Down more deck levels. Two of them were luridly lighted by glow-bulbs exactly reproducing the light-quality of a yellow Type G sun. Here were hydroponic gardens, growing lushly in the brightness, taking carbon dioxide and excess moisture from the air and supplying fresh foodstuffs to the Lambda’s company. The third garden level was dark, because plants required periods of darkness as well as of light if they were to grow and bear fruit.
So far there’d been no living being in sight. Scott was sure that there were many more men aboard. Only chosen ones would have been authorized to show themselves, because they’d be too much of a type to be convincingly either travelers or crewmen. They’d be blaster-men, with the expressions and the sharp and snappy costuming of their kind. And they’d be amused at Scott’s seeming innocence, and they might show it. But it was desirable to know how far Scott could remain innocent of what had taken place here, and what was in prospect. It occurred to Scott that Chenery might have had the idea for the test.
In the main freight space, though, there were two men. This was a warehouse level which once had been a freight hold of an interstellar ship. These two had hairy chests showing and soiled work trousers exuding odors from long-ago-handled freight. They had a fali-board set on a box between them, with the pieces for the game arranged on the triangular pattern of the board. But the men were placed on the board at random: An outlaw-piece was on a black triangle. The game wasn’t a game. These men were acting the parts of freight handlers with no notion of how such parts should be played. They looked up cordially when Chenery said, “Ho-ya! This is Lieutenant Scott, the new Patrol officer. He wants to know how things are goin’.”
“Pretty good! Pretty good!” said one of them. He spoke to Scott. “About goin’ on that liner, Loot’nt, we figure if you’re goin’ to stay we’ll stay with you an’ do what we can to help. Okay?”
“Splendid,” said Scott. He carefully kept all irony out of his voice and avoided another glance at the fali-board, which a fall enthusiast would have found unbelievable. He gestured for Chenery to lead on.
They reached the main engine room, larger and more spacious even than a cargo hold. In its center there remained the mounting that had held the ship’s overdrive unit. This buoy had been refitted for its present use at some space port aground, and had been driven to its present position in overdrive, because otherwise the journey would have taken generations of time. But after its arrival, the overdrive unit was removed because the buoy was to stay here for always. The solar system drive remained, of course. Occasionally, for very brief periods it had to be run to adjust the position of the checkpoint to that of the marker-asteroid. The asteroid’s positions had been calculated far into the future, and it was simpler to match it than to try to keep to a scheduled placing with shiftings bound to occur when liners stopped and hooked on and loaded or unloaded freight. But Lambda had no other use for drives. Not in ordinary times.
A man in oily garments appeared from behind a disconnected switchboard. He waved a hand and Chenery led the way toward him. Again he introduced Scott, identifying the oily man as the buoy’s engineer. But Scott noted that his face and hands showed no trace of the oil so liberally present on his clothing.
“I heard your speech, Lieutenant,” said the man in oily clothes. “But you’re going to stay, so I stay too.”
“Everything’s in good shape, then,” observed Scott.
“Yes, sir! Everything! I’ve got a couple of hands—off-duty now—who’re good! When you want something done, you call on us!”
Scott said drily, “I’ll do that. We may have a tricky time before us, dodging comets.”
“You’ll have all the rudder you need,” the engineer assured him, beaming. “For any kind of driving!”
Scott reacted almost visibly to this remarkable statement. But he nodded and turned to Chenery, and Chenery led the way further astern, downward.
On the way Scott reflected upon the man’s assurance that Lambda had plenty of rudder. A space craft didn’t have a rudder. It couldn’t. There was nothing in space for a rudder to act on, whether between worlds or stars. Off-ground, a ship was steered by tiny drive-engines which on demand pushed its bow to the right or left, and its stern to left or right. They could also turn the bow—and the ship—up or down. Eight miniature drives, four in the bow and as many in the stern, would swing a ship in any direction. They could even spin it like a top with no forward drive at all, which was unthinkable for a ship with a rudder. But the alleged engineer of Checkpoint Lambda plainly didn’t know it. It was evidence that though the men recruited to seize the Golconda Ship might be good at handling blasters, they weren’t spacemen.
The inspection party of Scott and Janet and Chenery reached the hospital at the very stern of the ship. It was there because nowhere else would it have been practical to lessen or cut off artificial gravity if a patient’s need required it. There were glittering white plastic walls. There were soundless floors. There were hospital rooms with equipment ranging from aseptic environment rooms for contagious illness to the items needed for surgery and even dentistry. There were two men seated in a corridor outside a door made of steel bars. Beyond, there was a door with a lighted sign above it. Lifeboat. Do Not Enter.
“Ho-ya!” said Chenery. “This’s Lieutenant Scott, the new Patrol officer.” To Scott he said, “These two characters are the guards for the patients I told you about.” Then he added to Janet, “Y’want to look the patients over, Janet?”
The girl went silently into the barred room. Scott heard her asking murmured routine questions of the two patients. She changed a dressing on a badly burned arm. The faint, unpleasant odor of a blast-burn reached Scott’s nostrils. At least that was authentic. It couldn’t be faked.
“The lieutenant,” said Chenery amiably, “wants everybody that’ll go, off the buoy to a liner he’s got waiting. He says there’s a chance a comet’ll smash us. But he’s goin’ to stay aboard and try to pull through it. You two, what d’you say?”
The two men here were singularly hard-featured. They didn’t look like guards. They looked bored and scornful.
“The patients can’t be moved,” said one of them. He made no particular effort to seem other than derisive. “So y’couldn’t expect us to desert ‘em, would you? Us bein’ faithful to our duty?”
The tone was definitely sarcastic. Chenery said angrily, “That’s no way—”
“Maybe you can say it better,” said the second man truculently. “We ain’t takin’ orders from you!”
Chenery glared. He opened his mouth to speak, and stopped. The girl came out of the barred room. The two supposed guards smirked at her. One, with a derisive glance at Chenery, reached out his hand deliberately to touch her.
Scott took one step and made a chopping motion with his hand. It landed exactly right. Strangling, the man who’d reached for Janet went down. There was a muffled clatter. A blaster spun a half-turn on the floor. Scott paid no attention to it. He faced the second man, with no weapon drawn but with an expression of such curiosity that the other man gave back apprehensively.