The Past Through Tomorrow Part 45

'Oh, the devil with it,' said Wingate. 'Drink up.'

'Righto,' agreed Jones. It was his first night aground after a practice cruise as a reserve officer; he needed to catch up on his drinking. Too bad, thought Wingate, that the cruise should have touched at Venus-'All out! All out! Up aaaall you idlers! Show a leg there! Show a leg and grab a sock!' The raucous voice sawed its way through Wingate's aching head. He opened his eyes, was blinded by raw white light, and shut them hastily. But the voice would not let him alone. 'Ten minutes till breakfast,' it rasped. 'Come and get it, or we'll throw it out!'

He opened his eyes again, and with trembling willpower forced them to track. Legs moved past his eyes, denim clad legs mostly, though some were bare-repulsive hairy nakedness. A confusion of male voices, from which he could catch words but not sentences, was accompanied by an obbligato of metallic sounds, m.u.f.fled but pervasive-shrrg, shrrg, thump! Shrrg, shrrg, thump! The thump with which the cycle was completed hurt his aching head but was not as nerve stretching as another noise, a toneless whirring sibilance which he could neither locate nor escape.

The air was full of the odor of human beings, too many of them in too small a s.p.a.ce. There was nothing so distinct as to be fairly termed a stench, nor was the supply of oxygen inadequate. But the room was filled with the warm, slightly musky smell of bodies still heated by bedclothes, bodies not dirty but not freshly washed. It was oppressive and unappetizing-in his present state almost nauseating.

He began to have some appreciation of the nature of his surroundings; he was in a bunkroom of some sort. It was crowded with men, men getting up, shuffling about, pulling on clothes. He lay on the bottom-most of a tier of four narrow bunks. Through the interstices between the legs which crowded around him and moved past his face he could see other such tiers around the walls and away from the walls, stacked floor to ceiling and supported by stanchions.

Someone sat down on the foot of Wingate's bunk, crowding his broad fundamental against Wingate's ankles while he drew on his socks. Wingate squirmed his feet away from the intrusion. The stranger turned his face toward him. 'Did I crowd 'ja, bud? Sorry.' Then he added, not unkindly, 'Better rustle out of there. The Master-at-Arms'll be riding you to get them bunks up.' He yawned hugely, and started to get up, quite evidently having dismissed Wingate and Wingate's affairs from his mind.

'Wait a minute!' Wingate demanded hastily.

'Huh?'

'Where am I? In jail?'

The stranger studied Wingate's bloodshot eyes and puffy, unwashed face with detached but unmalicious interest. 'Boy, oh boy, you must 'a' done a good job of drinking up your bounty money.'

'Bounty money? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?'

'Honest to G.o.d, don't you know where you are?'

'No.'

'Well . . . ' The other seemed reluctant to proclaim a truth made silly by its self-evidence until Wingate's expression convinced him that he really wanted to know. 'Well, you're in the Evening Star, headed for Venus.'

A couple of minutes later the stranger touched him on the arm. 'Don't take it so hard, bud. There's nothing to get excited about.'

Wingate took his hands from his face and pressed them against his temples. 'It's not real,' he said, speaking more to himself than to the other. 'It can't be real -, 'Stow it. Come and get your breakfast.'

'I couldn't eat anything.'

'Nuts. Know how you feel . . . felt that way sometimes myself. Food is just the ticket.' The Master-at-Arms settled the issue by coming up and prodding Wingate in the ribs with his truncheon.

'What d'yuh think this is-sickbay, or first cla.s.s? Get those bunks hooked up.'

'Easy, mate, easy,' Wingate's new acquaintance conciliated, 'our pal's not himself this morning.' As he spoke he dragged Wingate to his feet with one ma.s.sive hand, then with the other shoved the tier of bunks up and against the wall. Hooks clicked into their sockets, and the tier stayed up, flat to the wall.

'He'll be a d.a.m.n sight less himself if he interferes with my routine,' the petty officer predicted. But he moved on. Wingate stood barefooted on the floorplates, immobile and overcome by a feeling of helpless indecision which was re-inforced by the fact that he was dressed only in his underwear. His champion studied him.

'You forgot your pillow. Here-' He reached down into the pocket formed by the lowest bunk and the wall and hauled out a flat package covered with transparent plastic. He broke the seal and shook out the contents, a single coverall garment of heavy denim. Wingate put it on gratefully. 'You can get the squeezer to issue you a pair of slippers after breakfast,' his friend added. 'Right now we gotta eat.'

