The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 336
"The passengers are settled in, sir," said the dark-haired one. "All have been given medication, but you might keep an eye on Mr. Saddler and Mr. Stone, who may be trying to prove something—I think they palmed their capsules."
Mercer nodded without speaking.
"Don't let Prescott bother you, sir," said the blond one, reading his expression if not his mind. "He is an exceptionally good officer, believe it or not, even if he does lack charm."
"Surely," said Mercer, "you aren't his mother?"
The girl laughed. "No, and nobody said anyone loves him. But we have to go now and separate the Collingwoods—the boarding gantry swings in inside five minutes. Good luck, sir."
"And good hunting," added the other.
When they had gone Mercer stood for a moment looking slowly around the passenger deck, feeling lonely despite being knee deep in a wall-to-wall carpet of people, most of whom were staring at him. This is just like the simulator, he told himself firmly, complete with ship noises, muted countdown from the wall speakers, the paint and plastic smell of the acceleration couches and the pressure of cool, artificially fresh air on my face—exactly the same, except that the couches were not being occupied by bored junior clerks from the administration building next door and the sounds and smells were real.
His job now was to give real comfort and reassurance to his charges, not just the simulated kind.
According to the instruction book and the psychologist who had taken him through it, the job was simple. At this stage the passengers were already wrapped in broad acceleration webbing—even the shape of the couches was reminiscent of a cradle and the calm, competent figure of a ship's officer moving among them was a father figure tucking them in for the night. Greeting them individually by name, making a perfunctory check on the tightness of their straps, asking if they were comfortable and dealing, very briefly, with any special problems they might have was all that was necessary to reassure them. His psychologist-instructor had added drily that he would have over forty people to process pre-flightwise and less than sixty minutes to do it in, so he simply had no time to undertake deep analysis.
Surprisingly the job did prove simple.
THE COUCHES were laid out parallel and with the passengers' heads pointing in the same direction, so that they could all watch the large projection screen set on the underside of the deck above. The walking space between them was about six inches wide, except where the curvature of the inner hull allowed more. Mercer kneeled briefly beside each couch, reading the passengers' name tag as he checked their straps, saying the prescribed words and keeping an eye on the time by not looking at his watch, in the same way that he did not seem to be looking at the name tags stitched to their coveralls. He had to give the impression of being calm, unhurried and concerned with their individual welfare, the book said, and theoretically he could take all the time he needed to ensure his passengers' comfort before takeoff. This was a passenger ship, after all, and a problem with one or more of the passengers was the only acceptable reason short of a serious malfunction for calling a Hold.
But Mercer would have to have a very strong reason for holding or the launch-control people would have caustic things to say, the captain would probably go critical and Prescott, who seemed to be a pretty poisonous character at the best of times, would certainly make his life miserable for the rest of the voyage.
"Are you comfortable, Mr. Saddler?" Mercer said pleasantly to the next in line, then stopped. This was one of the tough guys who had not taken his medication. Mercer stared at the man's face without really seeing it while his mind sought in vain for a pleasant and friendly way of telling him to take his anti-nausea pill and not be a fool. By the end of the allotted minute Mercer still did not have the answer and he saw that the passenger's face was becoming apprehensive and that he was refusing to meet Mercer's eyes. Suddenly he wriggled sideways in his straps so that he could reach his breast pocket.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I nearly forgot to take my pill."
"It can happen," said Mercer pleasantly, "in the excitement."
The next two couches were occupied by the Mathewsons. Judging by the glazed look in Mrs. Mathewson's eyes one of the hostesses had seen fit to slip her a small caliber sleep bomb, which was already taking effect. Perhaps she had been frightened. Her son's eyes were enormous, but not with fear. Mercer found himself envying the hot, bright, uncomplicated excitement of the boy. With Mercer very little still happened for the first time. When it did happen for the first time—as it would in a very few minutes from now—the sensation would be diluted and deadened by the emotional impurities of fear and guilt and by his maturity and intelligence which would insist on computing his chances of meeting disaster during the period of maximum stress that was takeoff and by the other excitements of his short adult life, which had reduced his capacity to respond to this one. He wondered suddenly if the real reason for his being here was the fear that if he had stayed put he would have used up Earth and everything it had to offer and joined everyone else in the desperate search for small variations on old sensations.
Mercer smiled. Compared with the life most of his friends had led, his had been almost monastic. Below him Bobby Mathewson smiled back.
The next couch was empty for the very good reason that it was his own. Beyond it was the one belonging to Stone, the other passenger suspected of missing out on his pre-takeoff medication. Mercer tried the blank stare on him which had worked so well with Saddler, hoping that the man's guilty conscience would do the rest, but Stone simply stared back at him. Maybe his conscience was clear. Mercer had to be content with clearing his throat loudly and slipping a plastic bag between the other's chest straps where Stone could reach it quickly.
