“Thank you, sir,” said Barnes awkwardly. “I’ll try not to be an ass again, sir.”
“I suspect,” said Bordman, “that you’ll slip occasionally. I did! What the devil’s another ship doing out here and why aren’t we landing?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” said the young officer. His manner toward Bordman was quite changed. “I do know the Skipper came in expecting to land by the landing-grid, sir. He was told to stand off. He’s as much surprised as you are, sir.”
The wall-speaker said crisply:
“Hear this! Gravity returning! Gravity returning!”
And weight came back. Bordman was ready for it this time and took it casually. He looked at the speaker and it said nothing more. He nodded to the young man.
“I suppose I’d better get in the boat. No change in that arrangement, anyhow!”
He crawled through the blister door and wormed his way into the landing boat, one designed for a more modern ship, and excessively inconvenient in such an outmoded launching-device. Barnes crawled in after him.
“Excuse me, sir. I’m to take you down.”
He dogged the blister door from the inside, closed the boat-port and dogged it, and flapped a switch.
“Ready for departure,” he said into a microphone.
A dial on the instrument-board flicked half-way to zero. It stopped there. Seconds passed. A green light glowed. The young officer said:
“All tight!”
The needle darted a quarter-way further over, and then began to descend slowly. The blister was being pumped empty of air. Presently another light glowed.
“Ready for launching,” said the young officer briskly.
The blister-seal broke with a clank, and the two halves of the boat-cover drew back. There were stars. To Bordman they were unfamiliarly arranged, but he could have picked out Seton and the Donis cluster in any case, and half a hundred more markers by taking thought of the position of the planet Canna III, on which Colonial Survey Sector Headquarters for this part of the galaxy were established.
The boat moved out of its place, and the ship’s gravity-field ended as abruptly as such fields do.
The Survey ship floated away, as seen from the vision-ports of the boat. It apparently increased its drive, because the boat swirled and swayed as changing eddy-currents moved it. The ship grew small and vanished. The boat hung in emptiness, turning slowly. The sun Canna came into view. It was very large for a Sol-type sun, and its rim was almost devoid of the prominences and jet-streams of flaming gas that older suns of the type display. But even out at the third orbit it provided 0-1 climate—optimum: equivalent to Earth—for the planet below.
That planet now came swinging into view as the ship’s boat continued to turn. It was blue. More than ninety per cent of its surface was water, and much of the solid land was under the northern ice-cap. It had been chosen as Sector Headquarters because of its unsuitability for a large population, which might resent the considerable land-area needed for Survey storage and reserve facilities.
Bordman regarded it thoughtfully. The boat was, of course, roughly five planetary diameters out, the conventional distance to which a ship approached any planet on its own drive. Bordman could see the ice-cap clearly, and blue sea beyond it, and the twilight-line. There was one cyclonic storm just dissipating toward the night-side, and the edge of a similar cloud-system down toward the equator. Bordman searched for Headquarters. It was on an island at about forty-five degrees latitude, which ought to be near the center of the planet’s surface as seen from where the ship’s boat floated. But he could not make it out. There was only the one island of any importance and it was not large.
Nothing happened. The boat’s rockets remained silent. The young officer sat quietly, looking at the instruments before him. He seemed to be waiting for something to happen.
A needle kicked and stayed just off the pin. It was an external-field indicator. Some field, somewhere, now included the space in which the ship’s boat floated.
“Hm,” said Bordman. “You’re waiting for orders?”
“Yes, sir,” said the young man. “I’m ordered not to land except under ground instructions, sir. I don’t know why.”
Bordman observed:
“One of the worst wiggings I ever got was in a boat like this. I was waiting for orders and they didn’t come. I acted very Service about it: stiff upper lip and all that. But I was getting in serious trouble when it occurred to me that it might be my fault I wasn’t getting the orders.”
The young officer glanced quickly at an instrument he had previously ignored. Then he said relievedly:
“Not this time, sir. The communicator’s turned on all right.”
Bordman said:
“Do you think they might be calling you without shifting from ship-frequency? They were talking to the ship, you know.”
“I’ll try, sir.”
The young man leaned forward and switched to ship-band adjustment of the communicator. Different wave-bands, naturally, were used between a ship and shore, and a ship and its own boats. A booming carrier wave came in instantly. The young officer hastily turned down the volume and words became distinguishable.
“…What the devil’s the matter with you? Acknowledge!”
The young officer gulped. Bordman said mildly:
“Since he ranks you, just say ‘sorry, sir.’”
“S-sorry, sir,” said Barnes into the microphone.
“Sorry?” snapped the voice from the ground. “I’ve been calling for five minutes! Your skipper will hear about this! I shall—”
Bordman pulled the microphone before him.
“My name is Bordman,” he observed. “I am waiting for instructions to land. My pilot has been listening on boat-frequency, as was proper. You appear to be calling us on an improper channel. Really—”
There was stricken silence. Then babbled apologies from the speaker. Bordman smiled faintly at young Barnes.
“It’s quite all right. Let’s forget it now. But will you give my pilot his instructions?”
