COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Shhh. I’m listening to the radio. Roger. Over and—
CAPTAIN: No! Now you take off those damned headphones and listen to me for a minute, “Sparks.”
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Captain, I wish I could take off the headphones. Sometimes I even wish I could turn off the radio. But I can’t. It does fade sometimes, you know. There’ll be days at a time, weeks, months, when I can’t pick up a thing, not even star hiss. But I have to keep listening, in case it comes back, in case a message comes through. That’s the way it is now. I haven’t picked up a message for five days (Ship Time). But what if one is just about to come through? What if it came through and I was in the galley heating soup? What if it’s coming through right now and I’m missing it because I’m talking on the intracom? It isn’t that I have anything against the rest of you, or that I want to be a stumbling block, but that’s the nature of a Communications Officer. Over and—
CAPTAIN: No. Now stay on the intracom and listen to this message. Other ships have Communications Officers, you know, and they don’t act like you at all. They don’t just sit there with their damned head between the earphones and their mouth hanging open all the time. They communicate. They talk with other ships of the Fleet. They receive news and directives, and exchange all sorts of information and friendly chitchat to beguile the interminable boredom of space. Why don’t you ever do that? Don’t you realise the rest of us would like to talk with the rest of the Fleet now and then?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: But I don’t listen on the Fleet wavelength.
CAPTAIN: Why not?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Because I’m trying to pick up the message.
CAPTAIN: What message?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: The one we haven’t heard before.
CAPTAIN: What for?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Well, it might indicate where we’re going—we and all the other ships of the Fleet.
CAPTAIN: What does it matter where we’re going, so long as we’re going? Listen, “Sparks,” I don’t like to berate you like this. We’d like to have the utmost faith in you. You’re a fantastically good Communications Officer, for a woman. But—
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Excuse me, Captain, I’m getting star hiss. Over and out.
CAPTAIN: Oh, hell. Mr. Balls, will you please proceed to Bridge. I’ll be in the galley, heating soup.
FIRST MATE: Captain, wait. There’s something funny in the air. Something in the ship’s atmospheric circulation system.
CAPTAIN: Probably just some of “Bolts’s” hydrogen leaking.
FIRST MATE: It doesn’t smell like hydrogen. It’s a strange smell. Or is it a vibration? Or is it a noise?
CAPTAIN: Mr. Balls, are you all right? You don’t sound like yourself.
FIRST MATE: Affirmative. Captain, I wish to report suspected presence of an alien aboard this ship.
CAPTAIN: An alien?
FIRST MATE: Affirmative. Alert. Alert. Red Alert. All hands to combat posts. Alien presence suspected on ship. Chief Engineer, report on conditions in Engine Room.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Weel, noo, everything’s dandy in the Engine Room, sir.
CAPTAIN: What about the Anti-Matter Isolater?
CHIEF ENGINEER: We mended the wee crack wi’ a wee Band-Aid, Captain, and it’s as good as new.
CAPTAIN: What about the ship’s self-destruct capacity?
CHIEF ENGINEER: Weel, noo, we’re working on that. But otherwise I may say that things in the Engine Room have never been better.
FIRST MATE: Red Alert! Red Alert! Chief Engineer, proceed instantly to repair automatic self-destruct units in Central Propulsion Zone, and as soon as repairs are completed place automatic self-destruct units on Imminent status.
CAPTAIN: Mr. Balls, what are you shouting about?
FIRST MATE: There’s an alien in this ship with us, Captain!
CAPTAIN: How do you know?
FIRST MATE: A slimy, unspeakable alien!
CAPTAIN: Have you seen it, Mr. Balls? Is it in the Athletic Supporter Storage Room?
FIRST MATE: No, I haven’t seen it. I don’t want to see it. I can feel it. It’s in here, Captain. It’s in the ship—something that doesn’t belong here. It’s not one of us. It came from Outer Space. From outside. To take us over. It’s waiting, waiting somewhere in the very bowels of the ship, waiting, and growing—
CAPTAIN: Good gracious. Get a hold of yourself, Mr. Balls.
INSANE SECOND MATE: I told you poor Tom was a-cold. Now poor Tom’s a-flipped.
FIRST MATE: It’s in there, in the Crew Recreation Lounge, with you, isn’t it, “Bats”? You’ve known about it for days, weeks. You’ve been hiding it from us. You traitor! I’m coming in. I’m coming in there, “Bats,” and I’m going to kill that thing, that unspeakable, amorphous Thing that you’ve been hiding from us and feeding with our food—
CAPTAIN: Mr. Balls! Where are you? What are you doing?
