CAPTAIN ALGASE WAS no beauty even when garbed in his officer’s blues; in pajamas and slippers he was something out of a nightmare. His bare legs were like cylindrical hair mattresses, his pajama slacks bulged at the equator as if he were concealing there a half watermelon. His eyes were red and gummy, his temper like something that could be poured out of a cruet. As Dan and Bud entered the control turret he was battering the bewildered radioman’s defenses into oblivion with a salvo of verbal thermite.
“Message!” he was howling. “You call this thing a message! I’ll have you stewed in slow gravy for waking me up like this, Sparks! Of all the damn, dumb—” He saw his two lieutenants. “Never mind, you two. Go back and finish your breakfast. False alarm.”
“We’ve finished, Skipper,” said Dan. “
