Bill 3 - on the Planet of Bottled Brains (18 page)

“Oh, not at all!” Lisa had said, after a ten-minute wait that always accompanied any Royoan attempt at quasi-intelligent thought. “You'll give it back someday, won't you?”

“Of course,” Illyria said.

“Then go ahead and borrow it. What a story it'll make for the kids.”

“The kids?”

“That's how Royoans refer to each other. As 'the kids.'”

“Oh,” Bill said.

“And here we are. Sex and food. Just like I promised.”

“Yeah,” Bill said, putting down the beef rib he had been gnawing at. Illyria snuggled up to him, and Bill felt himself beginning to respond. After all, she was a beautiful woman; she was round and soft in all the right places; she wanted him; the other girl had said it was OK; why should it bother him?

Thus began Bill's sojourn on Royo. He soon fell into the lazy habits of the island. The Royoans would gather every morning to worship his clawed alligator foot and admire his fangs, which he twanged lazily for them. Bill thought it was silly, but Illyria said it did no harm to encourage them in their little enthusiasms. Bill could have found things about himself more worthy of note than an alligator's foot that had come to him by accident, but such is fame; you have no choice in how or why it comes to you. Royo was really a fine place. Not very intellectual, of course, but that didn't bother Bill, except that he began to miss comic books. And he found that he was even thinking nostalgically about his days in the service. It was funny, when in the military he had dreamed of something happening just like this: being marooned on a lush tropical paradise of a planet with plenty of food and booze, a beautiful young woman who loved him, and plenty of others who would like to have him if only he deigned...

But of course, that wouldn't be fair to Illyria. And she was the best-looking of the bunch. Out of common decency, he owed her...

Well, what did he owe her? When you came right down to it, nobody had asked Bill what he thought of this arrangement. And it was funny how quickly the taste of rum begins to pall on the palate. Too sweet. In fact, Bill was beginning to get bored. There's no telling what he would have done if, not long after his arrival, a strange light in the sky had not told him that a spaceship was coming in for a landing.

“It's your standard tropical paradise,” Mr Splock said. “Perhaps, measured on a hedonistic scale, it scores a bit better than most, no doubt, but cut from the same cheesecloth. I am sure that you agree, Captain Dirk?”

Dirk, walking along the sandy beach with his shoes off and his pantlegs rolled, didn't seem to hear his first officer. Dirk was drinking a Coke and eating a hotdog with all the stuff on it. There was a dreamy look on his face, as of a man bemused. This described Dirk's state of mind to a T, and Mr Splock stranger to all emotions, could not fathom the change. He was concerned, for he had never seen such a change in the normally austere captain of the Gumption.

“Hadn't we better get back to the ship, sir?” Splock asked.

“No hurry,” Dirk mused idly. “Nothing is going to attack us here.”

“Nothing except our desires,” Splock said. “I speak, of course, only for those who have them. The rest of us — well, me alone, that is — will go on with our duty as it was previously laid down in the protocols of the Gumption.”

Dirk looked with affectionate curiosity, tempered by the thought that this joker was a boring pain in the ass, at his first officer. “Don't you ever get the urge to unwind, Mr Splock? Get drunk? Screw girls?”

“I beg your pardon!” Splock gurgled, taken aback by the effrontery. “Unwind? Drunk? Screw! I should think not.”

“You know what I mean. At least I hope you know what I mean. Some day you must tell me about your reproductive processes — on the other hand perhaps you'd better not. So relax. Take a vacation. Have a little fun.”

“Not only do I never think of such things,” Splock said, sniffing loudly through flared nostrils, “I am surprised, sir, to find that you do.”

“You are used to seeing me in a state of moral or physical crisis,” Dirk said.

“May I speak plainly?”

“Go ahead, Splock.”

“A state of crisis suits you, sir.”

Dirk laughed and cast the uneaten portion of his hot dog into the curling surf. A scavenger fish, which ate nothing but refuse, and lived in hibernation when there was no refuse to be found, snapped it up and devoured it, leaving the beach as pristine as before.

“This place instills in me a singularly lighthearted mood,” said Dirk. “You can't know what moods mean to humans because you don't experience them. But I can assure you, they run our lives.”

“Nonsense, Captain. Sense of duty rules your life. You also love your God, if you have one, and I must question you about that some time, and country.”

