'Mine is Humphrey Wingate.'
'Okay, Hump. Pleased to meet 'cha. Now what's all this song and dance you been giving me?' He spooned up an impossible bite of baked eggs and sucked coffee from the end of his carton.
'Well,' said Wingate, his face twisted with worry, 'I guess I've been shanghaied.' He tried to emulate Hartley's method of drinking, and got the brown liquid over his face.
'Here-that's no way to do,' Hartley said hastily. 'Put the nipple in your mouth, then don't squeeze any harder than you suck. Like this.' He illustrated. 'Your theory don't seem very sound to me. The company don't need crimps when there's plenty of guys standing in line for a chance to sign up. What happened? Can't you remember?'
Wingate tried. 'The last thing I recall,' he said, 'is arguing with a gyro driver over his fare.'
Hartley nodded. 'They'll gyp you every time. D'you think he put the slug on you?'
'Well ... no, I guess not. I seem to be all right, except for the damndest hangover you can imagine.'
'You'll feel better. You ought to be glad the Evening Star is a high-gravity ship instead of a trajectory job. Then you'd really be sick, and no foolin'.'
'How's that?'
'I mean that she accelerates or decelerates her whole run. Has to, because she carries cabin passengers. If we had been sent by a freighter, it'd be a different story. They gun 'em into the right trajectory, then go weightless for the rest of the trip. Man, how the new chums do suffer!' He chuckled.
Wingate was in no condition to dwell on the hardships of space sickness. 'What T can't figure out,' he said, 'is how I landed here. Do you suppose they could have brought me aboard by mistake, thinking I was somebody else?'
'Can't say. Say, aren't you going to finish your breakfast?'
'I've had all I want.' Hartley took his statement as an invitation and quickly finished off Wingate's ration. Then he stood up, crumpled the two cartons into a ball, stuffed them down a disposal chute, and said,
'What are you going to do about it?'
'What am I going to do about it?' A look of decision came over Wingate's face. 'I'm going to march right straight up to the Captain and demand an explanation, that's what I'm going to do!'
'I'd take that by easy stages, Hump,' Hartley commented doubtfully.
'Easy stages, hell!' He stood up quickly. 'Ow! My head!'
The Master-at-Arms referred them to the Chief Master-at-Arms in order to get rid of them. Hartley waited with Wingate outside the stateroom of the Chief Master-at-Arms to keep him company. 'Better sell 'em your bill of goods pretty pronto,' he advised.
'Why?'
'We'll ground on. the Moon in a few hours. The stop to refuel at Luna City for deep space will be your last chance to get out, unless you want to walk back.'
'I hadn't thought of that,' Wingate agreed delightedly. 'I thought I'd have to make the round trip in any case.'
'Shouldn't be surprised but what you could pick up the Morning Star in a week or two. If it's their mistake, they'll have to return you.'
'I can beat that,' said Wingate eagerly. 'I'll go right straight to the bank at Luna City, have them arrange a letter of credit with my bank, and buy a ticket on the Earth-Moon shuttle.'
Hartley's manner underwent a subtle change. He had never in his life 'arranged a letter of credit'. Perhaps such a man could walk up to the Captain and lay down the law.
The Chief Master-at-Arms listened to Wingate's story with obvious impatience, and interrupted him in the middle of it to consult his roster of emigrants. He thumbed through it to the Ws, and pointed to a line. Wingate read it with a sinking feeling. There was his own name, correctly spelled. 'Now get out,' ordered the official, 'and quit wasting my time.'
But Wingate stood up to him. 'You have no authority in this matter-none whatsoever. I insist that you take me to the Captain.'
'Why, you-' Wingate thought momentarily that the man was going to strike him. He interrupted.
'Be careful what you do. You are apparently the victim of an honest mistake-but your legal position will be very shaky indeed, if you disregard the requirements of spacewise law under which this vessel is licensed. I don't think your Captain would be pleased to have to explain such actions on your part in federal court.'
That he had gotten the man angry was evident. But a man does not get to be chief police officer of a major transport by jeopardizing his superior officers. His jaw muscles twitched but he pressed a button, saying nothing. A junior master-at-arms appeared. 'Take this man to the Purser.' He turned his back in dismissal and dialed a number on the ship's intercommunication system.
Wingate was let in to see the Purser, ex-officio company business agent, after only a short wait. 'What's this all about?' that officer demanded. 'If you have a complaint, why can't you present it at the morning hearings in the regular order?'
Wingate explained his predicament as clearly, convincingly, and persuasively as he knew how. 'And so you see,' he concluded, 'I want to be put aground at Luna City. I've no desire to cause the company any embarrassment over what was undoubtedly an unintentional mishap-particularly as I am forced to admit that I had been celebrating rather freely and, perhaps, in some manner, contributed to the mistake.'
The Purser, who had listened noncommittally to his recital, made no answer. He shuffled through a high stack of file folders which rested on one corner of his deck, selected one, and opened it. It contained a sheaf of legal-size papers clipped together at the top. These he studied leisurely for several minutes, while Wingate stood waiting.
The Purser breathed with an asthmatic noisiness while he read, and, from time to time, drummed on his bared teeth with his fingernails. Wingate had about decided, in his none too steady nervous condition, that if the man approached his hand to his mouth just once more that he, Wingate, would scream and start throwing things. At this point the Purser chucked the dossier across the desk toward Wingate. 'Better have a look at these,' he said.
Wingate did so. The main exhibit he found to be a contract, duly entered into, between Humphrey Wingate and the Venus Development Company for six years of indentured labor on the planet Venus.
'That your signature?' asked the Purser.
Wingate's professional caution stood him in good stead. He studied the signature closely in order to gain time while he tried to collect his wits. 'Well,' he said at last, 'I will stipulate that it looks very much like my signature, but I will not concede that it is my signature-I'm not a handwriting expert.' The Purser brushed aside the objection with an air of annoyance. 'I haven't time to quibble with you. Let's check the thumbprint. Here.' He shoved an impression pad across his desk. For a moment Wingate considered standing on his legal rights by refusing, but no, that would prejudice his case. He had nothing to lose; it couldn't be his thumbprint on the contract. Unless-But it was. Even his untrained eye could see that the two prints matched. He fought back a surge of panic. This was probably a nightmare, inspired by his argument last night with Jones. Or, if by some wild chance it were real, it was a frame-up in which he must find the flaw. Men of his sort were not framed; the whole thing was ridiculous. He marshaled his words carefully.
'I won't dispute your position, my dear sir. In some fashion both you and I have been made the victims of a rather sorry joke. It seems hardly necessary to point out that a man who is unconscious, as I must have been last night, may have his thumbprint taken without his knowledge. Superficially this contract is valid and I assume naturally your good faith in the matter. But, in fact, the instrument lacks one necessary element of a contract.'