Masters of the Vortex by E. E. Smith - HTML preview

Chapter 7
 ______THE BLASTER ACQUIRES A CREW

CLOUD, RETURNING to his cruiser, found that most of his shipwrecked passengers had departed. Five of them, however—the two Chickladorians, the Manarkan, the squatty, and the Vegian—were still on board. Thlaskin, now back to normal, came to attention and saluted crisply; the women bowed or nodded and looked at him with varying degrees of interrogation.

“How come, Thlaskin? I thought all the passengers were going back with the task force.”

“They are, boss. They’ve gone. We followed your orders, boss—chivied ’em off. I checked with the flagship about more crew besides us, and he says QX. Just tell me how many you want of what, and I’ll get ’em.”

“I don’t want anybody!” Cloud snapped. “Not even you. Not any of you.”

“Jet back, boss!” Spaceal was a simple language, and inherently slangy and profane, but there was no doubt as to the intensity of the pilot’s feelings. “I don’t know why you were running this heap alone, or how long, but I got a couple questions to ask. Do you know just how many million ways these goddam automatics can go haywire in? Do you know what to do about half of ’em when they do? Or are you just simply completely nuts?”

“No. Not too much. I don’t think so.” As he answered the three questions in order Cloud’s mind flashed back to what Phil Strong and several other men had tried so heatedly to impress upon him—the stupidity, the lunacy, the sheer, stark idiocy of a man of his training trying to go it solo in deep space. How did one say “You have a point there, but before I make such a momentous decision we should explore the various possibilities of what is a completely unexpected development” in spaceal? One didn’t! Instead:

“Maybe QX, maybe not. We’ll talk it over. Tell the Manarkan to try to work me direct—maybe I can receive her now, after working the boneheads.”

She could. Communication was not, perhaps, as clear as between two Manarkans or two Lensmen, but it was clear enough.

“You wish to know why I have included myself in your crew,” the white-swathed girl began, as soon as communication was established. “It is the law. This vessel, the Vortex Blaster I, of Earth registry, belonging to the Galactic Patrol, is of a tonnage which obligates it to carry a medical doctor; or, in and for the duration of an emergency only, a registered graduate nurse. I am both R.N. and M.D. If you prefer to employ some other nursing doctor or doctor and nurse that is of course your right; but I can not and will not leave this ship until I am replaced by competent personnel. If I did such a thing I would be disgraced for life.”

“But I haven’t got a payroll—I never have had one!” Cloud protested.

“Don’t quibble, please. It is also the law that any master or acting master of any ship of this tonnage is authorized to employ for his owner—in this case the Galactic Patrol—whatever personnel is necessary, whenever necessary, at his discretion. With or without pay, however, I stay on until replaced.”

“But I don’t need a doctor—or a nurse, either!”

“Personally, now, no,” she conceded, equably enough. “I checked into that. As the chief of your great laboratory quoted to you, ‘This too, shall pass.’ It is passing. But you must have a crew; and any member of it, or you yourself, may require medical or surgical attention at any time. The only question, then, is whether or not you wish to replace me. Would you like to examine my credentials?”

“No. Having been en rapport with your mind, it is not necessary. But are you, after your position aboard the ship which was lost, interested in such a small job as this?”

“I would like it very much, I’m sure.”

“Very well. If any of them stay, you can—at the same pay you were getting.”

“Now, Thlaskin, the Vegian. No, hold it! We’ve got to have something better than spaceal, and a lot of Vegians go in for languages in a big way. She may know English or Spanish, since Vegia is one of Tellus’ next-door neighbors. I’ll try her myself.”

Then, to the girl, “Do you speak English, miss?”

“No, eggzept in glimzzez only,” came the startling reply. “Two Galactic Zdandard yearzz be pazz—come? Go?—’ere I mazzter zhe, zo perverze mood and tenze. Zhe izz zo difficult and abzdruze.”

Switching to Galactic Spanish, which language was threatening to become the common tongue of Galactic Civilization, she went on:

“But I heard you say ‘Zbanidge.’ I know Galactic Spanish very well. I speak it well, too, except for the sounds of ‘ezz’ and ‘zeta,’ which all we Vegians must make much too hard—z-z-z-, zo. One hears that nearly all educated Tellurians have the Spanish, and you are educated, of a certainty. You speak it, no?”

“Practically as well as I do English,” Cloud made relieved reply. “You have very little accent, and that little is charming. My name is Neal Cloud. May I ask yours?”

“Neelcloud? I greet you. Mine is Vezzptkn . . . but no, you couldn’t pronounce it. ‘Vezzta,’ it would have to be in your tongue.”

“QX. We have a name very close to that—Vesta.”

“That’s exactly what I said—Vezz-ta.”

