(ed note: wet-behind-the-ears angry-young-man Lieutenant Riggs is upset with space academy instructor Major Phil Hawley. Riggs is too stupid to realize there might be a method in Hawley's madness.)

(Major Phil Hawley)

Burt continued to laugh as they walked across the paved court toward their barracks. “I guess we all feel the same way about the old boy. He sure lets you know he doesn’t think much of your mental capacity.”Riggs flared up again as they turned into the walk leading to the long translucent building where they lived. “Why, hell, it’s just his inferiority complex. He feels funny about being short, that’s all.It makes him think he’s better than he knows he is. The dope.”Burt looked over at his roommate.“Sure, sure, I know. It’s remarkable for a man to keep his responses, and all that, but it’s the way he does it.”

(ed note: Lieutenant Riggs is ordered to report to Major General, base commander of Patrol Base Terra)

Conklin reached over to a basket and picked up several sheets of typed paper. “You’re leaving on patrol duty in two weeks,” the commander announced. “This is to notify you of your temporary promotion to the rank of captain, for the ninety-day duration of the patrol.”Riggs blinked at the unexpected news, and managed to gurgle, “Yes, sir.”Conklin laid the paper down and leaned forward. “You. of course, know the obligation of keeping this appointment absolutely" confidential,”“Yes, sir,” Riggs said again.“You've been promoted, captain, so that you may be first officer and copilot..” He looked up at the erect figure before him. “Major Hawley" will be in command.” He said, noticing Riggs’ start as he did so. “I don't need to tell you that your mission will be of more than usual delicacy, and for reasons that I don’t have to bring up at this time.”He paused for a moment, while Riggs’ whirling mind reflected that “unusual delicacy" was hardly the epithet. Examiner for Philo Hawley! What an assignment!Riggs saluted. “Sir,” he said diffidently, “may I have a few words with you, off the record?”“Certainly. Go ahead.”“Well, sir, much as I appreciate this temporary" promotion, and a chance to show that I deserve it. I think it only fair to make clear that I may be a rather poor choice for examiner. Major Hawley and I don’t get along very well together. To be frank, we don’t get along at all, and I’m afraid I would be rather prejudiced.”Conklin leaned back in his swivel chair and laughed. “Well, Riggs," lie chuckled, “I don’t know whom I could have selected from his classes who would not have felt the same way. Hawley’s classroom technique is just a little this side of brutal, but I think you'll find him a very good man to work under on patrol. As a matter of fact, I have reason to believe that Hawley respects you as much as any of his students. I don’t think you’ll have any undue difficulty. I’m glad you had the honesty to admit your bias, captain,” he said in conclusion.

(ed note: translation: It's A Trap)

(meaning the crewperson with the job title "computer", not some kind of electronic device. This is 1939 after all)

(mechanical adding machine, there are no electronic computers in the story)

