“It is mail,” said Harrison.
“G’wan, nobody has letters in this neck of the cosmos.”
“I do.”
“How did you get it?”
“Worrall brought it from town an hour back. Friend of mine gave him dinner, let him bring the letter to kill the ob.” He pulled a large ear. “Influence, that’s what you boys need.”
Registering annoyance, one demanded, “What’s Worrall doing off the boat? Is he privileged?”
“Sort of. He’s married, with three kids.”
“So what?”
“The ambassador figures that some people can be trusted more than others. They’re not so likely to disappear, having too much to lose. So a few have been sorted out and sent into town to seek information about the missing men.”
“They found out anything?”
“Not much. Worrall says it’s a waste of time. He found a few of our men here and there, tried to persuade them to return, but each said, ‘I won’t!’ The Gands all said, ‘Myob!’ And that’s that.”
“There must be something in it,” decided one of them, thoughtfully. “I’d like to go see for myself.”
“That’s what Grayder’s afraid of.”
“We’ll give him more than that to worry about if he doesn’t become reasonable soon. Our patience is evaporating.”
“Mutinous talk,” Harrison reproved. He shook his head, looked sad. “You shock me.”
He continued along the corridor, reached his own cabin, eyed the envelope. The writing inside might be feminine. He hoped so. He tore it open and had a look. It wasn’t.
Signed by Gleed, the missive read, “Never mind where I am or what I’m doing—this might get into the wrong hands. All I’ll tell you is that I’ll be fixed up topnotch providing I wait a decent interval to improve acquaintance. The rest of this concerns you.”
“Huh?” He leaned back on his bunk, held the letter nearer the light.
“I found a little fat guy running an empty shop. He just sits there, waiting. Next, I learn that he’s established possession by occupation. He’s doing it on behalf of a factory that makes two-ball rollers—those fan-driven cycles. They want someone to operate the place as a local roller sales and service depot. The little fat man has had four applications to date, but hone with any engineering ability. The one who eventually gets this place will plant a functional-ob on the town, whatever that means. Anyway, this joint is yours for the taking. Don’t be stupid. Jump in—the water’s fine.”
“Zipping meteors!” said Harrison. His eyes traveled on to the bottom.
“P.S. Seth will give you the address. P.P.S. This burg is your brunette’s home town and she’s thinking of coming back. She wants to live near her sister—and so do I. Said sister is a honey!”
He stirred restlessly, read it through a second time, got up and paced around his tiny cabin. There were twelve hundred occupied worlds within the scope of the Empire. He’d seen about one-tenth of them. No spaceman could live long enough to get a look at the lot. The service was divided into cosmic groups, each dealing with its own sector.
Except by hearsay, of which there was plenty and most of it highly colored, he would never know what heavens or pseudo-heavens existed in other sectors. In any case, it would be a blind gamble to pick an unfamiliar world for landbound life on someone else’s recommendation. Not all think alike, or have the same tastes. One man’s meat may be another man’s poison.
The choice for retirement—which was the unlovely name for beginning another, different but vigorous life—was high-priced Terra or some more desirable planet in his own sector. There was the Epsilon group, fourteen of them, all attractive providing you could suffer the gravity and endure lumbering around like a tired elephant. There was Norton’s Pink Heaven if, for the sake of getting by in peace, you could pander to Septimus Norton’s rajah-complex and put up with his delusions of grandeur.
Up on the edge of the Milky Way was a matriarchy run by blonde Amazons, and a world of wizards, and a Pentecostal planet, and a globe where semisentient vegetables cultivated themselves under the direction of human masters; all scattered across forty light-years of space but readily accessible by Blieder-drive.
There were more than a hundred known to him by personal experience, though merely a tithe of the whole. All offered life and that company which is the essence of life. But this world, Gand, had something the others lacked. It had the quality of being present. It was part of the existing environment from which he drew data on which to build his decisions. The others were not. They lost virtue by being absent and faraway.
Unobtrusively, he made his way to the Blieder-room lockers, spent an hour cleaning and oiling his bicycle. Twilight was approaching when he returned. Taking a thin plaque from his pocket, he hung it on the wall, lay on his bunk and stared at it.
F—I. W.
The caller-system clicked, cleared its throat, announced, “All personnel will stand by for general instructions at eight hours tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” said Harrison. He closed his eyes.
Seven-twenty in the morning, but nobody thought it early. There is little sense of earliness or lateness among space-roamers—to regain it they have to be landbound a month, watching a sun rise and set The chartroom was empty but there was much activity in the control cabin. Grayder was there with Shelton, Hame, Navigators Adamson, Werth and Yates and, of course, His Excellency.
