“For doing exactly what I think Barlennan has been trying to maneuver us into doing all along: put Mesklinite pilots on the barge. I suppose he wants his own interstellar ship, some time, so that he can start leading the same life among the stars that he used to do on Mesklin’s oceans, but he’ll have to make do with one quantum jump at a time.”
“Is that what you think he’s been up to? Why should he care about having his own space pilots so much? And come to think of it, why wasn’t that a good idea in the first place, if the Mesklinites don’t learn how?”
“It was, and there’s no reason to doubt that they can.”
“Then why wasn’t it done that way all along?”
“I’d rather not lecture on that subject just now. I like to feel as much pride in my species as circumstances allow, and the explanation doesn’t reflect much credit either on man’s rationality or his emotional control.”
“I can guess, then,” replied Benj. “But in that case, what makes you think we can change it now?”
“Because now, at the trifling cost of descending to the same general level of emotional reasoning, we have a handle on some of man’s less generous drives. I’m going down to the planetology lab and filibuster. I’m going to ask those chemists why they don’t know what trapped the Kwembly, and when they say it’s because they don’t have any samples of the mud, I’m going to ask them why they don’t. I’m going to ask them why they’ve been making do with seismic and neutrino-shadow data when they might as well be analyzing mineral samples carted up here from every j spot where a Mesklinite cruiser has stopped for ten minutes. If you prefer not to descend to that level, and would rather work with mankind’s no-bier emotions, you be thinking of all the heart-rending remarks you could make about the horror and cruelty of leaving your friend Beetchermarlf to suffocate slowly on an alien world parsecs from his home. We could use that if we have to take this argument to a higher authority, like the general public. I don’t think we’ll really need to, but right now I’m in no mood to restrict myself to clean fighting and logical argument. he “If Alan Aucoin growls about the cost of operating the barge (I think has too much sense), I’m going to jump on him with both feet. Energy has been practically free ever since we’ve had fusion devices; what costs is personal skill. He’ll have to use Mesklinite crews anyway, so that investment is already made; and by letting the barge drift out here unused he’s wasting its cost. I know there’s a small hole in that logic, but if you point it out in Dr. Aucoin’s hearing I’ll paddle you for the first time since you were seven, and I don’t think the last decade has done too much to my arm. You let Aucoin do his own thinking.”
“You needn’t get annoyed with me, Dad.”
“I’m not. In fact, I’m not as much annoyed as I am scared.”
“Scared? Of what?”
“Of what may happen to Barlennan and his people on what your mother calls ‘that horrible planet.’
“But why? Why now, more than before?”
“Because I’m coming gradually to realize that Barlennan is an intelligent, forceful, thoughtful, ambitious, and reasonably well-educated being, just as my only son was six years ago; and I remember your homemade diving outfit much too well. Come on. We have an astronautics school to get organized, and a student body to collect.”
EPILOGUE: LESSONS
At two hundred miles, the barge was just visible as a star-like object reflecting Lalande 21185’s feeble light. Benj had watched the vessel as it pulled up to that distance and moved into what its pilot considered a decent station-keeping orbit, but neither he nor the pilot had discussed technical details. It was so handy to be able to hold a conversation without waiting a full minute for the other fellow’s answer that Benj and Beetchermarlf had simply chattered.
These conversations were becoming less and less frequent. Benj was really back at work now and, he suspected, making up for lost time. Beetchermarlf was often too far away on practice flights to talk at all, and even more frequently too occupied to converse with anyone but his instructor.
“Time to turn it over, Beetch,” the boy ended the present exchange as he heard Tebbetts’ whistling from down the shaft. “The taskmaster is on the way.
“I’m ready when he is,” came the reply. “Does he want to use your language or mine this time?”
“He’ll let you know; he didn’t tell me. Here he is,” replied Benj.
The bearded astronomer, however, spoke first to Benj after looking quickly around. The two were drifting weightless in the direct-observation section at the center of the station’s connecting bar, and Tebbetts had taken for granted that the barge and his student would be drifting alongside. All his quick glance caught was the dull ember of a sun in one direction and the dimly lit disc of Dhrawn, little larger than Luna seen from Earth, in the other.
“Where is he, Benj? I thought I heard you talking to him, so I assumed he was close. I hope he isn’t late. He should be solving intercept orbits, even with nomographs instead of high-speed computers, better than that by now.”
“He’s here, sir.” The boy pointed. “Just over two hundred miles away, in a 17.8-minute orbit around the station.”
Tebbetts blinked. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t think this heap of hardware would whip anything around in that time at a distance of two hundred feet, let alone that many miles. He’d have to use power, accelerating straight toward us—”
“He is, sir. About two hundred G’s acceleration. The time is the rotation period of Mesklin, and the acceleration is the gravity value at his home port. He says he hasn’t been so comfortable since he signed up with Barlennan, and wishes there were some way to turn up the sunlight.”
The astronomer smiled slowly.
“Yes. I see. That does make sense. I should have thought of it myself. I have some more practice exercises for him here, but that’s about as good as any of them. I should do more of that sort of thing. Well, let’s get at it. Can you stay to check my language? I think I have the Stennish words for everything in today’s work, and space is empty enough so that his mistakes and mine should both be relatively harmless, but there’s no need to take chances.
“It’s too bad the Kwembly couldn’t be salvaged after all,” remarked Aucoin, “but Dondragmer’s crew is doing a very good and effective study of the area while they’re waiting for relief. I think it was a very good idea to send the Kalliff after them with a skeleton crew and let them work while they waited, instead of taking them back to the Settlement in the barge. That would have been pretty dangerous anyway, until there are practiced Mesklinite pilots. The single landing near the Kwembly to get the two helmsmen, and a direct return to space while they were trained, was probably the safest way to do it.
“But now we have this trouble with the Smof. At this rate we’ll be out of cruisers before we’re halfway around Low Alpha. Does anyone know the Smof’s commander the way Easy knows Dondragmer? You don’t, I suppose, Easy? Can anyone give a guess at his ability to get himself out of trouble? Or are we going to have to risk sending the barge down before those two Mesklinites are fully trained?”
“Tebbetts thinks Beetchermarlf could handle a surface landing now, as long as it wasn’t complicated by mechanical emergencies,” pointed out an engineer. “Personally I wouldn’t hesitate to let him go.
“You may be right. The trouble is, though, that we certainly can’t land the barge on an ice pack, and not even the barge can lift one of those land-cruisers, even if there were a way of fastening them together without an actual landing. Beetchermarlf and Takoorch may as well continue their training for the moment. What I want as soon as possible, Planetology, is the best direction and distance for the Smof’s crew to trek if they do have to abandon the cruiser, that is, the closest spot where the barge could land to pick them up. If it’s close to their present location, don’t tell them, of course; I want them to do their best to save the cruiser, and there’s no point in tempting them with an easy escape.” Ib Hoffman stirred slightly, but refrained from comment. Aucoin, from one point of view, was probably justified. The administrator went on, “Also, is there definite word on the phenomenon that trapped the Kwembly? You’ve had specimens of the mud, or whatever it is, that Beetchermarlf brought up, for weeks now.