The Man-Kzin Wars 01 (5 page)

He calmed, even returned the smile.
“
B
ut we have drifted rather far off course, haven't we? I invited you here for still another talk about your plans. Have I no hope of persuading you the mission is wasteful folly?"
“
Y
ou've said the same about damn near every proposal to do any real exploring," Saxtorph growled
.

“
Y
ou exaggerate, Captain. Must we go over the old, trampled ground again? I am simply a realist. Ships, equipment, trained crews are in the shortest supply. We need them closer to home, to build up interstellar commerce and industry. Once we have that base, that productivity, yes, then of course we go forward. But we will go cautiously, if I have anything to say about it. Was not the kzin invasion a deadly enough surprise? Who knows what dangers, mortal dangers, a reckless would-be galaxy
trotter may stir up?" Saxtorph sighed.
“
Y
ou're right, this has gotten to be boringly familiar territory. I'll spare you my argument about how dangerous ignorance can be. The point is, I never put in for anything much. For a voyage as long as we intend, we need adequate supplies, and our insurance carrier insists we carry
double spares of vital gear. The money Professor Tregennis wangled out of his university for the charter won't stretch to it. So we all rendezvoused here to apply for a government donation of stuff sitting in the warehouses
.

“
I
t just might buy you a scientific revolution.
”

He had rehashed this with malice, to repay Markham for the latter's own repetition. It failed to get the man's goat. Instead, the answer was, mildly, I saw it as my duty to persuade the Commission to deny your request. Please believe there was no personal motive. I wish you well."
Saxtorph
grinned, blew a smoke ring, and said,
“
T
hanks. Want to come wave goodbye? Because we are going.
“

Markham took him off guard with a nod. I know. Stefan Brozik has offered you a grant.
”

“
H
ub?"
Saxtorph
grabbed his pipe just before it landed in his lap, He recovered his wits.
“
D
id you have the hyperwave monitored for messages to members of our party?" His voice roughened.
“
S
ir, I resent that."
“
I
t was not illegal. I was
...
more concerned than you think." Markham leaned forward.
“
L
isten. A man does not necessarily like doing what duty commands. Did you imagine I don't regret choking off great adventures, that I do not myself long for the age of discovery that must come? In my heart I feel a certain gratitude toward Brozik. He has released me.
“
N
ow, since you are inevitably going, it would be pointless to continue refusing you what you want. That can only delay, not stop you. Better to cooperate, win back your goodwill, and in return have some influence on your actions. I will contact my colleagues. There should be no difficulty in getting a reversal of our decision.
”

Saxtorph sagged back in his chair.
“
J
udas
...
priest.
“

“
T
here are conditions," Markham told him.
“
I
f you are to be spared a long time idle here, prudent men must be spared nightmares about what grief you might bring, on us all by some blunder. Excuse my blunt language. You are amateurs.
”

“
E
very explorer is an amateur. By definition.
”

“
Y
ou are undermanned.
”

“
I
wouldn't say so. Captain; computerman; two pilots, who're also experienced rockjacks and planetsiders; quartermaster. Everybody competent in a slew of other specialties. And, this trip, two scientists, the prof and his student. What would anybody else do?
”

“
F
or one thing," Markham said crisply, "he would counsel proper caution and point out where this was not being exercised. He would keep official policy in your minds. The condition of your obtaining what you need immediately is this. You shall take along a man who will have officer status-"
“
H
ey, wait a minute. I'm the skipper, my wife's the mate as well as the computerman, and the rest have shaken down into a damn good team. I don't aim to shake it back up again.
”

“
Y
ou needn't," Markham assured him.
“
T
his man will be basically an observer and advisor. He should prove useful in several additional capacities. In the event of
...
disaster to the regular officers, he can take command, bring the ship back, and be an impartial witness at the inquiry."
“
M
-m-m." Saxtorph frowned, rubbed his chin, pondered.
“
M
aybe. It'll be a long voyage, you know, about ninety days cooped up together, with God knows what at the end. Not that we expect anything more than interesting astronomical objects. Still, you're right, it is unpredictable. We're a close-knit crew,
and the scientists seem to fit in well, but what about this stranger?"
“
I
refer you to my record," Markham replied. When Saxtorph drew a sharp breath, the Wunderlander added,
“
Y
es, I am doubtless being selfish. However, my abilities in space are proven, and-in spite of everything, I share the dream."

I
n her youth, before she became a tramp, Rover was a naval transport, UNS Ghost Dance, She took men and mat
e
riel from their sources to bases around the Solar System, and brought some back for furlough or repair. A few times she went into combat mode. They were only a few. The kzinti hurled a sublight fleet out of Alpha Centauri at variable intervals, but years apart, since one way or another they always lost heavily in the sanguinary campaigns that followed. Ghost Dance would release her twin fighters to escort her on her rounds. Once they came under attack, and were the survivors
.

