It was dark when they landed at the old Academy. They had flown close to the North Pole, rolling back the sun and arriving before dawn.
There were few lights. No one had lighted the field, for it was not the operational field of the area, and they had slipped in on instruments and viewscreens.
The cadet duty officer was sound asleep and they woke him to get themselves logged in: “Stormalong Stam Stavenger, pilot, and Darf MacNulty, copilot, returning from Europe, student battleplane 86290567918. No troubles, no comments.” The cadet duty officer wrote it down. He didn’t bother to get them to sign it.
Jonnie didn’t know where Stormalong and Darf had been berthed. He had not remembered to find out. Stormalong probably in senior faculty berthing. Darf … ? He thought fast. “Darf” was still c
