But he stood there as Leda Crannon and Dr. Fitzhugh walked away. The
girl looked just as divine retreating as she had advancing.
9
Captain Sir Henry (Black Bart) Quill was seated in an old-fashioned,
formyl-covered, overstuffed chair, chewing angrily at the end of an
unlighted cigar. His bald head gleamed like a pink billiard ball, almost
matching the shining glory of his golden insignia against his scarlet
tunic.
Mike the Angel had finally found his way through the maze of underground
passageways to the door marked _wardroom 9_ and had pushed it open
gingerly, halfway hoping that he wouldn't be seen coming in late but not
really believing it would happen.
He was right. Black Bart was staring directly at the door when it slid
open. Mike shrugged inwardly and stepped boldly into the room, flicking
a glance over the faces of the other officers present.
"Well, well, well, Mister Gabriel," said Black Bart. The voice was oily,
but the oil was oil of vitriol. "You not only come late, but you come
incognito. Where is your uniform?"
There was a muffled snicker from one of the junior officers, but it
wasn't muffled enough. Before Mike the Angel could answer, Captain
Quill's head jerked around.
"That will do, Mister Vaneski!" he barked. "Boot ensigns don't snicker
when their superiors--_and_ their betters--are being reprimanded! I only
use sarcasm on officers I respect. Until an officer earns my sarcasm, he
gets nothing but blasting when he goofs off. Understand?"
The last word was addressed to the whole group.
Ensign Vaneski colored, and his youthful face became masklike. "Yes,
sir. Sorry, sir."
Quill didn't even bother to answer; he looked back at Mike the Angel,
who was still standing at attention. Quill's voice resumed its caustic
saccharinity. "But don't let that go to your head, Mister Gabriel. I
repeat: Where is your pretty red spaceman's suit?"
"If the Captain will recall," said Mike, "I had only twenty-four hours'
notice. I couldn't get a new wardrobe in that time. It'll be in on the
next rocket."
Captain Quill was silent for a moment, then he simply said, "Very well,"
thus dismissing the whole subject. He waved Mike the Angel to a seat.
Mike sat.
"We'll dispense with the formal introductions," said Quill. "Commander
Gabriel is our Engineering Officer. The rest of these boys all know each
other, Commander; you and I are the only ones who don't come from
Chilblains Base. You know Commander Jeffers, of course."
Mike nodded and grinned at Peter Jeffers, a lean, bony character who had
a tendency to collapse into chairs as though he had come unhinged.
Jeffers grinned and winked back.
"This is Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz, Navigation Officer;
Lieutenant Keku, Supply; Lieutenant Mellon, Medical Officer; and Ensign
Vaneski, Maintenance. You can all shake hands with each other later;
right now, let's get on with business." He frowned, overshadowing his
eyes with those great, bushy brows. "What was I saying just before
Commander Gabriel came in?"
Pete Jeffers shifted slightly in his seat. "You were sayin', suh, that
this's the stupidest dam' assignment anybody evah got. Or words to that
effect." Jeffers had been born in Georgia and had moved to the south of
England at the age of ten. Consequently, his accent was far from
standard.
"I think, Mister Jeffers," said Quill, "that I phrased it a bit more
delicately, but that was the essence of it.
"The _Brainchild_, as she has been nicknamed, has been built at great
expense for the purpose of making a single trip. We are to take her, and
her cargo, to a destination known only to myself and von Liegnitz. We
will be followed there by another Service ship, which will bring us back
as passengers." He allowed himself a half-smile. "At least we'll get to
loaf around on the way back."
The others grinned.
"The _Brainchild_ will be left there and, presumably, dismantled."
He took the unlighted cigar out of his mouth, looked at it, and absently
reached in his pocket for a lighter. The deeply tanned young man who had
been introduced as Lieutenant Keku had just lighted a cigarette, so he
proffered his own flame to the captain. Quill puffed his cigar alight
absently and went on.
"It isn't going to be easy. We won't have a chance to give the ship a
shakedown cruise because once we take off we might as well keep
going--which we will.
"You all know what the cargo is--Cargo Hold One contains the greatest
single robotic brain ever built. Our job is to make sure it gets to our
destination in perfect condition."
"Question, sir," said Mike the Angel.
