Fiction Complete, page 15
Cowper sighed and returned to his office. Presently, d’Andrea and Lang stamped down the hall and burst in on him.
D’Andrea pointed a shaking finger at the factor and opened his mouth. The words seemed to choke in his throat.
“You look,” said Cowper mildly, “like a couple of young fellows who just found out that Kaolo is the official center of the universe.
The pilot swore. Lang merely growled wordlessly.
“You knew!” d’Andrea accused. “You could have told us what we were getting for an astrogator.”
“Sunspots on the brain, that’s what he’s got,” said Lang.
“They are all the same, boys,” said Cowper.
“Doesn’t seem to bother you,” d’Andrea commented acidly.
“You can get used to anything,” the factor told him. “As soon as you can say with a straight face that you really believe they have the inside orbit on the galaxy, you get along fine.”
“Did you ever spend two weeks locked in with one of them? I was beginning to feel like a moron!”
“How smart are they?” asked Lang.
“Oh . . . about our equal, with less general information,” said Cowper. “Trouble is, they are absolutely sure they are perfect, as well as being the very middle of everything. Some even object to a colony as far away as Uameed.”
“Sacrilege!” quoted d’Andrea, throwing up his hands. “I know. Yeeuli was against it.”
“All right, so they’re all supernovas!” complained Lang. “Why didn’t he say we were dumb and let it go at that?”
“Oh, that would not be enough,” said the factor. “You may be barbarian Earthmen, but you still have moral rights. Yeeuli was obligated to help you reach opinions that conform.”
D’Andrea looked about as if he would like to spit. He slumped into a chair.
“Two weeks,” he groaned. “Swinging those tentacles back and forth while he told me what was wrong with my mind!”
“Thought I’d let him ‘adjust’ my automatics,” muttered Lang darkly. “Say, don’t they ever sit comfortable?”
“You noticed that?” asked Cowper. “Just some folderol about maintaining awareness of their physical limitations, as near as I can gather from hints.”
He allowed them to brood for a while, then suggested that they get back to their ship and requisition any supplies they might need for the flight back to Earth.
The spacemen got a ride out to the ship, saw to the necessary details, and slept. When they were summoned next to Cowper’s office, it was still “afternoon” on Kaolo.
The factor had their papers ready, and said that Munaaz was bringing Finley. In a few minutes, the latter pair arrived.
Munaaz and Cowper exchanged greetings, and everyone took a seat. Finley, like the Kaolan, chose one of the ottomans.
“How do you feel, Dave?” asked Lang.
“Fetter than I ever did before,” replied the astrogator.
He crossed one leg over the other, pointing the foot stiffly downward. Lang thought he was still a hit nervous, although his sullen expression had vanished.
Munaaz turned to the other spacemen.
“Yeeuli is very discouraged with you,” he charged.
“Likewise,” said d’Andrea succinctly.
Munaaz exercised his tentacles with several swings.
“We are happy to accept your products,” he began. “Some of them we have not had time to develop for ourselves.”
“Oh, is that it?” commented the pilot sourly.
“Moreover, we would not refuse you enlightening contact with us. Why, then, did you lock Yeeuli into the observation dome?”
“He’d already played every music wire about three times,” said Lang. “It was the only way we could get any sleep.”
“Ah, so? But, on the whole, your behavior has us worried.”
Cowper interrupted to suggest that it did not matter too much, since the Earthmen were about to leave for their own system. He would arrange for them to pick up a cargo at a planet of a small star on their way.
“But are they competent to leave?” objected Munaaz. “One we cured, but—”
“Arrgh!” said Lang.
“You see?” Munaaz asked Cowper. “The one had what you Earthmen, judging from your recordings, would call an anxiety state. I do not feel satisfied that the others are normal.”
“You must remember,” said Cowper, “that on Earth, their abnormality would not be noticed, might even be an advantage.”
“That may, unfortunately, be true,” admitted the Kaolan. “It is another proof of our superior position. Nevertheless, we ought to help them to mold their thoughts.”
