by Kris Neville
“Of course I am.”
“Good. I have a question to ask you, Captain.”
“I say?”
Nestir rubbed his bald head. “Sir,” he said by way of preamble, “I know you have the greatest sensibility in questions of duty.”
“That’s quite so, y’know. I pride myself upon it, if I do say so.”
“Exactly. Argot y calpex. No sacrifice is too great.”
“True; true.”
“Well, then, say the first day of Wenslaus, that would be—ah, a Zentahday—I may depend upon you to wed Wanda Miller, the bosun’s daughter, yes?”
“No,” said the captain.
“Come now, sir. I realize she is the daughter of a crewman, but—”
“Father,” said the captain, “did I ever tell you about the time I led an expeditionary force against Zelthalta?”
“I don’t believe you have.”
“Then I will tell you. Came about this way. I was given command of fifty-three thousand Barains. Savage devils. Uncivilized, but fine fighters. I was to march them ninety-seven miles across the desert that . . .”
“Captain! I fear I must be very severe with you. I will be forced to announce in the mess hall this evening that you have refused to do your duty when it was plainly and properly called to your attention.”
“Very well, Father,” the captain said after several minutes. “I will do it.”
He was trembling slightly.
THAT morning was to be the time of the captain’s wedding. He had insisted that it be done in privacy. For the ceremony, he refused to make the slightest change in his everyday uniform; nor would he consent to Nestir’s suggestion that he carry a nosegay of hydroponic flowers. He had intended, after the ceremony, to go about his duty as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened; but after it was done with, the vast indignity of it came home to him even more poignantly than he had imagined it would.
Without a word, he left the priest’s stateroom and walked slowly, ponderously, with great dignity, to his own.
It was a very fine stateroom. The finest, but for Nestir’s, in the whole ship. The velvet and gold drapes (his single esthetic joy) were scented with exotic perfume. The carpet was an inch and a half thick.
He walked through his office without breaking his stride.
The bed was large and fluffy. An unbroken expanse of white coverlette jutting out from the far bulkhead. It looked as soft as feather down.
Without even a sigh, he threw himself upon the bed and lay very, very quiet. His left leg was suspended in the air, intersecting, at the thigh, the plane of the coverlet at forty-five degrees; the number of degrees remained stiffly, unrelaxingly forty-five.
Only after a long, long time did he roll over on his back and then it was merely to stare fixedly at the ceiling.
It is entirely possible that he would have lain there until Doomsday had not his introspection been, around noon, interrupted by an apologetic tap on the door.
“Come in,” he whispered, hoping she would not hear him and go away.
But she heard him.
“Husband,” Wanda said simply. She closed the door behind her and stood staring at him.
“Madam,” he said, “I hope you will have the kindness not to refer to me by that indecent appelation a second time.”
“Gee. You say the cutest things. I’m awful glad you had to marry me, huh.”
The captain stood up, adjusted his coat and his shoulders, and walked across the room to the dressing table. He opened the left-hand drawer, removed a bottle, poured himself half a water-glass full and drank it off.
“Ah,” he said.
He returned to the bed and sat down.
“Can’tcha even say hello ta little ol’ me, huh?” she asked.
“Hello,” he said. “Madam, sit down. I intend to give you an instructive lecture in the natural order of . . .”
“Huh?”
“Ah,” he said. “Quite true, of course.”
She walked over to the chair and sat down. “I don’t like them,” she said. “Them cloth things over there.”
“Those, Madam,” he said, “are priceless drapes I had imported from the province of San Xalthan. They have a long, strange history.
“About three thousand years ago, a family by the name of Soong was forced to flee from the city of Xan because the eldest son of the family had become involved in a conspiracy against the illustrious King Fod. As the Soong family was traveling . . .”
“I don’t like ’em anyway,” said Wanda.
“Madam,” said the captain, “kindly bring me that.”
“This?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He took the doll from her. He got up again, walked to the chest of drawers, searched around for a penknife. Finally he located it under a stack of socks.
He returned to the bed. Sitting on the edge, he began to rip the doll along the seams with the penknife. Very carefully he emptied the sawdust out upon the carpet, and with equal deliberation, he cut up the canvas covering into small patches. Within fifteen minutes, for he worked very slowly, the doll was completely destroyed.
He laid the penknife on the night stand by his bed. He took out a match and struck it across the bottom of his shoe; he bent over and ignited the remains of the doll.
“You’ll burn yer rug,” Wanda said.
“Yes,” the captain said, “I will. Be so kind as to close the door when you leave.”
V
THE next day the captain appeared at mess.
The third mate said, “I want to thank you for what you done for me, Captain.”
“Don’t mention it,” the captain said, bisecting a pilchard with his fork.
“It’s nice Wanda gets to be in the Festival,” Jane said. “It pleases my husband so.”
“I’m very excited about it all,” the steward said.
The first mate turned his egg over with his fork and peered suspiciously at the underside of it. “Hit’s all right fur you uns ta feel excited. Martha an’ me are still purty bitter.”
“Yes,” Martha said, “I don’t see why the children couldn’t take care of themselves.”