The last of the queue had left the galley window by the time they reached it and the window was closed. Wingate's companion pounded on it. 'Open up in there!'

It slammed open. 'No seconds,' a face announced.

The stranger prevented the descent of the window with his hand. 'We don't want seconds, shipmate, we want firsts.'

'Why the devil can't you show up on time?' the galley functionary groused. But he slapped two ration cartons down on the broad sill of the issuing window. The big fellow handed one to Wingate, and sat down on the floor-plates, his back supported by the galley bulkhead.

'What's your name, bud?' he enquired, as he skinned the cover off his ration. 'Mine's Hartley-"Satchel" Hartley.'

'Mine is Humphrey Wingate.'

'Okay, Hump. Pleased to meet 'cha. Now what's all this song and dance you been giving me?' He spooned up an impossible bite of baked eggs and sucked coffee from the end of his carton.

'Well,' said Wingate, his face twisted with worry, 'I guess I've been shanghaied.' He tried to emulate Hartley's method of drinking, and got the brown liquid over his face.

'Here-that's no way to do,' Hartley said hastily. 'Put the nipple in your mouth, then don't squeeze any harder than you suck. Like this.' He ill.u.s.trated. 'Your theory don't seem very sound to me. The company don't need crimps when there's plenty of guys standing in line for a chance to sign up. What happened? Can't you remember?'

Wingate tried. 'The last thing I recall,' he said, 'is arguing with a gyro driver over his fare.'

Hartley nodded. 'They'll gyp you every time. D'you think he put the slug on you?'

'Well . . . no, I guess not. I seem to be all right, except for the d.a.m.ndest hangover you can imagine.'

'You'll feel better. You ought to be glad the Evening Star is a high-gravity ship instead of a trajectory job. Then you'd really be sick, and no foolin'.'

'How's that?'

'I mean that she accelerates or decelerates her whole run. Has to, because she carries cabin pa.s.sengers. If we had been sent by a freighter, it'd be a different story. They gun 'em into the right trajectory, then go weightless for the rest of the trip. Man, how the new chums do suffer!' He chuckled.

Wingate was in no condition to dwell on the hardships of s.p.a.ce sickness. 'What T can't figure out,' he said, 'is how I landed here. Do you suppose they could have brought me aboard by mistake, thinking I was somebody else?'

'Can't say. Say, aren't you going to finish your breakfast?'

'I've had all I want.' Hartley took his statement as an invitation and quickly finished off Wingate's ration. Then he stood up, crumpled the two cartons into a ball, stuffed them down a disposal chute, and said, 'What are you going to do about it?'

'What am I going to do about it?' A look of decision came over Wingate's face. 'I'm going to march right straight up to the Captain and demand an explanation, that's what I'm going to do!'

'I'd take that by easy stages, Hump,' Hartley commented doubtfully.

'Easy stages, h.e.l.l!' He stood up quickly. 'Ow! My head!'

The Master-at-Arms referred them to the Chief Master-at-Arms in order to get rid of them. Hartley waited with Wingate outside the stateroom of the Chief Master-at-Arms to keep him company. 'Better sell 'em your bill of goods pretty p.r.o.nto,' he advised.

'Why?'

'We'll ground on. the Moon in a few hours. The stop to refuel at Luna City for deep s.p.a.ce will be your last chance to get out, unless you want to walk back.'

'I hadn't thought of that,' Wingate agreed delightedly. 'I thought I'd have to make the round trip in any case.'

'Shouldn't be surprised but what you could pick up the Morning Star in a week or two. If it's their mistake, they'll have to return you.'

'I can beat that,' said Wingate eagerly. 'I'll go right straight to the bank at Luna City, have them arrange a letter of credit with my bank, and buy a ticket on the Earth-Moon shuttle.'

Hartley's manner underwent a subtle change. He had never in his life 'arranged a letter of credit'. Perhaps such a man could walk up to the Captain and lay down the law.

The Chief Master-at-Arms listened to Wingate's story with obvious impatience, and interrupted him in the middle of it to consult his roster of emigrants. He thumbed through it to the Ws, and pointed to a line. Wingate read it with a sinking feeling. There was his own name, correctly spelled. 'Now get out,' ordered the official, 'and quit wasting my time.'

But Wingate stood up to him. 'You have no authority in this matter-none whatsoever. I insist that you take me to the Captain.'

'Why, you-' Wingate thought momentarily that the man was going to strike him. He interrupted.

