Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel (6 page)

“Ten seconds. Ten seconds.” The voice quavers with inexperience.

The crew moves hastily to secure a few last styli and terminals. There is a pause, a single bell-like tone—a sudden painful wrenching at the gut—and then the floor drops out. Korie grabs at his stanchion with a sharp, stabbing vertigo.

Brandt gasps at the suddenness of it, finds himself unable to breathe. Half out of his couch, his safety harness binds tightly across his chest. Loosening it with one hand, he pulls himself back into the chair.

On the horseshoe, some of the men are sitting in mid-air and cursing softly. Others are pulling themselves down into couches and hastily fastening their belts. One man—Wolfe—grabs futilely at a floating stylus, shoots suddenly upwards, a look of annoyance on his face.

Another man—a husky man—doesn’t pull himself back into his couch. Angrily, he seizes the railing on the inner edge of the horseshoe and pulls himself through the air, hand over hand, toward the gravity control board. “Rogers, you damned idiot! Where the hell did you ever learn—”

“Reynolds! Get back to your post!”
The captain’s deep voice thunders across the bridge. There is a sudden hushed stillness; silent white faces turn and look. Reynolds hesitates, caught in mid-air, hands still on the railing.

“Dammit, sir! He’s—”

“Did you hear me? I do the disciplining here!” No one moves. Even Wolfe, floating at the ceiling, is motionless. His elusive stylus drifts across the bridge, drifts directly across the captain’s field of vision.

Brandt ignores it; looks only at Reynolds. Abruptly the man realizes where he is. “Yes, sir.”

He turns in mid-air and moves back along the railing to his own console. He grabs at his seat and pulls his big frame down into it. Fumbling with his seat belt he makes a point of fastening it with a loud magnetic click.

The captain glances around at the rest of the bridge; the men turn silently back to their boards. An expressionless ensign reaches up and pulls Wolfe back to deck.

“Thanks.” He starts to add something else, but a cold look from Korie freezes it in his throat. He pulls himself into a couch instead.

Brandt locks eyes with Korie—the first officer is hanging airily off a stanchion, one foot hooked casually through a metal hole—and inclines his head sharply toward the front of the bridge.
Find out what happened.

Korie nods,
message received
, unhooks his leg, launches himself across the bridge toward Rogers. Catching hold of another stanchion, he brings himself to an awkward stop. “All right, Rogers. Start talking.”

Shaking nervously, Rogers stammers out, “I—I don’t know. Mr. Korie, sir—all I did was hit the power cut-off and—well, it was supposed to fade and it didn’t—”

“Why didn’t you use the dimmer?”

“The dimmer, sir?”

“You do know what a dimmer is?”

“No, sir, I—”

Korie’s pale eyes narrow. “Haven’t you done this before?” he demands.

“No, sir, I never—I was supposed to be a radec tech. That’s all they trained me for—”

The first officer stares at him unbelievingly.

“—I was the rush training course. They only taught us our specialties; I mean, we had the basics, but they said we’d learn the rest on ship—”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I did—I mean, I was. That is, I didn’t finish.”

“Then why were you on this board?”

“They told me to.”

“Who did?”

“Uh—”

Korie cuts him off. “Never mind. I’ll see who made up the duty roster. Who was supposed to check you out on this board?”

“Wolfe, sir; I mean Crewman Wolfe—but he said it was all automatic. I didn’t think that—”

Korie ignores him, swings around to face the still silent bridge. “Wolfe!”

Wolfe glances over fearfully. “Yes, sir?”

“Get up here!”

“Yes, sir.” He starts to launch himself off the railing, thinks better of it, and pulls himself along it instead. With a quick hand-over motion, he circles the horseshoe to where Korie hangs in mid-air.

“Were you supposed to check this man out on the gravity board?”

“Well, I—”

“Were you or were you not?”

“Uh, sir, I—”

“Yes or no?” Korie demands.

“Uh . . . yes, sir,” Wolfe admits, “I was supposed to check him out.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Sir?”

“I said, why didn’t you?”

“I did, sir.”

“They when doesn’t he know what a dimmer is?”

“It wasn’t necessary, sir.”

“It wasn’t
what
!!”

“Well, sir, it’s hardly ever needed. I didn’t think—”

“You’re damn right you didn’t think!” Korie states at him for a long moment, holding himself back. The captain is watching, expressionless. Korie says slowly, “You told this man this board is all automatic?”

