The COMPLEAT Collected SFF Works, page 338
"Your attention, ladies and gentlemen," he said, using the module's PA. "By now you should have finished your first meal in space—no doubt with a few accidental spillages here and there—and begun getting to know each other. You will have plenty of time—four months, in fact—to finish getting to know each other, but cleaning up the litter is much more urgent. That is why I would like three of you to help me by—"
They were suddenly like a classroom full of eager pupils with the answer to teacher's question.
Mercer shook his head. "I knew you would all like to help, but to avoid offending anyone I shall pick the three people closest to me, if they have no objections."
They hadn't. Mrs. Mathewson smiled and nodded. Stone nodded without smiling and Bobby Mathewson was trying desperately to salute with his arm tangled in webbing, his eyes almost as wide open as his mouth with excitement. Mercer concentrated on the boy.
"We do not salute on this ship," he said gravely, "nor do you call anyone 'sir' except the captain. Saluting spacemen happens only on television—so you are Mathewson and I am Mercer."
Treat a boy like a young man, his instructor had told him, and you won't go far wrong ...
Explaining the operation of the cleaners over and over again until he understood it completely was something he could do to the boy but not to the two adults. Repeating instructions to them might make them think that he considered them stupid. But this way they would all be sure to get it right without his running the risk of their taking offence. Finally he turned the three of them loose, watched them at work for a few minutes, then returned to his couch to call MacArdle to have the survival film ready to run.
Prescott and Neilson climbed into sight a few minutes later and stood looking around the passenger deck. Mercer went across to them in case they had instructions.
Prescott stared at him without speaking. Neilson did not look at him, but said, "I don't understand you. Look at that blonde on couch eighteen and the Asian on twenty-three and you gave away the job to a man, a widow and—and her ten-year-old boy. You're missing chances, Mercer."
He spoke softly so as not to be overheard by nearby passengers and without moving his lips, just like a convict in an old-time prison film. Mercer tried to copy the expression and intonation as he replied, "Maybe I prefer ten-year-old boys."
Prescott laughed. It was a harsh, unrelaxed sound, probably because it was produced by a mechanism stiff from disuse. The two men left Mercer and continued their climb toward control.
Chapter Five
THE FILM was beautifully made, technically excellent and with a nice balance of animation and real footage—but it lacked accuracy. Not that it made any deliberate misstatements, it was just that watching the antics of a cartoon character did not give a true picture of a real person's physical and mental capabilities.
A smiling young pseudo-spaceman who had cut his gleaming teeth on a great many TV commercials began by introducing everyone to the ship, talking brightly over performance and payload charts, design philosophy and an animated staging sequence. Then he began taking the ship apart, literally, into neat, color-coded sections, magnifying each section and detailing its function—control, officers' quarters, passenger lounge and cabins, weightless lounge, reaction mass tank and the eye-twisting detail of the reactor itself. Mercer's sick bay/cabin looked ridiculously large for one man and thirteen patients while the quarters of the passengers were unbelievably spacious.
Mercer did not believe and neither, after a few days, would the passengers.
"... and now," continued the smiling spaceman, hesitating as if to apologize for wasting the audience's time on nonessentials, "we come to the subject of survival should an emergency arise. No such emergency has arisen in the past nor, considering the rigorous checks and inspections carried out before every flight, is one ever likely to occur in the future. But we are obliged by the regulations to explain our survival equipment and to give you the chance to practice with it—"
Mercer had already seen the film many times and had listened to much more detailed lectures on the subject. His train of thought branched off onto a different but nearly parallel track.
In his line of work human life had always been considered of paramount importance—in theory at least, a life was valued beyond price. But the cost of protecting the lives of officers and passengers in a spaceship, where every kilo hauled out of Earth's gravity represented enough coin of the realm—anybody's realm—to make every person on the ship comfortably rich from the cradle to the urn, was astronomical. Naturally the price of the passengers' tickets did not defray even a small fraction of the transport bill, much less the extra-weight penalties represented by backup systems and survival equipment. Those items were conveniently lost in the even more complex systems of government bookkeeping under headings like national prestige, technological spin-off and assisting the maximum utilization of technically trained manpower.
Human life seemed to grow more and more valuable the farther it was removed from Earth. In space its value was incalculable; in the five-hundred- and thousand-seat transports flying between five and ten miles above the surface it was merely high and on surface transport systems the powers that were did not seem to worry too much about lives. But no fare-paying passenger had ever been lost in space, while a few hundred a year on average were cremated in metal birds which prematurely stopped flying and on the surface people mowed each other down with cars in thousands daily.
Mercer had spent two years with an organization that "processed" road accidents. That was how it referred to its function—too few of the victims survived for it to call itself a hospital that cured people. He had grown up in—and was now, he realized, trying to flee—a technologically advanced, ultra-fast and strangely bored society whose casualties had had the depersonalized, sexless sameness of so many mashed flies. The drunken or drug-ridden or simply bored drivers and the careless or absent-minded or innocent bystanders victimized, when they were separated from the machinery or the machinery was removed from them, could rarely be made presentable by even the most conscientious of morticians.