“I never thought the day would come,” groused the latter, frowning at the star map over which the navigators pored. “Less than a couple of weeks, and we get out admitting defeat.”
“With all respect, your excellency, it doesn’t look that way to me,” said Captain Grayder. “One can be defeated only by enemies. These people are not enemies. That’s precisely where they’ve got us by the short hairs. They’re not definable as hostile.”
“That may be. I still say it’s defeat. What else could you call it?”
“We’ve been outwitted by awkward relations. There’s not much we can do about it. A man doesn’t beat up his nieces and nephews merely because they won’t speak to him.”
“That’s your viewpoint as a ship’s commander. You’re confronted by a situation that requires you to go back to base and report. It’s routine. The whole service is hidebound with routine.” The ambassador again eyed the star map as if he found it offensive. “My own status is different. If I get out, it’s a diplomatic defeat, an insult to the dignity and prestige of Terra. I’m far from sure that I ought to go. It might be better if I stayed put—though that would give them the chance to offer further insults.”
“I would not presume to advise you what to do for the best,” Grayder said. “All I know is this: we carry troops and armaments for any policing or protective purposes that might be found necessary here. But I can’t use them offensively against these Gands because they’ve provided no pretext and because, in any case, our full strength isn’t enough to crush twelve millions of them. We need an armada for that. We’d be fighting at the extreme of our reach—and the reward of victory would be a useless world.”
“Don’t remind me. I’ve stewed it until I’m sick of it.”
Grayder shrugged. He was a man of action so long as it was action in space. Planetary shenanigans were not properly his pigeon. Now that the decisive moment was drawing near, when he would be back in his own attenuated element, he was becoming phlegmatic. To him, Gand was a visit among a hundred such, with plenty more to come.
“Your excellency, if you’re in serious doubt whether to remain or come with us, I’d be favored if you’d reach a decision fairly soon. Morgan has given me the tip that if I haven’t approved the third leave-quota by ten o’clock the men are going to take matters into their own hands and walk off.”
“That would get them into trouble of a really hot kind, wouldn’t it?”
“Some,” agreed Captain Grayder, “but not so hot. They intend to turn my own quibbling against me. Since I have not officially forbidden leave, a walk-out won’t be mutiny. I’ve merely been postponing leave. They could plead before the Space Commission that I’ve deliberately ignored regulations. They might get away with it if the members were in the mood to assert their authority.”
“The Commission ought to be taken on a few long flights,” opined His Excellency. “They’d discover some things they’ll never learn behind a desk.” He eyed the other in mock hopefulness. “Any chance of accidentally dropping our cargo of bureaucrats overboard on the way back? A misfortune like that might benefit the spaceways, if not humanity.”
“That idea strikes me as Gandish,” observed Grayder.
“They wouldn’t think of it. Their technique is to say no, no, a thousand times no. That’s all—but judging by what has happened here, it is enough.” The ambassador pondered his predicament, reached a decision. “I’m coming with you. It goes against the grain because it smacks of surrender. To stay would be a defiant gesture, but I’ve got to face the fact that it won’t serve any useful purpose at the present stage.”
“Very well, your excellency.” Grayder went to a port, looked through it toward the town. “I’m down about four hundred men. Some of them have deserted, for keeps. The rest will come back if I wait long enough. They’ve struck it lucky, got their legs under somebody’s table and gone A.W.O.L. and they’re likely to extend their time for as long as the fun lasts on the principle that they may as well be hung for sheep as lambs, I get that sort of trouble on every long trip. It’s not so bad on short ones.” A pause while moodily he surveyed a terrain bare of returning prodigals. “But we can’t wait for them. Not here.”
“No, I reckon not.”
“If we hang around any longer, we’re going to lose another hundred or two. There won’t be enough skilled men to take the boat up. Only way I can beat them to the draw is to give the order to prepare for take-off. They all come under flight-regulations from that moment.” He registered a lopsided smile. “That will give the space lawyers something to think about!”
“As soon as you like,” approved the ambassador. He joined the other at the port, studied the distant road, watched three Gand coaches whirl along it without stopping. He frowned, still upset by the type of mind which insists on pretending that a mountain isn’t there. His attention shifted sidewise, toward the tail-end. He stiffened and said, “What are those men doing outside?”
Shooting a swiff glance in the same direction, Grayder grabbed the caller-make and rapped, “All personnel will prepare for take-off at once!” Juggling a couple of switches, he changed lines, said, “Who is that? Sergeant Major Bidworthy? Look, sergeant major, there are half a dozen men beyond the midship lock. Get them in immediately—we’re lifting as soon as everything’s ready.”
