The Kruton Interface (3 page)

“Put that thing down!” Wanker ordered.

The spaceman’s resolve vanished instantly. Lowering the gun, he seemed confused. “Is this a drill, sir?”

“No, this is not a drill. I’m the—quit pointing that silly thing at me, you incredible idiot!”

The spaceman lowered his side arm again. “Sir, make up your mind, please!”

“I’m the new captain, you boob! Captain David Wanker, United Systems Space Forces, reporting to take command of this vessel. Now do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. But we didn’t expect you till later on today, sir.”

“Excuse me for being early! Didn’t mean to trouble you”—Wanker eyed the man’s name tab—”Able Spaceman Smithers.”

“Oh, no trouble, sir,” Smithers said.

“Sorry to interrupt your nap. What the devil to you mean by sleeping on duty? How would you like to be court-martialed?”

“I’m already being court-martialed, sir.”

“You are? What for?”

“Sleeping on duty, sir. But the legal officer says he’ll get me off. I have a sleep disorder, sir.”

“You have a sleep disorder?”
 

“Yes, sir. Sleep apathy.”

“Apathy? You mean sleep apnea, don’t you?”

“That’s it, sir. Apnea.”

“Very well. Where’s the officer of the deck?”

“The first officer, Lieutenant Commander Rhodes, is officer of the deck today. There’s hardly anyone aboard, sir.”

“Where is everybody?”

“Breakfast, sir. It’s early.”

“No guards on the hatch, no officer of the deck. What the hell’s the idea, leaving a military vessel unguarded like this?”

“No idea, sir. It’s just that everyone’s dirtside and there’s no one to stand watch during mealtime. It’s only for a half hour at a time, sir.”

“During which a Kruton commando brigade could … oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“Don’t make a move, Krutie!” Smithers ordered, again brandishing the quantum flamer. “Move one tentacle and I’ll blow you to the other side of the galaxy.”

“I don’t have any tentacles, you numbskull! Listen, didn’t you receive a dispatch that I would be reporting?”

“Well, sir, yes, sir. But you could still be a Krutie.”

Wanker considered it. “You know, spaceman, you’re absolutely right. One thing, though—Krutie commandos rarely work alone. You’re forgetting about my buddies—behind you.”

“Huh?” The spaceman whirled, and Wanker leapt. The sawed-off swab proved tougher than he looked, and more wiry. Wanker couldn’t take him down, and ended up riding Smithers’s back trying desperately to wrench the gun away. Smithers kept wildly turning about.

“Spaceman, put down that flamer!”

A tall, gangling, towheaded officer with commander’s stripes on his sleeve came rushing into the airlock. Seeing him, Smithers quit squirming; whereupon Wanker snatched the quantum pistol and slid off.

Smithers was contrite. “Sorry, Captain. I didn’t know you were gay.”
 

“What?”

“I’m not prejudiced, sir, really I’m not.”

“You are a strange man, Smithers.”

The officer jogged up to Wanker, came to attention, and saluted. “Welcome aboard, sir!”

Wanker returned the salute and shook the officer’s proffered hand. “Mr. Rhodes, I presume?”

“Yes, sir. Happy to have you aboard.”

“I’m not happy to be aboard.”

“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. Well, we’re still happy, sir.”

“I’ll bet you’re ecstatic. What’s the meaning of leaving this ship unguarded? A new captain reporting to his ship must be piped over the side and received with a color guard. What do I get? A swab catching forty winks while anyone could come storming through that hatch.”

“Sir, it won’t happen again. Sir, it’s nice to see you, but you just picked a bad time to come aboard, sir. We’re undermanned at the moment, and—”

“Never mind. Ye gods, this is getting off to a great start.”

Wanker now noticed how extremely tall and thin Rhodes was, and how gawkish and curiously put together. With that country-fried drawl of his
(Suh, it’s nahss t’see yuh, but y’picked a bad tahm tuh come aboahd),
he came across as tall hay gone quite to seed.

“Spaceman, see that the captain’s bag is stowed in the captain’s quarters!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Rhodes.”

Wanker jabbed a finger at Smithers. “No, don’t leave that hatch unguarded! Belay that order, spaceman.”

Rhodes said, “I’ll stay here, Captain. Smithers, take the bag. Sir, if you’ll just—”

“Stay where you are, Smithers. Mr. Rhodes, I want a tour of the ship, now, with you at my side. Have Smithers watch my bag until someone can either relieve him or take it to my cabin.”

Smithers was annoyed. “Well, jeez, make up your mind, sirs.”

“What was that?” Wanker snapped.

“Nothing, sirs. Sir. Captain, sir.”

Wanker took off his officer’s cap and smoothed his unruly red hair, brushing a pesky cowlick from his forehead. “This is ridiculous. I’ll take the damned bag along.”

“Please, Captain, leave it here,” Rhodes said. “It’ll be safe.”

“I’m not taking any chances. Been a rash of pilfering in the fleet lately.”
 

“I’ll sit on it for you, sir!” Smithers piped.
 

“You mean you’ll sleep on it. You do and I’ll have you spaced, chucked out the airlock buck naked.”

“Yes, sir. I won’t sleep on it, Captain.”

Wanker threw his spacebag at Smithers, who caught it neatly. “Sweet dreams. All right, Mr. Rhodes, if we’re all squared away now, give me the Cook’s tour of this tub.” Wanker sighed. “Don’t you just love that kind of manly space talk?”

“Always gives me a thrill. This way, Captain.”

