"You know as well as I do that he's a sickman."
"I told you not to use that nickname around me," I replied with
annoyance. "Naturally you're going to mistrust them if you tie them up
in your mind with a name like that."
"Do you trust them?"
I suddenly wasn't sure myself, so I evaded by saying, "Frendon told us
he wasn't one, anyway."
"Did you expect him to tell the truth?" Korsakov sneered. "After going
to the trouble of getting an auxiliary commission in the SCS? He knows
what we think."
"Sickman," Harding repeated, watching me carefully. "And I'm plenty sick
of having the brass hats handing us junk like that. It used to be that
the worst we'd get would be fouled up equipment that we'd have to check
and rewire ourselves, like these fire controls. Now they give us a
fouled-up captain."
"Look," I said. "I want you to cut that talk out, Harding. That's an
order. And if you think I can't pour it on you guys, just try me once."
Korsakov, who had been staring morosely into the wiring duct, turned
around to face me. He had that nasty grin on his face again.
The best thing I could think of to do at that moment was to pretend I
assumed that they would obey and go on back to the control room. I knew
they wouldn't pay much attention to the order, but the stand had to be
taken. I was still pretty much a stranger myself, but I wasn't going to
let them think they could sell me their friendship at the cost of the
captain's authority.
One thing I did accomplish, however, was the completion of the
fire-control checkout. There was a lot of rewiring to do, but they had
it finished in two hours, and everything was perfect.
Frendon went off to the city that evening, and didn't show up the next
day except for about an hour. Apparently, he had been talking to a
Psychological Advice officer or somebody like that, and now proceeded to
interview each of us in private, quite obviously trying to gain some
kind of rapport with us. It didn't work. Even if it hadn't been so
obviously what it was, it wouldn't have worked. The men couldn't stand
simply having him around, and their conviction that he was a Psi Corps
officer merely grew stronger.
When he left for the day, it was a relief. You couldn't like the guy,
but you couldn't help but feel sorry for him--at least, I couldn't.
* * * * *
That evening, since we were still docked on Mars, I went to the Base
service club for dinner. Sitting in a booth there I found the three of
them--Harding, Spender and Korsakov. For the first time, they actually
seemed happy to see me, and the usual animosity I had experienced from
them had almost vanished. Of course, I knew what the reason was. They
could now hate somebody else, and since I was in the same dismal
situation that they were in, they generously permitted me to share their
gloom.
I ordered some good Earthside bourbon, and sat down with them. Harding
had apparently been making a little speech, which I had interrupted, and
which he now concluded to me.
"So what do you think we can do?"
"About what?" I said.
"You know about what."