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Why did the Tr'en leave Korvin's door unlocked and a weapon nearby?

They were so caught up trying to figure out Korvin's answers that they became somewhat careless in guarding him.

They were tired of the Ruler's dictatorship and intentionally provided resources for Korvin's escape in hopes that he would help them overthrow the Ruler.

After their interview with Korvin, they determined he was wasteful and confusing, but not a threat. In order to avoid another confusing interaction with him, they simply provided resources for his escape.

Their subconscious knew that Korvin was an insoluble problem. This same subconscious led them to provide resources for his escape so they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why does the text mean when it says that Korvin was "unconscious" at the time of his lessons in the local language?

It means that he was so bored out of his mind during the language lessons that he was hardly conscious.

It means that the Tr'en came into Korvin's cell while he slept in order to use their advanced technology which quickly teaches the unconscious mind.

It means that the Tr'en knocked him out every night in order to use their advanced technology which quickly teaches the unconscious mind.

It means that the Tr'en put Korvin under drug hypnosis while they taught him their language.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

How was Korvin able to avoid disclosing the true intent of his mission under the lie detector questioning?

While he was strapped down in the lie-detector, Korvin subtly switched the wire that indicated a truth with the one that indicated a lie.

The Tr'en hadn't tested the lie-detector extensively enough and the machine was faulty.

Even with the Tr'en's language lessons, Korvin could only to speak in very simple terms and was unable to answer the Ruler's questions at the depth the Ruler was expecting.

Korvin said truths that literally answered the Tr'en's questions but evaded the intent behind their questions. .

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

What is the most likely reason for Korvin's solitude in jail?

Solitary confinement was part of Korvin's punishment.

The Tr'en didn't want Korvin to interact with the other Tr'en prisoners because there was a chance that together they might incite an uprising.

The Tr'en are so logical and mathematic that they don't see the need for social interaction.

There weren't any other prisoners in the jail because virtually all of the Tr'en obey the Ruler. Those who don't obey are executed.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why does the Tr'en's logic fail them?

Because the lie-detector was faulty and Korvin gave them an insoluble paradox.

Because Korvin switched the wires on the lie-detector and gave the Tr'en an insoluble paradox.

Because it's tightly controlled by the Ruler who is quite simple minded.

Because it's too mathematical and doesn't account for motivations, emotions, and what's left unsaid.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Are there indications that the Tr'en would be interested in attacking Earth? Why or why not?

Both A and C are correct.

No, because Korvin sends a mission back to Earth Central saying that the Tr'en won't come marauding out into space.

Yes, because the expert mentions the idea of conquering Earth with Korvin's aid.

Yes, because the ruler says the he wants to know about Earth's weapons, plans, and fortifications.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

The text says "The expert frowned horribly." What makes the expert's smile so horrible?

The frown indicates that he's close to detecting Korvin's true motivations.

The frown indicates that he knows that Korvin switched the wires on the lie detector.

The frown is a signal to the Ruler that Korvin is lying.

The frown is physically horrible because the Tr'en have fifty-eight, pointed teeth.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

How did the Ruler become the Ruler?

He overthrew the previous Ruler.

He is the biological son of the previous Ruler.

He was elected as Ruler by the Tr'en.

He was adopted by the previous Ruler.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why did the Tr'en think that Korvin was a traitor to Earth?

Because he answered all of the questions truthfully.

Because he crashed a ship onto Tr'en thus wasting Earth's resources.

Because they misinterpreted his positive responses to his "failure" as anti-Earth.

Because he didn't try to resist being strapped down into the lie-detector.

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

What is the best description of Korvin's job?

Land his ship on the Tr'en planet

Staying alive

Obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en

Ensure the Tr'en evolve in their thinking before they start interstellar travel

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why did the Tr'en let Korvin go?

He would not tell the truth

He disrespected the ruler

He refused to answer questions

He represented an unsolveable problem

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why did Korvin have to word his questions to the guard carefully?

Because he wanted the guard to give him something to do

Because he did not know the Tr'en language

Because the Tr'en do not infer the situational meaning of a question

Because otherwise he would be harmed

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

What were the topics of the Tr'en's questions to Korvin about Earth?

human physiology, weapons, space travel, government

human physiology, weapons, name, location, space travel, government

human physiology, weapons, government

human physiology, weapons, name, location, government

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

How many sentences does this story have approximately?

256

450

344

406

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Extract all the named entities mentioned in the longest sentence from this story.

Korvin

Korvin, Tr'en

Earth, Tr'en

Tr'en

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

What can we infer from the longest dialogue in the story？

The Ruler is elected by the subjects

An underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions

Everyone is the governor

The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler

LOST IN TRANSLATION By LARRY M. HARRIS In language translation, you may get a literally accurate word-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And in space-type translation ... the effect may be the same! Illustrated by Schoenherr The cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin had ever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; the Tr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreed on that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had made Korvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, and were on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd be settling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars. Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificently efficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, in the ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity of Planets. An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept. Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair which was hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days of isolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his own mind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that was no good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn't unlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter the probability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhat smelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if by magic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship, to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors. He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietly that the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, or even a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according to all the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'd have been better than nothing. In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, there would at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'en Korvin was all alone. True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentrated lesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasure out of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped to discuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there was nobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and stared at the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even any imperfections in the smooth surface to distract him. He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with a full stock of food concentrates. But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything to anyone, just for the chance at a little conversation. As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin got up off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor. The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green. He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if you don't bother to examine him closely. Life in the universe appeared to be rigidly limited to humanoid types on oxygen planets; Korvin didn't know why, and neither did anybody else. There were a lot of theories, but none that accounted for all the facts satisfactorily. Korvin really didn't care about it; it was none of his business. The Tr'en regarded him narrowly through catlike pupils. "You are Korvin," he said. It was a ritual, Korvin had learned. "You are of the Tr'en," he replied. The green being nodded. "I am Didyak of the Tr'en," he said. Amenities over with, he relaxed slightly—but no more than slightly—and came into the cell, closing the door behind him. Korvin thought of jumping the Tr'en, but decided quickly against it. He was a captive, and it was unwise to assume that his captors had no more resources than the ones he saw: a small translucent pistollike affair in a holster at the Tr'en's side, and a small knife in a sheath at the belt. Those Korvin could deal with; but there might be almost anything else hidden and ready to fire on him. "What do you want with me?" Korvin said. The Tr'en speech—apparently there was only one language on the planet—was stiff and slightly awkward, but easily enough learned under drug hypnosis; it was the most rigorously logical construction of its kind Korvin had ever come across. It reminded him of some of the mathematical metalanguages he'd dealt with back on Earth, in training; but it was more closely and carefully constructed than even those marvels. "I want nothing with you," Didyak said, leaning against the door-frame. "You have other questions?" Korvin sighed. "What are you doing here, then?" he asked. As conversation, it wasn't very choice; but it was, he admitted, better than solitude. "I am leaning against the door," Didyak said. The Tr'en literalist approach to the smallest problems of everyday living was a little hard to get the hang of, Korvin told himself bitterly. He thought for a second. "Why did you come to me?" he said at last. Didyak beamed at him. The sight was remarkably unpleasant, involving as it did the disclosure of the Tr'en fifty-eight teeth, mostly pointed. Korvin stared back impassively. "I have been ordered to come to you," Didyak said, "by the Ruler. The Ruler wishes to talk with you." It wasn't quite "talk"; that was a general word in the Tr'en language, and Didyak had used a specific meaning, roughly: "gain information from, by peaceful and vocal means." Korvin filed it away for future reference. "Why did the Ruler not come to me?" Korvin asked. "The Ruler is the Ruler," Didyak said, slightly discomfited. "You are to go to him. Such is his command." Korvin shrugged, sighed and smoothed back his hair. "I obey the command of the Ruler," he said—another ritual. Everybody obeyed the command of the Ruler. If you didn't, you never had a second chance to try. But Korvin meant exactly what he'd said. He was going to obey the commands of the Ruler of the Tr'en—and remove the Tr'en threat from the rest of the galaxy forever. That, after all, was his job. The Room of the Ruler was large, square and excessively brown. The walls were dark-brown, the furnishings—a single great chair, several kneeling-benches and a small table near the chair—were light-brown, of some metallic substance, and even the drapes were tan. It was, Korvin decided, much too much of a bad idea, even when the color contrast of the Tr'en themselves were figured in. The Ruler himself, a Tr'en over seven feet tall and correspondingly broad, sat in the great chair, his four fingers tapping gently on the table near him, staring at Korvin and his guards. The guards stood on either side of their captive, looking as impassive as jade statues, six and a half feet high. Korvin wasn't attempting to escape. He wasn't pleading with the Ruler. He wasn't defying the Ruler, either. He was just answering questions. The Tr'en liked to have everything clear. They were a logical race. The Ruler had started with Korvin's race, his name, his sex—if any—and whether or not his appearance were normal for humanity. Korvin was answering the last question. "Some men are larger than I am," he said, "and some are smaller." "Within what limits?" Korvin shrugged. "Some are over eight feet tall," he said, "and others under four feet." He used the Tr'en measurement scale, of course; it didn't seem necessary, though, to mention that both extremes of height were at the circus-freak level. "Then there is a group of humans," he went on, "who are never more than a foot and a half in height, and usually less than that—approximately nine or ten inches. We call these children ," he volunteered helpfully. "Approximately?" the Ruler growled. "We ask for precision here," he said. "We are scientific men. We are exact." Korvin nodded hurriedly. "Our race is more ... more approximate," he said apologetically. "Slipshod," the Ruler muttered. "Undoubtedly," Korvin agreed politely. "I'll try to do the best I can for you." "You will answer my questions," the Ruler said, "with exactitude." He paused, frowning slightly. "You landed your ship on this planet," he went on. "Why?" "My job required it," Korvin said. "A clumsy lie," the Ruler said. "The ship crashed; our examinations prove that beyond any doubt." "True," Korvin said. "And it is your job to crash your ship?" the Ruler said. "Wasteful." Korvin shrugged again. "What I say is true," he announced. "Do you have tests for such matters?" "We do," the Ruler told him. "We are an exact and a scientific race. A machine for the testing of truth has been adjusted to your physiology. It will be attached to you." Korvin looked around and saw it coming through the door, pushed by two technicians. It was large and squat and metallic, and it had wheels, dials, blinking lights, tubes and wires, and a seat with armrests and straps. It was obviously a form of lie-detector—and Korvin felt himself marveling again at this race. Earth science had nothing to match their enormous command of the physical universe; adapting a hypnopædic language-course to an alien being so quickly had been wonder enough, but adapting the perilously delicate mechanisms that necessarily made up any lie-detector machinery was almost a miracle. The Tr'en, under other circumstances, would have been a valuable addition to the Comity of Nations. Being what they were, though, they could only be a menace. And Korvin's appreciation of the size of that menace was growing hourly. He hoped the lie-detector had been adjusted correctly. If it showed him telling an untruth, he wasn't likely to live long, and his job—not to mention the strongest personal inclinations—demanded most strongly that he stay alive. He swallowed hard. But when the technicians forced him down into the seat, buckled straps around him, attached wires and electrodes and elastic bands to him at appropriate places and tightened some final screws, he made no resistance. "We shall test the machine," the Ruler said. "In what room are you?" "In the Room of the Ruler," Korvin said equably. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am sitting," Korvin said. "Are you a chulad ?" the Ruler asked. A chulad was a small native pet, Korvin knew, something like a greatly magnified deathwatch beetle. "I am not," he said. The Ruler looked to his technicians for a signal, and nodded on receiving it. "You will tell an untruth now," he said. "Are you standing or sitting?" "I am standing," Korvin said. The technicians gave another signal. The Ruler looked, in his frowning manner, reasonably satisfied. "The machine," he announced, "has been adjusted satisfactorily to your physiology. The questioning will now continue." Korvin swallowed again. The test hadn't really seemed extensive enough to him. But, after all, the Tr'en knew their business, better than anyone else could know it. They had the technique and the logic and the training. He hoped they were right. The Ruler was frowning at him. Korvin did his best to look receptive. "Why did you land your ship on this planet?" the Ruler said. "My job required it," Korvin said. The Ruler nodded. "Your job is to crash your ship," he said. "It is wasteful but the machines tell me it is true. Very well, then; we shall find out more about your job. Was the crash intentional?" Korvin looked sober. "Yes," he said. The Ruler blinked. "Very well," he said. "Was your job ended when the ship crashed?" The Tr'en word, of course, wasn't ended , nor did it mean exactly that. As nearly as Korvin could make out, it meant "disposed of for all time." "No," he said. "What else does your job entail?" the Ruler said. Korvin decided to throw his first spoke into the wheel. "Staying alive." The Ruler roared. "Do not waste time with the obvious!" he shouted. "Do not try to trick us; we are a logical and scientific race! Answer correctly." "I have told the truth," Korvin said. "But it is not—not the truth we want," the Ruler said. Korvin shrugged. "I replied to your question," he said. "I did not know that there was more than one kind of truth. Surely the truth is the truth, just as the Ruler is the Ruler?" "I—" The Ruler stopped himself in mid-roar. "You try to confuse the Ruler," he said at last, in an approximation of his usual one. "But the Ruler will not be confused. We have experts in matters of logic"—the Tr'en word seemed to mean right-saying —"who will advise the Ruler. They will be called." Korvin's guards were standing around doing nothing of importance now that their captor was strapped down in the lie-detector. The Ruler gestured and they went out the door in a hurry. The Ruler looked down at Korvin. "You will find that you cannot trick us," he said. "You will find that such fiddling"— chulad-like Korvin translated—"attempts will get you nowhere." Korvin devoutly hoped so. The experts in logic arrived shortly, and in no uncertain terms Korvin was given to understand that logical paradox was not going to confuse anybody on the planet. The barber who did, or didn't, shave himself, the secretary of the club whose members were secretaries, Achilles and the tortoise, and all the other lovely paradox-models scattered around were so much primer material for the Tr'en. "They can be treated mathematically," one of the experts, a small emerald-green being, told Korvin thinly. "Of course, you would not understand the mathematics. But that is not important. You need only understand that we cannot be confused by such means." "Good," Korvin said. The experts blinked. "Good?" he said. "Naturally," Korvin said in a friendly tone. The expert frowned horribly, showing all of his teeth. Korvin did his best not to react. "Your plan is a failure," the expert said, "and you call this a good thing. You can mean only that your plan is different from the one we are occupied with." "True," Korvin said. There was a short silence. The expert beamed. He examined the indicators of the lie-detector with great care. "What is your plan?" he said at last, in a conspiratorial whisper. "To answer your questions, truthfully and logically," Korvin said. The silence this time was even longer. "The machine says that you tell the truth," the experts said at last, in a awed tone. "Thus, you must be a traitor to your native planet. You must want us to conquer your planet, and have come here secretly to aid us." Korvin was very glad that wasn't a question. It was, after all, the only logical deduction. But it happened to be wrong. "The name of your planet is Earth?" the Ruler asked. A few minutes had passed; the experts were clustered around the single chair. Korvin was still strapped to the machine; a logical race makes use of a traitor, but a logical race does not trust him. "Sometimes," Korvin said. "It has other names?" the Ruler said. "It has no name," Korvin said truthfully. The Tr'en idiom was like the Earthly one; and certainly a planet had no name. People attached names to it, that was all. It had none of its own. "Yet you call it Earth?" the Ruler said. "I do," Korvin said, "for convenience." "Do you know its location?" the Ruler said. "Not with exactitude," Korvin said. There was a stir. "But you can find it again," the Ruler said. "I can," Korvin said. "And you will tell us about it?" the Ruler went on. "I will," Korvin said, "so far as I am able." "We will wish to know about weapons," the Ruler said, "and about plans and fortifications. But we must first know of the manner of decision on this planet. Is your planet joined with others in a government or does it exist alone?" Korvin nearly smiled. "Both," he said. A short silence was broken by one of the attendant experts. "We have theorized that an underling may be permitted to make some of his own decisions, leaving only the more extensive ones for the master. This seems to us inefficient and liable to error, yet it is a possible system. Is it the system you mean?" Very sharp, Korvin told himself grimly. "It is," he said. "Then the government which reigns over several planets is supreme," the Ruler said. "It is," Korvin said. "Who is it that governs?" the Ruler said. The key question had, at last, been asked. Korvin felt grateful that the logical Tr'en had determined to begin from the beginning, instead of going off after details of armament first; it saved a lot of time. "The answer to that question," Korvin said, "cannot be given to you." "Any question of fact has an answer," the Ruler snapped. "A paradox is not involved here; a government exists, and some being is the governor. Perhaps several beings share this task; perhaps machines do the work. But where there is a government, there is a governor. Is this agreed?" "Certainly," Korvin said. "It is completely obvious and true." "The planet from which you come is part of a system of planets which are governed, you have said," the Ruler went on. "True," Korvin said. "Then there is a governor for this system," the Ruler said. "True," Korvin said again. The ruler sighed gently. "Explain this governor to us," he said. Korvin shrugged. "The explanation cannot be given to you." The Ruler turned to a group of his experts and a short muttered conversation took place. At its end the Ruler turned his gaze back to Korvin. "Is the deficiency in you?" he said. "Are you in some way unable to describe this government?" "It can be described," Korvin said. "Then you will suffer unpleasant consequences if you describe it to us?" the Ruler went on. "I will not," Korvin said. It was the signal for another conference. With some satisfaction, Korvin noticed that the Tr'en were becoming slightly puzzled; they were no longer moving and speaking with calm assurance. The plan was taking hold. The Ruler had finished his conference. "You are attempting again to confuse us," he said. Korvin shook his head earnestly. "I am attempting," he said, "not to confuse you." "Then I ask for an answer," the Ruler said. "I request that I be allowed to ask a question," Korvin said. The Ruler hesitated, then nodded. "Ask it," he said. "We shall answer it if we see fit to do so." Korvin tried to look grateful. "Well, then," he said, "what is your government?" The Ruler beckoned to a heavy-set green being, who stepped forward from a knot of Tr'en, inclined his head in Korvin's direction, and began. "Our government is the only logical form of government," he said in a high, sweet tenor. "The Ruler orders all, and his subjects obey. In this way uniformity is gained, and this uniformity aids in the speed of possible action and in the weight of action. All Tr'en act instantly in the same manner. The Ruler is adopted by the previous Ruler; in this way we are assured of a common wisdom and a steady judgment." "You have heard our government defined," the Ruler said. "Now, you will define yours for us." Korvin shook his head. "If you insist," he said, "I'll try it. But you won't understand it." The Ruler frowned. "We shall understand," he said. "Begin. Who governs you?" "None," Korvin said. "But you are governed?" Korvin nodded. "Yes." "Then there is a governor," the Ruler insisted. "True," Korvin said. "But everyone is the governor." "Then there is no government," the Ruler said. "There is no single decision." "No," Korvin said equably, "there are many decisions binding on all." "Who makes them binding?" the Ruler asked. "Who forces you to accept these decisions? Some of them must be unfavorable to some beings?" "Many of them are unfavorable," Korvin said. "But we are not forced to accept them." "Do you act against your own interests?" Korvin shrugged. "Not knowingly," he said. The Ruler flashed a look at the technicians handling the lie-detector. Korvin turned to see their expression. They needed no words; the lie-detector was telling them, perfectly obviously, that he was speaking the truth. But the truth wasn't making any sense. "I told you you wouldn't understand it," he said. "It is a defect in your explanation," the Ruler almost snarled. "My explanation is as exact as it can be," he said. The Ruler breathed gustily. "Let us try something else," he said. "Everyone is the governor. Do you share a single mind? A racial mind has been theorized, though we have met with no examples—" "Neither have we," Korvin said. "We are all individuals, like yourselves." "But with no single ruler to form policy, to make decisions—" "We have no need of one," Korvin said calmly. "Ah," the Ruler said suddenly, as if he saw daylight ahead. "And why not?" "We call our form of government democracy ," Korvin said. "It means the rule of the people. There is no need for another ruler." One of the experts piped up suddenly. "The beings themselves rule each other?" he said. "This is clearly impossible; for, no one being can have the force to compel acceptance of his commands. Without his force, there can be no effective rule." "That is our form of government," Korvin said. "You are lying," the expert said. One of the technicians chimed in: "The machine tells us—" "Then the machine is faulty," the expert said. "It will be corrected." Korvin wondered, as the technicians argued, how long they'd take studying the machine, before they realized it didn't have any defects to correct. He hoped it wasn't going to be too long; he could foresee another stretch of boredom coming. And, besides, he was getting homesick. It took three days—but boredom never really had a chance to set in. Korvin found himself the object of more attention than he had hoped for; one by one, the experts came to his cell, each with a different method of resolving the obvious contradictions in his statements. Some of them went away fuming. Others simply went away, puzzled. On the third day Korvin escaped. It wasn't very difficult; he hadn't thought it would be. Even the most logical of thinking beings has a subconscious as well as a conscious mind, and one of the ways of dealing with an insoluble problem is to make the problem disappear. There were only two ways of doing that, and killing the problem's main focus was a little more complicated. That couldn't be done by the subconscious mind; the conscious had to intervene somewhere. And it couldn't. Because that would mean recognizing, fully and consciously, that the problem was insoluble. And the Tr'en weren't capable of that sort of thinking. Korvin thanked his lucky stars that their genius had been restricted to the physical and mathematical. Any insight at all into the mental sciences would have given them the key to his existence, and his entire plan, within seconds. But, then, it was lack of that insight that had called for this particular plan. That, and the political structure of the Tr'en. The same lack of insight let the Tr'en subconscious work on his escape without any annoying distractions in the way of deep reflection. Someone left a door unlocked and a weapon nearby—all quite intent, Korvin was sure. Getting to the ship was a little more complicated, but presented no new problems; he was airborne, and then space-borne, inside of a few hours after leaving the cell. He set his course, relaxed, and cleared his mind. He had no psionic talents, but the men at Earth Central did; he couldn't receive messages, but he could send them. He sent one now. Mission accomplished; the Tr'en aren't about to come marauding out into space too soon. They've been given food for thought—nice indigestible food that's going to stick in their craws until they finally manage to digest it. But they can't digest it and stay what they are; you've got to be democratic, to some extent, to understand the idea. What keeps us obeying laws we ourselves make? What keeps us obeying laws that make things inconvenient for us? Sheer self-interest, of course—but try to make a Tr'en see it! With one government and one language, they just weren't equipped for translation. They were too efficient physically to try for the mental sciences at all. No mental sciences, no insight into my mind or their own—and that means no translation. But—damn it—I wish I were home already. I'm bored absolutely stiff! THE END

Why did people say the story about Clinton hiding under a blanket to meet a woman was untrue?

They know Clinton cheats on his wife

They were Clinton-haters

It was published by the Washington Times

He could not have gotten back home without being found out

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

What made it easier for previous presidents to get away with adultery?

Their staff did not know

They always tried to hide it well

The reporters never found out

The secret service budget was small

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

Why did the press not report on JFK's adultery?

