The Makeshift Rocket (8 page)

‘Can you console her?’ asked Sarmishkidu, rolling an eye
in his direction. ‘I have endeavored to do so, and am sorry to report absolute failure.’

Herr Syrup took a strengthening pull from his bottle.

‘You see,’ explained the Martian, ‘her noise distracts me.’

He fumed smoke for a dour moment. ‘I should at least think,’ he whined, ‘that having dragged me here, away from my livelihood and all the small comforts which mean so much to a poor lonely exile among aliens like myself – sustaining, heartening consolations which already I find myself in sore need of – namely a table of elliptic integrals – having so ruthlessly forced me into the trackless depths of outer space, and apparently not even to any good purpose, she would have the consideration not to sit there and weep at me.’

‘Dere, dere,’ said Herr Syrup, patting the girl’s shoulder.

‘Uhhhhh,’said Emily.

‘Dere, dere, dere,’ continued Herr Syrup.

The girl raised streaming eyes and sobbed pathetically: ‘Oh, go to hell.’

‘Vat happened vit’ you and de mayor?’

A bit startled, Emily sniffed out: ‘Why, nothing, unless you mean that time last year when he asked me to preside at the Ladies’ Potato Race, during the harvest festi—Oh I The Major!’ She returned her face to her arm. ‘Uhhhh-hoo-hoo-hoo!’

‘I gather she tried to seduce him and failed,’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘Naturally, her professional pride is injured.’

Emily leaped to her feet. ‘What do you mean, professional?’ she screeched.

‘Warum
, nothing,’ stammered Sarmishkidu, retreating into a different character. ‘I just meant your female prides. All women are females by profession,
nicht war?
That is a
joke. Ha, ha,’ he added, to make certain he would be understood.

‘And I
didn’t
try to – to – Oh!’ Emily stormed out of the saloon. A string of firecracker Greek trailed after her.

‘Vat is she saying?’ gaped Herr Syrup.

Herr von Himmelschmidt turned pale. ‘Please don’t to ask,’ he said. ‘I did not know she was familiar with that edition of Aristophanes.’

‘
Helledusse!’
said the engineer moodily. ‘Ve ban hashed now.’

‘Hmmm,’ muttered Sarmishkidu. ‘It is correct that the enemy is armed and we are not. Nevertheless, it is an observational datum that there are three of us and only one of him, and so if we could separate him from his weapons, even briefly, and—’

‘And?’

‘Oh. Well, nothing, I suppose.’ Sarmishkidu brooded. ‘True,’ he said at last, ‘one of him would still be equivalent to four or five of us.’ He pounded the table with an indignant hand. Since the hand, being boneless, merely flopped when it struck, this was not very dramatic. ‘It is most unfair of him,’ he squeaked. ‘Ganging up on us like that.’

Herr Syrup stiffened with thought.

‘
Unlautere Wettbewerb
,’ amplified the Martian.

‘Do you know—’ whispered the Dane.

‘What?’

‘I hate to do dis. It does not seem right. I know it is not right. But by Yoe, maybe he ban asleep now!’

The idea dawned on Sarmishkidu. ‘Well, I’ll be an unelegandy proven lemma,’ he breathed. ‘So he doubtless is.’

‘And for veapons, in de machine shop is all de tools. Like wrenches, hammers, vire cable—’

‘Blowtorches,’ added Sarmishkidu eagerly. ‘Hacksaws, sulfuric acid—’

‘No, hoy, vait dere! Just a minute! I don’t vant to hurt him. Yust a little bonk on de head to make him sleep sounder, vile ve tie him up, dat’s all.’ Herr Syrup leaped erect. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Good luck,’ said Sarmishkidu, returning to his calculations.

‘Vat? But hey! Is you leaving me to do dis all alone?’

Sarmishkidu looked up. ‘Go!’ he said in a ringing croak. ‘Remember the Vikings! Remember Gustavus Adolphus! Remember King Christian standing by the high mast in smoke and steam! The blood of heroes is in your veins. Go, go to glory!’

Fired, Herr Syrup started for the door. He stopped there and asked wistfully, ‘Don’t you vant a little glory too?’

Sarmishkidu blew a smoke ring and scribbled an equation. ‘I am more the intellectual type,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Herr Syrup sighed and went down the corridors. His resolution endured till he actually stood in the workshop, by the glow of a dim night light, hefting a pipe wrench. Then he wavered.

The sound of deep, regular breathing assured him that Major McConnell slept in the adjoining bedchamber. But—‘I don’t vant to hurt him,’ repeated Herr Syrup. ‘I could so easy clop him too hard.’ He shuddered. ‘Or not hard enough. I better make another requisition on de cargo first. … No. Here ve go.’ Puffing out his mustache and mopping the sweat off his pate, the descendant of Vikings tiptoed into the engine room.

