When the picture went white, Heller said, "My wrist must have slipped off the table." The Countess shrugged.
"I'll speed play it through," said Heller. But, of course, there were only clicks and snips and bubbles of beakers. He spot-checked the return to the tug.
The Countess said, "I'll get you something to eat." Had I won? You can't ever tell about females, but she apparently didn't suspect anything underhanded had been done. I realized she had been worried about physical damage; nothing would point to anything else.
But my problems with this rig were crucial. I could not hang on Heller's coattails and still oversee all our Earth operations.
There were some minor flaws. Peripheral vision-things in the view field but not being looked at directly – were there, if blurred. I could cope with that. But the overall visio and audio quality left so much to be desired that I was gloomy.
I thought of turning the strip on in my receiver-viewscreen and just leaving it. It had an automatic strip-feeder in it. It would record for days, maybe even weeks, untended. You just put a pile of strips in it. But then, the Countess came back in and I thought that maybe I could pick up some crucial data. After all, I knew nothing of their domestic relationship. It was really a new scene to me for they would not act naturally with me close by. What didthis pair do when they were alone together? So I kept watching.
She had changed from her guard's uniform and was wearing a blue exercise suit. She was holding a couple of steaming canisters with tubes in them – you can't use anything else in space and it was, after all, a spaceship. "Yell up there and tell it to convert the gym to a steam bath, will you? I want to steam some of that anesthetic poison out of you." Heller accommodatingly yelled, "Steam bath!" And they drank their soup.
Well, I was going to find out if water and heat hurt anything. And shortly Heller stripped and walked into the steam. I sure got a lot of steam! But the extra heat and water did not change things. Spurk hadn't flunked there. He had only flunked on range and quality, in my opinion, so far.
When Heller had showered in a bathroom, he yelled, "Gym!" The Countess yelled from somewhere, "You put on an exercise suit! It'll take more than steam to get the poison out." There was still a tinge that he had been naughty.
He was shortly running on an escalatorlike rig and then he was doing some backflips and generally working up a new sweat. Finally he went and showered again and put on a blue lounging suit.
She was crossing the gym toward him when he stepped down to go back to the lounge. He suddenly grabbed her and kissed her. My set viewscreen flickered. Oh ho, it did register emotion in an odd way.
He pushed her back. "Am I forgiven?"
"Oh, Jet, I'd have to forgive you anything!" They kissed again. And then Jet held her away from him and in a cheerful voice said, "You haven't said what youhave been up to today! Maybe it was even worse than me!" She laughed. "I've been drilling for the review." Review? Review? I thought. What review? This was news.
She had jumped back. She did a one-two foot slam, came to rigid attention and then in total mockery, did an exaggerated cross-arm salute followed by a double foot stamp. Heller laughed with delight. "I better watch out. That Snelz will be recruiting you for keeps into the Fleet marines! What a thing to do for such a lovely lady."
"Oh, he says I am very good. You ought to see me with a blastrifle now!" Heller was laughing so hard the screen jiggled.
"No!" she said. "I am very good! There's no reason a girl can't learn to twirl a rifle! You go get it and I'll show you." Heller, still laughing, telling a few doors to open, was soon in the forward part of the ship. I was treated to a shifting view of all kinds of nooks and crannies.
"Hey," he yelled back to her down the long passage, "Where'd you put it?"
"Just inside the airlock." Her voice was very distant, distorted in transmission.
"I'll ask the sentry," he yelled back.
Views of all parts of the airlock. Then a determined spin of wheels and the airlock door.
Whatever I expected to happen, I didn't expect the result!
The screen flashed blue white! Total overload!
The hangar sounds roared up to a din.
And Heller's voice: it almost caved in my eardrums! "WHERE'S THE RIFLE?" The sound came out of the speaker like a physical blow!
It almost made the roof of my room blow off!
I fought my way to the controls. I turned every manual knob I could see down to nearly off!
The hangar noises still sounded like a battle. The screen was still white!
I tried to think in the midst of the uproar.
There was a new uproar, local. Feet were pounding up the stairs.
I had everything as low as I could get it!
I grabbed the 831 ten-thousand-mile Relayer, snatched it out of the line and turned it off.
Suddenly I had the most beautiful clear picture of the hangar you ever wanted to see. Brilliant in the minutest detail! And that hangar is dimly lit!
The sentry was trotting back toward the ship. He was carrying a blastrifle. "Snelz had it taken over to have it polished for the review." His voice was clear and natural. I even recognized which guardsman it was by voice tone alone!
Jet took it, "Thanks, guardsman." What quality!
It was just as if he were right here in the room!
There was something else coming in the room. Meeley finished pounding my door down and planted herself before me, fists on hips, furious.
"You get that rifle out of my house this instant!" Oh, Meeley was mad! "You know I don't allow rifles or explosives! Especially in yourhands, Gris!" Oh, she was mad.
"It's the Homeviewer," I pleaded timidly. "I had it up too high!"
"Humph!" said Meeley and slapped me in the face. She flounced out. The door banged shut so hard it almost knocked the wall down.
I rubbed the sting off my cheek and turned back to the viewscreen.
It was dead.
There was no sound.
Spurk ought to be shot! His equipment was inconsistent, sporadic! He should have said so in the directions. But then, I remembered, I hadn't read them.
I turned all manual volumes full on and then in despair, added the 831 Relayer. You had to be an electronics technician to run this stuff!
I had my picture and sound back, fuzzy and poor.
Then it hit me. That (bleeped) tug was totally painted with absorbo-coat paint! No known waves could get through it. And I was actually activating the respondo-mitter and audio-respondo-mitter through a waveproof ship!
There was nothing like absorbo-coat on Earth. So it was all right!
I watched the Countess going through a manual of arms I had never seen before. It included giving the rifle butt a kick that sent it spinning into the air on one side and then a kick with the other boot that sent it spinning on the other side. Fleet marine stuff, I guessed.
They got to spinning the rifle back and forth between them. I couldn't follow it, it was going so fast. I found myself wishing the safety was off.
They were laughing. Finally the Countess caught the rifle and came to present arms. "So I'm all ready for the review." Whatreview? I puzzled. Certainly the Countess Krak was not going to be in any review!
Heller said, "I can leave at noon, day after tomorrow." She became sad. He put his arm around her and they wandered to the salon. They sat down on a couch, side by side.
All of a sudden the Countess put her arms around him and her head on his chest and started crying quietly.
After a while, she said, "I'm going to miss you so." He held her close. His voice was attempting encouragement. "I'll do the mission very, very fast. Honest I will." After a little he said, "Mainly, I'm concerned about you." Suddenly he held her away from him. There was a catch in his voice but a bitter determination, "If anybody harms you while I am gone, I will kill them!" She was still crying. But she nodded at him and then said, "That goes both ways!" A chill hit me. They hadn't said it very loudly. But there was a firm intention in it that meant exactly what it said. If anyone hurt the other, the offender was dead.