Always a Qurono, Jim Harmon [popular e readers .TXT] 📗

blade. The membrane withered and Barnhart lived.

"Now the arrest," York murmured.

"What are you muttering about, York?" Captain Barnhart demanded. "What are we standing around here for? You can't expect me to waste a whole afternoon on inspection. We have to get back on schedule." He looked to his wrist. "Fifteen hundred hours."

"He doesn't remember," York said behind him.

"He remembers the same old routine," Simmons said. "Here we go again."

Barnhart didn't say anything. In the close confines of a spaceship there was bound to be a certain degree of informality.

He stepped inside his cabin at the end of the corridor and did what he always did at fifteen hundred hours.

York and the first mate were deeply disturbed.

Barnhart looked out at them sharply. "Well, spacemen, I run a taut ship here. I expect everyone to hit the mark. Adhere to the line. Follow my example. Snap to it!"

Simmons looked at York and his shoulders sagged. They couldn't go through the whole thing again, the marooning, the rescue, then this. That routine would drive them crazy.

Even this was preferable.

They joined Barnhart in geoplancting.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Always a Qurono, by Jim Harmon