Once a Greech Part 6

"Even so," Bridey replied grandly. "And this lofty form of life happens to be one which we poor humans cannot reach una.s.sisted. Someone has to build the sh.e.l.l for us to occupy, which is the reason humans dwell together in fellowship and harmony--"

"You purposely got Harkaway to take you aboard the _Herringbone_,"

Iversen interrupted wrathfully. "You--you stowaway!"

Bridey's laugh rang through the ship, setting the loose parts quivering.

"Of course. When first I set eyes upon this vessel of yours, I saw before me the epitome of all dreams. Never had any of our kind so splendid an encas.e.m.e.nt. And, upon determining that the vessel was, as yet, a soulless thing, I got myself aboard; I was born, I died, and was reborn again with the greatest swiftness consonant with comfort, so that I could awaken in this magnificent form. Oh, joy, joy, joy!"

"You know," Iversen said, "now that I hear one of you talk at length, I really can't blame Harkaway for his typically imbecilic mistake."

"We are a wordy species," Bridey conceded.

"You had no right to do what you did," Iversen told him, "no right to take over--"

"But I didn't take over," Bridey the _Herringbone_ said complacently. "I merely remained quiescent and content in the knowledge of my power until yours failed. Without me, you would even now be spinning in the vasty voids, a chrome-trimmed sepulcher. Now, three times as swiftly as before, shall I bear you back to the planet you very naively call home."

"Not three times as fast, please!" Iversen was quick to plead. "The ship isn't built--_we're_ not built to stand such speeds."

The ship sighed. "Disappointment needs must come to all--the high, the low, the man, the s.p.a.ceship. It must be borne--" the voice broke--"bravely. Somehow."

"What am I going to do?" Iversen asked, turning to the first officer for advice for the first time ever. "I was planning to ask for a transfer or resign my command when we got back to Earth. But how can I leave Bridey in the hands of the IEE(E)?"

"You can't, sir," the first officer said. "Neither can we."

"If you explain," Harkaway offered timidly, "perhaps they'll present the ship to the government."

Both Iversen and the first officer snorted, united for once. "Not the IEE(E)," Iversen said. "They'd--they'd exhibit it or something and charge admission."

"Oh, no," Bridey cried, "I don't want to be exhibited! I want to sail through the trackless paths of s.p.a.ce. What good is a body like this if I cannot use it to its fullest?"

"Have no fear," Iversen a.s.sured it. "We'll just--" he shrugged, his dreams of escape forever blighted--"just have to buy the ship from the IEE(E), that's all."

"Right you are, sir," the first officer agreed. "We must club together, every man Jack of us, and buy her. Him. It. That's the only decent thing to do."

"Perhaps they won't sell," Harkaway worried. "Maybe--"

"Oh, they'll sell, all right," Iversen said wearily. "They'd sell the chairman of the board, if you made them an offer, and throw in all the directors if the price was right."

"And then what will we do?" the first officer asked. "Once the ship has been purchased, what will our course be? What, in other words, are we to do?"

It was Bridey who answered. "We will speed through s.p.a.ce seeking, learning, searching, until you--all of you--pa.s.s on to higher planes and, leaving the frail sh.e.l.ls you now inhabit, occupy proud, splendid vessels like the one I wear now. Then, a vast transcendent flotilla, we will seek other universes...."

"But we don't become s.p.a.ceships," Iversen said unhappily. "We don't become anything."

"How do you know we don't?" Smullyan demanded, appearing on the threshold. "How do you know what we become? Build thee more stately s.p.a.ceships, O my soul!"

Above all else, Iversen was a s.p.a.ce officer and dereliction of duty could not be condoned even in exceptional circ.u.mstances. "Put him in irons, somebody!"

"Ask Bridey why there were only forty-five s.p.a.ceships on his planet!"

the doctor yelled over his shoulder as he was dragged off. "Ask where the others went--where they are now."

But Bridey wouldn't answer that question.