John Maddox Roberts - Space Angel (5 page)

Once their physiological histories were taken care of, Michelle began to question them about their psychological histories. Kelly found himself unsure whether these were professional questions or the result of curiosity. He did notice that Michelle seemed far more interested in Torwald's background than in his own. Eventually she sent Kelly out to set the table, but he could still hear them talking.

"Ever been married, Tor?"

"Once. My wife was a scoutship officer like me. She was sent out to recon Toth before the landing. Only one ship of her wing returned, and it wasn't hers.

We were expendable people in the scoutships. What about you?"

"Twice. The first was a med officer in a hospital attached to the University of Lima. He was killed in a bombing before the Shield was developed. The other was an engineer on a troop transport. We met when I treated him for burns while I was serving aboard the
Asklepios.
He was killed a year later at Li Po." Neither wasted words on empty consolations. Everybody had lost someone in the War. If you tried to console everyone you met, little time would remain for anything else.

After lunch, Torwald told Kelly to find a notebook before joining him in the supply room—there would be a good deal of paperwork for the boy to handle. Kelly headed back to his cabin. Notebooks and scribers had been among the supplies Torwald had dictated back on Earth. Returning with a pad, Kelly was crossing the hold when he noticed a motion from the corner of his eye. Holding tightly to the railing, he leaned over to peer into the dim, cavernous hold below.

There it was again. Something darted across the bottom of the hold. Darted wasn't quite the word to describe the motion—it was more like a waddle, although very quick. And whatever made it was green. Intrigued, Kelly climbed over the railing and slid down a support strut to the bottom. He peered forward through the cylindrical chamber. Something was moving away from him on four feet. It seemed to be about the size of a small dog. Kelly approached the critter cautiously; for all he knew, the thing might be dangerous. Sensing his presence behind it, the creature turned and stood on its hind legs, forelegs dangling barely reaching its round belly. Its fiat face had a tiny mouth and an oversized, onion-shaped nose. The head was framed by two furry ears, giving the thing the look of someone wearing a poke bonnet. It had round button eyes, widely spaced. A more harmless-looking creature Kelly had never seen.

"Hey, are you scaring Teddy?" Kelly looked up. 'the comm officer, Nancy Wu, was staring down over the edge of the catwalk.

"Teddy?"

"Of course, who did you think it was? Bring him up here. He's not supposed to be loose in the hold." Kelly walked up to the creature. Before he could stoop in pick him up, Teddy simply climbed Kelly's trouser leg to the front of his coverall, then installed himself on his shoulder, where he stared down into his face and hlinked solemnly. Kelly turned and climbed the ladder. When he was level with the catwalk, Teddy stepped from his shoulder and scampered to Nancy, who scooped him into her arms.

"What were you doing, chasing him? You've scared him half to death." Kelly regarded the creature, which looked about as panicked as the average oyster.

"I wasn't chasing him. I just saw him down there and I was curious. What is he anyway?"

"A Narcissan Teddybear, of course."

"Of course," said Kelly, nodding solemnly, still unenlightened. He wanted to ask more about the creature, but Nancy turned and stalked away. Kelly continued on his way to the supply room and arrived without encountering any more extraterrestrials—or even any terrestrials, for that matter.

"What took you so long?" Torwald asked as the boy entered.

"How come everybody says that?" said Kelly, growing irritated.

"Because you're expected to step lively in space, and you haven't stepped lively enough. On the old seagoing ships, slow crewmen were helped along with a rope's end applied where it would do the most good. You're not back on the block, you know." Torwald turned to rummage through a pile of invoices, and Kelly looked around at the chaotic jumble of the supply room. His eye was caught by a rack of machines standing against a bulkhead. They were shiny-black

devices of metal and plastic that looked something like forcebeam rifles, but heavier and larger, each with a complex folding tripod. Kelly reached out to pick one up.

"Don't touch it!" snapped Torwald.

"Huh?" Kelly was startled at the real anger in Torwald's voice.

"Never touch a lightbeam device aboard ship! Remember when the skipper demanded our sidearms, and I gave her my Service laser? That wasn't just for form. You can cut a ship this size clean in two with one of those things—it's expressly forbidden for any crew member to handle a device that can destroy the integrity of the ship's hull. Only the engineer and med officer are exempted, and then only under specific conditions. The skipper even has to be present when Michelle uses her laser scalpel or tooth drill. For that matter, I can't even test these cutters until we make planetfall. That's why we generally make elaborate tests at the point of purchase. Once you've upped ship, it's too late."

"They're shortbeams, aren't they? Why not set it for a half-meter beam and test it? That'd be safe."

"What if it's the depth control that's malfunctioning, dummy?"

"Oh, yeah," Kelly said sheepishly nodding as the light dawned.

Torwald sat down behind a well-worn console and punched a button marked
bridge.

"Bridge here. This is Ham."

"Ham, Torwald here. Could you flash me the inventory-control info?"

"Sure, but I don't envy you this job."

Torwald and Kelly soon understood precisely what he meant. As the rows of words and figures progressed across the screen, Torwald's expression turned to one of alarm. He punched for the bridge again.

"Ham, even the computer can't make anything out of these figures, and the last entry is dated March 2187! I heard that my predecessor was a drunk, but I didn't know he was a saboteur."

"Old Krilencu was kind of peculiar," Ham admitted impassively. "He always seemed to know how much of everything there was, and where it was. He just sort of carried everything around in his head."

"Including an ever increasing load of rocket cleaner."

"Nobody said you were going to have an easy job. If you wanted one, you should've shipped on a line vessel." With that, the mate clicked the communicator off.

