Unwise Child by Randall Garrett (world best books to read TXT) 📗

question, it was certainly a hinting statement.

Mike shook his head. “I don’t know anything, Captain. Honestly I don’t.”

If Space Service regulations had allowed it, Captain Sir [53] Henry Quill, Bart., would have worn a walrus mustache. And if he’d had such a mustache, he would have whuffled it then. As it was, he just blew out air, and nothing whuffled.

“You and I are the only ones in the dark, then,” he said. “The rest of the crew is being picked from Chilblains Base. Pete Jeffers is First Officer, in case you’re wondering.”

“Oh, great,” Mike the Angel said with a moan. “That means we’ll be going in cold on an untried ship.”

Like Birnam Wood advancing on Dunsinane, Quill’s eyebrows moved upward. “Don’t you trust your own designing?”

“As much as you do,” said Mike the Angel. “Probably more.”

Quill nodded. “We’ll have to make the best of it. We’ll muddle through somehow. Are you all ready to go?”

“No,” Mike admitted, “but I don’t see that I can do a damn thing about that.”

“Nor do I,” said Captain Quill. “Be at Chilblains Base in twenty-four hours. Arrangements will be made at the Long Island Base for your transportation to Antarctica. And”—he paused and his scowl became deeper—“you’d best get used to calling me ‘sir’ again.”

“Yessir, Sir Henry, sir.”

“Thank you, Mister Gabriel,” snapped Quill, cutting the circuit.

“Selah,” said Mike the Angel.

Chilblains Base, Antarctica, was directly over the South Magnetic Pole—at least, as closely as that often elusive spot could be pinpointed for any length of time. It is cheaper in the long run if an interstellar vessel moves parallel with, not perpendicular to, the magnetic “lines of force” of a planet’s [54] gravitational field. Taking off “across the grain” can be done, but the power consumption is much greater. Taking off “with the grain” is expensive enough.

An ion rocket doesn’t much care where it lifts or sets down, since its method of propulsion isn’t trying to work against the fabric of space itself. For that reason, an interstellar vessel is normally built in space and stays there, using ion rockets for loading and unloading its passengers. It’s cheaper by far.

The Computer Corporation of Earth had also been thinking of expenses when it built its Number One Research Station near Chilblains Base, although the corporation was not aware at the time just how much money it was eventually going to save them.

The original reason had simply been lower power costs. A cryotron unit has to be immersed at all times in a bath of liquid helium at a temperature of four-point-two degrees absolute. It is obviously much easier—and much cheaper—to keep several thousand gallons of helium at that temperature if the surrounding temperature is at two hundred thirty-three absolute than if it is up around two hundred ninety or three hundred. That may not seem like much percentagewise, but it comes out to a substantial saving in the long run.

But, power consumption or no, when C.C. of E. found that Snookums either had to be moved or destroyed, it was mightily pleased that it had built Prime Station near Chilblains Base. Since a great deal of expense also, of necessity, devolved upon Earth Government, the government was, to say it modestly, equally pleased. There was enough expense as it was.

The scenery at Chilblains Base—so named by a wiseacre[55] American navy man back in the twentieth century—was nothing to brag about. Thousands of square miles of powdered ice that has had nothing to do but blow around for twenty million years is not at all inspiring after the first few minutes unless one is obsessed by the morbid beauty of cold death.

Mike the Angel was not so obsessed. To him, the area surrounding Chilblains Base was just so much white hell, and his analysis was perfectly correct. Mike wished that it had been January, midsummer in the Antarctic, so there would have been at least a little dim sunshine. Mike the Angel did not particularly relish having to visit the South Pole in midwinter.

The rocket that had lifted Mike the Angel from Long Island Base settled itself into the snow-covered landing stage of Chilblains Base, dissipating the crystalline whiteness into steam as it did so. The steam, blown away by the chill winds, moved all of thirty yards before it became ice again.

Mike the Angel was not in the best of moods. Having to dump all of his business into Serge Paulvitch’s hands on twenty-four hours’ notice was irritating. He knew Paulvitch could handle the job, but it wasn’t fair to him to make him take over so suddenly.

In addition, Mike did not like the way the whole Branchell business was being handled. It seemed slipshod and hurried, and, worse, it was entirely too mysterious and melodramatic.

“Of all the times to have to come to Antarctica,” he grumped as the door of the rocket opened, “why did I have to get July?”

[56] The pilot, a young man in his early twenties, said smugly: “July is bad, but January isn’t good—just not so worse.”

Mike the Angel glowered. “Sonny, I was a cadet here when you were learning arithmetic. It hasn’t changed since, summer or winter.”

“Sorry, sir,” said the pilot stiffly.

“So am I,” said Mike the Angel cryptically. “Thanks for the ride.”

He pushed open the outer door, pulled his electroparka closer around him, and stalked off across the walk, through the lashing of the sleety wind.

He didn’t have far to walk—a hundred yards or so—but it was a good thing that the walk was protected and well within the boundary of Chilblains Base instead of being out on the Wastelands. Here there were lights, and the Hotbed equipment of the walk warmed the swirling ice particles into a sleety rain. On the Wastelands, the utter blackness and the wind-driven snow would have swallowed him permanently within ten paces.

He stepped across a curtain of hot air that blew up from a narrow slit in the deck and found himself in the main foyer of Chilblains Base.

The entrance looked like the entrance to a theater—a big metal and plastic opening, like a huge room open on one side, with only that sheet of hot air to protect it from the storm raging outside. The lights and the small doors leading into the building added to the impression that this was a theater, not a military base.

