"We're only asking you to put it off for ten more days. Once we've sprayed the neutralizer, we'll be allowed to land and you can go right to the Dispensary."
"There's two things wrong with that. One: if anything should go wrong and we're delayed in route, I would be almost helpless.Two: Port In Brim may have a dozen TN-1s, but they need everyone of them.
"All right, we can gamble that nothing will go wrong, though with my luck, it's against my better judgment. Everyone involved has agreed to the risk, and clearly, the lives of a whole planetfull of people–several billion at least–are more important than the life of one QN-1. However, I'm still bound to wait here for the TN-1 who's on his way. The Sime Controllers distribute our strength so that each planet, each city, just has personnel to meet demand, and an emergency means that someone goes without.The network has a coherent rigidity and I'm caught by it. It would create chaos if I just turned up at In Brim."
"Fine!" Welch exclaimed, suddenly eager. "Now we're getting somewhere. You're willing to go if I can get the Sime Controller to re-route that TN-1 to meet you at In Brim."
Klairon leaned back with a wry smile. "That and one other thing. I'm willing to depend on ASN to get us out of any trouble we invite by ignoring the regulations of ITC, UPS, and the AU, but I won't budge without written instructions from a Sime Board of Standards representative."
Welch slapped the table with both hands and whooped, "It's a deal! We lift ship at midnight. Get over to the field and ready your equipment. Order anything you need on the ASN priority tape for the Pebble Beach," and he started to rise.
"Now wait just a minute! I'm not even allowed on the field without a pass from SBS. And I don't think you or anyone else could get one."
Welch sat down on the side of his bench. "Oh yes I can. You just hie yourself over there. I'll have your SBS man phone your temporary pass to the gate guard. And I'll be there with all the papers by sundown."
Klairon laughed and shook his head. The Old Man's irresistible self-confidence had gotten them into and out of more tight spots than he could remember. "All right, all right. You win. Just one more thing." Klairon fished a stray piece of paper from his hip pocket and scribbled. "When you've convinced Olijon Weems, our SBS man, to give you clearance, give him this note. It's a list of emergency supplies not generally issued. Bring them too, every one, or I don't budge."
"Fair enough," and Welch was gone into the green shadows before Klairon could develop any second thoughts.
Standing on the wind-whipped grid field in the bright green sun, Klairon remembered the whole conversation, word for word, but he still wasn't sure how he'd been convinced to do such an idiotic thing, 'Dire Necessity' clause or no. Well, persuasion was the Captain's profession.
He allowed himself another two minutes to lament the passing of Terwhoolie's TN-1, one of those extremely rare TN-1s whose Proficiency Rating matched his own. Such a one he hadn't drawn in years. It would have been a touch of paradise. He wished he hadn't known the fellow's rating before they arrived. He'd built up too much anticipation. Forcibly, he turned his attention to the PebbleBeach.
She was streamlined like an exclamation point, aerodynamically stable only under the control of a landing grid, but perfect for the hop, skip, and jump of interstellar travel.
Her phase engines were located in a spherical rear section which retracted into the main body for planetfall, but extended on slender braces when generating the Brightman effect for subspace jumping. From the planetary orbit, she'd take a hop out to about six AU's to set direction, then a skip of about a light year to make sure, and finally, a bold jump of five to ten light years. Then she'd pause near a star with a Beakon planet for her Brightman accumulators to recharge, and for the Astrogator to rest. She was small, so she carried only one accumulator bank and one Astrogator.
The Astrogator was always a Sime because, of all the intelligent species, only that human variant, the Sime, had psycho-spatial orientation, the ability to know exactly where he was even in subspace (or the Interlude as the Simes termed it), and to detect the fields of the Reeves projectors that marked the Beakons.
The Sime claimed that the Brightman effect ... which had been the result of a joint Sime-Gen project ... was primarily a timewarping and so didn't interfere with their spatial senses. Though Gen scientists argued that it must have a spatial component because Simes couldn't endure proximity to the phase engines, they couldn't deny that only a Sime could guide a ship through the Brightman barrier straight to its destination.
So it was Klairon Farris' job to stock the Pebble Beach with everything he might need for the run to Port In Brim. He spent a hectic ten hours checking selyn bank charges, cataloguing and ordering spare parts for his instruments, standardizing those instruments against SBS planet-based standards, checking and cleaning every connection, every possible trouble point. He know the ship inside out, had practically rebuilt her selyn-powered systems and never stinted on maintenance time, but now he was more thorough than he'd ever been.
With the memory of his premonition still keen, he rechecked all of his work. Usually, if an instrument told him something different than his senses, he'd believe his senses, and service the instrument at the next planet. This time he didn't dare trust his senses.The instruments had to be right.
When he was satisfied with his mechanical servants, he checked his pharmacy and special food stocks. Only routine items were low, and these were swiftly supplied by the field's Sime Center.They supplied every ship, and there was never a problem with material.
At one hour to space-out, he collapsed on his bunk, sure that his department had never been better ordered. Most of the crew had finished their work with the previous day and taken liberty today. Only Lieman, the Chief Engineer, remained aboard to do his last minute fussing over his precious Brightmans.
Phil, the Cargo Master Accountant, Bier the Linguist-Cook-Medic, Mirkin the Com-tech Electrician, and Lieman's two assistants would be coming aboard soon with the passengers. At that thought Klairons at bold upright. Welch had promised to be back with his papers and supplies by Sundown! That was hours ago!
He sat there a moment wondering just what kind of disaster he was heading for to let such a thing slip his mind. He must be farther gone than he'd realized.
Then he headed for the Captain's cabin, across from his and the only other cabin on B deck, just under the bridge.
"Come," Welch responded to his door signal automatically.
"Captain, I didn't see you come aboard." Klairon looked around, curiously. Welch spent his spare time building and filling trophy racks with intriguing articles from the many planets theyvisited, so there was always something new to puzzle over in the rich array that was gradually climbing the bulkheads.
"Just got here. Took a little longer than I expected, but I got everything." He handed over a flat gray case about the size of a briefcase, featureless except for the red handle, and Sime caution emblem, three trefoils based toward a common circle, embossed in red on the sides of the case.
Klairon set the case on the Captain's desk and opened the selyn lock which only a Sime could trigger.
"You might have told me about your little joke;" Welch sounded hurt, "just because I don't need that scrawl youpeople call writing doesn't mean I can't count all the items on a list. You wrote eight things and said to bring all of them, so I watched Weems pack that case. When he shut it with only seven items, I had to open my big mouth. You might have told me you ended the list with a 'gallon of good luck'."