I finished the job a couple of days before I had to de-stress in order to enter solar space.
When I came out of my wormhole, I was nowhere near where I actually wanted to be. That was only to be expected. I guess it takes a near-miracle for navigational software to get a ship into such a tiny target as a solar system—you really can’t expect to be neatly delivered to a particular planetary doorstep. I wasn’t within spitting distance of Earth, or even the asteroid belt. In fact, the only object of any conceivable interest within easy travelling distance was Uranus.
I’d never been to Uranus. To the best of my knowledge, very few people had, though some intrepid individuals had begun poking around the moons and the rings before I left the system. A routine scan by my equipment told me that there was now a microworld in the vicinity of the planet, which rejoiced in the name of Goodfellow. My ship was automatically logged in by the microworld’s scanners, and my software transmitted all the usual data, receiving the customary cartload of rubbish in return: the size, specifications, population, etc. of Goodfellow. I didn’t bother getting my screens to display it, but I got a digest of the essentials. There were eight hundred people aboard, all but a dozen of them civilians. They were supposedly engaged in scientific data-collection and mapping. All very cosy, but not particularly interesting.
They made contact first. I assumed that this was because their machines chewed up the data which mine had sent a little more quickly than mine could process theirs, or possibly because the microworlders were more scrupulously polite than me. They sent me an invitation to dock, couched in very friendly terms. I figured that they probably didn’t see many strangers out here, and in a small microworld everybody really does know everybody else. A traveler with tales to tell of the mysterious universe would surely be a popular dinner-guest.
I reckoned that I could put up with being a social lion for a while. In any case, the microworld would be spinning fast enough to produce a decent gee-force, and though it wouldn’t be very spacious, its walls wouldn’t be crowding me quite as closely as the walls of my little star-skipping cocoon. So I decided to visit for a day or two. It can’t hurt, can it? I asked myself. Which just goes to show that a man can very easily jump to entirely wrong conclusions when he happens to be living in interesting times, and when fate has it in for him.
2
It took nearly two days to get to the microworld, with the stresser working very gently indeed. You have to be very careful when you’re around large lumps of mass, and you can’t wormhole short distances.
On the way in my software and the microworld’s software continued to exchange friendly chitchat, but voice contact wasn’t possible while the stresser was functioning. By the time it was possible to start a dialogue, it didn’t seem to be worth bothering, because I’d be meeting my hosts face to face soon enough.
So I let the machines negotiate the tedious details of the docking while I cleaned myself up and unpacked my best clothes. I put a thinfilm overall over the top so I wouldn’t get smeared climbing through the umbilical to the docking- bay. Civilization is supposed to have left dirt behind in the Earth’s gravity-well, but you know how things are.
I squirmed my way through the umbilical, thinking how good it would be to feel the grip of a good spin again. When I came out the other end into the docking bay I was contentedly looking forward to basking in the sensation of fake gravity. The bay, of course, was at the hub of the station and wasn’t spinning, but I knew that the reassuring pull would be only a short distance away.
There was no one in the docking bay, which was unusually crowded with equipment. As well as the usual lockers there were several big steel drums about a metre-and-a-half high and a metre in diameter, with dials and warning notices jostling for space around knots of feeder-pipe connections. I didn’t pay them much attention, but made directly for the hatchway that led to the ladder that would take me out into the station’s living quarters. I knew that the microworlders would have someone waiting for me at the end of the spur.
I was so preoccupied with the sensations associated with slowly gaining weight as I climbed “down” the ladder that I didn’t immediately notice, when I got to the other end and came through the hatchway, that the welcoming party wasn’t quite what I had expected.
It took me a second or two to get my up and down properly sorted out, and then I began reaching for the seal on my overall as I looked around for a friendly face.
There were several faces, but they weren’t very friendly. I felt a sinking sensation as I realised that the faces were all attached to bodies wearing Star Force uniforms, and the sinking got worse when I noticed belatedly that one of them—a lieutenant—was pointing a gun at me.
Merde, I thought. I think I’ve been here before.
Looking down the wrong end of a Star Force weapon is one of those experiences you never want to repeat.
Reflexively, although I’d no real intention of doing anything as absurd as making a run for it, I turned back to the hatch through which I’d just come. A trooper had already moved round behind me to block the way, and as my eyes met his he launched a punch at my head. I was too slow, and too unaccustomed to the new gee-force, to dodge. I took it on the jaw, and it lifted me off my feet, sending me sprawling in an untidy heap at the lieutenant’s feet. It’s slightly easier to take a thump like that in low-gee than in the depths of a real gravity well, but that doesn’t make it pleasant. The punch hurt, and the hurt was compounded with humiliation. I wanted to hit back, but the muzzle of the lieutenant’s gun was now only a couple of centimetres away from the end of my nose.
“Blackledge,” drawled the officer, “you shouldn’t have done that. Nobody told you to hit him.”
“No sir,” said Trooper Blackledge, and added in a stage whisper: “Bastard!”
It was obvious that he wasn’t talking about the lieutenant.
“Michael Rousseau,” said the lieutenant, calmly. “I arrest you on a charge of desertion from the United Nations Star Force. You will be held in safe custody on Goodfellow pending the arrival of the Star Force cruiser Leopard Sharks when a lawyer will be appointed to defend you and a court martial will be held, according to the provisions of emergency martial law. Your ship is hereby impounded, and is subject to confiscation, according to the provisions of that same legislation.”
I was still down, half-kneeling and half-sitting. Absurdly, all I could think of to say was that Leopard Shark was a really stupid name for a warship.
I didn’t say it.
I also didn’t bother to tell them that they wouldn’t find it easy to impound my ship. Her inner airlock was programmed to check the retinal pattern of anyone trying to get in, even if they could produce the right passwords.
“On your feet,” said the lieutenant. He pointed the gun away from me, obviously having had his fill of melodrama for the time being.
I got to my feet, touching the tender spot on my jaw. The punch hadn’t drawn blood, but I suspected that I was going to have one hell of a bruise.
“I don’t suppose you’d be interested in seeing my discharge papers?” I inquired. “They bear the signature of one Star-Captain Susarma Lear—almost illegible, I fear, but quite legitimate.”
The lieutenant gave me a stony smile. “Every station in the system has been alerted to arrest you,” he said. “We knew you were coming back here—you’d have been better to stay out on the fringe, with all your alien friends. And you’d better know that if there’s one thing you can do that will make people like you any less, it’s to insult Star-Captain Lear. Star-Captain Lear is a hero.”