He listened with some awe as she explained the Japanese methodical madness of gift-giving; the unending reverberations of presents received and presents reciprocated. It was a game that had to be played according to the rules, sometimes even at the cost of debt and bankruptcy, a continual to-and-fro that once begun only came to an end with the death of the participants. And even then, there was the next generation. He realized that there would be a great deal he must learn if he was to take his place in this strange society.
"Then. . . ." She sat up, twisting on the bunk until she sat facing him. She brought her arms down and extended the left one towards him. She ran the forefinger of her right hand upwards from her left wrist until it rested on a slight bump just below the elbow joint. "Then there is this."
He knew immediately that she was referring to the contraception capsule implanted in her, as in every other crewwoman of the Corps.
"Your capsule?"
"Yes, Piet, love."
"What about it?"
"I want you to take it out."
He sat up sharply. "You crazy?"
"No." Her voice sank to dovelike gentleness. "Not crazy, just in love. Deeply, completely. So much so that every time we come together there's a pang, a pang which says—'All that good seed not used.'"
"But it's against..."
"Regulations? Piet, we have agreed what we're going to do, haven't we? Then let us make a beginning. If I start a baby straight away we shall be at Kepler in under three months, long before I show."
But what if something goes wrong, what if we are unable to escape after all?
The doubts crowded in on his mind at the thought of such an irrevocable commitment, but he forced them back, because he knew that to speak them would hurt and disappoint her.
"How do you know that you'll start a baby?" he asked.
'Trust me," she said, taking his hand and placing it over her navel. "As soon as my bloodstream is free of the neutralizing hormone, I'll take your first offer. I'm fertile, love, I know it. Why should we wait—now?"
He sat looking at her silently, knowing that the decision was already made, and that he would do as she asked because he loved her, because no other woman had ever given him what she had. Before her, sex had been just a pattern of physical relief; with her, it had a new meaning, as part of a much greater, more embracing relationship. The removal of the capsule would set the seal on that relationship. But...
In the humming silence between them, just as the door numerals showed 2021 hours, the ship's general alarm sounded.
Distress Call—Omnidirectional Mayday Mayday Mayday. Excelsior Corporation ship Wangituru twenty two point five light years out of Kepler III. Mayday Mayday Mayday. Two meteors penetrated hull. Eight dead, five needing urgent medical aid. Astrogation computer out, proceeding blind. Loop route five for Sol III. Decelerating now to point zero zero zero zero five light. Mayday Mayday Mayday. Excelsior Corporation ship Wangituru twenty two point five light years out. ...
The steward had removed the scant remains of the meal, and, at a glance from Tom Bruce, himself. Now the four of them were alone in the commander's standby room.
Magnus said, 'The trouble with coffee is that it makes me think too hard about the next
real
meal. I don't suppose... ?"
Lieutenant Commander Helen Lindstrom, second in command of
Venturer Twelve,
opened the lid of the pot and looked inside. "I'm afraid that's the ration, Mr. Magnus," she said, with a rueful smile.
"Anything else you want to drink, it'll be recycled water." Commander Tom Brace's flat, metallic voice was a direct contrast to the leisured, English drawl of Magnus.
"Charming thought," said Magnus, removing a cigar case from the inside breast pocket of his immaculate civilian jacket. "Well, at least we can enjoy a good smoke while these last."
Helen Lindstrom declined, as did Joseph Ichiwara, Magnus's zealous number two. She watched as Bruce took one and lit it He was a man with green eyes and red hair beginning to gray. The expression on his hatchet face changed very little, but she knew him well enough to recognize the tension in his manner. It had become increasingly obvious during the past few weeks that Magnus, tall, dark and slightly stooping, with his air of cultured imperturbability, was not Bruce's kind of person, and she fancied that before this mission was complete she would find herself in the uncomfortable position of providing a buffer between her commander and the civilian Explorations Division officer.
Magnus exhaled a puff of smoke with a sigh of pleasure. "We may be lucky, of course. I understand that there is a certain amount of tobacco grown on Kepler III."
"Yes indeed, sir," said Ichiwara's high-pitched voice. He beamed at his chief through pebble-thick glasses. "The crop in southern Ayoto over the past few years has been quite remarkable in its quality. According to my reports the tonnage..."
"I'm sure you have all the figures immediately to hand, my dear Joseph," Magnus said blandly. "But spare us for the moment Commander Bruce is much more interested in the subject of his schedule." He turned his attention to Bruce. "You were asking me earlier if I could give you some accurate estimate of the length of our stay on Kepler III, I believe?"
"Not an unreasonable request, surely?" Bruce said, with a touch of sharpness that was not lost on Helen Lindstrom.
"Not unreasonable—but I'm afraid, at this stage, unanswerable," Magnus said. "We already have a considerable amount of information about the progress of the colony, of course, and the indications are favorable towards the granting of independence. But it is a maxim of Explorations Division that all such information must be checked out and verified. That is, of course, my job. But even with my able staff and all the help that your specialists will no doubt be able to afford me, I cannot commit myself to the extent of giving you even a rough estimate. One thing I can say with certainty is that I do not intend to be precipitate in reaching my decision. The operation will take as long as I consider necessary. You must understand, commander, that the granting of independence to a colony such as Kepler III is an extremely important affair. From the point of view of the colonists themselves, this is the goal towards which they and their ancestors have been working for a hundred years. There cannot—indeed,
must not
—be any possibility of error."