D’Andrea had been fidgeting impatiently. Now he spoke.
“How about it, Dave? Want to check your things before we sign the inspection slip?”
“I suppose I had better,” said Finley reluctantly. “I really do not feel like leaving here, but—”
“You will be back,” said Munaaz, sniffing encouragingly with his pinkish teeth.
Lang thought that the Kaolan’s tone had been less impersonal than when he had spoken to the other Earthmen.
He and d’Andrea accompanied the astrogator out to the ship. Nothing remained to be done before leaving, but Finley wandered about with a disapproving attitude.
“What’s the matter?” asked d’Andrea finally. “Did Yeeuli hide your calculator?”
“No, no, a Kaolan would not do such a thing. But I feel that much about this ship is unsatisfactory. Besides, it is very foolish, now we are here, to go out again.”
“Out?” repeated Lang.
“This is the center of culture of the universe,” protested Finley. “Can you not feel it, even in your ignorance?”
Lang and the pilot exchanged glances.
“What did they say was wrong with, you?” asked d’Andrea.
“Oh, that . . . I hardly remember how I felt before.”
He saw their looks, as he seated himself on the deck.
“Honestly, fellows, you ought to have a talk with Munaaz. He could convince you—”
“—that I ought to stuff your head into one of the jets before we take off,” exclaimed d’Andrea. “Look at him, Bill.”
Finley was sitting comfortably except that he held one hand and forearm pointing stiffly downward, the forefinger extended toward the deck.
The deck, Lang wondered, or the center of Kaolo?
“Listen, Finley,” he said, “are you sure you’re all right? Can you figure your courses O.K.?”
Finley squirmed as if he would prefer to avoid the subject. D’Andrea immediately demanded reassurance.
“It will come back to me, no doubt,” said Finley. “Could we turn on the record player? It is very depressing in here.”
“What do you mean—it’ll come back to you?” bellowed d’Andrea. “Don’t you remember any astrogation?”
Finley made a condescending gesture for silence.
“You would hardly understand,” he said. “We have been parted only a few solar days; but mentally, I have lived much longer than that, backward and forward in my mind. It seems a very long time since’ I last worked an astrogation problem.”
D’Andrea flung his head back and spread his arms wide. Even his red-gold hair gave the impression of standing up.
“It will be all right,” soothed Finley. “Of one thing I am sure—I can always find our way safely back here.”
Lang felt a nightmarish numbness.
“Wait a minute, Lou,” he murmured to the pilot, who was groping toward verbal expression by shaking a bunch of fingers under Finley’s nose. “We better take it to Cowper. He can tell us if this is permanent.”
Finley smirked at him pityingly, but made no objection to leaving the ship. He seemed, in fact, happier. to do so.
Before reaching Cowper’s office, d’Andrea regained the power of speech. He explained emphatically to the factor how they felt about going into space with an astrogator in Finley’s condition.
The individual mentioned sighed and took on a martyred expression. Appearing to find the conversation oppressively quiet, he hummed a tune to himself and swung his arms casually back and forth.
“Just look at him!” d’Andrea finished. “Does he look as if he can think straight?”
Finley bridled slightly.
“I can think a good deal straighter than you, if you only knew it.”
He stalked out of the office, swinging his arms indignantly.
Cowper turned to the others. For the first time since they had met, Lang thought he looked concerned.
“Listen, boys,” he said. “My guess is he will stay that way. I have seen it once or twice before. They filled him so full of their ideas, at a time when he had been made peculiarly susceptible to them, that he hardly thinks humanly now.”
D’Andrea swore.
“No need to take it that way. He is probably quite content. Just imagine how you would feel if you were accepted into a culture which set to rest all your doubts about the universe.”
He squinted at them searchingly, the fine wrinkles around his eyes reminding them of his age.
“All your doubts,” he repeated. “We all have some, but Kaolans just know the answers to everything.