Without moving his head, Captain Quill lifted one huge eyebrow and
glanced in Mike's direction. "Yes?"
"Why didn't C.C. of E. build the brain on whatever planet we're going to
in the first place?"
"We're supposed to be told that in the briefing over at the C.C. of E.
labs in"--he glanced at his watch--"half an hour. But I think we can all
get a little advance information. Most of you men have been around here
long enough to have some idea of what's going on, but I understand that
Mister Vaneski knows somewhat more about robotics than most of us. Do
you have any light to shed on this, Mister Vaneski?"
Mike grinned to himself without letting it show on his face. The skipper
was letting the boot ensign redeem himself after the _faux pas_ he'd
made.
Vaneski started to stand up, but Quill made a slight motion with his
hand and the boy relaxed.
"It's only a guess, sir," he said, "but I think it's because the robot
knows too much."
Quill and the others looked blank, but Mike narrowed his eyes
imperceptibly. Vaneski was practically echoing Mike's own deductions.
"I mean--well, look, sir," Vaneski went on, a little flustered, "they
started to build that thing ten years ago. Eight years ago they started
teaching it. Evidently they didn't see any reason for building it off
Earth then. What I mean is, something must've happened since then to
make them decide to take it off Earth. If they've spent all this much
money to get it away, that must mean that it's dangerous somehow."
"If that's the case," said Captain Quill, "why don't they just shut the
thing off?"
"Well--" Vaneski spread his hands. "I think it's for the same reason. It
knows too much, and they don't want to destroy that knowledge."
"Do you have any idea what that knowledge might be?" Mike the Angel
asked.
"No, sir, I don't. But whatever it is, it's dangerous as hell."
* * * * *
The briefing for the officers and men of the _William Branchell_--the
_Brainchild_--was held in a lecture room at the laboratories of the
Computer Corporation of Earth's big Antarctic base.
Captain Quill spoke first, warning everyone that the project was secret
and asking them to pay the strictest attention to what Dr. Morris
Fitzhugh had to say.
Then Fitzhugh got up, his face ridged with nervousness. He assumed the
air of a university professor, launching himself into his speech as
though he were anxious to get through it in a given time without
finishing too early.
"I'm sure you're all familiar with the situation," he said, as though
apologizing to everyone for telling them something they already
knew--the apology of the learned man who doesn't want anyone to think
he's being overly proud of his learning.
"I think, however, we can all get a better picture if we begin at the
beginning and work our way up to the present time.
"The original problem was to build a computer that could learn by
itself. An ordinary computer can be forcibly taught--that is, a
technician can make changes in the circuits which will make the robot do
something differently from the way it was done before, or even make it
do something new.
"But what we wanted was a computer that could learn by itself, a
computer that could make the appropriate changes in its own circuits
without outside physical manipulation.
"It's really not as difficult as it sounds. You've all seen
autoscribers, which can translate spoken words into printed symbols. An
autoscriber is simply a machine which does what you tell it
to--literally. Now, suppose a second computer is connected intimately
with the first in such a manner that the second can, on order, change
the circuits of the first. Then, all that is needed is...."
Mike looked around him while the roboticist went on. The men were
looking pretty bored. They'd come to get a briefing on the reason for
the trip, and all they were getting was a lecture on robotics.
Mike himself wasn't so much interested in the whys and wherefores of the
trip; he was wondering why it was necessary to tell anyone--even the
crew. Why not just pack Snookums up, take him to wherever he was going,
and say nothing about it?
Why explain it to the crew?
"Thus," continued Fitzhugh, "it became necessary to incorporate into the
brain a physical analogue of Lagerglocke's Principle: 'Learning is a
result of an inelastic collision.'
"I won't give it to you symbolically, but the idea is simply that an
organism learns _only_ if it does _not_ completely recover from the
effects of an outside force imposed upon it. If it recovers completely,
it's just as it was before. Consequently, it hasn't learned anything.
The organism _must change_."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked out over the faces of the
men before him. A faint smile came over his wrinkled features.
"Some of you, I know, are wondering why I am boring you with this long
recital. Believe me, it's necessary. I want all of you to understand
that the machine you will have to take care of is not just an ordinary
computer. Every man here has had experience with machinery, from the
very simplest to the relatively complex. You know that you have to be
careful of the kind of information--the kind of external force--you give
a machine.
