In the weeks which followed, Steve learned something of what the big
Exec officer had meant that first day he had spoken about Teejay. She
drove her men relentlessly and some of them may have resented it. But
she drove herself as well, and once when a crewman had gone beyond
the shieldings to repair the mechanical arms which regulated the flow
of powdered plutonium fuel from the bunkers and had emerged with a
serious case of radiation sickness, Teejay donned a vac-suit and went
in herself to finish the job.
Most of the men liked her. Some, frankly, did not. But all of them knew
they served under a captain as good as any.
Two days before landing on Ganymede, Teejay gathered her chief
lieutenants for a final planning session. Kevin was there, and LeClarc,
and a tall, wraith-thin man with a bushy head of white hair named
Simonson, and Steve. Teejay spread a chart out and peered down at
it intently. "This is Ganymede Northeast," she said, indicating the
circled, central area of the map. "It is here that, for some reason,
the anthrovacs gather. And here inside the circle is an area of one
thousand square miles which Mr. Simonson has marked off--yes, Stedman,
the red square. We'll be operating there. If the Barling ship has
landed ahead of us, we can assume the same for them."
Teejay paused to light a cigarette, then crushed it out after her first
puff. "The darn smoke gets in my way when I try to think," she smiled,
and went on, "Anyway, here's the square. We'll be using the crew and
the expedition--everyone aboard ship--because we're in a hurry. Simply
put, we'll be a bunch of beaters to drive the anthrovacs together at
the center of the square. Then, well, then it's up to Mr. Simonson and
Stedman. Any questions?"
"Yes, Captain," said LeClarc. "Just how do we get the anthrovacs aboard
ship?"
"Don't ask me. But you might ask Mr. Simonson."
The bushy-haired man named Simonson grunted. "Umm-mm. There are several
ways. We could set up elaborate traps, such as Thorndyke employed two
years ago, and--"
"Can't," Teejay objected. "No time."
"Why don't we just clobber them?" LeClarc suggested. "A few might die,
but we'll get the specimens we want."
Steve shook his head. "You don't know your anthrovacs. Chase them and
they'll try to run away. But hurt them--just hurt one of them so the
rest of them can see--and they'll swarm all over you until either all
the men or all the anthrovacs are dead, or both. No, there's another
way."
"What's that?" Teejay leaned forward, chin cupped in hands, definitely
interested.
"Anthrovacs are non-breathers. Most gasses won't hurt them, but you can
give them a good, old-fashioned oxygen jag with the slightest whiff of
pure oxygen."
"I've heard of that," Simonson said.
"Sort of like getting them drunk, isn't it, boy?" Kevin wanted to know.
But LeClarc wasn't satisfied. "I still say we ought to clobber them. We
can't waste time experimenting with any crazy jags."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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