'Be careful what you do. You are apparently the victim of an honest mistake-but your legal position will be very shaky indeed, if you disregard the requirements of s.p.a.cewise law under which this vessel is licensed. I don't think your Captain would be pleased to have to explain such actions on your part in federal court.'

That he had gotten the man angry was evident. But a man does not get to be chief police officer of a major transport by jeopardizing his superior officers. His jaw muscles twitched but he pressed a b.u.t.ton, saying nothing. A junior master-at-arms appeared. 'Take this man to the Purser.' He turned his back in dismissal and dialed a number on the ship's intercommunication system.

Wingate was let in to see the Purser, ex-officio company business agent, after only a short wait. 'What's this all about?' that officer demanded. 'If you have a complaint, why can't you present it at the morning hearings in the regular order?'

Wingate explained his predicament as clearly, convincingly, and persuasively as he knew how. 'And so you see,' he concluded, 'I want to be put aground at Luna City. I've no desire to cause the company any embarra.s.sment over what was undoubtedly an unintentional mishap-particularly as I am forced to admit that I had been celebrating rather freely and, perhaps, in some manner, contributed to the mistake.'

The Purser, who had listened noncommittally to his recital, made no answer. He shuffled through a high stack of file folders which rested on one corner of his deck, selected one, and opened it. It contained a sheaf of legal-size papers clipped together at the top. These he studied leisurely for several minutes, while Wingate stood waiting.

The Purser breathed with an asthmatic noisiness while he read, and, from time to time, drummed on his bared teeth with his fingernails. Wingate had about decided, in his none too steady nervous condition, that if the man approached his hand to his mouth just once more that he, Wingate, would scream and start throwing things. At this point the Purser chucked the dossier across the desk toward Wingate. 'Better have a look at these,' he said.

Wingate did so. The main exhibit he found to be a contract, duly entered into, between Humphrey Wingate and the Venus Development Company for six years of indentured labor on the planet Venus.

'That your signature?' asked the Purser.

Wingate's professional caution stood him in good stead. He studied the signature closely in order to gain time while he tried to collect his wits. 'Well,' he said at last, 'I will stipulate that it looks very much like my signature, but I will not concede that it is my signature-I'm not a handwriting expert.' The Purser brushed aside the objection with an air of annoyance. 'I haven't time to quibble with you. Let's check the thumbprint. Here.' He shoved an impression pad across his desk. For a moment Wingate considered standing on his legal rights by refusing, but no, that would prejudice his case. He had nothing to lose; it couldn't be his thumbprint on the contract. Unless-But it was. Even his untrained eye could see that the two prints matched. He fought back a surge of panic. This was probably a nightmare, inspired by his argument last night with Jones. Or, if by some wild chance it were real, it was a frame-up in which he must find the flaw. Men of his sort were not framed; the whole thing was ridiculous. He marshaled his words carefully.

'I won't dispute your position, my dear sir. In some fashion both you and I have been made the victims of a rather sorry joke. It seems hardly necessary to point out that a man who is unconscious, as I must have been last night, may have his thumbprint taken without his knowledge. Superficially this contract is valid and I a.s.sume naturally your good faith in the matter. But, in fact, the instrument lacks one necessary element of a contract.'

'Which is?'

'The intention on the part of both parties to enter into a contractual relationship. Notwithstanding signature and thumbprint I had no intention of contracting which can easily be shown by other factors. I am a successful lawyer with a good practice, as my tax returns will show. It is not reasonable to believe-and no court will believe-that I voluntarily gave up my accustomed life for six years of indenture at a much lower income.'

'So you're a lawyer, eh? Perhaps there has been chicanery-on your part. How does it happen that you represent yourself here as a radio technician?'

Wingate again had to steady himself at this unexpected flank attack. He was in truth a radio expert-it was his cherished hobby-but how had they known? Shut up, he told himself. Don't admit anything. 'The whole thing is ridiculous,' he protested. 'I insist that 1 be taken to see the Captain-I can break that contract in ten minutes time.'

The Purser waited before replying. 'Are you through speaking your piece?'

'Yes.'

'Very well. You've had your say, now I'll have mine. You listen to me, Mister s.p.a.celawyer. That contract was drawn up by some of the shrewdest legal minds in two planets. They had specifically in mind that worthless b.u.ms would sign it, drink up their bounty money, and then decide that they didn't want to go to work after all. That contract has been subjected to every sort of attack possible and revised so that it can't be broken by the devil himself.