CHAPTER 3

“Rusty” was in the cargo hold sweeping up the debris left by some last minute crating. He didn’t like sweeping up, but he wasn’t about to complain. Jobs as research assistants were at a premium these days. Budget cuts. It wasn’t a high-paying job, as jobs went, but it paid the bills and gave Rusty three meals a day. And there were other benefits that were much better than any salary.

The job had given him a chance to travel. Here he was, aboard a military starship far out in space. They were to rendezvous with another ship, the test ship. Once aboard, “Rusty,” “Chicolini,” and the Boss would begin a series of test runs that would be the culmination of years of experiment and research.

Six long years of work.

Well, not hard work, but work just the same.

Six years of spending government money. The equipment and supplies they’d bought! Millions spent on antiproton generators and microfusion reactors and endless varieties of technological extravagance.

The parties they’d had! Hundreds of thousands squandered on wine and women and drugs and kicky off-the-shelf brainware...

Ooops. Better not go into that. But the Boss was in good with the government. He had many and powerful friends in high places. It was okay to throw a little money around, live high, have a good time, as long as you delivered the goods.

Rusty kept sweeping, working his way between high stacks of plastic crates. The overhead lights were few and far between in this part of the ship, and it was getting dark in these narrow aisles.

He heard a sound behind and turned.

Rusty squinted. What was that? Something moving. He stopped. One of the crew, perhaps.

Rusty began to sweep again, but halted. He looked around. Hell, this was clean enough. He started retracing his steps through the maze of aisles between the high stacks.

Squash, squish.

“What the...”

Rusty looked at his shoes. He was standing in a puddle of something.

“Hey, who spilled—? Yuck, what is this stuff?”

Rusty walked through the puddle, made a few turns, and arrived at the cargo bay hatch. He went out into the corridor and flagged down a passing warrant officer.

“Hey, space-guy, know where I can get a mop?”

“Janitorial stuff’s right in that compartment.”

Rusty followed the pointed finger.

“ ‘Space-guy,’” the warrant officer muttered, walking away.

Rusty didn’t find a mop, but this nifty vacuum scrubber would do fine. He hauled the thing back to the cargo bay.

But he couldn’t find the puddle. He searched and searched, threading the maze and becoming more irritated the longer he kept at it. It was gone. Dried up. Or it was just something leaking that flowed away somewhere? In which case, it was the space-guys’ problem, not his. He shrugged and lugged the vacuum scrubber back to the hatch.

As he was leaving he happened to glance back and saw Chicolini coming out of the stacks.

“Hey. Were you back there?”

“I was looking for you.”

Rusty’s coworker wasn’t in character, but then neither was Rusty.

“You know, I didn’t see you when I was … never mind. What’s up? The Boss?”

Chicolini nodded. “He’s getting wild. He’s always wired, never goes out of character. You better go up and see what you can do with him.”

“What can I do with him?”

“You’ve been with him longer, you know him better than I do.”

“Hey, he’s a genius. I’m just a lab tech.”

“Get up to the cabin. If he blows the project, the politicians might want to know what we’ve been spending all the money on. In detail. Get the picture?”

“Got the picture.”

“So, leave. And get into character.”

“Sure. Always do when I’m around the Boss. He hates reality.”

“All humans do.”

Rusty chuckled. “You’re not human?”

“Forget it,” Rusty’s coworker said.

“Hey, by the way, when you were back there, did you step into a puddle of something?”

“Something? What something?”

“Couldn’t see what it was. Something wet and sticky.”

“Forget about it.”

“Hey, it could have been lubrication leaking from one of our crates. What do you mean, forget—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Chicolini said, taking the vacuum scrubber. “You go look after the Boss.”

Rusty shrugged. “Anything you say.”

“And remember to get into character.”

“I’ll switch on before I go in the door.”

“All right, just don’t forget, you know how touchy he is.”

“Sure. See you later.”

“See you. Don’t worry about the leak. I’ll look after it.”
 

“Okay!”

Rusty jogged off down the corridor, his tattered trench coat trailing and napping.

“I’ll take care of it. Yeah, sure.”

The one called Chicolini retreated into the shadows of the hold.

CHAPTER 4

“… and this is the bridge!”

Wanker picked himself off the deck. As often happened, the pneumatic intraship transport system had dumped him unceremoniously on the deck.
 

“Never have gotten used to these damned blow tubes. Rotten things.” He dusted himself off. Then he took a good look around.

“Good
Lord!
”

The bridge was in an even sorrier state than the rest of the ship, littered with half-disassembled components and heterogeneous junk. The usual jungle of hanging wire proliferated, but this particular plastic rain forest was positively tropical. Sections of metal paneling leaned against the bulkheads, and the holes they left exposed a raw chaos of electronic arcana. The various department stations—communications, navigation, and the like—were more or less intact. They were spaced widely apart. The huge plates of armored shielding that would, when battle stations sounded, slide down to further separate and protect each station were stuck halfway. This intensified the sense of cramping and clutter.

The armor-shielding design was an old one. Space warships with up-to-date configurations had no bridge per se, so that one well-placed hit could not “decapitate” a ship’s command and control structure. The various command stations were mobile and widely dispersed within the ship.

Lt. Commander Rhodes was embarrassed. “Sir, we’re undergoing extensive repairs.”

“Commander, you have a penchant for stating the ridiculously obvious. Please continue.”

“Uh, yes, sir, Captain Wanker. As I said—”

“That’s VAHN-ker.”

“Vahnker?

“Yes, it’s German.”

“Oh. I see. Well, Captain Vah—”
 

“Vahn-ker,” Wanker coached his first officer. “VAHN-ker. Accent on the penultimate.”