Starman Jones

by Robert A. Heinlein; Michael Z. Williamson

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Sam pulled up another chair.

  “Do you know Smart Boy here?”

  “I’ve seen him around.”

  “Keep your eye on him. That’s an order. He’s very, very clever. Too clever. Ask him a number. Pick a number between one and ten.”

  “Seven.”

  Mr. Simes pounded the table. “What did I tell you? He memorized it before you got here. Someday he’s going to memorize one and they’ll stencil it across his chest. You know what, Constable? I don’t trust smart boys. They get ideas.”

  Reinforced by Sam’s calming presence, Max kept quiet. Giggles had come to the table as soon as Sam joined them; Max saw Sam write something on the back of a menu and pass it with money to the humanoid. But Mr. Simes was too busy with his monologue to notice. Sam let him ramble on, then suddenly interrupted. “You seem to have a friend here, sir.”

  “Huh? Where?”

  Sam pointed. At the bar Dolores was smiling and gesturing at the assistant navigator to join her. Simes focused his eyes, grinned and said, “Why, so I do! It’s my Great Aunt Sadie.” He got up abruptly.

  Sam brushed his hands together. “That disposes of that. Give you a bad time, kid?”

  “Sort of. Thanks, Sam. But I hate to see him dumped on Dolores. She’s a nice kid.”

  “Don’t worry about her. She’ll roll him for every thin he has on him—and a good job, too.” His eyes became hard. “I like an officer who acts like an officer. If he wants to pin one on, he should do it in his own part of town. Oh, well.” Sam relaxed. “Been some changes, eh, kid? Things are different from the way they were when we raised ship at Terra.”

  “I’ll say they are!”

  “Like it in the Worry gang?”

  “It’s more fun than I ever had in my life. And I’m learning fast—so Mr. Kelly says. They’re a swell bunch— except for him.” He nodded toward Simes.

  “Don’t let him worry you. The best soup usually has a fly in it. Just don’t let him get anything on you.”

  “I sure don’t intend to.”

  Sam looked at him, then said softly, “Ready to take the dive?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m getting our stake together. We’ll be all set.”

  Max found it hard to answer. He had known that his transfer had not changed anything basic; he was still in as much danger as ever. But he had been so busy with the joy of hard, interesting work, so dead for sleep when he was not working, that the subject had been pushed back in his mind. Now he drew patterns on the table in the sweat from the glasses and thought about it. “I wish,” he said slowly, “that there was some way to beat it.”

  “There is a way, I told you. Your record gets lost.”

  Max raised his eyes. “What good would that do? Sure, it would get me another trip. But I don’t want just another trip; I want to stay with it.” He looked down at the table top and carefully sketched an hyperboloid. “I’d better go with you. If I go back to Terra, it’s the labor companies for me—even if I stay out of jail.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “What?”

  “Understand me, kid. I’d like to have you with me. A time like that, having a partner at your elbow is the difference between—well, being down in the dumps and being on top. But you can stay in space, with a record as clean as a baby’s.”

  “Huh? How?”

  “Because you are changing guilds. Now only one paper has to get lost—your strike-out record with the stewards, cooks, and clerks. And they will never miss it because you aren’t on their books, anyhow. You start fresh with the chartsmen and computers, all neat and legal.”

  Max sat still and was tempted. “How about the report to the Department of Guilds and Labor?”

  “Same thing. Different forms to different offices. I checked. One form gets lost, the other goes in—and Steward’s Mate Jones vanishes into limbo while Apprentice Chartsman Jones starts a clean record.”

  “Sam, why don’t you do it? With the drag you’ve got now you could switch to . . . uh, well, to . . .”

  “To what?” Sam shook his head sadly. “No, old son, there is nothing I can switch to. Besides, there are reasons why I had better be buried deep.” He brightened. “Tell you what—I’ll pick my new name before I take the jump and tell you. Then someday, two years, ten, twenty, you’ll lay over at Nova Terra and look me up. We’ll split a bottle and talk about when we were young and gay. Eh?”