“Yes, sir.”

A pause. “Wolfe, I’d suspect you of being a saboteur if you weren’t so stupid.”

“Sir, I—” But the dark look on Korie’s face tells him that any attempt at explanation would only be wasted. He trails off.

A communicator panel on the console beside and below them begins flashing angrily. Korie ignores it. Rogers starts to reach—

“Leave it,” growls Korie, not taking his eyes off Wolfe. Rogers snatches his hand back as if burned.

Korie looks to Brandt, no help there. He looks back to the pasty-faced Wolfe, utters a single syllable, “Off.”

“Sir?”

“Is there something wrong with your hearing, too? I said, get off—off the bridge. You’re confined to quarters.” Without waiting to see if his order is followed—he is sure that it will be—Korie turns to the console, reaches past Rogers, and hits the still-flashing button.

A gruff voice bellows from the panel speaker. “Bridge, this is the galley!”

Rogers moans softly, “Oh, no.”

The gruff voice continues, “I thought I told you to control those goddamn G’s! You ought to see the mess you’ve made in my kitchen! I ought to drag you down here and make you clean it yourself.”

The first officer and the captain exchange a quick glance.

Korie starts to reach for his hand mike, but a gesture from Brandt halts him. Brandt unclips his own hand mike, thumbs it to life. “Cookie, if you call this bridge on more time
to complain about the gravity, I will personally come down there and stuff you into your own garbage disposal!”

An angry “Who’s
this
!!” roars from the speakers.

“
This
is the captain!” Brandt bellows back, and the whole ship is suddenly silent.

Brandt lowers his hand mike slowly, now speaking to every man on the ship. “Goddamn it! Have you all gone crazy?”

No one answers. The captain looks around the room; the men are pale, unmoving figures, frozen in mid-air.

“In case you have forgotten,” Brandt says in a slow and measured tone, “we are in a state of war. You are supposed to be fighting men. And that does
not
mean that you will fight with each other.”

He pauses, fixes an eye directly on Reynolds, his own personal bane. “I have put up with it for as long as I am going to. From now on, if any of you have any personal differences, the gym is always open. Use it. Go in there and put on the boxing gloves and slug it out—but, by God, you will keep your arguments off my bridge.
Do you understand. . . ?
”

He looks slowly around the room. “If you can’t remember that, then please let me know. I’m sure I can think of something to remind you. And if I can’t, I know Mr. Korie can. Are there any questions?”

Silence. There are no questions.

“Good! I didn’t think so. Now, get back to your boards.”

The crew moves quickly; no one wants to find out just how serious the captain is. Blue-clad crewmen pull themselves quickly around to float once more over their quiet humming consoles, each trying to outdo the other in feigning nonchalance.

The captain clips his hand mike back to his belt and stares resolutely ahead. He forces himself to concentrate on the progress of the degaussing.

At the horseshoe, Korie directs a wide-eyed Rogers back to his board, then turns and notices Wolfe, still floating beside him. The man is pale and nervous, and droplets of sweat are beaded on his skin.

“Are you still here?”

“Sir, may I just explain—”

“I gave you an order, Wolfe. I expect it to be obeyed.”

Wolfe looks pleadingly into Korie’s face, seeking one last chance—a spark of mercy. Finding none, his face sags. He drops his eyes. “Yes, sir.” Shifting his hold on the railing he pulls himself along it toward the rear of the bridge. The door slides shut behind him with a swift and final
thunk.

Korie glances quickly around the room. “Goldberg,” he calls.

A short stocky man with incongruously red hair answers, “Yes, sir?”

“You know this board.” It is a statement, not a question.

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir?” Rogers, floating behind Korie, breaks in.

Korie twists in mid-air to look at him. “Yes?”

“I’d like to request permission to be relieved of duty on the bridge, sir.”

“Denied.” He starts to turn away—

“But, sir. I—”

Korie stops—he tries to stop—he writhes in mid-air. He catches a handhold, rights himself. Looking at Rogers,
“I said, denied.”
He stares at the man, as if daring him to speak.

Rogers submits. “Yes, sir.”

Korie turns back to the pit. “Goldberg,” he snaps. “Check this man out on his board.” He indicates Rogers.