Torwald glared at the speaker for a moment, then turned to Kelly. "We might as well get started. First, we sort. Clear out a section against that bulkhead opposite the hatch, and we'll put all the planetside equipment there."

During her peregrinations about the galaxy, the
Space Angel
had picked up an incredible assortment of gear, most of which Kelly didn't recognize. There were collapsible tents, heaters, ice axes, machetes, sonic insect-repellers, backpacks, saws, surveying instruments, tools of every sort, and underwater breathing apparatus, cold-weather survival gear, respirators, poisonous-gas filters—things to keep humans alive and working in a hundred environments. There was much more. It all presented an appalling spectacle.

"We've got to catalog all this?"

"No, Kelly
you're
going to sort. I'll catalog. If you're going to learn spacing, this is the place to learn it. Everything that goes into running the ship passes through this department sooner or later. The quartermaster's responsible for all materiel exclusive of cargo. If Nancy needs some wiring for her communications gear, she'll find it here. If the bridge needs new chart thimble blanks, I'll have to order them. Michelle runs the galley, but I'll be buying the rations when we're in port. The quartermaster keeps records of all issues and returns of gear, all expenditures of fuels and perishables—the worksl That, of course, apparently didn't apply to my distinguished predeces

sor.

"I didn't think the job was so complicated." Kelly was clearly intimidated.

"They're all complicated. With luck, we may have this department under control by the time we reach the edge of the solar system and can kick in the Whoopee Drive."

"When will that be?" asked Kelly.

"About two months, this trip."

"That long? Does it take so long to get out of every system?"

"Depends on the star and where you're starting from, Kelly. Two months is about average."

Kelly was a little disheartened. He had pictured a spacer's life involving landings on dozens of planets every year. He hadn't realized there would be so much waiting. "It seems like a long time between planets."

"Don't worry. You won't get bored. We'll keep you occupied."

Torwald proved as good as his word. Kelly spent the better part of the next two ship-months getting the supply room in order, and more was involved than just sorting and shelving. The youth found that Torwald wanted every piece of equipment in perfect working order. There were cleaning and repairing to do. Worn parts had to be replaced, and where no replacements were available, Torwald would fabricate them in the machine shop adjoining the supply room. When the two had finished sorting and refurbishing, every piece of string was accounted for, every axe and machete polished and sharpened. A fair start had been made on the records, but that task at times seemed hopeless. Items listed on the old inventories had disappeared without record, and others seemed to have appeared, equally without documentation. Kelly

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had to keep duplicate notes on everything, because Torwald said that he didn't trust any ship's computer that could allow such outrages.

On the occasions when he could be spared from his supply room duties, Kelly pulled all the scut details for the other departments. He was rapidly putting the "adventure" of spacing in its proper place—it was difficult to find or nonexistent. The crew, treated him with varying degrees of interest. Nancy had not spoken ten words to him since their encounter in the hold. But then, she rarely said anything to anybody. Finn, on the other hand, would regale him for hours with stories of his travels and experiences, most of which Kelly decided were outrageous lies. Lafayette continued to ride him unmercifully whenever Kelly's duties threw them together. On one occasion, he complained of this to Torwald.

"Look, Kelly, traditionally, the newest, youngest man on ship catches hell from the man who was formerly in that position. That's been going on in ships since before Lord Nelson was a middy."

"Lord who was a what?"

"Look it up. Now, get back to work."

The day arrived when they reached the outer rim of the solar system and could go into interstellar drive. Kelly, like all the rest, was a bit light-headed from fasting and using purgatives. The others had assured him that this regimen would make the experience less unpleasant. When the warning came over the intercom, Kelly retired to his compartment, strapped himself on the toilet, and tied a bag over his mouth. One of the physical effects of the Whoopee Drive was that all bodily systems began to behave erratically, causing bowels and bladder to let go and the stomach to convulse in projectile vomiting. Perspiration drenched the body, eyes watered, and the nose streamed mucus. After that came the hallucinations.

The subsonic twang went through the ship, and

Kelly braced himself. It did no good. After the worst of the convulsions were over, he saw to his horror that his room swarmed with tiny, metallic termites, and they were nibbling away at the walls of the cabin. When they had eaten through the side, he knew he would die of explosive decompression. They were almost through when the second twang was felt. It was the cockcrow that made spacers' demons return to wherever they came from.

When he'd washed up, Kelly slowly made his way to the mess, where he found the other crew members, like him, a bit pale and shaky. Michelle was trying to get everyone to eat soup to replace some of the fluids they had lost.

"Is it always that bad?" Kelly asked Ham in a hoarse croak.

"Sometimes it's worse. You made it here under your own power, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Next time, you'll know something of what to expect, so the transition won't be such a shock."

"You should see what it's like on a thirty-thousand-man troop transport," said Michelle. "Sometimes we had to take them through in free fall with nothing but netting to separate the men."

While Kelly was deciding that perhaps his experience hadn't been so bad after all, the skipper bustled in, looking no worse than usual. Rumors had it that some spacers actually
liked
Whoopee Drive transition, and he suspected that she was one of them.

"Finn," she said," you brought us out right on the money. We'll be in parking orbit around Alpha Tau in two hours. Good navigation. My compliments to your computer." The skipper turned to Popov. "The landing pad built for the Navy during the War was abandoned, but they left a beacon. Do you know if Strelnikov found a suitable landing site near the crystal?"

"He thought that it might be feasible, but he's no pilot

He didn't dare ask any of the Navy pilots for fear of arousing suspicion."

We'll land on the Navy pad, then," said the skipper. We'll send the atmosphere craft to scout the site. I hope we can locate a good berth there; it would be hell transporting the crystal all the way back to the base.