It was just as well that somebody tapped on my door then, or I would have bawled.
It was Mei-Ling and her husband, Chet. I invited them in and they sat down on the bed. Chat got to the point.
"Tom, where do you stand on this?"
"On what?"
"This silly business of trying to go on with a skeleton crew."
"It doesn't matter where I stand," I said slowly. "I'm not running the ship."
"Ah, but you are!"
"Huh?"
"I don't mean quite that, but I do mean you can put a stop to the nonsense. Now, look, Tom, everybody knows what you told the Captain and—"
"Who's been talking?"
"Huh? Never mind. If it didn't leak from you, it probably did from everybody else present; it's common knowledge. What you told him made sense. What it comes down to is that Urqhardt is depending on you and you alone to keep him in touch with the home office. So you're the man with the stick. You can stop him."
"Huh? Now wait. I'm not the only one. Granted that he isn't counting on Unc—how about Mei-Ling?"
Chat shook his head. "Mei-Ling isn't going to 'think-talk' for him."
His wife said, "Now, Chet; I haven't said so."
He looked at her fondly. "Don't be super-stupid, my lovely darling. You know that there is no chance at all that you will be any use to him after peak. If our brave Captain Urqhardt hasn't got that through his head now, he will... even if I have to explain to him in words of one syllable."
"But I might stay linked."
"Oh, no, you won't... or I'll bash your pretty head in. Our kids are going to grow up on Earth."
She looked soberly at him and patted his hand. The Travers's were not expecting again, but everybody knew they were hoping; I began to see why Chet was adamant... and I became quite sure that Mei-Ling would not link again after peak—not after her husband had argued with her for a while. What Chet wanted was more important to her than what the Captain wanted, or any abstract duty to a Foundation back on Earth.
Chet went on, "Think it over, Tom, and you will see that you can't let your shipmates down. To go on is suicidal and everybody knows it but the Captain. It's up to you."
"Uh, I'll think it over."
"Do that. But don't take too long." They left.
I went to bed but didn't sleep. The deuce of it was that Chet was almost certainly right... including the certainty that Mei-Ling would never patch in with her telepair after another peak, for she was beginning to slip even now. I had been transmitting mathematical or technical matter which would have fallen to her ever since last peak, because her linking was becoming erratic. Chet wouldn't have to bash her admittedly-pretty head in; she was falling out of touch.
On the other hand...
When I had reached "On the other hand" about eighteen times, I got up and dressed and went looking for Harry Gates; it occurred to me that since he was a head of department and present at the meeting, it was proper to talk to him about it.
He wasn't in his room; Barbara suggested that I try the laboratory. He was there, alone, unpacking specimens that had been sent over the day before. He looked up. "Well, Tom, how is it going?"
"Not too good."
"I know. Say, I haven't had a proper chance to thank you. Shall I write it out, or will you have it right off my chest?"
"Uh, let's take it for granted." I had not understood him at first, for it is the simple truth that I had forgotten about pulling him out of the water; I hadn't had time to think about it.
"As you say. But I won't forget it. You know that, don't you?"
"Okay. Harry, I need advice."
"You do? Well, I've got it in all sizes. All of it free and all of it worth what it costs, I'm afraid."
"You were at the meeting tonight."
"So were you." He looked worried.
"Yes." I told him all that had been fretting me, then thought about it and told him all that Chet had said. "What am I to do, Harry? Chet is right; the chance of doing any good on another jump isn't worth it. Even if we find a planet worth reporting—a chance that is never good, based on what the fleet has done as a whoIe—even so, we almost certainly won't be able to report it except by going back, two centuries after we left. It's ridiculous and, as Chet says, suicidal, with what we've got left. On the other hand, the Captain is right; this is what we signed up for. The ship's sailing orders say for us to go on."
Harry carefully unpacked a package of specimens before he answered.
"Tommie, you should ask me an easy one. Ask me whether or not to get married and I'll tell you like a shot. Or anything else. But there is one thing no man can tell another man and that is whore his duty lies. That you must decide for yourself."
I thought about it. "Doggone it, Harry, how do you feel about it?"
"Me?" He stopped what he was doing. "Tom, I just don't know. For myself personally... well, I've been happier in this ship than I have ever been before in my life. I've got my wife and kids with me and I'm doing just the work I want to do. With others it may be different."
"How about your kids?"
"Aye, there's the rub. A family man—" He frowned. "I can't advise you, Tom. If I even hint that you should not do what you signed up to do, I'd be inciting to mutiny...a capital crime, for both of us. If I tell you that you must do what the Captain wants, I'd be on safe legal grounds—but it might mean the death of you and me and my kids and all the rest of us... because Chet has horse sense on his side even if the law is against him." He sighed. "Tom, I just missed checking out today—thanks to you—and my judgment isn't back in shape. I can't advise you; I'd be prejudiced."
I didn't answer. I was wishing that Uncle Steve had made it; he always had an answer for everything.
"All I can do," Harry went on, "is to make a weaselly suggestion."
"Huh? What is it?"
"You might go to the Captain privately and tell him just how worried you are. It might affect his decisions. At least he ought to know."
I said I would think about it and thanked him and left. I went to bed and eventually got to sleep. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the ship shaking. The ship always swayed a little when waterborne, but not this way, nor this much; not on Elysia.
It stopped and then it started again... and again it stopped... and started. I was wondering what... when it suddenly quivered in an entirely different way, one that I recognized; it was the way the torch felt when it was just barely critical. The engineers called it "clearing her throat" and was a regular part of overhaul and inspection. I decided that Mr. Regato must be working late, and I quieted down again. The bumping did not start up again.
At breakfast I found out what it was: the behemoths had tried something, nobody knew what, against the ship itself... whereupon the Captain had quite logically ordered Mr. Regato to use the torch against them. Now, although we still did not know much about them, we did know one thing: they were not immune to super-heated steam and intense radioactivity.
This brush with the sea devils braced my spine; I decided to see the Captain as Harry had suggested.
He let me in without keeping me waiting more than five minutes. Then he kept quiet and let me talk as long as I wanted to. I elaborated the whole picture, as I saw it, without attributing anything to Chet or Harry. I couldn't tell from his face whether I was reaching him or not, so I put it strongly: that Unc and Mei-Ling were both out of the picture and that the chance that I would be of any use after the next peak was so slight that he was risking his. ship and his crew on very long odds.