  Max smiled though he did not feel happy. “We will, Sam. We surely will.” Then he frowned. “But, Sam, I don’t know how to wangle the deal—and you’ll be gone.”

  “I’ll fix it before I leave. I’ve got Nelson eating out of my hand now. Like this: half cash down and half on delivery—and I’ll fix it so that you have something on him—never mind what; you don’t need to know yet. When you ground at Earthport, he asks you to mail the reports because you are going dirtside and he has work to finish. You check to see that the two reports you want are there, then you give him his pay off. Done.”

  Max said slowly, “I suppose that’s best.”

  “Quit fretting. Everybody has a skeleton in the closet; the thing is to keep ’em there and not at the feast.” He pushed an empty glass aside. “Kid, would you mind if we went back to the ship? Or had you planned to make a night of it?”

  “No, I don’t mind.” Max’s elation at setting foot on his first strange planet was gone—Garson’s Hole was, he had to admit, a sorry sample of the Galaxy.

  “Then let’s get saddled up. I’ve got stuff to carry and I could use help.”

  It turned out to be four fairly large bundles which Sam had cached in public lockers. “What are they?” Max asked curiously.

  “Tea cozies, old son. Thousands of them. I’m going to sell ’em to Procyon pinheads as skull caps.” Somewhat affronted, Max shut up.

  Everything coming into the ship was supposed to be inspected, but the acting master-at-arms on watch at the lock did not insist on examining the items belonging to the Chief Master-at-Arms any more than he would have searched a ship’s officer. Max helped Sam carry the bundles to the stateroom which was the prerogative of the ship’s chief of police.

  11

  “THROUGH THE

  CARGO HATCH”

  From Garson’s Planet to Halcyon around Nu Pegasi is a double dogleg of three transitions, of 105, 487, and 19 light-years respectively to achieve a “straight line” distance of less than 250 light-years. But neither straight-line distance nor pseudo-distance of transition is important; the Asgard covered less than a light-year between gates. A distance “as the crow flies” is significant only to crows.

  The first transition was barely a month out from Garson’s Planet. On raising from there, Kelly placed Max on a watch in three, assigning him to Kelly’s own watch, which gave Max much more sleep, afforded him as much instruction (since the watch with Simes was worthless instruction-wise), and kept Max out of Simes’ way, to his enormous relief. Whether Kelly had planned that feature of it Max never knew—and did not dare ask.

  Max’s watch was still an instruction watch, he had no one to relieve nor to be relieved by. It became his habit not to leave the control room until Kelly did, unless told to do so. This resulted in him still being thrown into the company of Dr. Hendrix frequently, since the Astrogator relieved the Chief Computerman and Kelly would usually hang around and chat . . . during which time the Astrogator would sometimes inquire into Max’s progress.

  Occasionally the Captain would show up on Dr. Hendrix’s watch. Shortly after leaving Garson’s Planet, Dr. Hendrix took advantage of one such occasion to have Max demonstrate for Captain Blaine and First Officer Walther his odd talent. Max performed without a mistake although the Captain’s presence made him most self-conscious. The Captain watched closely with an expression of gentle surprise. Afterwards he said, “Thank you, lad. That was amazing. Let me see—what is your name?”

  “Jones, sir.”

  “Jones, yes.” The old man bl
inked thoughtfully. “It must be terrifying not to be able to forget—especially in the middle of the night. Keep a clear conscience, son.”

  Twelve hours later, Dr. Hendrix said to him, “Jones, don’t go away. I want to see you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Astrogator spoke with Kelly for a few moments, then again spoke to Max. “The Captain was impressed by your vaudeville act, Jones. He is wondering whether you have any parallel mathematical ability.”

  “Well—no, sir. I’m not a lightning calculator, that is. I saw one in a sideshow once. He could do things I couldn’t.”

  Hendrix brushed it aside. “Not important. I believe you told me that your uncle taught you some mathematical theory?”

  “Just for astrogation, sir.”

  “What do you think I am talking about? Do you know how to compute a transition approach?”

  “Uh, I think so, sir.”

