"Let me think." Presently he said to Tex, "Go in there-" Oscar indicated one of a row of 'fresher booths, "-and take off your uniform. Hand it out and lock yourself in. We'll be back after a while." Tex seemed to feel that he was being consigned to the salt mines, but there was no real opposition left in him. He went. Shortly thereafter Matt and Oscar left, Oscar with a tightly rolled bundle of a cadet uniform under one arm.
They took the slideway half around the Station, through crowds of gorgeously dressed and hurrying people, past rich and beckoning shops. Matt enjoyed it thoroughly.
"They say," said Oscar, "that this is what the big cities used to be like, back before the Disorders." ^
"It certainly doesn't look like Des Moines."
"Nor like Venus." Oscar found what he was looking for, an automatic laundry service, in a passageway off the waiting room of the emigrant zone. After a considerable wait the uniform came back to them, clean, pressed, and neatly packaged. It being Terra Station, the cost was sky high. Matt looked at what remained of his funds.
"Might as well be broke," he said and invested the remainder in a pound of chocolate-coated cherries. They hurried back. Tex looked so woe-begone and so glad to see them that Matt had a sudden burst of generosity and handed the box to Tex. "Present to you, you poor, miserable, worthless critter."
Tex seemed touched by the gesture-it was no more than a gesture, since candy and such are, by ancient right, community property among roommates.
"Hurry up and get dressed, Tex. The scooter shoves off in just thirty-two minutes." Twenty-five minutes later, suited up, they were filing into the airlock, Tex with the chocolates under his arm.
The trip back was without incident, except for one thing: Matt had not thought to specify a pressure container for the candy. Before Tex could strap down the box had bulged.
By the time they reached the Randolph the front and left side of his space suit was covered with a bubbly, sticky mess compounded of cherry juice, sugar syrup, and brown stains of chocolate as the semi-liquid confection boiled and expanded in the vacuum. He would have thrown the package away had not the oldster, strapped next to him in the rack, reminded him of the severe penalties for jettisoning anything in a traffic lane.
The cadet in charge of the hangar pocket in the Randolph looked Tex over in disgust. "Why didn't you pack it inside your suit?"
"Uh, I just didn't think of it, sir."
"Hummph! Next time you will, no doubt. Go on inside and" place yourself on the report for 'gross untidiness in uniform.' And clean up that suit."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Pete was in their suite when they got back. He came out of his cubicle. "Have fun? Gee, I wish I hadn't had the duty."
"You didn't miss much," said Oscar.
Tex looked from one to the other. "Gee, fellows, I'm sorry I ruined your liberty."
"Forget it," said Oscar. "Terra Station will still be there next month."
"That's right," agreed Matt, "but see here, Tex-tell us the truth. That was the first drink you ever had-wasn't it?"
Tex looked shame-faced. "Yes . . . my folks are all temperance-except my Uncle Bodie."
"Never mind your Uncle Bodie. If I catch you taking another, I'll beat you to death with the bottle."
"Aw, shucks, Matt!"
Oscar looked at Matt quizzically. "Easy on that holier-than-thou stuff, kid. Maybe it could happen to you."
"Maybe it could. Maybe some day I'll get you to chapter-one me and find out what happens. But not in public."
"It's a date."
"Say," demanded Pete, "what goes on here? What's it all about?"
IX LONG HAUL
LIFE IN THE Randolph had a curious aspect of timelessness -or, rather, datelessness. There was no weather, there were no seasons. The very divisions into "night" and "day" were arbitrary and were continually being upset by night watches and by laboratory periods at any hour, in order to make maximum use of limited facilities. Meals were served every six hours around the clock and the meal at one in the "morning" was almost as well attended as breakfast at seven hundred.
Matt got used to sleeping when he could find time-and the "days" tumbled past. It seemed to him that there was never time enough for all that he was expected to do. Mathematics and the mathematical subjects, astrogation and atomic physics in particular, began to be a bugaboo; he was finding himself being rushed into practical applications of mathematics before he was solidly grounded.
He had fancied himself, before becoming a cadet, as rather bright in mathematics, and so he was-by ordinary standards. He had not anticipated what it would be like to be part of a group of which every member was unusually talented in the language of science. He signed up for personal coaching in mathematics and studied harder than ever. The additional effort kept him from failing, but that was all. 1 It is not possible to work all the time without cracking up, but the environment would have kept Matt from overworking even if he had been so disposed. Corridor number five of "A" deck, where Matt and his roommates lived, was known as "Hog Alley" and had acquired a ripe reputation for carefree conduct even before Tex Jarman added his talents.
The current "Mayor of Hog Alley" was an oldster named Bill Arensa. He was a brilliant scholar and seemed able to absorb the most difficult study spool in a single playing, but he had been in the Randolph an unusually long time-a matter of accumulated demerits.
One evening after supper, soon after arrival, Matt and Tex were attempting to produce a little harmony. Matt was armed with a comb and a piece of tissue paper; Tex had his harmonica. A bellow from across the hallway stopped them. "Open up in there! You youngsters-come busting out!"
Tex and Matt appeared as ordered. The Mayor looked them over. "No blood," he remarked. "I'd swear I heard someone being killed. Go back and get your noisemakers."
Arensa ushered them into his own room, which was crowded. He waved a hand around at the occupants. "Meet the Hog Alley People's Forum-Senator Mushmouth, Senator Filibuster, Senator Hidebound, Doctor Dogoodly, and the Marquis de Sade. Gentlemen, meet Commissioner Wretched and Professor Farflung." The oldster went into his study cubicle.
"What's your name, Mister?" said one of the cadets, addressing Tex.
"Jarman, sir."
"And yours?"
"We've got no time for those details," announced Arensa, returning bearing a guitar. "That number you gentlemen were working on-let's try it again. Brace yourself for the down beat. . . and a one, and a two!"
Thus was born the Hog Alley band. It grew to seven pieces and started working on a repertoire to be presented at a ship's entertainment. Matt dropped out when he became eligible for the space polo league, as he could not spare time for both-his meager, talent was no loss to the band.
Nevertheless he remained in the orbit of the oldster. Arensa adopted all four of them, required them to report to his room from time to time, and supervised their lives. However, he never placed them on the report. By comparing notes with other youngster cadets on this point, Matt discovered that he and his friends were well off. They attended numerous sessions of the "Forum," first by direction, later from choice. The staple recreation in the Randolph, as it is in all boarding schools, was the
bull session. The talk ranged through every possible subject and was kept spiced by Arensa's original and usually radical ideas.
However, no matter what was discussed, the subject usually worked around to girls and then broke up with the un-startling conclusion: "There's no sense in talking about it-there aren't any girls in the Randolph. Let's turn in."
Almost as entertaining was the required seminar in "Doubt." The course had been instituted by the present commandant and resulted from his own observation that every military organization-with the Patrol no exception- suffered from an inherent vice. A military hierarchy automatically places a premium on conservative behavior and dull conformance with precedent; it tends to penalize original and imaginative thinking. Commodore Arkwright realized that these tendencies are inherent and inescapable; he hoped to offset them a bit by setting up a course that could not be passed without original thinking.