They would be different people in space, he thought as he gave a careful last look around, different but not necessarily better. The book had gone into great detail regarding the odd quirks and outright personality changes—occurring naturally, of course, and not induced by drugs—which some people developed during space voyage. It went into even greater detail about the deep-rooted psychological reasons for the phenomena. Mercer sighed, lay down on his couch and swallowed his own anti-nausea medication while he was strapping in.
On the screen above him the picture of Eurydice and the gantry was replaced by a view of the distant hills and landing lake as someone switched to the on-board TV camera.
He slipped on his headset and said, "Mercer. Passenger section ready."
Collingwood's voice sounded in his earpiece. "So I see. But are you quite sure that they are all settled and medicated? I realize that you are keen and are probably trying to impress me with your efficiency, but I shall not be impressed if a lot of passengers try to turn themselves inside out while we are dumping the boosters." The tone softened a little as he went on. "Missing the pip is an inconvenience these days instead of a disaster. Our launch window is as wide as we want it, so if anything that might require a Hold is worrying you—let's have it, Mercer."
While the captain had been talking Mercer had been thinking about Stone and wondering how he could explain his suspicions without sounding like a fussy old woman. He couldn't.
"No problems, sir."
"Good. We lift in four minutes."
Mercer spent the time checking that the vacuum cleaner under his couch was handy and worrying about the period of weightless maneuvering that would begin when they went into Earth orbit. Both the book and his instructor had painted awful pictures of weightless nausea running wild. It would become critical, they had said, a chain reaction that could spread even to those who had taken medication, and the job of clearing the air was difficult and distasteful. An incident like that was the one thing guaranteed to sour the whole voyage.
He was still worrying when the boosters ignited and acceleration piled invisible weights on his chest. The projection screen showed the launch complex and landing lake shrinking below them. More and more territory crawled in from the edges of the screen—the pale cross-hatching of a town, the gray smears of mountains flattened by the near vertical sunlight, tiny layers of shadow sandwiched between the ground and the clouds. He moved his head carefully so as to watch Stone.
Anyone with a TV in his/her living room had seen it all before.
Chapter Three
"THIS IS your captain, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you are comfortable and that you will have a pleasant trip. We shall make two complete orbits of Earth, during which a number of minor course corrections will be necessary for us to match orbits with Space-Station Three to dump our boosters. Please remain strapped in until these maneuvers are completed, which will be in a little under four hours when we reach the vicinity of the station.
"During the next fifteen minutes you will notice periodic fogging of the picture of Earth's face being projected on your screen," he went on quietly. "This is in all respects normal and is caused by the venting of surplus fuel from the boosters prior to their delivery at Three. Thank you."
"Roughly translated," Prescott's voice continued in Mercer's ear plug, "nothing out of the ordinary is happening except that we are slightly off course due to our having taken off exactly on time. Nobody bothers to do so these days and launch control doesn't have to be all that accurate, either. In the old days this sort of thing would have been very serious. But not with virtually unlimited reaction mass—"
"Careful, Bob," broke in the captain's voice, "or you'll be lecturing again."
"Nobody listens," said Prescott shortly and continued. "As a result we shall be using booster steering power at increasingly frequent intervals as we approach Three. During the final thirty minutes, Mercer, keep a sharp eye on your passengers."
"Will do," said Mercer. "In the meantime we will be weightless practically all of the time, as I understand it. Have I permission to rig the cabin dividers?"
"Yes," said Prescott.
Mercer lay unmoving for perhaps a minute, thinking about Prescott and the captain. The first officer, who was not a pleasant personality to begin with, was being actively unpleasant, probably to remind Mercer firmly and continuously that he was a space officer in name only. In complete contrast was the captain, who was patient and considerate and, as far as Mercer could see, pleasant to everyone, including Prescott. He wondered if the other crew members would emulate Prescott or the captain in their behavior toward their medical officer. He supposed that the answer would depend on how they had been raised to think of second-class citizens.
But suppose Prescott's feelings toward him were shared by the others—even by the captain—and the only difference was that the first officer's reactions were honest while those of the others were cloaked, for the moment, by surface kindliness and consideration.
Mercer shook his head angrily, trying to derail this highly uncomfortable train of thought. Surely he could take a little unpleasantness for the duration of the trip. Large numbers of people on Earth were made to feel inferior each and every day of their lives. But he still felt like giving Prescott an order simply to relieve his feelings—and suddenly there was something he could tell the first officer to do. He thumbed the transmit switch.
"Mercer. Our TV picture of the surface is corkscrewing as well as fogging. Too much of that might make our passengers feel uncomfortable. Can you—"
The screen went blank and Prescott said, "Right. Do you want to show a film instead?"
"I don't think so," Mercer replied. "Watching me trying to tie down the cabin dividers should be entertainment enough."
Before releasing his harness he waited to see if Prescott would have the last, unpleasant word, then decided that Collingwood had probably told the first officer to go easy on the new man.
