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. But he hurried. Colonel Brisby glared at him. "Baslim, take off your shoes!"
"Sir?"
"Take off your shoes!"
Brisby's dispatch questioning failure to identify and supplying BuPers with footprints was answered in forty-eight hours. It reached the Hydra as she made her final approach to Ultima Thule. Colonel Brisby decoded it when the ship had been secured dirtside.
It read; " -- GUARDSMAN THORBY BASLIM IDENTIFIED MISSING PERSON THOR BRADLEY RUDBEK TERRA NOT HEKATE TRANSFER RUDBEK FASTEST MILORCOM TERRA DISCHARGE ARRIVAL. NEXTKIN NOTIFIED REPEAT FASTEST CHFBUPERS."
Brisby was chuckling. "Colonel Baslim is never wrong. Dead or alive, he's never wrong!"
"Boss . . ."
"Huh?"
"Read it again. Notice who he is."
Brisby reread the dispatch. Then he said in a hushed voice, "Why do things like this always happen to Hydra?" He strode over and snatched the door. "Eddie!"
Thorby was on beautiful Ultima Thule for two hours and twenty-seven minutes; what he saw of the famous scenery after coming three hundred light-years was the field between the Hydra and Guard Mail Courier Ariel. Three weeks later he was on Terra. He felt dizzy.
Chapter 17
Lovely Terra, Mother of Worlds! What poet, whether or not he has been privileged to visit her, has not tried to express the homesick longing of men for mankind's birthplace . . . her cool green hills, cloud-graced skies, restless oceans, her warm maternal charm
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