"If you aim a spaceship at Mars, for instance, and tell it to go
_through_ the planet, it might try to obey, but you'd lose the machine
in the process."
A ripple of laughter went through the men. They were a little more
relaxed now, and Fitzhugh had regained their attention.
"And you must admit," Fitzhugh added, "a spaceship which was given that
sort of information might be dangerous."
This time the laughter was even louder.
"Well, then," the roboticist continued, "if a mechanism is capable of
learning, how do you keep it from becoming dangerous or destroying
itself?
"That was the problem that faced us when we built Snookums.
"So we decided to apply the famous Three Laws of Robotics propounded
over a century ago by a brilliant American biochemist and philosopher.
"Here they are:
"'_One: A robot may not injure a human being, nor, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm._'
"'_Two: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except
where such orders would conflict with the First Law._'
"'_Three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such
protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law._'"
Fitzhugh paused to let his words sink in, then: "Those are the ideal
laws, of course. Even their propounder pointed out that they would be
extremely difficult to put into practice. A robot is a logical machine,
but it becomes somewhat of a problem even to define a human being. Is a
five-year-old competent to give orders to a robot?
"If you define him as a human being, then he can give orders that might
wreck an expensive machine. On the other hand, if you don't define the
five-year-old as human, then the robot is under no compulsion to refrain
from harming the child."
He began delving into his pockets for smoking materials as he went on.
"We took the easy way out. We solved that problem by keeping Snookums
isolated. He has never met any animal except adult human beings. It
would take an awful lot of explaining to make him understand the
difference between, say, a chimpanzee and a man. Why should a hairy pelt
and a relatively low intelligence make a chimp non-human? After all,
some men are pretty hairy, and some are moronic.
"Present company excepted."
More laughter. Mike's opinion of Fitzhugh was beginning to go up. The
man knew when to break pedantry with humor.
"Finally," Fitzhugh said, when the laughter had subsided, "we must ask
what is meant by 'protecting his own existence.' Frankly, we've been
driven frantic by that one. The little humanoid, caterpillar-track
mechanism that we all tend to think of as Snookums isn't really
Snookums, any more than a human being is a hand or an eye. Snookums
wouldn't actually be threatening his own existence unless his brain--now
in the hold of the _William Branchell_--is destroyed."
As Dr. Fitzhugh continued, Mike the Angel listened with about half an
ear. His attention--and the attention of every man in the place--had
been distracted by the entrance of Leda Crannon. She stepped in through
a side door, walked over to Dr. Fitzhugh, and whispered something in his
ear. He nodded, and she left again.
Fitzhugh, when he resumed his speech, was rather more hurried in his
delivery.
"The whole thing can be summed up rather quickly.
"Point One: Snookums' brain contains the information that eight years of
hard work have laboriously put into it. That information is more
valuable than the whole cost of the _William Branchell_; it's worth
billions. So the robot can't be disassembled, or the information would
be lost.
"Point Two: Snookums' mind is a strictly logical one, but it is
operating in a more than logical universe. Consequently, it is unstable.
"Point Three: Snookums was built to conduct his own experiments. To
forbid him to do that would be similar to beating a child for acting
like a child; it would do serious harm to the mind. In Snookums' case,
the randomity of the brain would exceed optimum, and the robot would
become insane.
"Point Four: Emotion is not logical. Snookums can't handle it, except in
a very limited way."
Fitzhugh had been making his points by tapping them off on his fingers
with the stem of his unlighted pipe. Now he shoved the pipe back in his
pocket and clasped his hands behind his back.
"It all adds up to this: Snookums _must_ be allowed the freedom of the
ship. At the same time, every one of us must be careful not to ... to
push the wrong buttons, as it were.
"So here are a few _don'ts_. Don't get angry with Snookums. That would
be as silly as getting sore at a phonograph because it was playing music
you didn't happen to like.
"Don't lie to Snookums. If your lies don't fit in with what he knows to
be true--and they won't, believe me--he will reject the data. But it
would confuse him, because he knows that humans don't lie.
"If Snookums asks you for data, qualify it--even if you know it to be
true. Say: 'There may be an error in my knowledge of this data, but to
the best of my knowledge....'
