CHAPTER I Soft Assignment Captain Alfred Weston entered the room and nodded curtly to the men at the conference table. Doctor Edwards, holding forth at the head of the table, nodded as though he had not seen the over-polite greeting. He waved the newcomer to an empty seat on the opposite side of the table, and Weston went around to sit down. Edwards had been talking on some other subject, obviously, but now he dropped it. "Captain Weston," he said, "you are still classified as convalescent." "Ra