Citizen of the Galaxy (23 page)

“What? Why didn't you say so? Goodness, man! You'll never make it”

“I'm very much afraid so . . . but I had to do this.”

“We'll fix that.” The Colonel snatched open the door. “Eddie! An air car for Captain Krausa. Speed run. Take him off the top and put him down where he says. Crash!”

“Aye aye, Skipper!”

Brisby turned back, raised his eyebrows, then stepped into the outer office. Krausa was facing Thorby, his mouth working painfully. “Come here. Son.”

“Yes, Father.”

“I have to go now. Maybe you can manage to be at a Gathering . . . some day.”

“Ill try, Father!”

“If not . . . well, the blood stays in the steel, the steel stays in the blood. You're still Sisu”

“ 'The steel stays in the blood.' “

“Good business, Son. Be a good boy.”

“Good . . . business! Oh, Father!”

“Stop it! You'll have me doing it. Listen, I'll take your responses this afternoon. You must not show up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your Mother loves you . . . and so do I.”

Brisby tapped on the open door. “Your car is waiting, Captain.”

“Coming, Skipper.” Krausa kissed Thorby on both cheeks and turned suddenly away, so that all Thorby saw was his broad back.

Colonel Brisby returned presently, sat down, looked at Thorby and said, “I don't know quite what to do with you. But we'll manage.” He touched a switch. “Have someone dig up the berthing master-at-arms, Eddie.” He turned to Thorby. “We'll make out, if you're not too fussy. You traders live pretty luxuriously, I understand.”

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“Baslim was a colonel? Of your service?”

“Well . . . yes.”

Thorby had now had a few minutes to think -- and old memories had been stirred mightily. He said hesitantly, “I have a message for you -- I think.”

“From Colonel Baslim?”

“Yes, sir. I'm supposed to be in a light trance. But I think I can start it.” Carefully, Thorby recited a few code groups. “Is this for you?”

Colonel Brisby again hastily closed the door. Then he said earnestly, “Don't ever use that code unless you are certain everyone in earshot is cleared for it and the room has been debugged.”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

“No harm done. But anything in that code is hot I just hope that it hasn't cooled off in two years.” He touched the talker switch again. “Eddie, cancel the master-at-arms. Get me the psych officer. If he's out of the ship, have him chased down.” He looked at Thorby. “I still don't know what to do with you. I ought to lock you in the safe.”

The long message was squeezed out of Thorby in the presence only of Colonel Brisby, his Executive Officer Vice Colonel “Stinky” Stancke, and the ship's psychologist Medical-Captain Isadore Krishnamurti. The session went slowly; Dr. Kris did not often use hypnotherapy. Thorby was so tense that he resisted, and the Exec had a blasphemous time with recording equipment. But at last the psychologist straightened up and wiped his face. “That's all, I think,” he said wearily. “But what is it?”

“Forget you heard it. Doc,” advised Brisby. “Better yet, cut your throat.”

“Gee, thanks. Boss.”

Stancke said, “Pappy, let's run him through again. I've got this mad scientist's dream working better. His accent may have garbled it.”

“Nonsense. The kid speaks pure Terran.”

“Okay, so it's my ears. I've been exposed to bad influences -- been aboard too long.”

“If,” Brisby answered calmly, “that is a slur on your commanding officer's pure speech, I consider the source. Stinkpot, is it true that you Riffs write down anything you want understood?”

“Only with Araleshi . . . sir. Nothing personal, you asked. Well, how about it? I've got the noise filtered out”

“Doc?”

“Hmm . . . The subject is fatigued. Is this your only opportunity?”

“Eh? He'll be with us quite a while. All right, wake him.”

Shortly Thorby was handed over to the berthing P.O. Several liters of coffee, a tray of sandwiches, and one skipped meal later the Colonel and his second in command had recorded in clear the thousands of words of old Baslim the Beggar's final report. Stancke sat back and whistled. “You can relax, Pappy. This stuff didn't cool off -- a half-life of a century, on a guess.”

