Catch the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  "Don't bother," said Martha Wayne. "I've often wondered just who does watch that program. Nobody will admit it."

  Nevertheless, he switched off. He saved face by sneering at the new braid on my epaulettes. "Ah," he said, "the chief officer. In person. From office boy to mate in one easy lesson."

  "There was more than one lesson, Trantor," I told him. "And they weren't all that easy."

  They hadn't been easy at all, I remembered. There had been all the messing around in that cranky catamaran, and the messing around in that crankier blimp, and the long nights of study, and the training that we had undergone in mock-ups of the various control compartments of the ship. The model of the supercargo's office, I realized, had been extremely accurate. Ignoring Trantor, I inspected the gauges. Numbers 1 and 7 ballast tanks were out; 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 were still in. There was no way of ascertaining the deadweight tonage of cargo loaded save by tally and draft—and the columns of mercury in the draft indicator told me that if steps were not taken, and soon, Flying Cloud would shortly look even more like a submarine than she already did.

  I went to the control panel, opened the exhaust valves to Numbers 2 and 6 tanks, and pressed the button that started the pump. I heard the throbbing whine of it as it went into action, saw the mercury columns begin to fall in their graduated tubes.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" demanded Trantor.

  "I'm the mate," I told him. "You said so. Remember?"

  "If you're taking over," he said huffily, "I might as well get ashore."

  "You might as well," I agreed. "But, first of all, I want you to come with me to make sure that the cargo is properly stowed and secured."

  "Fussy, aren't you?" he growled.

  "That's what I'm paid for," I said.

  "But what is all this about stowage?" asked Martha Wayne.

  "We have to watch it here," I told her. "Even more so than in a conventional ship. In the normal spaceship, down is always towards the stern, always—no matter if you're sitting on your backside on a planetary surface or accelerating in deep space. But here, when you're on the surface or navigating in a planetary atmosphere, down is vertically at right angles to the long axis. Once we're up and out, however, accelerating, down will be towards the stern."

  "I see," she said, in that tone of voice that conveys the impression that the speaker doesn't.

  "I suppose you know that your pump is still running," said Trantor.

  "Yes. I know. It should be. It'll run till the tanks are out, and then it'll shut itself off."

  "All right. It's your worry," he said.

  "It's my worry," I agreed. "And now we'll look at the stowage."

  With Trantor in the lead, we made our way along the alleyway to the hold. We went through the airtight door, and along the tunnel through the cargo bins. There was nothing to worry about—but that was due more to Grimes's foresight than to Trantor's efficiency. As each bin had been filled, the locking bars—stout metal rods padded with resilient plastic—had slid into place.

  As we walked between the bins, the words of that ancient poem chased through my mind. Argosies with magic sails, pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales . . . But there weren't any costly bales here. There were drab, prosaic ingots of lead and zinc and cadmium, cargo for which there was a steady demand but no mad rush. Oh, well, we still had the magic sails.

  The stevedore foreman, who had been juggling another set of locking bars into position, looked up from his work. He said cheerfully, "She'll be all right, mister."

  "I hope so," I said.

  "Just another twenty tons of zinc," he said, "an' that's it. You can have her then. An' welcome to her. I've loaded some odd ships in my time, but this'n's the oddest . . ."

  "She'll be all right." I repeated his words.

  "That's your worry, mister," he said. "Can't say that I'd like to be away on a voyage for all of twenty years." He gave Martha Wayne an appraising stare. "Although I allow that it might have its compensations."

  "Or complications," I said.

  Martha Wayne had her portable recorder out. She said to the foreman, "I take it that you've loaded this ship, Mr. . . .?"

  "Kilmer's the name, miss."

  "Mr. Kilmer. I wonder if I might ask you for your impressions of the vessel?"

  "After the loading is finished, Miss Wayne," I told her.

  "From spacefaring office boy to mate in one easy lesson," said Trantor, grinning nastily.

  Chapter 9

  We finally got to our bunks that night, staggering to our cabins after a scratch meal of coffee and sandwiches in the wardroom. Ralph had driven us hard, and he had driven himself hard. He had insisted on testing everything that could be tested, had made his personal inspection of everything capable of being inspected. Ballast tanks had been flooded and then pumped out. The ingenious machinery that swiveled furniture and fittings through an arc of ninety degrees when transition was made from atmospheric to spatial flight was operated. The motors driving the airscrews were given a thorough trial.

  At the finish of it all, Doc and Smethwick were on the verge of mutiny, Sandra was finding it imperative to do things in her galley by herself, and Martha Wayne was looking as though she were already regretting having accepted this assignment. Only Peggy Simmons seemed to be enjoying herself. As well as being obviously in love with her machinery, she appeared to have gotten a crush on Ralph. I overheard Doc mutter to Smethwick, "Following him round like a bitch in heat . . ." Oh, well, I thought to myself, Sandra will soon fix all that once she starts turning out the balanced diet.

