Citizen of the Galaxy (26 page)

But the Old Man always had been a shining example.

So Brisby left Thorby in combat control. He omitted to make permanent Thorby's acting promotion in order that the record of change in rating need not be forwarded to BuPersonnel. But he became anxious to receive the dispatch that would tell him who Thorby was.

His executive was with him when it came in. It was in code, but Brisby recognized Thorby's serial number; he had written it many times in reports to “X” Corps. “Look at this, Stinky! This tells us who our foundling is. Grab the machine; the safe is open.”

Ten minutes later they had processed it; it read:

-- “NULL BESULT FULL IDENTSEARCH BASLIM THORBY GDSMN THIRD. AUTH & DRT TRANSFER ANY RECEIVING STATION RETRANSFER HEKATE INVESTIGATION DISPOSITION -- CHFBUPEBS.”

“Stinky, ain't that a mess?”

Stancke shrugged. “It's how the dice roll, boss.”

“I feel as if I had let the Old Man down. He was sure the kid was a citizen.”

“I misdoubt there are millions of citizens who would have a bad time proving who they are. Colonel Baslim may have been right -- and still it can't be proved.”

“I hate to transfer him. I feel responsible.”

“Not your fault.”

“You never served under Colonel Baslim. He was easy to please . . . all he wanted was one-hundred-percent perfection. And this doesn't feel like it.”

“Quit blaming yourself. You have to accept the record.”

“Might as well get it over with. Eddie! I want to see Ordnanceman Baslim.”

Thorby noticed that the Skipper looked grim -- but then he often did. “Acting Ordnanceman Third Class Baslim reporting, sir.”

“Thorby . . .”

“Yes, sir?” Thorby was startled. The Skipper sometimes used his first name because that was what he answered to under hypnosis -- but this was not such a time.

“The identification report on you came.”

“Huh?” Thorby was startled out of military manners. He felt a surge of joy -- he was going to know who he was!

“They can't identify you.” Brisby waited, then said sharply, “Did you understand?”

Thorby swallowed. “Yes, sir. They don't know who I am. I'm not . . . anybody.”

“Nonsense! You're still yourself.”

“Yes, sir. Is that all, sir? May I go?”

“Just a moment. I have to transfer you back to Hekate.” He added hastily, seeing Thorby's expression, “Don't worry. They'll probably let you serve out your enlistment if you want to. In any case, they can't do anything to you; you haven't done anything wrong.”

“Yes, sir,” Thorby repeated dully.

Nothing and nobody -- He had a blinding image of an old, old nightmare . . . standing on the block, hearing an auctioneer chant his description, while cold eyes stared at him. But he pulled himself together and was merely quiet the rest of the day. It was not until the compartment was dark that he bit his pillow and whispered brokenly, “Pop . . . oh, Pop!”

The Guards uniform covered Thorby's legs, but in the showers the tattoo on his left thigh could be noticed. When this happened, Thorby explained without embarrassment what it signified. Responses varied from curiosity, through half-disbelief, to awed surprise that here was a man who had been through it -- capture, sale, servitude, and miraculously, free again. Most civilians did not realize that slavery still existed; Guardsmen knew better.

No one was nasty about it.

But the day after the null report on identification Thorby encountered “Decibel” Peebie in the showers. Thorby did not speak; they had not spoken much since Thorby had moved out from under Peebie, even though they sat at the same table. But now Peebie spoke. “Hi, Trader!”

“Hi.” Thorby started to bathe.

“What's on your leg? Dirt?”

“Where?”

“On your thigh. Hold still. Let's see.”

“Keep your hands to yourself!”

“Don't be touchy. Turn around to the light. What is it?”

“It's a slaver's mark,” Thorby explained curtly.

“No foolin'? So you're a slave?”

“I used to be.”

“They put chains on you? Make you kiss your master's foot?”

“Don't be silly!”

“Look who's talking! You know what, Trader boy? I heard about that mark -- and I think you had it tattooed yourself. To make big talk. Like that one about how you blasted a bandit ship.”