Hawley looked across to Riggs, who was trying to make his twenty-four years look sufficiently dignified to justify his rank. “You take this one,” the commander said, “I'm a little stale, I haven’t shot a landing in nine months.”“Yes, sir,” Riggs replied, wondering whether Hawley would keep pushing the landings off on him. They were approaching the second planet of the greenish sun, a barren orb, with no atmosphere to complicate the landing. Price and Mercer had already located the observatory, on the light side of the planet, and were calculating their position, both calculating machines alternately clicking and whirring as the co-ordinates of position were entered and run off.Now less than a hundred kilometers from the smooth and barren surface of their objective, Riggs threw over the landing rocket switch, cutting in the hydrocarbon steering rockets for the landing. “O. K., Price,” he snapped, his voice hollow and strange inside his helmet.The computerimmediately clipped out three figures, designating their position relative to their objective.Motions automatic from long and constant practice, Riggs soon had the Little Falls directly over the landing base next to the observatory, lowering the ship vertically in the simplest kind of a landing. Price's voice barked three figures into Riggs’ headset every fewr seconds, but now two of them were always zeros as Riggs kept the ship directly over the field, indicating that there was no northsouth or east-west displacement. As they came within hundreds of meters of the surface, velocity almost killed, Riggs laid the ship over on its side and lowered it smoothly on flaring steering rockets, grounding it with scarcely a jar.Hawley glanced at the gauge before he left the board. “You used almost all the fuel allowed for a point six G landing. Riggs,” he noted.The copilot nodded. “Yes, sir, no sense cutting the first one too fine. Landing is no time to make a mistake.”Hawley smiled archly. “Wise words, captain,” he drawled.Riggs kept his eyes averted to conceal his ire, mentally kicking himself for the slip. Conklin’s words that Hawley was |b good man to work under on patrol rang mockingly in his ears. He was thankful that the routine of servicing the observatory kept them apart for the next few minutes, until he had time to cool down.The copilot, ever conscious of his secret mission, made every effort to keep his' relations with his superior as impersonal as possible, always fearing an open rupture between them. He was forced to admit, however, that Hawley was apparently all that a pilot should be. After the first landing, which he had wished off on Riggs, the commander alternated on landings with his copilot, making smooth, sound approaches under varying conditions of gravity and atmospheric pressure, never showing the slightest hesitation or confusion.Riggs secretly permitted himself to wonder, however, just how Hawley would fare should he have to land the ship from any position other than the vertical. The commander had made no “fancy” approaches, always carefully bringing the Little Falls directly over their objective before letting down. Riggs, as a matter of policy, had not attempted any angle approaches, afraid that Hawley would look upon them as a personal challenge, and even more afraid of his subtly scornful remarks, so delicately concealed beneath routine conversation.The navigator and computer were unable to get adequate observations on the observatory, with the result that Hawley was forced at the last moment to change his course and attempt an angle approach. Riggs tensed himself as Mercer finally located the observatory, well off to one side—too far to permit a vertical descent.To the copilot’s surprise, Hawley did not ask the computer for an equation to express the optimum course of the Little Falls through the moon's atmosphere to the ground. Instead he sat silently at the controls, listening to the co-ordinates Mercer snapped out from instant to instant. Riggs’ mind flew as he tried to work out the equation in his head, as Hawley was undoubtedly doing;—the equation which would describe the parabolic curve that they were following through the murk. He marveled at the major's confidence in his mental computations, descending as he was, to an objective that was completely shrouded in mists. He felt the ship lay over on its side and waited tensely for the crash as it grounded. But Hawley dropped it to the muddy surface with scarcely a jar. In spite of himself, Riggs could not repress an ejaculation of relief and amazement at the landing.He regretted it in an instant as Hawley shot him a twinkling glance, a glance that made his “Not bad for an old man, eh, Riggs?’’ completely redundant.Riggs seethed inwardly at Hawley’s all-too-apparent condescension, wishing fitfully that he could talk to somebody about it. The old dope, proud of his mental calculation, was he? Thought he was pretty good to hear a computer snap out three co-ordinates every five seconds and to transform them into a fourthpower parabolic equation. Well, there was more than 'one man in the world who could do it, Riggs reflected. He had kept abreast of Hawley’s mental mathematics. If he hadn’t known they were making the grade, he would have taken those controls away, major or no major.Although Riggs was pleased to find that his superior could act and talk like an ordinary human being if given chance enough, he retained his resolve to at least equal Hawley’s approach on the next landing he shot. Accordingly he approached the second planet of Rigel II at a sharp angle