Curiosity returned on the way to their quarters. He looked sideways at Gori. No help there. But who were the husky, skin-clad indigenes? They had to be human, unless everything he’d been told about evolution was wrong. Why had someone built a landing grid on an uncharted planet? Who were the people in the Fleet uniforms, if they weren’t from this ship?
Alone with Gori in their quarters, he had no one to ask. Gori said nothing, simply called up the Fleet Regulations: XXIII Edition on screen, and highlighted the passages the captain had mentioned. The computer spat out a hardcopy, and Gori handed it to Tim. Duties, obligations, penalties… he tried not to let it sink in, but it got past his defenses anyway. Disobeying a captain’s direct order in the presence of a hostile (or presumed hostile) force was grounds for anything the captain chose to do about it, including summary execution. She could have left him there, left both of them there, including innocent Gori, if she’d wanted to, and no one in Fleet would have had a quibble.
For the first time, Tim thought about the stories he’d heard… why the ship was so long in the repair yard, what kind of engagement that had been. A colony plundered, while Sassinak did nothing, in hopes of catching more pirates later. More than two or three people had died there; she had let them die, to save others. He didn’t like that a bit. Did she? The ones who’d talked about it said not, but… if she really cared, how could she? Men and women, children, people of all sorts - rich, poor, in between - had died because she didn’t do what he had done - she didn’t come tearing in to save them.
Gradually, in the hollow silence between his bunk and Gori’s, Tim began to build a new vision of what the Fleet really was, and what his captain had intended. What he had messed up, with his romantic and gallant nonsense. Those people in the colony had died, so that Sassinak could trace their attackers to powers behind them. Some of her crew had died, trying to save the children, and then destroy a pirate base. This very voyage probably had something to do with the same kind of trouble, and saving two lives just didn’t mean that much. If he himself had been killed before his rash act - and for the first time he really faced that chilling possibility of not-being - it would have done Fleet no harm, and possibly his captain some good.
When the chime rang for duty, Tim set off for his new job (cleaning sludge from the filters) with an entirely new attitude. He fully intended to become the reformed young officer the Fleet so needed, and for several hours worked diligently. No more jokes, no more wild notions: sober reality. He recited the regulations under his breath, just in case the captain should appear in this smelly little hole.
In this mood of determined obedience to nature and nature’s god in the person of his captain, he didn’t even smile when Jig Turner, partner in several earlier escapades, appeared in the hatchway.
“I guess you know,” said Turner.
“I know if I don’t finish these filters, we’ll be breathing this stink.”
“This isn’t bad - you should smell the planet’s atmosphere.” Turner lounged against the bulkhead, patently idle, with the air of someone who desperately wants to tell a secret.
“You’ve been out?” Despite himself, Tim couldn’t fail to ask that.
“Well, no. Not out exactly, but we all smelled it when they brought the injuries in. Worse than this… like organic lab.” Turner leaned closer. “Listen, Tim - did you really fire on that transport?”
“No! I put a tractor on the airsled, that’s all.”
“I wish youhad blown it.”
“I didn’t have anything to blow it with. But why? The captain’s mad enough that I caught the sled.”
“D’you know what that transport was?” Of course he didn’t, and he shook his head. Turner went on, lowering her voice. “Heavyworlders.”
“So?”
“Sothink, Tim. Heavyworlders, meatheads, in a transport - tried to tell the captain they were answering a distress beacon, but it scans like a colony ship. To a proscribed planet… which has heavyworlders on italready.”
“Huh?” He couldn’t follow this. “The ones in the airsled?”
“No. The ones on the ground… near the transport, and getting the victims out… youmust have been watching, Tim, even you.”
“I saw them, but they didn’t look like heavyworlders… exactly.” Now he came to think of it, they had been big and well-muscled.
“It’s a heavyworlderplot,” Turner went on quickly. “They wanted the planet - there was a mutiny, I heard, in a scouting expedition, and the heavyworlders started eating raw meat, and killed the others and ate them - “
“I don’t believe it!” But he would, if he let himself think about it. Eating one sentient being had to be the same as eating another: that’s why the prohibition. He’d had an aunt who wouldn’t eat anything synthesized from perennial plants, on the grounds that shrubs and trees might be sentient.
“The thing is, if one heavyworlder can mutiny, why not all? There’s already this bunch of them living free out there, eating meat and wearing skins - what’s to stop the ones on this ship from going crazy, too? Maybe it’s the smell in the air, or something. But a lot of us think the captain should put ‘em all under guard. Think of the heavyworld marines… we wouldn’t stand a chance if they mutinied.”
Tim thought about it a moment, while screwing the access port back on the filter he’d just cleaned, and shook his head. “No - I can’t see anyone from this ship turning on the captain - “
“But they could. They could be planning something right now, and if we don’t warn her - “
Tim grinned. “I don’t think. Turner, that the captain needs our warning to know where danger is.”
“You mean you won’t sign the petition? Or come with us to talk to her?”
“No. And frankly I think you’re nuts to bother her with this.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Commander Sassinak, Tim saw, looked as immaculate as usual, though she must have gone through the same narrow passages that had smudged his uniform. She gave him a frosty smile, which vanished as she met Turner’s eyes. “Tell me, Lieutenant Turner, did you ever happen to read the regulations on shipboard conspiracy?”
“No, captain, but - “
“No. Nor were you serving on this ship when heavyworlder marines - the very ones you’re so afraid of - saved the ship and my life. Had they been inclined to mutiny. Lieutenant, they’d have had more than one opportunity. You exhibit a regrettable prejudice, and an even more regrettable tendency to faulty logic. The actions of heavyworlders on an exploration team more than four decades ago say nothing about the loyalty of my crew. I trust them a long sight more than I trust you - they’ve given me reason. I don’t want to hear any more of this, or that you’ve been spreading such rumors. Is that clear?”
“Yes, captain.” At Sass’s nod. Turner hurried away. Tim stood at attention, entirely too aware of his smelly, stained hands and messy uniform. The captain’s lips quirked: not a smile, but something that required control not to be.
“Learned anything. Ensign Timran?”
“Yes, captain. I… uh… memorized the regulations - “
“About time. As it happens, and I don’t want you getting swelled head about this, things have worked out very well. From this point on, consider that you acted under orders at all times: is that clear?”
It wasn’t clear at all, but he tried to conceal his confusion. His captain sighed, obviously noticing the signs, and explained. “The other ship, Tim, the one that appeared from the Ryxi planet, was not a pirate: it was a legal transport, on contract to supply the Ryxi, replying to a distress signal.”