The captain nodded. "In those days he was a deep-space ship designer.
His life's dream was to fly one of them, a dream he was too old to
realize. But he designed and built the _Andromeda_. The next best thing
to flying her, for him, was to have me fly her."
The general's face showed sudden interest.
"I see," Craig said. "If he designed the _Andromeda_, then he would
know about her." His brows wrinkled as a new thought came into his
mind. "But he was working here as a janitor. How--"
"Maybe several reasons," the captain answered. "His real life was the
_Andromeda_. He probably came here and took any job he could get,
because this would be her first landing if she ever returned to the
system. If she ever came back, he wanted to be on hand to welcome her."
"Oh," Craig said. In that brief explanation, most of the puzzle of Adam
March's actions became clear. "But how did he know that something was
wrong on the ship?"
Captain Martin's face grew grim. "I didn't see him when I came off the
ship, but I think he saw me. At the sight of me, he knew something was
wrong, knew it in a way that made it impossible for him to be mistaken.
He took her off alone, not only to save the station, but to save me."
"What?" Craig gasped. "He knew you, twenty years ago, before the
_Andromeda_ jumped into deep space?"
"Slightly," Captain Martin answered. "His name wasn't March then, it
was Martin. He was my father."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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