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 Don t swear at mel
 I wasn t swearing.
 You were thinking it.
 All right, I was thinking it. He finished his drink, got up, put on his cap.  I d better get down to the
ship to see what sort of mess my butterfly-brained apes are making of her.
 What difference will your being there make?
 I m still Commander of this bloody base! he roared.
He looked back at her briefly as he reached the door, felt a spasm of pity. She was such a mess. She
had let herself go. (As he had let himself go.) Only faint traces remained of the attractive Ensign Marian
Hall, Supply Branch, whom he, on the rebound, had married. Physically there was no longer any
attraction. Mentally there was nothing. She read only trash, was incapable of intelligent conversation,
and could never join Grimes in his favorite pastime of kicking ideas around to see if they yelped. He
wondered how things would have worked out if he and Maggie Lazenby had made a go of things. But to
have Maggie here, on this world, at this juncture was too much.
He walked to the military spaceport. The night was mild, not unpleasant in spite of the wisps of
drizzle that drifted over the flat landscape. Now and again Zetland s twin moons appeared briefly in
breaks in the clouds, but their light was faint and pallid in comparison to the glare of the working floods
around Draconis.
He tramped slowly up the ramp to the airlock, returned the salute of the O.O.D., one of Delamere s
men. The elevator was unmanned but, after all, the ship had suffered heavy simulated casualties, so
ratings could not be spared for nonessential duties. He went first to the  Farm. The vats had been
cleaned out, but the stink still lingered. The cruiser s Biochemist had carried out his  sabotage under
orders a little too enthusiastically. He exchanged a few words with Lieutenant Commander Dufay, in
charge of operations here, then went down a couple of decks to the inertial drive room. He looked at the
confusion without understanding it. Roscoe and his artificers had bits and pieces scattered everywhere. It
was like a mechanical jigsaw puzzle.
 She ll be right, Commander, said the Engineer Lieutenant. He didn t seem to be convinced by his
own words. Grimes certainly wasn t.
 She d better be right, he said.
Somebody else was using the elevator, so he decided to take the companionway up to Control he
did know more than a little about navigational equipment rather than wait. His journey took him through
Officers Country. He was not altogether surprised when he was accosted by Commander Lazenby.
 Hi, John.
 Hi, Maggie.
 Are you busy?
He shrugged.  I should be.
 But we haven t seen each other for years. Come into my dogbox for a drink and a yarn. It s all
right the Boy Wonder s being wined and dined by the Governor in Zeehan City.
 He might have told me.
 Why should he? In any case, he s on the Simulated Casualty List. He s probably awarded himself a
posthumous Grand Galactic Cross.
 With golden comets.
 And a platinum spiral nebula. She laughed.  Come in, John. Take the weight off your feet. The
door to her day cabin opened for her.  This is Liberty HalL You can spit on the mat and call the cat a
bastard.
 You haven t changed, Maggie, he said ruefully, looking at her.  I wish ...
She finished it for him.  You wish that you d married me instead of that little commissioned grocer s
clerk. But you were always rather scared of me, John, weren t you? You were afraid that you, a
spacehound pure and simple, wouldn t be able to cope with me, a qualified ethologist. But as an
ethologist I could have seen to it that things worked out for us.
She sat down on her settee, crossing her slim, sleek legs. Her thin, intelligent face under the red hair
was serious.
He looked at her wistfully. He murmured and it was as much a question as a statement  It s too
late now.
 Yes. It s too late. You ve changed too much. You did the wrong thing, John. You should have
resigned after that court martial. You could have gone out to the Rim Worlds to make a fresh start.
 I wanted to, Maggie. But Marian she s incurably Ter-ran. She made it quite plain that she d not
go out to live among the horrid, rough colonials. As far as she s concerned, everywhere there s a Survey
Service Base there s a little bit of Old Earth, with society neatly stratified. Mrs. Commander is just a cut
above Mrs. Lieutenant Commander, and so on down. He fumbled for his pipe, filled and lit it.  She had
the idea, too, that My Lords Commissioners would one day forgive me and that she d finish up as Mrs.
Admiral Grimes ...
 My heart fair bleeds for you both, she said drily.  But mix us drinks, John. You ll find the
wherewithal in that locker.
 For you?
 The same as always. BVG, with just a touch of lime.
There was a hologram over the grog locker, a little, brightly glowing window onto another, happier
world. It was a beach scene: golden sand, creamy surf, blue sea and sky, and the golden brown bodies
of the naked men and women.
Grimes asked,  Do you still spend your long leaves on Arcadia, Maggie?
 Too right I do. It s the only possible planet for an ethologist who takes the  Back To Nature slogan
seriously.
 You look happy enough in this hologram ... Grimes inspected the three-dimensional picture more
closely.  Who is that with you?
 Peter Cowley. He s a Senior Biochemist with Trans-Galactic Clippers.
 No. Not him. The woman.
She got up to come to stand beside him.  Oh, her. That s Sonya Verrill. Yet another of the
Commanders with whom the Survey Service is infested. She s Intelligence. Do you know her? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]