Selected Stories (13 page)

“Why didn’t you draw?” he grated.

“I beg your—”

“When
I
played poker—and I used to play a hell of a lot of poker—as I recall it, the dealer would find out how many cards each player wanted after the deal and give him as many as he discarded. Did you ever hear of that, Purser?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“You
did.
” He turned around. I imagine he had been scowling this same way at the see-it-all, and I wondered why it was he hadn’t shattered the cover glass.

“Why, then, Purser,” he demanded, “did you show your three of a kind without discarding, without drawing—without, mister, asking me how many cards I might want?”

I thought about it. “I—we—I mean, sir, we haven’t been playing poker that way lately.”

“You’ve been playing draw poker without drawing!” He sat down again and beamed that glare at me again. “And who changed the rules?”

“I don’t know, sir. We just—that’s the way we’ve been playing.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Now tell me something, Purser. How much time did you spend in the galley during the last watch?”

“About an hour, sir.”

“About an hour.”

“Well, sir,” I explained hurriedly, “it was my turn.”

He said nothing, and it suddenly occurred to me that these galley-watches weren’t in the ship’s orders.

I said quickly, “It isn’t
against
your orders to stand such a watch, is it, sir?”

“No,” he said, “it isn’t.” His voice was so gentle, it was ugly. “Tell me, Purser, doesn’t Cooky mind these galley-watches?”

“Oh, no, sir! He’s real pleased about it.” I knew he was thinking about the size of the galley. It was true that two men made quite a crowd in a place like that. I said, “That way, he knows everybody can trust him.”

“You mean that way you know he won’t poison you.”

“Well—yes, sir.”

“And tell me,” he said, his voice even gentler, “who suggested he might poison you?”

“I really couldn’t say, Captain. It’s just sort of something that came up. Cooky doesn’t mind,” I added. “If he’s watched all the time, he knows nobody’s going to suspect him. It’s all right.”

Again he repeated my words.

“It’s all right.” I wished he wouldn’t. I wished he’d stop looking at me like that. “How long,” he asked, “has it been customary for the deck officer to bring a witness with him when he takes over the watch?”

“I really couldn’t say, sir. That’s out of my department.”

“You really couldn’t say. Now think hard, Purser. Did you ever stand galley-watches, or see deck-officers bring witnesses with them when they relieve the bridge, or see draw poker played without drawing—before this trip?”

“Well, no, sir. I don’t think I have. I suppose we just never thought of it before.”

“We never had Mr. Costello as a passenger before, did we?”

“No, sir.”

I thought for a moment he was going to say something else, but he didn’t, just: “Very well, Purser. That will be all.”

I went out and started back aft, feeling puzzled and sort of upset. The Skipper didn’t have to hint things like that about Mr. Costello. Mr. Costello was a very nice man. Once, the Skipper had picked a fight with Mr. Costello. They’d shouted at each other in the dayroom. That is, the Skipper had shouted—Mr. Costello never did. Mr. Costello was as good-natured as they come. A good-natured soft-spoken man, with the kind of a face they call open. Open and honest. He’d once been a Triumver back on Earth—the youngest ever appointed, they said.

You wouldn’t think such an easygoing man was as smart as that. Triumvers are usually life-time appointees, but Mr. Costello wasn’t satisfied. Had to keep moving, you know. Learning all the time, shaking hands all around, staying close to the people. He loved people.

I don’t know why the Skipper couldn’t get along with him. Everybody else did. And besides—Mr. Costello didn’t play poker; why should he care one way or the other how
we
played it? He didn’t eat the galley food—he had his own stock in his cabin—so what difference would it make to him if the cook poisoned anyone? Except, of course, that he cared about
us.
People—he
liked
people.

Anyway, it’s better to play poker without the draw. Poker’s a good game with a bad reputation. And where do you suppose it gets the bad reputation? From cheaters. And how do people cheat at poker? Almost never when they deal. It’s when they pass out cards after the discard. That’s when a shady dealer knows what he holds, and he knows what to give the others so he can win. All right, remove the discard and you remove nine-tenths of the cheaters. Remove the cheaters and the honest men can trust each other.

