Unless Forrest realized that Hagen's position with the Guardians was of
no great importance. At least at the present time.
Which meant that Hagen's position might be of great interest in the
future. This implied that Forrest, Wrightwood, and Interstellar had
some plan in mind. Theirs was more than getting Steve Hagen back into
the fold; that might have been accomplished by several means. Certainly
Wrightwood and Interstellar had enough of power and money to place a
very deep curse on any man who befriended Steve. He would be forced
back from sheer want, from sheer inability to fight an organization so
strong that it would not permit any other outfit to hire him.
Nor was it a matter of waiting until Hagen came to his senses.
It implied some sort of deep-laid scheme, and some of it smacked
of Hagen's call to Base One instead of being sent to the Galactic
Equivalent of Brooklyn until he knew his way around. He smelled the
fingers of politics once again, and decided to step upon them.
* * * * *
Steve turned from his walk down the hall and went to Captain
Charlemagne's office.
The squadron leader looked up when Hagen was announced, and smiled
genially. "How did you make out?"
Hagen shrugged. "I told my tale in a dry voice, and I don't know
whether it went over or not; they didn't ask me any questions."
"They never do. They just compare the notes they make from one man
to the other and weed out discrepancies. That's why all of us being
questioned are called in one at a time. I doubt that you made any
errors, Steve."
"Thanks, Captain Charlemagne." Hagen wanted to call his leader 'Cap'n'
like the rest, but felt that it was not his place to be too bold at
this moment. "But I came here to ask a question."
"Go right ahead."
"Why was I called to Base One?"
"You've been wondering?"
"Of course. I came off with a high grade in training school, but not
that high. So far as I know, I'm the first rook to be called directly
from training to Base One in many's the year."
"That's true," nodded Charlemagne.
"You weren't to be told yet, but since you ask, there's really no harm
in your knowing; you're going to be assigned to a sort of special
routine once we get you some experience in space."
"Special routine?"
"Nothing very grandiose, Steve. We've partly been forced and partly
been convinced to revise our inspection procedure. Formerly, routine
inspections have been carried out by men convalescing from injuries,
or men released from active duty for one reason or another. It has
been pointed out that such men--usually men of long experience, can
hardly look upon such a routine job as anything but punishment, or a
sop tossed to an invalid, or some other odious proposition, and they
can hardly be expected to execute such a job without some bias. For
instance, a man put upon such a job because of some minor infraction of
the rules will smart under this punishment and take it out on spaceport
managers, liner captains, and so forth--or will bugger the works by
overlooking the possible danger spots. An invalid cannot be expected
to do the job thoroughly. A pensioner is usually old enough to be less
active."
"I see; now we're making this a part of initial training?"
"Right. And since Base One is staffed with experienced Guardians, we
needed a newcomer to handle this job; you're it."
Hagen smiled. "When do I start?" he asked.
"Normally we'd start you after your second time out," said Charlemagne.
"But since you've been told of your assignment, I see no reason why
you should sit around day after day waiting for it to arrive. If you
think you can make a long jaunt from star to star without getting the
screaming meemies from space loneliness, you can start tomorrow."
"I think I can."
"Larrimer thinks you can lick it," smiled Charlemagne; "he said you
ran the swamper as though you'd been with the mop-up squad for years."
"I hardly think so."
"You're a well-liked rookie," said the captain. "You'll make out. And,"
he added ruefully, "we'll be looking for another rookie in not too long
a time. We wouldn't care to keep a potentially good man running errands
too long. Just long enough," he said seriously, "so that he knows what
the score is."
* * * * *
Steve found this was tedious work. Furnished with an itinerary,
Steve spent the first day on Planet III of the star nearest to Base
One, prowling in and out among the planetary installations of the
Interstellar Company, finding nothing worth reporting. Pilots and
engineroom mechanics knew that their lives depended upon the proper
maintenance of their equipment, and they behaved accordingly.
Furthermore, most of them resented Steve's insistence upon inspection
because they deemed it a reflection on their workmanship. The fact
that he admittedly knew less than they about the finer points of warp
generators made it impossible for him to pay more than a cursory
compliment as a sop to the interference.
On the other hand Hagen occasionally located a weak spot and pointed
it out to them; some of them were grateful, and some impertinent. Of
the former, they nodded sagely and mumbled something about beginner's
luck or the familiarity that breeds contempt. Of the latter, their
acknowledgment of the weak spot came either as something admittedly
less than perfect but not really dangerous--or that they knew it was
there, but had not reached that spot in their repair routine. Steve
could not argue any of these points, so he clamped down on the sharp
answers he felt coming up and passed it by with only a scowl. Had
he been less certain of himself, Steve would have been ruffled or
possibly hurt by this sort of treatment. But Hagen was the kind of man
who knew that he was not completely capable in such things--although
he was quite capable in other things, which lent the whole proposition
some compensation. It is the man who has no particular accomplishment
of his own who cannot stand to be pushed around by people who have--or
he with the overpowering inferiority complex who _thinks_ he has no
particular excellence.
