Chase! Not Cautious Charley Chase! I could hardly look at the man behind the command desk. But look I did--and my heart did a ninety degree dive straight to the thick soles of my space boots. No wonder this ship was sour. What else could happen with Lieutenant Commander Charles Augustus Chase in command! He was three classes up on me, but even though he was a First Classman at the time I crawled out of Beast Barracks, I knew him well. Every Midshipman in the Academy knew him--Rule-Book Charley--By-The-Numbers Chase--his nicknames were legion and not one of them was friendly. "Lieutenant Thomas Marsden reporting for duty," I said. He looked at the O.D. "That'll be all, Mr. Halloran," he said. "Aye, sir," Halloran said woodenly. He stepped backward, saluted, executed a precise about face and closed the hatch softly behind him. * * * * * "Sit down, Marsden," Chase said. "Have a cigarette." He didn't say, "Glad to have you aboard." But other than that he was Navy right down to the last parenthesis. His voice was the same dry schoolmaster's voice I remembered from the Academy. And his face was the same dry gray with the same fishy blue eyes and rat trap jaw. His hair was thinner, but other than that he hadn't changed. Neither the war nor the responsibilities of command appeared to have left their mark upon him. He was still the same lean, undersized square-shouldered blob of nastiness. I took the cigarette, sat down, puffed it into a glow, and looked around the drab 6 x 8 foot cubicle called the Captain's cabin by ship designers who must have laughed as they laid out the plans. It had about the room of a good-sized coffin. A copy of the Navy Code was lying on the desk. Chase had obviously been reading his bible. "You are three minutes late, Marsden," Chase said. "Your orders direct you to report at 0900. Do you have any explanation?" "No, sir," I said. "Don't let it happen again. On this ship we are prompt." "Aye, sir," I muttered. He smiled, a thin quirk of thin lips. "Now let me outline your duties, Marsden. You are posted to my ship as Executive Officer. An Executive Officer is the Captain's right hand." "So I have heard," I said drily. "Belay that, Mr. Marsden. I do not appreciate humor during duty hours." You wouldn't, I thought. "As I was saying, Marsden, Executive Officer, you will be responsible for--" He went on and on, covering the Code--chapter, book and verse on the duties of an Executive Officer. It made no difference that I had been Exec under Andy Royce, the skipper of the "Clotho," the ship with the biggest confirmed kill in the entire Fleet Scouting Force. I was still a new Exec, and the book said I must be briefed on my duties. So "briefed" I was--for a solid hour.