CAPTAIN: Good God.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Log entry continued: Vane One has suffered extensive meteor damage and is not currently functioning at full gather-power. Vane Two has been shortened by 81,000 miles to offset the slow spin imparted by imbalance in vane function. Results should be discernible within five to thirteen days (Ship Time). Automatic self-destruct units of ship are no longer functioning, due to suspect short circuit causing automatic self-destruct units to automatically self-destruct.
CAPTAIN: You mean the automatic self-destruct units are all self-destructed?
CHIEF ENGINEER: Aye, that’s about the size of it, Captain.
CAPTAIN: You mean we can’t destruct the ship, if the crack in the Anti-Matter Isolater widens? But if we can’t self-destruct, and the Anti-Matter Isolater blows, we’ll take the fifty nearest stars and all their planets with us—we’ll blow up this whole region of space—if the anti-matter meets an F-2 star, the destruction might become a chain reaction and the entire Galaxy could be destructed!
CHIEF ENGINEER: Weel, we’re working hard on that crack, Captain.
CAPTAIN: We? What do you mean, we? There’s only one of you down there in the Engine Room. Isn’t there?
CHIEF ENGINEER: Aye. But I wish there was a few more.
CAPTAIN : I know you do, at times like this, “Bolts.” But we have the utmost faith in you. You’re a fantastically good Chief Engineer, for a woman.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Thank you, Captain. I’ll be going back to my wee crack now.
CAPTAIN: Very well, and I’m on my way to the galley.
It’s odd. Just now as I glanced over my shoulder I could have sworn I saw somebody going down Corridor G. Now Corridor G leads to a totally disused section of the ship, the Athletic Supporter Storage Room. Who’s got any business there? Mr. Balls? Mr. Balls, are you there?
FIRST MATE : I am in the Computer Center, sir.
CAPTAIN: Will you please not call me “sir,” Mr. Balls. It estranges me. “Sparks,” where are you? “Sparks”? Report to Bridge by intracom at once. “Sparks”?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Shhh. I’m listening to the radio. Roger. Over and out.
CAPTAIN: All right. And “Bolts” is down with the Anti-Matter Isolater; and I’m here on the Bridge trying to get to the galley. That’s four. Five, five, who’s five? Oh, yes. Insane Second Mate, report current whereabouts to Bridge by intracom at once.
INSANE SECOND MATE: I am clinging by the skin of my teeth and the nails of my toes to a cliff that towers above a raging sea of salt, lashed by great winds into waves and breakers whiter and heavier than ever water was. If I let go I will fall and be broken against the rocks and buried under tons of roaring salt, drowned in the dry sea. If I do not let go I have to keep holding on here, and holding on, and holding on, what for? I am so bored I could scream. I am screaming loudly but no one can hear it over the howl of the wind and the thunder of collapsing salt. I hope the rest of you are enjucting yourselves.
CAPTAIN: What?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Before the ship self-destructs, I hope you are emplucting your time in enjuctable diversions. I think I shall let go now.
CAPTAIN: Wait! Listen, “Bats.” is there anybody else there in the Crew Recreation Lounge with you?
INSANE SECOND MATE: Here I go. Eeeee-yahhhhhh!—Jesus Christ! it’s sugar.
CAPTAIN: Well, that seems to account for all six of us. There couldn’t have been anybody in Corridor G. I just thought there was.
FIRST MATE: Captain, there are only five persons aboard.
CAPTAIN: What makes you so sure of that, Mr. Balls?
FIRST MATE: Mathematics. Simple addition of real numbers. Yourself, 1, myself, 1, “Bolts,” 1, “Sparks,” 1, “Bats,” 1. 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 5.
CAPTAIN: That may be. You can prove anything with statistics. But what if there’s one 1 you haven’t counted?
FIRST MATE: Who?
CAPTAIN: That’s what I’m asking you, Mr. Balls.
FIRST MATE: Captain, may I respectfully suggest that it is time for lunch, or dinner, or whatever time it is time for.
CAPTAIN: And what about irrational numbers, Mr. Balls? Eh?
FIRST MATE: Captain, may I respectfully suggest that you leave mathematics to me and the onboard computers.
CAPTAIN: All right, all right. What do you want for lunch?
FIRST MATE: Whatever you please, Captain.
CAPTAIN: I am sick and tired of having to think about it, planning meals all the time. I’m going to open a can of Campbell’s Tomato Rice Soup and if you don’t like it it’s too bad. Every time I’m on the verge of really understanding something, every time an insight is just within outgrope, every time I really realise that I am the Captain of a great ship, I have to turn around and decide whether it’s to be macaroni and cheese or rice pilaf. Why can’t somebody else do the cooking for a while?
FIRST MATE: Nobody else knows how.
CAPTAIN: Any one of you can heat a can of soup as well as I can.
FIRST MATE: Remember when the Second Mate tried?
CAPTAIN: Well, almost any of you. A robot could do it. Why don’t we have galley robots? Why weren’t we designed properly? The real trouble is that this is a lazy, uncoordinated, incoherent crew. And the center of the trouble, the real source of the disintegration, the stumbling block to all my efforts to run a tight ship, is one person, one single member of the crew, and I think you all know who I’m talking about.
FIRST MATE: Affirmative.
CHIEF ENGINEER: Oh, aye.
INSANE SECOND MATE: Not me. But poor Tom’s a-cold.
CAPTAIN: “Sparks,” are you listening? “Sparks,” come in please. Come in please.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Shhh. I’m listening to the radio. Roger. Over and—
CAPTAIN: No! Now you take off those damned headphones and listen to me for a minute, “Sparks.”
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Captain, I wish I could take off the headphones. Sometimes I even wish I could turn off the radio. But I can’t. It does fade sometimes, you know. There’ll be days at a time, weeks, months, when I can’t pick up a thing, not even star hiss. But I have to keep listening, in case it comes back, in case a message comes through. That’s the way it is now. I haven’t picked up a message for five days (Ship Time). But what if one is just about to come through? What if it came through and I was in the galley heating soup? What if it’s coming through right now and I’m missing it because I’m talking on the intracom? It isn’t that I have anything against the rest of you, or that I want to be a stumbling block, but that’s the nature of a Communications Officer. Over and—
CAPTAIN: No. Now stay on the intracom and listen to this message. Other ships have Communications Officers, you know, and they don’t act like you at all. They don’t just sit there with their damned head between the earphones and their mouth hanging open all the time. They communicate. They talk with other ships of the Fleet. They receive news and directives, and exchange all sorts of information and friendly chitchat to beguile the interminable boredom of space. Why don’t you ever do that? Don’t you realise the rest of us would like to talk with the rest of the Fleet now and then?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: But I don’t listen on the Fleet wavelength.
CAPTAIN: Why not?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Because I’m trying to pick up the message.
CAPTAIN: What message?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: The one we haven’t heard before.
CAPTAIN: What for?
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER: Well, it might indicate where we’re going—we and all the other ships of the Fleet.