Thorby cut his shower short and got out.

At dinner Thorby was helping himself from a bowl of mashed potatoes. He heard Peebie call out something but his ears filtered out “Decibel's” endless noise.

Peebie repeated it “Hey, Slave! Pass the potatoes! You know who I mean! Dig the dirt out of your ears!”

Thorby passed him the potatoes, bowl and all, in a flat trajectory, open face of the bowl plus potatoes making perfect contact with the open face of Decibel.

The charge against Thorby was “Assaulting a Superior Officer, the Ship then being in Space in a Condition of Combat Readiness.” Peebie appeared as complaining witness.

Colonel Brisby stared over the mast desk and his jaw muscles worked. He listened to Peebie's account: “I asked him to pass the potatoes . . . and he hit me in the face with them.”

“That was all?”

“Well, sir, maybe I didn't say please. But that's no reason --”

“Never mind the conclusions. The fight go any farther?”

“No, sir. They separated us.”

“Very well. Baslim, what have you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Yes, sir.”

Brisby stopped to think, while his jaw muscles twitched. He felt angry, an emotion he did not permit himself at mast -- he felt let down. Still, there must be more to it.

Instead of passing sentence be said, “Step aside. Colonel Stancke --”

“Yes, sir?”

“There were other men present. I want to hear from them.”

“I have them standing by, sir.”

“Very well.”

Thorby was convicted -- three days bread & water, solitary, sentence suspended, thirty days probation; acting rank stricken.

Decibel Peebie was convicted (court trial waived when Brisby pointed out how the book could be thrown at him) of “Inciting to Riot, specification: using derogatory language with reference to another Guardsman's Race, Religion, Birthplace, or Condition previous to entering Service, the Ship then being etc.” -- sentence three days B & W, sol., suspended, reduction one grade, ninety days probation in ref. B & W, sol., only.

The Colonel and Vice Colonel went back to Brisby's office. Brisby was looking glum; mast upset him at best Stancke said, “Too bad you had to clip the Baslim kid. I think be was justified.”

“Of course he was. But 'Inciting to riot' is no excuse for riot. Nothing is.”

“Sure, you had to. But I don't like that Peebie character. I'm going to make a careful study of his efficiency marks.”

“Do that. But, confound it, Stinky -- I have a feeling I started the fight myself.”

“Huh?”

“Two days ago I had to tell Baslim that we hadn't been able to identify him. He walked out in a state of shock. I should have listened to my psych officer. The lad has scars that make him irresponsible under the right -- I mean the 'wrong' -- stimulus. I'm glad it was mashed potatoes and not a knife.”

“Oh, come now, boss! Mashed potatoes are hardly a deadly weapon.”

“You weren't here when he got the bad news. Not knowing who he is hurts him.”

Stancke's pudgy face pouted in thought “Boss? How old was this kid when he was captured?”

“Eh? Kris thinks he was about four.”

“Skipper, that backwoods place where you were born; at what age were you fingerprinted, blood-typed, retina-photographed and so forth?”

“Why, when I started school.”

“Me, too. I'll bet they wait that long most places.”

Brisby blinked. “That's why they wouldn't have anything on him!”

“Maybe. But on Riff they take identity on a baby before he leaves the delivery room.”

“My people, too. But --”

“Sure, sure! It's common practice. But how?”

Brisby looked blank, then banged the desk. “Footprints! And we didn't send them in.” He slapped the talkie. “Eddie! Get Baslim here on the double!”

Thorby was glumly removing the chevron he had worn by courtesy for so short a time. He was scared by the peremptory order; it boded ill. But he hurried. Colonel Brisby glared at him. “Baslim, take off your shoes!”

“Sir?”

“Take off your shoes!”

Brisby's dispatch questioning failure to identify and supplying BuPers with footprints was answered in forty-eight hours. It reached the Hydra as she made her final approach to Ultima Thule. Colonel Brisby decoded it when the ship had been secured dirtside.