“Personally,” he continued, “I just keep my mouth shut and fry to rub their fur the right way.
Good business. But the point now is what you want to do.”
“What I don’t want to do,” declared Lang, “is trust him to get us home. I’d rather gamble on d’Andrea, from star to star.”
“Can you dig up an astrogator anywhere?” asked the pilot.
“I can try,” said Cowper. “Not many stop off here.”
“While you do,” said d’Andrea, “I’m going back to the ship and open a bottle we’ve been saving.”
“Not something you bought here?” asked Cowper quickly.
“No, Earth stuff. Why?”
“Don’t fool with the Kaolan products. There was an Earthman who got left behind that way a few months ago—”
He hesitated and snapped his fingers.
“Say! He was a third officer on a big, deep-space ship. How much astrogation would he know?”
“Plenty,” said d’Andrea promptly. “They stay out for years. Part of his job to know it, just in case.”
“And you think he could get back to Earth from here?”
“Just tell us where to find him!” said the pilot.
Cowper told them that the spaceman, Steffens, had been given a room at the reservation to keep him out of further trouble. If not there, he might be at the bar of the recreation building.
“We have him weaning on Earth-type beer,” he called as Lang and d’Andrea whirled out of the office.
They hurried over to the living quarters, to be faced with a long hallway of similar doors. Lang saw a carton standing outside one. It was a box of canned beer. He knocked.
The door was opened eventually by a tall, yawning redhead, on whose chin glinted a golden red stubble. He was badly freckled, hut well-mellowed.
“You, Steffens?” inquired the direct d’Andrea.
The redhead nodded amiably. He took the carton from Lang.
“Must have been delivered while I was busy,” he drawled.
“Think you could compute a curve for Sol?” asked d’Andrea.
“Got about twenty or thirty precalculated,” grinned Steffens. “Had time on my hands in this place.”
“We’re from that ship out on the field. We need an astrogator. I hear you could use a job.”
Steffens apparently had been unemployed for some time. The promise of full pay convinced him. They took time only for a round of beer and to pack Steffens’ few personal belongings, including a portfolio of calculations. Lang brought the beer.
Aboard the ship, d’Andrea asked how soon they could leave.
“From what I hear,” said Steffens, “the sooner the better. That Kaolan you had with you to Uameed is raising a stink.”
“He’s raising a stink!” exclaimed d’Andrea.
“You guys are air-tight in the head, aren’t you? I heard there’s talk of holding you up for observation.”
“You want the job? Show us a curve!”
Steffens chose a course calculation from his supply, and laid the portfolio on the edge of the control desk.
“That ought to put us in position for interstellar drive.”
D’Andrea immediately began to check his controls.
“Guess you’ll be glad to get into space,” said Lang.
“Sure am,” Steffens said, stretching his long arms.
“Heard about our other man taking the cure?”
“Yeah. Gotta watch these Kaolans. They get you down.”
“Been here long?” asked Lang.
“Just long enough to sober up and get my true hearings.”
D’Andrea’s attention was on his instruments, but Lang saw the new astrogator stop stretching and begin to swing his arms to and fro. The mechanic began to worry.
“You got a music player?” asked Steffens. “This place could use a little cheering up.”
“It don’t work any more,” said Lang shortly.
Steffens shrugged. He began to potter about. Lang thought he was pale behind the freckles, perhaps growing sober.
“You close the port yet?” asked the redhead suddenly.
D’Andrea looked up.
“Not yet. Forget something?”
“No . . . I . . . that is—” He swallowed. “B’lieve I’ll just step out for a breath of air—”
They watched him leave the control room. Then, with a sudden premonition of loss, both leaped to follow.
They found Steffens leaning dejectedly against the hull.
“What hit you?” demanded d’Andrea.
“Come on inside,” urged Lang. “Here come Cowper and Munaaz in that one-lung taxi!”
Steffens shook his head silently. The pickup, guided by the same leather-faced driver, pulled up before them. Cowper and the Kaolan alighted.
