Ride the Star Winds (75 page)

The other two “idlers” were there—Sandra and Doc Jenkins. They were sprawled at ease in their acceleration chairs, sipping drinks from tall glasses dewy with condensation.

“So this is how the poor live,” I remarked sourly.

“The way that the old bitch has been carrying on,” said Doc affably, “we have to assume that any given drink may be our last. But how come you’re not in the greenhouse?”

“They gave me the bum’s rush,” I admitted, dropping into the nearest chair, strapping myself in. I was feeling extremely disgruntled. In well-manned, well-found ships pursers are brought up to regard the control room as forbidden ground, but over the past few months, I had become used to playing my part in blastings off and landings and had come to appreciate the risks that we were running all the time. If anything catastrophic happened I’d be dead, no matter where I was. But when I die I’d like to know the reason.

“So they gave you the bum’s rush,” said Sandra, not at all sympathetically. (She had been heard to complain that if the purser was privileged to see all that was going on, a like privilege should be extended to the catering officer. “Might I inquire why?”

“You might,” I told her absently, listening to the thunder of the rocket drive, muffled by the insulation but still loud in the confined space. It sounded healthy enough. They seemed to be getting along without me up there. But we weren’t down yet.

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Give me a drink, and I’ll tell you.”

She did not unstrap herself but extended a long, shapely arm and managed to shove the heavy decanter and a glass across the table so that they were within my reach. I looked at the surface of the liquid within the container. It was rippled, but ever so slightly, by the vibration. The old girl was behaving herself. I might still have time for a drink before things started to happen. I poured myself a generous slug and raised the tumbler to my lips. It was, as I had suspected, the not at all bad gin manufactured by the doctor in his capacity of biochemist. The lime flavor made it palatable.

She said, “You’ve got your drink.”

I said, “All right. If you must know, I was quoting poetry. Ralph started it. The master did not, repeat not, approve . . .”

“Down,”
quoted the doctor in his fruitiest voice.

“Down.

Fierce stabbing

Flame phallus

Rending

Membrane of atmosphere,

Tissues of cloud.

Down-bearing,

Thrusting

To stony womb of world.

Spacemen, I ask you

What monster

Or prodigy

Shall come of this rape?”

I looked at him with some distaste. His chubby face under the overly long, overly oily black hair was (as usual) smugly sensual. He had an extensive repertoire of modern verse, and practically all of it dealt with rape, both literal and figurative.

“If I’d quoted that trash,” I told him, “the old man would have been justified in booting me out of his Holy of Holies. But I was quoting poetry.
Poetry.
Period.”

“Oh, yes. Poetry. Meretricious jingles. You and dear Ralph share a passion for this revival of the ancient Terran slush, corn of the corniest. Our lord and master did well in arising in his wrath and hurling you into the outer darkness . . .”

“Poetry,” said Sandra flatly, “and ship handling just don’t mix. Especially at a time like this.”

“She was riding down,” I said, “sweetly and gently, on full automatic.”

“And all of us,” she pointed out, “at the mercy of a single fuse. I may be only chief cook and bottlewasher aboard this wagon, but even I know that it is essential for the officers in the control room to be fully alert at all times.”

“All right,” I said. “All right.”

I glared at her, and she glared at me. She was always handsome—but she was almost beautiful when she was in a bad temper. I wondered (as I had often wondered before) what she would be like when the rather harsh planes and angles of her face were softened by some gentler passion. But she did her job, Sandra did, and did it well, and kept to herself—as others, as well as I, had learned the hard way.

Meanwhile, we were still falling, still dropping, the muffled thunder of our reaction drive steady and unfaltering. In view of the past events and near disasters of the voyage it was almost too good to be true. It was, I decided, too good to be true—and then, as though in support of my pessimism, the sudden silence gripped the hearts of all of us. Sandra’s face was white under her coppery hair and Jenkins’s normally ruddy complexion was a sickly green. We waited speechless for the last, the final crash.

The ship tilted gently, ever so gently, tilted and righted herself, and the stuffy air inside the wardroom was alive with the whispered complaints of the springs and cylinders of her landing gear. The bulkhead speaker crackled and we heard the old man’s voice: “The set-down has been accomplished. All personnel may proceed on their arrival duties.”

