To The Stars

“Get suited up and leave your gear here, Halliday. It’ll be waiting when you get back. We got a scout going out and we’re one tech short. You’re the lucky lad who’s elected.” He looked at the printout he held. “Commander name of Captain Lastrup. Ship’s the Ida Peter Two Five Six. Let’s go.”

They used a jaxter, an open skeletal framework with six metal seats fixed to it. Other than this it was little more than four jets and a control pedestal. The pilot was familiar with the little craft and kicked it away from the airlock, flipped it end for end neatly, and was on a new trajectory even before their turn was complete. The fleet of Earth made an impressive sight. Grouped around the two kilometer-long colony were scores of deep space vessels of all sizes. They ranged from gigantic bulk carriers down to jaxters like the one they were in, with a spectrum of sizes, shapes and functions in between. Their course took them in an arc up over the fleet toward the shining needle of a scout ship. The crew quarters in the bow was tiny in comparison to the engines and auxiliary fuel tanks to the rear. It bristled with antennas and detection devices of all kinds. In space, beyond the fixed network of early warning stations, it was ships like this that were the eyes and ears of the fleet. The jaxter floated toward it, slowed and stopped with a quick flare of the bow jet. The large characters of identification were painted across the bow, IP-256, just above the open door of the spacelock. Jan unbuckled his safety belt, floated free of the seat, then pushed off toward the ship. He drifted gently into the lock, seized one of the grabirons, and waved back to the jaxter pilot as he pressed the cycle button. The outer port ground slowly shut.

When the pressure in the airlock equaled that in the ship, the inner lock opened automatically. Jan cracked his helmet and floated inside. The circular chamber, obviously the living quarters, couldn’t have been more than three meters across and just about as high. Around nine cubic meters of living space for two men, Jan estimated. Wonderful. No expenses spared to make our boys in space comfortable.

A man’s head appeared through a circular opening in the bow end of the room, upside-down to Jan’s orientation. A red face with slightly bulging eyes.

“Not accomplishing very much, are you, Tech, just floating around and sightseeing.” This undoubtedly was Captain Lastrup. A fine spray of saliva exploded in Jan’s direction with every angry word. “Just peel out of that suit and get up here on the double.”

“Yes, sir,” Jan said, obeying instructions.

Within two hours, after they had unlocked from their moorings and got under way, Jan was beginning to dislike the Captain. By the time he was permitted to retire, more than twenty hours after his arrival, he loathed the man. It was painful, after only three hours sleep, to be dragged back to blurry consciousness and summoned to the control room.

“I’m going to close my eyes for a bit, Tech Halliday, which means that you are on watch. Don’t touch anything or do anything because you are just a totally incompetent reservist amateur. The machines will do all the things you are incapable of doing. If there is a little red warning light or a little beeping warning sound, you are to awaken me at once. Understood?”

“Yes, sir. But I am capable of monitoring the equipment because I know—”

“Did I ask for your opinion? Did I order you to talk? Anything you have to say is just shit to me, mister. Understood? If you answer anything more than yessir that will be disobeying orders, and that will go into the charges against you. Now, what do you say?”

Jan was tired, getting angrier with every passing moment. He said nothing and he enjoyed the red glow that suffused the officer’s skin with every passing silent second.

“I order you to speak!”

Jan slowly counted to five before he said “Yes, sir?’

It was very small revenge for the verbal abuse he was taking. But it was enough for the moment. Jan took an Awake pill and tried not to rub at his sore and grainy eyes. Only the softest red glow illuminated the control room. Stars filled the viewport ahead; flickering readouts and displays from the detection apparatus monitored space in all directions. They were passing through the outer web now, and very soon their reports would be the only early warning in this particular portion of space. Although he had received no instructions from Thurgood-Smythe, Jan knew exactly what to do in this situation.