Ben Bova - Voyagers

“H’m. Quite. But still, I don’t believe that an intelligent species goes batting about the universe with rape and pillage on its mind, do you? That’s strictly funny-book stuff.”

“Who knows?” Stoner said. “Can’t plot a trend with only one data point.”

Cavendish smiled, a bit uneasily. “Datum, dear boy. Datum is the singular of the word.”

“I stand corrected.”

The old man put his empty glass on the bar. “Getting rather late for me. I believe I’ll toddle off.” He pulled a balled-up dollar bill from his pocket and left it on the bar. “Good night.”

And just that abruptly he left Stoner and Schmidt standing at the bar. Stoner felt awkward with the younger man, who seemed content to plunge into solitary gloom.

Cavendish has stuck me with baby-sitting this kid, Stoner realized suddenly. That dirty old man!

He scanned the club, seeking a friendly face. The big room was filled with smoke and men. Noisy, drinking, laughing men who waved cigarettes and cigars at each other, playing cards, telling stories and clustering around the few women who were present. Kwajalein’s normal complement of military and civilian technicians had been tripled by the influx of Project JOVE’s scientists and staff, but the ratio of men to women was still huge.

The local merchants vote in favor of the alien, Stoner thought. The bartender isn’t worried about being invaded. Not as long as the tips keep coming.

He spotted Markov sitting at a table across the smoky room, surrounded by a mixed crew of Americans, Europeans and Russians. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I ought to get to know Markov better, Stoner told himself.

Glancing back at Schmidt, who was staring morosely into his second glass of beer, Stoner said, “Come on, let’s join that gang over there.”

Wordlessly the Dutch astronomer followed him.

“…so she then informs me,” Markov was saying, his eyes bright and both hands toying with a tumbler of vodka, “that she wishes to go for a midnight swim.”

Stoner pulled an empty chair from the next table and joined the circle. Schmidt remained standing behind him.

With barely a blink of a hello, Markov went on, “Obviously she is an American, and quite good-looking. When I told her I had no swimsuit, she introduced me to a new American word: ‘skinnydipping.’ ”

It struck everyone as funny and they all laughed. Except Schmidt. Stoner wondered who the Russian was talking about.

“Naturally, when she explained what ‘skinnydipping’ means, I joined her with enthusiasm!”

They roared.

“Then, once we were in the water, she tells me that the lagoon is filled with sharks, especially at night.”

“That’s true,” said one of the Americans.

“Moray eels, too.”

“But, she added, we would be perfectly safe as long as we stayed in the shallow water. The only sharks we would bump into would be little ones.”

Looking up, Stoner saw that Schmidt hadn’t yet cracked a smile. Hopeless case, he thought.

“What did you do?”

Markov shrugged elaborately. “What could I do? Faced with the dilemma of meeting a shark or leaving her in the lagoon alone and unprotected, I did the correct thing.” He paused dramatically. “I ran up onto the beach as fast as I could and started putting my clothes on!”

Stoner laughed with the rest of them. But suddenly it struck him that the Russian might be talking about Jo.

“She called to me from the water, ‘Don’t be afraid! These little sharks don’t bother anyone!’ I called back, “You are wrong. They do bother someone. Me!”

One of the Russians said, in heavily accented English, “A man has much more to lose to a shark than a woman.”

“It was quite an experience,” Markov went on. “She came right out of the water behind me and started to berate me for my cowardice. Have you ever been castigated by an angry young woman who happens to be naked and dripping wet, under a tropical moon? Nerve-racking!”

He took a long pull on his vodka.

“So you went home full of sand and water,” someone said.

“I would have preferred to go to her quarters—to wash up, if nothing else,” Markov explained. “But she is living in the hotel with the rest of the single women, and it is impossible to get past those guards after midnight.”

“Too bad.”

Markov sighed. “I have my hopes. The Post Exchange sells shark repellant, I hear.”

“There are swimming pools, you know,” someone said. “Here at the Officers’ Club, at the hotel and another one at the BOQ.”

“Yes, I understand. But you see, it isn’t actually the swimming that interests me.”

The rest of them roared with laughter, but Stoner thought, Jesus Christ, I’ll bet it is Jo he’s talking about. Sounds like her kind of stunt. He realized he didn’t like the idea of the Russian making jokes about her, but at least Markov didn’t identify her by name. Probably he doesn’t even know her name.

The men swapped stories for another hour or so, then the group around the table started to break up. As he got up from his chair, Stoner saw that Schmidt had already disappeared. He frowned, wondering how long ago the youngster had walked off.

“Dr. Stoner,” Markov said to him.

“You tell a good story,” Stoner said.

Markov shrugged modestly and they started out toward the door.

“I never got the chance to tell you how much I appreciated your kind letter to me.”

“You wrote a good book.”

“Thank you,” Markov said, his voice so low that Stoner could barely hear it over the hubbub of the club. “But you must understand that your letter revealed to our government that you were working on the radio pulses from Jupiter.”

“I know. That’s why I wrote it. I figured, if you didn’t know about the pulses the letter wouldn’t mean anything to you. But if you did know about them, well…we should be working together on this, not in competition with each other.”

They reached the door and stepped through, into the quiet of the night. “I was afraid that you would be arrested by your security police, once they found out about the letter.”

“I was. Do you think I’d be here if they hadn’t forced me to come?”

In dead earnest Markov replied, “Of course you would be here. You would steal a submarine and sneak in here under cover of darkness if there were no other way to get in. This is the only place for a man like you, and don’t try to hide that obvious fact, especially from yourself.”

Stoner stopped in his tracks, under the streetlamp outside the club’s entrance, and stared at Markov. After a moment, he admitted, “You’re right. Dammit, you’re right.”

Markov broke into a boyish grin.

“But how did a linguist get dragged into this? Don’t tell me my letter got you into trouble?”

“No, not at all. If anything, it enhanced my stature among the guardians of the people’s safety.” He started walking slowly along the street, and Stoner followed alongside him. “No, I have been bitten by the same bug that has infected you.” Markov raised his eyes to the starry sky. “I want to know !”

Nodding reluctantly, Stoner said, “Yeah. If there’s only one Project JOVE, then this is the place where we have to be.”

“Of course. Knowledge is the important thing, the only thing that lasts. Discovery—ahh, that is the thrill. Better than women, I tell you.”

“Better than some women,” Stoner corrected.

Markov threw his head back and roared laughter. “Yes, yes! I agree! Better than some.”

Glancing at the luminous digits of his wristwatch, Stoner asked, “Want to come over to the radar center? They’re going to try to make contact with the bird tonight.”