Glorring frowned. The Lawrence had been out from Earth over three years now. Seven Lost Colonies had been found and brought — forcibly, unfortunately but unavoidably — back into the fold. And Glorring had more or less decided to skip this time the token search for a habitable yet uninhabited planet which was, in the popular mind at home, the primary purpose for the Fleet.
He was anxious to return to Earth — it wasn’t politically safe to be too long away.
He turned to the Scientist. “How good are the chances?” he demanded.
Ehlenburgh, a narrow elderly man in SSS gray, shrugged bony shoulders. “You can never tell. The star is of the right type, but in FTL it’s impossible to measure anything as small as planetary mass. Statistically, our chances are good. On the other hand, there are such stars Without planets, or without planets on which humans can live. This may be one.”
“In other words,” said Glorring, “you won’t make a definite statement one way or the other.”
“I can’t,” Ehlenburgh told him. “Not in FTL.”
“If we’re going to stop,” said Astrogator Koll, “we’ll have to do it within ten minutes, Excellency.”
A commander must make his decisions rapidly and confidently. “We’ll stop,” said Glorring. Without turning around, he barked, “Strull!”
Captain Strull, adjutant, hurried forward and bowed. “Excellency.”
“Staff in the Ready Room in ten minutes,” Glorring told him.
“Very good, Excellency.” Strull bowed again and turned toward the door.
“Strull!”
The adjutant stopped, looking apprehensively at Glorring. “Excellency?”
Glorring studied the adjutant a long silent moment, raking him with his eyes. Strull was short, broad-framed, naturally prone to overweight. He had grown lax recently — was probably avoiding the exercise sessions in the gym and certainly hadn’t engaged in any wrestling matches for months now. His potential for fat had become kinetic. Strull bulged within his scarlet uniform, and his chin had multiplied.
His voice deceptively soft, Glorring purred, “Just how much do you weigh, Strull, if you please?”
“Excellency,” quavered Strull, “one hundred ninety pounds. If your Excellency pleases.”
“You’re fat!” barked Glorring. “The men of the Fleet must be lean! Must be hard! Could you wrestle me, Strull, one bone-break?”
“Oh, no, Excellency,” said Strull fearfully. “You are much stronger than I, Excellency.”
“You have seven days to weigh one-sixty,” Glorring told him, “or I’ll have the excess carved from you and served to the enlisted men for breakfast. Do I make myself clear?”
“Quite clear, Excellency,” said Strull miserably. “Seven days, Excellency.”
“I’ll be out for the briefing in ten minutes,” said Glorring. “I’ll want the staff ready.”
“Yes, Excellency. Ten minutes, Excellency.”
Strull bowed again, more deeply than before, and, maintaining the bow, backed out of the room.
Glorring nodded in satisfaction and turned away, in search of a mirror.
At decreasing multiples of the speed of light, the Lawrence approached the Sol-star. On block one, in the most forward section of the ship, Glorring preened before his mirror while the muttering and helplessly indignant Strull padded about, rounding up the staff. On block four, the six gray-garbed members of the SSS — Scientific Survey Staff — checked their equipment and prepared for observation and measurement, or at least five of them did so. One, the psysociohistorian, named Cahann, had nothing to do in this situation. His field was human groupings, not the physical universe of stars and planets. So Cahann, a thin and bitter man, sat morosely in his cubicle and thought his seditious thoughts. Below, on block six, the Marines made fast, preparing for the transition to normal speed. Among them was a twenty-year-old Spaceman Third named Elan, indistinguishable from the rest.
Cahann hated the transitions to and from FTL. The momentary feeling of bodilessness always upset him, irrationally frightening him, as though he were afraid each time that he wouldn’t come back together again.
It happened as usual this time. Cahann, swallowing repeatedly and trying to ignore his nausea, reached for a book — any book — and tried to read. The other five Scientists, he knew, would be on their way up to the Ready Room now with their preliminary reports. He could go up with them and hear the news. But he was completely disinterested. This was not a Lost Colony for which they were stopping, and he was just as pleased.
He enjoyed his work. But he hated its consequences.
He longed for his pipe. Most of the time, he could get along somehow without it, but when faced with speed transition he sorely missed its warm comfort.
Well, he reflected, at least this was an unpopulated system, and he could have no false hopes dashed by a weakling Colony. One would think, he told himself for the thousandth time, that at least one of the Lost Colonies would have advanced to the point where it could stand up to the Empire and defend itself. But it just didn’t work out that way.
True, Earth had fallen back from the Old Empire into the barbarism of the Dark Ages; but the records had still been there, waiting for men to be ready to use them again. And the colonies, at the time of the collapse of the Old Empire, had been small units, dependent on Earth for most of their technological knowledge and matériel. Only tiny areas of their worlds were tamed. In the time that Earth had rebuilt her Empire, the colonies had had to devote themselves to maintaining the shaky status quo on alien and often dangerous worlds, progressing only slowly.
A brisk rap at the cubicle door was immediately followed by the head of Strull, saying, “His Excellency wants you in the Ready Room. At once.”
Cahann looked up. “What for?”
“Don’t question his Excellency,” snapped Strull.
“I’m not. I’m questioning you.”
“And I’m not answering,” Strull told him triumphantly, and marched away down the corridor.
Cahann surged out of his chair, knowing exactly what Strull intended to do next. He raced down the corridor, Strull trundling ahead of him, and managed to get to the elevator before Strull could dose its door in his face.
Cahann grinned. “You’ll have to take some of that tonnage off before you can outrace me, Strull,” he said.
The barb seemed to strike far deeper than was warranted. Strull got red-faced and beetle-browed and sank into a burning silence. Cahann shrugged.
The Ready Room was filled with an excited buzzing. Glorring in the savage splendor of his golden uniform, prowled across the room to Cahann, smirking happily. “Good news, Cahann!” he announced. “Not only a habitable planet, but populated! There’ll be work for you. Sit down, and we’ll start the briefing.” He turned away, crying, “Ehlenburgh!”
Stunned, Cahann found a seat in the crowded Ready Room. He wondered if he’d heard aright. A populated world, not on the charts? Impossible!
Unconsciously, his hand came up to his mouth, cupped as though holding a pipe-bowl, as he listened to the other Scientists describe the world this ambulatory boil had so unexpectedly discovered.
It sounded a strange world indeed. Not physically, but in reference to the human population. Physically, it was nearly ideal. It was a rather close approximation of Earth. Somewhat less of it was under water, the climate was generally a few degrees warmer at all latitudes, and the oxygen content of the air was a trifle higher. Gravity was six per cent lighter, and in shape it was a bit more flattened at the poles. Its day was three minutes shorter than that of Earth, and its equator was an impassable jungle belt, devoid of settlements.