The voice said with strained formality:
“You’re to be brought down by landing-grid, sir. Rocket-landings have been ruled non-permitted by the Sector Chief himself, sir. But we are already landing one boat, sir. Senior Officer Werner is being brought in now, sir. His boat is still two diameters out, sir, and it will take us nearly an hour to get him down without extreme discomfort, sir.”
“Then we’ll wait,” said Bordman. “Hm. Call us again before you start hunting us with the landing-beam. My pilot has a rather promising idea. And will you call us on the proper frequency then, please?”
The voice aground said unhappily:
“Yes, sir. Certainly, sir.”
The carrier-wave hum stopped. Young Barnes said gratefully:
“Thank you, sir! Hell hath no fury like a ranking officer caught in a blunder! He’d have twisted my tail for his mistake, sir, and it could have been bad!” Then he paused. He said uneasily, “But—beg pardon, sir. I haven’t any promising ideas. Not that I know of!”
“You have an hour to develop one,” Bordman told him.
Internally, Bordman was startled. There were few occasions on which even one Senior Officer was called in to Sector Headquarters. Interstellar distances being what they were, and thirty light-speeds being practically the best available, Senior Officers necessarily acted pretty much as independent authorities. To call one man in meant all his other work had to go by the board for a matter of months. But two! And Werner?
Werner was getting to ground first. If there was something serious ashore, Werner would make a great point of arriving first, even if only by hours. A keen sort of person in giving the right impression. He’d risen in the Service faster than Bordman. That other Lawlor field would have been his ship getting out of the way.
The young officer at his elbow fidgeted.
“Beg pardon, sir. What sort of idea should I develop, sir? I’m not sure I understand—”
/>
“It’s rather annoying to have to stay parked in free fall,” said Bordman patiently. “And it’s always a good practice to review annoying situations and see if they can be bettered.”
Barnes’ forehead wrinkled.
“We could land much quicker on rockets, sir. And even when the landing-grid reaches out for us, they’ll have to handle us very cautiously or they’d break our necks, since we’ve no gravity coils.”
Bordman nodded. Barnes was thinking straight enough, but it takes young officers a long time to think of thinking straight. They have to obey so many orders unquestioningly that they tend to stop doing anything else. Yet at each rise in grade some slight trace of increased capacity to think is required. In order to reach really high rank, an officer has to be capable of thinking which simply isn’t possible unless he’s kept in practice on the way up.
Young Barnes looked up, startled.
“Look here, sir!” he said, surprised. “If it takes them an hour to let down Senior Officer Werner from two planetary diameters, it’ll take much longer to let us down from out here!”
“True,” said Bordman.
“And you don’t want to spend three hours descending, sir, after waiting an hour for him!”
“I don’t,” admitted Bordman. He could have given orders, of course. But if a junior officer were spurred to the practice of thinking, it meant that some day he’d be a better senior officer. And Bordman knew how desperately few men were really adequate for high authority. Anything that could be done to increase the number—
Young Barnes blinked.
“But it doesn’t matter to the landing-grid how far out we are!” he said in an astonished voice. “They could lock on to us at ten diameters, or at one! Once they lock the field-focus on us, when they move it they move us.”
Bordman nodded again.
“So by the time they’ve got that other boat landed—why—I can use rockets and get down to one diameter myself, sir! And they can lock onto us there and let us down a few thousand miles only. So we can get to ground half an hour after the other boat’s down instead of four hours from now.”
“Just so,” agreed Bordman. “At a cost of a little thought and a little fuel. You do have a promising idea after all, Lieutenant. Suppose you carry it out?”
Young Barnes glanced at Bordman’s safety-strap. He threw over the fuel-ready lever and conscientiously waited the few seconds for the first molecules of fuel to be catalyzed cold. Once firing started, they’d be warmed to detonation-readiness in the last few millimeters of the injection-gap.
“Firing, sir,” he said respectfully.
There was the curious sound of a rocket blasting in emptiness, when the sound is conveyed only by the rocket-tube’s metal. There was the smooth, pushing sensation of acceleration. The tiny ship’s boat swung and aimed down at the planet. Lieutenant Barnes leaned forward and punched the ship’s computer.
“I hope you’ll excuse me, sir,” he said. “I should have thought that out myself without prompting. But problems like this don’t turn up very often, sir. As a rule it’s wisest to follow precedents as if they were orders.”
Bordman said drily:
“To be sure! But one reason for the existence of junior officers is the fact that some day there will have to be new senior ones.”
Barnes considered. Then he said surprisedly:
“I never thought of it that way, sir. Thank you.”
He continued to punch the computer keys, frowning. Bordman relaxed in his seat, held there by the gentle acceleration and the belt. He’d had nothing by which to judge the reason for his summoning to Headquarters. He had very little now. But there was trouble of some sort down below. Two senior officers dragged from their own work. Werner, now…Bordman preferred not to estimate Werner. He disliked the man, and would be biased. But he was able, though definitely on the make. And there was himself. They’d been called to a headquarters where no ship was to be landed by landing-grid, nor any rocket to come to ground. A landing-grid could pluck a ship out of space ten planet-diameters out, and draw it with gentle violence shoreward, and land it lightly as a feather. A landing-grid could take the heaviest, loaded freighter and stop it in orbit and bring it down at eight gravities. But the one below wouldn’t land even a tiny Survey ship! And a landing boat was forbidden to come down on its rockets!
