"Two minutes ago," I told him. "Take a look around. If you see
something bright red and covered with hairy spikes, don't step on it.
It's my temper."
The Skipper sighed. "If my troubles," he declaimed, "was as mild as
your'n, I'd do cartwheels from here to Venus. Sparks, you got a copy of
the Space Manual here, ain't you?"
I nodded toward my bookcase; he found the reg book and leafed through
it carefully. Finally he shook his head.
"It ain't here," he gloomed. "Are you sure this is the latest edition?"
"Just what are you looking for?" I asked him.
"I was kinda thinkin'," he said hopefully, "there might be a paragraph
givin' a space commander permission to boil his First Mate in oil,
or cut him into small cubes an' feed him to the octopussies. But the
waffle-fannies what wrote that book--"
I knew, then. It was the same old complaint. Our lanky and incredibly
omniscient friend, Lancelot Biggs, whose genius for getting ye goode
shippe _Saturn_ out of tight spots was surpassed only by his ability to
fester Cap Hanson's epidermis, was back in the soup.
I said, "But, sweet comets, Cap, what's he done now? He hasn't had time
to do much. We've just pulled our Ampie[1] out of Earth's H-layer."
[Footnote 1: The strange, energy-devouring Venusian creature that
serves as a protective shield for space ships going through a planetary
Heaviside layer.--Ed.]
"Which," rasped the skipper, "took three hours. Or time enough for
Mister Biggs to render hisself liable to homicide. I've tooken plenty
from that long-legged scarecrow. I got carpeted for platinum-chasin' on
his say-so.[2] I caressed pirates[3]--which, by the way, if you ever
tell anybody, Sparks, I'll massacre you for--an' I--"
[Footnote 2: "FOB Venus", Fantastic Adventures, Nov., 1939.--Ed.]
[Footnote 3: "Lancelot Biggs Cooks a Pirate," Fantastic Adventures,
Feb., 1939.--Ed.]
"You also," I reminded him, "got your stripes saved on two separate
occasions. Not to mention your bank-roll and your life. Remember?"
"Nevertheless," said the skipper stiffly, "an' however, this time he's
gone too far. He's been makin' eyes at my daughter."
"Your," I repeated slowly, "daughter!"
"You seen her. She come aboard at Long Island Port for the Venus trip."
Here his space-gnarled, leathery face cracked into a grin that would
have melted custard. "Pretty as a picture, don't you think? Some say
she resembles me."
"Some people," I told him dazedly, "will say anything for a laugh."
I was thinking about that girl. What a girl! Five and a half feet of
cream and velvet, surmounted by hair the color of a Martian sunset.
Eyes like blue haze over Venus, only alive with crinkly laughter.
Sure, she resembled the skipper! They had the same number of arms and
legs; they each had one nose and two eyes and two ears--but there the
similarity ended. Their difference was that between a lumbering old
space freighter like the _Saturn_ and a modern, streamlined man-o'-war.
And I _do_ mean streamlined!
The skipper said sourly, "Well, get the blank look off your pan,
Sparks. An' take down a special message from me to Mr. Romeo Biggs, on
account of if I try to tell him myself I'll forget my dignity an' tear
him into asteroids. Tell him that the next time I catch him tossin'
goo-goo eyes at Diane, I'll give him a one-way ticket through the
air-lock. That's all!"
And he left the turret, snorting. I stared after him dreamily. I found
myself doing something I haven't done since I was a kid, counting off
my name with that of Diane Hanson. "Friendship, courtship, love, hate,
marriage--"
It came out "friendship." I told you I had my troubles....
* * * * *
After a while came a sound like a three-legged pelican doing the
Martian fling in a cornpatch, and Lancelot Biggs ambled into my turret,
eyes aglow, his unbelievable Adam's-apple bobbing up and down like a
photon in a cyclotron. I could tell he was busting with the desire to
spill his overflowing heart to me, but he said, "Trouble, Sparks?"
See? That's why you just couldn't help liking the guy. Soon as he saw
me fiddling around the audio bank he was ready to help. It's hard to
figure a jasper like Biggs. I sometimes thought he was the dumbest
mortal who ever hopped gravs, but just about the time I'd be ready to
delegate him to the Booby-hatch Convention he'd come through with a
spark of brilliance that would make Sol look like an infra-red ray.
I told him glumly, "I wish the nearest I'd ever come to radio was
playin' that kid's game with beans. This time the audio's gone haywire
and I can't even find out what the hell ails it."
He came over beside me and looked. He jiggled a few wires, snapped
switches and succeeded in bunting the button of the feed line cable. At
last he said, "The trouble's in the plate, isn't it, Sparks?"
"Looks as if. It's gone cold and I can't raise a signal out of it."
"These plates you use," he frowned, "are made of a seleno-aluminum
alloy, aren't they?"
"Right," I told him, "as rain. However right that is. And they're as
dependable as a spacecomber's promises. Always going on the blink just
when you need 'em most."
"That's what I thought." Biggs shifted his gawky length from one
foot to the other, a sign of deep cogitation I'd seen before. Then,
suddenly, "Listen, Sparks," he blurted, "I've been thinking over that
problem--"