They knew about it but felt threatened

They suspected it but did not know for sure

They never suspected it

They suspected it but did not want to print this kind of story

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

Where in the White House is it feasible for the president to meet a woman?

Only the East Wing

Only the private quarters

Only the oval office, bowling alley, or East Wing

Only the private quarters or the office restroom

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

What is the best way for a president to sneak a woman into the White House?

Through the service elevator

Through the oval office

Through the tunnel

Through the gate

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

According to The Washington Times,

No president before Clinton had an affair while in the White house.

The Secret Service is more of an "in name only" title, and there was no way they could keep an eye on Clinton all the time, so they probably knew nothing of the affair.

It would be almost impossible for Clinton to have had an affair without the Secret Service knowing.

There are no fewer than five possible explanations of how Clinton had an affair without the world finding out faster than it did.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

Who was on the list of those who knew about Kennedy's affair?

The Secret Service members were the only ones who knew what was going on.

His wife and mistress were the only two who knew about the affair.

He did not have an affair.

His aids, secretary, drivers, guards, Secret Service, the domestic staff, and many friends and family members of both parties.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

How did Kennedy make it much more difficult for Clinton to have an affair while in office?

He was so well known for his affairs that a committee was employed simply to keep an eye on all President's personal lives after he left office.

Kennedy did not want to think of other presidents having affairs while in office, so he created a protocol for the White House staff to follow from then on.

After his death, the number of Secret Service agents multiplied exponentially, meaning that the President was virtually never alone.

He didn't, as he was a faithful man.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

How does Camp David come into play if the President wants to "entertain" someone, not his wife?

It is not suggested, as there are too many ways his wife and the media can find out about what is going on.

He must place faith in the fact that his wife will be occupied in a different area of Camp David when he is scheduled to meet with his lady friend.

He has the Navy and Marines to protect shield him from his wife.

He has to invite his trusted friends and staffers for a getaway, not invite his wife, and ensure that the lady friend is on the guest list.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

The most "foolproof" plan for the President to carry on an affair is

Make sure that he pays off anyone who is involved or sees any indiscretions.

Simply have an affair and forget about the coverup.

Get his wife's permission, and the rest does not matter.

To have a conjoining room with an aid, have the woman go to the aid's room, then come through the conjoining door. When the evening is over, she goes back the way she came.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

How many times does the word "but/But" appear in this sotry

about 20

about 10

about25

about 15

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

What can we infer from the longest sentence in this story?

Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them.

Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection.

the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail.

The Washington Times is expressing great excitement about a new book written by a former FBI agent.

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

How many times do personal pronouns appear in the article?

about 109

about 129

about 119

about 99

The logistics of presidential adultery. The Washington Times could hardly contain its excitement: "A former FBI agent assigned to the White House describes in a new book how President Clinton slips past his Secret Service detail in the dead of night, hides under a blanket in the back of a dark-colored sedan, and trysts with a woman, possibly a celebrity, at the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington." For Clinton-haters, Gary Aldrich's tale sounded too good to be true. And it was. The not-so-Secret-Service agent's "source" turned out to be a thirdhand rumor passed on by Clinton scandalmonger David Brock. Those who know about White House security--Clinton staffers, the Secret Service, former aides to Presidents Reagan and Bush--demolished Aldrich's claims. Clinton couldn't give his Secret Service agents the slip (they shadow him when he walks around the White House), couldn't arrange a private visit without tipping off hotel staff, and couldn't re-enter the White House without getting nabbed. (Guards check all cars at the gate--especially those that arrive at 4 a.m.) Even so, the image resonates. For some Americans, it is an article of faith: Bill Clinton cheated on his wife when he was governor, and he cheats on her as president. But can he? Is it possible for the president of the United States to commit adultery and get away with it? Maybe, but it's tougher than you think. Historically, presidential adultery is common. Warren Harding cavorted with Nan Britton and Carrie Phillips. Franklin Roosevelt "entertained" Lucy Rutherford at the White House when Eleanor was away. America was none the wiser, even if White House reporters were. Those who know Clinton is cheating often point to the model of John F. Kennedy, who turned presidential hanky-panky into a science. Kennedy invited mistresses to the White House for afternoon (and evening, and overnight) liaisons. Kennedy seduced women on the White House staff (including, it seems, Jackie's own press secretary). Kennedy made assignations outside the White House, then escaped his Secret Service detail by scaling walls and ducking out back doors. If Kennedy did it, so can Clinton. Well, no. Though Clinton slavishly emulates JFK in every other way, he'd be a fool to steal Kennedy's MO d'amour . Here's why: 1) Too many people would know. Kennedy hardly bothered to hide his conquests. According to Kennedy mistress (and mob moll) Judith Campbell's autobiography, those who knew about their affair included: Kennedy's personal aides and secretary (who pandered for him), White House drivers, White House gate guards, White House Secret Service agents, White House domestic staff, most of Campbell's friends, a lot of Kennedy's friends, and several Kennedy family members. Such broad circulation would be disastrous today because: 2) The press would report it. Kennedy conducted his affairs brazenly because he trusted reporters not to write about them. White House journalists knew about, or at least strongly suspected, Kennedy's infidelity, but never published a story about it. Ask Gary Hart if reporters would exercise the same restraint today. Clinton must worry about this more than most presidents. Not only are newspapers and magazines willing to publish an adultery story about him, but many are pursuing it. For the same reason, Clinton would find it difficult to hire a mistress. A lovely young secretary would set off alarm bells in any reporter investigating presidential misbehavior. Says a former Clinton aide, "There has been a real tendency to have no good-looking women on the staff in order to protect him." 3) Clinton cannot avoid Secret Service protection. During the Kennedy era, the Secret Service employed fewer than 500 people and had an annual budget of about $4 million. Then came Lee Harvey Oswald, Squeaky Fromme, and John Hinckley. Now the Secret Service payroll tops 4,500 (most of them agents), and the annual budget exceeds $500 million (up 300 percent just since 1980). At any given time, more than 100 agents guard the president in the White House. Top aides from recent administrations are adamant: The Secret Service never lets the president escape its protection. So what's a randy president to do? Any modern presidential affair would need to meet stringent demands. Only a tiny number of trusted aides and Secret Service agents could know of it. They would need to maintain complete silence about it. And no reporters could catch wind of it. Such an affair is improbable, but--take heart, Clinton-haters--it's not impossible. Based on scuttlebutt and speculation from insiders at the Clinton, Bush, Reagan, and Ford White Houses, here are the four likeliest scenarios for presidential adultery. 1) The White House Sneak. This is a discreet variation of the old Kennedy/Campbell liaison. It's late at night. The president's personal aides have gone home. The family is away. He is alone in the private quarters. The private quarters, a k a "the residence," occupy the second and third floors of the White House. Secret Service agents guard the residence's entrances on the first floor and ground floors, but the first family has privacy in the quarters themselves. Maids and butlers serve the family there, but the president and first lady ask them to leave when they want to be alone. The president dials a "friend" on his private line. (Most presidents placed all their calls through the White House operators, who kept a record of each one; the Clintons installed a direct-dial line in the private quarters.) The president invites the friend over for a cozy evening at the White House. After he hangs up with the friend, he phones the guard at the East Executive Avenue gate and tells him to admit a visitor. He also notifies the Secret Service agent and the usher on duty downstairs that they should send her up to the residence. A taxi drops the woman near the East gate. She identifies herself to the guard, who examines her ID, runs her name through a computer (to check for outstanding warrants), and logs her in a database. A White House usher escorts her into the East Wing of the White House. They walk through the East Wing and pass the Secret Service guard post by the White House movie theater. The agent on duty waves them on. The usher takes her to the private elevator, where another Secret Service agent is posted. She takes the elevator to the second floor. The president opens the door and welcomes her. Under no circumstances could she enter the living quarters without first encountering Secret Service agents. Let us pause for a moment to demolish two of the splashier rumors about White House fornication. First, the residence is the only place in the White House where the president can have safe (i.e. uninterrupted) sex. He can be intruded upon or observed everywhere else--except, perhaps, the Oval Office bathroom. Unless the president is an exhibitionist or a lunatic, liaisons in the Oval Office, bowling alley, or East Wing are unimaginable. Second, the much-touted tunnel between the White House and the Treasury Department is all-but-useless to the presidential adulterer. It is too well-guarded. The president could smuggle a mistress through it, but it would attract far more attention from White House staff than a straightforward gate entry would. Meanwhile, back in the private quarters, the president and friend get comfortable in one of the 14 bedrooms (or, perhaps, the billiard room). After a pleasant 15 minutes (or two hours?), she says goodbye. Depending on how long she stays, she may pass a different shift of Secret Service agents as she departs. She exits the White House grounds, unescorted and unbothered, at the East gate. The Risks : A gate guard, an usher, and a handful of Secret Service agents see her. All of them have a very good idea of why she was there. The White House maid who changes the sheets sees other suspicious evidence. And the woman's--real--name is entered in a Secret Service computer. None of this endangers the president too much. The computer record of her visit is private, at least for several decades after he leaves office. No personal aides know about the visit. Unless they were staking out the East gate, no journalists do either. The Secret Service agents, the guard, the steward, and the maid owe their jobs to their discretion. Leaks get them fired. That said, the current president has every reason not to trust his Secret Service detail. No one seriously compares Secret Service agents (who are pros) to Arkansas state troopers (who aren't). But Clinton might not trust any security guards after the beating he took from his Arkansas posse. Also, if other Secret Service agents are anything like Aldrich, they may dislike this president. One Secret Service leak--the lamp-throwing story--already damaged Clinton. Agents could tattle again. 2) The "Off-the-Record" Visit. Late at night, after his personal aides and the press have gone home, the president tells his Secret Service detail that he needs to take an "off-the-record" trip. He wants to leave the White House without his motorcade and without informing the press. He requests two agents and an unobtrusive sedan. The Secret Service shift leader grumbles, but accepts the conditions. Theoretically, the president could refuse all Secret Service protection, but it would be far more trouble than it's worth. He would have to inform the head of the Secret Service and the secretary of the Treasury. The president and the two agents drive the unmarked car to a woman friend's house. Ideally, she has a covered garage. (An apartment building or a hotel would raise considerably the risk of getting caught.) The agents guard the outside of the house while the president and his friend do their thing. Then the agents chauffeur the president back to the White House, re-entering through the Southwest or Southeast gate, away from the press station. The Risks : Only two Secret Service agents and their immediate supervisor know about the visit. It is recorded in the Secret Service log, which is not made public during the administration's tenure. Gate guards may suspect something fishy when they see the car. A reporter or passer-by could spy the president--even through tinted windows--as the car enters and exits the White House. The friend's neighbors might spot him, or they might notice the agents lurking outside her house. A neighbor might call the police to report the suspicious visitors. All in all, a risky, though not unthinkable, venture. 3. The Camp David Assignation. A bucolic, safer version of the White House Sneak. The president invites a group of friends and staffers--including his paramour but not his wife--to spend the weekend at Camp David. The girlfriend is assigned the cabin next to the president's lodge. Late at night, after the Hearts game has ended and everyone has retired to their cabins, she strolls next door. There is a Secret Service command post outside the cabin. The agents on duty (probably three of them) let her enter. A few hours later, she slips back to her own cabin. The Risks : Only a few Secret Service agents know about the liaison. Even though the guest list is not public, all the Navy and Marine personnel at Camp David, as well as the other guests, would know that the presidential entourage included an attractive woman, but not the first lady. That would raise eyebrows if it got back to the White House press room. 4. The Hotel Shuffle. The cleverest strategy, and the only one that cuts out the Secret Service. The president is traveling without his family. The Secret Service secures an entire hotel floor, reserving elevators and guarding the entrance to the president's suite. The president's personal aide (a man in his late 20s) takes the room adjoining the president's. An internal door connects the two rooms, so the aide can enter the president's room without alerting the agents in the hall. This is standard practice. Late in the evening, the aide escorts a comely young woman back to the hotel. The Secret Service checks her, then waves her into the aide's room. She emerges three hours later, slightly disheveled. She kisses the aide in the hall as she leaves. Someone got lucky--but who? The Risks : The posted Secret Service agents might see through the charade. More awkwardly, the aide would be forced to play the seamy role of procurer. (He would probably do it. Kennedy's assistants performed this task dutifully.) In short, presidential adultery is just barely possible in 1996. But it would be extremely inconvenient, extremely risky, and potentially disastrous. It seems, in fact, a lot more trouble than it's worth. A president these days might be wiser to imitate Jimmy Carter, not Jack Kennedy, and only lust in his heart.

The author of this piece seems to feel that blame befalls many people involved in this scandal because

They were not loyal to Clinton, and because he was the president, it was everyone's ultimate duty to remain loyal to him.

They did not alert the media soon enough.

They all knew what was going on, and they did not tell Hillary.

Even though they did not seem to be directly involved or cause problems because they did not quit their jobs on principle, they were at fault.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

According to the author, does the public received any blame for these events? Why or why not?

No, they had called to have Clinton impeached for his indiscretions, so they did more than they needed in order to show their disapproval for his actions.

No, how can they be held accountable for something that two consenting adults participate in?

Yes, because they were obsessed with this issue, innocent people were hurt.

Yes, because they pretend to despise White House scandals such as this, yet, they could not get enough of it.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

The information presented shows that the person who was the most innocent involved in this scandal to be

Linda Tripp

Hillary

Chelsea

Monica

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

Why was Hillary faulted in this scandal?

She did not do enough to protect her daughter from what happened.

She spoke out against her husband, and no one should speak out against our President regardless.

She and Bill have an open relationship, and she is involved with a woman.

She stood by him even though she knew he was guilty of the affair.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

What is one of Jessie Jackson's "minuses" in relation to this issue?

He did not rebuke Clinton for his actions.

He does not meet with Monica.

He was not really there for Clinton in his time of spiritual need.

He used his time as pastoral counsel for Clinton to gain media attention.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

What are the general trends in the listing order of individuals/groups ranked in this article?

Individuals/groups were usually ranked from least prominent to most prominent.

Individuals/groups were usually ranked from most liked to least liked.

Individuals/groups were usually ranked from most prominent to least prominent.

Individuals/groups were usually ranked from least liked to most liked.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

How does Slate morally consider the implications of being loyal or unloyal to Clinton in the scandal?

It's consistently seen as a bad thing.

Loyalty or lack thereof isn't referenced enough within the article to make any generalizations.

Loyalty or lack thereof can be seen as a plus or minus depending on the context.

It's consistently seen as a good thing.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

Off the following options, which best summarizes this article?

Slate attempts to consider how Monica Lewinsky, specifically, was disproportionately shamed compared to others involved in the unravelling of the scandal.

Slate attempts to dig through the scandal and address information that was not previously considered.

Slate attempts to prove that Bill Clinton, specifically, was disproportionately shamed compared to others involved in the unravelling of the scandal.

Slate attempts to address the various ways in which the public views those involved in the scandal, and speculates upon whether those views are accurate.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

Within the article, which of the following is NOT a minus that's listed in the ratings?

Failed to investigate Clinton's refutation of the scandal.

Used the scandal as leverage to attempt impeachment.

Discussed the scandal with others.

Wrote two memoirs for profit as a result of the scandal.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

How would you compare and contrast the overall assessments of Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton?

Neither of them were severely harmed by Bill Clinton's actions, and they were equally treated with mild amounts of sympathy.

Chelsea Clinton had more of a choice to remove herself from the limelight because she was just the daughter.

Both were clearly harmed by Bill Clinton's actions, and they were equally treated with sympathy.

Both of them were viewed with some sympathy, but Chelsea was deemed more deserving of sympathy because Hillary was somewhat complicit.

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

According to Slate's ratings, which of the orderings below correctly goes from most reprehensible to least reprehensible?

Bob Barr, James Carville, Lanny Davis, Erskine Bowles

Lanny Davis, Bob Barr, James Carville, Erskine Bowles

Bob Barr, Erskine Bowles, James Carville, Lanny Davis

James Carville, Lanny Davis, Bob Barr, Erskine Bowles

The Flytrap Blame Game One of the few truths universally acknowledged about Flytrap is that presidential secretary Betty Currie deserves our sympathy: an honest, loyal civil servant dragooned into a scandal she had nothing to do with. But does Currie deserve such sanctification? After all, she knew Clinton's history when she took her job then enabled Clinton's sleaziness anyway. She stood by while Clinton cuckolded his wife and perhaps even helped him commit obstruction of justice. And did she protest? Not as far as we have heard. Did she quit on principle? No. Currie may not be Flytrap's chief malefactor, but nor is she the saintly innocent that the American public believes her to be. The Currie case suggests that Flytrap needs a moral recalibration. Monica Lewinsky, for example, has fantastically low approval ratings, much lower than Clinton's. One poll I saw pegged her favorability rating at 5 percent (even Newt Gingrich manages at least 25 percent). Now, Monica certainly isn't the heroine of Flytrap. She did seduce a married man, damage the presidency for the sake of casual sex, lie frequently and insouciantly, and blab her "secret" affair to anyone who'd listen. But she was also sexually exploited by her older, sleazy boss; had her reputation smeared by Clinton's lackeys; and was betrayed by her "friend" Linda Tripp. She hardly deserves such universal contempt. Others besides Currie have benefited from the public's excessive generosity. George Stephanopoulos has become a white knight of Flytrap, the former Clinton aide who had the courage to turn on his boss. And bravo to George for chastising Clinton! But it smacks of hypocrisy for Stephanopoulos to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying, womanizing dog. He has, after all known this since 1992. Back then Stephanopoulos himself helped quell bimbo eruptions and parroted Clinton's lying denials. He has never shouldered blame for those deceptions. (Mickey Kaus first noted Stephanopoulos' unbearable sanctimony in this "Chatterbox" item in January.) And while loyalty isn't a universal good, it was opportunistic for Stephanopoulos to betray Clinton just at the moment Clinton's stock was about to plunge. (Sometimes, of course, the public's rating is dead on target. Linda Tripp's allies--a group that includes her lawyers, Kenneth Starr, the Goldberg family, and absolutely no one else as far as I can tell--have tried repeatedly to improve her sorry public image. Jonah Goldberg tried right here in Slate. No sale.) Below is Slate 's entire scorecard, which ranks 31 of Flytrap's key players: The scale runs from -10 to +10. Anything less than zero means the player is a net miscreant. Anything above zero rates a sympathy card. (This is not, of course, an exact science. How, for example, do we judge Ann Lewis compared to other last ditch Clinton defenders? Lewis is said to be more outraged by Clinton's misbehavior than The Guys in the White House. Yet Lewis didn't quit in disgust. Is her outrage a plus or a minus if she doesn't act on it? You decide.) The Scorecard Bill Clinton (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: To recapitulate a) Had an adulterous affair with a young intern. b) Lied about it to everyone . c) Probably perjured himself. d) Perhaps obstructed justice. e) Entangled allies and aides in his web of deceit. f) Humiliated his wife and daughter. g) Did not have the grace to apologize to Lewinsky. h)Tried to shift the blame for his failures onto his accusers. Pluses: a) Had his private life exposed to the world in a way no one's should be. b) Has been persecuted by enemies who won't be satisfied until he is destroyed. Slate rating-- He never asked for our sympathy, and he doesn't deserve it: -9 Dick Morris (The public's rating: -6 ) Minuses: a) Encouraged Clinton's most deplorable habits: lying and polling. (When Clinton revealed his adultery to Morris, the political consultant immediately took a poll to see how America would respond to a Clinton admission. When the results suggested Americans would be angry if Clinton had perjured himself, Morris encouraged Clinton to deny the affair.) b) Further sullied the Clintons with a revolting comment suggesting that Clinton cheats because Hillary is a lesbian. c) Not even loyal enough to keep his mouth shut. Pluses: I cannot think of any. Slate rating: -7 Linda Tripp (The public's rating: -7 ) Minuses: a) Betrayed her "friend." b) Obsessively nosed into the private lives of others. c) Tried to score a book deal off sex gossip and other people's distress. d) Tattletale. Pluses: a) Whistleblower (see d under Minuses): risked humiliation to expose something she believed was wrong. b) Smeared mercilessly by Clinton allies, the media. Slate rating: -7 James Carville (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Has known about Clinton's woman problem since 1992. b) Happily parroted Clinton's denial despite knowing that Clinton was a deceitful womanizer. c) Has not expressed the slightest chagrin or disappointment since Clinton's apology. d) Has not retreated from vicious attacks on Starr, despite evidence of Clinton's lies. Pluses: a) Perfectly loyal. b) Consistent in attacks against Starr. Slate rating: -5 Bruce Lindsey (The public's rating : To be determined ) Minuses: a) Not yet known what he did to protect Clinton from the Lewinsky affair. Early signs suggest he knew a lot and helped clean it up. Pluses: a) Unquestionably loyal to his boss. b) Silent. Slate rating-- Not enough information to make a clean guess: Approx -5 Vernon Jordan (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) May have known and must have suspected that Lewinsky was a mistress (given that he and Clinton are confidants, it's hard to believe that Jordan was totally in the dark about her). b) Protected too readily by Washington establishment. Pluses: a) May have helped Lewinsky simply because he's bighearted and generous not because she was the president's lover. Slate rating: -4 Sidney Blumenthal (The public's rating: -3 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Pushed for Clinton to be aggressive rather than contrite during his speech. c) Trumpeted Clinton's denial but has not expressed chagrin now that Clinton has admitted his lies. Pluses: a) Consistent in belief that Starr is an ideologue and that the sex charges are political. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -3 Lanny Davis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Said for seven months that we'd have to "wait and see." Then, when Clinton finally admitted his lies, Davis was hardly embarrassed or critical of the president. Pluses: a) Loyalty to old boss. Slate rating: -3 George Stephanopoulos (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritical for him to "discover" in 1998 that Clinton is a lying dog. After all, he knew that Clinton was a lech in 1992 and helped cover it up. Yet he has never shouldered responsibility for the lies Clinton told then. b) Disloyal to turn on old boss as viciously as he has in past few weeks. Pluses: a) Had courage to turn on old boss and criticize his moral lapses. b) Urged Clinton to be fully contrite. Slate rating: -2 Betty Currie (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Abetted adulterous affair. b) May have abetted obstruction of justice. c) Knew what she was getting into when she took the job so can't be excused on grounds of naiveté. d) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Reputation for honesty. b) Probably dragooned into cover-up against her will. Slate rating: -2 Paul Begala (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. b) Did not quit on principle after Clinton admitted lies. Pluses: a) Urged president to be contrite and wrote excellent, sufficiently apologetic speech. b) Loyal. Slate rating: -2 Rahm Emanuel (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Begala (except Emanuel didn't write the speech). Slate rating: -2 Ann Lewis (The public's rating: -1 ) Minuses and Pluses: Same as Emanuel, except Lewis seems more morally outraged with Clinton than other White House aides. Slate rating: -2 Monica Lewinsky (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seduced a married man. b) Damaged and endangered the presidency for the sake of casual sex. c) Has lied frequently. d) Is a capable adult, not--as her advocates claim--a naive child, defenseless against the president's wiles. e) Protected herself with immunity when she needed to, even though her testimony would do enormous harm to Clinton and the nation. f) Blabbed her "secret" affair to lots of people. (So, while she was dragged into the scandal against her will, it was her own loquaciousness that made the dragging possible.) Pluses: a) Sexually exploited by her older boss. b) Had her reputation smeared by Clintonistas and the media. c) Betrayed by Linda Tripp. d) Dragged into the scandal against her will. Slate rating: -2 Mike McCurry (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun and spun and spun the president's denial for months without bothering to check if it was true. Pluses: a) Was clearly dismayed by the entire scandal and his role in it. b) Is quitting the administration (though not, apparently, on principle). c) Loyal. Slate rating: -1 David Kendall (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Relied on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble. Pluses: a) Relying on iffy legalisms to help Clinton escape trouble is his job. He's a lawyer. b) Admirably reticent, compared to Robert Bennett. Slate rating: -1 The Rev. Jesse Jackson (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Revealed Clinton family troubles immediately after his pastoral visit. b) Parlayed pastoral visit into a week of self-promotion. Pluses: a) Graciously counseled a political rival in time of need. b) Did not demand any political compensation in exchange. Slate rating: -1 Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Unapologetically vicious, partisan, and unforgiving in his impeachment quest. Pluses: a) Consistent throughout the scandal: He has been pushing impeachment since before Monica materialized in January. Slate rating: 0 Kenneth Starr (The public's rating: -9 ) Minuses: a) Seems merciless toward Clinton. b) Has pursued investigation into Clinton's private life with more zeal than seems appropriate. c) Is too willing to provoke constitutional standoffs for the sake of his investigation, seems indifferent to the dignity of the presidency. Pluses: a) Was right about Clinton and Lewinsky. b) Is compelled by law to investigate diligently and forcefully. c) Has been patient with the stonewalling, deceiving Clinton. Slate rating: +1 Paula Jones (The public's rating: -5 ) Minuses: a) Brought a legally dubious, gold-digging lawsuit. b) Resisted a settlement that would have saved the nation much embarrassment. c) Happily became a tool for Clinton's enemies. Pluses: a) Is vindicated because Clinton probably did it. b) Forced Clinton's lechery out in the open. c) Persisted in the face of ridicule and humiliation. Slate rating: +1 The American People (The public's rating: +7 ) Minuses: a) Hypocritically claim to despise scandal, follow it breathlessly, then blame the media for obsessing over it. b) Are secretly fascinated by the sleaziness of it. Pluses: a) Magnanimous toward the president. Slate rating: +1 The Media (The public's rating: -8 ) Minuses: a) No sense of proportionality. Coverage is wretchedly excessive even when it shouldn't be. b) Endlessly self-involved. How many stories have you seen about the media and the scandal? c) Unforgiving. The media want the scandal to continue, hence won't ever be satisfied that Clinton has suffered enough. Pluses: a) Worked hard to break a very important story and investigated the hell out of it. b) Unfairly savaged by hypocritical American people (see above). Slate rating: +1 Leon Panetta (The public's rating: +1 ) Minuses: a) Slightly disloyal to old boss. b) May have known about Clinton's extracurricular activities, yet turned a blind eye. c) On television too much. Pluses: a) Urged Clinton early on to come clean. b) Had good sense to leave the White House before corrupting himself. Slate rating: +1 Hillary Clinton (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: a) Knew what a lech he was, yet always protected him. b) May have always known truth about Lewinsky, yet still lied to protect Bill. c) Chose aggressive, political strategy over contrition. Pluses: a) Lied to, betrayed, and cuckolded by husband. b) Personally humiliated. c) May have disgraced her own good name by echoing his denials on the Today show. Slate rating-- She made a Faustian bargain, but you still feel sorry for Faust: +2 Al Gore (The public's rating: +3 ) Minuses: a) Did not (apparently) urge the president to come clean with American people. Pluses: a) Stayed loyal. b) Did not take advantage of scandal to burnish his own image. Slate rating: +2 Kathleen Willey (The public's rating: 0 ) Minuses: a) Was in it for the money (told her story partly in order to land a book contract). Pluses: a) Seems to have told story honestly and forthrightly. b) Reluctantly dragged into scandal. c) Was victimized by Clinton. Slate rating: +2 The Clinton Cabinet (The public's rating: +2 ) Minuses: a) Spun his denials without digging for the truth. b) Did not quit on principle. Pluses: a) Were conscripted unwillingly into scandal defense. (Unlike political aides such as Begala, who are expected to do political dirty work, the Cabinet members are public servants who should be kept away from such sleaze.) b) Were lied to by Clinton. c) Loyal. Slate rating: +3 Erskine Bowles (The public's rating: Doesn't care ) Minuses: a) Refused to involve himself in the critical issue of the presidency. b) Stood aside while White House was shanghaied by lawyers. Pluses: a) Stayed utterly silent about the scandal, clearly disgusted by it all. b) Kept the rest of the administration focused on policy, thus preventing total executive paralysis. c) Did not lie or spin for the president. Slate rating: +4 Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill. (The public's rating: +4 ) Minuses: There are none yet. Pluses: a) (Mostly) kept his mouth shut and prevented the House Judiciary Committee from jumping the gun on impeachment. Slate rating: +4 Secret Service (The public's rating: +8 ) Minuses: a) Fought Starr subpoena too hard because it considers itself the Praetorian Guard. Pluses: a) Dragged unwillingly into scandal by Clinton (unlike Currie or his political aides, the Secret Service agents have no choice about being near the president). b) Testified honestly but unwillingly, as they should. c) Did not leak. Slate rating: +5 Chelsea Clinton (The public's rating: +10 ) Minuses: There are none. Pluses: a) Humiliated and embarrassed by her father's misbehavior. b) Had family problems paraded before the world in a way they should not be. c) Has been endlessly psychologized by the media. d) Had her summer vacation ruined. Slate rating: +10 More Flytrap ...