“Oh—excuse me, please. You were talking to this lady—Tomingan, she said? What language were you using?”

“Fourth-continent Tomingan, Middle Plateau dialect. Hers. She was an engineer in a big power plant on Manarka, is how she came to learn their sign language. Tomingans don’t go in for linguistics much.”

“And you very evidently do. How many languages do you know, young lady?”

“Only fifty so far—plus their dialects, of course. I’m only half-way to my Master of Languages degree. Fifty more to learn yet, including your cursed Englidge. P-f-zt-k!” Vesta wrinkled her nose, bared her teeth, and emitted a noise very similar to that made by an alley cat upon meeting a strange dog. “I don’t know whether spaceal will count for credit or not, but I’m going to learn it anyway.”

“Nice going, Vesta. Now, why did you appoint yourself a member of this party?”

“I wanted to go, and since I can’t pay fare. . . .”

“You wouldn’t have had to!” Cloud interrupted. “If you lost your money aboard that ship, the Patrol would take you anywhere. . . .”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that.” She dipped into her belt-bag and held out for the man’s inspection a book of Travelers’ Cheques good for fifty thousand G-P credits! “I wanted to continue with you, and I knew this wasn’t a passenger ship. I can be useful—who do you think lined up that translation relay?—and besides, I can work. I can cook—keep house—and I can learn any other job fast. You believe me?”

Cloud looked at her. She was as tall as he was, and heavier; stronger and faster. “Yes, you can work, if you want to, and I think you would. But you haven’t said why you want to go along.”

“Mostly because it’s the best chance I’ll ever have to learn English. I went to Tellus once before to learn it—but there are too many Vegians there. Young Vegians, like me, like to play too much. You know?”

“I’ve heard so. But teachers, courses. . . ?”

“I need neither teachers nor courses. What I need is what you have in your library—solid English.”

“QX. I’ll reserve judgment on you, too. Now let’s hear what the Tomingan has to say. What’s her name?”

“You’d be surprised!” Vesta giggled in glee. “Literally translated, it’s ‘Little flower of spring, dwelling bashfully by the brook’s damply sweet brink.’ And that’s an exact transliteration, so help me—believe it or not!”

“I’ll take your word for it. What shall we call her?”

“Um . . . m . . . ‘Tommie’ would be as good as anything, I guess.”

“QX. Tommie of Tominga. Ask her why she thinks she has to be a member of our crew.”

“Who else do you have who can repair one of your big atomic engines if it lets go?” came the answering question, in Vesta’s flawlessly idiomatic Galactic Spanish.

Cloud was amazed at Tommie’s changed appearance. She was powdered, perfumed, and painted: made up to the gills. Her heavy blonde hair was elaborately waved. If it wasn’t for her diesel-truck build, Cloud thought—and for the long black Venerian cigar she was smoking with such evident relish—she’d be a knockout on anybody’s tri-di screen!

“I can.” The profoundly deep, but pleasantly and musically resonant voice went on; the fluent translation continued. “What I don’t know about atomic engines hasn’t been found out yet. I don’t know much about Bergenholms and a couple of other things pertaining solely to flight, and I don’t know anything about communicators or detectors, which aren’t engineers’ business. I’ve laid in a complete supply of atomic service manuals for class S-C ships, and I tell you this—if anything with a motor or an engine in it aboard this vessel ever has run, I can take it apart and put it back together so it’ll run again. And by the way, you didn’t have half enough spare parts aboard, but you have now. Besides, you might need somebody to really swing that axe of yours, some day.”

Cloud studied the Tomingan narrowly. She wasn’t bragging, he decided finally. She was simply voicing what to her were simple truths.

“Your arguments have weight. Why do you want the job?”

“Several reasons. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it’ll be fun. Main reason, though, is that I think I’ll be able to talk you into doing a job on Tominga that has needed doing for a long time. I was a passenger, not an officer, on my way to talk to a party about ways of getting it done. You changed my mind. You and I, with some others who’ll be glad to help, will be able to do it better.”

Tommie volunteered no more information, and Cloud asked no more questions. Explanation would probably take more time than could be spared.

“Now you, Thlaskin,” the Blaster said in spaceal. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

“You’ve got me on a hell of a spot, boss,” the pilot admitted, ruefully. “You’ve got to have a pilot, no question about that. You already know I’m one. I know automatics, and communicators, and detectors—the works. Ordinarily I’d say you’d have to have me. But this ain’t a regular case. I wasn’t a pilot on the heap that got knocked out of the ether, but a passenger. Maluleme—she’s my . . . say, ain’t there no word for. . . .”

He broke off and spoke rapidly to his wife, who relayed it to Vesta.

“They’re newlyweds,” the Vegian translated. “He was off duty and they were on their honeymoon. . . .”