"Then go ahead and tell him.
"But if you absolutely don't know the answer, tell him so. Say: 'I don't
have that data, Snookums.'
"Don't, unless you are...."
He went on, but it was obvious that the officers and crew of the
_William Branchell_ weren't paying the attention they should. Every one
of them was thinking dark gray thoughts. It was bad enough that they had
to take out a ship like the _Brainchild_, untested and jerry-built as
she was. Was it necessary to have an eight-hundred-pound, moron-genius
child-machine running loose, too?
Evidently, it was.
"To wind it up," Fitzhugh said, "I imagine you are wondering why it's
necessary to take Snookums off Earth. I can only tell you this: Snookums
knows too much about nuclear energy."
Mike the Angel smiled grimly to himself. Ensign Vaneski had been right;
Snookums was dangerous--not only to individuals, but to the whole
planet.
Snookums, too, was a juvenile delinquent.
10
The _Brainchild_ lifted from Antarctica at exactly 2100 hours, Greenwich
time. For three days the officers and men of the ship had worked as
though they were the robots instead of their passenger--or cargo,
depending on your point of view.
Supplies were loaded, and the great engine-generators checked and
rechecked. The ship was ready to go less than two hours before take-off
time.
The last passenger aboard was Snookums, although, in a more proper
sense, he had always been aboard. The little robot rolled up to the
elevator on his treads and was lifted into the body of the ship. Miss
Crannon was waiting for him at the air lock, and Mike the Angel was
standing by. Not that he had any particular interest in watching
Snookums come aboard, but he did have a definite interest in Leda
Crannon.
"Hello, honey," said Miss Crannon as Snookums rolled into the air lock.
"Ready for your ride?"
"Yes, Leda," said Snookums in his contralto voice. He rolled up to her
and took her hand. "Where is my room?"
"Come along; I'll show you in a minute. Do you remember Commander
Gabriel?"
Snookums swiveled his head and regarded Mike.
"Oh yes. He tried to help me."
"Did you need help?" Mike growled in spite of himself.
"Yes. For my experiment. And you offered help. That was very nice. Leda
says it is nice to help people."
Mike the Angel carefully refrained from asking Snookums if he thought he
was people. For all Mike knew, he did.
Mike followed Snookums and Leda Crannon down the companionway.
"What did you do today, honey?" asked Leda.
"Mostly I answered questions for Dr. Fitzhugh," said Snookums. "He asked
me thirty-eight questions. He said I was a great help. I'm nice, too."
"Sure you are, darling," said Miss Crannon.
"Ye gods," muttered Mike the Angel.
"What's the trouble, Commander?" the girl asked, widening her blue eyes.
"Nothing," said Mike the Angel, looking at her innocently with eyes that
were equally blue. "Not a single solitary thing. Snookums is a sweet
little tyke, isn't he?"
Leda Crannon gave him a glorious smile. "I think so. And a lot of fun,
too."
Very seriously, Mike patted Snookums on his shiny steel skull. "How old
are you, little boy?"
Leda Crannon's eyes narrowed, but Mike pretended not to notice while
Snookums said: "Eight years, two months, one day, seven hours,
thirty-three minutes and--ten seconds. But I am not a little boy. I am a
robot."
Mike suppressed an impulse to ask him if he had informed Leda Crannon of
that fact. Mike had been watching the girl for the past three days (at
least, when he'd had the time to watch) and he'd been bothered by the
girl's maternal attitude toward Snookums. She seemed to have wrapped
herself up entirely in the little robot. Of course, that might simply be
her method of avoiding Mike the Angel, but Mike didn't quite believe
that.
"Come along to your room, dear," said Leda. Then she looked again at
Mike. "If you'll wait just a moment, Commander," she said rather
stiffly, "I'd like to talk to you."
Mike the Angel touched his forehead in a gentlemanly salute. "Later,
perhaps, Miss Crannon. Right now, I have to go to the Power Section to
prepare for take-off. We're really going to have fun lifting this brute
against a full Earth gee without rockets."
"Later, then," she said evenly, and hurried off down the corridor with
Snookums.
Mike headed the other way with a sigh of relief. As of right then, he
didn't feel like being given an ear-reaming lecture by a beautiful
redhead. He beetled it toward the Power Section.
