ered who had been
responsible for assigning him to anything at all in the armed forces.

He grinned slightly at us when he came in, dearly unsure of himself, and
made a valiant but artificial-sounding effort. "Hello men," he said. "My
name is Frendon. I'm the new CO."

"Yeah," muttered Harding, "we see that you are."

"What's that lieutenant?" Frendon's voice was suddenly sharp, and the
wavering grin had vanished.

"I said, yes sir," Harding replied sullenly. "Welcome aboard."

Frendon nodded curtly, and glanced around at the rest of us, at no time
looking anyone directly in the eyes. I stood up and held out my hand.
"Maise, here," I said. "Your Exec." And naturally I added the
traditional welcome.

Spender introduced himself, and as he was speaking, the remaining crew
man walked in to find out what was up. He took one look at Frendon,
understood, and turned to leave again.

"And the man in the lead-lined tunic is Lieutenant Korsakov," I said
quickly. "He's your engineer."

Korsakov sullenly said hello and waited. And Frendon also waited, all
the time standing stiff and sensitive. One got the impression that he
was in a nervous agony, but unable to help himself or to receive help
from anybody else. When the introductions were long since completed,
Frendon still stood uncertainly, and an unpleasant silence developed.

"Sit down, captain," I suggested. "How about some coffee?"

Frendon nodded and jerkily moved to the seat I had vacated. The eyes of
the other men followed him, studying his uniform. Although it was clear
by now that he was wearing the ordinary insignia of the SCS, nobody was
particularly reassured, because we had all heard of the new arrangement
under which the Psi Corps operated.

So Frendon sat. The silence continued. Everybody stared at him, and he
looked helplessly around. I worked up what I felt was a friendly grin,
and his gaze finally found itself on me and stayed there, almost
pleading.

"You'll have to forgive us, captain," I told him. "We're an old bunch of
mangy veterans, and it's going to be a little strange for a while having
a bright new captain."

"Certainly," Frendon said, his voice hardly above a whisper. "I
understand." He hesitated and then added in a quick defensive rush of
words, "But, of course, you must understand that this isn't the first
ship I've commanded, and I've been in combat before too, and so I don't
see why I should be so doggone strange."

That's what he