“All true, Mr Splock, all entirely true! But sometimes even the best of us — not that I'm claiming that for myself but let me make my point — even the best of us, I say, needs a little vacation from the stern country of moral rectitude and the solace of religion.”

“Now you are sounding like the Counter-Dirk,” Splock said.

“No, we killed him in fair battle. We were on the side of Charlemagne and Christianity; he stood with the Sultan and Islam. Since we won, that makes us right, eh, Splock?”

“You can talk yourself into any position you please,” Splock said. “But I must point out to you, sir, with your kind permission, that this is sheerest sophistry. Or as they are wont to say on the lower decks, pure bullshit.”

“You do have a way with words, my good Splock, but you haven't given consideration to the demonic side of man. Or do you deny that it exists?”

“No, there's proof enough of it,” Splock said. “But I thought you had overcome it, Captain.”

“Why, so I have, Splock! That's precisely the point I want to make. I have overcome the demonic, but that means I have the right to take a little vacation when I want, doesn't it?”

“I suppose you can,” Splock said. “But this is not a very good time for it, is it? The Alien Historian is still on the loose and Earth is by no means safe.”

Dirk shrugged. “That's life. One emergency after another. I daresay our species can let us have a little rest here and muddle through for a while without us. Or to phrase it more succinctly, the galaxy can do without me saving it for awhile while I have some R & R. And get drunk and get laid.”

Splock, obviously shocked, didn't reply at once. He walked along, hands clasped behind his back, his expression hard and unyielding, in marked contrast to Dirk, who sauntered along like a pubescent boy enjoying his first erection.

Splock looked at the commander, and a sudden wave of comprehension passed over his features. So marked was the change in his demeanor that Dirk noticed it at once.

“You've just thought of something, Splock old boy! Let's get a drink and you can tell me all about it.”

“A drink? If you wish, sir, I will accompany you, though I myself do not drink. And as for what I thought about, it is what I believe is called an analogy. I'm quite pleased because I don't have analogies often.”

“Well, tell it, old chap.”

“Not now, sir. Later.”

“Suit yourself,” Dirk said. “Let's get that drink.”

He led the way toward Dirty Dick's, where Bill was waiting with frosted glass in hand.

Although Dirk had granted himself unlimited freedom, the same did not extend to the crew of the Gumption. Mr Splock, as second officer, horrified at what he had seen, had canceled all shore leave. The spaceship was kept battened down, shields up, at minimum strength so as not to drain the batteries. But even minimum strength was enough to keep all visitors away. When Dirk protested, Mr Splock reminded him that Dirk was taking a vacation, but that he had no right to extend that privilege to his crew. This ship was on active duty, he pointed out, and therefore all the men must remain at battle stations. All of which was an outright lie since Splock had visions of the sort of alcoholic orgies sailors, even space sailors, are prone to due to the mind-numbing boredom of the job.

The captain hadn't agreed, but since coming to Royo he no longer had the strength of will or desire to protest and make his views prevalent. He was on vacation; it was silly to try to command men; it was senseless to engage in their ceaseless quarrels; it was every man for himself. You must work diligently for your own salvation, and what the hell, Dirk thought, he had it, the others will have to fend for themselves.

Pretty young women accosted him on the beach. Dirk knew he was good-looking, but really, this was ridiculous. Without the slightest hesitation he embraced the sybaritic life with tremendous enthusiasm. With flowers in his hair and a silly smile of satiation on his lips he strolled the lazy beaches of this planetary paradise. The ladies he went with had no small talk, but that didn't bother Dirk. People chattered too much anyhow. Dirk got into the silence thing very quickly. How different from life aboard the ship with its endless yak-yak and petty problems. He could sit on the beach for hours now and just grok that evening sun. He could grok scavenger fish and people playing volleyball. He could grok rum punches and roller-coaster rides. Hey, it was all of a suchness. Sometimes he felt a little bad about the crew. Splock wouldn't even let them check out the scene on the vision plates. The poor suckers were in paradise and they didn't even know it!

Dirk and Bill became good drinking companions, always shadowed by Splock, who would sit at Dirty Dick's nursing his iced tea while Bill and Dirk laughed uproariously at whatever they were saying and sloshed themselves blotto with rum.