“Yes, sir.” The red-haired man starts swimming across the bridge toward them.

“Next time,” Korie mutters, “you won’t have an excuse, Rogers, so you had better learn it right.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Korie releases his hold on the stanchion and drifts toward the center of the pit. He grabs at the back of a couch, misses, grabs again. He pulls himself down into tit and straps a belt loosely across his waist. Wiping his forehead with the back of one had, he realizes suddenly that he is sweating. He slides his damp palms along his thighs to dry them.

To his left is Brandt. The captain is immobile; he ignores his first officer as he does the rest of the bridge. Korie follows his heavy gaze forward to where the bright, faceless figures are just now sealing up the gaping hole in the ship’s metal back. All four are floating free, their gravitors turned off as not to interfere with the degaussing. They are secured by safety lines to grommets on the hull. One of the men continually refers to a panel of meters that he carries,
checking the progress of the degaussing operation. Slowly, the latent magnetism of the grids is neutralized.

Noting the captain’s expressionless face, Korie stretches toward him and says in a quiet whisper, “I thought we weren’t going to yell at them anymore. . .”

Without taking his eyes from the screen, Brandt mutters, “I changed my mind.”

One thing you should always remember when training your pet; be patient with him. Never strike the animal—especially in anger.

However, in some cases, a sudden sharp rap across the nose may be necessary to attract his attention.

—J.H. HARRIS,

The New Revised Guide to

Training Your Pet
,

abridged edition

Amidst the hum of the consoles, a communicator gives a sudden bleep. “Beagle here. We’re just about finished.”

“Right,” answers one of the pilot officers. “We’ll take it from here.” He looks up to the horseshoe and nods to Goldberg.

Goldberg turns to Rogers, floating thin and nervous beside his console. “All right,” he says, “do you understand it now?”

“I think so. . . .”

“You
think
so?!!”

“I mean, yes,” Rogers corrects himself quickly. “This thing—I mean the dimmer—has to be patched in and slowly brought up to full. . . .”

Goldberg sighs. “That’s right.” He glances up at one of the screens above his head, checking to see that the suited figures are indeed finished with the degaussing. He turns back to Rogers. “All right, you can begin procedure.”

Rogers nods, starts to reach, then hesitates. He sucks in his lower lip—his thin face is suddenly unsure. “Wait—let me go over this again . . . make sure I’ve got it right.”

Goldberg sighs audibly, then stretches past him and flicks at a button. The sound of the klaxon screeches through the ship again. Thumbing another control, Goldberg rasps, “Secure for gravity. Security for gravity.” Looking at Rogers, “All right now, what’s next?”

His thin face is still puzzled, “Ten second warning?”

“I meant after that.”

“Bring up the dimmer?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Uh—I’m going to bring up the dimmer.”

Sighing loudly, Goldberg says, “Thank you, Rogers. Thank you very much. All right, go ahead. Sound your warning.”

He does so. His thin voice echoes through the bridge and through the ship. Around the room, crewmen hastily orient themselves into a generally vertical attitude. Some of the more skeptical ones pull themselves into couches and fasten safety harnesses.

Looking at his watch. Goldberg counts silently, “All right . . .
now
.”

Rogers touches a button, patches in the dimmer, sounds a warning chime, and starts to bring the dimmer control up to full. Gradually, the falling sensation at the gut starts to ease: Wolfe’s floating stylus starts to drift downward. The floor again becomes a floor. Goldberg poises himself above a couch, drops slowly toward it . . .

Rogers pushes the dimmer switch slowly toward the top, slow. He sinks toward the floor, relaxing a bit, he takes his hand off the switch and—not thinking—taps it easily home.

The deck leaps up and bangs against the soles of his shoes, throwing him off balance. Crewmen sag under the sudden surge of weight and somewhere a stylus clatters loudly on the deck. Goldberg sinks—
oof!
—into his couch. He sits there despairing, covering his eyes with one freckled hand.

At the back of the bridge, Willis levers himself awkwardly out of his couch and silently hands a bill to Reynolds, who takes it, folds it once, and stuffs it smugly into a pocket of this tunic.

At his console, Rogers secures the dimmer switch, locks it into position, and clips a plastic cover carefully across it. That, too, he locks into place. Eagerly, he turns to Goldberg. “Well?”