to the surface, and, like Hawley, requesting no predetermined equations from the computer, quickly set up a parabolic equation of the fifth power of the potential series to describe the course of the spaceship, and began the necessary mental substitutions and subtractions as he tried to determine how far the Little Falls was departing from the course he had set up. Almost subconsciously he could hear Mercer working his calculator, while Price called out the co-ordinates. That meant that Mercer didn’t trust him, that the navigator was substituting the co-ordinates that the Little Falls was cutting in an effort to determine whether Riggs was conforming to any general equation.In spite of the apparent doubts of the navigator, Riggs successfully landed the Little Falls without further aid from either the navigator or the computer than the co-ordinates that Price called.Hawley made absolutely no comment on the landing. The rather pointed silence of the computer and navigator, who both were well aware that the two pilots had performed remarkable feats of mental calculation under extreme pressure, made it clear that all four in the control room realized that Riggs had accepted Hawley’s challenge. They realized Riggs was willing to match any feats of piloting the older man performed.THE copilot was not to be disappointed. Shooting the next landing, on planet three of Rigel II, Hawley performed the almost impossible feat of using only one steering jet until he laid the ship over on her side for the grounding.The strain, while hard on the two pilots, was worse on the computer and navigator. After a particularly spectacular exhibition of a spiral approach at high velocity by Hawley on planet seven of Rigel II, Mercer approached Riggs while Hawley was leading the service crew to the observatory."Pardon me, captain,” he said, saluting. “Perhaps I’m speaking out of turn, but this contest between you and Hawley rs getting pretty extreme.” He stopped and gulped, half expecting a severe reprimand. Riggs grimaced for a moment before he answered the navigator.“You’re right, Mercer,” he finally said. “Hawley undoubtedly can do anything any pilot in the Patrol can. I don’t think he’s run out of tricks yet. I suppose I could match that one of mentally calculating a three-dimensional curve to a blind spot, but I'd like to do it alone, instead of with nine other guys behind me. I think I’ll call the whole thing off at the next landing.”“Yes, sir,” Mercer murmured. “I hope you don’t think I've been impertinent, sir,” he half asked.“Oh, no, Mercer.” the copilot answered. “Hell, I don’t see how you guys have stood it this long. It’s damned lucky that the boys in the back end didn't know what was going on. Some of them who don’t have space ratings would have gone nuts.”“That’s just it. captain,” Mercer said, a little smile forming in the corners of his mouth. “Price let on that you two were having a sort of contest, and Clark has gone half insane every time one or the other of you tried something harder. It wouldn’t have been so bad if you were just filling in co-ordinates on some curve equation I’d figured out for you, but this stuff of forming your own equation as you landed had them all scared. I don’t think I would have spoken if the men below hadn’t asked me to.”Shooting the landing in his regular turn, Hawley's approach was entirely conventional, dropping straight down from over his objective. But as the Little Falls lowered on drumming rockets, the ship swung from line, and the long succession of zeros with which Price had prefixed his altitude figures rapidly became numbers indicating that Hawley had badly botched the approach. Instead of altering his approach into a sharp angle, and repeating his performances on the planets of Rigel II, the commander blasted the Little Falls back to altitude and started his approach once more, only to become badly confused again. This time he attempted to save the landing by converting it into an angle approach, but the tense Riggs, following the co-ordinates that Price was barking out, quickly realized that Hawley was still messing the landing.The commander shook his head savagely and swore. He took his hands from the controls and snarled, “Take over!” to Riggs, who elected to blast back to altitude and try a straight approach to straightening out Hawley’s extremely incorrect position.The silence that reigned in the control room after Riggs grounded the ship made those that had regularly occurred during the landings of the planets of Rigel II seem trifling. All four carefully kept their eyes averted to prevent what each knew would be the exchange of a knowing glance. Hawley made matters no easier by remaining in a surly and disgruntled mood, obviously disturbed over his clumsy mistake.Contrary to what Riggs had expected, Hawley’s next approach was excellent, in spite of the fact that it was made under extremely unfavorable conditions of gravity and visibility.The commander, while rather, sullen, grounded the ship perfectly, and repeated the performance three times thereafter in his turn.The copilot found himself worrying long before they headed back for Earth, what he would report to the board of examiners.

(ed note:like I said, it was a trap. Riggs thought he was giving Hawley the space rating exam. Actually it was the other way around. Hawley's failed landing was a put-up job, just to see how Riggs would react. Riggs got his space rating, but Hawley noted while Riggs was a great pilot, he was a bit naïve not to recognize that the failed landing was a deliberate test.)