The RETURN of Lancelot BIGGS By NELSON S. BOND Gilchrist had no fear of the sun's heat. Then Biggs gave him a new kind of hotfoot. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories May 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I guess it was about 7:58 Solar Constant Time--yes, it was exactly that, because I'd just received a clearance O.Q. for 8:00 from the Sun City portmaster--when the portal of my radio turret opened and in waddled Cap Hanson, skipper of our void-mangling freighter, the _Saturn_. The Old Man's optics were dancing like a nudist in a hailstorm, and he wore a grin on his lips that stretched from ear to there. "Guess what, Sparks?" he chortled. "I got a s'prise for you! Guess who just came aboard?" I said gloomily, "If it's anybody like that sourpuss encyclopedia-on-legs who came aboard at Luna, you can have my resignation right now, if not sooner. I've been hectored and bulldozed and criticised so much lately that I'm beginning to feel like one large apology with corpuscles." I wasn't joking, either. You know me--Bert Donovan--the easy-goingest bug-pounder who ever loused up the ether with Morse code. I don't get mad often, and my nerves are as steady as a forger's fingers, but this newest addition to the _Saturn's_ personnel had me on the verge of babbling baby-talk. His name was Horatio Gilchrist, his rank was "Major" and his title was "efficiency expert." To summarize briefly: Major Horatio Gilchrist was a rank efficiency expert--and I _do_ mean rank! He had pale, green, watery, squinting eyes and a nose like a gimlet. Said proboscis was always in everybody else's business. He snooped and sniffed and sidled about the _Saturn_ like a pup in the Petrified Forest, and he had a habit of popping out where least expected, like a fat man in tights. He was always making suggestions. He told me how to conserve juice by pre-heating the tubes before I transmitted. He advised Cap Hanson, who has been roving the spaceways, man and boy, for more than forty years, on astrogation practices. He quoted facts, figures and statistics at Dick Todd till our acting First Mate grew as haggard as a parson at a burleyque. "I can't stand it, Sparks!" Todd moaned to me feebly after a session with Gilchrist. "He's driving me whacky with his confounded 'efficiency'! The hell of it is half the time he's right! There _are_ ways to save time, money and materials while operating the _Saturn_. We all know that. But you can't run a spaceship like an adding-machine!" But such complaints were as futile as a bathing-suit on Mars. Major Gilchrist ranked every officer on the _Saturn_, and his "suggestions" had to be obeyed--or else!