  “Frankly, I doubt it, no matter how much theoretical drill Brother Jones gave you. But go ahead.”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Try it. Pretend you’re the officer of the watch. Kelly will be your assistant. I’ll just be audience. Work the approach we are on. I realize that we aren’t close enough for it to matter—but you are to assume that the safety of the ship depends on it.”

  Max took a deep breath. “Aye aye, sir.” He started to get out fresh plates for the cameras.

  Hendrix said, “No!”

  “Sir?”

  “If you have the watch, where’s your crew? Noguchi, help him.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Noguchi grinned and came over. While they were bending over the first camera, Noguchi whispered, “Don’t let him rattle you, pal. We’ll give him a good show. Kelly will help you over the humps.”

  But Kelly did not help; he acted as “numbers boy” and nothing else, with no hint to show whether Max was right, or wildly wrong. After Max had his sights and had taken his comparison data between plates and charts he did not put the problem through the computer himself, but let Noguchi man the machine, with Kelly translating. After a long time and much sweat, the lights blinked what he hoped was the answer.

  Dr. Hendrix said nothing but took the same plates to the tank and started to work the problem again, with the same crew. Very quickly the lights blinked on again; the Astrogator took the tables from Kelly and looked up the translation himself. “We differ only in the ninth decimal place. Not bad.”

  “I was wrong only in the ninth place, sir?”

  “I didn’t say that. Perhaps I was more in error.” Max started to grin, but Dr. Hendrix frowned. “Why didn’t you take doppler spectra to check?” Max felt a cold chill.

  “I guess I forgot, sir.”

  “I thought you were the man who never forgot?” Max thought intuitively—and correctly—that two kinds of memory were involved, but he did not have a psychologist’s jargon with which to explain. One sort was like forgetting one’s hat in a restaurant; that could happen to anyone. The other was being unable to recall what the mind had once known.

  Hendrix went on, “A control room man must not forget things necessary to the safety of the ship. However, as an exercise you solved it very well—except that you have no speed. Had we been pushing close to the speed of light, ready to cross, your ship would have been in Hades and crashed in the River Styx before you got the answer. But it was a good first try.”

  He turned away. Kelly jerked his head toward the hatch and Max went below.

  As he was falling asleep, Max turned over in his mind the notion that Dr. Hendrix might even be thinking of him for—Oh no! He put the thought aside. After all, Kelly could have done it; he had seen him do early approaches many times, and faster, too. Probably Noguchi could have done it.

  Certainly Noguchi could have done it, he corrected. After all, there weren’t any “secrets.”

  As they approached the first anomaly, the easy watch in three for officers and watch in four for the men changed to watch-and-watch, with an astrogator, an assistant, a chartsman, and a computerman on each watch. Max was at last assigned to a regular watch; the first watch was Dr. Hendrix assisted by Chartsman l/c Kovak, Max as chartsman of the watch and Noguchi on the computer; the other watch was Mr. Simes assisted by Chief Kelly, Smythe as chartsman and Lundy as computerman. Max noticed that Dr. Hendrix had assigned his “first team” to Simes and had taken the less experienced technicians himself. He wondered why, but was pleased not to be working for Simes.

  He learned at last why they called it the “Worry Hole.” Dr. Hendrix became a frozen-masked automaton, performing approach correction after correction and demanding quick, accurate, and silent service. During the last twenty hours of the approach, the Astrogator never left the control room, nor did anyone else other than for short periods when nominally off watch. Simes continued to take his regular watch, but Dr. Hendrix hung over him, checking everything that he did. Twice he required the junior astrogator to re-perform portions of his work and once elbowed him aside and did it himself. The first time it happened Max stared—then he noticed that the others were careful to be busy doing something else whenever Dr. Hendrix spoke privately to Simes.