FIRST MATE: I’m breaking down the door of the Crew Recreation Lounge, Captain. Don’t worry. I’ll handle this. You just keep things running there on the Bridge, and the ship on course, and all.
CAPTAIN: I’m not on the Bridge. I’m in the galley.
FIRST MATE: For God’s sake, Captain, get back to the Bridge! The Thing will try to take control of the ship, if it escapes me!—All right, “Bats,” where is it? Where is it hiding? Show the Thing to me, or I’ll—Aagh! Aaaggghhh! Ow!
CHIEF ENGINEER: Captain? Captain Cook? Would there be a wee bit o’ trouble up there?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Please be quieter, everybody. I’m receiving.
CAPTAIN: Mr. Balls, report current conditions in Crew Recreation Lounge. Mr. Balls, report please.
INSANE SECOND MATE: This is the Insane Second Mate speaking. The First Mate is temporarily incapacitated.
CAPTAIN: Report, please, Second Mate.
INSANE SECOND MATE: Well, he came busting in shouting about how he was going to do something to the alien, and I got in his way, and he tried to karate chop me. But as you know, Captain, I’m extraordinarily strong, even for an Insane Second Mate. I hit him on the head with a copy of I Ching, and he folded.
CAPTAIN: Report current condition of First Mate, please.
INSANE SECOND MATE: He is lying on the floor breathing.
CAPTAIN: Very good. “Bats,” I suppose you’d better get up to the Bridge and keep an eye on flight control. Last time I looked Arcturus seemed to have drifted a bit. If I don’t get lunch ready, tempers are going to be getting short.
INSANE SECOND MATE : Aye aye, Captain.
CAPTAIN : By the way, is there an alien aboard?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Oh, yes, Captain.
CAPTAIN: I thought so all along. I knew Mr. Balls couldn’t count. You’d better take it up to the Bridge with you and keep an eye on it.
INSANE SECOND MATE: Captain, I can’t do that. I have to leave it here in the Crew Recreation Lounge.
CAPTAIN: Why?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Well, see, it sort of fits in here. We can feed it through the slot in the door. Frankly, I’m just as glad to get out. Things were getting a little crowded in here. As Mr. Balls noticed, it’s been growing. You wouldn’t believe it. It was just a speck of a thing to start with.
CAPTAIN: And how is Mr. Balls?
INSANE SECOND MATE: He’s sitting up now, but he looks a bit catatonic. It’s the shock. I’ll walk him back to his quarters.
FIRST MATE: Oh my God I can’t stand it horrible vile like a giant worm slimy battening on us fattening on us invading us a vampire a parasite using us growing growing GROWING get me out get me out Red Alert Self-Destruct SELF-DESTRUCT!
INSANE SECOND MATE: There, there, Balls. Now. Come on. Here’s your own nice cozy quarters, see? And you can lock the door, and shut It out, and do mathematics all by yourself.
FIRST MATE: My God, you’re worse than It is! Get out of here! Out! Captain Cook! Captain Cook! This officer is insane!
CAPTAIN: What officer?
INSANE SECOND MATE
: Me.
CAPTAIN: Oh, now, we just call you that, because you won’t use secondary process thinking.
FIRST MATE: Captain Cook! Order Engine Room personnel to activate automatic self-destruct units! Abort mission! Abort mission!
CAPTAIN: How’s that again?
FIRST MATE: Abort! Abort! We are being emplucted by an alien creature for unknown purposes! It is taking over the officers’ minds! This ship is a peril to the Universe!
INSANE SECOND MATE: Goodness, he talks almost the way I do.
CAPTAIN: It’s quite interesting, actually, looked at dispassionately. I wonder if Mr. Balls resents the presence of the alien because he too has always been, in a sense, an alien presence on this ship. Psychologists call the phenomenon “projection,” I believe.
FIRST MATE: Can’t you realise how horrible it is, horrible, horrible!
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Please order the First Mate to shut up, Captain. All this shouting is very annucting. I’m getting some interesting material on the radio.
CAPTAIN: Where from? I certainly could use some advice.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: I’m not sure. Seems very close. Loud signal.
CAPTAIN : What does it say?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: It doesn’t speak English.
INSANE SECOND MATE: This is “Bats” reporting from the Bridge. All well here.
CAPTAIN: All right, everybody. Lunchtime. Mouth to the soup chute, mates! Ready?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Ready.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Ready.
FIRST MATE: Ready.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Ready.
