? WHY
R'THAGNA BAR UNDRESSED? INVESTIGATE! PRESIDENT ORDERS HELP
SENT. HELP ON WAY. REPEAT. WHY R'THAGNA BAR UNDRESSED?

CMD GENERAL

CMD GENERAL

FROMER ADVISES TELL YOU SHIPS PHYSICIAN HAS PUT R'THAGNA BAR IN
REFRIGERATOR.

QUEMOS

SEC HDQ
QUEMOS. COM. RLY.
43.4SC.

TAKE OUT OF REFRIGERATOR! THIS AN ORDER! WHY UNDRESSED?

CMD GENERAL

CMD GENERAL

BULLARD MAKING MODEL OF MY DRAWINGS. READY SOON. R'THAGNA BAR
OUT OF REFRIGERATOR AS REQUESTED BUT SHIPS PHYSICIAN VERY ANGRY
AND WANTS TO PUT BACK IN. COLOR ON STOMACH PINK AND YELLOW WITH
BLUE SQUARES. THIS SIGNIFICANT?

QUEMOS

It went on like this for several more days. Hansen, at first amused, was
now alarmed and completely convinced that both Quemos and Bullard were
thoroughly useless. The messages were his only source of information, since
both "experts" were too immersed in their work to talk with him. As his
alarm grew, he decided that he might at least try to strike up a friendship
with someone on board Captain Fromer's sealed ship--someone who might have
something comforting to report. He called up the ship's navigator.

"This is Hansen. How're things going up there?"

"Ha!"

"What's that mean? Good or bad?"

"It means," the navigator said, while yawning, "that things are falling
apart rapidly. In fact, in a day or two I don't think it'll make much
difference whether or not they open that damn door."

"You, er, care to fill me in?"

"Why not?" said the navigator, with the voice of a man who knows that it is
too late for anything to matter. "The members of the crew are divided into
two factions. It appears that our physician has rallied half the crew to
support his medical contention that our exhalted passenger belongs in the
refrigerator. The good captain, with some justice, one must admit, thinks
that he is in command of the ship, and prefers to believe that R'thagna Bar
belongs out of the refrigerator."

"Who seems to be winning the argument?"

"Argument? There's no argument, old man--it's open warfare. No weapons
aboard, of course, but the two teams are grappling up and down the
corridors and shuttling our exhalted passenger in and out of the ice box
about four times each hour. Quite a sight, really. Right now he's _in_
the refrig