That’s what Mr. Costello used to say, anyhow. Not that he cared one way or the other for himself. He wasn’t a gambling man.

I went into the dayroom and there was Mr. Costello with the Third Officer. He gave me a big smile and a wave, so I went over.

“Come on, sit down, Purser,” he said. “I’m landing tomorrow. Won’t have much more chance to talk to you.”

I sat down. The Third snapped shut a book he’d been holding open on the table and sort of got it out of sight.

Mr. Costello laughed at him. “Go ahead, Third, show the Purser. You can trust him—he’s a good man. I’d be proud to be shipmates with the Purser.”

The Third hesitated and then raised the book from his lap. It was the
Space Code
and expanded
Rules of the Road.
Every licensed officer has to bone up on it a lot, to get his license. But it’s not the kind of book you ordinarily kill time with.

“The Third here was showing me all about what a captain can and can’t do,” said Mr. Costello.

“Well, you asked me to,” the Third said.

“Now just a minute,” said Mr. Costello rapidly, “now just a minute.” He had a way of doing that sometimes. It was a part of him, like the thinning hair on top of his head and the big smile and the way he had of cocking his head to one side and asking you what it was you just said, as if he didn’t hear so well. “Now just a minute, you
wanted to
show me this material, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes, Mr. Costello,” the Third said.

“You’re going over the limitations of a spacemaster’s power of your own free will, aren’t you?”

“Well,” said the Third, “I guess so. Sure.”

“Sure,” Mr. Costello repeated happily. “Tell the Purser the part you just read me.”

“The one you found in the book?”

“You know the one. You read it out your own self, didn’t you?”

“Oh,” said the Third. He looked at me—sort of uneasily, I thought—and reached for the book.

Mr. Costello put his hand on it. “Oh, don’t bother looking it up,” he said. “You can remember it.”

“Yeah, I guess I do,” the Third admitted. “It’s a sort of safeguard against letting the Skipper’s power go to his head, in case it ever does. Suppose a time comes when a Captain begins to act up, and the crew gets the idea that a lunatic has taken over the bridge. Well, something has to be done about it. The crew has the power to appoint one officer and send him up to the Captain for an accounting. If the Skipper refuses, or if the crew doesn’t like his accounting, then they have the right to confine him to his quarters and take over the ship.”

“I think I heard about that,” I said. “But the Skipper has rights, too. I mean the crew has to report everything by space-radio the second it happens, and then the Captain has a full hearing along with the crew at the next port.”

Mr. Costello looked at us and shook his big head, full of admiration. When Mr. Costello thought you were good, it made you feel good all over.

The Third looked at his watch and got up. “I got to relieve the bridge. Want to come along, Purser?”

“I’d like to talk to him for a while,” Mr. Costello said. “Do you suppose you could get somebody else for a witness?”

“Oh, sure, if you say so,” said the Third.

“But you’re going to get someone.”

“Absolutely,” said the Third.

“Safest ship I was ever on,” said Mr. Costello. “Gives a fellow a nice feeling to know that the watch is never going to get the orders wrong.”

I thought so myself and wondered why we never used to do it before. I watched the Third leave and stayed where I was, feeling good, feeling safe, feeling glad that Mr. Costello wanted to talk to me. And me just a Purser, him an ex-Triumver.

Mr. Costello gave me the big smile. He nodded toward the door. “That young fellow’s going far. A good man. You’re all good men here.” He stuck a sucker-cup in the heater and passed it over to me with his own hands. “Coffee,” he said. “My own brand. All I ever use.”

I tasted it and it was fine. He was a very generous man. He sat back and beamed at me while I drank it.

“What do you know about Borinquen?” he wanted to know.

I told him all I could. Borinquen’s a pretty nice place, what they call “four-nines Earth Normal”—which means that the climate, gravity, atmosphere, and ecology come within .9999 of being the same as Earth’s. There are only about six known planets like that. I told him about the one city it had and the trapping that used to be the main industry. Coats made of
glunker
fur last forever. They shine green in white light and real warm ember-red in blue light, and you can take a full-sized coat and scrunch it up and hide it in your two hands, it’s that light and fine. Being so light, the fur made ideal space-cargo.