The main supports for the cabins were two tough plastic rings just over half the interior diameter of the passenger module. With the four main support ropes and the inner spacer lines which kept the rings apart, the rings were clipped at intervals of a few feet to the underside of the deck above so as to keep the cordage from coming adrift during acceleration. Mercer pulled himself around the anchored rings, releasing the fastenings and tossing the main supporting ropes gently toward the deck below—all except the last one, the end of which he wrapped around his hand. Turning head down, he sighted himself at the rope's lashing point between two couches and, with all eyes upon him, kicked out hard.
In theory the mass and momentum of his body would draw out the double rings, whose inertia would slow him to a stop before he actually hit the deck. But Mercer, who had practiced this operation in a ground simulator with a system of weights duplicating the effect of weightlessness, had been sure that if he kicked too hard he would crack his skull on the deck or, if his aim were bad, bury it in someone's stomach. As a result he was a little too cautious—he did not succeed in pulling both rings far enough from their housing. Instead of reaching the deck his misjudged dive stopped a few feet above the acceleration couches and he began to swing toward the middle of the compartment.
Ignoring the grins as well as the eyes watching him, he cleared his throat and said, "Would one of you mind grabbing my feet?"
Immediately the deck sprouted a forest of clutching hands, which eventually succeeded in checking his swing. But the rings had begun to swing as well, giving him a lot more slack on the support rope he was holding so that he toppled slowly and gently across two doubly-upholstered couches, the upper layers being female.
The layer called Miss MacRoberts giggled and the other, whose name he could not read because of the topological features distorting her identity patch, said, "Pleased to meet you."
Mercer apologized gravely and began moving back to the lashing point by gripping the edges of intervening couches with his free hand and pulling himself along. Within a few minutes he had the support rope in position and pulled taut.
Above him the two rings swung and vibrated slowly, shaking their attached cordage into the beginnings of a weightless tangle. Mercer dived carefully across the deck, snatched the second support rope out of the air as he passed it and checked himself with his free hand against the couch beside its lashing point. He was beginning to get the hang of his task.
BY THE time the first surge of steering thrust came he had the supporting lines in position and was beginning to weave a double web of cabin dividers between the now rigid rings and the inner skin of the hull. His earpiece had bleeped a five-second acceleration warning, so he had plenty of time to wedge himself between two couches and hold on. But when it came the surge was so gentle and his grip on the couch edges so tight that he felt ridiculous. When a double bleep signaled the cessation of thrust he nodded silently to the passengers on each side of him and returned to work.
During the next three hours the surges came with increasing frequency, but he was usually close enough to a bulkhead or one of the rings to hold on until they had passed—although on one occasion he misjudged. He ended the weightless tumble that followed by doing an awkward handstand on the edge of someone's couch.
It was not easy to maintain a pleasantly grave expression or to pretend that this sort of activity was in all respects normal as he murmured, "Sorry, ma'am," and returned, like an industrious—if ungainly—spider to weave his web.
Looking incredibly fragile and completely purposeless his double web neared completion despite these interruptions. In the sub-orbital configuration and during the initial powered stage of their trip the thing was simply a highly porous obstruction to anyone wanting to watch the screen. But when the reactor that would give them a half-G of thrust for the first two days of the flight closed down, artificial gravity would be supplied by spinning the passenger section about the longitudinal axis of the ship. The walls of the inner hull would then become the floor and the double web would support clip-on plastic sheets and the passengers would have cabins and privacy of a sort.
The cabins would even be roofed over so that crew members moving along the weightless axis between control and the power module aft would not be able to see the sort of things reputed to go on in passenger-carrying spaceships.
People tended to forget the rules when they were far from home, his instructor had warned him, and the degree of forgetfulness was in proportion to the distance.
His mind was not entirely on his job, he realized suddenly, or he would not have missed hearing the thrust warning. As it was, he found the section of support ring he was working on moving away from him and instinctively tightened his grip on the attached line he was holding.
Just as the line was drawing taut against its ring, thrust was applied at right angles to the previous surge and he began a slow swing around the support ring, a swing that would ultimately wrap his line tightly around the ring. For a few seconds this did not worry him, but then he realized that as the line wound itself tight it would shorten and his speed of rotation would increase—it was already speeding up, in fact. With his free hand he reached for one of the divider ropes as it whirled past, but could only touch it. All he succeeded in doing was to start himself spinning on the end of his rope as well as describing diminishing circles around the ring.
Dizzy and confused, Mercer tried to work out how fast he would be traveling by the time his line was completely wound around the ring. Almost certainly it would be too fast for him to transfer his grip from the rope to the ring—and if he let go at that speed he would go bulleting into the deck, bulkheads or passengers like a stone from a slingshot. The time to let go was now, while he was still moving relatively slowly. But his hand seemed to have a mind of its own—the more he thought of letting go the stronger became its grip on the rope.
Mercer closed his eyes and tried to think. He had more than two feet of slack wrapped around his hand. If he released that the radius of his swing would be increased and his rotation slowed. He would do just that and hold on to the last few inches of rope until he was swinging toward the inner hull wall, then bend his knees to absorb the shock of landing and let go.
