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"Wwwwhhaatt!?" Minkin sat down hard in his chair.
Welch contributed from the stair well, "That's right, Mr.Minkin. Mr. Farris, give me the bearing back to the Beakon, then secure your station."
Welch took his place and began organizing the countdown for the reverse hop. He granted the necessity of pulling in close to a star because he knew the fate of those who neglected this limitation of the Brightmans more than fifteen hours.
Regulations were explicit about always orbiting a Beakon; you never knew when you'd suddenly require emergency supplies. If the Beakon didn't stock enough to repair the damage, you could call for help and sit it out for a few months, since Earth-type ships always used Earth-type, but uninhabited, Beakon planets.
"Your bearing, sir," and Klairon called out the string of numbers, then shunted his computer into the auto-pilot, secured his station properly this time and waited for Welch to shoot the orbit. Thankfully, the Captain was pilot enough to hit Beakon orbit from here without further Astrogator's assistance.
While Welch was securing the pilot's station, Minkin turned to Klairon. "What's this all about?"
"Mi
Minkin nodded hesitantly. Klairon's reticence was strange, but not incomprehensible. Minkin would be the last to embarrass a shipmate.
Welch inquired formally, "All secure, Mr. Farris?"
"Aye, sir."
"Mr. Minkin, I'll relieve you in half an hour. Come on, Klairon, let's go get some coffee."
Klairon followed, not so much for the coffee, as to keep an eye on the Captain. If he'd learned anything in the five years on the Pebble Beach, it was that Welch was not a man to be bollixed by circumstances. His thinking was fuzzy, but long standing habit guided his steps after Welch.
The dining room was lit only by a single unit above the coffee urn that steamed companionably on the serving wagon. For Klairon's sake, Bier was always specially careful that the coffee didn't boil, producing a Sime stomach-turning aroma. Occasionally, it did boil, despite all precaution, and then Klairon would wish that the crew would accept the pre-brewed, powdered coffee all other ships used.
At one of the tables on the fringe of the puddle of light, Cobb and Bier faced each other, nursing steaming mugs.
Cobb was a big bear of a man with a roar for a voice and a wrestler's grace. He affected the shaven head so popular on his native planet, Terhune. Despite his forbidding appearance, he was an easy-going, congenial sort who would rather play poker than wrestle, and who took pride in keeping the ship's inventory and account books in his head, as well as on paper.
He spoke now, carefully modulating his voice to a near whisper. "What's the matter, Captain? Why haven't we made the jump by now?" He eyed the subjective time clock, still unlit, next to the objective clock over the serving window.
Klairon squinted at the lit clock. Midnight.
Welch answered, "Little problem in Astrogation. We're pulled up to a Beakon and we'll go when we get straightened out."
Bier and Cobb turned to Klairon questioningly. After Welch, he drew his coffee and sat down opposite the Captain trying to ignore their curiosity, thinking he shouldn't have come.
Bier stared at Klairon for a good minute. "Man, you look..." he shook his head unbelievingly, "awful." After another long, silent scrutiny in which Klairon tried to avoid his gaze, he said, "You on drugs, or something?"
Klairon stiffened visibly, then met his eyes. "What do you think?"
"Informative, aren't you? Look, Klairon, I'm not just being nosy. I'm supposed to watch out for health around here. If you have some medical problems ... or dietary problem ..."
"Neither medical nor dietary, Pete. It's something quite outside your field."
"Well," Cobb cut in, "if we're stuck here because of it, don't we have a right to know what it is?"
Klairon tried to keep the snap out of his voice. This was turning into a duel. "No. I'm afraid I can't elaborate on that. I'm sorry, Phil."
Bier frowned into his mug. Very softly, he said, "Serialasosu forinda?"
Klairon turned on him and snapped, "Bludordi re'inda, Krind!"
Bier didn't look up. "Now, I understand." He said it very softly, then he shook his head as if stricken.
Cobb said, "I didn't know you spoke that language?"
"Languages and cultures are my profession. It would be a huge gap in my qualifications if I hadn't made the effort to learn the only interplanetary language of humanity. And no small effort at that; it's almost impossible from the outside in, but I wasn't about to join the fraternity. I like my freedom too much. No offense, Klairon, but 'there but for the grace of God ...!'"
"What are you talking about?" Cobb didn't raise his voice ... much.
"Captain!" Lieman's voice echoed up and down the shaft as he stepped off the lift. "There's a couple of things I want to talk to you about. First," he came across the shadowed open space toward the coffee urn and into the spot of light, "before I forget, Thorson's make-shift laboratory is spreading all over J deck. There's no room for my men to work. Wish you'd speak to him about that. And then, most important, what the hell is going on, anyway?"
Welch answered absently rubbing his jawline where the youthful Lieman sported a distinguishing fringe of beard. "Grab a mug and pull up a chair. We were just discussing that."
Bringing his coffee, Lieman hooked himself a chair with his foot. "Before we begin," he obviously thought this was one of the usual trouble-shooting conferences, "I want you," he turned to Bier, "to look my new second over real careful. He's been acting strange for the last few hours, like maybe his stomach was bothering him, but he wouldn't admit it. Take good care of him. Pete, Iskin and I like this guy."
Bier's eyes locked with Klairon's and his lips shaped a soundless "oh," which he punctuated with a nod.
"Thanks, Pete. Now," Lieman turned to Welch with the air of a professor about to untangle a knotty problem for a freshman, "What seems to be the trouble?"
Welch leveled his gaze at Klairon. "You tell them."
Klairon felt trapped, but the drug kept it far away as if it were happening to someone else.
Just then a strange voice came from the lift. "Oh, I'm sorry. Do I interrupt?"
"Lowell!" Lieman greeted amiably. "Come on over here. I want you to meet Pete Bier, Phil Cobb, you already know the Captain, and this is ..."
When Talbert was midway from the lift-shaft, Klairon shoved back his chair, and before Lieman finished introducing him, he had circled wide and vanished up the stair well. On the one hand, he couldn't abandon Talbert to them, but on the other, he couldn't face him, either.
He spent the next two hours alternately pacing circles about his couch and sitting on it staring at the blanked display screen.Three times he went to the inter-view to call Welch or Bier or Cobb, but he couldn't think of anything to say that would convince them.
Pressuring an Inhibited wasn't against their ethics. He went over and over the conversation he'd had with Welch pin-pointing each mistake he'd made and berating himself for saying the first word. He should have known better than to match wits with the Captain, or glances with Bier's diagnostic eyes.
Even though Welch had promised not to use personal pressure, he could still influence a five-way conversation so that Talbert would be backed into a corner; sacrifice his own personal integrityor accept public responsibility for a planet of dead human beings.
And Talbert was a Gen. Now he would want to make that sacrifice, but years from how, he might change his mind. If the story got out that he was pressured into overriding the Inhibitor, in effect, that he was not allowed to resign his TN status, it could easily mushroom into a panic that nobody was ever allowed to resign. Without the volunteer TNs, the Sime-Gen union was impossible.