  The tension grew as the critical instant approached. The approach to an anomalous intraspatial transition can hardly be compared to any other form of piloting ever performed by human beings, though it might be compared to the impossible trick of taking off in an atmosphere plane, flying a thousand miles blind—while performing dead reckoning so perfectly as to fly through a narrow tunnel at the far end, without ever seeing the tunnel. A Horst congruency cannot be seen, it can only be calculated by abstruse mathematics of effects of mass on space; a “gateway” is merely unmarked empty space in vaster emptiness. In approaching a planet an astrogator can see his destination, directly or by radar, and his speed is just a few miles per second. But in making a Horstian approach the ship’s speed approaches that of light—and reaches it, at the last instant. The nearest landmarks are many billions of miles away, the landmarks themselves are moving with stellar velocities and appear to be crowding together in the exaggerated parallax effects possible only when the observer is moving almost as fast as is his single clue to location and speed—the wave fronts of the electromagnetic spectrum.

  Like searching at midnight in a dark cellar for a black cat that isn’t there.

  Toward the last, Kelly himself was on the computer with Lundy at his ear. Smythe and Kovak were charting, passing new data to Dr. Hendrix, who was programming orally to the computer crew, setting up the problems in his head and feeding them to the electronic brain almost without delay. The power room was under his direct control now; he had a switch led out from the control console in each hand, one to nurse the ship along just below speed of light, the other to give the Asgard the final kick that would cause her to burst through.

  Max was pushed aside, no task remained in which there was not someone more experienced. On a different level, Simes too had been pushed aside; there was place for only one astrogator at the moment of truth.

  Of all those in the Worry Hole, only Captain Blaine seemed to be relaxed. He sat in the chair sacred to him, smoking quietly and watching Hendrix. The Astrogator’s face was gray with fatigue, greasy with unwashed sweat. His uniform was open at the collar and looked slept in, though he certainly had not slept. Max looked at him and wondered why he had ever longed to be an astrogator, ever been foolish enough to wish to bear this undivided and unendurable burden.

  But the doctor’s crisp voice showed no fatigue; the endless procession of numbers marched out, sharp as print, each spoken so that there could be no mistake, no need to repeat, “nine” always sounded as one syllable, “five” always stretched into two. Max listened and learned and wondered.

  He glanced up through the dome, out into space itself, space shown distorted by their unthinkable speed. The stars ahead, or above, had been moving closer together for the past several watches, the huge parallax effect displacing them to the eye so that they seemed to
be retreating in the very sector of the sky they were approaching. They were seeing by infrared waves now, ploughing into oncoming wave trains so fast that doppler effect reduced heat wavelengths to visible light.

  The flood of figures stopped. Max looked down, then looked up hastily as he heard Dr. Hendrix say, “Stand by!”

  The stars seemed to crawl together, then instantly they were gone to be replaced without any lapse of time whatever by another, new and totally different starry universe.

  Hendrix straightened up and sighed, then looked up. “There’s the Albert Memorial,” he said quietly. “And there is the Hexagon. Well, Captain, it seems we made it again.” He turned to Simes. “Take it, Mister.” He let the Captain go first, then followed him down the hatch.

  The control gang went back to easy watches; the next transition was many days away. Max continued as chartsman-of-the-watch in place of Kovak, who temporarily replaced Dr. Hendrix while the Astrogator got a week of rest. There was truly not much to do during the early part of a leg and the doctor’s superb skill was not needed. But Max greatly enjoyed the new arrangements; it made him proud to sign the rough log “M. Jones, Chtsmn o/W.” He felt that he had arrived—even though Simes found fault with him and Kelly continued to drill him unmercifully in control room arts.

  He was surprised but not apprehensive when he was told, during an off-watch period, to report to the Astrogator. He put on a fresh uniform, slicked his hair down, and went above “C” deck. “Apprentice Chartsman Jones reporting, sir.”

  Kelly was there, having coffee with the Astrogator. Hendrix acknowledged Max’s salutation but left him standing. “Yes, Jones.” He turned to Kelly. “Suppose you break the news.”

  “If you say so, sir.” Kelly looked uncomfortable. “Well, Jones, it’s like this—you don’t really belong in my guild.”

  Max was so shocked that he could not answer. He was about to say that he had thought—he had understood—he hadn’t known—But he got nothing out; Kelly continued, “The fact is, you ought to buck for astrogator. The Doctor and I have been talking it over.”