The only man to show any flicker of interest was Sergeant Cassiriras was normal, since he was Oberholzer’s under-studyand he did no more than look up from over the straps of his antigas suit and say, “Well?”
“Well,” Oberholzer said, “now hear this.”
There was a sort of composite jingle and clank as the men lowered their gear to the deck or put it aside on their bunks.
“We’re investing a planet called Calle in the Canes Venatici cluster,” Oberholzer said, sitting down on an olive-drab canvas pack stuffed with lysurgic acid grenades. “A cruiser called the Assam Dragonyou were with her on her shakedown, weren’t you, Himber?touched down here ten years ago with a flock of tenders and got swallowed up.
They got two or three quick yells for help out and that was thatnothing anybody could make much sense of, no weapons named or description of the enemy. So here we are, loaded for the kill.”
“Wasn’t any Galley in command of the Assam Dragon when I was aboard,” Himber said doubtfully.
“Nah. Place was named for the astronomer who spotted her, from the rim of the cluster, a hundred years ago,”
Oberholzer said. “Nobody names planets for ship captains.
Anybody got any sensible questions?”
“Just what kind of trouble are we looking for?” Cassirir said.
“That’s just it we don’t know. This is closer to the center of the Galaxy than we’ve ever gotten before. It may be a population center too; could be that Calle is just one piece of a federation, at least inside its own cluster.
That’s why we’ve got the boys from Momma on board; this one could be damn important.”