（外文电子版资料）A. Betram Chandler - Navel Engagement.pdfVIP

NAVEL ENGAGEMENT A. BERTRAM CHANDLER When the gaussjammer LODE TRADER was wrecked on the planet later - much later - irreverently named Nirvana by Commodore Ferson of the Survey Service, there was only one survivor. Only one human survivor, that is. LODE TRADER - one of the Interstellar Transport Commission’s tramps - carried only a small crew, consisting of Master, three mates, three engineers and a catering officer. She had accomodation for twelve passengers which, sometimes, was fully booked - but which, this voyage, wasn’t. The sole occupant of the compartment packed with cramped dogboxes was a priest, a missionary, bound from Terra to the newly established colony on Hamal V. When the magnetic storm hit LODE TRADER, throwing her light years off trajectory, the Captain, a confirmed agnostic, sneeringly suggested that his passenger get down on his knees and start praying. The priest, somewhat acidly, retorted that in his religion the practice of pleading for divine intervention in times of stress was somewhat frowned upon and made a counter suggestion, this being that the Master and his officers should carry out their duties as ably as possible, as by so doing it was likely that they would acquire merit. Spacemen do not need to be told to do their jobs as well as possible - a spaceman who needed to be told would not last very long; neither, in many cases, would his ship - and so relations became somewhat strained. The priest - Lee Chang was his name .. retired to his cramped quarters to spend the remainder of the voyage in meditation; the crew started the emergency diesel generators- the Pile having been drained of power by the storm - restarted the Ehrenhaft generators, and set the ship to falling along a line of magnetic force that would lead them to a likely-looking sun which might, just possibly, run to one Earth-type planet. An alternative would hav