Steve had neither inferiority complex nor lack of certain successes;
he would study and he would learn, and one day he would speak with
authority.
And so it went as the days rolled on and on. His time was not entirely
uneventful. The ship he drove on these inspections was a scout model,
equipped with space alarm recorder; and although it did not have the
automatic scale-model of the galactic sector such as in the main
office of Commissioner Morehouse, it did have a manual model. When a
muttering call came in on the alarm circuit, Steve would take the time
to classify it, to fix it, then to calculate and enumerate which of the
stations was going out on the call.
* * * * *
This sort of classifying gave Steve a sort of dull shock. For even
though he had known the facts, it took seeing them and calculating them
to drive it home. The Guardians were not constantly fighting the great
menace; such blowups as Steve had been initiated into almost upon his
arrival at Base One were actually few and far between.
Most of these were minor calls. A tramper with a vacillating warp
generator would call the Guardians to have them come out to clamp down
on the space warp before it blew, or long enough for the engineers
to make repair or adjustment. Occasionally the spacecraft would try
to drop speed before the warp blew out, and almost make it; in which
case the resulting eruption took all of the simple technique of a
smouldering fire in a wastebasket. There were far more calls for
_danger_ than calls for _blowup_. Ships' engineers, mindful of the fact
that the life of every man aboard depended upon the efficient working
of the warp generator, knowing that the ship would blow and be lost
if it failed, were inclined to call for aid and help at the slightest
indication of instability; it kept the Guardians busy.
But that was what they were for. Hagen enjoyed that feeling, although
he would have scoffed at any man who accused Steve of harboring a
desire to serve mankind.
All Steve cared about was the fact that it was far better to hale a
crew of Guardians out of bed and hurl them across space to protect
their fellow men than to lose men and material unnoticed.
And Steve knew, too, that blowups were 'headline stuff' and no
indictment of space travel. For every alarm that came whispering its
troubles across the galaxy, a hundred-thousand people traversed the
spacelanes from star to star without mishap. He often wondered how long
he would be in this business before he began to shake his head at the
chances mankind took. Or whether this sort of bias would take place in
him. Certainly, a man living where the dangers are pointed out while
the safeties are not noticed should begin to place too much importance
on the obvious.
But so far Steve had none of this; he plodded on his job and did it as
well as he could, knowing that as soon as he finished this phase of his
activities as a Guardian, he would have more interesting work. This
expectation dispelled the routine drabness of being an inspector; his
off-duty hours were too happily filled for him to do more than consider
the future.
For Steve could not contemplate the future without thinking of Lois
Morehouse. She was interested in him, he knew. And like any man of
intellect, Steve was used to thinking of any desirable woman in
the light of a possible mate and judging her values and virtues
accordingly. But until he knew more about her, Steve could formulate
nothing more than the fact that she was desirable; the big thing was to
discover whether it could last beyond the first stages. Steve had known
too many girls with a Perfect Thirty-Six--with an I.Q. to match--to
place much judgement upon outward appearances.
So, before Steve took on the job of meeting her every morning
across the breakfast table, Steve wanted to know more about her. He
guessed--rightly--that Lois wanted to find out more about him.
He gave her every chance, starting with the evening of the dance.
4
He had little time. The routine of his inspection tours took Steve
farther away from Base One as time went on, and Hagen had small chance
to do other than run in and out. His spare time was his, of course;
Steve was not on twenty-four hour duty. He could have his way in one
of two possibilities; he could either stay near the base of operations
or he could spend the spare time in space-flight to and from Base One.
He did the latter until the running time versus the visiting time ran
smack into the Law of Diminishing Returns, at which point he loafed
his spare time away on a planet near to his course across the galactic
sector. At these times Hagen calmly awaited the future, when he could
be back at the Base.
Steve had not seen nor heard from his foster father since that
meeting in Wrightwood's office, and he knew that another meeting was
inevitable. Hagen would have preferred to have the meeting on a ground
of his own selection where he could choose his own weapons, but this
was not to be.
Yet Steve was not totally unprepared when, inspecting one of the
larger planetary installations of Interstellar, he was asked into the
main office. It was not of Hagen's choosing, but it was better than
to have Wrightwood land at Base One, where the wily magnate could by
word, gesture, and incomplete statement indicate more than the truth
before Steve's fellow Guardians. Such a program requires too vigorous
a rebuttal; no reply or denial is adequate to remove the doubt that
always lingers.
So Steve entered the main office with a wry smile and nodded at
Wrightwood. He waited the older man out.
"How are you doing?" asked Wrightwood.
"All right."
"A bit dull, isn't it?"
"Life is often dull," remarked Hagen noncommittally.
"Look, Steve, why not take it a bit easier?"
"What do you mean?"
William Wrightwood eyed Steve coldly. "Now look," he said quietly,
"we'll admit for once and for all, that you and I don't get along."
"Well, that's a concession."
"All right, take it as you will. But it's true; for some inexplicable
reason you hate my guts--"