"A colonel of the Death Battalions! So that's how you see yourself, Officer Gris. How nice. How appropriate. You'll look well in it, too. The color matches your soul exactly." I ignored him. I noticed from a bill, Ske had bought that uniform at my expense! I went on stamping until my arm was tired. Finally he picked up the validated and OK-to-pay orders.
"Well, I'm leaving now. I heard a rumor that these ships blow up, so have a nice voyage." And, with the sort of evil chuckle that only Bawtch can manage, he was gone.
I finished off the hot jolt. Now if I could just stretch out and go to sleep, some hours later I would awaken, refreshed to find us hurtling through space and Voltar far behind us. What a lovely thought.
Alas, that wasn't the way it happened. I was about to experience the most nerve-shredding departure in space history!
Chapter 8
Just as I was about to lie down, I became conscious of a sort of thundering roar outside. The door to my room and airlock were open, but this wave of sound seemed to make the whole ship shake. It was exactly like a motorized army would sound if one were approaching. And then my ears were shattered by a heavy pounding close to hand.
It was too much for my nerves. I leapt up and ran to the airlock. I almost got my face knocked in as a stage section banged into the ship!
A commercial crew was working like fury erecting an eighty-foot-high, portable reviewing platform and wide steps which would reach from the ground up to the airlock!
I stared beyond this. My Gods! The hangar security fence gates to the outside world were wide open! Commercial lorries were pouring through the gap six abreast!
Already dozens of lorries were in the hangar.
Crews were unloading portable stages and bars: they were obviously converting this end of the hangar into the most gigantic entertainment tup hall anybody had ever seen! One bar was over two hundred feet long! One stage alone was thirty feet high and wide enough to take half the dancing girls on Voltar! And there were still more going up and still more lorries coming!
In total panic I rushed to the control deck. Heller was there dropping the meteor armor plates into position to cover the front ports.
I screamed at him, "You can't have a go-away party! That was just a joke! THIS IS A SECRET MISSION!" He stopped working and looked at me with surprise. "But you've been okaying party orders. You authorized tons of them the other day. Just an hour ago I saw you stamping more!"
"Lombar will kill me!" I shouted.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he seemed to mean it. "But you see, this ship doesn't have a name. When she was transferred out of the Fleet she lost her designation. She hasn't been christened. It's about the unluckiest thing you can do to cruise around in an unchristened ship. Anybody in the Fleet can tell you that. They might blow up." (Bleep) his Fleet customs. But the idea of this tug blowing up was never far from my mind.
He thought it over. "It's now going on eight! The christening will probably start around ten. We will be able to launch around noon." I kept shaking my head.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," Heller said. "We'll hold it down all we can. We'll try to keep it just as sort of a family affair. All right?" I knew I couldn't call back my orders or stop those lorries now. And there must be hundreds of contractor men, who had worked on the ship, invited with their families. And all the hangar crews. It would be worse to try to stop it than to let it go forward. So I nodded.
"By the way," he said. "Where's our crew? They should be aboard by now to get things ready to launch." I had no answer to that. Practically sinking through the din, I climbed back down the now vertical passage to my room. It was impossible to sleep, no matter how exhausted I was. I slumped down into a chair.
I instantly got right back up. I had sat on something.
A small bottle.
Where had it come from? It hadn't been there before, for that was where I had been sitting. I didn't see how it could have fallen from anything..
Then I remembered with horror that Lombar had said there would be a spy on my tail all the time and I wouldn't know who it was!
Could this be an example of it?
The bottle said: I. G. Barben, New York Amphetamine, Methedrine 5 mg., 100 tablets It seemed to me to be the same bottle Lombar had produced last night.
I knew quite a bit about the stuff. It stimulates the central nervous system by potentiating the effects of norepinephrine,a neurohormone which activates parts of the sympathetic nervous system. It is colloquially called "speed," along with several other types of the drug. I had always been leery of having anything to do with it.
But I was desperate. How was I going to get through the next four hours? I got out the Knife Section knife. I took a little orange, heart-shaped pill. I cut off about a third of it.
I put the bit under my tongue. Bitter. I let it dissolve and absorb through the salivary glands of the mouth.
A tremendous hot "rush" hit me. My heart began to speed up.
Ah, I felt much better. I became confident. I began to feel a little elated. Any worry about where the bottle had come from or the possibility of having a spy in my vicinity with orders to murder me vanished.
What beautiful, lovely stuff this speed was!
I realized I had better get dressed. It wouldn't do to keep running around in underpants. I gazed at the Death Battalion colonel uniform and it looked very nice. Just the thing.
With movements that were graceful, almost in slow motion but really a bit too fast, I pulled on the skintight pants. Actually, they weren't skin tight. They were three sizes too big, but that did not matter at all. I pulled on the boots. One was too large, the other too small.
But that seemed normal.
With an almost dancing grace, I got into the tunic. It was too small. But the designs were pretty, particularly the red daggers on the back. Fastening the collar almost strangled me but that was of no concern. I was breathing too fast anyway.
The black helmet was too big but I stuffed a towel in it to keep it off my ears. The mirror showed me that the skull seemed huge but was beautiful all the same. Oh, how right everything was with the world.
I put on my rank locket as I danced some floatingly interesting steps I never had known I could do.
Then I found the uniform belts intricate but interesting. The flattened, bleeding entrails presented a problem. Did they cross from right to left or left to right? I untangled them from the rank locket a few times and at length managed to fasten them correctly.
I discovered then the package of accoutrements: red metal bands, with spikes, that covered the knuckles of each hand; a red sackful of lead that one hung on the right wrist; the ceremonial silver dagger stained with blood and beautifully enscrolled, Death to Everybody,the battalion motto. I hung it on the belt.
The mirror seemed to be in a euphoric state with the gorgeous image that it shined back. What splendid taste Ske had!
I happened to see my watch and was surprised to discover that it had taken me an hour to dress. So I hastily floated up the passageway, hardly touching the rungs at all.
The review platform was securely in place at the airlock. I stepped out upon it and gazed over the pleasant scene.
All of the platforms and bars had been erected, even a series of dressing rooms for dancing girls. Tup trucks were unloading vast quantities of drinkables.
Banner crews were stringing huge expanses of bunting across doors and anything else.
I counted five bands unloading instruments and setting up on stages. And over there were two fifty-member choruses, one from the Fleet marines, another from the Fleet base. There was certainly going to be plenty of music. Well, I always like music.