* * * * *
Chief Powerman's Mate Multhaus was probably the only man in the crew who
came close to being as big as Mike the Angel. Multhaus was two inches
shorter than Mike's six-seven, but he weighed in at two-ninety. As a
powerman, he was tops, and he gave the impression that, as far as power
was concerned, he could have supplied the ship himself by turning the
crank on a hand generator.
But neither Mike nor Multhaus approached the size of the Supply Officer,
Lieutenant Keku. Keku was an absolute giant. Six-eight, three hundred
fifty pounds, and very little of it fat.
When Mike the Angel opened the door of the Power Section's instrument
room, he came upon a strange sight. Lieutenant Keku and Chief Multhaus
were seated across a table from each other, each with his right elbow on
the table, their right hands clasped. The muscles in both massive arms
stood out beneath the scarlet tunics. Neither man was moving.
"Games, children?" asked Mike gently.
_Whap!_ The chief's arm slammed to the table with a bang that sounded as
if the table had shattered. Multhaus had allowed Mike's entrance to
distract him, while Lieutenant Keku had held out just an instant longer.
Both men leaped to their feet, Multhaus valiantly trying not to nurse
his bruised hand.
"Sorry, sir," said Multhaus. "We were just--"
"Ne' mind. I saw. Who usually wins?" Mike asked.
Lieutenant Keku grinned. "Usually he does, Commander. All this beef
doesn't help much against a guy who really has pull. And Chief Multhaus
has it."
Mike looked into the big man's brown eyes. "Try doing push-ups. With all
your weight, it'd really put brawn into you. Sit down and light up.
We've got time before take-off. That is, we do if Multhaus has
everything ready for the check-off."
"I'm ready any time you are, sir," Multhaus said, easing himself into a
chair.
"We'll have a cigarette and then run 'em through."
Keku settled his bulk into a chair and fired up a cigarette. Mike sat on
the edge of the table.
"Philip Keku," Mike said musingly. "Just out of curiosity, what kind of
a name is Keku?"
"Damfino," said the lieutenant. "Sounds Oriental, doesn't it?"
Mike looked the man over carefully, but rapidly. "But you're not
Oriental--or at least, not much. You look Polynesian to me."
"Hit it right on the head, Commander. Hawaiian. My real name's
Kekuanaoa, but nobody could pronounce it, so I shortened it to Keku when
I came in the Service."
Mike gave a short laugh. "That accounts for your size. Kekuanaoa. A
branch of the old Hawaiian royal family, as I recall."
"That's right." The big Hawaiian grinned. "I've got a kid sister that
weighs as much as you. And my granddad kicked off at ninety-four
weighing a comfortable four-ten."
"What'd he die of, sir?" Multhaus asked curiously.
"Concussion and multiple fractures. He slammed a Ford-Studebaker into a
palm tree at ninety miles an hour. Crazy old ox; he was bigger than the
dam' automobile."
The laughter of three big men filled the instrument room.
After a few more minutes of bull throwing, Keku ground out his cigarette
and stood up. "I'd better get to my post; Black Bart will be calling
down any minute."
At that instant the PA system came alive.
"_Now hear this! Now hear this! Take-off in fifteen minutes! Take-off in
fifteen minutes!_"
Keku grinned, saluted Mike the Angel, and walked out the door.
Multhaus gazed after him, looking at the closed door.
"A blinking prophet, Commander," he said. "A blinking prophet."
* * * * *
The take-off of the _Brainchild_ was not so easy as it might have
appeared to anyone who watched it from the outside. As far as the
exterior observers were concerned, it seemed to lift into the air with
a loud, thrumming noise, like a huge elevator rising in an invisible
shaft.
It had been built in a deep pit in the polar ice, built around the huge
cryotronic stack that was Snookums' brain. As it rose, electric motors
slid back the roof that covered the pit, and the howling Antarctic winds
roared around it.
Unperturbed, it went on rising.
Inside, Mike the Angel and Chief Multhaus watched worriedly as the
meters wiggled their needles dangerously close to the overload mark. The
thrumming of the ship as it fought its way up against the pull of
Earth's gravity and through the Earth's magnetic field, using the fabric
of space itself as the fulcrum against which it applied its power, was
like the vibration of a note struck somewhere near the bottom of a piano
keyboard, or the rumble of a contra bassoon.
