remnantsof his dream. Officers were boilingup the passageway and upthe ladder, some eager ensignsdressed only in their shorts andtheir life jackets. It was morewise than funny, he thoughtslowly. Ships had gone down ina matter of seconds and anybodywho spent precious momentslooking for his pants or hiswallet never got out.
Harry Davis, the Exec, aportly man in his fifties, burstout of his stateroom, still tryingto shake the sleep from gummylids.
The Captain shook his head,trying to alert his mind to thepoint where it could makesensible evaluations, and startedup the corridor.
"Any idea what it is, Harry?"
Davis shook his head. "Notunless it's what we've been expecting."
What we've been expecting.The Captain grasped the ironpiping that served for railingsand jogged up the ladder. Fiftymiles north, lolling in the NorthSea and holding maneuvers, wasthe Josef Dzugashvili, a hundredthousand tons of the finest aircraftcarrier the Asiatic Combinehad produced, carryingclose to a hundred Mig-72's andperhaps half a dozen lightbombers.
The Josef had been operatingthere for nearly a week. TheOahu had been detached fromthe Atlantic Fleet only a fewdays ago, to combat the possiblethreat. Maybe the ships wereonly acting as stake-outs for thepoliticians, the Captain thoughtslowly. The tinder waiting forthe spark. And it wouldn't takemuch.
A curious pilot who mightventure too close, a gunner witha nervous temperament ...
And now, maybe, this was it.It had to come some day. Youcouldn't turn the other cheekforever. And he, for one, wasglad. He had spent almost allhis life waiting for this. Achance to get even ...
Davis opened the hatch to thewheelhouse and the Captainslipped in, closing it tight behindhim. It was pitch blackand it took his eyes a few momentsto adjust to it. When theyhad, he could make out theshadowed forms of the OD, thefirst class quartermaster at thewheel, and the radarman hunchedover the repeater, the scopea phosphorescent blur in thedarkness.
The ports were open in violationof GQ—it was a hot summernight—and the slight breezethat blew off the swelling seasmelled clean and cool. It wasthe only kind of air for a manto breathe, the Captain musedabstractly.
He glanced sharply throughthe ports. There was nothingthat bulked on the dark horizon,and so far as he could tell, allthe stars were fixed—there werenone of the tell-tale flashes ofjet exhausts.
He walked over to where theOD stood by the radar scope,seemingly fascinated by the pictureon it. McCandless had thewatch, a young lieutenant of notmore than twenty-five but onewith good sense and sound judgmentnonetheless. A man whow