Seed of Stars (4 page)

The need of her had him in thrall. This was no cold-minded bitch who wanted him for mere physical relief; she needed him to fulfill her creative purpose,

and she gave him a love that no other woman, not even his mother, had ever given him before. "Yes—the capsule," he said. A sudden, incredibly bright smile, and she was gone. He returned to his work.

Back on
Venturer Twelve,
in the commander's standby room, Bruce was taking informal reports on the
Wangituru
operation. Lindstrom hovered close by, aware of his impatience to continue the journey to Kepler III.

Kuznetsov, a two-meter piece of Ural rock, was pleased and boastful. "All repairs completed. My boys did the job straight, no rest, no sick calls, no spacehead. When they got their suits off they all stank like latrines —or maybe just like engineers." He grinned at Lindstrom.

Bruce grunted his acknowledgment.

Radar Lieutenant Maranne, looking like something fresh off a recruiting poster, said: "All replacements completed, no hitches. Mia Mizuno is developing so well I intend to put in a promotion recommendation. We ought" to have a larger proportion of Japanese in electronics. They're so good at it, supple in mind and body."

Magnus looked in and said: "I took the liberty of calling Kepler III on sub-etheric to explain the delay. Courtesy, you know. They will be feeling very sensitive in this, their independence year, so I felt that the expenditure in tact was quite justified."

"We'll not keep them waiting longer than necessary," Bruce said.

Kibbee said: "Captain Sikorski is a good man. We had time to do the burial service properly."

Maseba said to Kibbee: "May their spirits see God in the light of a far sun." He anticipated Kibbee's eager response. "I mean, your God. Mine isn't so liberal. He looks at skins, and man, I'm favored." Kibbee left with a slightly bemused, somewhat hurt expression. "All items stored in the replacement bank, sir."

Lindstrom winced as Bruce said: "Fine! Now maybe you can make me those dozen extra crewmen Admin wouldn't allow me back on Earth?"

"I guess not," Maseba answered smoothly. "It seems I'd need Kibbee's God for that. Little matter of the breath of life, he'd say." He looked keenly at Bruce. "Sir, please come in for an eye check tomorrow, about twelve-thirty, or when you can make it."

Bruce stiffened. "What's supposed to be the matter with me?" he snapped.

"You come in the morning, sir, and we'll find out Your eyes are slightly off-focus. Overwork, maybe— but we ought to know."

Lindstrom smiled to herself, anticipating Bruce's growling reply.

"I'll see if I can fit it in, if you insist"

Maseba rose, easy and graceful as a young lion. "You do that sir." He paused at the door, a mischievous smile suffusing his ebony face. "That
is
a medical order, sir."

Lindstrom expected Bruce to snap again, but he turned his attention to his checklist giving her an opportunity to say something that had been on her own mind.

"George."

"Ma'am?" He looked at her, enquiringly.

"That was great work you did. I saw that Chinese girl. When she gets the bandages off, is the covered half of her face going to match the half I saw?"

"Why, sure it will," Maseba said. "Why else do you think they used to call me the Rodin of the plastic surgery department back in Lake Cities?"

"I just hope you're around if anything like that should ever happen to me," Helen said.

He grinned and held up his big, delicate-fingered hands. "They're all for you, baby. Any time."

Then he was gone, and Lindstrom was alone with Bruce. She realized that this was something which rarely happened now. Once, back on Earth, before he had got command of
Venturer Twelve,
he had needed her. But now he kept his distance, and they were nothing more than commander and second in command. For him, at least, it was over. Now he worked constantly, never relaxing, maintaining the impenetrable shield of efficiency, giving no hint of the humanity that must lie beneath that hard carapace. And yet...

She said, aware of the touch of tenderness in her voice: "You will look in on Maseba tomoitow?"

He nodded, without looking at her, and she realized that she had failed again to make contact She saluted formally and left.

Back in her own quarters, she showered luxuriously until the water conservation buzzer sounded, then changed into a soft, one-piece zipsuit. She rang, and a moment later P.O. Dockridge thrust his terrier head round the. door.

"Yes, ma'am?" Dockridge was over-age, and with his unsatisfactorily mended leg should not have been in the crew; but Bruce had asked for him, so the regulations were bent a little.

"Two whole-wheat and ham sandwiches—and coffee."

Dockridge screwed up his face. 'They'll have to be taken off your real-food ration, ma'am."

"So take them. Leave them by the door, will you?"

"Yes, ma'am." And Dockridge was gone.

A moment later there came another knock. This one she had been expecting. Sergei Kuznetsov looked round the door, beamed, came in and filled the cabin.

"Ah!" He smelled of fresh pine, and his great chest swelled inside his off-duty zipsuit. He sat beside her, and, like a conjuror, produced a plastic bottle of colorless liquid. "See? Vodka!" His eyes shone with pleasure and anticipation.

"Sergei, where did you get it? What about Corps regs?"

When Kuznetsov shrugged it was like a small earthquake. "So? Maseba brews himself arak. And me—I was supervising engineer on the
Wangituru
job. Captain Sikorski is from Magnitogorsk; I am from Magnitogorsk. I should miss such an opportunity!"

She watched as the enormous man poured her a drink. They toasted each other, and as she sipped it, she sadly reflected that at least, with him, she could find relief and comfort of a kind.

But only of a kind.

