"Pure delirium," Gravis interrupted. "Haven't you read Paragraph Six? We know exactly where the ship is because it's exactly where it should be. It's the crew that's missing."
Paragraph Seven concluded: _We therefore recommend that an agent of experience be dispatched soonest to the designated star system._
"Ivy, after ten years in Interstel, you should know that experience and expendability are synonymous."
Inside the GS section of the Lunar Complex, I had the occasion to think semantically again.
Words like _instanter_ and _soonest_ seldom match their literal meaning when applied to the physical transport of human beings, but in my job--I hadn't even had time to get my gee-legs.
I stepped off the glide strip in front of the ramp marked OUTGOING PERSONNEL, handed the efficient looking redhead my Q-chit and ID, and said: "Priority one."
"Quarantine, O.K.," she checked, smiling. "Feeling antiseptic?"
I had to admit, privately, that I did not. As applied to her, the term: _coveralls, regulation, gray_ was strictly a euphemism. Perhaps it was the combination of low gravity and controlled conditions that made Lunatics of female persuasion blossom so anatomically. Or maybe she was a plant, a deliberate psych experiment to put outbound starmen in a particular frame of mind.
She flashed my identification on the screen, took a long look, and became coldly efficient. _Callum, Ivor Vincent. Age: 40. Height: 5'8". Weight: 142. Hair: brown. Eyes: green. Rank: Special Agent, Interstel._ "You look much older, Mr. Callum."
I snapped the identoflake back in its bracelet, picked up my jump bag and briefing kit, and headed up the ramp, feeling more eyes than the redhead's. The anonymity of a GS working uniform hadn't lasted very long.
By the time I was able to capture enough breath to make coherent sounds, the shuttler was already approaching parking orbit. The pilot had used maximum grav boost, and the trip must have crowded the record.
"Priority one, sir," the youngster replied, showing teeth wolfishly.
I was still trying to think up an adequate rebuttal when I came out of the air lock and into the ship. Then I felt better. P 1 means, among other things, first available transportation--but this giant was the newest type, crammed to the buffers with the results of science's latest efforts to make star _voyageurs_ as safe as express-strip commuters inside a Terran dome. Even the vibrations of the great Gatch-Spitzer-Melnikov generators, building toward maximum output, had been dampened to a level more imaginary than tangible. Internal gravity was momentarily in operation, as an additional blessing; and, walking down the blue-lit corridor toward Astrogation, I could feel the occasional, metallic, thermal thump that meant the IP drive was hot and critical.