_Come aboard the_ Saturn _for
fun and laughs with Lancelot
Biggs--mastermind of the spaceways_.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales March 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
We were about three hours out of Long Island Spaceport, and I had just
finished swapping farewell insults with Joe Marlowe, head bug-pounder
at Lunar III, when the door of my radio turret slid open and in
slithered--if round things can slither--Cap Hanson, skipper of our
gallant space-going scow, the _Saturn_.
The Old Man's eyes were as wide as a lady bowler's beam, and his face,
which boasts a pale mauve hue even under normal circumstances, was now
a ripe, explosive fuchsia. He jammed a pudgy forefinger against his
lips.
"_Shh!_" he shhed.
He squeezed in and closed the door behind him, shot a nervous glance
about the room, then wheezed throatily, "Is there anybody here, Sparks?"
"Nobody," I told him, "but us amperes. Why all the Desperate Desmond
stuff, Skipper? Got an old _corpus delicti_ you want hid? You might try
the air-lock--"
He snapped back to normal with a profane bang.
"Don't be a damned fool, Donovan! I ain't murdered any members of my
crew yet. Though if I ever do, I've got a good notion who to start
with. I got reason to be cautions. I just learned something--Listen!"
He hunched forward and shoved his lips so close to my ear that I could
almost hear his whiskers sprouting. "You know that Captain Cooper which
come aboard at Long Island?"
"The Quarantine officer, you mean?"
"Quarantine officer your eye!" The skipper's voice was triumphant. "He
ain't no more a Q.O. than I'm the Queen of Sheba! He's an inspector
from the S.S.C.B."
"An inspector!" I gasped. "From the Space Safety Control Board!
Why--why, that means--"
"Exactly!" Hanson rubbed his hands gleefully. "It means that Lanse is
being examined for a commander's brevet. Well, what do you think of
that? _My_ son-in-law. Captain of his own ship. And him with only one
year's active service!"
I said, "That's swell!" and meant it. The Old Man exaggerated a trifle
when he called Lancelot Biggs his "son-in-law"; Biggs' marriage to
Diane Hanson was not scheduled to take place, yet, for a couple of
months. But with Hanson I could enthuse over the prospect of seeing
Biggs win his four stripes and his own command. Lieutenant Lancelot
Biggs was not only my superior officer, he was my friend, as well. He
had once been my bunkmate. I had watched him rise from a gangling,
awkward, derided Third Mate to First Officer; had been present when he
earned his Master Navigator's papers; had seen him overcome seemingly
insurmountable handicaps of appearance and personality to win a place
in the affections of crew and command alike.
A screwball gent, this Biggs. Tall, angular, inconceivably skinny,
graced (or disfigured?) with a phenomenally active Adam's-apple that
bobbed eternally up and down in his skinny throat like an unswallowed
cud--but blessed with two saving graces. A swell sense of humor and a
_brain_!
True, his thought processes were oftimes fantastically involved. His
motto, "Get the theory first!" sometimes led him down dark passageways
of logic. But there never was a problem too deep for him; time and
again his screwy logic had saved the personnel of the _Saturn_ from
peril to person or purse.
So, "That's swell!" I said--and meant it. Then I stared at the skipper
thoughtfully. "But why," I asked him, "tell me about it? Biggs is the
man to tell."
Hanson's eyes clouded, and he gnawed savagely at a grubby fingernail.
"That's just it, Sparks. I can't tell him."
"Why?" I demanded. "Laryngitis? Or ain't you and him speaking?"
"I can't tell him," explained the skipper, "because it would be
unethical. You see, when a man's bein' examined for his commander's
stripes, he ain't supposed to know about it. That's why Cooper come
aboard under an alias. He wants to watch Lanse perform his routine
duties in routine fashion--like nothin' unusual was goin' on.
"Then, at the end of the trip, he'll tell Lanse who he is, give him a
verbal exam on the Space Safety Code, navigation practices, etcetera
an' so on, an'--there you are!"
"There," I agreed, "I am. So where am I? Still in the dark, Skipper.
Why tell _me_?"
Hanson glared at me witheringly.
"If you was as deaf," he said, making noises like a sizzling steak, "as
you are dumb, the Corporation might give me a new radio operator for
this here jallop--I mean, ship! Look, stupid! Biggs had ought to know
he's bein' watched by an examiner, shouldn't he? Not that he don't know
how to do things right, but because--well, because every so often the
boy gets whacky ideas an' starts tryin' experiments.
"An' we don't want him tryin' nothin' like that, do we? Not on this
shuttle. So, bein' as how you're his chum, an' since it would be
unethical for _me_ to spill the beans--_you've_ got to tell him. Warn
him to lay off the nonsense--get it?"