Why does the Officer deliver his message so carefully to Kirk?

He can hardly control contain his anger for what Pa did

He killed Pa in a case of mistaken identity

He was good friends with Kirk’s father

He needs to maintain control over the relationship with the Hans

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

What do the Piruts want with the Ship?

To overtake it with the Hans

To kidnap the yellow daughter from it

They are not interested in the Ship, only raiding the Hans

The same thing the Hans want with it

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

What is the most powerful weapon any of the characters in the story have for combat?

Hunting rifles

Cannons

Catapults

Hand-thrown implements

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

What did Kirk think happened to his father after the message from the Officer?

Pa had turned on the Hans and led the Piruts straight to the pillboxes

Pa had invaded the Ship and was killed as discipline

Pa had double crossed the Officer

Pa was running to safety and was then killed to spare the rest of the people on the plain

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

Why might one not want to live in the universe in which this story takes place?

Kids at Kirk's age are routinely hazed and attacked

Mothers have to support the family through drastic measures

The individuals in the community are not accepting of others

Survival itself is difficult

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

Is Kirk's friend actually dangerous to the community?

Yes, he hated most people in the community

No, he just opposed the current leader

Yes, he was planning on inciting violence

No, he just wanted to point out injustice

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

Is Kirk a model citizen?

Yes, he followed all the rules set out by the Officers.

No, he wanted to kill the leader's son.

Yes, he was kind to his family and friends.

No, he hated the systems enforced by his community.

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

Of the following options, what best summarizes this story?

A boy realizes the full extent to which his community supports him.

A boy has to protect his whole family indefinitely.

A boy realizes the full extent to which his community oppresses him.

A boy has to prevent his friend from getting himself in danger.

THRALLS of the ENDLESS NIGHT By LEIGH BRACKETT The Ship held an ancient secret that meant life to the dying cast-aways of the void. Then Wes Kirk revealed the secret to his people's enemies—and found that his betrayal meant the death of the girl he loved. Wes Kirk shut his teeth together, hard. He turned his back on Ma Kirk and the five younger ones huddled around the box of heat-stones and went to the doorway, padding soft and tight with the anger in him. He shoved the curtain of little skins aside and crouched there with his thick shoulders fitted into the angle of the jamb, staring out, cold wind threading in across his splayed and naked feet. The hackles rose golden and stiff across Kirk's back. He said carefully, "I would like to kill the Captain and the First Officer and the Second Officer and all the little Officers, and the Engineers, and all their families." His voice carried inside on the wind eddies. Ma Kirk yelled, "Wes! You come here and let that curtain down! You want us all to freeze?" Her dark-furred shoulders moved rhythmically over the rocking child. She added sharply, "Besides, that's fool's talk, Jakk Randl's talk, and only gets the sucking-plant." "Who's to hear it?" Kirk raised his heavy overlids and let his pupils widen, huge liquid drops spreading black across his eyeballs, sucking the dim grey light into themselves, forcing line and shape out of blurred nothingness. He made no move to drop the curtain. The same landscape he had stared at since he was able to crawl by himself away from the box of heat-stones. Flat grey plain running right and left to the little curve of the horizon. Rocks on it, and edible moss. Wind-made gullies with grey shrubs thick in their bottoms, guarding their sour white berries with thorns and sacs of poisoned dust that burst when touched. Between the fields and the gullies there were huts like his own, sunk into the earth and sodded tight. A lot of huts, but not as many as there had been, the old ones said. The Hans died, and the huts were empty, and the wind and the earth took them back again. Kirk raised his shaggy head. The light of the yellow star they called Sun caught in the huge luminous blackness of his eyes. Beyond the Hansquarter, just where the flat plain began to rise, were the Engineers. Not many of them any more. You could see the dusty lumps where the huts had been, the tumbled heaps of metal that might have meant something once, a longer time ago than anyone could remember. But there were still plenty of huts standing. Two hands and one hand and a thumb of them, full of Engineers who said how the furrows should be laid for the planting but did nothing about the tilling of them. And beyond the Engineers—the Officers. The baby cried. Ma Kirk shrilled at her son, and two of the younger ones fought over a bone with no meat on it, rolling and snapping on the dirt floor. Kirk shifted his head forward to shut out the sound of them and followed the line of the plain upward with sullen, glowing eyes. The huts of the Engineers were larger than those in the Hansquarter. The huts of the Officers were not much larger than the Engineers', but there were more of them and they climbed higher up the grey slope. Five, nearly six hands of them, with the Captain's metal-roofed place highest of all. Highest and nearest, right under the titanic shape lifting jagged against the icy stars from the crest of the ridge. The Ship. Kirk's voice was soft in his thick throat. "I would like to kill them," he said. "I would like to kill them all." "Yah!" cried a shrill voice over his shoulder. "All but the Captain's yellow daughter!" Kirk spun angrily around. Lil, next below himself, danced back out of reach, her kilt of little skins flying around her thin hips. "Yah!" she said again, and wrinkled her flat nose. "I've seen you looking at her. All yellow from head to foot and beautiful pink lids to her eyes. You wouldn't kill her , I bet!" "I bet I'll half kill you if you don't shut up!" Lil stuck out her tongue. Kirk aimed a cuff at her. She danced behind his arm and jerked the curtain down and shot away again, making two jumps over the brawling young ones and the box of heat-stones. She squatted demurely beside Ma Kirk and said, as though nothing had happened, "Ma says will you please not let so much heat out." Kirk didn't say anything. He started to walk around the heat box. Lil yelled, "Ma!" The young ones stopped fighting, scuttling out of reach and watching with bright moist eyes, grinning. The baby had reached the hiccoughing stage. Ma Kirk said, "Sit down, or go pick on somebody your own size." Kirk stopped. "Aw, I wasn't going to hurt her. She has to be so smart!" He leaned forward to glare at Lil. "And I would so kill the Captain's daughter!" The baby was quiet. Ma Kirk laid it down in a nest of skins put close to the heat and said wearily: "You men, always talking about killing! Haven't we enough trouble without that?" Kirk looked at the little box of heat-stones, his pupils shrinking. "Maybe there'd be less trouble for us." Lil poked her shock of black hair around Ma Kirk's knee. Her big eyes glowed in the feeble light. She said, "You men! He's no man, Ma. He's just a little boy who has to stay behind and shoo the beetles out of the fields." The young ones giggled, well out of reach. Lil's thin body was strung tight, quivering to move. "Besides," she demanded, "what have the Officers and the Engineers ever done to you that you should want to kill them—all but the Captain's yellow daughter?" Kirk's big heavy chest swelled. "Ma," he said, "you make that brat shut up or I'll whale her, anyhow." Ma Kirk looked at him. "Your Pa's still big enough to whale you, young man! Now you stop it, both of you." "All right," said Kirk sullenly. He squatted down, holding his hands over the heat. His back twitched with the cold, but it was nice to have his belly warm, even if it was empty. "Wish Pa'd hurry up. I'm hungry. Hope they killed meat." Ma Kirk sighed. "Seems like meat gets scarcer all the time, like the heat-stones." "Maybe," said Kirk heavily, "it all goes to the same place." Lil snorted. "And where's that, Smarty?" His anger forced out the forbidden words. "Where everybody says, stupid! Into the Ship." There was suddenly a lot of silence in the room. The word "Ship" hung there, awesome and accusing. Ma Kirk's eyes flicked to the curtain over the door and back to her son. "Don't you say things like that, Wes! You don't know." "It's what everybody says. Why else would they guard the Ship the way they do? We can't even get near the outside of it." Lil tossed her head. "Well neither do they." "Not when we can see 'em, no. Of course not. But how do we know they haven't got ways of getting into the Ship that don't show from the plain? Jakk says a lot goes on that we don't know about." He got up, forcing his belief at them with his big square hands. "There must be something in the Ship that they don't want us to have. Something valuable, something they want to keep for themselves. What else could it be but heat-stones and maybe dried meat?" "We don't know, Wes! The Ship is—well, we shouldn't talk about it. And the Officers wouldn't do that. If they wanted us killed off they'd let the Piruts in on us, or the shags, and let 'em finish us quick. Freezing and starving would take too long. There'd be too many of us if we found out, or got mad." Kirk snorted. "You women know so much. If they let the shags or the Piruts in on us, how could they stop 'em before they killed everybody, including the Officers? As for slow death—well, they think we're dumb. They've kept us away from the Ship ever since the Crash , and nobody knows how long ago that was. They think they can go on doing it. They think we'd never suspect." "Yah!" said Lil sharply. "You just like to talk. Why should the Officers want us killed off anyhow?" Kirk looked at the thin fuzzy baby curled tight in the skins. "There aren't enough heat-stones to go around any more. Why should they let their young ones cry with the cold?" There was silence in the room again. Kirk felt it, thick and choky. His heart kicked against his ribs. He was scared, suddenly. He'd never talked that much before. It was the baby, crying in the cold, that set him off. Suppose someone had heard him. Suppose he was reported for a mutineer. That meant the sucking-plant.... "Listen!" said Ma Kirk. Nerves crackled icily all over Kirk's skin. But there wasn't any need to listen. The noise rolled in over them. It hit rock faces polished by the wind, and the drifts of crystalline pebbles, and it splintered into a tangle of echoes that came from everywhere at once, but there was no mistaking it. No need even to use sensitive earcups to locate its source. The great alarm gong by the Captain's hut. Kirk began to move, very swiftly and quietly. Before the third gong stroke hit them he had his spear and his sling and was already lifting aside the door curtain. Ma Kirk said stiffly, "Which way are they coming?" Kirk's ears twitched. He sorted the gong sounds, and the wind, and found a whisper underneath them, rushing up out of the gullied plain. Kirk pointed. "From the west. Piruts, I think." Ma Kirk sucked in her breath. Her voice had no tone in it. "Your Pa went hunting that way." "Yeah," said Kirk. "I'll watch out for him." He glanced back just before he let the curtain drop. The pale glow of the heat-stones picked dots of luminous blackness out of the gloom, where the still breathless faces were, watching him. He saw the blurred shapes of clay cooking pots, of low bed frames, of huddled bodies. The baby began to whimper again. Kirk shivered in the cold wind. "Lil," he said. "I would, too, kill the Captain's yellow daughter." "Yah," said Lil. "Go chase the beetles away." There was no conviction in her voice. The wind was freezing on Kirk's bare feet. He dropped the curtain and went across the plain. Men and youths like himself, old enough to fight, were spilling out of low doorways and forming companies on the flat ground. Kirk spotted Jakk Randl and fell in beside him. They stood with their backs to the wind, stamping and shivering, their head-hair and scant fur clouts blown straight out. Randl nudged Kirk's elbow. "Look at 'em," he said, and coughed. He was always coughing, jerking his thin sharp face back and forth. Kirk could have broken his brittle light-furred body in two. All Randl's strength was in his eyes. The pupils were always spread, always hot with some bitter force, always probing. He wasn't much older than Kirk. Kirk looked up the hill. Officers were running from the huts below the gaunt, dead Ship. They didn't look so different from the Hans, only they were built a little taller and lighter, less bowed and bunchy in the shoulders, quicker on their feet. Kirk stepped behind Randl to shield him from the wind. His voice was only a whisper, but it had a hard edge. The baby's thin, terrible wail was still in his ears. "Is it true, Jakk? Do you know? Because if they are...." Randl laughed and shuddered with a secret, ugly triumph. "I crawled up on the peak during the last darkness. The guards were cold and the wind made them blind and deaf. I lay in the rocks and watched. And I saw...." He coughed. The Officers' voices rang sharp through the wind. Compact groups of men began to run, off toward the west. The whisper of sound had grown louder in Kirk's ears. He could hear men yelling and the ringing of metal on stone. He started to run, holding Randl's elbow. Grey dust blew under their feet. The drifts of crystal stones sent their sound shivering back at them in splinters. Kirk said fiercely: "What did you see?" They were passing under the hill now. Randl jerked his head. "Up there, Wes." Kirk looked up. Someone was standing at the doorway of the Captain's hut. Someone tall and slender and the color of the Sunstar from head to foot. "I saw her," said Randl hoarsely. "She was carrying heat-stones into the Ship." Kirk's pupils shrank to points no warmer nor softer than the tip of his knife. He smiled, almost gently, looking up the hill. The captain's yellow daughter, taking life into the Ship. It was a big raid. Kirk saw that when he scrambled up out of the last gully, half-carrying the wheezing Randl. The Piruts had come up the tongue of rock between two deep cuts and tackled the guards' pillbox head on. They hadn't taken it, not yet. But they were still trying, piling up their dead on the swept grey stone. They were using shags again. They drove the lumbering beasts on into the hail of stones and thrown spears from the pillbox, keeping low behind them, and then climbing on the round hairy bodies. It took courage, because sometimes the shags turned and clawed the men who drove them, and sometimes the dead ones weren't quite dead and it was too bad for the man who climbed on them. It looked to Kirk as though the pillbox was pretty far gone. He ran down the slope with the others, slipping in the crystal drifts. Randl was spent. Kirk kept him going, thinking of the huts back there on the plain, and Ma and Lil and the little ones, and the baby. You had to fight the Piruts, no matter what you thought about the Officers. You had to keep them from getting onto the plain. He wondered about Pa. Hunting shags in the outer gullies was mean work any time, but when the Piruts were raiding.... No time to think about that. Wite, the second son of the First Officer, was signalling for double time. Kirk ran faster, his ears twitching furiously as they sifted the flying echoes into some kind of order. Pa hadn't been alone, of course. Frank and Russ went with him. The three of them would have sense enough to keep safe. Maybe they were in the pillbox. A big raid. More Piruts than he'd ever seen before. He wondered why. He wondered how so many of them had been able to get so close to the pillbox all at once, walking two or three abreast on the narrow tongue of rock under the spears and slingstones. They poured in through the gates of the stone-walled building, scattering up onto the parapet. There were slits in the rooms below and rusty metal things crouching behind them, but they weren't any good for fighting. A man needed shoulder room for spear and sling. It was pretty hot up there. The wall of bodies had built up so high, mostly with shags, that the Piruts were coming right over the wall. Kirk's nose wrinkled at the smell of blood. He avoided the biggest puddles and found a place to stand between the dead. Randl went down on his knees. He was coughing horribly, but his hot black eyes saw everything. He tried three times to lift his sling and gave it up. "I'll cover you," said Kirk. He began taking crystal pebbles out of a big pile that was kept there and hurling them at the Piruts. They made a singing noise in the air, and they didn't stop going when they hit. They were heavy for their size, very heavy, with sharp edges. Randl said, "Something funny, Wes. Too many Piruts. They couldn't risk 'em on an ordinary raid." Kirk grunted. A Pirut with red hair standing straight in the wind came over the wall. Kirk speared him left-handed in the belly, dodged the downstroke of his loaded sap, and kicked the body out of the way. He said, "Wonder how they got so close, so fast?" "Some trick." Randl laughed suddenly. "Funny their wanting the Ship as much as you and I do." "Think they could know what's in it?" Randl's narrow shoulders twitched. "Near as we know, their legend is the same as ours. Something holy in the Ship, sacred and tabu. Only difference is they want to get it for themselves, and we want to keep it." He coughed and spat in sudden angry disgust. "And we've swallowed that stuff. We've let the Officers hoard heat and food so they can live no matter what happens to us. We're fools, Wes! A lot of bloody fools!" He got up and began jabbing with his spear at heads that poked up over the wall. The Piruts began to slack off. Stones still whistled past Kirk's head—a couple of them had grazed him by now—and spears showered down, but they weren't climbing the walls any more. Randl grounded his spear, gasping. "That's that. Pretty soon they'll break, and then we can start thinking about...." He stopped. Kirk put a stone accurately through the back of a Pirut's head and said grimly: "Yeah. About what we're going to do." Randl didn't answer. He sat down suddenly, doubled over. Kirk grinned. "Take it easy," he said softly. "I'll cover you." Randl whispered, "Wes. Wes!" He held up one thin hand. Kirk let his own drop, looking at it. There was blood on it, running clear to the elbow. He went down beside Randl, putting his arms around him, trying to see. Randl shook him off. "Don't move me, you fool! Just listen." His voice was harsh and rapid. He was holding both hands over the left side of his neck, where it joined the shoulder. Kirk could see the bright blood beating up through his fingers. He said, "Jakk, I'll get the sawbones...." Hot black eyes turned to his. Burnt-out fires in a face with the young beard hardly full on its sharp jaw. "Sit down, Wes, quick, and listen. Sawbones is no good—and why would I want to go on living anyway?" He smiled. Kirk had never seen him smile like that, without bitterness or pain. He sat down, crouched on the body of a man who lived only two huts away from him. The blood made little red fountains between Randl's fingers. "It's up to you, Wes. You're the only one that really knows about the Ship. You'll do better than I would, anyhow. You're a fighter. You carry it on, so the Hans can live. Promise." Kirk nodded. He couldn't say anything. The heat was dying in Randl's eyes. "Listen, Wes. I saw the secret way into Ship. Bend closer, and listen...." Kirk bent. He didn't move for a long time. After a while Randl's voice stopped, and then the blood wasn't pumping any more, just oozing. Randl's hands slid away, so that Kirk could see the hole the stone had made. Everything seemed to be very quiet. Kirk sat there, holding Randl in his arms. Presently someone came up and shook Kirk's shoulder and said, "Hey, kid, are you deaf? We been yelling for you." He stopped, and then said more gently, "Oh. Jakk got it, did he?" Kirk laid the body carefully on the stones and got up. "Yeah." "Kind of a pal of yours, wasn't he?" "He wasn't very strong. He needed someone to cover him." "Too bad." The man shook his head, and then shrugged. "Maybe it's better, at that. He was headed for trouble, that one. Kinda leading you that way, too, I heard. Always talking." He looked at Kirk's face and shut up suddenly. He turned away and grunted over his shoulders, "The O.D.'s looking for you." Kirk followed. The wind was cold, howling up from the outer gullies. The Officer of the Day was waiting at the north end of the wall. There was a ladder dropped over it now, and men were climbing up and down with bodies and sheaves of recovered spears. More were busy down below, rolling the dead Piruts and the shags down into the deep gullies for the scavenger rats and the living shags who didn't mind turning cannibal. That ladder made Kirk think of Pa. It was the only way for a man to get into the outer gullies from the west escarpment of the colony. He shook some of the queer heaviness out of his head, touched his forelock and said: "I'm Wes Kirk, sir. You wanted me?" "Yes." The O.D. was also the Third Officer. Taller than Kirk, thinner, with the hair going grey on his body and exhausted eyes sunk deep under his horny overlids. He said quietly: "I'm sorry to have to tell you this...." Kirk knew. The knowledge leaped through him. It was strange, to feel a spear-stab where there was no spear. He said, "Pa." The Officer nodded. He seemed very tired, and he didn't look at Kirk. He hadn't, after the first glance. "Your father, and his two friends." Kirk shivered. The horny lids dropped over his eyes. "I wish I'd known," he whispered. "I'd have killed more of them." The Officer put his hands flat on the top of the wall and looked at them as if they were strange things and no part of him. "Kirk," he said, "this is going to be hard to explain. I've never done anything as hard. The Piruts didn't kill them. They were responsible, but they didn't actually kill them." Wes raised his head slowly. "I don't understand." "We saw them coming up the tongue of rock. The Piruts were behind them, but not far. Not far enough. One of the three, it wasn't your father, called to us to put the ladder down. We waited...." A muscle began to twitch under Kirk's eye. That, too, was something that had never happened before, like the stab of pain with no spear behind it. He licked his lips and repeated hoarsely: "I don't understand." The Officer tightened suddenly and made one hand into a fist and beat it slowly on the wall, up and down. "I didn't want to give the order. God knows I didn't want to! But there was nothing else to do." A man came up over the top of the ladder. He was carrying a body over his shoulder, and breathing hard. "Here's Kirk," he said. "Where'll I put him?" There was a clear space off to the right. Kirk pointed to it. "Over there, Charley. I'll help." It was hard to move. He'd never been tired like this before. He'd never been afraid like this, either. He didn't know what he was afraid of. Something in the Officer's voice. He helped to lay his father down. He'd seen bodies before. He'd handled them, fighting on the pillbox walls. But never one he'd known so long, one he'd eaten and slept and wrestled with. The thick arm that hauled him out of bed this morning, the big hands that warmed the baby against the barrel chest. You saw it lying lax and cold, but you didn't believe it. You saw it. You saw the spear shaft sticking out clean from the heart.... You saw it.... "That's one of our spears!" He screamed it, like a woman. "One of our own—from the front!" "I let them get as close as I dared," said the Officer tonelessly. "I tried to find a way. But there wasn't any way but the ladder, and that was what the Piruts wanted. That's why they made them come." Kirk's voice wasn't a voice at all. "You killed them. You killed my father." "Three lives, against all those back on the plain. We held our fire too long as it was, hoping. The Piruts nearly broke through. Try to understand! I had to do it." Kirk's spear made a flat clatter on the stone. He started forward. Men moved in and held him, without rancor, looking at their own feet. "Please try to understand," whispered the Officer. "I had to do it." The Officer, the bloody wall, the stars and the cold grey gullies all went away. There was nothing but darkness, and wind, a long way off. Kirk thought of Pa coming up under the wall, close to safety, close enough to touch it, and no way through. Pa and Frank and Russ, standing under the wall, looking up, and no way through. Looking up, calling to the men they knew, asking for help and getting a spear through the heart. After that, even the wind was gone, and the darkness had turned red. There was a voice, a long way off. It said, "God, he's strong!" Over and over. It got louder. There were weights on his arms and legs, and he couldn't throw them off. He was pressed against something. It was the wall. He saw that after a while. The wall where the Officer had been standing. There were six men holding him, three on each side. The Officer was gone. Kirk relaxed. He was shivering and covered with rime from body sweat. Somebody whistled. "Six men! Didn't know the kid had it in him." The Officer's voice said dully, "No discipline. Better take him home." Kirk tried to turn. The six men swung with him. Kirk said, "You better discipline me. You better kill me, because, if you don't, I'll kill you." "I don't blame you, boy. Go and rest. You'll understand." "I'll understand, all right." Kirk's voice was a hoarse, harsh whisper that came out by itself and wouldn't be stopped. "I'll understand about Pa, and the Ship with the heat-stones in it, and the Captain's yellow daughter getting fat and warm while my sisters freeze and go hungry. I'll understand, and I'll make everybody else understand, too!" The Officer's eyes held a quick fire. "Boy! Do you know what you're saying?" "You bet I know!" "That's mutiny. For God's sake, don't make things worse!" "Worse for us, or for you?" Kirk was shouting, holding his head up in the wind. "Listen, you men! Do you know what the Officers are doing up there in the Ship they won't let us touch?" There was an uneasy stirring among the Hans, a slipping aside of luminous black eyes. The Officer shut his jaw tight. He stepped in close to Kirk. "Shut up," he said urgently. "Don't make me punish you, not now. You're talking rot, but it's dangerous." Kirk's eyes were hot and not quite sane. He couldn't have stopped if he'd wanted to. "Rot, is it? Jakk Randl knew. He saw with his own eyes and he told me while he was dying. The Captain's yellow daughter, sneaking heat-stones into...." The Officer hit him on the jaw, carefully and without heat. Kirk sagged down. The Officer stepped back, looking as though he had a pain in him that he didn't want to show. He said quietly, but so that everyone could hear him, "Discipline, for not longer than it takes to clear the rock below." Two of the men nodded and took Kirk away down a flight of stone steps. One of the four who were left looked over the wall and spat. "Rock's pretty near clean," he said, "but even so...." He shook himself like a dog. "That Jakk Randl, he was always talking." One of the others flicked a quick look around and whispered, "Yeah. And maybe he knew what he was talking about!"