Rory McConnell would scarcely have been visible at all, had his taste in pajamas not run to iridescent synthesilc em
broidered with tiny shamrocks. As it was, his body, sprawled on a military bedroll, seemed in the murk to stretch on and on, interminably, besides having more breadth and thickness than was fair in anything but a gorilla. Herr Syrup hunkered shakily down by the massive red head, squinted till he had a spot, just behind one ear identified, and raised his weapon.

There was a snick of metal. The wan light glimmered along a pistol barrel. It prodded Herr Syrup’s nose. He let out a yelp and broke all Olympic records for the squatting high jump.

Rory McConnell chuckled. ‘I’m a sound sleeper when no one else comes sneakin’ close to me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve hunted in too many forests not to awaken thin. Goodnight, Mister Syrup.’

‘Goodnight,’ said Knud Axel Syrup in a low voice.

Blushing, he went back to the machine room. He waited there a moment, ashamed to return to his cabin past McConnell and yet angry that he must detour. Oh, the devil with it! He heard the slow breath of slumber resume. Viciously, he slammed his tool back into the rack loudly enough to wake an estivating Venusian. The sleeper did not even stir. And that was the unkindest cut of all.

Stamping his feet, slamming doors, and kicking panels as he went by – all without so much as breaking the calm rhythm of Rory McConnell’s lungs – Herr Syrup took the roundabout way to his cabin. He switched on the light and pointed a finger at Claus. The crow hopped off the Selected Works of Oehlenschlager and perched on the finger.

‘Claus,’ said Herr Syrup, not quite bellowing, ‘repeat after me: McConnell is a louse. McConnell is no good. McConnel eats vorms. On Friday. McConnell—’

—slept on.

Herr Syrup decided at last to retire himself. With a final
sentence for Claus to memorize, an opinion in crude language of Major McConnell’s pajamas, he took off his own clothes and slipped a candy-striped nightshirt over his head. Stretched out in his bunk, he counted herrings for a full half hour before realizing that he was more awake than ever.

‘Satans ogsaa
,’ he mumbled, and switched on the light and reached at random for a book. It turned out to be a poetry anthology. He opened it and read:

‘—
The secret workings of the yeast of life
.’

‘Yudas,’ he groaned. ‘Yeast.’

For a moment Herr Syrup, though ordinarily the gentlest of men, entertained bloodshot fantasies of turning the ship’s atomic-hydrogen torch into a sort of science fiction blaster and burning Major McConnell down. Then he decided that it was impractical and that all he could do was requisition a case of lager and thus get to sleep. Or at least pass the night watch more agreeably. He decorated his feet with outsize slippers and padded into the corridor.

Emily Croft jumped. ‘Oh!’ she squeaked, whipping her robe about her. The engineer brightened a little, having glimpsed that her own taste in sleeping apparel ran merely to what nature had provided.

‘Vich is sure better dan little green clovers,’ he muttered.

‘Oh … you startled me.’ The girl blinked. ‘What did you say?’

‘Dat crook in dere.’ Herr Syrup jerked a splay thumb at the engine room door. ‘He goes to bed in shiny payamas vit’ shamrocks measled all over.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Emily. ‘I hope his wife can teach him—’ She skidded to a halt and blushed. ‘I mean, if any woman would be so foolish as to have such a big oaf.’

‘I doubt it,’ snarled the Dane. ‘I bet he snores.’

‘He does not!’ Emily stamped her foot.

‘Oh-ho,’ said Herr Syrup. ‘You ban listening?’

‘I was only out for a constitutional in the hope of overcoming an unfortunate insomnia,’ said Miss Croft primly. ‘It was sheer chance which took me past here. I mean, nobody who can lie there like a pig and, and sleep when—’ She clouded up for a rainstorm. ‘I mean, how
could
he?’

‘Vell, but you don’t care about him anyvay, do you?’

‘Of course not! I hope he rots, I mean decays. No, I don’t actually mean that, you know, because even if he is an awful lout he is still a human being and, well, I would just like to teach him a lesson. I mean, teach him to have more consideration for others and not go right to sleep as if nothing at all had happened, because I could see that he was hurt and if he had only given me a chance to explain, I – Oh, never mind!’ Emily clenched her fists and stamped her foot again. ‘I’d just like to lock him up in there, since he’s sleeping so soundly. That would teach him that other people have feelings even if he doesn’t!’

Herr Syrup’s jaw dropped with an audible clank.

Emily’s eyes widened. One small hand stole to her mouth. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘is anything wrong?’

‘By yiminy,’ whispered Herr Syrup. ‘By yumping yiminy.’

‘Oh, really now, it isn’t that bad. I mean, I know we’re in an awful pickle and all that sort of thing, but really—’

‘No. I got it figured. I got a vay to get de Erser off of our necks!’

