Orphans of the Sky (10 page)

      
"Him? You mean the old one—he's dead. Made the Trip long since. The new one don't amount to nothing."

      
"Good. If you're careful, you'll be safe." Hugh raised his voice. "Bill! Are you ready to go down?"

      
"I suppose so." Ertz picked himself up and reluctantly put aside the book he had been reading—
The Three Musketeers,
illustrated, one of Joe-Jim's carefully stolen library. "Say, that's a wonderful book. Hugh, is
Earth
really like that?"

      
"Of course. Doesn't it say so in the book?"

      
Ertz chewed his lip and thought about it. "What is a house?"

      
"A house? A house is a sort of a ... a sort of a compartment."

      
"That's what I thought at first, but how can you ride on a compartment?"

      
"Huh? What do you mean?"

      
"Why, all through the book they keep climbing on their houses and riding away."

      
"Let me see that book," Joe ordered. Ertz handed it to him. Joe-Jim thumbed through it rapidly. "I see what you mean. Idiot! They ride horses, not houses."

      
"Well, what's a horse?"

      
"A horse is an animal, like a big hog, or maybe like a cow. You squat up on top of it and let it carry you along."

      
Ertz considered this. "It doesn't seem practical. Look—when you ride in a litter, you tell the chief porter where you want to go. How can you tell a cow where you want to go?"

      
"That's easy. You have a porter lead it."

      
Ertz conceded the point. "Anyhow, you might fall off. It isn't practical. I'd rather walk."

      
"It's quite a trick," Joe explained. "Takes practice."
 

      
"Can
you
do it?"
 

      
Jim sniggered. Joe looked annoyed. "There are no horses in the Ship."
 

      
"O.K., O.K. But look—These guys Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, they had something—"
 

      
"We can discuss that later," Hugh interrupted. "Bobo is back. Are you ready to go, Bill?"

      
"Don't get in a hurry, Hugh. This is important. These chaps had knives—"
 

      
"Sure. Why not?"
 

      
"But they were better than our knives. They had knives as long as your arm—maybe longer. If we are going to fight the whole Crew, think what an advantage that would be."

      
"Hm-m-m—" Hugh drew his knife and looked at it, cradling it in his palm. "Maybe. You couldn't throw it as well."

      
"We could have throwing knives, too."
 

      
"Yes, I suppose we could."
 

      
The twins had listened without comment. "He's right," put in Joe. "Hugh, you take care of placing the knives. Jim and I have some reading to do." Both of Joe-Jim's heads were busy thinking of other books they owned, books that discussed in sanguinary detail the infinitely varied methods used by mankind to shorten the lives of enemies. He was about to institute a War College Department of Historical Research, although he called his project by no such fancy term.

      
"O.K.," Hugh agreed, "but you will have to say the word to them."

      
"Right away." Joe-Jim stepped out of his apartment into the passageway where Bobo had assembled a couple of dozen of Joe-Jim's henchmen among the muties. Save for Long Arm, Pig, and Squatty, who had taken part in the rescue of Hugh, they were all strangers to Hugh, Alan, and Bill—and they were all sudden death to strangers.

      
Joe-Jim motioned for the three from the lower decks to join him. He pointed them out to the muties, and ordered them to look closely and not to forget— these three were to have safe passage and protection wherever they went. Furthermore, in Joe-Jim's absence his men were to take orders from any of them.

      
They stirred and looked at each other. Orders they were used to, but from Joe-Jim only.

      
A big-nosed individual rose up from his squat and addressed them. He looked at Joe-Jim, but his words were intended for all. "I am Jack-of-the-Nose. My blade is sharp and my eye is keen. Joe-Jim with the two wise heads is my Boss and my knife fights for him. But Joe-Jim is my Boss, not strangers from heavy decks. What do you say, knives? Is that not the Rule?"

      
He paused. The others had listened to him nervously, stealing glances at Joe-Jim. Joe muttered something out of the corner of his mouth to Bobo. Jack O'Nose opened his mouth to continue. There was a smash of breaking teeth, a crack from a broken neck; his mouth was stopped with a missile.

      
Bobo reloaded his slingshot. The body, not yet dead, settled slowly to the deck. Joe-Jim waved a hand toward it. "Good eating!" Joe announced. "He's yours." The muties converged on the body as if they had suddenly been unleashed. They concealed it completely in a busy grunting pile-up. Knives out, they cuffed and crowded each other for a piece of the prize.

      
Joe-Jim waited patiently for the undoing to be finished, then, when the place where Jack O'Nose had been was no more than a stain on the deck and the several private arguments over the sharing had died down, he spoke again—Joe spoke. "Long Arm, you and Forty-one and the Ax go down with Bobo, Alan and Bill. The rest wait here."

      
Bobo trotted away in the long loping strides permitted by the low pseudogravity near the axis of rotation of the Ship. Three of the muties detached themselves from the pack and followed. Ertz and Alan Mahoney hurried to catch up.

      
When he reached the nearest staircase trunk, Bobo skipped out into space without breaking his stride and let centrifugal force carry him down to the next deck. Alan and the muties followed, but Ertz paused at the edge and looked back. "Jordan keep you, brothers!" he sang out.

      
Joe-Jim waved to him. "And you," acknowledged Joe.

      
"Good eating!" Jim added.
 

      
"Good eating!"
 

      
Bobo led them down forty-odd decks, well into the no man's land inhabited neither by mutie nor crew, and stopped. He pointed in succession to Long Arm, Forty-one, and the Ax. "Two Wise Heads say for you to keep watch here. You first," he added, pointing again to Forty-one.

      
"It's like this," Ertz amplified. "Alan and I are going down to heavy-weight level. You three are to keep a guard here, one at a time, so that I will be able to send messages back up to Joe-Jim. Get it?"