  Anyhow, with Ralph at last more or less happy about everything, we bolted our sandwiches, gulped our coffee and then retired. I was just about to switch off the light at the head of my bunk when there was a gentle tapping at my door. My first thought was that it was Ralph, that the master had thought of something else that might go wrong and had come to worry his mate about it. But Ralph would have knocked in a firm, authorative manner.

  Sandra? I wondered hopefully.

  "Come in," I called softly.

  It was Peggy Simmons. She was dressed in a bulky, unglamorous robe. She looked like a little girl—and not one of the nymphette variety either. She looked like a fat little girl, although I was prepared to admit that it could have been the shapeless thing that she was wearing that conveyed this impression.

  She said, "I hope you weren't asleep, Peter."

  "I wasn't," I admitted grudgingly. "Not quite."

  She said, "I just had to talk to somebody." She sat on the chair by my bunk, and helped herself to a cigarette from the box on the table. She went on, "This is all so strange. And tomorrow, after we get away, it will be even stranger."

  "What isn't strange?" I countered. "Come to think of it, it's the normal that's really strange."

  "You're too deep for me," she laughed ruefully. "But I came to talk to you because you're not clever . . ."

  "Thank you," I said coldly.

  "No. That wasn't quite what I meant, Peter. You are clever—you must be, to be chief officer of a ship like this. And I'm clever too—but with machinery. But the others—Sandra and Martha Wayne and Doc—are so . . . so . . ."

  "Sophisticated," I supplied.

  "Yes. That's the word. Sophisticated. And poor Claude Smethwick is the reverse. So unworldly. So weird, even . . ."

  "And Ralph?" I prodded.

  Her face seemed to light up and to cloud simultaneously, although there must have been a slight lag. "Oh, he's . . . exceptional? Yes. Exceptional. But I could hardly expect a man like him to want to talk to a girl like me. Could I?"

  And why the hell not? I thought. Put on some makeup, and throw something seductively translucent over the body beautiful instead of that padded tent, and you might get somewhere. But not with me, and not tonight, Josephine . . .

  "I haven't known many spacemen," she went on. "Only the commodore, really, and he's so much one of the family that he hardly counts. But there's always b
een something about you all, those few of you whom I have met. I think I know what it is. You all have pasts . . ."

  And how! I thought.

  "Like Ralph. Like the captain, I mean. You and he have been shipmates for a long time, Peter, haven't you? But I can't help wondering why such a capable man should come out to the Rim . . ."

  And him old enough to be your father, I thought. And then I remembered what we had learned of Peggy Simmons' own story. It all added up. Ralph, by virtue of personality as well as rank, was the ideal Father Image. Sticky, I thought. Definitely sticky.

  "Women," I said.

  "Women?"

  "Yeah. That's the usual reason why we all come out to the Rim."

  "Men," she said, "even the most brilliant men, are such fools where women of a certain class are concerned."

  Like your father, I thought.

  "With the right woman," she went on, "they could go a long way . . ."

  Too right, I thought. Too damn right. All the way to the next galaxy but three, under full sail, and with the right woman manning the pumps or whatever it is that the donkeyman does . . .

  She said wistfully, "I wish . . ."

  "You wish what, Peggy?"

  "Oh, I . . . I don't know, Peter . . ."

  I wish that you'd get the hell out of here, I thought. I wish that I could get some sleep.

  "Have you a drink?" she asked. "A nightcap, to make me sleep . . ."

  "In that locker," I told her, "there's a bottle of brandy. Medicinal. Get out two glasses and I'll have a drink with you. I could use some sleep myself."

  She splashed brandy generously into the glasses and handed one to me.

  "Down the hatch," I said.

  "Down the hatch," she repeated. Then she demanded suddenly, "What haven't I got, Peter?"

  I knew what she meant. "As far as I can see," I told her, "you have all the standard equipment. As far as I can see."

  She said abruptly, "She's with him. In his cabin."

  I felt a stab of jealousy. "Who?" I asked.

  "Sandra."

  So they managed to keep it a secret in Rim Dragon, I thought. Not that there was any need to. There's nothing in the regulations that says that officers shall not sleep with each other, provided that it doesn't get in the way of their duties . . .

  I said, "But they've known each other for years."

  "And I'm just the small girl around the ship. The newcomer. The outsider."

  "Miss Simmons," I said severely, "people who affix their autographs to the articles of agreement are engaged for one reason only: to take the ship from point A to point B as required by the lawful commands of the master. Who sleeps with whom—or who doesn't sleep with whom—is entirely outside the scope of the Merchant Shipping Act."