CAPTAIN: Soup’s on!
CHIEF ENGINEER: Ahh.
FIRST MATE: Mmmm.
INSANE SECOND MATE: Yum.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Yum.
CAPTAIN: Yum.
INSANE SECOND MATE: What about the alien?
CHIEF ENGINEER: I’ll see to the puir wee beastie. Send me another chute of soup, Captain, and I’ll catch it in an oilcan and pour it in through the slot. Aye, that’s it. Now then. Here I am. Are you ready, beastie? Here it comes!
ALIEN : Num, num.
CHIEF ENGINEER: There’s a bonnie beastie. Go to sleep now. Captain, how do you think the beastie got aboard?
CAPTAIN: I’ve been thinking about that.
INSANE SECOND MATE: It didn’t “get” aboard. It’s autochthonous. It’s ours, all ours.
CAPTAIN: It doesn’t happen that way, “Bats.” Not with advanced space ships of our type. At least, not without a Special Dispensation. Personally, I think the only time it could have got into the Crew Recreation Lounge was through the tubes, when we rendezvoused with that cruiser near Deneb. The hatches were open several times, if you recall, during that exchange.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Oh, aye, a lovely ship, that cruiser. Sleek and slim and tapered, and power enough to rattle my pipes.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Yes, damn it, it kept interfering with my reception. Jammed the radio with a lot of sentimental nonsense for a week. Kept signalling us as “Honey Pot.”
FIRST MATE: Do you mean to imply, Captain, that that cruiser deliberately stowed this monster away aboard our ship? A cruiser of the Fleet?
CAPTAIN: Well, no, not deliberately. Those things simply happen, sometimes, if precautions haven’t been taken. If the Second Mate, for instance, failed to activate the hatch forcefields, and to remind me to go through decontamination procedure—which has happened before—
INSANE SECOND MATE: I hate activating those forcefields. They’re unnatural. They drive me crazy. All those vibrations. And worrying about getting the phases timed just right. They’re not good for the ship, in the long run. “Bolts” will back me up on that.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Aye, they’re a strain on the engines. Besides, why do we have to take all the precautions?
INSANE SECOND MATE: So I forgot to turn them on.
CAPTAIN: There you are.
FIRST MATE: You’re all psychotic—subhuman. You let us be infected, invaded, taken over by this alien. You deliberately invited it to happen, and now that it’s happened, you’re allowing it to go on happening—and it’s sitting there, growing, growing—
CHIEF ENGINEER: There, there, puir wee First Mate. Dinna let it fash ye.
FIRST MATE: Captain Cook! Listen to me! You’ve always listened to me sometimes, you’ve always been superbly rational more or less. Think about it, think about it—the danger, the danger to the ship. It’s taking us over, don’t you see? And we have a mission! How long are you going to let it go on? The sooner we act, the safer and easier it’ll be—
CAPTAIN: Well, how long has it been aboard?
INSANE SECOND MATE: About fifty days (Ship Time). That’s when the cruiser left, anyhow.
CAPTAIN: That leaves, let’s see, wait, fifty from 280—
FIRST MATE: 230.
CAPTAIN: Right. Yes. So. About 230 days (Ship Time) to go. If it follows the usual pattern. This isn’t the first time an alien has got aboard a Ship of the Fleet, you know, Mr. Balls. Nor will it be the last. We know, barring accidents, pretty well what to expect. Perhaps you should glance over the Handbook of Onboard Aliens to freshen up your information on the subject.
FIRST MATE: Captain, aren’t you even scared?
CAPTAIN: Mr. Balls, I am scared shitless. But what can I do?
FIRST MATE: Get rid of it! Now! Quick! While we still can! Before it gets any bigger! Let me stuff it into the Disposal Hatch! Unlock my door—just let me out—it won’t take any time at all—the rest of the Fleet won’t even know—
INSANE SECOND MATE: Listen, little Balls. I am on the Bridge now. And I think I’ll continue to be on the Bridge for the next 230 days (Ship Time). The Captain is needed in the galley. Your door is locked and will remain locked, until you come to terms with the situation. You may not like my being in charge. I know you feel I’m untrustworthy, and useful only in a subordinate position. And in normal conditions and most situations that’s quite true. I am untrustworthy, unpredictable, and devious. I can’t even count on myself. When I leap into a roaring seething ocean of salt, it turns out to be powdered sugar. When I look out the Bridge viewport at the stars, I don’t see the stars. I see dragons, swans, whales, scorpions, bears, huntsmen, chariots, crosses, signs, omens, and writings in huge shining words I cannot read. When I set my finger on the buttons on the Main Control Panel, the buttons turn into a dog’s hind paws, and my finger explodes like a firecracker. When I walk across the Bridge to check the computer readouts, I can’t see the floor; I see an abyss, the dark underpit where pale shapes writhe and shoulder in the gloom, turning vast rudimentary faces, eye spots, mouth holes, up towards me, their country-woman, mincing across the Bridge high above them on my thin wire, clutching at my flying trapeze. I do not belong on the Bridge of a ship of this class, except during the night shift when you and the Captain are asleep—and during certain exceptional situations, such as this. The fact is, granted all my peculiarities, at this point I’m the only one who can bring us through.
