"No, sir."
"To put a flea in your ear, that's why. Since you pulled that hanky-panky with the computer, you've been Kelly's hair-faired--fair-haired--boy. Fair-haired boy," he repeated carefully. "That gets you nowhere with me. Get this straight: you go sucking around the Astrogator the way Kelly does and I'll run you out of the control room. Understand me?"
Max felt himself losing his temper. "What do you mean by 'hanky-panky,' Mr. Simes?"
"You know. Probably memorized the last half dozen transitions--now you've got Kelly and the Professor thinking you've memorized the book. A genius in our midst! You know what that is? That's a lot of ..."
Fortunately for Max they were interrupted; he felt a firm hand on his shoulder and Sam's quiet voice said, "Good evening, Mr. Simes."
Simes looked confused, then recognized Sam and brightened. "Well, if it isn't the copper. Sit down, Constable. Have a drink."
"Don't mind if I do." Sam pulled up another chair.
"Do you know Smart Boy here?"
"I've seen him around."
"Keep your eye on him. That's an order. He's very, very clever. Too clever. Ask him a number. Pick a number between one and ten."
"Seven."
Mr. Simes pounded the table. "What did I tell you? He memorized it before you got here. Someday he's going to memorize one and they'll stencil it across his chest. You know what, Constable? I don't trust smart boys. They get ideas."
Reinforced by Sam's calming presence Max kept quiet. Giggles had come to the table as soon as Sam joined them; Max saw Sam write something on the back of a menu and pass it with money to the humanoid. But Mr. Simes was too busy with his monologue to notice. Sam let him ramble on, then suddenly interrupted. "You seem to have a friend here, sir."
"Huh? Where?"
Sam pointed. At the bar Dolores was smiling and gesturing at the assistant navigator to join her. Simes focused his eyes, grinned and said, "Why, so I do! It's my Great Aunt Sadie." He got up abruptly.
Sam brushed his hands together. "That disposes of that. Give you a bad time, kid?"
"Sort of. Thanks, Sam. But I hate to see him dumped on Dolores. She's a nice kid."
"Don't worry about her. She'll roll him for every thin he has on him--and a good job, too." His eyes became hard. "I like an officer who acts like an officer. If he wants to pin one on, he should do it in his own part of town. Oh, well." Sam relaxed. "Been some changes, eh, kid? Things are different from the way they were when we raised ship at Terra."
"I'll say they are!"
"Like it in the Worry gang?"
"It's more fun than I ever had in my life. And I'm learning fast--so Mr. Kelly says. They're a swell bunch--except for _him_." He nodded toward Simes.
"Don't let him worry you. The best soup usually has a fly in it. Just don't let him get anything on you."
"I sure don't intend to."
Sam looked at him, then said softly, "Ready to take the dive?"
"Huh?"
"I'm getting our stake together. We'll be all set."
Max found it hard to answer. He had known that his transfer had not changed anything basic; he was still in as much danger as ever. But he had been so busy with the joy of hard, interesting work, so dead for sleep when he was not working, that the subject had been pushed back in his mind. Now he drew patterns on the table in the sweat from the glasses and thought about it. "I wish," he said slowly, "that there was some way to beat it."
"There is a way, I told you. Your record gets lost."
Max raised his eyes. "What good would that do? Sure, it would get me another trip. But I don't want just another trip; I want to stay with it." He looked down at the table top and carefully sketched an hyperboloid. "I'd better go with you. If I go back to Terra, it's the labor companies for me--even if I stay out of jail."
"Nonsense."
"What?"
"Understand me, kid. I'd like to have you with me. A time like that, having a partner at your elbow is the difference between--well, being down in the dumps and being on top. But you can stay in space, with a record as clean as a baby's."
"Huh? How?"
"Because you are changing guilds. Now only _one_ paper has to get lost--your strike-out record with the stewards, cooks, and clerks. And they will never miss it because you aren't on their books, anyhow. You start fresh with the chartsmen and computers, all neat and legal."
Max sat still and was tempted. "How about the report to the Department of Guilds and Labor?"
"Same thing. Different forms to different offices. I checked. One form gets lost, the other goes in--and Steward's Mate Jones vanishes into limbo while Apprentice Chartsman Jones starts a clean record."
"Sam, why don't _you_ do it? With the drag you've got now you could switch to ... uh, well, to ..."
"To what?" Sam shook his head sadly. "No, old son, there is nothing I can switch to. Besides, there are reasons why I had better be buried deep." He brightened. "Tell you what--I'll pick my new name before I take the jump and tell you. Then some day, two years, ten, twenty, you'll lay over at Nova Terra and look me up. We'll split a bottle and talk about when we were young and gay. Eh?"
Max smiled though he did not feel happy. "We will, Sam. We surely will." Then he frowned. "But, Sam, I don't know how to wangle the deal--and you'll be gone."
"I'll fix it before I leave. I've got Nelson eating out of my hand now. Like this: half cash down and half on delivery--and I'll fix it so that you have something on him--never mind what; you don't need to know yet. When you ground at Earthport, he asks you to mail the reports because you are going dirtside and he has work to finish. You check to see that the two reports you want are there, then you give him his pay off. Done."
Max said slowly, "I suppose that's best."
"Quit fretting. Everybody has a skeleton in the closet; the thing is to keep 'em there and not at the feast." He pushed an empty glass aside. "Kid, would you mind if we went back to the ship? Or had you planned to make a night of it?"
"No, I don't mind." Max's elation at setting foot on his first strange planet was gone--Garson's Hole was, he had to admit, a sorry sample of the Galaxy.
"Then let's get saddled up. I've got stuff to carry and I could use help."
It turned out to be four fairly large bundles which Sam had cached in public lockers. "What are they?" Max asked curiously.
"Tea cozies, old son. Thousands of them. I'm going to sell 'em to Procyon pinheads as skull caps." Somewhat affronted, Max shut up.
Everything coming into the ship was supposed to be inspected, but the acting master-at-arms on watch at the lock did not insist on examining the items belonging to the Chief Master-at-Arms any more than he would have searched a ship's officer. Max helped Sam carry the bundles to the stateroom which was the prerogative of the ship's chief of police.
11 "THROUGH THE CARGO HATCH"
From Garson's Planet to Halcyon around Nu Pegasi is a double dogleg of three transitions, of 105, 487, and 19 light-years respectively to achieve a "straight line" distance of less than 250 light-years. But neither straight-line distance nor pseudo-distance of transition is important; the _Asgard_ covered less than a light-year between gates. A distance "as the crow flies" is significant only to crows.
The first transition was barely a month out from Carson's Planet. On raising from there Kelly placed Max on a watch in three, assigning him to Kelly's own watch, which gave Max much more sleep, afforded him as much instruction (since the watch with Simes was worthless, instruction-wise), and kept Max out of Simes' way, to his enormous relief. Whether Kelly had planned that feature of it Max never knew--and did not dare ask.
Max's watch was still an instruction watch, he had no one to relieve nor to be relieved by. It became his habit not to leave the control room until Kelly did, unless told to do so. This resulted in him still being thrown into the company of Dr. Hendrix frequently, since the Astrogator relieved the Chief Computerman and Kelly would usually hang around and chat ... during which time the Astrogator would sometimes inquire into Max's progress.