Yes, we all had work to do—but none of us, not even Sandra, was particularly keen on getting started on it. We were down, and still in one piece, and we were feeling that sense of utter relaxation that comes at the end of a voyage; there was something in it of homecoming (although the Rim Worlds were home only to the old man), something in it of the last day of school.
Sandra stood there for a moment or so, looking down at Doc and myself. Her regard shifted to the decanter. She said, "It's a shame to leave all that to you two pigs."
"Don't let it worry you, duckie," Jenkins admonished her.
"It does worry me."
She sat down again and refilled her glass. The doctor refilled his glass. I refilled mine.
"Journeys end," said Doc, making a toast of it.
"In lovers meeting," I added, finishing the quotation.
"I didn't know you had a popsy in Port Forlorn," said Sandra distantly.
"I haven't," I said. "Not now. Not anymore. But there should be lovers' meetings at the end of a voyage."
"Why?" she asked, feigning interest.
"Because some sentimental slob of a so-called poet said so," sneered Doc.
"Better than all your crap about down-thrusting phalluses," I retorted.
"Boys, boys . . ." admonished Sandra.
"Is there anything left in the bottle?" demanded Ralph Listowel.
We hadn't seen or heard him come into the wardroom. We looked up at him in mild amazement as he stood there, awkward, gangling, his considerable height diminished ever so slightly by his habitual slouch. There was a worried expression on his lined face. I wondered just what was wrong now.
"Here, Ralph," said Sandra, passing him a drink.
"Thanks." The mate gulped rather than sipped. "Hmm. Not bad." He gulped again. "Any more?"
"Building up your strength, Ralph?" asked Sandra sweetly.
"Could be," he admitted. "Or perhaps this is an infusion of Dutch courage."
"And what do you want it for?" I asked. "The hazards of the voyage are over and done with."
"Those hazards, yes," he said gloomily. "But there are worse hazards than those in space. When mere chief officers are bidden to report to the super's office, at once if not before, there's something cooking—and, I shouldn't mind betting you a month's pay, it'll be something that stinks."
"Just a routine bawling out," I comforted him. "After all, you can't expect to get away with everything all the time."
A wintry grin did nothing to soften his harsh features. "But it's not only me he wants. He wants you, Sandra, and you, Doc, and you, Peter. And Smethwick, our commissioned clairvoyant. One of you had better go to shake him out of his habitual stupor."
"But what have we done?" asked Doc in a worried voice.
"My conscience is clear," I said. "At least, I think it is . . ."
"My conscience is clear," Sandra stated firmly.
"Mine never is," admitted Doc gloomily.
The mate put his glass down on the table. "All right," he told us brusquely. "Go and get washed behind the ears and brush your hair. One of you drag the crystal gazer away from his dog's brain in aspic and try to get him looking something like an officer and a gentleman."
"Relax, Ralph," said Jenkins, pouring what was left in the decanter into his own glass.
"I wish I could. But it's damned odd the way the commodore is yelling for all of us. I may not be a psionic radio officer, but I have my hunches."
Jenkins laughed. "One thing is certain, Ralph, he's not sending for us to fire us. Rim Runners are never that well off for officers. And once we've come out to the Rim, we've hit rock bottom." He began to warm up. "We've run away from ourselves as far as we can, to the very edge of the blackness, and we can't run any farther."
"Even so . . ." said the mate.
"Doc's right," said Sandra. "He'll just be handing out new appointments to all of us. With a bit of luck—or bad luck?—we might be shipping out together again."
"It'll be good luck for all of you if we are," said Doc. "My jungle juice is the best in the fleet, and you all know it."
"So you say," said Sandra.
"But what about the old man?" I asked. "And the engineers? Are they bidden to the presence?"
"No," said Ralph. "As far as I know, they'll just be going on leave." He added gloomily, "There's something in the wind as far as we're concerned. I wish I knew what it was."
"There's only one way to find out," said Sandra briskly, getting to her feet.
* * *
We left the ship together—Ralph, Doc Jenkins, Sandra, Smethwick and myself. Ralph, who was inclined to take his naval reserve commission seriously, tried to make it a march across the dusty, scarred concrete to the low huddle of administration buildings. Both Sandra and I tried to play along with him, but Doc Jenkins and our tame telepath could turn any march into a straggle without even trying. For Smethwick there was, perhaps, some excuse; released from the discipline of watchkeeping he was renewing contact with his telepathic friends all over the planet. He wandered along like a man in a dream, always on the point of falling over his own feet. And Jenkins rolled happily beside him, a somewhat inane grin on his ruddy face. I guessed that in the privacy of his cabin he had depleted his stocks of jungle juice still further.
I wished that I'd imbibed another stiff slug myself. The wind was bitterly cold, driving the dust before it in whorls and eddies, filling our eyes with grit, redolent of old socks and burning sulphur. I was wondering how anybody could be fool enough to come out to the Rim Worlds. I was wondering, not for the first time, how I'd ever been fool enough to come out to the Rim Worlds.
It was a relief to get into the office building, out of that insistent, nagging wind. The air was pleasantly warm, but my eyes were still stinging. I used my handkerchief to try to clear the gritty particles from them, and saw through tears that the others were doing the same—all save Smethwick, who, lost in some private world of his own, was oblivious to discomfort. Ralph brushed the dust from his epaulettes and then used his handkerchief to restore a polish to his shoes, tossing the soiled fabric into a handy disposer. He started to ascend the stairs, and paused to throw a beckoning nod at us. Not without reluctance we followed.
There was the familiar door at the end of the passageway with Astronautical Superintendent inscribed on the translucent plastic. The door opened of itself as we approached. Through the doorway we could see the big, cluttered desk and, behind it, the slight, wiry figure of Commodore Grimes. He had risen to his feet, but he still looked small, dwarfed by the furnishings that must have been designed for a much larger man. I was relieved to see that his creased and pitted face was illumined by a genuinely friendly smile, his teeth startlingly white against the dark skin.
"Come in," he boomed. "Come in, all of you." He waved a hand to the chairs that had been set in a rough semicircle before his desk. "Be seated."
And then I didn't feel so relieved after all. Fussing in the background was Miss Hallows, his secretary, tending a bubbling coffee percolator. From past experience I knew that such hospitality meant that we were to be handed the dirty end of some very peculiar stick.
When the handshaking and the exchange of courtesies were over we sat down. There was a period of silence while Miss Hallows busied herself with the percolator and the cups. My attention was drawn by an odd-looking model on the commodore's desk, and I saw that the others, too, were looking at it curiously and that old Grimes was watching us with a certain degree of amusement. It was a ship, that was obvious, but it could not possibly be a spaceship. It was, I guessed, some sort of aircraft; there was a cigar-shaped hull and, protruding from it, a fantastically complicated array of spars and vanes. I know even less about aeronautics than I do about astronautics—after all, I'm just the spacefaring office boy—but even I doubted if such a contraption could ever fly. I turned my head to look at Ralph; he was staring at the thing with a sort of amused and amazed contempt.
"Admiring my new toy?" asked the commodore.
"It's rather . . . it's rather odd, sir," said Ralph.
"Go on," chuckled Grimes. "Why don't you ask?"
There was an embarrassed silence, broken by Sandra. "All right, commodore. What is it?"
"That, my dear," he told her, "is your new ship."