Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net The MAROONER By CHARLES A. STEARNS ILLUSTRATOR SUMMERS _Wordsley and Captain DeCastros crossed half a universe--suffered hardship--faced unknown dangers; and all this for what--a breath of rare perfume?_ [Illustration: The creature was more pitiful than fearsome.] Steadily they smashed the mensurate battlements, in blackness beyond night and darkness without stars. Yet Mr. Wordsley, the engineer, who was slight, balding and ingenious, was able to watch the firmament from his engine room as it drifted from bow to beam to rocket's end. This was by virtue of banked rows of photon collectors which he had invented and installed in the nose of the ship. And Mr. Wordsley, at three minutes of the hour of seventeen over four, tuned in a white, new star of eye-blinking magnitude and surpassing brilliance. Discovering new stars was a kind of perpetual game with Mr. Wordsley. Perhaps more than a game. "I wish I may, I wish I might ..." Mr. Wordsley said. * * * * * The fiddly hatch clanged. DeCastros, that gross, terrifying clown of a man, clumped down the ladder from the bridge to defeat the enchantment of the moment. DeCastros held sway. He was captain. He did not want Mr. Wordsley to forget that he was captain. The worst of Captain DeCastros was that he had moods. Just now he was being a sly leprechaun, if one can imagine a double-chinned, three-hundred pound leprechaun. He came over and dug his fingers into Mr. Wordsley's shoulder. A wracking pain in the trapezius muscle. "The ertholaters are plugged," he said gently. "The vi-lines are giving out a horrible stink." "I'll attend to it right away," Mr. Wordsley said, wincing a little as he wriggled free. "Tch, tch," DeCastros said, "can anyone really be so asthenic as you seem, Mr. Wordsley?" "No, sir," Mr. Wordsley said, uncertain of his meaning. The captain winked. "Yet there was that ruffled shirt that I found in the laundromat last week. It was not my shirt. There are only the two of us aboard, Mr. Wordsley." "It was my shirt," Mr. Wordsley said, turning crimson. "I bought it on Vega Four. I--I didn't know--that is, they wear them like that on Vega Four." "Yes, they do," DeCastros said. "Well, well, perhaps you are only a poet, Mr. Wordsley. But should you happen to be a little--well, maggoty, you positively do not have to tell me. No doubt we both have our secrets. Naturally." "_I_ haven't," Mr. Wordsley said desperately. "No? Then you certainly will not mind that I am recommending an Ab Test for you when we get home."