(Cover Paul Alexander)
Publisher: Ace (USA)
Edition: 11566-X
ISBN: 0-441-11556-3
Publication Date: Sep 1981
The Commodore at Sea 1981
Novelete
Captain John Grimes stood impassively in the port wing of his bridge as his ship, the round-the-world tramp Sonya Winneck, slid gently in toward her berth. But although his stocky body was immobile his brain was active. He was gauging speed, distances, the effect of the tide. His engines were stopped, but the vessel still seemed to be carrying too much way. He was stemming the ebb, but, according to the Port Directions there was sometimes - not always - an eddy, a counter current along this line of wharfage. In any case, it would be a tight fit. Ahead of him was Iron Baron, one of the steel trade ships: a huge, beamy brute with gigantic deck cranes almost capable of lifting her by her own bootstraps. In the berth astern was the Lone Star Line's Orionic, with even more beam to her than the Baron.