Of course, there was a lot more on Borinquen now—rare isotope ingots and foodstuffs and seeds for the drug business and all, and I suppose the
glunker
trade could dry right up and Borinquen could still carry its weight. But furs settled the planet, furs supported the city in the early days, and half the population still lived out in the bush and trapped.

Mr. Costello listened to everything I said in a way I can only call respectful.

I remember I finished up by saying, “I’m sorry you have to get off there, Mr. Costello. I’d like to see you some more. I’d like to come see you at Borinquen, whenever we put in, though I don’t suppose a man like you would have much spare time.”

He put his big hand on my arm. “Purser, if I don’t have time when you’re in port, I’ll make time. Hear?” Oh, he had a wonderful way of making a fellow feel good.

Next thing you know, he invited me right into his cabin. He sat me down and handed me a sucker full of a mild red wine with a late flavor of cinnamon, which was a new one on me, and he showed me some of his things.

He was a great collector. He had one or two little bits of colored paper that he said were stamps they used before the Space Age, to prepay carrying charges on paper letters. He said no matter where he was, just one of those things could get him a fortune. Then he had some jewels, not rings or anything, just stones, and a fine story for every single one of them.

“What you’re holding in your hand,” he said, “cost the life of a king and the loss of an empire half again as big as United Earth.” And: “This one was once so well guarded that most people didn’t know whether it existed or not. There was a whole religion based on it—and now it’s gone, and so is the religion.”

It gave you a queer feeling, being next to this man who had so much, and him just as warm and friendly as your favorite uncle.

“If you can assure me these bulkheads are soundproof, I’ll show you something else I collect,” he said.

I assured him they were, and they were, too. “If ships’ architects ever learned anything,” I told him, “they learned that a man has just got to be by himself once in a while.”

He cocked his head to one side in a way that he had. “How’s that again?”

“A man’s just got to be by himself once in a while,” I said. “So, mass or no, cost or no, a ship’s bulkheads are built to give a man his privacy.”

“Good,” he said. “Now let me show you.” He unlocked a hand case and opened it, and from a little compartment inside he took out a thing about the size of the box a watch comes in. He handled it very gently as he put it down on his desk. It was square, and it had a fine grille on the top and two little silver studs on the side. He pressed one of them and turned to me, smiling. And let me tell you, I almost fell right off the bunk where I was sitting, because here was the Captain’s voice as loud and clear and natural as if he was right there in the room with us. And do you know what he said?

He said, “My crew questions my sanity—yet you can be sure that if a single man aboard questions my authority, he will learn that I am master here, even if he must learn it at the point of a gun.”

What surprised me so much wasn’t only the voice but the words—and what surprised me especially about the words was that I had heard the Skipper say them myself. It was the time he had had the argument with Mr. Costello. I remembered it well because I had walked into the dayroom just as the Captain started to yell.

“Mr. Costello,” he said in that big heavy voice of his, “in spite of your conviction that my crew questions my sanity …” and all the rest of it, just like on this recording Mr. Costello had. And I remember he said, too, “Even if he must learn it at the point of a gun.
That, sir, applies to passengers—the crew has legal means of their own.
”

I was going to mention this to Mr. Costello, but before I could open my mouth, he asked me, “Now tell me, Purser, is that the voice of the Captain of your ship?”

And I said, “Well, if it isn’t, I’m not the Purser here. Why, I heard him speak those words my very own self.”

Mr. Costello swatted me on the shoulder. “You have a good ear, Purser. And how do you like my little toy?”

Then he showed it to me, a little mechanism on the jeweled pin he wore on his tunic, a fine thread of wire to a pushbutton in his side pocket.

“One of my favorite collections,” he told me. “Voices. Anybody, anytime, anywhere.” He took off the pin and slipped a tiny bead out of the setting. He slipped this into a groove in the box and pressed the stud.

And I heard my own voice say, “I’m sorry you have to get off there, Mr. Costello. I’d like to see you some more.” I laughed and laughed. That was one of the cleverest things I ever saw. And just think of my voice in his collection, along with the Captain and space only knows how many great and famous people!