"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.
But there are half a dozen plotted congruencies accessible to Theta Centauri, which makes Carson's Planet the inevitable cross-roads for trade of the Solar Union.
Max hit dirt there just once, once was plenty. The colony at the space port, partly domed, partly dug in under the domes, was much like the Lunar cities and not unlike the burrows under any major Earth city, but to Max it was novel since he had never been on Luna and had never seen a big city on Terra other than Earthport. He went dirtside with Sam, dressed in his best and filled with curiosity. It was not necessary to put on a pressure suit; the port supplied each passenger liner with a pressure tube from ship's lock to dome lock.
Once inside Sam headed down into the lower levels. Max protested, "Sam, let's go up and look around."
"Huh? Nothing there. A hotel and some expensive shops and clip joints for the pay passengers. Do you want to pay a month's wages for a steak?"
"No. I want to see _out_. Here I am on a strange planet and I haven't _seen_ it at all. I couldn't see it from the control room when we landed and now I haven't seen anything but the inside of a trans tube and this." He gestured at the corridor walls.
"Nothing to see but a dirty, thick, yellow fog that never lifts. Worse than Venus. But suit yourself. I've got things to do, but if you don't want to stick with me you certainly don't have to."
Max decided to stick. They went on down and came out in a wide, lighted corridor not unlike that street in Earthport where Percy's restaurant was located, save that it was roofed over. There were the same bars, the same tawdry inducements for the stranger to part with cash, even to the tailor shop with the permanent "CLOSING OUT" sale. Several other ships were in and the sector was crowded. Sam looked around. "Now for a place for a quiet drink and a chat."