Whatever it took to satisfy the Brain, it didn't find it in the next
few days.
Starbuck reported to the bridge each day to press the Brain's phase
button and answer some of its questions.
Then for two days Captain Birdsel wasn't on hand for the little
ceremony and the expression of dissatisfaction with the available site
for exploration.
Once Starbuck went so far as to suggest a reconsideration of a system
that had made the one he had seen on the first day look tame. The
calculator had duly noted the reconsideration, and had again refused.
Starbuck didn't dare try an out-and-out override, even though he had
been theoretically given complete command of the phasing operation.
The following noon, the middle of the twenty-four period, Romero, an
engineer, almost tearfully pressed Starbuck's crap game losings back on
him, apologizing for keeping the money. Starbuck was about to refuse,
not wanting to reverse the state of indebtedness, when the intercom
requested his appearance at the captain's quarters. Unable to prolong
the argument with Romero, he took the money and shoved it in his
pocket, heading for the chief cabin.
Starbuck rapped on the door, heard the "Come" and entered.
Captain Birdsel was hanging naked, upside down, by his knees from a
trapeze, in the middle of a deserted compartment painted solid red.
"You sent for me, sir?" Starbuck said.
"Yes, Ben. Yes, I did," Captain Birdsel replied, swinging gently to and
fro. "Do you smoke, Ben?"
"Aye aye, sir."
"The 'aye aye' is reserved for acknowledging orders, not answering
questions, Ben."
"Yes, sir. I'll remember in the future."
"Every man on board smokes, Ben. Everyone but me. I do not use tobacco."
"Commendable, sir."
"I suppose you drink, all of the rest of the men do."
"Occasionally, Captain."
"I abstain."
"Enviable, sir."
"Have you read any good books lately?"
"Good and bad, sir."
"I notice most of the men read. I haven't time for reading myself. Or
shooting craps. You do play that game like the rest?"
"Just once, sir. I lost all my money." Which had been returned to him.
"Ben, I think you don't fully appreciate the nature of the mission
of the Space Service," Captain Birdsel said, flexing one knee and
performing a difficult one-legged swing on the bar. "It is our duty
to go ever onward into the mystery of the Unknown. Ever deeper, ever
traveling into the heart of the Secrets of the Universe. Nothing can
stop us. Nothing!"
"I'll try to remember, sir. Was that all?"
"One more thing," said the inverted captain. "I think you are to be
relieved of the duty of officiating at the phasing."
"_Correct_," said another voice, one Starbuck had never before heard.
"That's all now, Ben."
"Very good, sir."
Starbuck paused at the door. "That's a fine trapeze you have there,
sir."
"Thank you, Ben."
* * * * *
"I don't want to jump to conclusions," Ben said to the knot of men
gathered around him listening to his story of the interview with the
captain, "but I think Captain Birdsel is--is--"
"Psychotic?" suggested Romero.
"Schizoid?" Percy Kettleman ventured.
"'_Nuts_' is the word I was searching for," Starbuck concluded. "I
believe he intends to keep phasing and phasing, taking us deeper into
space and never returning to Earth or the inhabited universe."
"I guess," Kettleman opined, "that we will just have to convince him
that he is wrong in that attitude."
"We can make a formal written complaint and request for an explanation
under Section XXIV," Romero said. "Is that what you had in mind, Ben?"
"_I_ had a straitjacket in mind," Starbuck admitted. "But I'm new in
the Space Service. I have a selfish motive. I want to get back to Earth
sometime and a vine-covered ethnology class."
"We better go take him," Kettleman said heavily.
"As much as I dislike agreeing with an ox like you, Kettleman," Romero
said, "I conclude it is best."
There was a general rumble of agreement.
"Wait, wait," a youngish man whose name Starbuck vaguely remembered to
be Horne stepped forward, his eyes glittering with contact lenses. "I
ask you men to remember Christopher Columbus. I like our captain no
more than any of you, but he may be right. Perhaps what he is doing is
vital. We shouldn't let our selfish fears...."
Always, Starbuck thought, always some egghead comes along to gum up the
works.
Starbuck knew he would need a decisive argument to overcome Horne's
objective theory.
Starbuck slugged him.
Horne crumpled after a flashy right cross Starbuck had developed in his
extreme youth, and Starbuck took a giant step over him, heading for the
bridge.
The other crew members followed him.
Besides, Starbuck thought, he had always considered arguing by analogy
to be sloppy thinking.
* * * * *
"Don't come in here!" Captain Birdsel yelled through the partly closed
hatch to the bridge. "You'll regret it if you do."
Starbuck swallowed hard, and reached for the door handle.