‘What?’

‘
Ja, ja, ja
, it is so simple I could beat my old knucklebone brains dat I don’t t’ink of it right avay. Look, so long as ve stay out of de engine room he sleeps yust like de dummy in a bridge game vaiting for de last trump. No? Okay, so I close all de doors to him, dere is only t’ree, dis main vun and vun
to my cabin and vun to de vorkshop. I close dem and veld dem shut and dere he is!’

Emily gasped.

She leaned forward and kissed him.

‘Yudas priest,’ murmured Herr Syrup faintly. His revolving eyeballs slowed and he licked his lips. ‘T’ank you very kind,’ he said.

‘You’re wonderful!’ glowed Emily, brushing mustache hairs off her nose.

And then, suddenly: ‘No. No, we can’t. I mean, he’ll be right in there with the machinery and if he turns it off—’

‘Dat’s okay. All de generators and t’ings is locked in deir shieldings, and dose keys I have got.’ Herr Syrup stumped quickly down the hall and into the machine shop. ‘His gun does him no good behind velded alloy plating.’ He selected a torch, plugged it in, and checked the current. ‘So. Please to hand me dat helmet and apron and dose gloves. Don’t look bare-eyed at de flame.’

Gently, he closed the side door. Momentarily he was terrifield that McConnell would awaken: not that the Erseman would do him any harm, but the scoundrel was so unfairly large. However, even the reek of burning paint, which sent Emily gagging back into the corridor, failed to stir him.

Herr Syrup plugged his torch to a drum of extension cord and trailed after her. ‘Tum-te-tum-te-tum,’ he warbled, attacking the main door. ‘How does dat old American vork song go? Yohn Henry said to de captain, Vell, a man ain’t not’ig but a man, but before I umpty-tumty-somet’ing-somet’ing, I’ll die vit’ a somet’ing-umpty-tum, Lord, Lord, I’ll die vit’ a tiddly-tiddly-pom!’ He finished the job. ‘And now to my cabin, and ve is t’rough.’

Emily’s mouth quivered. ‘I do hate to do this,’ she said. ‘I mean, he is such a darling. No, of course he isn’t, I mean
he’s an oaf, but – not really an oaf either, he just has never had a chance to – Oh, you know what I mean! And now he’ll be shut away in there, all alone, for days and days and days.’

Herr Syrup paused. ‘You can talk to him on de intercom,’ he suggested.

‘What?’ She elevated her nose. ‘That big lout?
Let
him sit all alone! Maybe then he can see there are other people in the universe besides himself!’

Herr Syrup entered his cabin and began to close the inner door.

‘McConnell is a four-lettering love child!’ screamed Claus.

‘He is not either!’ yelled Emily, turning red.

There was a stir in the engine-room darkness. ‘What’s all that racket out there?’ complained a lilting basso. ‘Is it not enough to break me heart, ye must keep me from the sleep which is me one remainin’ comfort?’

‘Sorry,’ said Herr Syrup, and closed the door.

‘Hey, there!’ bawled McConnell. He bounced off his bed roll. The vibration of it shivered in the metal. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Yust lie down,’ babbled Herr Syrup. ‘Go back to sleep.’ His cracked baritone soared as he switched on the torch. Sparks showered about him. ‘
Lullaby-y-y and good night, dy-y-y mo-o-o-ders deli-ight
—’

‘Ah, ha!’ McConnell thundered toward the door. ‘So ’tis cannin’ me ye are, ye treacherous Black-an’-Tanners! We’ll see about that!’

‘Look out!’ screamed Emily. ‘Look out, Rory! It’s hot!’

A torrent of Gaelic oaths, which made Claus gape in awe, informed her that McConnell had discovered this for himself. Herr Syrup played the flame up and down and crossways. A tommy gun rattled on the other side, but the
Girl
, though
old, was of good solid construction, and nothing happened but a nasty spang of ricochet.

‘Don’t!’ pleaded Emily. ‘Don’t, Rory! You’ll kill yourself! Oh, Rory, be careful!’

Herr Syrup cut off his torch, slapped back his helmet, and looked with enormous self-congratulation at the slowly cooling seams. ‘Dere, now,’ he said. ‘Dat’s dat!’

Claus squawked. The engineer turned around just in time to see his bunk blankets spring up in flame.

Emily leaned against the wall and cried through smoke and fire extinguisher fumes: ‘Rory, Rory I Are you all right, Rory?’

‘Oh, yes, I’m alive,’ growled the voice behind the panels. ‘It pleases ye better to let me thirst an’ starve to death in here than kill me honestly, eh?’

‘
Ou ma Dia
!’ gasped the girl. ‘I didn’t think of that!’