How did Ninon’s travel companion fare?

He died from the forces of light speed travel

He became more youthful until a baby and then ceased to exist

He landed with Ninon

He was reduced to particles

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

How did Ninon remain so youthful into her 50s on Earth?

She had access to other space technologies to keep her youthful from blackmailing the Commander

She was not youthful on Earth

She had travelled at light speed once before with Robert’s dad

She painstakingly disciplined herself to keep wrinkles from forming

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

How did Robert react to Ninon’s plan?

He was delighted to have her as a companion because he loved her

He was shocked to realize she had training to fly in space

He was not surprised, as he had suspected her for some time

He was shocked that she had masterminded a way onto the flight

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

How long was the spaceship in flight for in Earth years?

10 years

1 year

100 years

Unknown

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

How did Ninon think she could achieve eternal youth?

She believed one flight was enough to make her youth eternal upon returning to Earth

She believed that returning to Earth many, many years in the future there would be technologies to make humans live forever

Eternal youth was what she believed she would achieve in death

Once traveling faster than light was possible, she thought she might continually do this to remain young

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

Had any other civilization discussed in the story discovered space travel?

There was one other civilization that Earth knew had space travel

Space travel was known to exist in several other galaxies

Other spaceships were seen on the flight, suggesting yes

No, only Earth

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

Why did Robert want to go to space?

He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and fly to space like him

He needed to escape his life on Earth

He was after eternal youth himself

We don’t know for sure from the story

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

What best describes the relationship between Ninon and Robert?

They're friends with benefits but each wants a more committed relationship with the other person.

They're lifelong friends who care for each other.

They become rivals who'll stop at nothing to ensure the other fails to accomplish their goal.

Neither character knows about or cares for the other too much.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

Is there a romantic connection between Ninon and Robert?

Yes. He cares dearly for her and spends his last night with her and she wants him because of the resources and access he can provide for her.

Somewhat. They both care for each other but in different ways, it's unclear if they would survive a long-term relationship given Robert's space travel.

No. Robert only went to Ninon for sex before his takeoff, he wouldn't actually leave if he cared about Ninon's wellbeing.

Not really. Ninon sees him as a pawn to hijack the flight, and if Robert truly loved Ninon he probably wouldn't end up participating in the space travel.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

Of the following options, what best summarizes this story?

A vain woman has a tough time accepting the natural aging process but eventually succeeds.

A woman has a plan to reverse her aging process and the reader sees her follow through with it.

A woman tries to benevolently prove that people can become younger through space travel.

A woman attempts to hijack the flight of an astronaut she's in love with so they can both stay young and beautiful together forever.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

Of the following options, which is not a technology used in this story?

Guns that cause people to disintegrate rapidly

Cosmetic procedures to enhance youthfulness

Long-distance space travel

Guns that freeze people in time to prevent them from aging

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

If Ninon hadn't had as many procedures, what would've happened?

She would've dated somebody her age rather than Robert and would be happy anyway.

She would've looked older and probably would've felt more fulfilled.

She wouldn't have been able to hijack the flight because her body would've been too old to take on the damage that space travel causes.

She wouldn't have been able to hijack the flight because Robert wouldn't want to date someone as old as her.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

If Robert had refused to take Ninon with him, what would've most likely happened?

Robert would've sneakily gone by himself to the takeoff and ditched Ninon.

Ninon would've shot and killed him because he'd become useless in her endeavors.

Ninon would've talked him into it anyway because he's so dearly in love with her.

Ninon would've held him at gunpoint or drugged him until they had successfully completed takeoff.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

What was the narrative purpose of the video that Ninon shows Robert?

It was to show Ninon's love and dedication to Robert as a potential lifelong partner.

It was to prove that Ninon thinks little of Robert because he's can easily be replaced as a romantic partner.

It was to prove that everyone makes mistakes, and that Ninon is comfortable admitting that she's not perfect.

It was to show how much thought Ninon has put into making her plan and how determined she is to see it succeed.

<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> TIME and the WOMAN By Dewey, G. Gordon HER ONLY PASSION WAS BEAUTY—BEAUTY WHICH WOULD LAST FOREVER. AND FOR IT—SHE'D DO ANYTHING! Ninon stretched. And purred, almost. There was something lazily catlike in her flexing; languid, yet ferally alert. The silken softness of her couch yielded to her body as she rubbed against it in sensual delight. There was almost the litheness of youth in her movements. It was true that some of her joints seemed to have a hint of stiffness in them, but only she knew it. And if some of the muscles beneath her polished skin did not respond with quite the resilience of the youth they once had, only she knew that, too. But they would again , she told herself fiercely. She caught herself. She had let down her guard for an instant, and a frown had started. She banished it imperiously. Frowns—just one frown—could start a wrinkle! And nothing was as stubborn as a wrinkle. One soft, round, white, long-nailed finger touched here, and here, and there—the corners of her eyes, the corners of her mouth, smoothing them. Wrinkles acknowledged only one master, the bio-knife of the facial surgeons. But the bio-knife could not thrust deep enough to excise the stiffness in a joint; was not clever enough to remold the outlines of a figure where they were beginning to blur and—sag. No one else could see it—yet. But Ninon could! Again the frown almost came, and again she scourged it fiercely into the back of her mind. Time was her enemy. But she had had other enemies, and destroyed them, one way or another, cleverly or ruthlessly as circumstances demanded. Time, too, could be destroyed. Or enslaved. Ninon sorted through her meagre store of remembered reading. Some old philosopher had said, "If you can't whip 'em, join 'em!" Crude, but apt. Ninon wanted to smile. But smiles made wrinkles, too. She was content to feel that sureness of power in her grasp—the certain knowledge that she, first of all people, would turn Time on itself and destroy it. She would be youthful again. She would thread through the ages to come, like a silver needle drawing a golden filament through the layer on layer of the cloth of years that would engarment her eternal youth. Ninon knew how. Her shining, gray-green eyes strayed to the one door in her apartment through which no man had ever gone. There the exercising machines; the lotions; the unguents; the diets; the radioactive drugs; the records of endocrine transplantations, of blood transfusions. She dismissed them contemptuously. Toys! The mirages of a pseudo-youth. She would leave them here for someone else to use in masking the downhill years. There, on the floor beside her, was the answer she had sought so long. A book. "Time in Relation to Time." The name of the author, his academic record in theoretical physics, the cautious, scientific wording of his postulates, meant nothing to her. The one thing that had meaning for her was that Time could be manipulated. And she would manipulate it. For Ninon! The door chimes tinkled intimately. Ninon glanced at her watch—Robert was on time. She arose from the couch, made sure that the light was behind her at just the right angle so he could see the outlines of her figure through the sheerness of her gown, then went to the door and opened it. A young man stood there. Young, handsome, strong, his eyes aglow with the desire he felt, Ninon knew, when he saw her. He took one quick step forward to clasp her in his strong young arms. "Ninon, my darling," he whispered huskily. Ninon did not have to make her voice throaty any more, and that annoyed her too. Once she had had to do it deliberately. But now, through the years, it had deepened. "Not yet, Robert," she whispered. She let him feel the slight but firm resistance so nicely calculated to breach his own; watched the deepening flush of his cheeks with the clinical sureness that a thousand such experiences with men had given her. Then, "Come in, Robert," she said, moving back a step. "I've been waiting for you." She noted, approvingly, that Robert was in his spaceman's uniform, ready for the morrow's flight, as he went past her to the couch. She pushed the button which closed and locked the door, then seated herself beside the young spaceman on the silken couch. His hands rested on her shoulders and he turned her until they faced each other. "Ninon," he said, "you are so beautiful. Let me look at you for a long time—to carry your image with me through all of time and space." Again Ninon let him feel just a hint of resistance, and risked a tiny pout. "If you could just take me with you, Robert...." Robert's face clouded. "If I only could!" he said wistfully. "If there were only room. But this is an experimental flight—no more than two can go." Again his arms went around her and he leaned closer. "Wait!" Ninon said, pushing him back. "Wait? Wait for what?" Robert glanced at his watch. "Time is running out. I have to be at the spaceport by dawn—three hours from now." Ninon said, "But that's three hours, Robert." "But I haven't slept yet tonight. There's been so much to do. I should rest a little." "I'll be more than rest for you." "Yes, Ninon.... Oh, yes." "Not yet, darling." Again her hands were between them. "First, tell me about the flight tomorrow." The young spaceman's eyes were puzzled, hurt. "But Ninon, I've told you before ... there is so much of you that I want to remember ... so little time left ... and you'll be gone when I get back...." Ninon let her gray-green eyes narrow ever so slightly as she leaned away from him. But he blundered on. "... or very old, no longer the Ninon I know ... oh, all right. But you know all this already. We've had space flight for years, but only rocket-powered, restricting us to our own system. Now we have a new kind of drive. Theoretically we can travel faster than light—how many times faster we don't know yet. I'll start finding out tomorrow, with the first test flight of the ship in which the new drive is installed. If it works, the universe is ours—we can go anywhere." "Will it work?" Ninon could not keep the avid greediness out of her voice. Robert said, hesitantly, "We think it will. I'll know better by this time tomorrow." "What of you—of me—. What does this mean to us—to people?" Again the young spaceman hesitated. "We ... we don't know, yet. We think that time won't have the same meaning to everyone...." "... When you travel faster than light. Is that it?" "Well ... yes. Something like that." "And I'll be—old—or dead, when you get back? If you get back?" Robert leaned forward and buried his face in the silvery-blonde hair which swept down over Ninon's shoulders. "Don't say it, darling," he murmured. This time Ninon permitted herself a wrinkling smile. If she was right, and she knew she was, it could make no difference now. There would be no wrinkles—there would be only the soft flexible skin, naturally soft and flexible, of real youth. She reached behind her, over the end of the couch, and pushed three buttons. The light, already soft, dimmed slowly to the faintest of glows; a suave, perfumed dusk as precisely calculated as was the exact rate at which she let all resistance ebb from her body. Robert's voice was muffled through her hair. "What were those clicks?" he asked. Ninon's arms stole around his neck. "The lights," she whispered, "and a little automatic warning to tell you when it's time to go...." The boy did not seem to remember about the third click. Ninon was not quite ready to tell him, yet. But she would.... Two hours later a golden-voiced bell chimed, softly, musically. The lights slowly brightened to no more than the lambent glow which was all that Ninon permitted. She ran her fingers through the young spaceman's tousled hair and shook him gently. "It's time to go, Robert," she said. Robert fought back from the stubborn grasp of sleep. "So soon?" he mumbled. "And I'm going with you," Ninon said. This brought him fully awake. "I'm sorry, Ninon. You can't!" He sat up and yawned, stretched, the healthy stretch of resilient youth. Then he reached for the jacket he had tossed over on a chair. Ninon watched him with envious eyes, waiting until he was fully alert. "Robert!" she said, and the youth paused at the sharpness of her voice. "How old are you?" "I've told you before, darling—twenty-four." "How old do you think I am?" He gazed at her in silent curiosity for a moment, then said, "Come to think of it, you've never told me. About twenty-two or -three, I'd say." "Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be fifty-two." He stared at her in shocked amazement. Then, as his gaze went over the smooth lines of her body, the amazement gave way to disbelief, and he chuckled. "The way you said it, Ninon, almost had me believing you. You can't possibly be that old, or anywhere near it. You're joking." Ninon's voice was cold. She repeated it: "I am fifty-two years old. I knew your father, before you were born." This time she could see that he believed it. The horror he felt was easy to read on his face while he struggled to speak. "Then ... God help me ... I've been making love to ... an old woman!" His voice was low, bitter, accusing. Ninon slapped him. He swayed slightly, then his features froze as the red marks of her fingers traced across his left cheek. At last he bowed, mockingly, and said, "Your pardon, Madame. I forgot myself. My father taught me to be respectful to my elders." For that Ninon could have killed him. As he turned to leave, her hand sought the tiny, feather-light beta-gun cunningly concealed in the folds of her gown. But the driving force of her desire made her stay her hand. "Robert!" she said in peremptory tones. The youth paused at the door and glanced back, making no effort to conceal the loathing she had aroused in him. "What do you want?" Ninon said, "You'll never make that flight without me.... Watch!" Swiftly she pushed buttons again. The room darkened, as before. Curtains at one end divided and rustled back, and a glowing screen sprang to life on the wall revealed behind them. And there, in life and movement and color and sound and dimension, she—and Robert—projected themselves, together on the couch, beginning at the moment Ninon had pressed the three buttons earlier. Robert's arms were around her, his face buried in the hair falling over her shoulders.... The spaceman's voice was doubly bitter in the darkened room. "So that's it," he said. "A recording! Another one for your collection, I suppose. But of what use is it to you? I have neither money nor power. I'll be gone from this Earth in an hour. And you'll be gone from it, permanently—at your age—before I get back. I have nothing to lose, and you have nothing to gain." Venomous with triumph, Ninon's voice was harsh even to her ears. "On the contrary, my proud and impetuous young spaceman, I have much to gain, more than you could ever understand. When it was announced that you were to be trained to command this experimental flight I made it my business to find out everything possible about you. One other man is going. He too has had the same training, and could take over in your place. A third man has also been trained, to stand by in reserve. You are supposed to have rested and slept the entire night. If the Commandant of Space Research knew that you had not...." "I see. That's why you recorded my visit tonight. But I leave in less than an hour. You'd never be able to tell Commander Pritchard in time to make any difference, and he'd never come here to see...." Ninon laughed mirthlessly, and pressed buttons again. The screen changed, went blank for a moment, then figures appeared again. On the couch were she and a man, middle-aged, dignified in appearance, uniformed. Blane Pritchard, Commandant of Space Research. His arms were around her, and his face was buried in her hair. She let the recording run for a moment, then shut it off and turned up the lights. To Robert, she said, "I think Commander Pritchard would be here in five minutes if I called and told him that I have information which seriously affects the success of the flight." The young spaceman's face was white and stricken as he stared for long moments, wordless, at Ninon. Then in defeated tones he said, "You scheming witch! What do you want?" There was no time to gloat over her victory. That would come later. Right now minutes counted. She snatched up a cloak, pushed Robert out through the door and hurried him along the hall and out into the street where his car waited. "We must hurry," she said breathlessly. "We can get to the spaceship ahead of schedule, before your flight partner arrives, and be gone from Earth before anyone knows what is happening. I'll be with you, in his place." Robert did not offer to help her into the car, but got in first and waited until she closed the door behind her, then sped away from the curb and through the streets to the spaceport. Ninon said, "Tell me, Robert, isn't it true that if a clock recedes from Earth at the speed of light, and if we could watch it as it did so, it would still be running but it would never show later time?" The young man said gruffly, "Roughly so, according to theory." "And if the clock went away from Earth faster than the speed of light, wouldn't it run backwards?" The answer was curtly cautious. "It might appear to." "Then if people travel at the speed of light they won't get any older?" Robert flicked a curious glance at her. "If you could watch them from Earth they appear not to. But it's a matter of relativity...." Ninon rushed on. She had studied that book carefully. "And if people travel faster than light, a lot faster, they'll grow younger, won't they?" Robert said, "So that's what's in your mind." He busied himself with parking the car at the spaceport, then went on: "You want to go back in the past thirty years, and be a girl again. While I grow younger, too, into a boy, then a child, a baby, at last nothing...." "I'll try to be sorry for you, Robert." Ninon felt again for her beta-gun as he stared at her for a long minute, his gaze a curious mixture of amusement and pity. Then, "Come on," he said flatly, turning to lead the way to the gleaming space ship which poised, towering like a spire, in the center of the blast-off basin. And added, "I think I shall enjoy this trip, Madame, more than you will." The young man's words seemed to imply a secret knowledge that Ninon did not possess. A sudden chill of apprehension rippled through her, and almost she turned back. But no ... there was the ship! There was youth; and beauty; and the admiration of men, real admiration. Suppleness in her muscles and joints again. No more diets. No more transfusions. No more transplantations. No more the bio-knife. She could smile again, or frown again. And after a few years she could make the trip again ... and again.... The space ship stood on fiery tiptoes and leaped from Earth, high into the heavens, and out and away. Past rusted Mars. Past the busy asteroids. Past the sleeping giants, Jupiter and Saturn. Past pale Uranus and Neptune; and frigid, shivering Pluto. Past a senseless, flaming comet rushing inward towards its rendezvous with the Sun. And on out of the System into the steely blackness of space where the stars were hard, burnished points of light, unwinking, motionless; eyes—eyes staring at the ship, staring through the ports at Ninon where she lay, stiff and bruised and sore, in the contoured acceleration sling. The yammering rockets cut off, and the ship seemed to poise on the ebon lip of a vast Stygian abyss. Joints creaking, muscles protesting, Ninon pushed herself up and out of the sling against the artificial gravity of the ship. Robert was already seated at the controls. "How fast are we going?" she asked; and her voice was rusty and harsh. "Barely crawling, astronomically," he said shortly. "About forty-six thousand miles a minute." "Is that as fast as the speed of light?" "Hardly, Madame," he said, with a condescending chuckle. "Then make it go faster!" she screamed. "And faster and faster—hurry! What are we waiting for?" The young spaceman swivelled about in his seat. He looked haggard and drawn from the strain of the long acceleration. Despite herself, Ninon could feel the sagging in her own face; the sunkenness of her eyes. She felt tired, hating herself for it—hating having this young man see her. He said, "The ship is on automatic control throughout. The course is plotted in advance; all operations are plotted. There is nothing we can do but wait. The light drive will cut in at the planned time." "Time! Wait! That's all I hear!" Ninon shrieked. "Do something!" Then she heard it. A low moan, starting from below the limit of audibility, then climbing, up and up and up and up, until it was a nerve-plucking whine that tore into her brain like a white-hot tuning fork. And still it climbed, up beyond the range of hearing, and up and up still more, till it could no longer be felt. But Ninon, as she stumbled back into the acceleration sling, sick and shaken, knew it was still there. The light drive! She watched through the ports. The motionless, silent stars were moving now, coming toward them, faster and faster, as the ship swept out of the galaxy, shooting into her face like blazing pebbles from a giant slingshot. She asked, "How fast are we going now?" Robert's voice sounded far off as he replied, "We are approaching the speed of light." "Make it go faster!" she cried. "Faster! Faster!" She looked out the ports again; looked back behind them—and saw shining specks of glittering blackness falling away to melt into the sootiness of space. She shuddered, and knew without asking that these were stars dropping behind at a rate greater than light speed. "Now how fast are we going?" she asked. She was sure that her voice was stronger; that strength was flowing back into her muscles and bones. "Nearly twice light speed." "Faster!" she cried. "We must go much faster! I must be young again. Youthful, and gay, and alive and happy.... Tell me, Robert, do you feel younger yet?" He did not answer. Ninon lay in the acceleration sling, gaining strength, and—she knew—youth. Her lost youth, coming back, to be spent all over again. How wonderful! No woman in all of time and history had ever done it. She would be immortal; forever young and lovely. She hardly noticed the stiffness in her joints when she got to her feet again—it was just from lying in the sling so long. She made her voice light and gay. "Are we not going very, very fast, now, Robert?" He answered without turning. "Yes. Many times the speed of light." "I knew it ... I knew it! Already I feel much younger. Don't you feel it too?" He did not answer, and Ninon kept on talking. "How long have we been going, Robert?" He said, "I don't know ... depends on where you are." "It must be hours ... days ... weeks. I should be hungry. Yes, I think I am hungry. I'll need food, lots of food. Young people have good appetites, don't they, Robert?" He pointed to the provisions locker, and she got food out and made it ready. But she could eat but a few mouthfuls. It's the excitement , she told herself. After all, no other woman, ever, had gone back through the years to be young again.... Long hours she rested in the sling, gaining more strength for the day when they would land back on Earth and she could step out in all the springy vitality of a girl of twenty. And then as she watched through the ingenious ports she saw the stars of the far galaxies beginning to wheel about through space, and she knew that the ship had reached the halfway point and was turning to speed back through space to Earth, uncounted light-years behind them—or before them. And she would still continue to grow younger and younger.... She gazed at the slightly-blurred figure of the young spaceman on the far side of the compartment, focussing her eyes with effort. "You are looking much younger, Robert," she said. "Yes, I think you are becoming quite boyish, almost childish, in appearance." He nodded slightly. "You may be right," he said. "I must have a mirror," she cried. "I must see for myself how much younger I have become. I'll hardly recognize myself...." "There is no mirror," he told her. "No mirror? But how can I see...." "Non-essentials were not included in the supplies on this ship. Mirrors are not essential—to men." The mocking gravity in his voice infuriated her. "Then you shall be my mirror," she said. "Tell me, Robert, am I not now much younger? Am I not becoming more and more beautiful? Am I not in truth the most desirable of women?... But I forget. After all, you are only a boy, by now." He said, "I'm afraid our scientists will have some new and interesting data on the effects of time in relation to time. Before long we'll begin to decelerate. It won't be easy or pleasant. I'll try to make you as comfortable as possible." Ninon felt her face go white and stiff with rage. "What do you mean?" Robert said, coldly brutal, "You're looking your age, Ninon. Every year of your fifty-two!" Ninon snatched out the little beta-gun, then, leveled it and fired. And watched without remorse as the hungry electrons streamed forth to strike the young spaceman, turning him into a motionless, glowing figure which rapidly became misty and wraith-like, at last to disappear, leaving only a swirl of sparkling haze where he had stood. This too disappeared as its separate particles drifted to the metallite walls of the space ship, discharged their energy and ceased to sparkle, leaving only a thin film of dust over all. After a while Ninon got up again from the sling and made her way to the wall. She polished the dust away from a small area of it, trying to make the spot gleam enough so that she could use it for a mirror. She polished a long time, until at last she could see a ghostly reflection of her face in the rubbed spot. Yes, unquestionably she was younger, more beautiful. Unquestionably Time was being kind to her, giving her back her youth. She was not sorry that Robert was gone—there would be many young men, men her own age, when she got back to Earth. And that would be soon. She must rest more, and be ready. The light drive cut off, and the great ship slowly decelerated as it found its way back into the galaxy from which it had started. Found its way back into the System which had borne it. Ninon watched through the port as it slid in past the outer planets. Had they changed? No, she could not see that they had—only she had changed—until Saturn loomed up through the port, so close by, it looked, that she might touch it. But Saturn had no rings. Here was change. She puzzled over it a moment, frowning then forgot it when she recognized Jupiter again as Saturn fell behind. Next would be Mars.... But what was this? Not Mars! Not any planet she knew, or had seen before. Yet there, ahead, was Mars! A new planet, where the asteroids had been when she left! Was this the same system? Had there been a mistake in the calculations of the scientists and engineers who had plotted the course of the ship? Was something wrong? But no matter—she was still Ninon. She was young and beautiful. And wherever she landed there would be excitement and rushing about as she told her story. And men would flock to her. Young, handsome men! She tottered back to the sling, sank gratefully into the comfort of it, closed her eyes, and waited. The ship landed automatically, lowering itself to the land on a pillar of rushing flame, needing no help from its passenger. Then the flame died away—and the ship—and Ninon—rested, quietly, serenely, while the rocket tubes crackled and cooled. The people outside gathered at a safe distance from it, waiting until they could come closer and greet the brave passengers who had voyaged through space from no one knew where. There was shouting and laughing and talking, and much speculation. "The ship is from Maris, the red planet," someone said. And another: "No, no! It is not of this system. See how the hull is pitted—it has traveled from afar." An old man cried: "It is a demon ship. It has come to destroy us all." A murmur went through the crowd, and some moved farther back for safety, watching with alert curiosity. Then an engineer ventured close, and said, "The workmanship is similar to that in the space ship we are building, yet not the same. It is obviously not of our Aerth." And a savant said, "Yes, not of this Aerth. But perhaps it is from a parallel time stream, where there is a system with planets and peoples like us." Then a hatch opened in the towering flank of the ship, and a ramp slid forth and slanted to the ground. The mingled voices of the crowd attended it. The fearful ones backed farther away. Some stood their ground. And the braver ones moved closer. But no one appeared in the open hatch; no one came down the ramp. At last the crowd surged forward again. Among them were a youth and a girl who stood, hand in hand, at the foot of the ramp, gazing at it and the ship with shining eyes, then at each other. She said, "I wonder, Robin, what it would be like to travel through far space on such a ship as that." He squeezed her hand and said, "We'll find out, Nina. Space travel will come, in our time, they've always said—and there is the proof of it." The girl rested her head against the young man's shoulder. "You'll be one of the first, won't you, Robin? And you'll take me with you?" He slipped an arm around her. "Of course. You know, Nina, our scientists say that if one could travel faster than the speed of light one could live in reverse. So when we get old we'll go out in space, very, very fast, and we'll grow young again, together!" Then a shout went up from the two men who had gone up the ramp into the ship to greet whoever was aboard. They came hurrying down, and Robin and Nina crowded forward to hear what they had to report. They were puffing from the rush of their excitement. "There is no one alive on the ship," they cried. "Only an old, withered, white-haired lady, lying dead ... and alone. She must have fared long and far to have lived so long, to be so old in death. Space travel must be pleasant, indeed. It made her very happy, very, very happy—for there is a smile on her face."