But the man who was standing near one of the doors was not by a long shot dressed as an usher. He wore a sergeant’s stripes on his regulation Space Service parka, [57] which muffled him to the nose, and he came over to Mike the Angel and said: “Commander Gabriel?”

Mike the Angel nodded as he shook icy drops from his gloved hands, then fished in his belt pocket for his newly printed ID card.

He handed it to the sergeant, who looked it over, peered at Mike’s face, and saluted. As Mike returned the salute the sergeant said: “Okay, sir; you can go on in. The security office is past the double door, first corridor on your right.”

Mike the Angel tried his best not to look surprised. “Security office? Is there a war on or something? What does Chilblains need with a security office?”

The sergeant shrugged. “Don’t ask me, Commander; I just slave away here. Maybe Lieutenant Nariaki knows something, but I sure don’t.”

“Thanks, Sergeant.”

Mike the Angel went inside, through two insulated and tightly weather-stripped doors, one right after another, like the air lock on a spaceship. Once inside the warmth of the corridor, he unzipped his electroparka, shut off the power, and pushed back the hood with its fogproof faceplate.

Down the hall, Mike could see an office marked security officer in small letters without capitals. He walked toward it. There was another guard at the door who had to see Mike’s ID card before Mike was allowed in.

Lieutenant Tokugawa Nariaki was an average-sized, sleepy-looking individual with a balding crew cut and a morose expression.

He looked up from his desk as Mike came in, and a hopeful smile tried to spread itself across his face. “If you are Commander Gabriel,” he said softly, “watch yourself. I may suddenly kiss you out of sheer relief.”

[58] “Restrain yourself, then,” said Mike the Angel, “because I’m Gabriel.”

Nariaki’s smile became genuine. “So! Good! The phone has been screaming at me every half hour for the past five hours. Captain Sir Henry Quill wants you.”

“He would,” Mike said. “How do I get to him?”

“You don’t just yet,” said Nariaki, raising a long, bony, tapering hand. “There are a few formalities which our guests have to go through.”

“Such as?”

“Such as fingerprint and retinal patterns,” said Lieutenant Nariaki.

Mike cast his eyes to Heaven in silent appeal, then looked back at the lieutenant. “Lieutenant, what is going on here? There hasn’t been a security officer in the Space Service for thirty years or more. What am I suspected of? Spying for the corrupt and evil alien beings of Diomega Orionis IX?”

Nariaki’s oriental face became morose again. “For all I know, you are. Who knows what’s going on around here?” He got up from behind his desk and led Mike the Angel over to the fingerprinting machine. “Put your hands in here, Commander ... that’s it.”

He pushed a button, and, while the machine hummed, he said: “Mine is an antiquated position, I’ll admit. I don’t like it any more than you do. Next thing, they’ll put me to work polishing chain-mail armor or make me commander of a company of musketeers. Or maybe they’ll send me to the 18th Outer Mongolian Yak Artillery.”

Mike looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Lieutenant, do you actually mean that you really don’t know what’s going on here, or are you just dummying up?”

Nariaki looked at Mike, and for the first time, his face [59] took on the traditional blank, emotionless look of the “placid Orient.” He paused for long seconds, then said:

“Some of both, Commander. But don’t let it worry you. I assure you that within the next hour you’ll know more about Project Brainchild than I’ve been able to find out in two years.... Now put your face in here and keep your eyes open. When you can see the target spot, focus on it and tell me.”

Mike the Angel put his face in the rest for the retinal photos. The soft foam rubber adjusted around his face, and he was looking into blackness. He focused his eyes on the dim target circle and waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.

The Security Officer’s voice continued. “All I do is make sure that no unauthorized person comes into Chilblains Base. Other than that, I have nothing but personal guesses and little trickles of confusing information, neither of which am I at liberty to discuss.”

Mike’s irises had dilated to the point that he could see the dim dot in the center of the target circle, glowing like a dimly visible star. “Shoot,” he said.

There was a dazzling glare of light. Mike pulled his face out of the padded opening and blinked away the colored after-images.

Lieutenant Nariaki was comparing the fresh fingerprints with the set he had had on file. “Well,” he said, “you have Commander Gabriel’s hands, anyway. If you have his eyes, I’ll have to concede that the rest of the body belongs to him, too.”

“How about my soul?” Mike asked dryly.

“Not my province, Commander,” Nariaki said as he [60] pulled the retinal photos out of the machine. “Maybe one of the chaplains would know.”

“If this sort of thing is going on all over Chilblains,” said Mike the Angel, “I imagine the Office of Chaplains is doing a booming business in TS cards.”

The lieutenant put the retinal photos in the comparator, took a good look, and nodded. “You’re you,” he said. “Give me your ID card.”

Mike handed it over, and Nariaki fed it through a printer which stamped a complex seal in the upper left-hand corner of the card. The lieutenant signed his name across the seal and handed the card back to Mike.

“That’s it,” he said. “You can—”

He was interrupted by the chiming of the phone.

“Just a second, Commander,” he said as he thumbed the phone switch.

Mike was out of range of the TV pickup, and he couldn’t see the face on the screen, but the voice was so easy to recognize that he didn’t need to see the man.

“Hasn’t that triply bedamned rocket landed yet, Lieutenant? Where is Commander Gabriel?”

Mike knew that Black Bart had already checked on the landing of the latest rocket; the question was rhetorical.

Mike grinned. “Tell the old tyrant,” he said firmly, “that I’ll be along as soon as the Security Officer is through with me.”

Nariaki’s expression didn’t change. “You’re through now, Commander, and—”

“Tell that imitation Apollo to hop it over here fast!” said Quill sharply. “I’ll give him a lesson