As the intensity of the gravitational field decreased, the velocity of
the ship increased--not linearly, but logarithmically. She shrieked
through the upper atmosphere, quivering like a live thing, and emerged
at last into relatively empty space. When she reached a velocity of a
little over thirty miles per second--relative to the sun, and
perpendicular to the solar ecliptic--Mike the Angel ordered her engines
cut back to the lowest power possible which would still retain the
one-gee interior gravity of the ship and keep the anti-acceleration
fields intact.
"How does she look, Multhaus?" he asked.
Both of the men were checking the readings of the instruments. A
computerman second class was punching the readings into the small table
calculator as Multhaus read off the numbers.
"I think she weathered it, sir," the chief said cautiously, "but she
sure took a devil of a beating. And look at the power factor readings!
We were tossing away energy as though we were S-Doradus or something."
They worked for nearly an hour to check through all the circuits to find
what damage--if any--had been done by the strain of Earth's
gravitational and magnetic fields. All in all, the _Brainchild_ was in
pretty good shape. A few circuits needed retuning, but no replacements
were necessary.
Multhaus, who had been understandably pessimistic about the ship's
ability to lift herself from the surface of even a moderate-sized planet
like Earth, looked with new respect upon the man who had designed the
power plant that had done the job.
Mike the Angel called the bridge and informed Captain Quill that the
ship was ready for full acceleration.
Under control from the bridge, the huge ship yawed until her nose--and
thus the line of thrust along her longitudinal axis--was pointed toward
her destination.
"Full acceleration, Mister Gabriel," said Captain Quill over the
intercom.
Mike the Angel watched the meters climb again as the ship speared away
from the sun at an ever-increasing velocity. Although the apparent
internal acceleration remained at a cozy one gee, the acceleration in
relation to the sun was something fantastic. When the ship reached the
velocity of light, she simply disappeared, as far as external observers
were concerned. But she still kept adding velocity with her tremendous
acceleration.
Finally her engines reached their performance peak. They could drive the
_Brainchild_ no faster. They simply settled down to a steady growl and
pushed the ship at a steady velocity through what the mathematicians
termed "null-space."
The _Brainchild_ was on her way.
11
"What I want to know," said Lieutenant Keku, "is, what kind of ship is
this?"
Mike the Angel chuckled, and Lieutenant Mellon, the Medical Officer,
grinned rather shyly. But young Ensign Vaneski looked puzzled.
"What do you mean, sir?" he asked the huge Hawaiian.
They were sitting over coffee in the officers' wardroom. Captain Quill,
First Officer Jeffers, and Lieutenant Commander von Liegnitz were on the
bridge, and Dr. Fitzhugh and Leda Crannon were down below, giving
Snookums lessons.
Mike looked at Lieutenant Keku, waiting for him to answer Vaneski's
question.
"What do I mean? Just what I said, Mister Vaneski. I want to know what
kind of ship this is. It is obviously not a warship, so we can forget
that classification. It is not an expeditionary ship; we're not
outfitted for exploratory work. Is it a passenger vessel, then? No,
because Dr. Fitzhugh and Miss Crannon are listed as 'civilian technical
advisers' and are therefore legally part of the crew. I'm wondering if
it might be a cargo vessel, though."
"Sure it is," said Ensign Vaneski. "That brain in Cargo Hold One is
cargo, isn't it?"
"I'm not certain," Keku said thoughtfully, looking up at the overhead,
as if the answer might be etched there in the metal. "Since it is built
in as an intrinsic part of the ship, I don't know if it can be counted
as cargo or not." He brought his gaze down to focus on Mike. "What do
you think, Commander?"
Before Mike the Angel could answer, Ensign Vaneski broke in with: "But
the brain is going to be removed when we get to our destination, isn't
it? That makes this a cargo ship!" There was a note of triumph in his
voice.
Lieutenant Keku's gaze didn't waver from Mike's face, nor did he say a
word. For a boot ensign to interrupt like that was an impoliteness that
Keku chose to ignore. He was waiting for Mike's answer as though Vaneski
had said nothing.
