“Ah,” he said, all but drooling. “Carre d’Agneau a la Boulangere.” He looked at Don. “Do you like broiled rack of lamb?”
“Not today,” Don said definitely.
The women also refused.
There must have been six to eight pounds of the rack of lamb. As Don sat there, staring in fascination, the glutton ate all of it save scraps.
As he messily tore the meat apart and gorged himself with it, he made conversation with Don Mathers.
“When are you due for your next patrol?”
“In three weeks.”
The pig eyes narrowed. “Couldn’t you, ah, volunteer to go out sooner?”
“They’d consider it strange,” Don said.
The other swigged down heavy Burgundy before returning to the lamb.
“Why?”
“I doubt if in the history of One Man Scouts any pilot has volunteered to go out before ordered. It’s not so bad, possibly, in the bigger spacecraft but the One Man Scouts are breeding grounds for space cafard.”
“So,” Demming said, around a bone which he had in his fat hands and was greasing his mouth with, “it’ll be three weeks before you head out?”
“Yes,” Don said.
“Head out where?” Alicia said, disinterestedly.
“Into deep space,” Don said, viewing Lawrence Demming. “Looking for Kradens.”
V
When Don Mathers reported for duty following his standard three weeks leave of absence, it was to find a message to report to Commodore Walt Bernklau.
It hadn’t been the easiest three weeks he had ever spent. His mind had been in a state of agitation. As a matter of fact, he had never actually given Demming and Rostoff a definite answer. Had there been any way of substituting someone else to “discover” and “destroy” the Kraden cruiser without doubt they would have done it, and had Don Mathers eliminated so that he couldn’t expose the scheme. Don had no doubt that both of them had men on their payrolls who would do anything, literally, up to and including murder. But the thing was, nobody but Don Mathers would do. The derelict Kraden spaceship was drifting in his sector. Only he would normally discover it. It had been a far-out fluke that the two interplanetary magnates and Deming’s secretary had come across the cruiser on their way between Io and Earth. No, it was either Don Mathers or nobody.
But he burned hot and cold. The stakes were so damnably high, but the risks went with them. There wasn’t the chance of an icicle on Mercury but that he would be shot if the scheme was revealed. Demming and Rostoff possibly might buy their way out; without doubt they had a number of politicians on their payrolls. But not a sub-lieutenant in the Space Service. They’d court-martial and shoot him before the week was out.
He dismissed the automated hovercab which had brought him out to the base, summoned one of the hovercarts and dialed the Space Command Headquarters of the Third Division.
He duplicated the route he had taken the last time he had reported to the commodore, duplicated the snappy salute to his commanding officer when he was finally before him.
The commodore, wearing his usual weary air, looked down into his desk screen. He said, “Sub-lieutenant Donald Mathers’ material, please.”
He scrutinized the screen for a time before looking up to say, “Since your report on your last aborted patrol, Lieutenant, I’ve had some second thoughts.”
“Yes, sir.”
“It occurs to me that you’re rather badly in need of a psych. I’ve gone over your record in some detail.”
Don said, trying to hide the desperation in his voice, “Sir, I’d like to avoid that, if I can.”
The other was impatient. He shifted his small body in his swivel chair and said, “Lieutenant, there is a good deal of superstitious nonsense about the effects of being psyched. Ninety-five percent of those who are thus treated have no negative results. Even those who react adversely usually recover eventually.”
Like hell they did, Don Mathers told himself. He had seen some of the walking zombies. Even those who supposedly successfully took the treatment were never again quite the same. Something was gone out of them. Oh, sure, they became dependable pilots again. If anything, more dependable, more efficient than those who had never been psyched. But something was gone out of them. He knew that elements in the upper echelons of the Space Service were advocating that every pilot in the fleet be given the treatment for the sake of added efficiency. But thus far the action hadn’t been taken. It was well known that the top brass, perfectly willing to psych lowly pilots, were not volunteering to go through the process themselves.
He said stiffly, “Sir, I would like the opportunity to prove that I don’t need a psych.”
The commodore was irritated. “Very well, Lieutenant. It is seldom ordered, though there are exceptions. Ordinarily, it is more or less of a voluntary thing taken on when a pilot realizes he has irrevocably shot his efficiency and patriotically wishes to return to top form.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well, Lieutenant Mathers. Carry on.” The commodore twisted his mouth in a grim smile. “From this patrol I do not expect you to return before your full three weeks, Mathers. Dismissed.”
“Yes, sir.”
With a sinking relief in his stomach, Don turned and marched from the office. Out in the corridors, he let air from his lungs. That had been a close one.
He took his hovercart over to the officers’ quarters and changed into the coveralls which were universally worn in space. He left his papers and wrist chronometer in the locker. He went on back to the hovercart and took it out to the hangers to find that his V-102, his One Man Scout, had already been wheeled out. Several of the mechanics of his crew were giving it a last minute inspection.
He came up to the sergeant who was head of the crew and said, “How does she look, Wilkins?”
Sergeant Jerry Wilkins was an old hand. Theoretically, he could have retired but he was wedded to the job and as good a mechanic as any on the base. Wilkins could have taken apart and reassembled a One Man Scout in the dark.
Don was aware of the fact that the mechanic knew that nothing had been wrong with the V-102 on the last patrol and probably nothing on the preceding three aborted patrols. But the sergeant must have had a certain tolerance. He was too long in the Space Service not to be aware of the reality of space cafard and the fact that at one time or another there wasn’t a pilot who hadn’t been hit by it.
Wilkins was rubbing grease from his hands with a piece of waste. He said, with satisfaction, “Lieutenant, you won’t have no trouble with her this patrol. We’ve been working her over for the last three weeks. We’ve got her tuned like a chronometer.”
“Good,” Don said. “I’ve been beginning to think I was hexed.” He knew that the other knew he was lying, but you had to make the effort.
He was a bit behind time, due to his interview with the commodore but Don didn’t allow that to hurry him. He circled the V-102, the sergeant walking behind. Care was the essence, making the difference between getting back to where he started or blowing the ultra-hot little One Man Scout. He checked, checked, checked. Then he got in and settled down into the pilot seat. Once you were space borne in a One Man Scout there was no way of getting out until you returned to base. The larger craft, yes, the Monitors and even the smaller cruisers had lifeboats, but not a One Man Scout. If something happened to you in deep space, you were dead, period.
Now, automatically, he went over the procedure that was second nature to him. He began checking in one corner of the cockpit and went around it, missing nothing. Every switch, every meter, every screen, the cooling rheostats and the cabin pressurization, every gauge.
He said finally to Wilkins, through the hatch, “All right, Sergeant, let’s get this beetle into space.” He closed the hatch, dogged it down, knowing the sergeant was doing the same outside.