Mercer's thoughts were taking a morbid turn. He had long ago discovered that no simple answers existed to complex problems. The best thing he could do right now was to give all his attention to the survival film, while trying not to look openly scornful of the simple answers it was giving to what would be, if it ever occurred, an extremely complex and lethal problem.
The spaceman with the teeth, the cap worn on the back of his head and practically all of his uniform zips undone was saying "... in the unlikely event of such an emergency the passengers and crew will probably have several hours or even days to abandon ship—a process which can, if necessary, be carried out safely and without undue fuss in a few minutes. The next stage deals with the mechanics of the abandon-ship sequence, showing the basic actions first and then repeating them with certain variations—"
ON THE screen the distressed ship developed a faint red halo around its reactor. The halo began to brighten and pulsate, but not quickly enough really to frighten anyone. Farther forward the passenger section continued to spin slowly as it furnished artificial gravity, while the rest of the ship held steady. Gradually it slowed as braking devices went into operation, making the ship a rigid unit again in the pre-cruising mode. The spinning passenger section had imparted its rotational inertia to the ship as a whole, causing it to spin at half its original speed.
Suddenly the ship emitted long white cylinders that flung themselves away from the spinning vessel and expanded into large globes as they went. Shortly afterward four larger, wedge-shaped sections of the forward structure—the modules containing each officer's cabin—broke away and followed the expanding circle of passenger globes. The remains of the ship—looking warped and lifeless, although not frighteningly so—shrank as the wedges and globes radiated from the wreck and the screen took in a steadily expanding area of space. Finally the ship disappeared and the survival pods applied thrust for a few seconds and began their slow return to the recovery area until they were grouped like spherical sheep around the officers' segments, which had also returned and were waiting for them.
On the second time around the sequence went into greater detail regarding the method of entry into the survival pod, its airlock, radio, two-shot thrust motor and other rather sparse appointments. The final treatment of the sequence, which was too delightfully droll to cause anxiety to anyone, dealt with methods of attitude control in a vehicle fitted with only one short-duration and fixed-direction thruster.
"... Most of you are probably thinking by now that our survivors are being given an awful lot to do," said the space officer star as his face replaced the image of the survival pods, "or that the globes should contain more sophisticated equipment, such as proper attitude control, navigation computers and the like. But you must remember that your survival globe is little more than a lifebelt and that a lifebelt cannot be overloaded or it will sink. Believe me, the equipment is adequate.
"It is adequate," he continued in a proud, solemn voice while he tapped his temple very slowly with his right index finger, "because each will be carrying at least one organic computer of a type that has been tried and perfected over a million years."
In control MacArdle brought up the lights and expertly faded out the background music. Mercer stood up, swaying slightly in the low gravity, and looked over his charges.
Before he could speak the passenger called Stone tapped the side of his head and said solemnly, "He makes me feel proud—and kinda sick."
Me, too, thought Mercer.
Aloud he asked, "Any questions?"
"What I would like to know," said a passenger with Miss Moore stamped on her identity patch, "is why we don't have officers like that on this ship? Why don't you relax a little, sir? Can't you smile the way he did?"
"He probably can't," said Mrs. Mathewson, laughing, "because his teeth are real and a bit uneven."
"His eyes look a bit uneven, too," Miss Moore said, "but they are a nice shade of—"
"An optical illusion, ma'am," said Mercer hastily, "caused by one slightly thicker eyebrow. But I was inviting questions on survival in space."
"And I was asking one," she replied, looking him straight in the eye. "I was wondering if you had any suggestions on how I can survive the boredom of living for four months in a hermetically sealed can of space-going sardines. Perhaps some of the sardines will cooperate in relieving the boredom?"
Mercer nodded and said seriously, "Provision has been made for various forms of individual and group competitions and entertainment. Nothing too strenuous, of course, although it is advisable to take a certain amount of exercise every day to avoid balance and blood pressure problems after we land. We have music tapes and films, most of which are fairly recent—by that I mean that they have not yet been released for television. There will also be instruction in weightless swimming and ballet, which brings me back to the survival drills. Even though their usefulness is arguable, the three sessions we are obliged by regulations to stage can be very interesting and often amusing."
The silence began to drag until Stone said, "What we really want to know is what our beautifully designed individual flight plans say between the lines. There isn't much space between the lines, of course, but if all the rumors we've heard are true it is very well filled. How about filling in a few of them for us?"
PRACTICALLY all the passengers were watching Mercer and listening—or not watching him and listening even harder. He nodded gravely and said, "There is very little to add. The rules are few and not at all strict, so that you should be bound only by the dictates of common sense and consideration for each other. You will be living in a restricted space, sharing toilet and amusement facilities and using cabins providing visual privacy only. It is a good idea to put a little effort into liking instead of disliking the people around you."