What is the most likely meaning of the slang O.Q.? (in twentieth-century American English)

cool

no worries

my bad

O.K./OK

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Why does the Skipper stop abruptly after he says "when you're running a blockade"?

Because he realizes he's triggering trauma for Lieutenant Dugan.

Because he realizes that he's repeating himself.

Because he realizes he's sharing news that he he hadn't meant to disclose so soon.

Because he realizes he's insulting Lieutenant Dugan.

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Why does the Skipper allow the new chef to use the heat-cannon as an incinerator?

Because the new chef just cooked a fine meal and Skipper can't bear to see him so discouraged.

Because Skipper thinks it'll get the new chef to stop offering up unsolicited tactical advice.

Because Skipper wants the new chef to cook marsh-duck and all the fixings.

Because Skipper figures it's a way to thank the new chef for coming on board so last minute.

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Lieutenant Dugan brings up the examples of "High G" Gordon and "Runt" Hake in order to illustrates that...

the roughest, toughest scoundrels and pirates were self-made

effeminate behavior and taste is incompatible with roughness and toughness

the roughest, toughest scoundrels and pirates were from Venus

effeminate behavior and taste is not incompatible with roughness and toughness

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Why didn't the Skipper follow the new cook's advice about avoiding Vesta?

Because Lieutenant Dugan convinced Skipper not to follow the new cook's advice.

Because the new cook didn't bring up any reasons to support his advice.

Because the new cook asked for a heat-cannon which made the Skipper suspicious of the new cook's intentions.

Because the Skipper considered himself smarter and more experienced than the new cook.

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Why was the new cook so upset that the Skipper decided to surrender?

He realized that Skipper was more devoted to his own survival than to the Federation.

He spent his whole life in the Belt and he wanted to experience his first space fight.

He realized by surrendering, the Alliance could use their ship to sneak into Federation territory unnoticed.

He realized that if they surrendered they would be sent to concentration camps and he would no longer be able to continue cooking.

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

What would've happened if the new cook had told the Skipper about the ekalastron deposits earlier?

The text doesn't indicate how the Skipper would've acted in a different scenario.

The Skipper still would've ignored the new cook's advice.

The Skipper would have mulled over the information for a few days before deciding to switch their course from Vesta to Iris.

The Skipper's would have set course for Iris from the beginning.

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

How did Dugan find a new cook?

He appealed to the colonists

He tried employment agencies

He tried hotels and tourist homes

He didn't

CAPTAIN CHAOS By NELSON S. BOND The Callisto-bound Leo needed a cook. What it got was a piping-voiced Jonah who jinxed it straight into Chaos. We picked up our new cook on Phobos. Not Phoebus or Phoebe; I mean Phobos, Mars' inner moon. Our regular victual mangler came down with acute indigestion—tasted some of his own cooking, no doubt—when we were just one blast of a jet-tube out of Sand City spaceport. But since we were rocketing under sealed orders, we couldn't turn back. So we laid the Leo down on Phobos' tiny cradle-field and bundled our ailing grub-hurler off to a hospital, and the skipper said to me, "Mister Dugan," he said, "go out and find us a cook!" "Aye, sir!" I said, and went. Only it wasn't that easy. In those days, Phobos had only a handful of settlers, and most of them had good-paying jobs. Besides, we were at war with the Outer Planets, and no man in his right senses wanted to sign for a single-trip jump on a rickety old patrolship bound for nobody-knew-where. And, of course, cooks are dime-a-dozen when you don't need one, but when you've got to locate one in a hurry they're as difficult to find as petticoats in a nudist camp. I tried the restaurants and the employment agencies, but it was no dice. I tried the hotels and the tourist homes and even one or two of the cleaner-looking joy-joints. Again I drew a blank. So, getting desperate, I audioed a plaintive appeal to the wealthy Phobosian colonists, asking that one of the more patriotic sons-of-riches donate a chef's services to the good old I.P.S., but my only response was a loud silence. So I went back to the ship. I said, "Sorry, sir. We're up against it. I can't seem to find a cook on the whole darned satellite." The skipper scowled at me from under a corduroy brow and fumed, "But we've got to have a cook, Dugan! We can't go on without one!" "In a pinch," I told him, " I might be able to boil a few pies, or scramble us a steak or something, Skipper." "Thanks, Dugan, but that won't do. On this trip the men must be fed regularly and well. Makeshift meals are O.Q. on an ordinary run, but when you're running the blockade—" He stopped abruptly. But too late; I had caught his slip of the tongue. I stared at him. I said, "The blockade, sir? Then you've read our orders?" The Old Man nodded soberly. "Yes. You might as well know, Lieutenant. Everyone will be told as soon as the Leo lifts gravs again. My orders were to be opened four hours after leaving Sand City. I read them a few minutes ago. "We are to attempt to run the Outer Planets Alliance blockade at any spot which reconnaisance determines as favorable. Our objective is Jupiter's fourth satellite, Callisto. The Solar Federation Intelligence Department has learned of a loyalist uprising on that moon. It is reported that Callisto is weary of the war, with a little prompting will secede from the Alliance and return to the Federation. "If this is true, it means we have at last found the foothold we have been seeking; a salient within easy striking distance of Jupiter, capital of the Alliance government. Our task is to verify the rumor and, if it be true, make a treaty with the Callistans." I said, "Sweet howling stars—some assignment, sir! A chance to end this terrible war ... form a permanent union of the entire Solar family ... bring about a new age of prosperity and happiness." "If," Cap O'Hara reminded me, "we succeed. But it's a tough job. We can't expect to win through the enemy cordon unless our men are in top physical condition. And that means a sound, regular diet. So we must find a cook, or—" "The search," interrupted an oddly high-pitched, but not unpleasant voice, "is over. Where's the galley?" I whirled, and so did the Old Man. Facing us was an outlandish little figure; a slim, trim, natty little Earthman not more than five-foot-two in height; a smooth-cheeked young fellow swaddled in a spaceman's uniform at least three sizes too large. Into the holster of his harness was thrust a Haemholtz ray-pistol big enough to burn an army, and in his right hand he brandished a huge, gleaming carving-knife. He frowned at us impatiently. "Well," he repeated impatiently, "where is it?" The Old Man stared. "W-who," he demanded dazedly, "might you be?" "I might be," retorted the little stranger, "lots of people. But I came here to be your new cook." O'Hara said, "The new—What's your name, mister?" "Andy," replied the newcomer. "Andy Laney." The Old Man's lip curled speculatively. "Well, Andy Laney," he said, "you don't look like much of a cook to me ." But the little mugg just returned the Old Man's gaze coolly. "Which makes it even," he retorted. " You don't look like much of a skipper to me . Do I get the job, or don't I?" The captain's grin faded, and his jowls turned pink. I stepped forward hastily. I said, "Excuse me, sir, shall I handle this?" Then, because the skipper was still struggling for words: "You," I said to the little fellow, "are a cook?" "One of the best!" he claimed complacently. "You're willing to sign for a blind journey?" "Would I be here," he countered, "if I weren't?" "And you have your space certificate?" "I—" began the youngster. "Smart Aleck!" That was the Old Man, exploding into coherence at last. "Rat-tailed, clever-cracking little smart Aleck! Don't look like much of a skipper, eh? Well, my fine young rooster—" I said quickly, "If you don't mind, sir, this is no time to worry over trifles. 'Any port in a storm,' you know. And if this young man can cook—" The skipper's color subsided. So did he, grumbling. "Well, perhaps you're right, Dugan. All right, Slops, you're hired. The galley's on the second level, port side. Mess in three quarters of an hour. Get going! Dugan, call McMurtrie and tell him we lift gravs immediately— Slops! What are you doing at that table?" For the little fellow had sidled across the control-room and now, eyes gleaming inquisitively, was peering at our trajectory charts. At the skipper's roar he glanced up at us eagerly. "Vesta!" he piped in that curiously high-pitched and mellow voice. "Loft trajectory for Vesta! Then we're trying to run the Alliance blockade, Captain?" "None of your business!" bellowed O'Hara in tones of thunderous outrage. "Get below instantly, or by the lavendar lakes of Luna I'll—" "If I were you," interrupted our diminutive new chef thoughtfully, "I'd try to broach the blockade off Iris rather than Vesta. For one thing, their patrol line will be thinner there; for another, you can come in through the Meteor Bog, using it as a cover." " Mr. Dugan! " The Old Man's voice had an ominous ring to it, one I had seldom heard. I sprang to attention and saluted smartly. "Aye, sir?" "Take this—this culinary tactician out of my sight before I forget I'm an officer and a gentleman. And tell him that when I want advice I'll come down to the galley for it!" A hurt look crept into the youngster's eyes. Slowly he turned and followed me from the turret, down the ramp, and into the pan-lined cubicle which was his proper headquarters. When I was turning to leave he said apologetically, "I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Dugan. I was just trying to help." "You must learn not to speak out of turn, youngster," I told him sternly. "The Old Man's one of the smartest space navigators who ever lifted gravs. He doesn't need the advice or suggestions of a cook." "But I was raised in the Belt," said the little chap plaintively. "I know the Bog like a book. And I was right; our safest course is by way of Iris." Well, there you are! You try to be nice to someone, and what happens? He tees off on you. I got a little sore I guess. Anyhow, I told the little squirt off, but definitely. "Now, listen!" I said bluntly. "You volunteered for the job. Now you've got to take what comes with it: orders! From now on, suppose you take care of the cooking and let the rest of us worry about the ship—Captain Slops!" And I left, banging the door behind me hard. So we hit the spaceways for Vesta, and after a while the Old Man called up the crew and told them our destination, and if you think they were scared or nervous or anything like that, why, you just don't know spacemen. From oil-soaked old Jock McMurtrie, the Chief Engineer, all the way down the line to Willy, our cabin-boy, the Leo's complement was as thrilled as a sub-deb at an Academy hop. John Wainwright, our First Officer, licked his chops like a fox in a hen-house and said, "The blockade! Oboyoboy! Maybe we'll tangle with one of the Alliance ships, hey?" Blinky Todd, an ordinary with highest rating, said with a sort of macabre satisfaction, "I hopes we do meet up with 'em, that's whut I does, sir! Never did have no love for them dirty, skulkin' Outlanders, that's whut I didn't!" And one of the black-gang blasters, a taciturn chap, said nothing—but the grim set of his jaw and the purposeful way he spat on his callused paws were mutely eloquent. Only one member of the crew was absent from the conclave. Our new Slops. He was busy preparing midday mess, it seems, because scarcely had the skipper finished talking than the audio hummed and a cheerful call rose from the galley: "Soup's on! Come and get it!" Which we did. And whatever failings "Captain Slops" might have, he had not exaggerated when he called himself one of the best cooks in space. That meal, children, was a meal! When it comes to victuals I can destroy better than describe, but there was stuff and things and such-like, all smothered in gravy and so on, and huge quantities of this and that and the other thing, all of them unbelievably dee-luscious! Beyond a doubt it was the finest feast we of the Leo had enjoyed in a 'coon's age. Even the Old Man admitted that as, leaning back from the table, he patted the pleasant bulge due south of his belt buckle. He rang the bell that summoned Slops from the galley, and the little fellow came bustling in apprehensively. "Was everything all right, sir?" he asked. "Not only all right, Slops," wheezed Captain O'Hara, "but perfect! Accept my congratulations on a superb meal, my boy. Did you find everything O.Q. in the galley?" "Captain Slops" blushed like a stereo-struck school-gal, and fidgeted from one foot to another. "Oh, thank you, sir! Thank you very much. Yes, the galley was in fine order. That is—" He hesitated—"there is one little thing, sir." "So? Well, speak up, son, what is it? I'll get it fixed for you right away." The Old Man smiled archly. "Must have everything shipshape for a tip-top chef, what?" The young hash-slinger still hesitated bashfully. "But it's such a little thing, sir, I almost hate to bother you with it." "No trouble at all. Just say the word." "Well, sir," confessed Slops reluctantly, "I need an incinerator in the galley. The garbage-disposal system in there now is old-fashioned, inconvenient and unsanitary. You see, I have to carry the waste down two levels to the rocket-chamber in order to expel it." The skipper's brow creased. "I'm sorry, Slops," he said, "but I don't see how we can do anything about that. Not just now, at any rate. That job requires equipment we don't have aboard. After this jump is over I'll see what I can do." "Oh, I realize we don't have the regular equipment," said Slops shyly, "but I've figured out a way to get the same effect with equipment we do have. There's an old Nolan heat-cannon rusting in the storeroom. If that could be installed by the galley vent, I could use it as an incinerator." I said, "Hold everything, Slops! You can't do that! It's against regulations. Code 44, Section xvi, says, 'Fixed armament shall be placed only in gunnery embrasures insulated against the repercussions of firing charges, re-radiation, or other hazards accruent to heavy ordnance.'" Our little chef's face fell. "Now, that's too bad," he said discouragedly. "I was planning a special banquet for tomorrow, with roast marsh-duck and all the fixings, pinberry pie—but, oh, well!—if I have no incinerator—" The skipper's eyes bulged, and he drooled like a pup at a barbeque. He was a bit of a sybarite, was Captain David O'Hara; if there was anything he dearly loved to exercise his molars on it was Venusian marsh-duck topped with a dessert of Martian pinberry pie. He said: "We-e-ell, now, Mr. Dugan, let's not be too technical. After all, that rule was put in the book only to prevent persons which shouldn't ought to do so from having control of ordnance. But that isn't what Slops wants the cannon for, is it, son? So I don't see any harm in rigging up the old Nolan in the galley for incineration purposes. Did you say all the fixings, Slops?" Maybe I was mistaken, but for a moment I suspected I caught a queer glint in our little chef's eyes; it might have been gratitude, or, on the other hand, it might have been self-satisfaction. Whatever it was it passed quickly, and Captain Slops' soft voice was smooth as silk when he said: "Yes, Captain, all the fixings. I'll start cooking the meal as soon as the new incinerator is installed." So that was that. During the night watch two men of the crew lugged the ancient Nolan heat cannon from stores and I went below to check. I found young Slops bent over the old cannon, giving it a strenuous and thorough cleaning. The way he was oiling and scrubbing at that antique reminded me of an apprentice gunner coddling his first charge. I must have startled him, entering unexpectedly as I did, for when I said, "Hi, there!" he jumped two feet and let loose a sissy little piping squeal. Then, crimson-faced with embarrassment, he said, "Oh, h-hello, Lieutenant. I was just getting my new incinerator shipshape. Looks O.Q., eh?" "If you ask me," I said, "it looks downright lethal. The Old Man must be off his gravs to let a young chuckle-head like you handle that toy." "But I'm only going to use it," he said plaintively, "to dispose of garbage." "Well, don't dump your cans when there are any ships within range," I warned him glumly, "or there'll be a mess of human scraps littering up the void. That gun may be a museum piece, but it still packs a wallop." "Yes, sir," said Slops meekly. "I'll be careful how I use it, sir." I had finished my inspection, and I sniggered as his words reminded me of a joke I'd heard at a spacemans' smoker. "Speaking of being careful, did you hear the giggler about the old maid at the Martian baths? Well, it seems this perennial spinster wandered, by accident, into the men's shower room and met up with a brawny young prospector—" Captain Slops said, "Er—excuse me, Lieutenant, but I have to get this marsh-duck stuffed." "Plenty of time, Slops. Wait till you hear this; it will kill you. The old maid got flustered and said, 'Oh, I'm sorry! I must be in the wrong compartment—'" "If you don't mind, Mr. Dugan," interrupted the cook loudly, "I'm awfully busy. I don't have any time for—" "The prospector looked her over carefully for a couple of seconds; then answered, 'That's O.Q. by me, sister. I won't—'" "I—I've got to go now, Lieutenant," shouted Slops. "Just remembered something I've got to get from stores." And without even waiting to hear the wallop at the end of my tale he fled from the galley, very pink and flustered. So there was one for the log-book! Not only did our emergency chef lack a sense of humor, but the little punk was bashful, as well! Still, it was no skin off my nose if Slops wanted to miss the funniest yarn of a decade. I shrugged and went back to the control turret. All that, to make an elongated story brief, happened on the first day out of Mars. As any schoolchild knows, it's a full hundred million from the desert planet to the asteroid belt. In those days, there was no such device as a Velocity-Intensifier unit, and the Leo , even though she was then considered a reasonably fast little patroller, muddled along at a mere 400,000 m.p.h. Which meant it would take us at least ten days, perhaps more, to reach that disputed region of space around Vesta, where the Federation outposts were sparse and the Alliance block began. That period of jetting was a mingled joy and pain in the britches. Captain Slops was responsible for both. For one thing, as I've hinted before, he was a bit of a panty-waist. It wasn't so much the squeaky voice or the effeminate gestures he cut loose with from time to time. One of the roughest, toughest scoundrels who ever cut a throat on Venus was "High G" Gordon, who talked like a boy soprano, and the meanest pirate who ever highjacked a freighter was "Runt" Hake—who wore diamond ear-rings and gold fingernail polish! But it was Slops' general attitude that isolated him from the command and crew. In addition to being a most awful prude, he was a kill-joy. When just for a lark we begged him to boil us a pot of spaghetti, so we could pour a cold worm's nest into Rick Bramble's bed, he shuddered and refused. "Certainly not!" he piped indignantly. "You must be out of your minds! I never heard of such a disgusting trick! Of course, I won't be a party to it. Worms—Ugh!" "Yeah!" snorted Johnny Wainwright disdainfully, "And ugh! to you, too. Come on, Joe, let's get out of here before we give Slops bad dreams and goose-flesh!" Nor was hypersensitiveness Slops' worst failing. If he was squeamish about off-color jokes and such stuff, he had no compunctions whatsoever against sticking his nose in where it didn't belong. He was an inveterate prowler. He snooped everywhere and anywhere from ballast-bins to bunk-rooms. He quizzed the Chief about engine-room practices, the gunner's mate on problems of ballistics, even the cabin-boy on matters of supplies and distribution of same. He was not only an asker; he was a teller, as well. More than once during the next nine days he forced on the skipper the same gratuitous advice which before had enraged the Old Man. By sheer perseverance he earned the title I had tagged him with: "Captain Slops." I was willing to give him another title, too—Captain Chaos. God knows he created enough of it! "It's a mistake to broach the blockade at Vesta," he argued over and over again. "O.Q., Slops," the skipper would nod agreeably, with his mouth full of some temper-softening tidbit, "you're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. But I'm in command of the Leo , and you ain't. Now, run along like a good lad and bring me some more of this salad." So ten days passed, and it was on the morning of the eleventh day out of Sand City that we ran into trouble with a capital trub. I remember that morning well, because I was in the mess-hall having breakfast with Cap O'Hara, and Slops was playing another variation on the old familiar theme. "I glanced at the chart this morning, sir," he began as he minced in with a platterful of golden flapjacks and an ewer of Vermont maple syrup, "and I see we are but an hour or two off Vesta. I am very much afraid this is our last chance to change course—" "And for that," chuckled the Old Man, "Hooray! Pass them pancakes, son. Maybe now you'll stop shooting off about how we ought to of gone by way of Iris. Mmmm! Good!" "Thank you, sir," said Slops mechanically. "But you realize there is extreme danger of encountering enemy ships?" "Keep your pants on, Slops!" "Eh?" The chef looked startled. "Beg pardon, sir?" "I said keep your pants on. Sure, I know. And I've took precautions. There's a double watch on duty, and men at every gun. If we do meet up with an Alliance craft, it'll be just too bad for them! "Yes, sirree!" The Old Man grinned comfortably. "I almost hope we do bump into one. After we burn it out of the void we'll have clear sailing all the way to Callisto." "But—but if there should be more than one, sir?" "Don't be ridiculous, my boy. Why should there be?" "Well, for one thing," wrangled our pint-sized cook, "because rich ekalastron deposits were recently discovered on Vesta. For another, because Vesta's orbit is now going into aphelion stage, which will favor a concentration of raiders." The skipper choked, spluttered, and disgorged a bite of half-masticated pancake. "Eka—Great balls of fire! Are you sure?" "Of course, I'm sure. I told you days ago that I was born and raised in the Belt, Captain." "I know. But why didn't you tell me about Vesta before? I mean about the ekalastron deposits?" "Why—why, because—" said Slops. "Because—" "Don't give me lady-logic, you dope!" roared the Old Man, an enraged lion now, his breakfast completely forgotten. "Give me a sensible answer! If you'd told me that instead of just yipping and yapping about how via Iris was a nicer route I'd have listened to you! As it is, we're blasting smack-dab into the face of danger. And us on the most vital mission of the whole ding-busted war!" He was out of his seat, bustling to the audio, buzzing Lieutenant Wainwright on the bridge. "Johnny—that you? Listen, change traj quick! Set a new course through the Belt by way of Iris and the Bog, and hurry up, because—" What reason he planned to give I do not know, for he never finished that sentence. At that moment the Leo rattled like a Model AA spacesled in an ionic storm, rolled, quivered and slewed like a drunk on a freshly-waxed floor. The motion needed no explanation; it was unmistakeable to any spacer who has ever hopped the blue. Our ship had been gripped, and was now securely locked, in the clutch of a tractor beam! What happened next was everything at once. Officers Wainwright and Bramble were in the turret, and they were both good sailors. They knew their duties and how to perform them. An instant after the Leo had been assaulted, the ship bucked and slithered again, this time with the repercussions of our own ordnance. Over the audio, which Sparks had hastily converted into an all-way, inter-ship communicating unit, came a jumble of voices. A call for Captain O'Hara to "Come to the bridge, sir!" ... the harsh query of Chief McMurtrie, "Tractor beams on stern and prow, sir. Shall I attempt to break them?" ... and a thunderous groooom! from the fore-gunnery port as a crew went into action ... a plaintive little shriek from somebody ... maybe from Slops himself.... Then on an ultra-wave carrier, drowning local noises beneath waves of sheer volume, came English words spoken with a foreign intonation. The voice of the Alliance commander. "Ahoy the Leo ! Calling the captain of the Leo !" O'Hara, his great fists knotted at his sides, called back, "O'Hara of the Leo answering. What do you want?" "Stand by to admit a boarding party, Captain. It is futile to resist. You are surrounded by six armed craft, and your vessel is locked in our tensiles. Any further effort to make combat will bring about your immediate destruction!" From the bridge, topside, snarled Johnny Wainwright, "The hell with 'em, Skipper! Let's fight it out!" And elsewhere on the Leo angry voices echoed the same defi. Never in my life had I felt such a heart-warming love for and pride in my companions as at that tense moment. But the Old Man shook his head, and his eyes were glistening. "It's no use," he moaned strickenly, more to himself than to me. "I can't sacrifice brave men in a useless cause, Dugan. I've got to—" He faced the audio squarely. To the enemy commander he said, "Very good, sir! In accordance with the Rules of War, I surrender into your hands!" The firing ceased, and a stillness like that of death blanketed the Leo . It was then that Andy Laney, who had lingered in the galley doorway like a frozen figuring, broke into babbling incredulous speech. "You—you're giving up like this?" he bleated. "Is this all you're going to do?" The Old Man just looked at him, saying never a word, but that glance would have blistered the hide off a Mercurian steelback. I'm more impetuous. I turned on the little idiot vituperatively. "Shut up, you fool! Don't you realize there's not a thing we can do but surrender? Dead, we're of no earthly use to anyone. Alive, there is always a chance one of us may get away, bring help. We have a mission to fulfil, an important one. Corpses can't run errands." "But—but if they take us prisoners," he questioned fearfully, "what will they do with us?" "A concentration camp somewhere. Perhaps on Vesta." "And the Leo ?" "Who knows? Maybe they'll send it to Jupiter with a prize crew in command." "That's what I thought. But they mustn't be allowed to do that. We're marked with the Federation tricolor!" A sharp retort trembled on the tip of my tongue, but I never uttered it. Indeed, I swallowed it as comprehension dawned. There came to me the beginnings of respect for little Andy Laney's wisdom. He had been right about the danger of the Vesta route, as we had learned to our cost; now he was right on this other score. The skipper got it, too. His jaw dropped. He said, "Heaven help us, it's the truth! To reach Jupiter you've got to pass Callisto. If the Callistans saw a Federation vessel, they'd send out an emissary to greet it. Our secret would be discovered, Callisto occupied by the enemy...." I think he would have turned, then, and given orders to continue the fight even though it meant suicide for all of us. But it was too late. Already our lock had opened to the attackers; down the metal ramp we now heard the crisp cadence of invading footsteps. The door swung open, and the Alliance commandant stood smiling triumphantly before us.