Two themes of conversation were traditional during a junior officers' mess meal aboard a Corps ship in deep space, and both of them were treated as equally suitable subjects for obscene variations on a number of standard joke patterns. Piet Huygens remembered reading a doctoral thesis in psychiatry during his college days on the subject which went to great lengths to show reasons for the lack of originality in subject matter and form during such conversations, and to explain why novelty in any respect was by some tacit agreement considered tabu. Basically, the writer argued, the stereotyped to-and-fro of such mess conversation was an automatic response on the part of the human beings concerned to their environment. Protected from the incomprehensible, whirling horror of sub-space by only the hull of a ship, aware of the puny insignificance of his physical presence in a totally alien environment, a man—or woman—reacted defensively by exhibiting

this obsessional preoccupation with two natural and ever-present functions of the human body, food and sex. Thus boredom was, in a sense, used as a protection against fear, and assiduously pursued by even the most intelligent members of the group.

At the present moment, as Piet Huygens sat picking at the combination of processed plankton steak and freeze-dried vegetables that constituted his meal, he was aware that the conversations on either side of him were progressing in a depressingly normal manner. To his left a couple of junior-grade engineering lieutenants were speculating on the sexual adventures which they, as Corps officers, were likely to enjoy during the stopover on Kepler III; and on his right, Lieutenant Quat, a very senior quartermaster, was holding forth to the table in general on the revolting nature of a particular type of recycled protein which was no longer used aboard Corps ships.

It required little effort on Piet's part to shut out such chatter and concentrate on his own preoccupations. During the forty-eight hours since the conclusion of the
Wangituru
operation there had been no opportunity to see Mia, but his relationship with her had been constantly in his mind. There had been ample time for his imaginative mind to return over and over again to its speculations about the possible consequences of the decision they had made. During the duty period recently completed he had found himself distracted and depressed by a combination of foreboding thoughts and a general feeling of malaise which left him operating at less than accustomed efficiency. The malaise was vaguely reminiscent of a minor virus infection, but he had a suspicion that it was more likely psychosomatic in origin. At any event, he had foregone the temptation to report its presence to Maseba, because the surgeon lieutenant had a habit of probing too deeply and too efficiently into such matters. Instead, he had dosed himself with a couple of mildly euphoric pills and carried on. Even so, he was aware that he had been saved on several occasions from making stupid mistakes in routine by the quietly efficient intervention of his P.O. orderly assistant He would have to watch...

Jerking out of his train of thought he noticed that the hitherto vacant chair opposite was now occupied. Trudi Hoffman was
looking
at him, as though expecting a reply to some question or remark which he had not even heard. Her expression told him absolutely nothing, except that he had maybe missed out on some small talk.

"I'm sorry?" he said, enquiringly.

"I said, I've been expecting you," she replied, with a touch of flatness in her voice.

"Oh!" he said, uneasily. The assignation made in the bloody surroundings of the dissection room on the
Wangituru
had completely slipped his memory, but he could hardly tell her the truth. "I've been pretty busy," he explained. "There were a number of details to be tidied up over the processing of the stuff for the replacement banks."

Her sharp blue eyes glinted her disbelief. "I see. But you are off duty now, for a while, I believe?"

Believe
... he guessed that she had probably made it her business to find out "Well, yes..."

"Good; then IH expect you about twenty-two thirty?"

Her voice was as impersonal as a sheet of Part Two Orders. "Lieutenant (j.g.) Piet Huygens will report to Lieutenant Hoffman's cabin at 22.30 hours with phallus at the ready, prepared for sexual drill." A feeling of nausea gripped him as he pushed the hardly touched plate of food to one side.

"I'm sorry, Trudi. I'm feeling pretty beat I thought maybe I'd catch up on some sleep. . . ." The sentence trailed away lamely as he gazed into her hard eyes.

"Or what we suffered in former times. Look at us. Total luxury! I've done an entire eighteen-month trip living on concentrates and cellulose fillers, with nowhere to take a girl except in an open dormitory— hammocks at that. ... No crossing ranks there—everyone could
see "
The subject of Lieutenant Quat's monologue shifted smoothly back to Topic A as he addressed • himself to the table in general.

An engineering lieutenant next to him was amused. "You mean all the crewwomen in your day had their ranks tattooed—somewhere obvious?" There was a burst of ready laughter from his companions.

Quat said: "It has always been my belief that the regulation against off-duty consorting between commissioned and noncommissioned ranks is a lot of old
kluk.
If they weren't sensible, well-adjusted women in the first place, they wouldn't be in the Corps. . . ." Quat was squarely astride his favorite hobbyhorse now, expounding his theory of sexual democracy for the Corps. But Piet's eyes were still held by those of Trudi. Her face was blank and cold, but behind the mask he sensed a growing, dangerous rage.

Then suddenly her eyes snapped away, and she was smiling a hard, bright smile as she addressed Lieutenant Quat, who had paused momentarily for breath. "I disagree, Phunim. Discipline could very easily go to pieces in that way. Not immediately, of course, but over a period of time, if rank differences were too great, then it would be bound to suffer. After all, there are some who think that between a chief petty officer, for example, and a GD crewwoman the gap is already too great; imagine, for instance, the possible consequences of such a relationship between a lieutenant and a crewwoman, even a leading crewwoman."

"A harmless association for mutual relief," suggested Quat, blandly.

"Ah, but
harmless
. . . there's the rub," persisted Trudi. "Who is to tell when such an arrangement might become something more than merely an association providing mutual satisfaction and develop into a more personal one? And once that happens, what price your disciplinary structure then?"

Watching the coldly attractive features of Trudi, Piet was gripped with a panic that filled his throat Trudi was looking away, avoiding his eye—but there had to be something more than mere coincidence behind her words. She wasn't addressing him directly, but she was, in her coldly oblique manner, giving him a warning that she knew about his relationship with Mia—a warning, and a threat The questions now must be, how much did she know? And what was she going to do about it?

"... the medical viewpoint on such an assertion?"

Piet was jostled out of his concentration by the tag end of Lieutenant Quat's question. He stared stupidly for a moment into the beaming moon-face. "I'm sorry —I wasn't listening. What was that again?"