      
"Sure. Why not?" Long Arm answered.

      
"Joe-Jim says it," Forty-one commented with a note of finality in his voice. The Ax grunted agreeably.

      
O.K.," said Bobo. Forty-one sat down at the stairwell, letting his feet hang over, and turned his attention to food which he had been carrying tucked under his left arm.

      
Bobo slapped Ertz and Alan on their backs. "Good eating," he bade them, grinning. When he could get his breath, Ertz acknowledged the courteous thought, then dropped at once to the next lower deck, Alan close after him. They had still many decks to go to "civilization."

      
Commander Phineas Narby, Executive Assistant to Jordan's Captain, in rummaging through the desk of the Chief Engineer was amused to find that Bill Ertz had secreted therein a couple of Unnecessary books. There were the usual Sacred books, of course, including the priceless
Care and Maintenance of the Auxiliary Four-stage Converter
and the
Handbook of Power, Light, and Conditioning—Starship
Vanguard. These were Sacred books of the first order, bearing the imprint of Jordan himself, and could lawfully be held only by the Chief Engineer.

      
Narby considered himself a skeptic and rationalist. Belief in Jordan was a good thing—for the Crew. Nevertheless the sight of a title page with the words "Jordan Foundation" on it stirred up within him a trace of religious awe such as he had not felt since before he was admitted to scientisthood.

      
He knew that the feeling was irrational—probably there had been at some time in the past some person or persons called Jordan. Jordan might have been an early engineer or captain who codified the common sense and almost instinctive rules for running the Ship. Or, as seemed more likely, the Jordan myth went back much farther than this book in his hand, and its author had simply availed himself of the ignorant superstitions of the Crew to give his writings authority. Narby knew how such things were done—he planned to give the new policy with respect to the muties the same blessing of Jordan when the time was ripe for it to be put into execution. Yes, order and discipline and belief in authority were good things—for the Crew. It was equally evident that a rational, coolheaded common sense was a proper attribute for the scientists who were custodians of the Ship's welfare—common sense and a belief in nothing but facts.

      
He admired the exact lettering on the pages of the book he held. They certainly had excellent clerks in those ancient times—not the sloppy draftsmen he was forced to put up with, who could hardly print two letters alike.

      
He made a mental note to study these two indispensable handbooks of the engineering department before turning them over to Ertz's successor. It would be well, he thought, not to be too dependent on the statements of the Chief Engineer when he himself succeeded to the captaincy. Narby had no particular respect for engineers, largely because he had no particular talent for engineering. When he had first reached scientisthood and had been charged to defend the spiritual and material welfare of the Crew, had sworn to uphold the Teachings of Jordan, he soon discovered that administration and personnel management were more in his line than tending the Converter or servicing the power lines. He had served as clerk, village administrator, recorder to the Council, personnel officer, and was now chief executive for Jordan's Captain himself—ever since an unfortunate and rather mysterious accident had shortened the life of Narby's predecessor in that post.

      
His decision to study up on engineering before a new Chief Engineer was selected brought to mind the problem of choosing a new chief. Normally the Senior Watch Officer for the Converter would become Chief Engineer when a chief made the Trip, but in this case, Mort Tyler, the Senior Watch, had made the Trip at the same time—his body had been found, stiff and cold, after the mutie raid which had rescued the heretic, Hugh Hoyland. That left the choice wide open and Narby was a bit undecided as to whom he should suggest to the Captain.

      
One thing was certain—the new chief must not be a man with as much aggressive initiative as Ertz. Narby admitted that Ertz had done a good job in organizing the Crew for the proposed extermination of the muties, but his very efficiency had made him too strong a candidate for succession to the captaincy—if and when. Had he thought about it overtly Narby might have admitted to himself that the present Captain's life span had extended unduly because Narby was not absolutely certain that Ertz would not be selected.

      
What he did think was that this might be a good time for the old Captain to surrender his spirit to Jordan. The fat old fool had long outlived his usefulness; Narby was tired of having to wheedle him into giving the proper orders. If the Council were faced with the necessity of selecting a new Captain at this time, there was but one candidate available—

      
Narby put the book down, his mind made up.

      
The simple decision to eliminate the old Captain carried with it in Narby's mind no feeling of shame, nor sin, nor disloyalty. He felt contempt but not dislike for the Captain, and no mean spirit colored his decision to kill him. Narby's plans were made on the noble level of statesmanship. He honestly believed that his objective was the welfare of the entire Crew—common-sense administration, order and discipline, good eating for everyone. He selected himself because it was obvious to him that he was best fitted to accomplish those worthy ends. That some must make the Trip in order that these larger interests be served he did not find even mildly regrettable, but he bore them no malice.

      
"What in the Huff are you doing at my desk?"

      
Narby looked up to see the late Bill Ertz standing over him, not looking pleased. He looked again, then as an afterthought closed his mouth. He had been so certain, when Ertz failed to reappear after the raid, that he had made the Trip and was in all probability butchered and eaten—so certain that it was now a sharp wrench to his mind to see Ertz standing before him, aggressively alive. But he pulled himself together.

      
"Bill! Jordan bless you, man—we thought you had made the Trip! Sit down, sit down, and tell me what happened to you."

      
"I will if you will get out of my chair," Ertz answered bitingly.

      
"Oh—sorry!" Narby hastily vacated the chair at Ertz's desk and found another.

      
"And now," Ertz continued, taking the seat Narby had left, "you might explain why you were going through my writings."

      
Narby managed to look hurt. "Isn't that obvious? We assumed you were dead. Someone had to take over and attend to your department until a new chief was designated. I was acting on behalf of the Captain."