Doc Jenkins laughed, unashamedly relieved. He unstrapped himself and poured a generous drink from the decanter into each of our glasses. “To the end of the voyage,” he said, raising his tumbler. He gulped his gin. Then, “Now that we can all relax, Peter, just what was the so-called poetry that led to your well-merited eviction from the greenhouse?”

“‘Saw the heavens fill with commerce,’” I quoted. “ ‘Argosies with magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales . . . ‘ “

“We dropped down all right,” he jested, “but not on any magic sails. A down-thrusting phallus of flame is a far better description of rocket drive.”

“I prefer the magic sails,” I said.

“You would,” he said.

“Some people,” said Sandra pointedly, getting to her feet, “have work to do. Even though the ship is finished, we aren’t.”

Chapter 2

Yes,
we all had work to do—but none of us, not even Sandra, was particularly keen on getting started on it. We were down, and still in one piece, and we were feeling that sense of utter relaxation that comes at the end of a voyage; there was something in it of homecoming (although the Rim Worlds were home only to the old man), something in it of the last day of school.

Sandra stood there for a moment or so, looking down at Doc and myself. Her regard shifted to the decanter. She said, “It’s a shame to leave all that to you two pigs.”

“Don’t let it worry you, duckie,” Jenkins admonished her.

“It does worry me.”

She sat down again and refilled her glass. The doctor refilled his glass. I refilled mine.

“Journey’s end,” said Doc, making a toast of it.

“In lovers meeting,” I added, finishing the quotation.

“I didn’t know you had a popsy in Port Forlorn,” said Sandra distantly.

“I haven’t,” I said. “Not now. Not anymore. But there should be lovers’ meetings at the end of a voyage.”

“Why?” she asked, feigning interest.

“Because some sentimental slob of a so-called poet said so,” sneered Doc.

“Better than all your crap about down-thrusting phalluses,” I retorted.

“Boys, boys . . .” admonished Sandra.

“Is there anything left in the bottle?” demanded Ralph Listowel.

We hadn’t seen or heard him come into the wardroom. We looked up at him in mild amazement as he stood there, awkward, gangling, his considerable height diminished ever so slightly by his habitual slouch. There was a worried expression on his lined face. I wondered just what was wrong now.

“Here, Ralph,” said Sandra, passing him a drink.

“Thanks.” The mate gulped rather than sipped. “Hmm. Not bad.” He gulped again. “Any more?”

“Building up your strength, Ralph?” asked Sandra sweetly.

“Could be,” he admitted. “Or perhaps this is an infusion of Dutch courage.”

“And what do you want it for?” I asked. “The hazards of the voyage are over and done with.”

“Those hazards, yes,” he said gloomily. “But there are worse hazards than those in space. When mere chief officers are bidden to report to the super’s office, at once if not before, there’s something cooking—and, I shouldn’t mind betting you a month’s pay, it’ll be something that stinks.”

“Just a routine bawling out,” I comforted him. “After all, you can’t expect to get away with everything all the time.”

A wintry grin did nothing to soften his harsh features. “But it’s not only me he wants. He wants you, Sandra, and you, Doc, and you, Peter.
And
Smethwick, our commissioned clairvoyant. One of you had better go to shake him out of his habitual stupor.”

“But what have we done?” asked Doc in a worried voice.

“My conscience is clear,” I said. “At least, I think it is . . .”

“My conscience
is
clear,” Sandra stated firmly.

“Mine never is,” admitted Doc gloomily.

The mate put his glass down on the table. “All right,” he told us brusquely. “Go and get washed behind the ears and brush your hair. One of you drag the crystal gazer away from his dog’s brain in aspic and try to get him looking something like an officer and a gentleman.”

“Relax, Ralph,” said Jenkins, pouring what was left in the decanter into his own glass.

“I wish I could. But it’s damned odd the way the commodore is yelling for all of us. I may not be a psionic radio officer, but I have my hunches.”

