“You two talk nice,” Darvona instructed. “Don’t fight.”
“Yes, Momma,” the scientist said.
“Give Momma a kiss. I have to go.”
“Can I have a raise in my allowance, Mom?”
Darvona pecked Strangefinger on the cheek before scurrying out of the bay.
Wanker gave the oddly dressed scientist a disparaging scowl. “Dr. Strangefinger, it’s against regulations for members of the crew to fraternize with nonhumans.”
Strangefinger walked over to him, waving his ever-present cigar. “I highly represent that remark. I’m as human as the next baboon.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed. Besides, I couldn’t resist her charms. She’s the kind of girl a man could take home to mother. Her mother, but I’m not picky.”
“I wouldn’t know much about women. I’m no stud.”
“Be careful, the walls have ears. And they have studs, too.”
“Enough of this pleasant banter,” Wanker said. “Are you through installing your Proust whatsit?”
“What’s it to you?”
Strangefinger wandered over to inspect a veritable Gordian knot of wiring that bulged from a cylindrical component.
“Doctor, are you incapable of a straight answer?”
“Not when, you ask the question with a crooked tongue. Oh, all right, we have one small item left to install. And the installment payments are killing me.”
“Will it work?”
“Will what work?”
“Your gizmo, of course.”
“Are you kidding? They call me the Miracle Worker. It’s a miracle if anything of mine works.” Strangefinger absently kicked the huge cylinder before him. I wonder what the heck this is for.”
Wanker’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t know?”
“I usually leave the engineering to my staff.”
“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen hide or hair of your staff yet.”
“Not a surprising turn of events for a hermit.”
Wanker shuffled his feet. “I admit I haven’t been getting out much. Anyway, where the devil is your crew?”
“They’re making some alterations in the reactor module.”
“They’re fiddling with the dark-matter reactor?”
“No, they won’t go near the reactor. They just need to pound on the control dampers a bit.”
“Pound on the.. ” Wanker suppressed a scream. “Ye gods!”
“‘Ye gods.’ Wonderful expletive. There’s much that’s quaint and charming about you, Captain Wanker. Sorry … Voinker?”
The captain didn’t bother to correct him.
Strangefinger made another stab. “Volker?”
Wanker waved the issue aside. “Forget it. Incidentally, why don’t you have your radiation suit on?”
“Oh, a little stray ionizing radiation never hurt anyone.”
“So you say. The reactor and the thrusters are only thirty meters from this bay and that’s close enough to require all personnel to—”
“I was just about to leave, Captain. The final installation will be on the bridge, anyway.”
“Oh, very well. Frankly, I couldn’t care less if you want to fry yourself.”
“I like to think of myself as a man of taste, but I’m not going to fry myself to find out for sure. If you’ll excuse me, Captain Volkswagen. See you on the bridge.”
The hatch rose again and Strangefinger stepped out, leaving Wanker to his thoughts. He wasn’t thinking nice thoughts.
Another first for Captain Wanker: a visit to the ship’s mess.
“What a mess!”
“That’s not very original,” the service mech named Cookie told him as it served him a Synth-A-Chik sandwich and coffee.
“I mean it, look at this place.”
There had obviously been a food fight; several, most likely. The bulkheads blazed with a full spectrum of food colorings.
“Don’t think it doesn’t break my little cybernetic heart, Captain.”
“Did you witness? — of course you did. Well, I’ll need your input to make a report.” Wanker crinkled his freckled nose. “Hell, why should I file a report? That’s Rhodes’s job.”
“Under the circumstances, Captain, what’s the use?”
Wanker turned to regard the cold electronic eyes of the Cookie.
“Oh, and what’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, sir, all due respect and all that sort of bilge — if this were a real ship… ”
Wanker exhaled a black cloud of discontent.
“Rats.”
He sat at one of the tables and tried to eat. He bit into the sandwich; he chewed.
He spat his mouthful across the room and turned to glare at the machine designated the “Cookie.”
“Don’t look at me, Captain, sir. Mr. Sadowski—”
“Shut up, you piece of space jetsam.”
“Oh, well, excuse me, sir.”
Wanker drummed the table. “This is most annoying.”
“No one ever said the universe was a bed of posies. Sir.”
Wanker turned his head sharply. “You know what else is annoying?”
“What, sir?”
“The habit of giving a hulk of a machine like a food processor a ‘personality’ so that spacemen get a warm, homey feeling inside when they’re served the swill they’re supposed to eat.”
“Oops, I guess I went and pushed a few wrong buttons on you, Captain.”
“Oh, stuff it.”
Wanker left the mess.
CHAPTER 13
Wanker arrived on the bridge to find it in no more disarray than usual. Everyone was there except Strangefinger’s elusive technicians.
“Dr. Strangefinger, can’t we get this over with now?”
“My sentiments exactly, Captain,” Strangefinger said, chewing on his cigar. “The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things. Hey-nonny-nonny and a ha-cha-cha.” He executed this last with a little dance.
“Can we proceed with the testing?”
“Sure. Disengage all your control circuits. The Proust device will handle everything.”
Wanker began to pace fretfully. Something that had built up inside him over the last week finally burst out. “This is wrong, wrong! A machine can’t control a starship! A cold, unfeeling machine can’t make the warm, human decisions … it can’t know right from wrong, fair from unfair … it has no sense of justice … no sensitivity, no compassion!”
Strangefinger bristled. “Sir, you’re making my machine out to be a conservative! I know for a fact that it votes the straight Whig ticket.”
Sadowski dropped to the deck and went to his station.
“Very well,” Captain Wanker said. “Engineer, turn all control circuits over to Dr. Strangefinger’s wonderful invention. I can see this is going to be more of the same monkey business. I’m going back to my cabin and rest.”
Strangefinger said with feigned sincerity, “Rest easy, Captain … and take my hand in congratulations for a job well done.” The scientist extended his hand.
Wanker took it and was nonplused when the hand detached from Strangefinger’s arm. It was a cheap prosthesis.
“You idiot.” Wanker handed him his hand back.
“You’ve got to hand it to me, Captain.”
“Oh, stuff it. Maybe I won’t go to my cabin. I think I’ll stay here and see what this business is all about.”
“Just stay out of the way,” Strangefinger said, screwing his hand back on. “You’re redundant now. Superfluous. You’re about to be laid off. Besides, you’re behind in your union dues.”
“I don’t belong to a union.”
“Oh, a company stooge, eh? Well, take Moe and Larry and get out there on that picket line.”
“I’m waiting, Strangefinger.”
“Well, you’re waiting at the wrong stop. The Crosstown-B comes down Lexington and turns east on Forty-ninth. On second thought, you’d better take the subway.”