This was not the occasion for full dress uniforms, with fore-and-aft hat, decorations, ceremonial sword and all the other trimmings.  This was an occasion for comfortable shorts-and-shirt, with heavy boots and functional sidearms.

So attired, Grimes marched down Seeker's ramp, followed by Captain Philby, the Marine officer, and a squad of his space soldiers.  Maggie Lazenby and the other scientists had wished to accompany him, but he had issued strict orders that nobody excepting himself and the Marines was to leave the ship until such time as the situation had been clarified.  And this clarification depended upon the local inhabitants as well as upon Drongo Kane.  Meanwhile, Grimes had said, no foolish risks were to be taken.

As he marched toward the towering hulk of Southerly Buster he regretted his decision to land to the west of that ship; he had put himself at a disadvantage.  The light of the still-low sun was blinding, making it difficult for his men and him to avoid the lavish scattering of quartzite boulders that protruded through the short, coarse grass.  And it made it impossible to see if Drongo Kane had any weapons aimed at him and his party.  Probably he had - but Seeker's main armament was trained upon Kane's ship and ready to blow her off the face of the planet at the slightest provocation.

It was a little better once he and the Marines werre in the shadow of the other ship.  Grimes's eyes adjusted themselves and he stared upward at the blunt, metallic spire as he walked toward it.  Defensively armed! he thought scornfully.  Those two famous quick-firing cannon reported by the Bug Queen were merely an addition to what the Buster already had.  Even so, in terms of laser and missiles, Seeker had the edge on her.

Southerly Buster's ramp was down.  At the foot of it an officer was standing, a skeletal figure attired in gray coveralls with shoulder-boards carrying first mate's braid.  The man was capless, and bald, and the wrinkled skin of his face was yellow, almost matching the long teeth that he showed when he smiled at the men from Seeker.

"Commander Grimes?" he asked in an overly ingratiating voice.

"Mr. Dreebly?" countered Grimes.

"Aloysius Dreebly, sir, at your service."

And so this, thought Grimes, was Aloysius Dreebly.  Small wonder that Myra Bracegirdle, Southerly Buster's PCO, hated him.  He matched his name - as people with ugly names so very often do.  They, as it were, grow to fit the labels that misguided parents bestow upon them at birth.  And this Dreebly, Grimes continued thinking, I wouldn't trust him behind me.  He'd either kiss my arse or stab me in the back - or both.