The Psycho was nothing but a box, a square of solid metal— or so it looked to the waiting apprentices. And that wait might have been easier, Dane speculated, had they been able to watch the complicated processes inside the bulk, could have seen how those lines and notches incised on their plates were assessed, matched, paired, until a ship now in port and seeking apprentices was found for them.
Long voyages for small crews sealed into star spacers, with little chance for recreation or amusement, had created many horrible personnel problems in the past. Some tragic cases were now required reading in the “History of Trade” courses at the Pool. Then came the Psycho and through its impersonal selection the right men were sent to the right ships, fitted into the type of work, the type of crew where they could function best with the least friction. No one at the Pool had told them how the Psycho worked—or how it could actually read an ID strip. But when the machine decided, its decision was final and the verdict was recorded—there was no appeal.
That was what they had been taught, what Dane had always accepted as fact, and how could it be wrong?
His thoughts were interrupted by a gong note from the machine, one ID strip had been returned, with a new line on its surface. Artur pounced. A moment later his triumph was open.
“Inter-Solar’s Star Runner. Knew you wouldn’t let the old man down, boy!” He patted the flat top of the Psycho patronizingly. “Didn’t I tell you how it would work for me?”
Ricki nodded his head eagerly and Hanlaf went so far as to slap Artur on the back. Sands was the magician who had successfully pulled off a trick.
The next two sounds of the gong came almost together, as the strips clicked in the holder on top of one another. Ricki and Hanlaf scooped them up. There was disappointment on Ricki’s face.
“Martian-Terran Incorporated—the Venturer,” he read aloud. And Dane noted that the hand with which he tucked his ID into his belt was shaking. Not for Ricki the far stars and big adventures, but a small berth in a crowded planetary service where there was little chance for fame or fortune.
“The Combine’s ‘Deneb Warrior’.” Hanlaf was openly exultant, paying no attention to Ricki’s announcement.
”Shake, enemy!” Artur held out his hand with a grin. He, too, ignored Ricki as if his late close companion had been removed bodily from their midst by the decision of the Psycho.
“Put her there, rival!” Hanlaf had been completely shaken out of his usual subservience by this amazing good fortune.
The Combine was big, big enough to offer a challenge to Inter-Solar these past two years. They had copped a Federation mail contract from under I-S’s nose and pounded through at least one monopolistic concession on an inner system’s route. Artur and his former follower might never meet in open friendship again. But at the present their mutual luck in getting posts in the Companies was all that mattered.
Dane continued to wait for the Psycho to answer him. Was it possible for an ID to jam somewhere in the interior of that box? Should he hunt for someone in authority and ask a question or two? His strip had been the first to go in—but it was not coming out. And Artur was waking up to that fact—
“Well, well, no ship for the Viking? Maybe they haven’t got one to fit your particular scrambled talents, big boy—”
Could that be true, Dane hazarded? Maybe no ship now in the Port cradles needed the type of service his strip said he had to offer. Did that mean that he would have to stay right here until such a ship came in?
It was as if Artur could read his thoughts. Sands’ grin changed from one of triumph to a malicious half-sneer.
“What did I tell you?” he demanded. “Viking doesn’t know the right people. Going to bring in your kit and camp out until Psycho breaks down and gives you an answer?”
Hanlaf was impatient. His self-confidence had been given a vast jolt towards independence, so that now he dared to question Artur.
“I’m starved,” he announced. “Let’s mess—and then look up our ships—”
Artur shook his head. “Give it a minute or two. I want to see if the Viking gets his long boat—if it’s in dock now—”
Dane could only do what he had done many times before, pretend that this did not matter, that Artur and his followers meant nothing. But was the machine functioning, or had his ID been lost somewhere within its mysterious interior? Had Artur not been there, watching him with that irritating amusement, Dane would have gone to find help.
Hanlaf started to walk away and Ricki was already at the door, as if his assignment had removed him forever from the ranks of those who mattered—when the gong sounded for the fourth time. With a speed the average observer would not have credited to him, Dane moved. His hands flashed under Artur’s fingers and caught the ID before the smaller youth could grab it.
There was no bright line of a Company insignia on it— Dane’s first glance told him that. Was—was he going to be confined to the system—follow in Ricki’s uninspired wake?
But, no, there was a star on it right enough—the star which granted him the Galaxy—and by that emblem the name of a ship—not a Company but a ship—the Solar Queen. It took a long instant for that to make sense, though he had never considered himself a slow thinker.
A ship’s name only—a Free Trader! One of the roving, exploring spacers which plied lanes too dangerous, too new, too lacking in quick profits to attract the Companies. Part of the Trade Service right enough, and the uninitiated thought of them as romantic. But Dane knew a pinched sinking in his middle. Free Trade was almost a dead end for the ambitious. Even the instructors at the Pool had skimmed over that angle in the lectures, as carefully as the students were briefed. Free Trade was too often a gamble with death, with plague, with hostile alien races. You could lose not only your profit and your ship, but your life. And the Free Traders rated close to the bottom of the scale in the Service. Why, even Ricki’s appointment would be hailed by any apprentice as better than this.
He should have been prepared for Artur’s hand over his shoulder to snatch the ID, for the other’s quick appraisement of his shame.
“Free Trader!”
It seemed to Dane that Sands’ voice rang out as loudly as the telacast.
Ricki paused in his retreat and stared. Hanlaf allowed himself a snicker and Artur laughed.
“So that’s how your pattern reads, big boy? You’re to be a viking of space—a Columbus of the star lanes—a far rover! How’s your blaster aim, man? And hadn’t you better go back for a refresher in X-Tee contacts? Free Traders don’t see much of civilization, you know. Come on, boys,” he turned to the other two, “we’ve got to treat the Viking to a super-spread meal, he’ll be on con-rations for the rest of his life no doubt.” His grip tightened on Dane’s arm. And, though his captive might easily have twisted free, the prisoner knew that he could better save face and dignity by going along with the plan and bottling down all signs of anger.
Sure—maybe the Free Traders did not rate so high in the Service, maybe few of them swanked around the big ports as did the Company men. But there had been plenty of fortunes made in the outer reaches and no one could deny that a Free Trader got around. Artur’s attitude set Dane’s inborn stubbornness to finding the good in the future. His spirit had hit bottom during the second when he had read his assignment, now it was rising again.
There were no strict caste lines in Trade, the divisions were not by rank but by employer. The large dining room at the port was open to every man wearing the tunic of active service. Most of the Companies maintained their own sections there, their employees paying with vouchers. But transients and newly assigned men who had not yet joined their ships drifted together among the tables by the door.