It read; “ -- GUARDSMAN THORBY BASLIM IDENTIFIED MISSING PERSON THOR BRADLEY RUDBEK TERRA NOT HEKATE TRANSFER RUDBEK FASTEST MILORCOM TERRA DISCHARGE ARRIVAL. NEXTKIN NOTIFIED REPEAT FASTEST CHFBUPERS.”

Brisby was chuckling. “Colonel Baslim is never wrong. Dead or alive, he's never wrong!”

“Boss . . .”

“Huh?”

“Read it again. Notice who he is.”

Brisby reread the dispatch. Then he said in a hushed voice, “Why do things like this always happen to Hydra?” He strode over and snatched the door. “Eddie!”

Thorby was on beautiful Ultima Thule for two hours and twenty-seven minutes; what he saw of the famous scenery after coming three hundred light-years was the field between the Hydra and Guard Mail Courier Ariel. Three weeks later he was on Terra. He felt dizzy.

Lovely Terra, Mother of Worlds! What poet, whether or not he has been privileged to visit her, has not tried to express the homesick longing of men for mankind's birthplace . . . her cool green hills, cloud-graced skies, restless oceans, her warm maternal charm.

Thorby's first sight of legendary Earth was by view screen of G.M.C. Ariel. Guard Captain N'Gangi, skipper of the mail ship, stepped up the gain and pointed out arrow-sharp shadows of the Egyptian Pyramids. Thorby didn't realize the historical significance and was looking in the wrong place. But he enjoyed seeing a planet from space; he had never been thus privileged before.

Thorby had a dull time in the Ariel. The mail ship, all legs and tiny payload, carried a crew of three engineers and three astrogators, all of whom were usually on watch or asleep. He started off badly because Captain N'Gangi had been annoyed by a “hold for passenger” dispatch from the Hydra -- mail ships don't like to hold; the mail must go through.

But Thorby behaved himself, served the precooked meals, and spent his time plowing through the library (a drawer under the skipper's bunk); by the time they approached Sol the commanding officer was over his pique . . . to have the feeling brought back by orders to land at Galactic Enterprises' field instead of Guard Base. But N'Gangi shook hands as he gave Thorby his discharge and the paymaster's draft.

Instead of scrambling down a rope ladder (mail couriers have no hoists), Thorby found that a lift came up to get him. It leveled off opposite the hatch and offered easy exit. A man in spaceport uniform of Galactic Enterprises met him. “Mr. Rudbek?”

“That's me -- I guess.”

“This way, Mr. Rudbek, if you please.”

The elevator took them below ground and into a beautiful lounge. Thorby, mussed and none too clean from weeks in a crowded steel box, was uneasy. He looked around.

Eight or ten people were there, two of whom were a gray-haired, self-assured man and a young woman. Each was dressed in more than a year's pay for a Guardsman. Thorby did not realize this in the case of the man but his Trader's eye spotted it in the female; it took money to look that demurely provocative.

In his opinion the effect was damaged by her high-fashion hairdo, a rising structure of green blending to gold. He blinked at the cut of her clothes; he had seen fine ladies in Jubbulpore where the climate favored clothing only for decoration, but the choice in skin display seemed different here. Thorby realized uneasily that he was again going to have to get used to new customs.

The important-looking man met him as he got out of the lift “Thor! Welcome home, lad!” He grabbed Thorby's hand. “I'm John Weemsby. Many is the time I've bounced you on my knee. Call me Uncle Jack. And this is your cousin Leda.”

The girl with green hair placed hands on Thorby's shoulders and kissed him. He did not return it; he was much too startled. She said, “It's wonderful to have you home, Thor.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“And now you must greet your grandparents,” Weemsby announced. “Professor Bradley . . . and your Grandmother Bradley.”

Bradley was older than Weemsby, slight and erect, a paunch, neatly trimmed beard; be was dressed like Weemsby in daytime formal jacket, padded tights and short cape, but not as richly. The woman had a sweet face and alert blue eyes; her clothing did not resemble that of Leda but seemed to suit her. She pecked Thorby on the cheek and said gently, “It's like having my son come home.”