"But I thought--I think you're just trying to avoid me. You run around up here now and you dress in pretty clothes. Why not?"
They were interrupted by Dr. Hendrix returning to his room. "Morning, Jones. Good morning, Miss Coburn." He went on in.
Max said desperately, "Look, Ellie, I've got to go." He turned and knocked on the Astrogator's door.
Dr. Hendrix ignored having seen him with Ellie. "Sit down, Jones. That was a very interesting exhibition you put on." The Astrogator went on, "I'm curious to know how far your talent extends. Is it just to figures?"
"Why, I guess not, sir."
"Do you have to study hard to do it?"
"No, sir."
"Hmm ... We'll try something. Have you read--let me see--any of the plays of Shakespeare?"
"Uh, we had _Hamlet_ and _As You Like It_ in school, and I read _A Winter's Tale_. But I didn't like it," he answered honestly.
"In that case I don't suppose you reread it. Remember any of it?"
"Oh, certainly, sir."
"Hmm--" Dr. Hendrix got down a limp volume.
"Let me see. Act two, scene three; Leontes says, 'Nor night nor day nor rest: it is but weakness ...'"
Max picked it up. "... it is but weakness to bear the matter thus; mere weakness. If the cause were not in being ..." He continued until stopped.
"That's enough. I don't care much for that play myself. Even the immortal Will had his off days. But how did you happen to have read that book of tables? Shakespeare at his dullest isn't that dull. I've never read them, not what one would call 'reading.'"
"Well, sir, Uncle Chet had his astrogation manuals at home after he retired and he used to talk with me a lot. So I read them."
"Do I understand that you have memorized the entire professional library of an astrogator?"
Max took a deep breath. "Well, sir, I've read them."
Dr. Hendrix took from his shelves his own tools of his profession. He did not bother with the binary tables, that being the one Max had shown that he knew. He leafed through them, asked Max questions, finally identifying what he wanted only by page number. He closed the last of them. "Whew!" he commented, and blinked. "While I am aware that there are numerous cases of your talent in the history of psychology, I must admit it is disconcerting to encounter one." He smiled. "I wonder what Brother Witherspoon would think of this."
"Sir?"
"Our High Secretary. I'm afraid he would be shocked; he has conservative notions about protecting the 'secrets' of our profession."
Max said uncomfortably, "Am I likely to get into trouble, sir? I didn't know it was wrong to read Uncle's books."
"What? Nonsense. There are no 'secrets' to astrogation. You use these books on watch, so does every member of the 'Worry' gang. The passengers can read them, for all I care. Astrogation isn't secret; it is merely difficult. Few people are so endowed as to be able to follow accurately the mathematical reasoning necessary to plan a--oh, a transition, let us say. But it suits those who bother with guild politics to make it appear an arcane art--prestige, you know." Dr. Hendrix paused and tapped on his chair arm. "Jones, I want you to understand me. Kelly thinks you may shape up."
"Uh, that's good, sir."
"But don't assume that you know more than he does just because you have memorized the books."
"Oh, no, sir!"
"Actually, your talent isn't necessary in the control room. The virtues needed are those Kelly has-- unflagging attention to duty, thorough knowledge of his tools, meticulous care for details, deep loyalty to his job and his crew and his ship and to those placed over him professionally. Kelly doesn't need eidetic memory, ordinary good memory combined with intelligence and integrity are what the job takes--and that's what I want in my control room."
"Yes, sir."
The Astrogator hesitated. "I don't wish to be offensive but I want to add this. Strange talents are sometimes associated with ordinary, or even inferior, mentality--often enough so that the psychologists use the term '_idiot savant_.' Sorry. You obviously aren't an idiot, but you are not necessarily a genius, even if you can memorize the Imperial Encyclopedia. My point is: I am more interested in your horse sense and your attention to duty than I am in your phenomenal memory."
"Uh, I'll try, sir."
"I think you'll make a good chartsman, in time." Dr. Hendrix indicated that the interview was over; Max got up. "One more thing."
"Yes, sir?"
"There are excellent reasons of discipline and efficiency why crew members do not associate with passengers."
Max gulped. "I know, sir."
"Mind your P's and Q's. The members of my department are careful about this point--even then it is difficult."
Max left feeling deflated. He had gone there feeling that he was about to be awarded something--even a chance to become an astrogator. He now felt sweated down to size.
10 GARSON'S PLANET
Max did not see much of Sam during the weeks following; the stiff schedule left him little time for visiting. But Sam had prospered.
Like all large ships the _Asgard_ had a miniature police force, experienced ratings who acted as the First Officer's deputies in enforcing ship's regulations. Sam, with his talent for politics and a faked certffication as steward's mate first class, managed during the reshuffle following Max's transfer to be assigned as master-at-arms for the Purser's department. He did well, treading on no toes, shutting his eyes to such violations as were ancient prerogatives and enforcing those rules of sanitation, economy, and behavior which were actually needed for a taut, happy ship ... all without finding it necessary to haul offenders up before the First Officer for punishment--which suited both Mr. Walther and the crew. When Stores Clerk Maginnis partook too freely of Mr. Gee's product and insisted on serenading his bunk mates, Sam merely took him to the galley and forced black coffee down him--then the following day took him down to 'H' deck, laid his own shield of office aside, and gave Maginnis a scientific going over that left no scars but deeply marked his soul. In his obscure past Sam had learned to fight, not rough house, not in the stylized mock combat of boxing, but in the skilled art in which an unarmed man becomes a lethal machine.
Sam had selected his victim carefully. Had he reported him Maginnis would have regarded Sam as a snoop, a mere busybody to be outwitted or defied, and had the punishment been severe he might have been turned into a permanent discipline problem--not forgetting that reporting Maginnis might also have endangered a sacred cow, Chief Steward Giordano. As it was, it turned Maginnis into Sam's strongest supporter and best publicist, as Maginnis's peculiar but not unique pride required him to regard the man who defeated him as "the hottest thing on two feet, sudden death in each hand, a _real_ man! No nonsense about old Sam--try him yourself and see how _you_ make out. Go on, I want to lay a bet."
It was not necessary for Sam to set up a second lesson.
A senior engineer's mate was chief master-at-arms and Sam's nominal superior; these two constituted the police force of their small town. When the technician asked to go back to power room watch-standing and was replaced by an engineer's mate third, it was natural that Walther should designate Sam as Chief Master-at-Arms.
He had had his eye on the job from the moment he signed on. Any police chief anywhere has powers far beyond those set forth by law. As long as Sam stayed well buttered up with Mr. Kuiper, Mr. Giordano, and (to a lesser extent) with Mr. Dumont, as long as he was careful to avoid exerting his authority in either the engineering spaces or the Worry Hole, he was the most powerful man in the ship--more powerful in all practical matters than the First Officer himself since he was the First Officer's visible presence.
Such was the situation when the ship grounded at Garson's Planet.
Garson's Planet appears to us to be a piece of junk left over when the universe was finished. It has a surface gravity of one-and-a-quarter, too much for comfort, it is cold as a moneylender's heart, and it has a methane atmosphere unbreathable by humans. With the sky swarming with better planets it would be avoided were it not an indispensable way station. There is only one survey Horst congruency near Earth's Sun and transition of it places one near Theta Centauri--and of the thirteen planets of that sun, Carson's Planet possesses the meager virtue of being least unpleasant.