Rover might now be less respectable, maybe even a bit shabby, but was by no means a slattern. The Saxtorphs had obtained her in a postwar sale of surplus and outfitted her as well as their finances permitted. On the outside she remained a hundred-meter spheroid, its smoothness broken by airlocks, hatches, boat bays, instrument housings, communications boom, grapples, and micrometeoroid pocks that had given the metal a matte finish. Inboard, much more had changed. Automated as she was, she never needed more than a handful to man her; on a routine interplanetary flight she was quite capable of being her own crew. Most personnel space had therefore been
converted for cargo stowage. Those people who did travel in her had more room and comfort than formerly. Instead of warcraft she carried two Prospector class boats, primarily meant for asteroids and the like but well able to maneuver in atmosphere and set down on a fair-sized planet. Other machinery was equally for peaceful, if occasionally rough use.

“
B
ut how did the Saxtorphs ever acquire a hyperdrive?" asked Laurinda Brozik. I thought licensing was strict in the Solar System, too, and they don't seem to be terribly influential.
”

“
T
hey didn't tell you?" replied Kamehameha Ryan.
“
B
ob loves to guffaw over that caper.
”

Her lashes fluttered downward. A tinge of pink crossed the alabaster skin.
“
I
don't like to
...
pry-ask personal questions.
”

He patted her hand.
“
Y
ou're too sweet and considerate, Laurinda. Uh, okay to call you that? We are in for a long haul. I'm Kam.
”

The quartermaster was showing her around while Rover moved up the Alpha Centaurian gravity well until it would be safe to slip free of Einsteinian space. Her holds being vacant, the acceleration was several g, but the interior polarizer maintained weight at the half Earth normal to which healthy humans from every world can soon adapt.
“
Y
ou want the grand tour, not a hasty look-around like you got before, and
who’d
be a better guide than me?" Ryan had said.
“
I
'm the guy who takes care of inboard operations, everything from dusting and polishing, through mass trim and equipment service, on to cooking, which is the real art." He was a stocky man of medium height, starting to go plump, round-faced, dark-complexioned, his blue-black hair streaked with the earliest frost. A gaudy sleeveless shirt bulged above canary-yellow slacks and thong sandals
.

“
W
ell, I-well, thank you, Kam," Laurinda whispered
.

“
T
hank you, my dear. Now this door I'd better not open for you. Behind it we keep chemical explosives for mining-type jobs. But you were asking about our hyperdrive, weren't you?
“
W
ell, after the war Bob and Dorcas-they met and got married during it, when he was in the navy and she was helping beef up the defenses at Ixa, with a sideline in translation-they worked for Solar Minerals, scouting the asteroids, and did well enough, commissions and bonuses and such, that at last they could make the down payment on this ship. She was going pretty cheap because nobody else wanted her. Who'd be so crazy as to compete with the big Belter companies? But you see, meanwhile they'd found the real treasure, a derelict hyperdrive craft. She wasn't UN property or anything, she was an experimental job a manufacturer had been testing. Unmanned; a monopole meteoroid passed close by and fouled up the electronics; she looped off on an eccentric orbit and was lost; the company went out of business. She'd become a legend of sorts, every search had failed, on which basis Dorcas figured out where she most likely was, and she and Bob went looking on their own time. As soon as they were ready they announced their discovery, claimed salvage rights, and installed the drive in this hull. Nobody had foreseen anything like that, and besides, they'd hired a smart lawyer. The rules have since been changed, of course, but we come under a grandfather clause. So here we've got the only completely independent starship in known space."

“
I
t is very venturesome of you.
”

“
Y
eah, things often get precarious. Interstellar commerce hasn't yet developed regular trade routes,
except what govern
ment-owned lines monopolize. We have to take what we can get, and not all of it has been simple hauling of stuff from here to there. The last job turned out to be a lemon, and frankly, this charter is a godsend. Uh, don't quote me. I talk too much. Bob bears with me, but a tongue-lashing from Dorcas can take the skin off your soul."
“
Y
ou and he are old friends, aren't you?"

“
S
ince our teens. He came knocking his way around Earth to Hawaii,
proved to be a good guy for a h
ole, I sort of introduced him to people and things, we had some grand times. Then he enlisted, had a real yeager of a war career, but you must know something about that. He looked me up afterward, when he and Dorcas were taking a second honeymoon, and later they offered me this berth."

“
Y
ou had experience?
”

“
Y
es, I'd gone spaceward, too. Civilian. Interesting work, great pay,
glamour
to draw the girls, because not many flatlanders wanted to leave Earth when the next kzin attack might happen anytime.
”

“
I
t
seems so romantic," Laurinda murmured.
“
S
uperficially, at least, and to me.
“

“
W
hat do you mean, please?" Ryan asked, in the interest of drawing her out. Human females like men who will listen to them
.

“
O
h, that is-What have I done except study? And, well, research. I was born the year the Outsiders arrived at We Made It, but of course they were gone again long before I could meet them. In fact, I never saw a nonhuman in the flesh till I came to Centauri and visited Tigertown, You and your friends have been out, active, in the universe.
”

“
I
don't want to sound self-pitying," Ryan said, unable to quite avoid sounding smug, "but it's been mostly sitting inboard, then working our fingers off,
frantic scrambles, shortages of everything, and moments of stark terror. A wise man once called adventure 'somebody else having a hell of a tough time ten light-years away.' "