'You're not peddling your curbstone law to another stumbleb.u.m in this case; you are talking to a man who knows just where he stands, legally. As for seeing the Captain-if you think the commanding officer of a major vessel has nothing more to do than listen to the rhira-dreams of a self-appointed word artist, you've got another think coming! Return to your quarters!'

Wingate started to speak, thought better of it, and turned to go. This would require some thought. The Purser stopped him. 'Wait. Here's your copy of the contract.' He chucked it, the flimsy white sheets riffled to the deck. Wingate picked them up and left silently.

Hartley was waiting for him in the pa.s.sageway. 'How d'ja make out, Hump?'

'Not so well. No, I don't want to talk about it. I've got to think.' They walked silently back the way they had come toward the ladder which gave access to the lower decks. A figure ascended from the ladder and, came toward them. Wingate noted it without interest.

He looked again. Suddenly the whole preposterous chain of events fell into place; he shouted in relief. 'Sam!' he called out. 'Sam-you c.o.c.keyed old so-and-so. I should have spotted your handiwork.' It was all clear now; Sam had framed him with a phony shanghai. Probably the skipper was a pal of Sam's-a reserve officer, maybe-and they had cooked it up between them. It was a rough sort of a joke, but he was too relieved to be angry. Just the same he would make Jones pay for his fun, somehow, on the jump back from Luna City.

It was then that he noticed that Jones was not laughing.

Furthermore he was dressed-most unreasonably-in the same blue denim that the contract laborers were. 'Hump,' he was saying, 'are you still drunk?'

'Me? No. What's the-'

'Don't you realize we're in a jam?'

'Oh h.e.l.l, Sam, a joke's a joke, but don't keep it up any longer. I've caught on, I tell you. I don't mind-it was a good gag.'

'Gag, eh?' said Jones bitterly. 'I suppose it was just a gag when you talked me into signing up.'

'I persuaded you to sign up?'

'You certainly did. You were so d.a.m.n sure you knew what you were talking about. You claimed that we could sign up, spend a month or so, on Venus, and come home. You wanted to bet on it. So we went around to the docks and signed up. It seemed like a good idea then-the only way to settle the argument.'

Wingate whistled softly. 'Well, I'll be-Sam, I haven't the slightest recollection of it. I must have drawn a blank before I pa.s.sed out.'

'Yeah, I guess so. Too bad you didn't pa.s.s out sooner. Not that I'm blaming you; you didn't drag me. Anyhow, I'm on my way up to try to straighten it out.'

'Better wait a minute till you hear what happened to me. Oh yes-Sam, this is, uh, Satchel Hartley. Good sort.' Hartley had been waiting uncertainly near them; he stepped forward and shook hands.

Wingate brought Jones up to date, and added, 'So you see your reception isn't likely to be too friendly. I guess I m.u.f.fed it. But we are sure to break the contract as soon as we can get a hearing on time alone.'

'How do you mean?'

'We were signed up less than twelve hours before ship lifting. That's contrary to the s.p.a.ce Precautionary Act.'

'Yes-yes, I see what you mean. The Moon's in her last quarter; they would lift ship some time after midnight to take advantage of favorable earthswing. I wonder what time it was when we signed on?'

Wingate took out his contract copy. The notary's stamp showed a time of eleven thirty-two. 'Great Day!' he shouted. 'I knew there would be a flaw in it somewhere. This contract is invalid on its face. The ship's log will prove it.'

Jones studied it. 'Look again,' he said. Wingate did so. The stamp showed eleven thirty-two, but A.M., not P.M.

'But that's impossible,' he protested.

'Of course it is. But it's official. I think we will find that the story is that we were signed on in the morning, paid our bounty money, and had one last glorious luau before we were carried aboard. I seem to recollect some trouble in getting the recruiter to sign us up. Maybe we convinced, him by kicking in our bounty money.'

'But we didn't sign up in the morning. It's not true and I can prove it.'

'Sure you can prove it-but how can you prove it without going back to Earth first!'

'So you see it's this way,' Jones decided after some minutes of somewhat fruitless discussion, 'there is no sense in trying to break our contracts here and now; they'll laugh at us. The thing to do is to make money talk, and talk loud. The only way I can see to get us off at Luna City is to post non-performance bonds with the company bank there-cash, and d.a.m.n big ones too.'

'How big?'

'Twenty thousand credits, at least, I should guess.'

'But that's not equitable-it's all out of proportion.'