“Who’d get the new crew out of ice?” John, the second mate, said.
“That,” the first mate admitted, “is th’ problem. Can’tcha even cook an aig?” he asked the steward.
“What’s the matter with the egg?” the third mate asked.
“Hit hain’t cooked right,” the first mate insisted.
“Helen,” the captain said, “may I see you after the meal?”
Helen looked demurely into her plate. “Certainly, captain. But if it’s about the Changing of the Wives, I’ve already been asked for.”
“And,” John said proudly, “I’ll bet she was one of the first ones asked.”
“Nestir asked my wife almost a month ago,” said Harry. “She was the very first.”
“Well,” the captain said, “that’s what I had in mind.” He turned to survey the table. His eyes lit upon Mary, the steward’s wife.
She looked at him and shook her head. “John already asked me.”
“Well,” the captain said, “I must say, this is a very fine breakfast, steward. I dearly love pilchards for breakfast. Convey my compliments to the cook.”
“Yes, sir.”
“CAPTAIN,” said Nestir, “I was telling the men . . . just before you came . . . in about the great pageant of Koltah in the year of ’93. At the time, in a special celebration—annum mirabelei—we decided to observe the ancient customs of Meizque. The customs are of some interest, and I thought we might apply several of them to our own Festival.”
“Whatever you wish,” said the captain tiredly, stirring his coffee.
Before Nestir could resume his account, John interrupted. “I want to mention this again. I have a very special treatment for you, Captain. You should be encouraged by that. No one will ever have a better Casting Off than you.”
“Thank you,” said the capta
in. “I shall look forward to it.” He laid down his spoon. “Oh, Anne. May I see you?”
“I’m sorry,” said the wife of Barney, the engineer. “Really and truly I am, but I’ve already been asked, too.”
“Oh,” said the captain.
He looked over at the last officer’s wife, Leota. But he quickly looked away.
“Well,” he said, “this is a fine breakfast we have this morning steward.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll tell the cook.”
Jane said, in order to stave off the encroaching silence, “Nestir, how old are you?”
“Going on forty—Jane.”
“The prime of life,” the steward said.
“Ah,” the captain said thoughtfully. “Leota . . .”
She looked up and soundlessly her mouth formed the words, “Too late.”
The captain dropped the spoon to his plate.
Silence fell. It grew prolonged and uncomfortable. Finally the first mate said, “Hit hain’t the right way to cook aigs, damn hit.”
The captain said, “Father, I say. All the officers’ wives have been asked.”
“Yes,” said Nestir. “They have, haven’t they?”
“Do you suppose it would be all right if I just . . .”
“You know the rules,” Nestir said sternly.
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say,” said the captain. He looked up at the ceiling; his face was placid. He reached up with his right hand and began to scratch his chin. He scratched his chin for a long time, scarcely breathing.
The officers and their wives were silent, waiting for him to speak.
“I BELIEVE I’ll have another cup of coffee,” he said at last.
“Yes, sir,” said the steward, snapping his fingers for the waiter.
Martha said: “You should have asked earlier.”
“I know,” the captain said. “Father, I really don’t see why I have to Change Wives.”
“But Harry will have yours that day. And you know the rules.”
“There are a lot of good-looking women in the crew,” the steward said.
“Quite a number,” said the captain.
He arose from the table and steadied himself a moment. “Never mind the coffee,” he said. “I shouldn’t drink over one cup for breakfast. I believe it aggravates my scrofula.”
He turned, and walked out of the mess hall.
He walked very straight and tall. He walked down the crew’s corridor toward their quarters.
Shortly he saw a woman coming out of one of the cabins.
“Madam,” he said.
She came over to him. “Yes, sir?”
“Madam,” he said, “Madam, I . . .”
“Would ja like to have a drink of water? It’s right down this way, an’ then ya turn ta the left.”
“No . . . uh. I . . . Madam, would you honor me by becoming my partner for the night of the Changing of the Wives?”
She balanced on the balls of her feet and looked up at him. “Yur th’ captain, ain’tcha?”
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
“Sure, I’ll do hit,” she said. “I’d be mighty proud ta.”
The captain turned away and then turned back. “Madam,” he said, “what is your name?”
“Joanne Marie. Jest ask for me. Everybody down here knows me.”
“Joanne Marie, Joanne Marie,” he repeated under his breath. He shuddered and turned to go.
VI
THE day of the Changing of the Wives came to the ship. It was a very important ritualistic day, held, always, three weeks and one day before the Festival of the Casting Off.
The morning of the day, Nestir spoke to the assembled complement. He explained its symbolic importance: he explained its historic development; he delivered, in cretia ultimatum est, an exegesis on the Jarcon. And then he took off the cloak of priestcraft and cast it to the floor. “For I am,” he said, “Ah, a man as you are men.”
Then, being no longer empowered to pronounce a benediction (under normal conditions, the function of a younger priest), he left the cheering members of Flight Seventeen A and sped directly to his stateroom.
The afternoon passed uneventfully. The complement of the ship moved about their routine chores tingling in anticipation of the evening.
