Alan Foster - Dark Star

The corporal rolled over, selected another cigar, and lit it. He seemed surprised to discover then that he had another already in his mouth. Without seeming the least bit embarrassed, he put out the second one by pinching the tip into suffocation.

A moment later he had exchanged it for a switch blade knife—an odd item to bring on board, and one which the mission directors would have banned if they had known about it. But the one thing the psychometricians had insisted on was that every man’s four crates of personal effects, barring actual explosives or something equally dangerous, were absolutely private.

This was why Boiler had had such success in bringing along such unorthodox but decidedly nonexplosive items as his real-sandwich components and the switchblade. The latter snicked open with a wicked metallic whisper.

Holding the knife in one hand, he used the other to clear everything from the upturned crate alongside his bed. It made a nice makeshift table. This was one of his own, personal, surviving crates. It was made of good solid homey wood, not plastic or free-formed metal.

Spreading his fingers flat on the surface, he took the knife and began mumblety-pegging with it, jabbing between the closely spaced fingers into the firm wood. He started outside the thumb and worked over to the outside of the little finger. Then he repeated the journey.

Back and forth, forth and back, and back—and the knife sliced down just outside one of his fingers. He stopped, held up his nicked hand, and stared blankly at it.

All the attributes and faults that the psyche people had agreed were present in Boiler were apparent right then: that he had ice water in his veins; that he was likely to be the least communicative member of the Dark Star crew; that he would be the one least likely to crack in a pressure situation—except for Powell.

They had told him all that before they had left for Earth Orbital Station, at the final psyche briefing. He studied the finger, remembered what they had told him, and smiled.

Since he had only ice water in his veins, then of course there could be only ice water leaking out. And that would stop quickly enough. Indeed, while the knife had been driven into the finger with some force, anyone could see for himself that there was no blood dripping out. That this was due to Boiler’s unnatural control of his own body was the explanation of the psychometricians who had first observed the quality in him.

Of course, the distinct possibility existed that he was imagining his own lack of bleeding, that he was in actuality spurting gore all over the room, and that he had better seek treatment quickly or else bleed to death. In which case he was mad.

His smile grew broader, then vanished. But he wasn’t at all mad. Only Talby was mad, and he was harmless. Boiler wondered if Talby, mad Talby, would bleed.

One of these days, maybe he’d find out.

Pinback was having trouble concealing a smile of his own as he removed a strange object from the colorless box. It was a pair of eyeglasses of unusual properties. Possibly two people on Earth would have found it amusing. Despite this, somewhat more than two of these objects had been manufactured on that benighted planet. Pinback put on the glasses.

They consisted of a cheap plastic frame on which were mounted a pair of grossly bloodshot half-eyeballs made of cheaper plastic and attached to the glasses by means of metal springs.

Bending his head and carefully concealing the device from view, he moved slowly toward Boiler. The corporal had concluded the extensive examination of his invulnerable finger and was now leaning against the wall and blowing his perfect smoke rings once more. Pinback slowly leaned over and toward him—ever so slowly. He knelt slightly and bent his head, removing his hand at just the right time, and the eyeballs flopped out of their frames to bob wildly on the springs.

Boiler turned with equal patience and calmly blew a fresh smoke ring into Pinback’s waiting face. There was a moment of nonreaction. Then Pinback turned and made his way back to his own bunk, his smile gone. Dejectedly, he removed the glasses and dropped them back into the box.

Boiler’s crazy, the poor slob, he thought. Cuts his own finger and doesn’t say a thing. Crazy, but he won’t let me help.

Boiler stared evenly at Pinback, then went back to introspective contemplation of his seemingly uninjured finger. Nuts, the sergeant was certifiably nuts! They were all nuts, except maybe Doolittle—and Doolittle had other problems.

The silence was getting to Pinback, as it always did. There must be something he could do for the poor guys. Something he could do… His gaze left the floor and settled on the nearby form of Doolittle.

The lieutenant was once again deep into a game of solitaire. Pinback’s mouth started to curl mischievously at the corners. He started rummaging through the bottomless box.

Doolittle, meanwhile, had searched through the deck card by card until he had found a red jack to put on the vacant queen. He was oblivious to Pinback, to Boiler, to the room, and to the ship.

The voice inside his head was admonishing him again. Most of the time he could shut it out, but sometimes it got so insistent that no wall could dampen it fully.

“You’re cheating again, Doolittle,” it claimed angrily, beating at him relentlessly. “You’ve always cheated, you know that, Doolittle?

“You cheated to get into flight school, and then you cheated on your astronaut physical when you couldn’t pass the pull-ups. They said that was impossible, but you did it, Doolittle. You cheated on the oral exam when you wanted to get on the Dark Star mission to impress your girl friend, and you cheated with the psychiatrist, giving him all the carefully prepared right answers instead of the truthful ones.

“You cheated your way all the way through your short, miserable, successful life, Lieutenant Doolittle—and you’re paying for it, in triplicate. Because right now"—he put a red ten on the jack—"right now you’d like to cheat yourself back home, wouldn’t you?

“But you can’t, because now there’s nobody left to cheat here but yourself. If you go home without the computer confirming that you’ve properly utilized all twenty of those expensive little toys in the bomb bay, they’ll turn you to powder. And if you try and dump the last one in no particular place, the computer will record it and they won’t be complimentary when you get home, will they?

“No, Doolittle. They’ll most likely toss you in the can for observation. Then they’ll find out about your other cheating and despite all your successes they’ll be most displeased. Your only out was to fool the computer, and you can’t do that, can you? So it looks like you’re stuck with doing a good job in spite of yourself, hey?

“You could never fool Commander Powell, either—but then, at least he understood.”

He jerked sharply. Someone was standing next to him.

The moment of fright passed quickly, turned to anger. It wasn’t the long-dead Powell. It was only Pinback. He went back to his game.

Pinback reached stealthily inside his flight suit, whipped out an object of uncertain shape, and dangled it jerkily in front of Doolittle’s face. It was a rubber chicken. Doolittle was not impressed.

He put a black eight on a red eight: an impossibility to resolve, even for an accomplished cheater. Taking the rest of the cards, he threw them down on top of the pile.

“Damn it!” He glared briefly at Pinback, who recoiled under that momentary unaccustomed blast of intense hatred, and left the room.

He was furious at himself. Furious for putting the wrong card on the wrong card. Furious at Pinback and his idiotic rubber fowl. Furious at the universe that mocked him, and worse—ignored him.