Brisby answered soberly, “Yes, and a lot of good boys will die before it does.”

“You ain't foolin'. What gets me is that trader kid -- running around the Galaxy with all that 'burn-before-reading' between his ears. Shall I slide down and poison him?”

“What, and have to fill out all those copies?”

“Well, maybe Kris can wipe it out of his tender gray matter without resorting to a trans-orbital.”

“Anybody touches that kid and Colonel Baslim will rise up out of his grave and strangle him, is my guess. Did you know Baslim, Stinky?”

“One course under him in psychological weapons, my last year at the Academy. Just before he went 'X' Corps. Most brilliant mind I've ever met -- except yours, of course, Pappy, sir, boss.”

“Don't strain yourself. No doubt he was a brilliant teacher -- he would be tops at anything. But you should have known him before he was on limited duty. I was privileged to serve under him. Now that I have a ship of my own I just ask myself: 'What would Baslim do?' He was the best commanding officer a ship ever had. It was during his second crack at colonel -- he had been up to wing marshal and put in for reduction to have a ship again, to get away from a desk.”

Stancke shook his head. “I can't wait for a nice cushy desk, where I can write recommendations nobody will read.”

“You aren't Baslim. If it wasn't hard, he didn't like it.”

“I'm no hero. I'm more the salt of the earth. Pappy, were you with him in the rescue of the Hansea?”

“You think I would fail to wear the ribbon? No, thank goodness; I had been transferred. That was a hand-weapons job. Messy.”

“Maybe you would have had the sense not to volunteer.”

“Stinky, even you would volunteer, fat and lazy as you are -- if Baslim asked for volunteers.”

“I'm not lazy, I'm efficient. But riddle me this: what was a C.O. doing leading a landing party?”

“The Old Man followed regulations only when he agreed with them. He wanted a crack at slavers with his own hands -- he hated slavers with a cold passion. So he comes back a hero and what can the Department do? Wait until he gets out of the hospital and court-martial him? Stinky, even top brass can be sensible when they have their noses rubbed in it So they cited him for above-and-beyond under unique circumstances and put him on limited duty. But from here on, when 'unique circumstances' arise, every commanding officer knows that he can't thumb through the book for an alibi. It'll be up to him to continue the example.”

“Not me,” Stancke said firmly.

“You. When you're a C.O. and comes time to do something unpleasant, there you'll be, trying to get your tummy to and your chest out, with your chubby little face set in hero lines. You won't be able to help it. The Baslim conditioned-reflex will hit you.”

Around dawn they got to bed. Brisby intended to sleep late but long habit took him to his desk only minutes late. He was not surprised to find his professedly-lazy Exec already at work.

His Paymaster-Lieutenant was waiting. The fiscal officer was holding a message form; Brisby recognized it. The night before, after hours of dividing Baslim's report into phrases, then recoding it to be sent by split routes, he had realized that there was one more chore before he could sleep: arrange for identification search on Colonel Baslim's adopted son. Brisby had no confidence that a waif picked up on Jubbul could be traced in the vital records of the Hegemony -- but if the Old Man sent for a bucket of space, that was what he wanted and no excuses. Toward Baslim, dead or not. Colonel Brisby maintained the attitudes of a junior officer. So he had written a dispatch and left word with the duty officer to have Thorby finger-printed and the prints coded at reveille. Then he could sleep.

Brisby looked at the message. “Hasn't this gone out?” he demanded.

“The photo lab is coding the prints now, Skipper. But the Comm Office brought it to me for a charge, since it is for service outside the ship.”

“Well, assign it. Do I have to be bothered with every routine matter?”

The Paymaster decided that the Old Man had been missing sleep again. “Bad news, Skipper.”

“Okay, spill it.”

“I don't know of a charge to cover it I doubt if there is an appropriation to fit even if we could figure out a likely-sounding charge.”

