Part 1 (1/2)
Once a Greech.
by Evelyn E. Smith.
[Sidenote: _The mildest of men, Iversen was capable of murder ... to disprove Harkaway's hypothesis that in the midst of life, we are in life!_]
Just two weeks before the _S. S. Herringbone_ of the Interstellar Exploration, Examination (and Exploitation) Service was due to start her return journey to Earth, one of her scouts disconcertingly reported the discovery of intelligent life in the Virago System.
”Thirteen planets,” Captain Iversen snarled, wis.h.i.+ng there were someone on whom he could place the blame for this mischance, ”and we spend a full year here exploring each one of them with all the resources of Terrestrial science and technology, and what happens? On the nineteenth moon of the eleventh planet, intelligent life is discovered. And who has to discover it? Harkaway, of all people. I thought for sure all the moons were cinders or I would never have sent him out to them just to keep him from getting in my hair.”
”The boy's not a bad boy, sir,” the first officer said. ”Just a thought incompetent, that's all--which is to be expected if the Service will choose its officers on the basis of written examinations. I'm glad to see him make good.”
Iversen would have been glad to see Harkaway make good, too, only such a concept seemed utterly beyond the bounds of possibility. From the moment the young man had first set foot on the _S. S. Herringbone_, he had seemed unable to make anything but bad. Even in such a conglomeration of fools under Captain Iverson, his idiocy was of outstanding quality.
The captain, however, had not been wholly beyond reproach in this instance, as he himself knew. Pity he had made such an error about the eleventh planet's moons. It was really such a small mistake. Moons one to eighteen and twenty to forty-six still appeared to be cinders. It was all too easy for the spectroscope to overlook Flimbot, the nineteenth.
But it would be Flimbot which had turned out to be a green and pleasant planet, very similar to Earth. Or so Harkaway reported on the intercom.
”And the other forty-five aren't really moons at all,” he began.
”They're--”
”You can tell me all that when we reach Flimbot,” Iversen interrupted, ”which should be in about six hours. Remember, that intercom uses a lot of power and we're tight on fuel.”
But it proved to be more than six _days_ later before the s.h.i.+p reached Flimbot. This was owing to certain mechanical difficulties that arose when the crew tried to lift the mother s.h.i.+p from the third planet, on which it was based. For sentimental reasons, the IEE(E) always tried to establish its prime base on the third planet of a system. Anyhow, when the _Herringbone_ was on the point of takeoff, it was discovered that the rock-eating species which was the only life on the third planet had eaten all the projecting metal parts on the s.h.i.+p, including the rocket-exhaust tubes, the airlock handles and the chromium trim.
”I had been wondering what made the little fellows so sick,” Smullyan, the s.h.i.+p's doctor, said. ”They went wump, wump, wump all night long, until my heart bled for them. Ah, everywhere it goes, humanity spreads the fell seeds of death and destruction--”
”Are you a doctor or a veterinarian?” Iversen demanded furiously. ”By Betelgeuse, you act as if I'd crammed those blasted tubes down their stinking little throats!”
”It was you who invaded their paradise with your s.h.i.+p. It was you--”
”Shut up!” Iversen yelled. ”Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!”
So Dr. Smullyan went off, like many a s.h.i.+p's physician before him, and got good and drunk on the medical stores.
By the time they finally arrived on Flimbot, Harkaway had already gone native. He appeared at the airlock wearing nothing but a brief, colorful loincloth of alien fabric and a wreath of flowers in his hair. He was fondling a large, woolly pink caterpillar.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”Where is your uniform, sir!” Captain Iversen barked, aghast. If there was one thing he was intolerant of in his command, it was sloppiness.
”This is the undress uniform of the Royal Flimbotzi Navy, sir. I was given the privilege of wearing one as a great _msu'gri_--honor--to our race. If I were to return to my own uniform, it might set back diplomatic relations between Flimbot and Earth as much as--”
”All right!” the captain snapped. ”All right, all right, all right!”
He didn't ask any questions about the Royal Flimbotzi Navy. He had deduced its nature when, on nearing Flimbot, he had discovered that the eleventh planet actually had only one moon. The other forty-five celestial objects were s.p.a.cecraft, quaint and primitive, it was true, but s.p.a.cecraft nonetheless. Probably it was their orbital formation that had made him think they were moons. Oh, the crew must be in great spirits; they did so enjoy having a good laugh at his expense!
He looked for something with which to reproach Harkaway, and his eye lighted on the caterpillar. ”What's that thing you're carrying there?”
he barked.