“Where are you going?” asked Munaaz upon noticing Steffens.
“Nowhere, I guess,” mumbled the redhead. “I needed beer money, but when I began to think maybe I couldn’t get a berth back again, it didn’t look so good—”
“What’s the matter?” d’Andrea snorted. “We got the plague?”
Cowper raised a hand at him. Munaaz. paid no attention.
“Of course, Red One,” he said, smoothing his brown fur, “if you wish to go, it may be safe. You have had enough instruction to maintain your mental balance until you return.”
“No . . . I . . . sorry, fellows,” muttered Steffens, looking away.
“Guess I’m used to it here. B’lieve I’ll go have a drink.”
He trudged away without glancing back.
“Drinking is the one fault he retains,” said Munaaz.
He stared contemplatively after the Earthman. Cowper took the moment to explain that Finley had begged for a job with the factor. The latter had been reluctant to waste the advantage it would give him in dealing with the natives.
“Well, I guess I’ll get back to the office,” he said. “I’ll see you boys later. Coming, Munaaz?”
“You go ahead,” suggested the Kaolan. “James can return for me.”
When the pickup had left, Munaaz turned to Lang and d’Andrea.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” countered d’Andrea, as if he knew very well what was meant, and resented it.
“Are you at all disturbed mentally?”
“Only at not having an astrogator,” said the pilot.
“I cannot see how you can continue with that attitude.”
“Honestly, we’re just like millions of other Earthmen. Let’s get inside, Bill.”
“Take your time,” muttered Lang.
He had been gazing sullenly at the slouching figure in the distance. Steffens reached the recreation building and disappeared within. Deep inside his stolid system, Lang was beginning to generate steam. Too many annoying frustrations, too many obstacles. He wished he could pop off like d’Andrea, and have it over.
“Sometimes I wonder,” he mused aloud. “I always thought of Earthmen as being normal, but who can say what’s normal?”
“Interesting,” said Munaaz. “It indicates hope for you.”
“Oh, don’t think Earthmen are dumb,” said Lang. “We can take the facts when we see them. But how to get them?”
“What’s bending your orbit?” asked d’Andrea.
“Do not interrupt him,” said Munaaz, showing his pinkish teeth in a friendly smile. “I can see that all your Earth needs is someone to explain the proper view of the universe.”
“But who could do it?” complained Lang.
“I-could,” mused Munaaz. “It is really my duty—”
“No!” shouted d’Andrea. “Whatever you two—”
“Oh, shut up, Lou!” said Lang, grabbing the pilot’s elbow in a big hand and shoving him into the port. “We can’t expect Munaaz to do it, even if he does know enough math to astrogate.”
“Why, yes!” hummed Munaaz, whipping his tentacles rapidly back and forth. “Of course. What an opportunity!”
D’Andrea caught Lang’s wink, and restrained himself.
“If you think you ought to, Munaaz,” said Lang, “why not get aboard right now? Yeeuli left everything you’ll need. We can radio back to Cowper about it.”
Munaaz admitted enthusiasm. To cure a whole planet of wrong thinking! On second thought, however, he decided that the idea would be unfair to his fellow Kaolans.
Sometimes, thought Lang, it’s better to be big than smart. I’m sick of this deep thinking and polite talk.
He took a quick step to his right, whirled, and grabbed Munaaz around the middle. He heaved the dumbfounded Kaolan off the ground and staggered into the entrance port.
“Bill! What—”
D’Andrea’s curiosity was sidetracked as the still speechless Kaolan began to struggle, and the pilot was caught between Lang’s back and the bulkhead.
“Earthman! Restrain yourself!” demanded Munaaz, seizing the edge of the inner doorway with a tentacle.
“I can’t!” yelled Lang. “I don’t know what I’m doing!”
He trod on the tentacle. Munaaz bleated and let go. Amid a great deal of thrashing about and thudding against bulkheads and furnishings, Lang and his captive juggernauted along the short corridor to Finley’s old cabin.