“I don't care what charge. Pick one and get that message moving. Use that general one. Oh-oh-something.”

“ 'Unpredictable Overhead, Administrative.' It won't work, Skipper. Making an identity search on a civilian cannot be construed as ship's overhead. Oh, I can put that charge number on and you'll get an answer. But --”

“That's what I want. An answer.”

“Yes, sir. But eventually it reaches the General Accounting Office and the wheels go around and a card pops out with a red tag. Then my pay is checked until I pay it back. That's why they make us blokes study law as well as accounting.”

“You're breaking my heart. Okay, Pay, if you're too sissy to sign it, tell me what charge number that overhead thing is; I'll write it in and sign my name and rank. Okay?”

“Yes, sir. But, Skipper --”

“Pay, I've had a hard night.”

“Yes, sir. I'm required by law to advise you. You don't have to take it, of course.”

“Of course,” Brisby agreed grimly.

“Skipper, have you any notion how expensive an identification search can be?”

“It can't be much. I can't see why you are making such an aching issue of it. I want a clerk to get off his fundament and look in the files. I doubt if they'll bill us. Routine courtesy.”

“I wish I thought so, sir. But you've made this an unlimited search. Since you haven't named a planet, first it will go to Tycho City, live files and dead. Or do you want to limit it to live files?”

Brisby thought. If Colonel Baslim had believed that this young man had come from inside civilization, then it was likely that the kid's family thought he was dead. “No.”

“Too bad. Dead files are three times as big as the live. So they search at Tycho. It takes a while, even with machines -- over twenty billion entries. Suppose you get a null result A coded inquiry goes to vital bureaus on all planets, since Great Archives are never up to date and some planetary governments don't send in records anyhow. Now the cost mounts, especially if you use n-space routing; exact coding on a fingerprint set is a fair-sized book. Of course if you take one planet at a time and use mail --”

“No.”

“Well . . . Skipper, why not put a limit on it? A thousand credits, or whatever you can afford if -- I mean 'when' -- they check your pay.”

“A thousand credits? Ridiculous!”

“If I'm wrong, the limitation won't matter. If I'm right -- and I am, a thousand credits could just be a starter -- then your neck isn't out too far.”

Brisby scowled. “Pay, you aren't working for me to tell me I can't do things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You're here to tell me how I can do what I'm going to do anyhow. So start digging through your books and find out how. Legally. And free.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Brisby did not go right to work. He was fuming -- some day they would get the service so fouled up in red tape they'd never get a ship off the ground. He bet that the Old Man had gone into the Exotic Corps with a feeling of relief -- “X” Corps agents didn't have red tape; one of 'em finds it necessary to spend money, he just did so, ten credits or ten million. That was how to operate -- pick your men, then trust them. No regular reports, no forms, no nothing -- just do what needs to be done.

Whereupon he picked up the ship's quarterly fuel and engineering report. He put it down, reached for a message form, wrote a follow-up on Baslim's report, informing Exotic Bureau that the unclassified courier who had delivered report was still in jurisdiction of signer and in signer's opinion additional data could be had if signer were authorized to discuss report with courier at discretion.

He decided not to turn it over to the code and cipher group; he opened his safe and set about coding it He had just finished when the Paymaster knocked. Brisby looked up. “So you found the paragraph.”

“Perhaps, Skipper, I've been talking with the Executive Officer.”

“Shoot”

“I see we have subject person aboard.”

“Now don't tell me I need a charge for that!”

“Not at all, Skipper. I'll absorb his ration in the rush. You keep him aboard forever and I won't notice. Things don't get awkward until they get on the books. But how long do you expect to keep him? It must be more than a day or two, or you wouldn't want an identity search.”

The Commanding Officer frowned. “It may be quite a while. First I've got to find out who he is, where he's from. Then, if we're going that way, I intend to give him an unlogged lift. If we aren't -- well, I'll pass him along to a ship that is. Too complicated to explain, Pay -- but necessary.”