At the evening meal, a new seating arrangement was instituted at the insistence of the steward and the third mate. The newly formed couples were to sit side by side.
To accomplish this, it was necessary to set two extra plates in the officers’ mess. One, for Wanda, next to the third mate; and one, for Joanne Marie, beside the captain.
“Please pass the meat,” the third mate said.
Nestir handed it across to him.
“Thank you, Father.”
“Today, in culpa res, I no longer have that honor,” Nestir reminded him. “The blood-red cloak of priestcraft will never again touch my shoulders this side of the Reward.”
“I’d be a little sad,” said the steward.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the third mate said.
“It probably all depends,” Helen, the wife of the second mate, agreed.
“Hit’s a far, far better thing I do,” the first mate said sonorously. He was a little drunk.
The captain speared one pea and ate it. “I envy you,” he said, looking over at Joanne Marie.
Wanda Miller, who had already upset her glass of water in the third mate’s lap, said, “Pass the biscuits, hey . . . You uns have better’n we do.”
“No,” said the steward, “not at all, my dear. We eat the same as the crew.”
“Yes; precisely so,” the third mate said.
“Except ours is fixed up a little differently,” said Jane.
“An’ our cook can’t fry an aig,” the first mate said.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the captain.
“Shucks,” Joanne Marie said, “anybody can fry an aig.”
“On the contrary, Madam. I recall once, when I was a political adviser for the Kong regime . . .”
“Do you mean mea-Kong?” the steward asked.
“No, that was in Koltah.”
“Yes,” Nestir said. “I am very familiar with them. They . . .”
“That’s not the one I meant,” the captain snapped.
Nestir leaped to his feet. “Well!” he said loudly. “I’m through eating.”
“Oh, come now, old man. There’s no hurry, really, y’know,” the captain insisted gently.
“Ain’t there?” Joanne Marie asked. “Gee. I can see you sure ain’t like my husband. I mean my ex.” She giggled.
“Well, I guess I’m finished, too,” Jane said. “Well. Good night, Harry.”
“Good night, dear.”
IN the mess hall, the lights were out. The figure of the captain loomed like a stark obelisk in the gloom.
“Captain, sir, we uns uv been sittin’ here at this table fur hours an’ hours. I’m gettin’ purty tired us sittin’.”
“It’s not long until the Festival,” he said.
“When the mess boy cleared away all them dishes, I thought shore you’d leave, then.”
“Oh, no,” said the captain. “This is very exciting.”
“It ain’t, the way I see it,” Joanne Marie said.
“Different perspective, Madam. Doubtless you would not have considered it very exciting either, the time I ran a wagon train from Tamask-Cha. You see, the material was to be delivered on a mining contract. Madam, I can assure you it was hot. The only road was a narrow line across the Ubiq desert. And late the first evening . . .”
“I can see it warn’t very exciting,” Joanne Marie said.
Silence returned.
“I am getting sleepy,” the captain said at length.
“Oh, I’m usually awake this late. Shucks, I’m used to it. Sometimes I jest get ta sleep when it’s time ta get up. But I do wish we’d go to bed.”
“Madam, your language!”
“All I said was . . .”
<
br /> “I know; I know,” the captain said. “Madam, come to my stateroom. You may sleep on the sofa.”
“Weeeel,” Joanne Marie said, “I ain’t a-sayin’ that. I know my rights.”
“Let us not be difficult. I am certain, when I explain to you in a logical fashion the obvious impossibility of—of—”
“You got no wife?”
“No,” he said.
“Yeah. I thought not. That sure is swell.”
“Madam. Perhaps I can say it this way. I have certain perturbations, but I can assure you, whatever you attempt my aim is inflexible. For me, the Captain, to—ah—consort with a crew woman is preposterous.”
“Is that what you call it? Now that’s a funny word. My husband calls it—”
“Madam!”
Joanne Marie was cowed into silence. They walked directly to his stateroom.
Once inside, Joanne Marie said, “Now ya jest sit down, comfortable like. I got somethin’ I want to tell ya.”
“No,” the captain said.
“I ain’t even told ja yet.”
“It won’t matter,” the captain said.
“My husband don’t like me,” she said.
He dropped his head into his hands and sighed deeply. Then he looked up, his face set in icy resignation.
VII
JOHN, the second mate, awoke early the morning of the Festival.
“Helen, honey,” he said. “Wake up.”
She murmured sleepily.
“Come on, now, wake up.”
She rolled over to her side of the bed.
“All right,” he said. He reached out, fumbled for and found his cigarettes.
“You know what I’m going to do to the captain?” he asked. He lit a cigarette and lying on his back blew smoke rings at the ceiling.
“Yes,” his wife said, “you told me.”
“First, I’m going to take that saber I got on Queglat and scrape open his scrofula. Then, when he’s bleeding nicely, all I have to do is pour a bottle of alcohol on him. Don’t you think that will be nice?”
“Yes, dear.”
“You know, I’m kinda sorry I went to all the trouble sharpening that saber. After all, it might be more painful if the saber was dull.”
“Yes, dear.”