Vesta’s wonderfully expressive face softened, saddened. She appeared about to cry. “I wish I were old enough to be a newlywed,” she said, plaintively.

“Huh? Aren’t you?” the Blaster demanded. “You look old enough to me.”

“Oh, I’m as big as I ever will be, and I won’t change outside. It’s inside. About half a year yet. But she’s saying—

“We know that pilots on duty, in regular service, can’t have their wives aboard. But this isn’t a regular run, I know, so couldn’t you—just this once—keep Thlaskin on as pilot and let me come too? Please, Mr. Neelcloud—she didn’t know your name, but asked me to put it in—I can work my way. I’ll do any of the jobs nobody else wants to do—I’ll do anything, Mr. Neelcloud!”

The pink girl jumped up and took Cloud’s left hand in both her own. Simultaneously Vesta took his right hand in her left, brought it up to her face, and laid the incredibly downy softness of her cheek against the five-hour bristles of his; sounding the while a soft, low-pitched but unmistakable purr!

“Just this once wouldn’t do any harm, would it, Captain Neelcloud?” Vesta purred. “You zmell zo wonderful, and she zmells nice, too. Pleeze keep her on!”

“QX. You win!” The Blaster pulled himself loose from the two too-demonstrative females and addressed the group at large. “I think I ought to have my head examined, but I’m signing all of you on as crew. But nobody else. I’ll get the book.”

He got it. He signed them on. Chief Pilot Thlaskin. Chief Engineer Tommie. Linguist Vesta. Doctor . . . what? He tried to call her attention by thinking at her, but couldn’t. Then, through Vesta: Manarkans didn’t have names, but were known by their personality patterns. Didn’t they sign something to documents? No, they used finger-prints only, without signatures.

“But we’ve got to have something we can put in the book!” Cloud protested. “Tell her to pick one.”

“No preference,” Vesta reported. “I’m to do it. I knew a lovely Tellurian named “Nadinevandereckelberg” once. Let’s call her that.”

“Nadine van der Eckelberg? Better not. Not common enough—there might be repercussions. We can use part of it, though. ‘Nadine,’ bracketed with her prints . . . there. Now how about Maluleme?” He turned to the “Classification” listing and frowned. “What to class her as I’ll never know. She’s got just about as much business aboard this bucket as I would have in a sultan’s harem.”

“You might find quite a lot—and that I’d like to see!” Vesta snickered. “But look under ‘Mizzelaneouz,’ there.”

Her stiff, sharp fingernail ran down the column almost to the end. “ ‘Zupercargo’? We have no cargo. ‘Zupernumerary’? That’s it! See? I read: ‘Zupernumerary—Perzonnel beyond the nezezzary or uzhual; ezpedjially thoze employed not for regular zervize, but only to fill the plazez of otherz in caze of need.’ Perfect!”

“Whose place could she fill?”

“The cook’s—if the automatics break down,” Vesta explained, gleefully. “She says she can really cook—so even if they didn’t break down she can tape lots of nice things to eat that aren’t in your kitchen banks.”

“Could be. I can get away with that. ‘Supernumerary (cook 1/c) Maluleme’ and her prints . . . there. Now we’re organized—let’s flit. Ready, Thlaskin?”

“Ready, sir,” and the good ship Vortex Blaster I took off.

“Now, Vesta, I s’pose you’ve all picked out your cabins and got located?”

“Yes, sir.”

“QX. Tell ’em all, except Tommie, to go and do whatever they think they ought to be doing. Tell Tommie to sit down at the chart-table. We’ll join her. I want to find out what she’s got on her mind.”

Pulling a chart and rolling it out flat on the table, Cloud went on: “We’re in this unexplored region, here, about thirty two dash twenty five.[2] We’re headed for Nixson II, about sixty one dash forty six.”

“Nixson? Why, that’s only three thousand parsecs—a day and a half, say—from Tominga, where I want you to go!” Tommie exclaimed.

“Check. That’s why I’m going to listen to what you have to say. We can pick Manarka up—sixty five dash thirty-five, here; they’ve got two really bad ones—on the way back. It’s a long flit to Chickladoria—’way over there, one seventy seven dash thirty four—but I’ve got to go there pretty quick, anyway. It’s way up on the A list. So, Tommie, start talking.”

* * * * *

The run to Nixson II was uneventful, and Cloud rid that planet of its loose atomic vortices in a few hours. The cruiser then headed directly for Tominga, one man short, for Tommie was not aboard.

“Now remember, no matter what happens, you don’t know any one of us,” had been the Blaster’s parting instructions to her. “After we’ve checked in at the hotel we’ll meet in the lobby. Be sure you’re sitting—or standing—some place where Vesta can pass a couple of words with you without anybody catching on. Check?”

“Check.”