After years of training Bill had enormous capacity. But he was also lazy and so he grew to hate waking up with a hangover every morning. Forced to moderation by hangovers and incipient terminal alcoholism, perhaps influenced, when sober, by the beautiful and sagacious Illyria, he suggested they have their binges once a week and play volleyball on the other days.

Dirk wouldn't hear of it. A doctrinaire ecstatic, he insisted on getting drunk every night because you lose your freedom if you don't exercise it and license is the best exercise of all. Dirk was driven to pleasure by the same demonic dynamic that had guided him during his highly moral career as chief officer of the largest and fastest and best-looking starship in the Earth's navy. He went after pleasure on principle and laughed on cue, since a sense of duty can affect even one's sense of humor.

After awhile, since drunks are pretty boring when one is sober, Bill took to hanging out with Splock while Dirk lay most of the day in a drunken stupor. Illyria didn't like it because she didn't like Splock. She didn't trust him. He had the look of one of those people who doesn't like to see other people having fun, and who do their best to make that fun stop. But Bill was firm with her. He explained that he had to spend some of his time with the boys. She wondered why he didn't make any friends among the local Royoans. Bill explained that it was a little difficult to get on with them since they talked very slowly and entirely in surfing terms, which changed every year. How was Bill to know that “wheeling down the mountain mouth of the dibbler” meant “come to the barbecue this evening”? And there was no sense going to the barbecue because the Royoan males didn't really talk about anything except waves. They kept a count and a remembrance of every wave that they saw each day, though each new day's memory-accumulation of new waves drove out remembrance of the others, except for the small part of their memory that contained the history of the Greatest Waves of All Time. This too was a fruitful subject of discussion with them:

“Remember old 22 in the year of Marsh Hen?”

“Yeah. It was like the double 2456 in the year of the Scarlet Ibis.”

And so on.

Bill tried to get into the conversation. Sometimes, when strong drink had loosened his tongue, he made up years of great waves. Everybody agreed with him that was a great wave and a great year. It was impossible to tell whether they believed him or didn't want to hurt his feelings. It probably made no difference anyhow.

Captain Dirk was not good company. He had started getting all weird, muttering about “spiritual pleasure breakthroughs” and wiping an unpleasant whitish spittle with which he had been afflicted of late off his chin. So Bill took to the company of Splock.

He found Splock comprehensible. Splock reminded him of many sergeants he had known. Lack of feelings and total deprivation of a sense of humor has never been a detriment to the warrior spirit.

“I don't think I like humans,” Splock confided in him one day. “But I work with them. So I have to understand them and go along with their predilections. So, although it is not my place to say it, it seems to me that Dirk is aberrant.”

“Yes, and he's really a pain, acting this way,” Bill said. “And I never thought I would say this, but it gets a little boring; you know what I mean, having what you want whenever you want it. It's like not having it at all. That's funny, isn't it?”

“Not for human beings, apparently,” Splock said.

“Whatever it is, I'm getting a little bored with it.”

“Why don't you punch up your Disruptor and get out of here, then?” Splock asked.

“I can't. The Disruptor didn't come here with me.”

“Why not?”

“Who can tell what dark thoughts lurk in the memory banks of a Disruptor? I guess I should have told it to stick around.”

“Do you really want to get out of here?” Splock asked.

“I guess so. But I'm in no hurry to get back to the Troopers. I'm getting sick of barbecuing, anyhow.”

“You're the only person I can trust around here,” Splock said. “And I daren't let any of the crew out for obvious reasons. Are you ready to employ subterfuge in a good cause?”

“Hell, I'm an enlisted man. Lying is a way of life.”

“Then listen carefully. I have a plan that may be risky, even dangerous.”

Captain Dirk was a great favorite among the Royoans. He used to lecture them every day on topics to their liking, like “The Superiority of the Pleasure Principle”; “The Great Art — Idleness”; and “Doing Nothing as a Sacred Vocation.” The Royoans, like some other races in the galaxy, enjoyed hearing their predilections explained and justified in philosophical terms. They spontaneously formed fan clubs. Crowds of them accompanied Dirk wherever he went, even to bed. Especially to bed. Dirk showed no sign of enjoying all this attention. It was distracting, having all these people around him all the time clutching at his clothing and saying “Right on, man.”