But Mike the Angel decided he might as well play along with Keku's gag
and still answer Vaneski. As a full commander, he could overlook
Vaneski's impoliteness to his superiors without ignoring it as Keku was
doing.
"Ah, but the brain _won't_ be unloaded, Mister Vaneski," he said mildly.
"The ship will be _dismantled_--which is an entirely different thing.
I'm afraid you can't call it a cargo ship on those grounds."
Vaneski didn't say anything. His face had gone red and then white, as
though he'd suddenly realized he'd committed a _faux pas_. He nodded his
head a little, to show he understood, but he couldn't seem to find his
voice.
To cover up Vaneski's emotional dilemma, Mike addressed the Medical
Officer. "What do you think, Mister Mellon?"
Mellon cleared his throat. "Well--it seems to me," he said in a dry,
serious tone, "that this is really a medical ship."
Mike blinked. Keku raised his eyebrows. Vaneski swallowed and jerked his
eyes away from Mike's face to look at Mellon--but still he didn't say
anything.
"Elucidate, my dear Doctor," said Mike with interest.
"I diagnose it as a physician," Mellon said in the same dry, earnest
tone. "Snookums, we have been told, is too dangerous to be permitted to
remain on Earth. I take this to mean that he is potentially capable of
doing something that would either harm the planet itself or a
majority--if not all--of the people on it." He picked up his cup of
coffee and took a sip. Nobody interrupted him.
"Snookums has, therefore," he continued, "been removed from Earth in
order to protect the health of that planet, just as one would remove a
potentially malignant tumor from a human body.
"This is a medical ship. Q.E.D." And only then did he smile.
"Aw, now...." Vaneski began. Then he shut his mouth again.
With an inward smile, Mike realized that Ensign Vaneski had been taking
seriously an argument that was strictly a joke.
"Mister Mellon," Mike said, "you win." He hadn't realized that Mellon's
mind could work on that level.
"Hold," said Lieutenant Keku, raising a hand. "I yield to no one in my
admiration for the analysis given by our good doctor; indeed, my
admiration knows no bounds. But I insist we hear from Commander Gabriel
before we adjourn."
"Not me," Mike said, shaking his head. "I know when I'm beaten." He'd
been going to suggest that the _Brainchild_ was a training ship, from
Snookums' "learning" periods, but that seemed rather obvious and puerile
now.
He glanced at his watch, saw the time, and stood up. "Excuse me,
gentlemen; I have things to do." He had an appointment to talk to Leda
Crannon, but he had no intention of broadcasting it.
As he closed the wardroom door, he heard Ensign Vaneski's voice saying:
"I _still_ say this should be classified as a cargo ship."
Mike sighed as he strode on down the companionway. The ensign was, of
course, absolutely correct--which was the sad part about it, really. Oh
well, what the hell.
Leda Crannon had agreed to have coffee with Mike in the office suite she
shared with Dr. Fitzhugh. Mike had had one cup in the officers'
wardroom, but even if he'd had a dozen he'd have been willing to slosh
down a dozen more to talk to Leda Crannon. It was not, he insisted to
himself, that he was in love with the girl, but she had intelligence and
personality in addition to her striking beauty.
Furthermore, she had given Mike the Angel a dressing-down that had been
quite impressive. She had not at all cared for the remarks he had made
when Snookums was being loaded aboard--patting him on the head and
asking him his age, for instance--and had told him so in no uncertain
terms. Mike, feeling sheepish and knowing he was guilty, had accepted
the tongue-lashing and tendered an apology.
And she had smiled and said: "All right. Forget it. I'm sorry I got
mad."
He knew he wasn't the only man aboard who was interested in Leda. Jakob
von Liegnitz, all Teutonic masterfulness and Old World suavity, had
obviously made a favorable impression on her. Lew Mellon was often seen
in deep philosophical discussions with her, his eyes never leaving her
face and his earnest voice low and confidential. Both of them had known
her longer than he had, since they'd both been stationed at Chilblains
Base.
Mike the Angel didn't let either of them worry him. He had enough
confidence in his own personality and abilities to be able to take his
own tack no matter which way the wind blew.
Blithely opening the door of the office, Mike the Angel stepped inside
with a smile on his lips.
"Ah, good afternoon, Commander Gabriel," said Dr. Morris Fitzhugh.