"I hereby order your detention for the duration of this voyage, for
aiding and abetting a stowaway, as set forth in Sections Forty-one and
Forty-five--"
"Forty-three and Forty-five," Sis interrupted him, her eyes getting
larger and rounder. "But you gave me your word of honor that no charges
would be lodged against the boy!"
"Forty-one and Forty-five," he corrected her courteously, still staring
fiercely at me. "I looked it up. Of the Anita Mason Law, Emergency
Interplanetary Directives. That was the usual promise one makes to an
informer, but I made it before I knew it was Butt Lee Brown you were
talking about. I didn't want to arrest Butt Lee Brown. You forced
me. So I'm breaking my promise to you, just as, I understand, you
broke your promise to your brother. They'll both be picked up at New
Kalamazoo Spaceport and sent Terraward for trial."
"But I used all of our money to buy passage," Sis wailed.
"And now you'll have to return with the boy. I'm sorry, Miss Sparling.
But as you explained to me, a man who has been honored with an
important official position should stay close to the letter of the law
for the sake of other men who are trying to break down terrestrial
anti-male prejudice. Of course, there's a way out."
"There is? Tell me, please!"
"Can I lower my hands a minute?" I asked.
"No, you can't, son--not according to the armed surveillance provisions
of the Mother Anita Law. Miss Sparling, if you'd marry Brown--now,
now, don't look at me like that!--we could let the whole matter drop.
A shipboard wedding and he goes on your passport as a 'dependent male
member of family,' which means, so far as the law is concerned, that he
had a regulation passport from the beginning of this voyage. And once
we touch Venusian soil he can contact his bank and pay for passage. On
the record, no crime was ever committed. He's free, the boy's free, and
you--"
"--Are married to an uncombed desperado who doesn't know enough to sit
back and let a woman run things. Oh, you should be ashamed!"
* * * * *
The Captain shrugged and spread his arms wide.
"Perhaps I should be, but that's what comes of putting men into
responsible positions, as you would say. See here, Miss Sparling, _I_
didn't want to arrest Brown, and, if it's at all possible, I'd still
prefer not to. The crew, officers and men, all go along with me. We
may be legal residents of Earth, but our work requires us to be on
Venus several times a year. We don't want to be disliked by any members
of the highly irritable Brown clan or its collateral branches. Butt
Lee Brown himself, for all of his savage appearance in your civilized
eyes, is a man of much influence on the Polar Continent. In his own
bailiwick, the Galertan Archipelago, he makes, breaks and occasionally
readjusts officials. Then there's his brother Saskatchewan who
considers Butt a helpless, put-upon youngster--"
"Much influence, you say? Mr. Brown has?" Sis was suddenly thoughtful.
"_Power_, actually. The kind a strong man usually wields in a newly
settled community. Besides, Miss Sparling, you're going to Venus for a
husband because the male-female ratio on Earth is reversed. Well, not
only is Butt Lee Brown a first class catch, but you can't afford to be
too particular in any case. While you're fairly pretty, you won't bring
any wealth into a marriage and your high degree of opinionation is not
likely to be well-received on a backward, masculinist world. Then, too,
the woman-hunger is not so great any more, what with the _Marie Curie_
and the _Fatima_ having already deposited their cargoes, the _Mme. Sun
Yat Sen_ due to arrive next month...."
* * * * *
Sis nodded to herself, waved the door open, and walked out.
"Let's hope," the Captain said. "Like any father used to say, a man who
knows how to handle women, how to get around them without their knowing
it, doesn't need to know anything else in this life. I'm plain wasted
in space. You can lower your hands now, son."
We sat down and I explained the blaster to him. He was very interested.
He said all Butt had told him--in the lifeboat when they decided to
use my arrest as a club over Sis--was to keep the safety catch all the
way up against his thumb. I could see he really had been excited about
carrying a lethal weapon around. He told me that back in the old days,
captains--sea captains, that is--actually had the right to keep guns
in their cabins all the time to put down mutinies and other things our
ancestors did.
The telewall flickered, and we turned it on. Sis smiled down.
"Everything's all right, Captain. Come up and marry us, please."
"What did you stick him for?" he asked. "What was the price?"
Sis's full lips went thin and hard, the way Mom's used to. Then she
thought better of it and laughed. "Mr. Brown is going to see that I'm
elected sheriff of the Galertan Archipelago."
"And I thought she'd settle for a county clerkship!" the Captain
muttered as we spun up to the brig.
The doors were open and girls were chattering in every corner. Sis came
up to the Captain to discuss arrangements. I slipped away and found
Butt sitting with folded arms in a corner of the brig. He grinned at
me. "Hi, tadpole. Like the splash?"
I shook my head unhappily. "Butt, why did you do it? I'd sure love to
be your brother-in-law, but, gosh, you didn't have to marry Sis." I
pointed at some of the bustling females. Sis was going to have three
hundred bridesmaids. "Any one of them would have jumped at the chance
to be your wife. And once on any woman's passport, you'd be free. Why
Sis?"
"That's what the Captain said in the lifeboat. Told him same thing I'm
telling you. I'm stubborn. What I like at first, I keep on liking. What
I want at first, I keep on wanting until I get."
"Yes, but making Sis sheriff! And you'll have to back her up with your
blaster. What'll happen to that man's world?"
"Wait'll after we nest and go out to my islands." He produced a
hard-lipped, smug grin, sighting it at Sis's slender back. "She'll
find herself sheriff over a bunch of natives and exactly two Earth
males--you and me. I got a hunch that'll keep her pretty busy, though."