When they arrived at the battered old Starcruiser, Portman hardly recognised it. Its hull was shining with a rich brassy brilliance in the morning sunlight. Gringledoonk was waiting for him on a little platform at the foot of the ramp up to the airlock. Other bright blue Gyoinks stood in quivering rows nearby.
“Good morning, sir,” Gringledoonk said, his voice charged with friendliness. “I hope that the launch we constructed for you was comfortable.”
“The launch? Oh, yeah—very smooth. One of the jellos said the ship was ready. Is it?” Portman stepped out on to the platform.
“Everything is shipshape, sir,” the Gyoink said. “We are doing our humble best to do everything in accordance with—”
“Yeah, I know. Skip all that stuff. As long as the new generators are in, I’ll be satisfied.”
“There’s just one more thing, sir,” Gringledoonk said. The ranks of Gyoinks moved aside, revealing a shallow depression in the platform, in the centre of which was a circular hole about six inches in diameter. From under the depression a plastic tube led up the ramp and into the ship.
“What, what?” Portman snarled.
“We only use this for long distances, but our library”
“Skip it,” Portman said.
He pushed Gringledoonk aside and headed for the bottom of the ramp across the dish-shaped hollow. Too late he noticed that there was a peculiar radiance hovering above the depression, coming from little translucent panels around its perimeter. He tried to retreat.
But his bones had softened too rapidly and indeed his feet were already flowing out of his shoes on to the floor, to be joined by what had been his legs and the remainder of his unwashed body. He stopped screaming as his head completed its gracious descent, and his staring eyes remained visible only for a moment, silently surveying the surface of the great blob which he had so unaccountably become. It liquefied still further and the mortal remains of Harold Portman ran out through the hole in the basin with a regrettably undignified noise. The plastic pipe became dark and murky as he passed up it into his ship.
“Just a matter of tradition,” Gringledoonk explained proudly to the onlookers. “Our records are incomplete about Terran space fleet tradition, but they all agree on one thing—the Captain is always piped on board.”