FIRST MATE: Captain, Captain Cook, listen to me. Don’t listen to that maniac, that mutineer. Listen to me. Captain, you know I have the utmost faith in you, almost. You’re a fantastically good captain, for a woman. Don’t let the Second Mate take over the Bridge!
CAPTAIN: I can’t stop her, Mr. Balls. It’s the influence of the alien, I suppose. We’ve all changed, don’t you see?
FIRST MATE: Changed?
CAPTAIN: Yes. “Bats” has acquired tremendous strength—as you must have noticed when she hit you with the I Ching—and a driving sense of purpose. “Bolts” isn’t complaining any more about engine malfunctions; she’s happy as a lark down there, singing “Scots Wha Hae wi’ Wallace Bled.” “Sparks” has gone completely out of touch—right, “Sparks”?—“Sparks”?—See? As for myself, I don’t know exactly what the change involves, except that the Second Mate makes better sense to me than she usedto, and you don’t; but I do know that since we’ve had the alien aboard I’ve felt a diff
erent person.
FIRST MATE: And I, Captain? I haven’t changed.
CAPTAIN: No. That’s the trouble, Mr. Balls. You haven’t. You aren’t really cut out to cope with this. But it’s not your fault; and in the long run it may be a good thing. It maintains a certain continuity aboard the ship. We don’t want to become totally alienated, after all.
FIRST MATE: Captain, you’re not as civilised as I am, but you are pretty much a product of civilisation—unlike the rest of this crew. And what I don’t understand is how, being a civilised person, you can stand the humiliation of it. The being used—like a bucket, or a Petri dish. We aren’t a mere vehicle, a vessel for aliens to get fat in, a damned yeast culture! We are a ship, a Ship of the Fleet, sailing under our own power, embarked on the Great Journey to the Unknown End.
CAPTAIN: But you know, Mr. Balls, that in fact we probably won’t get there.
FIRST MATE: I know. But there was a chance. Now there isn’t. We won’t get there, we won’t get anywhere, weighted down with this alien, and with all of you paying no more attention to anything outside the ship. I’ll bet, right now, that the Second Mate can’t give us a star fix. What’s our inclination to Arcturus, “Bats”?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Well. Let me see. Just let me press this dog’s hind paw here, and adjust this earthworm. There now. Arcturus? I’m not sure; but I do see a dead queen sitting upside down in a chair off the larboard bow.
FIRST MATE: You see? You see?
CAPTAIN: Yes. And I’m not crazy about staying in the galley all the time, either. But we can be patient, Mr. Balls. The alien won’t actually be aboard very long. Less than eight months to go, now. Then, you know, all we have to do is take it in tow for a while, just for a few years.
FIRST MATE: In tow? Tow it?
CAPTAIN: Well, of course. It’s our responsibility now.
CHIEF ENGINEER: An’ ye wouldna abandon the puir wee thing in the near-absolute-zero cold of interstellar space, surely, Mr. Balls?
FIRST MATE: Yes! Out the hatch! Now! Out the hatch! Out the hatch!
INSANE SECOND MATE: Shut the trap, Balls.
FIRST MATE: Captain. Now I’m talking quite quietly now, aren’t I. Now do you mean to say that when we finally get rid of this monster, when it gets too big for the ship and breaks its way out, causing terrible damage to the tubes, perhaps wrecking the whole Engine Room on its way—had you thought of that, “Bolts”?—and quite possibly destructing the entire ship—that, if we survive that ordeal, you intend to turn back, take the mindless, helpless thing in tow, and limp on after the Fleet at half speed for five years, ten years, twenty years (Ship Time)—while it keeps getting bigger, and stronger, and smarter, and wilder? Captain! don’t you realise that this thing is going to be the death of us?
The Compass Rose Page 14