Bordman arranged those items in his mind. He knew the planet below, of course. When he got his Senior rating he’d spent six months at Headquarters learning procedures and practices proper to his increased authority. There was one inhabitable island, two hundred miles long and possibly forty wide. There was no other usable ground outside the Arctic. The one occupied island had gigantic sheer cliffs on its windward side, where a great slab of bedrock had split along some submarine fault and tilted upward above the surface. Those cliffs were four thousand feet high, and from them the island sloped very gently and very gradually until its leeward shore slipped under the restless sea. Sector Headquarters had been placed here because it seemed that civilians would not want to colonize so limited a world. But there were civilians, because there was Headquarters. And now every inch of ground was cultivated, and there was irrigation and intensive farming and some hydroponic establishments. However, Sector Headquarters included a vast reserve area on which a space-fleet might be marshalled in case of need. The overcrowded civilians were bitter because of the great uncultivated area the Survey needed for storage and possible emergency use. Even when Bordman was here, years back, there was bitterness because the Survey crowded the civil economy which had been based on it.
Bordman considered all these items, and came to an uncomfortable conclusion. Presently he looked up. The planet loomed larger. Much larger.
“I think you’d better lose all planetward velocity before we hook on,” he observed. “The landing-grid crew might have trouble focusing on us so close if we’re moving.”
“Yes, sir,” said the young officer.
“There’s some sort of merry hell below,” said Bordman. “It looks bad that they won’t let a ship come down by grid. It looks worse that they won’t let this one land on its rockets.” He paused. “I doubt they’ll risk lifting us off again.”
Young Barnes finished his computations. He looked satisfied. He glanced at the now-gigantic planet below, and deftly adjusted the course of the tiny boat. Then he jerked his head around.
“Excuse me, sir. Did you say we mightn’t be able to lift off again?”
“I could almost predict that we won’t,” said Bordman.
“Would you—could you say why, sir?”
“They don’t want landings. The trouble is here. If they don’t want landings, they won’t want launchings. Werner and I were sent for, so presumably we’re needed. But apparently there’s uneasiness about even our landing. They won’t send us off again. I suspect—”
The loud-speaker said tinnily:
“Calling boat from landing-grid! Calling boat from landing-grid!”
“Come in,” said Barnes, looking uneasily at Bordman.
“Correct your course!” commanded the voice. “You are not to land on rockets under any circumstances! This is an order from the Sector Chief himself. Stand off! We will be ready to lock on and land you gently in about fifteen minutes. But meanwhile stand off!”
“Yes, sir,” said young Barnes.
Bordman reached over and took the microphone.
“Bordman speaking,” he said. “I’d like information. What’s the trouble down there that we can’t use our rockets?”
“Rockets are noisy, sir. Even boat-rockets. We have orders to eliminate all physical vibration possible, sir. But I am ordered not to give details on a transmitter, sir.”
“I sign off,” said Bordman, drily.
He pushed the microphone away. He deplored his own lack of aggressiveness. Werner, now, would have pulled his rank and insisted on being informed. But Bordman couldn’t help believing that there was a reason for orders that overruled h
is own.
The young officer swung the rocket end-for-end. The sensation of pressure against the back of Bordman’s seat increased.
Minutes later the speaker said:
“Grid to boat. Prepare for lock-on.”
“Ready, sir,” said Barnes.
The small boat shuddered and leaped crazily. It spun. It oscillated violently through seconds-long arcs in emptiness. Very gradually the oscillations died. There was a momentary sensation of the faint tugging of planetary weight, which is somehow subtly different from the feel of artificial gravity. Then the cosmos turned upside down as the boat was drawn swiftly toward the watery planet below it.
Some minutes later, young Barnes spoke:
“Beg pardon, sir,” he said apologetically. “I must be stupid, sir, but I can’t imagine any reason why vibrations or noises should make any difference on a planet. How could it do harm?”
“This is an ocean-planet,” said Bordman. “It might make people drown.”
The young officer flushed and turned his head away. And Bordman reflected that the young were always sensitive. But he did not speak again. When they landed in the spidery, half-mile-high landing-grid, Barnes would find out whether he was right or not.
He did. And Bordman was right. The people on Canna III were anxious to avoid vibrations because they were afraid of drowning.
Their fears seemed to be rather well-founded.
Three hours after landing, Bordman moved gingerly over grayish muddy rock, with a four-thousand-foot sheer drop some twenty yards away. The ragged edge of a cliff fell straight down for the better part of a mile. Far below, the sea rippled gently. Bordman saw a long, long line of boats moving slowly out to sea. They towed something between them which reached from boat to boat in exaggerated catenary curves. The boats moved in line abreast straight out from the cliffs, towing this floating, curved thing between them.
Bordman regarded them for a moment and then inspected the grayish mud underfoot. He lifted his eyes to the inland side of this peculiar stretch of mountainside muddiness. There was a mast on the rock not far away. It held up what looked like a vision camera.
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