"Love your neighbor?" asked someone.
"Apart from this largely self-imposed discipline," Mercer went on, "there are no rules as far as the passengers are concerned and you will be left pretty much to your own devices. But if some form of individual or group activity proves harmful to the ship or other passengers the person responsible will be warned and if necessary restrained in sick bay—"
"A fate worse than death, I hope," said Miss Moore.
Mercer nodded. "If you call spending four months in a bunk the size and shape of a coffin under partial sedation a fate worse than death I'm inclined to agree with you," he said, allowing his irritation with Miss Moore to show for a moment. Mercer knew that he was not supposed to talk as bluntly as this to passengers on the first day out and Prescott would probably skin him alive for it. He forced himself to relax and continued, "But that kind of trouble is unlikely to arise in a healthy, civilized group of people like yourselves. This isn't flattery. You all know how thorough were the medical and psych checks you had to take before being allowed to book passage."
The trouble was, Mercer thought, that in this degenerate age the mental norms had been stretched to fit some strange psych profiles. About all he really could be sure of was that none of the passengers were or had recently been on hard drugs.
He continued, "With the exception of myself, the ship's officers have their own specialist duties to perform and will intervene only if somebody starts a riot or tries to kick a hole in the hull. A part of my job is to see that you all adapt to shipboard life as quickly and easily as possible, to keep a check on your health and to instruct you in the use of such items as the swimming facilities and, of course, the survival equipment. I shall not intrude on your social activities even if invited to do so and you are all free to do pretty much as you please. Have you any questions?"
Inevitably the Moore woman had a question, the same question with a slightly different slant.
"How will the officers be able to survive the trip," she said, "with nothing to amuse them but computers and textbooks? I realize that you are all highly trained and disciplined supermen—but four months of self-imposed celibacy in a space-going monastery cell? I mean, is it necessary?"
Mercer was silent, thinking that the simple answer was that it was not necessary and that his predecessor's behavior was becoming much more understandable to him. In Eurydice temptation was anything but subtle if this was the kind of question that could come up during the first day's flight. He wondered what Miss Moore did in real life and he was still wondering and trying to think of a diplomatic reply when Mrs. Mathewson rescued him.
"Maybe our supermen are interested only in superwomen," she said.
Chapter Six
THE TRANSITION from powered to free flight occurred half an hour later. The anti-nausea medication he had administered just before takeoff was still doing its job so that the upsets were psychological and intra-personal rather than digestive. They came about as a direct result of the transfer of passenger couches from the deck to what had been the walls of the compartment.
Mercer had demonstrated the safe, easy way of performing the operations—by lying face down, held in position by the waist straps only and allowing the arms and legs to project over the edges of the couch to propel it along, check its progress or fend off other couch riders on collision courses. But in the weightless condition the couches were too easy to move and, although they did not weigh anything, their inertia was considerable. Set moving in the wrong direction or pushed too hard they could give a nearby passenger a very painful nudge.
While they were being moved into their new position Mercer also had to exercise a great deal of discretion regarding who would be occupying adjoining cabins—especially when four or five passengers insisted on adjoining a sixth, who did not wish to adjoin with them. Finally he had to check that the passengers had not positioned their couches across the line of a dividing wall, or over a light fixture or on top of a life-pod escape hatch.
At that stage he signaled control to begin spinning the passenger compartment and gradually the occupants began to stick with increasing firmness to their new floors. The spin increased until centrifugal force pressed them against the interior of the hull with an apparent gravity one half that of Earth normal. Forward and aft of the passenger sections the compartments which were supposed to remain weightless had begun to rotate in the opposite direction and Mercer could hear the regular thump of tangential thrusters checking the precession. But none of the passengers seemed worried by the noise—they were too busy laughing and waving at fellow passengers who were apparently standing on the ceiling, waving back at them.
Mercer waited for a few minutes to allow them to get used to the sensation. Finally he made his way to the section of plating occupied by the Mathewsons and asked if he could borrow Bobby. With the boy's help he began distributing the plastic cabin dividers, demonstrating the method of attaching them to the supporting lines so that they formed four taut, plastic walls and a pull-across door sheet that could be sealed from the inside. By the time he had finished explaining how it was done to the last passenger the first cabins were complete and he was able to return Bobby to his mother.
"He's been a big help, m'am," he told Mrs. Mathewson and he was not merely being polite, "but the work has overexcited him a little, I'm afraid. I suggest you give him the adult dose of sedative."
He kneeled briefly beside her couch, pressed the release stud on a plate set flush with the floor. He flipped it back, explaining that the cover was simply for protection during the couch-moving operation and that the recess contained a call button, microphone and speaker to enable her to contact him in control or the sick bay if the need should arise.