Jenkins laughed. “One thing is certain, Ralph, he’s not sending for us to fire us. Rim Runners are never that well-off for officers. And once we’ve come out to the Rim, we’ve hit rock bottom.” He began to warm up. “We’ve run away from ourselves as far as we can, to the very edge of the blackness, and we can’t run any farther.”

“Even so . . .” said the mate.

“Doc’s right,” said Sandra. “He’ll just be handing out new appointments to all of us. With a bit of luck—or bad luck?—we might be shipping out together again.”

“It’ll be good luck for all of you if we are,” said Doc. “My jungle juice is the best in the fleet, and you all know it.”

“So you say,” said Sandra.

“But what about the old man?” I asked. “And the engineers? Are they bidden to the presence?”

“No,” said Ralph. “As far as I know, they’ll just be going on leave.” He added gloomily, “There’s something in the wind as far as we’re concerned. I wish I knew what it was.”

“There’s only one way to find out,” said Sandra briskly, getting to her feet.

We left the ship together—Ralph, Doc Jenkins, Sandra, Smethwick and myself. Ralph, who was inclined to take his naval reserve commission seriously, tried to make it a march across the dusty, scarred concrete to the low huddle of administration buildings. Both Sandra and I tried to play along with him, but Doc Jenkins and our tame telepath could turn any march into a straggle without even trying. For Smethwick there was, perhaps, some excuse; released from the discipline of watchkeeping he was renewing contact with his telepathic friends all over the planet. He wandered along like a man in a dream, always on the point of falling over his own feet. And Jenkins rolled happily beside him, a somewhat inane grin on his ruddy face. I guessed that in the privacy of his cabin he had depleted his stocks of jungle juice still further.

I wished that I’d imbibed another stiff slug myself. The wind was bitterly cold, driving the dust before it in whorls and eddies, filling our eyes with grit, redolent of old socks and burning sulphur. I was wondering how anybody could be fool enough to come out to the Rim Worlds. I was wondering, not for the first time, how
I’d
ever been fool enough to come out to the Rim Worlds.

It was a relief to get into the office building, out of that insistent, nagging wind. The air was pleasantly warm, but my eyes were still stinging. I used my handkerchief to try to clear the gritty particles from them, and saw through tears that the others were doing the same—all save Smethwick, who, lost in some private world of his own, was oblivious to discomfort. Ralph brushed the dust from his epaulettes and then used his handkerchief to restore a polish to his shoes, tossing the soiled fabric into a handy disposer. He started to ascend the stairs, and paused to throw a beckoning nod at us. Not without reluctance we followed.

There was the familiar door at the end of the passageway with
Astronautical Superintendent
inscribed on the translucent plastic. The door opened of itself as we approached. Through the doorway we could see the big, cluttered desk and, behind it, the slight, wiry figure of Commodore Grimes. He had risen to his feet, but he still looked small, dwarfed by the furnishings that must have been designed for a much larger man. I was relieved to see that his creased and pitted face was illumined by a genuinely friendly smile, his teeth startlingly white against the dark skin.

“Come in,” he boomed. “Come in, all of you.” He waved a hand to the chairs that had been set in a rough semi-circle before his desk. “Be seated.”

And then I didn’t feel so relieved after all. Fussing in the background was Miss Hallows, his secretary, tending a bubbling coffee percolator. From past experience I knew that such hospitality meant that we were to be handed the dirty end of some very peculiar stick.

When the handshaking and the exchange of courtesies were over we sat down. There was a period of silence while Miss Hallows busied herself with the percolator and the cups. My attention was drawn by an odd-looking model on the commodore’s desk, and I saw that the others, too, were looking at it curiously and that old Grimes was watching us with a certain degree of amusement. It was a ship, that was obvious, but it could not possibly be a spaceship. It was, I guessed, some sort of aircraft; there was a cigar-shaped hull and, protruding from it, a fantastically complicated array of spars and vanes. I know even less about aeronautics than I do about astronautics—after all, I’m just the spacefaring office boy—but even I doubted if such a contraption could ever fly. I turned my head to look at Ralph; he was staring at the thing with a sort of amused and amazed contempt.

“Admiring my new toy?” asked the commodore.

“It’s rather . . . it’s rather odd, sir,” said Ralph.