  Her robe had somehow become unfastened, and I could see that she did, in fact, possess the usual equipment and that it was in no way substandard. She knew that I was looking at her, but she made no attempt to cover herself. Instead she got to her feet and stood there for a moment or so, posing rather self-consciously and awkwardly, before going to the locker for the brandy bottle. She refilled our glasses, the rosy nipple of her right breast almost brushing my face as she stooped. I restrained myself from pulling her down to me.

  "One for the road," I said firmly.

  "For the road?" she echoed.

  "For the road, Peggy. We're both of us tired, and we have another heavy day ahead of us tomorrow."

  "But . . ." She might just as well not have been wearing the robe.

  "Damn it all, girl," I exploded, "I may be only the mate, and an ex-purser at that, but I have my pride. You've been making it bloody obvious all day that you were just dying to serve yourself up to Ralph on a silver tray and trimmed with parsley. Sandra beat you to Ralph's bed, so I'm second choice. Or do you think that you're hurting him in some obscure way by giving me what he didn't take? Either way, I'm not playing. So finish your drink like a good girl and go and turn in. By yourself."

  "If that's the way you want it," she said coldly.

  "That's the way that I want it," I said coldly.

  "Goodnight," she said.

  "Goodnight," I said.

  She set her empty glass down gently on the table. Her face was pale and a tiny muscle was twitching in her left cheek. With her robe again belted securely around her she looked once more like a small girl—like a small girl who is convinced she has been unjustly spanked.

  She said, "I'm sorry to have troubled you."

  I said, "And I'm sorry that . . . oh, never mind."

  "Goodnight," she said again.

  "Goodnight," I replied again.

  She left then, closing the door quietly behind her. I finished my drink and switched out the light. But I didn't get to sleep for a long time. And I should have slept well, I knew, had I taken the opportunity for the loosening of nervous tension in the most effective way there is. My absurdly puritanical attitude (a hangover from that sordid affair on Duchess of Atholl?) had done no good to anybody at all, including myself.

  And it was—although this was unforeseeable—to have far-reaching consequences.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning Sandra was in one of her house-wifely moods; these had been the occasion for jocular comment now and again in Rim Dragon. She called each of us individually, with tea and toast. Now that I knew the reasons for these spasms of domesticity I wasn't any happier. "Good morning, Peter," she said brightly (too brightly) as she switched on my light. "Rise and shine for the Cluster Line." (She had served in that outfit before joining Rim Runners.) "I hope you slept well."

  "I didn't," I growled. I glowered at her from eyes that probably looked as bleary as they felt. "I hope that you slept well."

  "But of course," she said sweetly, and left me to my tea.

  By the time the breakfast gong sounded, I had showered and shaved and dressed in the rig of the day and was feeling a little better. This was our first real meal aboard the ship and something of a ceremonious occasion. Ralph was at the head of the table and rather conscious, I could see, of the gleaming new braid on his epaulettes. I sat down at his right, with Sandra, when she wasn't bustling to and from the pantry, opposite me. The others took their places, with Peggy Simmons, as the most junior member of the ship's company, sitting at the foot of the table. She blushed when I said good morning to her. I hoped that none of the others noticed, although Doc Jenkins, who never missed much of what was going on, leered in my direction.

  "This," said Ralph rather stuffily before we could make a start on the eggs and bacon, "is a momentous occasion."

  "We still have to get this bitch off the ground," Jenkins told him.

  "Off the water, you mean," I amended.

  "Even so . . ." began Ralph severely.

  "Good morning to you all," said a familiar voice. We turned to see that Grimes had just entered the wardroom.

  We got to our feet.

  "Carry on," he said. "Don't mind me."

  "Some breakfast, sir?" asked Ralph.

  "No thank you. But some coffee, if I may, captain."

  He pulled up a chair and Sandra attended to his needs.

  He said, "You'll forgive me for talking shop, but I take it that you're secured for space?"

  "We are, sir," Ralph told him.

  "Good. Well, I have no wish to interfere with your arrangements, but there must be no delay."

  "We can take off now, sir, if you wish," said Ralph, pushing away his plate with the half-eaten food.

  "For the love of all the odd gods of the Galaxy," pleaded Grimes, "finish your breakfast. I intend to enjoy at least one more cup of this excellent coffee. But, while you're eating, I'll put you in the picture." He patted his lips with the napkin Sandra had given him. "Throughout my career I've never been overly fussy about treading on corns, but I seem to have been trampling on some very tender ones of late. This is the way of it. My spies inform me that this very morning, Metropolitan Standard Time, the Flying Cloud issue is goin
g to be raised in the Senate. The Honorable Member for Spelterville will demand an inquiry into the squandering of public money on the construction of an utterly impracticable spaceship. And his crony, the Honorable Member for Ironhill East, will back him up and demand that the ship be held pending the inquiry . . ."

  "Amalgamated Rockets," said Martha Wayne. "And Interstellar Drives, Incorporated."