Why did Syme accept the mission with Tate?

He needed a way back to Earth

He respected Tate

He had no plan for his life, so he jumped on the adventure

He felt he would collect a reward along the way

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

Why was Tate likely dejected to learn the truth about Kal-Jmar from the Martian?

He learned the creatures of Kal-Jmar would kill him instantly

He learned Kal-Jmar was a fictional place

He was told the Kal-Jmar dome sensed Earthling DNA and would explode his body on entry

He learned Kal-Jmar didn’t contain secrets and treasures

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

What did Syme intend to do when he returned to Earth?

Reunite with his family

Exact revenge

Exploit the atmosphere catalyst the Martians invented

Unknown

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

What is the relationship like between Syme and Tate?

They were friendly outlaws escaping the law together

Tate came to Mars in search of Syme because of his reputation

Syme knew of Tate and used him for his ticket back to Earth

Syme was intrigued by Tate’s mission and joined on

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

How was it that Syme was able to best one of the Martians and escape?

It was Tate who actually bested the Martian

Syme had the more powerful weapon

His reinforcements arrived

Element of surprise

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

How do the Martians detect Syme and Tate on the surface?

They have radar on the surface of Mars

They patrol on foot

They can sense rumbling from their underground caves

It’s not revealed how they detect them

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

How do Martians communicate among themselves?

Complicated Martian language that Earthlings can’t decipher

They speak Terrestrial language

Hand signals

Mind reading

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

If Syme weren't initially helped by Harold, what would've probably happened to him?

Syme would've been protected by the building's safety net.

Syme would've gotten help from someone else.

Syme would've caught himself with his two backup harpoons.

Syme would've fallen to his death.

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

Of the following options, what best summarizes this story?

A criminal forces a scientist to go on an adventure.

A criminal teams up with a scientist to explore a dangerous area.

A criminal and a scientist wind up on a fun adventure together.

A criminal tricks a scientist into giving him resources and aid on a beautiful adventure.

Doorway to Kal-Jmar By Stuart Fleming Two men had died before Syme Rector's guns to give him the key to the ancient city of Kal-Jmar—a city of untold wealth, and of robots that made desires instant commands. The tall man loitered a moment before a garish window display, his eyes impassive in his space-burned face, as the Lillis patrolman passed. Then he turned, burying his long chin in the folds of his sand cape, and took up the pursuit of the dark figure ahead once more. Above, the city's multicolored lights were reflected from the translucent Dome—a distant, subtly distorted Lillis, through which the stars shone dimly. Getting through that dome had been his first urgent problem, but now he had another, and a more pressing one. It had been simple enough to pass himself off as an itinerant prospector and gain entrance to the city, after his ship had crashed in the Mare Cimmerium. But the rest would not be so simple. He had to acquire a spaceman's identity card, and he had to do it fast. It was only a matter of time until the Triplanet Patrol gave up the misleading trail he had made into the hill country, and concluded that he must have reached Lillis. After that, his only safety lay in shipping out on a freighter as soon as possible. He had to get off Mars, because his trail was warm, and the Patrol thorough. They knew, of course, that he was an outlaw—the very fact of the crashed, illegally-armed ship would have told them that. But they didn't know that he was Syme Rector, the most-wanted and most-feared raider in the System. In that was his only advantage. He walked a little faster, as his quarry turned up a side street and then boarded a moving ramp to an upper level. He watched until the short, wide-shouldered figure in spaceman's harness disappeared over the top of the ramp, and then followed. The man was waiting for him at the mouth of the ascending tunnel. Syme looked at him casually, without a flicker of expression, and started to walk on, but the other stepped into his path. He was quite young, Syme saw, with a fighter's shoulders under the white leather, and a hard, determined thrust to his firm jaw. "All right," the boy said quietly. "What is it?" "I don't understand," Syme said. "The game, the angle. You've been following me. Do you want trouble?" "Why, no," Syme told him bewilderedly. "I haven't been following you. I—" The boy knuckled his chin reflectively. "You could be lying," he said finally. "But maybe I've made a mistake." Then—"Okay, citizen, you can clear—but don't let me catch you on my tail again." Syme murmured something and turned away, feeling the spaceman's eyes on the small of his back until he turned the corner. At the next street he took a ramp up, crossed over and came down on the other side a block away. He waited until he saw the boy's broad figure pass the intersection, and then followed again more cautiously. It was risky, but there was no other way. The signatures, the data, even the photograph on the card could be forged once Syme got his hands on it, but the identity card itself—that oblong of dark diamondite, glowing with the tiny fires of radioactivity—that could not be imitated, and the only way to get it was to kill. Up ahead was the Founders' Tower, the tallest building in Lillis. The boy strode into the entrance lobby, bought a ticket for the observation platform, and took the elevator. As soon as his car was out of sight in the transparent tube, Syme followed. He put a half-credit slug into the machine, took the punctured slip of plastic that came out. The ticket went into a scanning slot in the wall of the car, and the elevator whisked him up. The tower was high, more than a hundred meters above the highest level of the city, and the curved dome that kept air in Lillis was close overhead. Syme looked up, after his first appraising glance about the platform, and saw the bright-blue pinpoint of Earth. The sight stirred a touch of nostalgia in him, as it always did, but he put it aside. The boy was hunched over the circular balustrade a little distance away. Except for him, the platform was empty. Syme loosened his slim, deadly energy pistol in its holster and padded catlike toward the silent figure. It was over in a minute. The boy whirled as he came up, warned by some slight sound, or by the breath of Syme's passage in the still air. He opened his mouth to shout, and brought up his arm in a swift, instinctive gesture. But the blow never landed. Syme's pistol spat its silent white pencil of flame, and the boy crumpled to the floor with a minute, charred hole in the white leather over his chest. Syme stooped over him swiftly, found a thick wallet and thrust it into his pocket without a second glance. Then he raised the body in his arms and thrust it over the parapet. It fell, and in the same instant Syme felt a violent tug at his wrist. Before he could move to stop himself, he was over the edge. Too late, he realized what had happened—one of the hooks on the dead spaceman's harness had caught the heavy wristband of his chronometer. He was falling, linked to the body of his victim! Hardly knowing what he did, he lashed out wildly with his other arm, felt his fingertips catch and bite into the edge of the balustrade. His body hit the wall of the tower with a thump, and, a second later, the corpse below him hit the wall. Then they both hung there, swaying a little and Syme's fingers slipped a little with each motion. Gritting his teeth, he brought the magnificent muscles of his arm into play, raising the forearm against the dead weight of the dangling body. Fraction by slow fraction of an inch, it came up. Syme could feel the sweat pouring from his brow, running saltily into his eyes. His arms felt as if they were being torn from their sockets. Then the hook slipped free, and the tearing, unbearable weight vanished. The reaction swung Syme against the building again, and he almost lost his slippery hold on the balustrade. After a moment he heard the spaceman's body strike with a squashy thud, somewhere below. He swung up his other arm, got a better grip on the balustrade. He tried cautiously to get a leg up, but the motion loosened his hold on the smooth surface again. He relaxed, thinking furiously. He could hold on for another minute at most; then it was the final blast-off. He heard running footsteps, and then a pale face peered over the ledge at him. He realized suddenly that the whole incident could have taken only a few seconds. He croaked, "Get me up." Wordlessly, the man clasped thin fingers around his wrist. The other pulled, with much puffing and panting, and with his help Syme managed to get a leg over the edge and hoist his trembling body to safety. "Are you all right?" Syme looked at the man, nursing the tortured muscles of his arms. His rescuer was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. He had light, sandy hair, a sharp nose, and—oddly conflicting—pale, serious eyes and a humorous wide mouth. He was still panting. "I'm not hurt," Syme said. He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his dark, lean face. "Thanks for giving me a hand." "You scared hell out of me," said the man. "I heard a thud. I thought—you'd gone over." He looked at Syme questioningly. "That was my bag," the outlaw said quickly. "It slipped out of my hand, and I overbalanced myself when I grabbed for it." The man sighed. "I need a drink. You need a drink. Come on." He picked up a small black suitcase from the floor and started for the elevator, then stopped. "Oh—your bag. Shouldn't we do something about that?" "Never mind," said Syme, taking his arm. "The shock must have busted it wide open. My laundry is probably all over Lillis by now." They got off at the amusement level, three tiers down, and found a cafe around the corner. Syme wasn't worried about the man he had just killed. He had heard no second thud, so the body must have stayed on the first outcropping of the tower it struck. It probably wouldn't be found until morning. And he had the wallet. When he paid for the first round of culcha , he took it out and stole a glance at the identification card inside. There it was—his ticket to freedom. He began feeling expansive, and even friendly toward the slender, mouse-like man across the table. It was the culcha , of course. He knew it, and didn't care. In the morning he'd find a freighter berth—in as big a spaceport as Lillis, there were always jobs open. Meanwhile, he might as well enjoy himself, and it was safer to be seen with a companion than to be alone. He listened lazily to what the other was saying, leaning his tall, graceful body back into the softly-cushioned seat. "Lissen," said Harold Tate. He leaned forward on one elbow, slipped, caught himself, and looked at the elbow reproachfully. "Lissen," he said again, "I trust you, Jones. You're obvi-obviously an adventurer, but you have an honest face. I can't see it very well at the moment, but I hic!—pardon—seem to recall it as an honest face. I'm going to tell you something, because I need your help!—help." He paused. "I need a guide. D'you know this part of Mars well?" "Sure," said Syme absently. Out in the center of the floor, an AG plate had been turned on. Five Venusian girls were diving and twisting in its influence, propelling themselves by the motion of their delicately-webbed feet and trailing long gauzy streamers of synthesilk after them. Syme watched them through narrowed lids, feeling the glow of culcha inside him. "I wanta go to Kal-Jmar," said Tate. Syme snapped to attention, every nerve tingling. An indefinable sense, a hunch that had served him well before, told him that something big was coming—something that promised adventure and loot for Syme Rector. "Why?" he asked softly. "Why to Kal-Jmar?" Harold Tate told him, and later, when Syme had taken him to his rooms, he showed him what was in his little black suitcase. Syme had been right; it was big. Kal-Jmar was the riddle of the Solar System. It was the only remaining city of the ancient Martian race—the race that, legends said, had risen to greater heights than any other Solar culture. The machines, the artifacts, the records of the Martians were all there, perfectly preserved inside the city's bubble-like dome, after God knew how many thousands of years. But they couldn't be reached. For Kal-Jmar's dome was not the thing of steelite that protected Lillis: it was a tenuous, globular field of force that defied analysis as it defied explosives and diamond drills. The field extended both above and below the ground, and tunneling was of no avail. No one knew what had happened to the Martians, whether they were the ancestors of the present decadent Martian race, or a different species. No one knew anything about them or about Kal-Jmar. In the early days, when the conquest of Mars was just beginning, Earth scientists had been wild to get into the city. They had observed it from every angle, taken photographs of its architecture and the robots that still patrolled its fantastically winding streets, and then they had tried everything they knew to pierce the wall. Later, however, when every unsuccessful attempt had precipitated a bloody uprising of the present-day Martians—resulting in a rapid dwindling of the number of Martians—the Mars Protectorate had stepped in and forbidden any further experiments; forbidden, in fact, any Earthman to go near the place. Thus matter had stood for over a hundred years, until Harold Tate. Tate, a physicist, had stumbled on a field that seemed to be identical in properties to the Kal-Jmar dome; and what is more, he had found a force that would break it down. And so he had made his first trip to Mars, and within twenty-four hours, by the blindest of chances, blurted out his secret to Syme Rector, the scourge of the spaceways, the man with a thousand credits on his sleek, tigerish head. Syme's smile was not tigerish now; it was carefully, studiedly mild. For Tate was no longer drunk, and it was important that it should not occur to him that he had been indiscreet. "This is native territory we're coming to, Harold," he said. "Better strap on your gun." "Why. Are they really dangerous?" "They're unpredictable," Syme told him. "They're built differently, and they think differently. They breathe like us, down in their caverns where there's air, but they also eat sand, and get their oxygen that way." "Yes, I've heard about that," Tate said. "Iron oxide—very interesting metabolism." He got his energy pistol out of the compartment and strapped it on absently. Syme turned the little sand car up a gentle rise towards the tortuous hill country in the distance. "Not only that," he continued. "They eat the damndest stuff. Lichens and fungi and tumble-grass off the deserts—all full of deadly poisons, from arsenic up the line to xopite. They seem intelligent enough—in their own way—but they never come near our cities and they either can't or won't learn Terrestrial. When the first colonists came here, they had to learn their crazy language. Every word of it can mean any one of a dozen different things, depending on the inflection you give it. I can speak it some, but not much. Nobody can. We don't think the same." "So you think they might attack us?" Tate asked again, nervously. "They might do anything," Syme said curtly. "Don't worry about it." The hills were much closer than they had seemed, because of Mars' deceptively low horizon. In half an hour they were in the midst of a wilderness of fantastically eroded dunes and channels, laboring on sliding treads up the sides of steep hills only to slither down again on the other side. Syme stopped the car abruptly as a deep, winding channel appeared across their path. "Gully," he announced. "Shall we cross it, or follow it?" Tate peered through the steelite nose of the car. "Follow, I guess," he offered. "It seems to go more or less where we're going, and if we cross it we'll only come to a couple dozen more." Syme nodded and moved the sand car up to the edge of the gully. Then he pressed a stud on the control board; a metal arm extruded from the tail of the car and a heavy spike slowly unscrewed from it, driving deep into the sand. A light on the board flashed, indicating that the spike was in and would bear the car's weight, and Syme started the car over the edge. As the little car nosed down into the gully, the metal arm left behind revealed itself to be attached to a length of thick, very strong wire cable, with a control cord inside. They inched down the almost vertical incline, unreeling the cable behind them, and starting minor landslides as they descended. Finally they touched bottom. Syme pressed another stud, and above, the metal spike that had supported them screwed itself out of the ground again and the cable reeled in. Tate had been watching with interest. "Very ingenious," he said. "But how do we get up again?" "Most of these gullies peter out gradually," said Syme, "but if we want or have to climb out where it's deep, we have a little harpoon gun that shoots the anchor up on top." "Good. I shouldn't like to stay down here for the rest of my natural life. Depressing view." He looked up at the narrow strip of almost-black sky visible from the floor of the gully, and shook his head. Neither Syme nor Tate ever had a chance to test the efficiency of their harpoon gun. They had traveled no more than five hundred meters, and the gully was as deep as ever, when Tate, looking up, saw a deeper blackness blot out part of the black sky directly overhead. He shouted, "Look out!" and grabbed for the nearest steering lever. The car wheeled around in a half circle and ran into the wall of the gully. Syme was saying, "What—?" when there was a thunderous crash that shook the sturdy walls of the car, as a huge boulder smashed into the ground immediately to their left. When the smoky red dust had cleared away, they saw that the left tread of the sand car was crushed beyond all recognition. Syme was cursing slowly and steadily with a deep, seething anger. Tate said, "I guess we walk from here on." Then he looked up again and caught a glimpse of the horde of beasts that were rushing up the gully toward them. "My God!" he said. "What are those?" Syme looked. "Those," he said bitterly, "are Martians." The natives, like all Martian fauna, were multi-legged. Also like all Martian fauna, they moved so fast that you couldn't see how many legs they did have. Actually, however, the natives had six legs apiece—or, more properly, four legs and two arms. Their lungs were not as large as they appeared, being collapsed at the moment. What caused the bulge that made their torsos look like sausages was a huge air bladder, with a valve arrangement from the stomach and feeding directly into the bloodstream. Their faces were vaguely canine, but the foreheads were high, and the lips were not split. They did resemble dogs, in that their thick black fur was splotched with irregulate patches of white. These patches of white were subject to muscular control and could be spread out fanwise; or, conversely, the black could be expanded to cover the white, which helped to take care of the extremes of Martian temperature. Right now they were mostly black. The natives slowed down and spread out to surround the wrecked sand car, and it could be seen that most of them were armed with spears, although some had the slim Benson energy guns—strictly forbidden to Martians. Syme stopped cursing and watched tensely. Tate said nothing, but he swallowed audibly. One Martian, who looked exactly like all the rest, stepped forward and motioned unmistakably for the two to come out. He waited a moment and then gestured with his energy gun. That gun, Syme knew from experience, could burn through a small thickness of steelite if held on the same spot long enough. "Come on," Syme said grimly. He rose and reached for a pressure suit, and Tate followed him. "What do you think they'll—" he began, and then stopped himself. "I know. They're unpredictable." "Yeah," said Syme, and opened the door. The air in the car whooshed into the near-vacuum outside, and he and Tate stepped out. The Martian leader looked at them enigmatically, then turned and started off. The other natives closed in on them, and they all bounded along under the weak gravity. They bounded along for what Syme figured as a good kilometer and a half, and they then reached a branch in the gully and turned down it, going lower all the time. Under the light of their helmet lamps, they could see the walls of the gully—a tunnel, now—getting darker and more solid. Finally, when Syme estimated they were about nine kilometers down, there was even a suggestion of moisture. The tunnel debouched at last into a large cavern. There was a phosphorescent gleam from fungus along the walls, but Syme couldn't decide how far away the far wall was. He noticed something else, though. "There's air here," he said to Tate. "I can see dust motes in it." He switched his helmet microphone from radio over to the audio membrane on the outside of the helmet. " Kalis methra ," he began haltingly, " seltin guna getal. " "Yes, there is air here," said the Martian leader, startlingly. "Not enough for your use, however, so do not open your helmets." Syme swore amazedly. "I thought you said they didn't speak Terrestrial," Tate said. Syme ignored him. "We had our reasons for not doing so," the Martian said. "But how—?" "We are telepaths, of course. On a planet which is nearly airless on its surface, we have to be. A tendency of the Terrestrial mind is to ignore the obvious. We have not had a spoken language of our own for several thousand years." He darted a glance at Syme's darkly scowling face. His own hairy face was expressionless, but Syme sensed that he was amused. "Yes, you're right," he said. "The language you and your fellows struggled to learn is a fraud, a hodge-podge concocted to deceive you." Tate looked interested. "But why this—this gigantic masquerade?" "You had nothing to give us," the Martian said simply. Tate frowned, then flushed. "You mean you avoided revealing yourselves because you—had nothing to gain from mental intercourse with us?" "Yes." Tate thought again. "But—" "No," the Martian interrupted him, "revealing the extent of our civilization would have spared us nothing at your people's hands. Yours is an imperialist culture, and you would have had Mars, whether you thought you were taking it from equals or not." "Never mind that," Syme broke in impatiently. "What do you want with us?" The Martian looked at him appraisingly. "You already suspect. Unfortunately, you must die." It was a weird situation, Syme thought. His mind was racing, but as yet he could see no way out. He began to wonder, if he did, could he keep the Martians from knowing about it? Then he realized that the Martian must have received that thought, too, and he was enraged. He stood, holding himself in check with an effort. "Will you tell us why?" Tate asked. "You were brought here for that purpose. It is part of our conception of justice. I will tell you and your—friend—anything you wish to know." Syme noticed that the other Martians had retired to the farther side of the cavern. Some were munching the glowing fungus. That left only the leader, who was standing alertly on all fours a short distance away from them, holding the Benson gun trained on them. Syme tried not to think about the gun, especially about making a grab for it. It was like trying not to think of the word "hippopotamus." Tate squatted down comfortably on the floor of the cavern, apparently unconcerned, but his hands were trembling slightly. "First why—" he began. "There are many secrets in Kal-Jmar," the Martian said, "among them a very simple catalyzing agent which could within fifty years transform Mars to a planet with Terrestrially-thick atmosphere." "I think I see," Tate said thoughtfully. "That's been the ultimate aim all along, but so far the problem has us licked. If we solved it, then we'd have all of Mars, not just the cities. Your people would die out. You couldn't have that, of course." He sighed deeply. He spread his gloved hands before him and looked at them with a queer intentness. "Well—how about the Martians—the Kal-Jmar Martians, I mean? I'd dearly love to know the answer to that one." "Neither of the alternatives in your mind is correct. They were not a separate species, although they were unlike us. But they were not our ancestors, either. They were the contemporaries of our ancestors." "Several thousand years ago Mars' loss of atmosphere began to make itself felt. There were two ways out. Some chose to seal themselves into cities like Kal-Jmar; our ancestors chose to adapt their bodies to the new conditions. Thus the race split. Their answer to the problem was an evasion; they remained static. Our answer was the true one, for we progressed. We progressed beyond the need of science; they remained its slaves. They died of a plague—and other causes. "You see," he finished gently, "our deception has caused a natural confusion in your minds. They were the degenerates, not we." "And yet," Tate mused, "you are being destroyed by contact with an—inferior—culture." "We hope to win yet," the Martian said. Tate stood up, his face very white. "Tell me one thing," he begged. "Will our two races ever live together in amity?" The Martian lowered his head. "That is for unborn generations." He looked at Tate again and aimed the energy gun. "You are a brave man," he said. "I am sorry." Syme saw all his hopes of treasure and glory go glimmering down the sights of the Martian's Benson gun, and suddenly the pent-up rage in him exploded. Too swiftly for his intention to be telegraphed, before he knew himself what he meant to do, he hurled himself bodily into the Martian. It was like tangling with a draft horse. The Martian was astonishingly strong. Syme scrambled desperately for the gun, got it, but couldn't tear it out of the Martian's fingers. And all the time he could almost feel the Martian's telepathic call for help surging out. He heard the swift pad of his followers coming across the cavern. He put everything he had into one mighty, murderous effort. Every muscle fiber in his superbly trained body crackled and surged with power. He roared his fury. And the gun twisted out of the Martian's iron grip! He clubbed the prostrate leader with it instantly, then reversed the weapon and snapped a shot at the nearest Martian. The creature dropped his lance and fell without a sound. The next instant a ray blinked at him, and he rolled out of the way barely in time. The searing ray cut a swath over the leader's body and swerved to cut down on him. Still rolling, he fired at the holder of the weapon. The gun dropped and winked out on the floor. Syme jumped to his feet and faced his enemies, snarling like the trapped tiger he was. Another ray slashed at him, and he bent lithely to let it whistle over his head. Another, lower this time. He flipped his body into the air and landed upright, his gun still blazing. His right leg burned fiercely from a ray-graze, but he ignored it. And all the while he was mowing down the massed natives in great swaths, seeking out the ones armed with Bensons in swift, terrible slashes, dodging spears and other missiles in midair, and roaring at the top of his powerful lungs. At last there were none with guns left to oppose him. He scythed down the rest in two terrible, lightning sweeps of his ray, then dropped the weapon from blistered fingers. He was gasping for breath, and realized that he was losing air from the seared-open right leg of his suit. He reached for the emergency kit at his side, drawing in great, gasping breaths, and fumbled out a tube of sealing liquid. He spread the stuff on liberally, smearing it impartially over flesh and fabric. It felt like liquid hell on the burned, bleeding leg, but he kept on until the quick-drying fluid formed an airtight patch. Only then did he turn, to see Tate flattened against the wall behind him, his hands empty at his sides. "I'm sorry," Tate said miserably. "I could have grabbed a spear or something, but—I just couldn't, not even to save my own life. I—I halfway hoped they'd kill both of us." Syme glared at him and spat, too enraged to think of diplomacy. He turned and strode out of the cavern, carrying his right leg stiffly, but with his feral, tigerish head held high. He led the way, wordlessly, back to the wrecked sand car. Tate followed him with a hangdog, beaten air, as though he had just found something that shattered all his previous concepts of the verities in life, and didn't know what to do about it. Still silently, Syme refilled his oxygen tank, watched Tate do the same, and then picked up two spare tanks and the precious black suitcase and handed one of the tanks to Tate. Then he stumped around to the back of the car and inspected the damage. The cable reel, which might have drawn them out of the gully, was hopelessly smashed. That was that.