Helen Lindstrom looked across at Tom Bruce, wondering if this was the moment As Explorations Division officer in charge of the Kepler III operation, Magnus held rank equivalent to a World Supreme Court judge, but here on
Venturer Twelve
he was technically, at any rate, under the command of Bruce. In many ways Magnus must be dependent on the good will and cooperation of Bruce, and yet it seemed that already, at this early stage, he was forcing the pace towards a trial of strength. Bruce was not a man used to dealing with intangibles. Abstract concepts bothered him, and uncertain estimates such as Magnus had voiced were anathema in his universe. Bruce was "all Corps," a solid, dependable officer in the old "damn-the-torpedoes" tradition, but...
The tension in the small room was broken suddenly, as the raving note of the general alarm sounded. Bruce was on his feet, running for the door almost before the sound had registered in the minds of the others. Lindstrom was close behind him.
Lieutenant Wiltrud Anna Hoffman sat in the duty chair above main control, in front of the screens, repeaters and command phones which told the continuing story of
Venturer Twelve's
progress. Below her the duty crew moved, alert and ready, checking and feeding information. A cool, athletic blonde, with short-cut hair and icy pale-blue eyes, she watched and timed as full duty sections checked in on the signal board. She was not impressed by the fact that it had been her unusual duty to sound the general alarm. Very few eventualities in her life as an officer of Space Corps impressed Trudi Hoffman, in fact, sometimes, she found herself impatient with the apparent simplicity of the problem situations with which she was presented. Fortunately there were other areas of experience in which, given the right partner, one could be more adventurous. With Piet Huygens, for instance, there were times when...
The green light on the signal board registered "all stations manned." She punched out the time on the log keyboard. Good enough to satisfy Bruce, and Lindstrom, whose direct subordinate she was.
A tap on the shoulder, and Brace's voice rapped: "Out!"
She vacated the duty chair for the commander and stood next to Lindstrom. She watched him check the emergency manning time, heard him grant, and anticipated his next question by laying in front of him a copy of the MAYDAY call.
"Wangituru,"
Brace muttered. "Another Excelsior Corporation job."
Hoffman picked up the reference immediately. Bruce was not likely to forget what the Excelsior Corporation had tried to do to him over the necessary annihilation
of the mutinied
Athena,
but she knew that would not prevent his doing his duty in this new situation.
"Course maintained, sir," she said.
Bruce flashed her a brief, sideways look. "Naturally, lieutenant. I don't expect anyone to exceed their orders." He consulted the screen captioned
Wangituru.
At the center of the screen a blip pulsed faintly. "Huh. Speed not estimated yet? De Witt?"
"Linked with Maranne's crew, checking and recording."
"Contact message?"
"Sent, sir."
"Are they—" nodding at the screen, "—still sending?"
Hoffman pressed a switch, and a speaker relayed the static-battered message.
Bruce grunted. "Deceleration standby?"
"Activated, sir."
"Course change?"
"Coming through any second—"
A green light winked over the speaker labeled "Astrogation Main." Han De Witt's voice gave the figures.
Bruce spoke into the microphone which relayed his voice on all systems. "Deceleration coming up. Anyone with problems, speak now."
Nobody spoke.
Two seconds later, deceleration was on.
Wangituru
was a big, lumbering ore freighter, almost as big as
Venturer Twelve,
but possessing neither the Corps ship's complexity nor resources. Effectively, she was little more than a huge container fitted with the necessary propulsion units, with a minimum of space devoted to the comfort of her small crew. Unfortunate
ly it had been in this area that one of the two meteors had made its ravaging impact. Still moving at a speed of two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers an hour, the two ships hung within two hundred meters of each other, their bulks balanced in the star-pitted blackness of space.
There was a Corps saying, a saying which Bruce had turned into law for his own crew. "Get it right first time, because there's still plenty to go wrong." So, everything was right first time, under the coordination of Lieutenant Lee Ching.
Kuznetsov and his engineers were ready with replacements for outer skin and girders long before the ship achieved line of sight contact with
Wangituru.
They had all that was needed and were ready to jet across with their gear to the injured ship, suited and waiting as courses were matched and speeds equalized. Kuznetsov's men were, as always, first away, scorning the comfort of spaceboats, and using the power units of their heavy suits to propel not only themselves but the necessary materials and gear across the gulf between the two ships.
Han De Witt, the astrogator, was unhappy. Mindful of how this errand of mercy would upset their scheduled arrival at Kepler III, Commander Bruce had ordered that damaged astrogation gear should be taken out of
Wangituru
in banks and the equivalent put in from
Venturer Twelve's
precious stock of spares. The assumption was that later the damaged gear would be repaired and placed in
Venturer Twelve's
replacement stock, but De Witt was doubtful about the practicality of such a measure. However, he knew better than to argue. Lieutenant Maranne was in charge of the replacement operation. Her orders were clear; she was to see that the minimum necessary was done to enable the
Wangituru
to get back to Earth, nothing more. As usual, Brace's orders were ruthless and direct.
This same ruthlessness was in evidence in the way in which the medical side of the operation was arranged, but here the guiding hand was that of Surgeon Lieutenant George Tamba Maseba. The lightly injured were to be treated on the spot, in cooperation with the
Wangituru'
s Corps-trained sickbay orderly. The more seriously injured were divided into three categories. First were those who could be temporarily patched up and allowed to carry on aboard the ship until she reached Earth. Some of these would be fitted with limbs and organs from the replacement banks on
Venturer Twelve
and would, within a few weeks, be fit for light duties. Then there were those whose condition warranted mercy killing, and those who were already dead . . . these two latter classes had their own special importance.