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A door high up the front wall of the hold opened. Three men stepped onto the balcony that overlooked the hold on three sides.
"Hi," said Peter.
"Who the hell are you?" asked the one with the most ribbons and trim on his uniform.
"I'm betting you're Admiral Bobby Lands," said Peter. "And you must be the executive officer, Causo. And you must be the cargo officer, Lung."
"I said who the hell are you!" demanded Admiral Lands.
"I don't think your priorities are straight," said Peter. "I think there'll be plenty of time for us to discuss my identity after you deactivate the timer on this weapon that you so carelessly tossed out into space perilously close to a settled planet."
"If you think you can--"
But the Admiral didn't finish his sentence, because the X.O. was diving over the rail and jumping down to the deck of the cargo hold, where he immediately began twisting the fingerbolts that held the casing over the timer. "Causo," said Lands, "that can't be the--"
"It's the Little Doctor, all right, sir," said Causo.
"We launched it!" shouted the Admiral.
"But that must have been a mistake," said Peter. "An oversight. Because Starways Congress revoked your authorization to launch it."
"Who are you and how did you get here?"
Causo stood up, sweat dripping off his brow. "Sir, I am pleased to report that with more than two minutes' leeway, I have managed to prevent our ship from being blown into its constituent atoms."
"I'm glad to see that you didn't have any nonsense about requiring two separate keys and a secret combination to get that thing switched off," said Peter.
"No, it was designed to make turning it off pretty easy," said Causo. "There are directions on how to do it all over this thing. Now, turning it on-- that's hard."
"But somehow you managed to do it," said Peter.
"Where is your vehicle?" said the Admiral. He was climbing down a ladder to the deck. "How did you get here?"