Why does the Captain decide to save Gorman?

He sees that they could be good business partners

Gorman is Ivy’s father and she pleads to save him

He prefers their ship to his own

He has a sense of duty to not let innocent people die

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

How are the events of the story best summated?

A passenger ship transiting Earth - Venus accidentally starts falling into the sun

Strike’s ship breaks down and has to be rescued from being pulled into the sun

A war ship disguised as a cargo ship changes course and saves lives from pulling into sun’s gravity

A delivery ship discovers and saves two other ships

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

How do Cob and Strike come to appreciate women of rank through the story?

They vow to have more women working in their teams

They choose to work on Aphrodite permanently

They take on understudies to further promote equality

Their minds aren’t changed

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

What is the relationship like between Strike and Cob?

They have known each other through their last assignment

They meet during the course of the story, but begin apprehensive of each other

They never actually meet in the story

They meet during the course of the story and become easy friends

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

Why is a day 720 hours long?

The day length is set such that their mission only takes one day to increase morale

Day length is dependent on the solar system the ship is in

A day is equivalent to a month at the speed they travel

It’s not known

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

What is the general mood during space flight aboard the Aphrodite?

It got very cold on the ship when the generators went out, ruining morale

The crew mutinies under the leadership of the Captain

The trip is smooth sailing

Many things are going wrong

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

How many return trips does Aphrodite complete during the story?

Two

One

Three

Zero

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

What convinces the Captain to have confidence in I.V. Hendricks?

The Captain never gains confidence in Hendricks

The Captain always believed in her abilities due to her excellent reputation

Hendricks had proven her abilities over years working with the Captain

Hendricks’ father built the ship and trained her on it

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

Does it seem like there's a romantic component to Ivy and the Captain's relationship?

Yes, they both show feelings for each other but they have yet to enter a relationship

Possible, Ivy has feelings for him by the end but it remains unclear

Possibly, the Captain has feelings for her by the end but it remains unclear

No, they're just coworkers and nothing more is addressed beyond that

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

What is interesting about the Aphrodite?

It's a brand new ship

It's an old ship and its predecessors were retired after having successful runs as ships

It's an old ship that doesn't work but contains a plethora of interesting data

It's an old ship and its predecessors previously failed in their missions

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

How would you describe the author's style throughout the passage?

He uses lots of historical data from previous science fiction universes

He uses lots of humor to make the technical elements more entertaining

He uses lots of descriptions of the ship's surroundings to show the peaceful voyages the Aphrodite goes on

He uses lots of technical details and technologies to immerse the reader in the lore

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

How would you describe the changes in tone throughout the passage?

The story has an early climax with a big reveal, but the majority of the story is nerdy and filled with space-travel details

The story is intense at the beginning but calms by the end

The story remains fast-paced and stressful throughout

The story remains relatively calm except for the climax

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

Why might a person not be the hugest fan of Captain?

He's actively racist with regard to his crew members

He's overconfident at times and can be rude

He doesn't listen to his crew most of the time

He's actively sexist with regard to his crew members

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

Of the following options, who might want to read this passage the most?

A sci-fi fan who likes suspense and watching friendships grow

A fan of fantasy-adventure stories

A fan of adventure stories where the protagonist has to fit in with a new group

A sci-fi fan who likes romance-heavy stories

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

Do you think this story has a happy ending?

No, the Captain really wants to date Ivy but it doesn't seem like it's gonna happen

Yes, the Captain is successful and he's dating Ivy

For the most part, they succeeded on their mission but the Captain and Ivy aren't together

Yes, they were successful on their mission

Jinx Ship To The Rescue By ALFRED COPPEL, JR. Stand by for T.R.S. Aphrodite , butt of the Space Navy. She's got something terrific in her guts and only her ice-cold lady engineer can coax it out of her! Brevet Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III of the Tellurian Wing, Combined Solarian Navies, stood ankle deep in the viscous mud of Venusport Base and surveyed his new command with a jaundiced eye. The hot, slimy, greenish rain that drenched Venusport for two-thirds of the 720-hour day had stopped at last, but now a miasmic fog was rising from the surrounding swampland, rolling across the mushy landing ramp toward the grounded spaceship. Visibility was dropping fast, and soon porto-sonar sets would have to be used to find the way about the surface Base. It was an ordinary day on Venus. Strike cursed Space Admiral Gorman and all his ancestors with a wealth of feeling. Then he motioned wearily to his companion, and together they sloshed through the mud toward the ancient monitor. The scaly bulk of the Tellurian Rocket Ship Aphrodite loomed unhappily into the thick air above the two men as they reached the ventral valve. Strike raised reluctant eyes to the sloping flank of the fat spaceship. "It looks," he commented bitterly, "like a pregnant carp." Senior Lieutenant Coburn Whitley—"Cob" to his friends—nodded in agreement. "That's our Lover-Girl ... old Aphrodisiac herself. The ship with the poison personality." Cob was the Aphrodite's Executive, and he had been with her a full year ... which was a record for Execs on the Aphrodite . She generally sent them Earthside with nervous breakdowns in half that time. "Tell me, Captain," continued Cob curiously, "how does it happen that you of all people happened to draw this tub for a command? I thought...." "You know Gorman?" queried Strykalski. Cob nodded. "Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Old Brass-bottom Gorman?" "The same." "Well," Cob ran a hand over his chin speculatively, "I know Gorman's a prize stinker ... but you were in command of the Ganymede . And, after all, you come from an old service family and all that. How come this?" He indicated the monitor expressively. Strike sighed. "Well, now, Cob, I'll tell you. You'll be spacing with me and I guess you've a right to know the worst ... not that you wouldn't find it out anyway. I come from a long line of very sharp operators. Seven generations of officers and gentlemen. Lousy with tradition. "The first David Farragut Strykalski, son of a sea-loving Polish immigrant, emerged from World War II a four-striper and Congressional Medal winner. Then came David Farragut Strykalski, Jr., and, in the abortive Atomic War that terrified the world in 1961, he won a United Nations Peace Citation. And then came David Farragut Strykalski III ... me. "From such humble beginnings do great traditions grow. But something happened when I came into the picture. I don't fit with the rest of them. Call it luck or temperament or what have you. "In the first place I seem to have an uncanny talent for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Gorman for example. And I take too much on my own initiative. Gorman doesn't like that. I lost the Ganymede because I left my station where I was supposed to be running section-lines to take on a bunch of colonists I thought were in danger...." "The Procyon A people?" asked Cob. "So you've heard about it." Strike shook his head sadly. "My tactical astrophysicist warned me that Procyon A might go nova. I left my routine post and loaded up on colonists." He shrugged. "Wrong guess. No nova. I made an ass of myself and lost the Ganymede . Gorman gave it to his former aide. I got this." Cob coughed slightly. "I heard something about Ley City, too." "Me again. The Ganymede's whole crew ended up in the Luna Base brig. We celebrated a bit too freely." Cob Whitley looked admiringly at his new Commander. "That was the night after the Ganymede broke the record for the Centaurus B-Earth run, wasn't it? And then wasn't there something about...." "Canalopolis?" Whitley nodded. "That time I called the Martian Ambassador a spy. It was at a Tellurian Embassy Ball." "I begin to see what you mean, Captain." "Strike's the name, Cob." Whitley's smile was expansive. "Strike, I think you're going to like our old tin pot here." He patted the Aphrodite's nether belly affectionately. "She's old ... but she's loose. And we're not likely to meet any Ambassadors or Admirals with her, either." Strykalski sighed, still thinking of his sleek Ganymede . "She'll carry the mail, I suppose. And that's about all that's expected of her." Cob shrugged philosophically. "Better than tanking that stinking rocket fuel, anyway. Deep space?" Strike shook his head. "Venus-Mars." Cob scratched his chin speculatively. "Perihelion run. Hot work." Strike was again looking at the spaceship's unprepossessing exterior. "A surge-circuit monitor, so help me." Cob nodded agreement. "The last of her class." And she was not an inspiring sight. The fantastically misnamed Aphrodite was a surge-circuit monitor of twenty guns built some ten years back in the period immediately preceding the Ionian Subjugation Incident. She had been designed primarily for atomics, with a surge-circuit set-up for interstellar flight. At least that was the planner's view. In those days, interstellar astrogation was in its formative stage, and at the time of the Aphrodite's launching the surge-circuit was hailed as the very latest in space drives. Her designer, Harlan Hendricks, had been awarded a Legion of Merit for her, and every silver-braided admiral in the Fleet had dreamed of hoisting his flag on one of her class. There had been three. The Artemis , the Andromeda , and the prototype ... old Aphrodisiac. The three vessels had gone into action off Callisto after the Phobos Raid had set off hostilities between the Ionians and the Solarian Combine. All three were miserable failures. The eager officers commanding the three monitors had found the circuit too appealing to their hot little hands. They used it ... in some way, wrongly. The Artemis exploded. The Andromeda vanished in the general direction of Coma Berenices glowing white hot from the heat of a ruptured fission chamber and spewing gamma rays in all directions. And the Aphrodite's starboard tubes blew, causing her to spend her store of vicious energy spinning like a Fourth of July pinwheel under 20 gravities until all her interior fittings ... including crew were a tangled, pulpy mess within her pressure hull. The Aphrodite was refitted for space. And because it was an integral part of her design, the circuit was rebuilt ... and sealed. She became a workhorse, growing more cantankerous with each passing year. She carried personnel.... She trucked ores. She ferried skeeterboats and tanked rocket fuel. Now, she would carry the mail. She would lift from Venusport and jet to Canalopolis, Mars, without delay or variation. Regulations, tradition and Admiral Gorman of the Inner Planet Fleet required it. And it was now up to David Farragut Strykalski III to see to it that she did.... The Officer of the Deck, a trim blonde girl in spotless greys saluted smartly as Strike and Cob stepped through the valve. Strike felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew, of course, that at least a third of the personnel on board non-combat vessels of the Inner Planet Fleet was female, but he had never actually had women on board a ship of his own, and he felt quite certain that he preferred them elsewhere. Cob sensed his discomfort. "That was Celia Graham, Strike. Ensign. Radar Officer. She's good, too." Strike shook his head. "Don't like women in space. They make me uncomfortable." Cob shrugged. "Celia's the only officer. But about a quarter of our ratings are women." He grinned maliciously. "Equal rights, you know." "No doubt," commented the other sourly. "Is that why they named this ... ship 'Aphrodite'?" Whitley saw fit to consider the question rhetorical and remained silent. Strike lowered his head to clear the arch of the flying-bridge bulkhead. Cob followed. He trailed his Captain through a jungle of chrome piping to the main control panels. Strike sank into an acceleration chair in front of the red DANGER seal on the surge-circuit rheostat. "Looks like a drug-store fountain, doesn't it?" commented Cob. Strykalski nodded sadly, thinking of the padded smoothness of the Ganymede's flying-bridge. "But she's home to us, anyway." The thick Venusian fog had closed in around the top levels of the ship, hugging the ports and cutting off all view of the field outside. Strike reached for the squawk-box control. "Now hear this. All officer personnel will assemble in the flying bridge at 600 hours for Captain's briefing. Officer of the Deck will recall any enlisted personnel now on liberty...." Whitley was on his feet, all the slackness gone from his manner. "Orders, Captain?" "We can't do anything until the new Engineering Officer gets here. They're sending someone down from the Antigone , and I expect him by 600 hours. In the meantime you'll take over his part of the work. See to it that we are fueled and ready to lift ship by 602. Base will start loading the mail at 599:30. That's about all." "Yes, sir." Whitley saluted and turned to go. At the bulkhead, he paused. "Captain," he asked, "Who is the new E/O to be?" Strike stretched his long legs out on the steel deck. "A Lieutenant Hendricks, I. V. Hendricks, is what the orders say." Cob thought hard for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders. "I. V. Hendricks." He shook his head. "Don't know him." The other officers of the T.R.S. Aphrodite were in conference with the Captain when Cob and the girl at his side reached the flying bridge. She was tall and dark-haired with regular features and pale blue eyes. She wore a service jumper with two silver stripes on the shoulder-straps, and even the shapeless garment could not hide the obvious trimness of her figure. Strike's back was toward the bulkhead, and he was addressing the others. "... and that's about the story. We are to jet within 28,000,000 miles of Sol. Orbit is trans-Mercurian hyperbolic. With Mars in opposition, we have to make a perihelion run and it won't be pleasant. But I'm certain this old boiler can take it. I understand the old boy who designed her wasn't as incompetent as they say. But Space Regs are specific about mail runs. This is important to you, Evans. Your astrogation has to be accurate to within twenty-five miles plus or minus the shortest route. And there'll be no breaking orbit. Now be certain that the refrigeration units are checked, Mister Wilkins, especially in the hydroponic cells. Pure air is going to be important." "That's about all there is to tell you. As soon as our rather leisurely E/O gets here, we can jet with Aunt Nelly's postcard." He nodded. "That's the story. Lift ship in...." He glanced at his wrist chronograph, "... in an hour and five." The officers filed out and Cob Whitley stuck his head into the room. "Captain?" "Come in, Cob." Strike's dark brows knit at the sight of the uniformed girl in the doorway. Cob's face was sober, but hidden amusement was kindling behind his eyes. "Captain, may I present Lieutenant Hendricks? Lieutenant I-vy Hendricks?" Strike looked blankly at the girl. "Our new E/O, Captain," prompted Whitley. "Uh ... welcome aboard, Miss Hendricks," was all the Captain could find to say. The girl's eyes were cold and unfriendly. "Thank you, Captain." Her voice was like cracked ice tinkling in a glass. "If I may have your permission to inspect the drives, Captain, I may be able to convince you that the designer of this vessel was not ... as you seem to think ... a senile incompetent." Strike was perplexed, and he showed it. "Why, certainly ... uh ... Miss ... but why should you be so...." The girl's voice was even colder than before as she said, "Harlan Hendricks, Captain, is my father." A week in space had convinced Strike that he commanded a jinx ship. Jetting sunward from Venus, the cantankerous Aphrodite had burned a steering tube through, and it had been necessary to go into free-fall while Jenkins, the Assistant E/O, and a damage control party effected repairs. When the power was again applied, Old Aphrodisiac was running ten hours behind schedule, and Strike and Evans, the Astrogation Officer, were sweating out the unforeseen changes introduced into the orbital calculations by the time spent in free-fall. The Aphrodite rumbled on toward the orbit of Mercury.... For all the tension between the occupants of the flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks worked well together. And after a second week in space, a reluctant admiration was replacing the resentment between them. Ivy spent whatever time she could spare tinkering with her father's pet surge-circuit and Strike began to realize that there was little she did not know about spaceship engineering. Then, too, Ivy spent a lot of time at the controls, and Strike was forced to admit that he had never seen a finer job of piloting done by man or woman. And finally, Ivy hated old Brass-bottom Gorman even more than Strike did. She felt that Gorman had ruined her father's career, and she was dedicating her life to proving her father right and Brass-bottom wrong. There's nothing in the cosmos to nurture friendship like a common enemy. At 30,000,000 miles from the sun, the Aphrodite's refrigeration units could no longer keep the interior of the ship at a comfortable temperature. The thermometer stood at 102°F, the very metal of the ship's fittings hot to the touch. Uniforms were discarded, insignia of rank vanished. The men dressed in fiberglass shorts and spaceboots, sweat making their naked bodies gleam like copper under the sodium-vapor lights. The women in the crew added only light blouses to their shorts ... and suffered from extra clothing. Strike was in the observation blister forward, when Ensign Graham called to say that she had picked up a radar contact sunward. The IFF showed the pips to be the Lachesis and the Atropos . The two dreadnaughts were engaged in coronary research patrol ... a purely routine business. But the thing that made Strike curse under his breath was Celia Graham's notation that the Atropos carried none other than Space Admiral Horatio Gorman, Cominch Inplan. Strike thought it a pity that old Brass-bottom couldn't fall into Hell's hottest pit ... and he told Ivy so. And she agreed. Old Aphrodisiac had reached perihelion when it happened. The thermometer stood at 135° and tempers were snapping. Cob and Celia Graham had tangled about some minor point concerning Lover-Girl's weight and balance. Ivy went about her work on the bridge without speaking, and Strike made no attempt to brighten her sudden depression. Lieutenant Evans had punched Bayne, the Tactical Astrophysicist, in the eye for some disparaging remark about Southern California womanhood. The ratings were grumbling about the food.... And then it happened. Cob was in the radio room when Sparks pulled the flimsy from the scrambler. It was a distress signal from the Lachesis . The Atropos had burst a fission chamber and was falling into the sun. Radiation made a transfer of personnel impossible, and the Atropos skeeterboats didn't have the power to pull away from the looming star. The Lachesis had a line on the sister dreadnaught and was valiantly trying to pull the heavy vessel to safety, but even the thundering power of the Lachesis' mighty drive wasn't enough to break Sol's deathgrip on the battleship. A fleet of souped-up space-tugs was on its way from Luna and Venusport, but they could not possibly arrive on time. And it was doubtful that even the tugs had the necessary power to drag the crippled Atropos away from a fiery end. Cob snatched the flimsy from Sparks' hands and galloped for the flying-bridge. He burst in and waved the message excitedly in front of Strykalski's face. "Have a look at this! Ye gods and little catfish! Read it!" "Well, dammit, hold it still so I can!" snapped Strike. He read the message and passed it to Ivy Hendricks with a shake of his head. She read it through and looked up exultantly. "This is it ! This is the chance I've been praying for, Strike!" He returned her gaze sourly. "For Gorman to fall into the sun? I recall I said something of the sort myself, but there are other men on those ships. And, if I know Captain Varni on the Lachesis , he won't let go that line even if he fries himself." Ivy's eyes snapped angrily. "That's not what I meant, and you know it! I mean this!" She touched the red-sealed surge-circuit rheostat. "That's very nice, Lieutenant," commented Cob drily. "And I know that you've been very busy adjusting that gismo. But I seem to recall that the last time that circuit was uncorked everyone aboard became part of the woodwork ... very messily, too." "Let me understand you, Ivy," said Strike in a flat voice. "What you are suggesting is that I risk my ship and the lives of all of us trying to pull old Gorman's fat out of the fire with a drive that's blown skyhigh three times out of three. Very neat." There were tears bright in Ivy Hendricks' eyes and she sounded desperate. "But we can save those ships! We can, I know we can! My father designed this ship! I know every rivet of her! Those idiots off Callisto didn't know what they were doing. These ships needed specially trained men. Father told them that! And I'm trained! I can take her in and save those ships!" Her expression turned to one of disgust. "Or are you afraid?" "Frankly, Ivy, I haven't enough sense to be afraid. But are you so certain that we can pull this off? If I make a mistake this time ... it'll be the last. For all of us." "We can do it," said Ivy Hendricks simply. Strike turned to Cob. "What do you say, Cob? Shall we make it hotter in here?" Whitley shrugged. "If you say so, Strike. It's good enough for me." Celia Graham left the bridge shaking her head. "We'll all be dead soon. And me so young and pretty." Strike turned to the squawk-box. "Evans!" "Evans here," came the reply. "Have Sparks get a DF fix on the Atropos and hold it. We'll home on their carrier wave. They're in trouble and we're going after them. Plot the course." "Yes, Captain." Strike turned to Cob. "Have the gun-crews stand by to relieve the black-gang in the tube rooms. It's going to get hotter than the hinges of hell down there and we'll have to shorten shifts." "Yes, sir!" Cob saluted and was gone. Strike returned to the squawk-box. "Radar!" "Graham here," replied Celia from her station. "Get a radar fix on the Lachesis and hold it. Send your dope up to Evans and tell him to send us a range estimate." "Yes, Captain," the girl replied crisply. "Gun deck!" "Gun deck here, sir," came a feminine voice. "Have number two starboard torpedo tube loaded with a fish and a spool of cable. Be ready to let fly on short notice ... any range." "Yes, sir!" The girl switched off. "And now you, Miss Hendricks." "Yes, Captain?" Her voice was low. "Take over Control ... and Ivy...." "Yes?" "Don't kill us off." He smiled down at her. She nodded silently and took her place at the control panel. Smoothly she turned old Aphrodisiac's nose sunward.... Lashed together with a length of unbreakable beryllium steel cable, the Lachesis and the Atropos fell helplessly toward the sun. The frantic flame that lashed out from the Lachesis' tube was fading, her fission chambers fusing under the terrific heat of splitting atoms. Still she tried. She could not desert her sister ship, nor could she save her. Already the two ships had fallen to within 18,000,000 miles of the sun's terrifying atmosphere of glowing gases. The prominences that spouted spaceward seemed like great fiery tentacles reaching for the trapped men on board the warships. The atmospheric guiding fins, the gun-turrets and other protuberances on both ships were beginning to melt under the fierce radiance. Only the huge refrigeration plants on the vessels made life within them possible. And, even so, men were dying. Swiftly, the fat, ungainly shape of old Aphrodisiac drew near. In her flying-bridge, Strike and Ivy Hendricks watched the stricken ships in the darkened viewport. The temperature stood at 140° and the air was bitter with the smell of hot metal. Ivy's blouse clung to her body, soaked through with perspiration. Sweat ran from her hair into her eyes and she gasped for breath in the oven hot compartment. Strike watched her with apprehension. Carefully, Ivy circled the two warships. From the starboard tube on the gun-deck, a homing rocket leapt toward the Atropos . It plunged straight and true, spilling cable as it flew. It slammed up against the hull, and stuck there, fast to the battleship's flank. Quickly, a robocrane drew it within the ship and the cable was made secure. Like cosmic replicas of the ancient South American "bolas," the three spacecraft whirled in space ... and all three began that sunward plunge together. They were diving into the sun. The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison. Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel. " Ivy! " Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm. "I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all." Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit. Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line. More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail. Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat." "We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. " Now! " He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain.... The last thing he remembered was a voice. It sounded like Bayne's. And it was shouting. "We're moving 'em! We're pulling away! We're...." And that was all. The space-tug Scylla found them. The three ships ... Atropos , Lachesis , and old Aphrodisiac ... lashed together and drifting in space. Every man and woman aboard out cold from the acceleration, and Aphrodite's tanks bone dry. But they were a safe 80,000,000 miles from Sol.... The orchestra was subdued, the officer's club softly lighted. Cob leaned his elbow on the bar and bent to inspect the blue ribbon of the Spatial Cross on Strike's chest. Then he inspected his own and nodded with tipsy satisfaction. He stared out at the Martian night beyond the broad windows and back again at Strike. His frown was puzzled. "All right," said Strike, setting down his glass. "What's on your mind, Cob? Something's eating you." Whitley nodded very slowly. He took a long pull at his highball. "I understand that you goofballed your chances of getting the Ganymede back when Gorman spoke his piece to you...." "All I said to him...." "I know. I know what you said ... and it won't bear repeating. But you're not fooling me. You've fallen for old Lover-Girl and you don't want to leave her. Ver-ry commendable. Loyal! Stout fellah! But what about Ivy?" "Ivy?" Cob looked away. "I thought that you and she ... well, I thought that when we got back ... well...." Strike shook his head. "She's gone to the Bureau of Ships with a designing job." Cob waved an expressive arm in the air. "But dammit, man, I thought...." "The answer is no . Ivy's a nice girl ... but...." He paused and sighed. "Since she was promoted to her father's old rank ... well...." He shrugged. "Who wants a wife that ranks you?" "Never thought of that," mused Cob. For a long while he was silent; then he pulled out an address book and leafed through until he came to the pages marked "Canalopolis, Mars." And he was gratified to see that Lieutenant Commander David Farragut Strykalski III was doing the same.

What does the author describe to be a confusing element of the debate on the kin-selection genetic principle?

Traits for kinship did not persist into modern day

Humans didn’t understand genetics in early evolution

Kin-selection would not have benefitted early humans

Humans are capable of treating anyone as kin

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.

How does the author compare the importance of genetic relationship and bonding?

Genetic relation and bonding are equally important to human capacity of love

Bonding is more important to human capacity to love than genetic relationship

There is no relationship between bonding and capacity to love

Human capacity to love depends on genetic relation

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.

What argument does the author make about why modern humans are genetically selfish?

Supporting our immediate blood relatives doesn’t help our familial genes persist to the next generation

Modern humans do not share most of their genes in common, making them selfish

Being genetically selfish still helps altruism pass on through modern humans

We fail to see that all modern humans share most of their genes in common, thus, helping any human is helping our genes pass on even if they are unrelated

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.

What is the author’s thesis?

Human evolution depended on naturalistic fallacy

Limiting love to those you a genetically related to is important to modern humans

Humans would evolve faster if kinship was universal

Limiting love to those you are directly genetically related to is nonsensical from both ethical and genetic selection perspectives

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.

What weight does the author give to the importance of kin-selection earlier in human evolution?

Early humans had no familial bond with kin, disrupting kin-selection through human evolution

Kin-selection was never all that important to human evolution because altruism would have always been in human DNA

Traits of kinship would be detrimental to familial genetics being passed on

Traits of kinship were important to familial genetics being passed on, thus kinship was also selected for in early human evolution

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.

Who are genetically considered “kin”?

All humans

Adoptive children and full siblings

Friends

Full siblings

The Absurdity of Family Love Don't get me wrong. Kids are great. I have some, and I adore them. Every Christmas I become a slave to my camcorder. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, and so on. But now that the radiance of the yuletide season is fading, it's time to confront a sobering scientific truth: The more you think about the biology of parental love, the more absurd it seems. The same goes for love of kin generally--brothers, sisters, nephews, etc. Readers familiar with my obsessions may fear that this column is just another attempt to spoil everyone's fun, to replace the beautiful mystery of life with ugly Darwinian clarity. Actually, what I hope to dispel isn't pre-Darwinian mystery, but a kind of post-Darwinian mysticism, a confused exaltation of genetic affinity. You see the confusion when biological parents invoke "blood ties" to reclaim a child from adoptive parents. You see it when opponents of cross-ethnic adoption argue--as in a New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago--that we must respect "the strength of the biological and cultural ties that Indian tribes can offer their own children." In a sense, you see it every year around Christmas, when people pay lip service to the idea of universal brotherhood but believe in their hearts that it's ridiculous, that truly loving people to whom you aren't related violates some law of nature. Thanks to the biologist William Hamilton, it is now clear why people feel brotherly love in the literal sense--and sisterly love, maternal love, and paternal love. It's all due to the operation of "kin selection" during evolution. A greatly oversimplified textbook example: Two million years ago, two hominids, Loveless Bob and Loving Bob, stand on two different riverbanks, in identical situations. Each is watching his full sibling Bill drown. Loving Bob has a gene inclining him to love his brother and thus jump in the raging river, even though his risk of dying is 10 percent. Loveless Bob has no such gene, and thus stands on the bank wondering whether his brother's corpse will attract any large, edible fish. Which Bob's genes will survive the Darwinian reaper--genes for love or for cold indifference? Love triumphs. True, there's a one-in-10 chance that the love gene will sink along with Loving Bob. But consider the upside. There's a one-in-two chance that Bob's full sibling Bill has the same gene and, thus, that a successful rescue mission will pluck an otherwise doomed copy of the gene from the dustbin of history. Do the math, and you'll see that, over time, Loving Bobs send more genes to posterity than Loveless Bobs. As love genes spread at the expense of indifference genes, Loveless Bobs slowly become extinct. Die, selfish scum! Genes for sibling love come to permeate our species--as, in fact, they now do. So do genes for maternal love and paternal love. All brought to you by kin selection. As modern Darwinism gets popularized, the basic idea of kin selection is approaching the status of conventional wisdom. So are some attendant misconceptions. Misconception No. 1: Genes are smart . People often assume that kin-selected altruism is foolproof; that a gene can magically sense copies of itself in other organisms--or, at least, can somehow ascertain with perfect accuracy which organisms are close relatives of its own host organism and thus may carry copies of itself. In truth, genes aren't omniscient, or even sentient. If kin-selected genes are going to induce love of kin, they'll have to determine who qualifies as kin in some pedestrian and probably fallible way. For example: Back when Loving Bob was 6 years old, if his mother was nursing some infant named Bill and sleeping by its side every night, there's a very good chance that Bill was Bob's sibling. So a gene disposing Bob to love children whom he sees his mother nurturing could spread through the population until everyone obeys the same rule. But this rule would misfire now and then, when a mother is for some reason nurturing a non-offspring. It's just that the misfiring wouldn't happen often enough to greatly dilute the genetic math favoring the gene's proliferation. Little is known about which rules for identifying kin--"kin-recognition mechanisms"--do operate in our species. But clearly, they are fallible. Even mothers, who you'd think would have a damn good idea of who their offspring are, can in principle be fooled. When hospital staffers for some reason handed hours-old Kimberly Mays to a mother who was not hers, the mother's kin-recognition mechanisms--a k a bonding processes--kicked in. This woman wound up loving Kimberly like a daughter (though the mother died two years later, so that Kimberly was reared mostly by a stepmother). Meanwhile, Kimberly's genetic mother, having missed years of bonding, can never love Kimberly quite like her own child, even though Kimberly is her own child. Because genetic relationship per se doesn't matter. This irrelevance of genes is why surrogate motherhood is so messy. Even when, thanks to in vitro fertilization, the birth mother is unrelated to the fetus she carries, she will, upon giving birth, fall in love with the child. During evolution, after all, having a baby come out of your womb was reasonably strong evidence of kinship. The power of the hormones that govern this bonding is familiar to anyone who has watched a woman clutch her just-born child and turn into a love-drunk cuddle-bunny. (When my wife went through this magic moment, I briefly considered snatching the baby and replacing it with an 8-by-10 glossy of myself.) This hormonal power was also observed by researchers studying oxytocin, a hormone that's present in human and other mammalian mothers at birth. The researchers put it in a syringe and used it to shatter all previous records for cuddling among laboratory rats. By the way, the synthetic version of oxytocin, Pitocin, is what doctors use to induce labor. Misconception No. 2: People are smart--or, at least, they are smart Darwinian robots . Darwinian theory does posit that homo sapiens were "designed" to get their genes into the next generation, but not that they were designed to do so consciously and rationally. As surrogate mothers have proved, knowing that you've given no genes to an infant needn't stop the bonding process. Thus, "kin- recognition mechanism" is a doubly misleading term--first because, as we've seen, the mechanism doesn't positively identify kin, but just identifies factors correlated with kinship; and second because people aren't really aware of doing the identifying. We don't think, "There's strong evidence that she's my daughter, so I adore her." More like, "God but my daughter's adorable." It is good news for adoptive parents that neither genetic relationship nor conscious awareness of genetic relationship is a prerequisite for love. Still, it is bad news that maternal bonding begins with hormones at birth. It is also bad news that breast-feeding, which adoptive mothers usually can't do, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin. Then again, there is no reason in principle that adoptive parents couldn't take Pitocin once a day for synthetic bonding sessions. (Oxytocin seems to be part of the bonding formula in men, too.) Besides, some genetic mothers aren't conscious at birth, and many don't breast-feed, yet they all nonetheless wind up loving their kids. As the many successful adoptive parents know, lots of the magic moments that add up to durabonding have nothing to do with birthing or breast-feeding. (Tiny tots, with their eyes all aglow ... ) Anyway, the main point is that when genetic parents give up a child for adoption and have second thoughts weeks, months, or even years later, their appeals to blood ties should count for zilch. Their love of their child, and their child's love of them, depends not on genetic math but on a long and complex chain of bonding, much of which they have already voluntarily missed out on. Similarly, the idea that Native American babies, or black babies, or whatever, have some mystical genetic affinity with their "own" kind is silly. Obviously, cross-ethnic adoption is dicey. It draws sidelong glances and playground taunts, and it may give the adopted child an identity crisis. But it won't do this because of some ancestral memory in the genes. As attitudes change, cross-ethnic adoption will get easier; and as cross-ethnic adoption gets more common, attitudes will change. (There are other pop-genetics arguments against cross-ethnic adoption, and against adoption in general. One is that genes influence personality so powerfully that mixing unrelated siblings is like mixing oil and water. This idea is .) Misconception No. 3: Our genes, though perhaps not real smart, aren't downright stupid . Here we come, at last, to the true absurdity of familial love. As we've seen, the genes that sponsor it flourished by encouraging an "altruism" that was, in fact, self-serving at the genetic level (the inexorable triumph of Loving Bob's genes). As we've also seen, these genes can be "fooled" into encouraging altruism toward non-kin, altruism that presumably is not self-serving at the genetic level. Still, you might argue, in defense of your genes, they usually direct familial love toward genuine kin, and thus usually succeed in being efficiently selfish. Wrong! When genes confine altruism to kin, and deny it to needy non-kin, they are in fact failing spectacularly to be efficiently selfish. Because nowadays, copies of these genes do reside in non-kin--in your next-door neighbor and, for that matter, your worst enemy. After all, the Darwinian logic behind love of kin was so relentless that these genes permeated our entire species! Loveless Bob is extinct, remember? You can be forgiven for doubting my logic. People like me, in writing about kin selection, often talk about full siblings sharing "half their genes," implying that nonrelatives share none. But in truth, you share virtually all your genes with any randomly selected homo sapien on any continent. What people like me really mean is that full siblings share half of any genes that are newly minted--genes that have recently arisen and on which natural selection is just starting to pass judgment. Genes that natural selection fully endorsed long ago--the basic genes for hunger, for lust, for familial love--are in everyone. So genes that originally flourished by bestowing love with discerning selfishness--by discriminating against people not containing copies of themselves--now, having spread through the species, discriminate against people who do contain copies! You may doubt that natural selection, a process that supposedly maximizes genetic selfishness, could fail so abjectly to do so. But it's true. . So this past holiday season, as you rushed to buy presents for your kids or your siblings or your nieces or nephews, impelled by "selfishly" altruistic genes, you were operating under flawed Darwinian logic. These "selfish" genes could do just as much for themselves by encouraging you to instead spend your money on the beggar outside the department store. In fact, they could do more, since the beggar is closer to perishing than your relatives are. (Also, the beggar might buy something useful such as food, as opposed to a hair-eating Cabbage Patch doll.) But our genes are too stupid to so deftly serve their own welfare. Not that I attach much weight to what is and isn't "good" from the standpoint of genetic self-interest. As virtually all ethical philosophers who have pondered the matter agree, it doesn't make sense to model our moral values on the logic of nature anyway; to infer ought from is --to commit the "naturalistic fallacy"--only leads to moral confusion. For example, you might, after observing the natural behavior of praying mantises, be tempted to conclude that it is morally good for females to eat males after sex--and this, I submit, would be a repugnant and wrongheaded doctrine! (Though slightly less repugnant than the idea of eating males before the sex.) Most people implicitly recognize the naturalistic fallacy in some contexts. They sense that there's something visceral about, say, malice; yet they'll tell you (when not in its thrall) that they disapprove of it. It's obvious, they believe, that the natural strength of hatred is not a good thing. They're right. What is equally right, but a bit less obvious, is that the "natural" limits of love aren't necessarily good either. And, on close inspection, these limits turn out not to be all that rigorously "natural" anyway.