Arthur Zagat - The Golden Age of Science Fiction Volume IX

“This is Hansen. How’re things going up there?”

“Ha!”

“What’s that mean? Good or bad?”

“It means,” the navigator said, while yawning, “that things are falling apart rapidly. In fact, in a day or two I don’t think it’ll make much difference whether or not they open that damn door.”

“You, er, care to fill me in?”

“Why not?” said the navigator, with the voice of a man who knows that it is too late for anything to matter. “The members of the crew are divided into two factions. It appears that our physician has rallied half the crew to support his medical contention that our exhalted passenger belongs in the refrigerator. The good captain, with some justice, one must admit, thinks that he is in command of the ship, and prefers to believe that R’thagna Bar belongs out of the refrigerator.”

“Who seems to be winning the argument?”

“Argument? There’s no argument, old man—it’s open warfare. No weapons aboard, of course, but the two teams are grappling up and down the corridors and shuttling our exhalted passenger in and out of the ice box about four times each hour. Quite a sight, really. Right now he’s in the refrigerator, but the other team—”

“Let me know who’s ahead from time to time, will you?” Hansen heard himself say.

“Glad to oblige,” the navigator said, yawning again. “Oh, incidentally, have they sent for help yet?”

Hansen said with some surprise, “Why, as a matter of fact, Sector Headquarters is sending some help. How did you know?”

“Bound to happen sooner or later, old man. When the going really gets tough they always get around to sending a Gypsy. Only way to get anything done, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Hansen said reluctantly. “Why is it that everyone knows except me? What, please, is a Gypsy?”

“You’re too young to know everything, old man,” the navigator said. “You’re especially too young to know about one of the Federation’s best kept secrets. But you might as well, I suppose. The fact is that a Gypsy is a generally vagrant, dirty, thieving, clever scoundrel who will not work, who has absolutely no respect for order or authority, who believes that our institutions are effete and—”

“But then why—”

“Patience, patience,” cautioned the navigator, haughtily, “if I am to reveal everything I know, I must do it in my own way. The description I just gave you is not necessarily true. It is simply the way that Sector Headquarters feels about Gypsies. Common jealousy, really. It seems that from time to time, our perfect little galactic society spawns men who don’t care to be cast in the common mold. In short, there are a few men around with brains who don’t think that it means very much to wear pretty uniforms or fancy titles.”

“Uniforms like yours?” asked Hansen.

“Precisely,” the navigator said sadly. “The truth of the matter is, of course, that I only play at being a navigator. I couldn’t get this ship off course, if I tried. The same is true with the four engineering officers who stand around watching the Hegler drive units. They occasionally make a ceremonial adjustment, but beyond that, they simply stand around looking pretty.”

“No moving parts.” Hansen said.

“No moving brains, if you like. Anyway, a Gypsy has—somewhere along the line—learned how to do things. They’ll take an emergency call about once a year—if they happen to feel like it. Then they charge about half a million credits.”

“You mean they have an organization, standard rates and—”

“Heavens no!” the navigator said. “They hate anything that smells like organization. They don’t even specialize in any certain kind of work. One year they’ll be fascinated by sub-nucleonics, the next by horse racing. Very erratic. Can’t keep attention on any one thing. Heard of one once who engaged in fishing and alcohol drinking. Brilliant mathematician, too. But he’d only take a call once every three years or so.”

“For a half million credits a crack, eh? You could live pretty well for three years on that.”

“Strangely enough,” the navigator said thoughtfully, “they don’t really have any interest in money. If you’d ever met one, you’d know that the high fee is sort of a penalty they mete out to everyone else for being so dumb.”

“Well, one thing for sure,” Hansen said, “if Bullard and Quemos are the cream of the crop, I’m on the side of the Gypsies.”

“Ah, youth!” the navigator said, “I, too, once had such dreams—”

“We’ll see about the dreams,” Hansen said, almost menacingly, “I didn’t spend six years in that damn school just to sit around in a pretty uniform for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, you’ll get used to it. In fact, you’ll like it after a while. The home leaves. The fuss your friends will make over you when you step off the ship. The regular and automatic promotions in grade with the extra gold band added to your sleeve; the move from one outpost to an always larger installation. You’ll never do much, of course, but why should you? After all, there aren’t any moving parts.”

Hansen cut the communicator off. He stood there for a moment, feeling depressed and betrayed. Automatically he reached down and flicked imaginary dust from his blue sleeve with its narrow solitary gold band. Ten minutes later the Gypsy’s ship signaled for landing.

The man who walked into Hansen’s control room was hardly the ogre he had been prepared for. He looked, Hansen was later to reflect, like Santa Claus with muscles in place of the fat. Wearing an almost unheard of beard and dressed in rough clothes, he walked across the room and made short work of the usual formalities. “Name’s Candle,” said the man. “Where’s those two phonies I’m supposed to replace?”

“You’ll have to go suit up and go back through the airlock,” Hansen said, motioning to the door. “They’re in their ship. It’s the one next to yours. Want me to tell them you’re on your way over?”

“Hell, no,” said Candle, grinning, “I’ll surprise ’em. Now, suppose you and me sit down and have a little chat.”

They sat and Candle pumped Hansen of everything he knew about the entire situation. An hour later, Hansen felt almost as if he had been had. “Is that all?” he asked, wearily.

“I got the facts,” Candle said. “Now let’s go throw those experts out.” It wasn’t quite that simple. Neither Bullard nor Quemos had any intention of simply clearing out. “Who the hell you think you are,” Bullard said, “to come over here and order us off? We didn’t even ask for help. And, God knows, you couldn’t supply it anyway.” Bullard, with evident distaste, ran his eyes up and down Candle’s clothing.

Dr. Quemos had some ideas, too. “Letter of authority or no letter of authority,” Quemos said, pointing a manicured forefinger at the paper in Candle’s hand, “you’ll ruin everything! You have no idea what you’re up against. We’ve spent weeks working this thing out—”

Candle grinned. “What’ve you worked out?”

“Why—why we know that this is a metal double enveloping worm gear.”

“Wrong,” Candle said. “It’s a single enveloping worm gear. It’s made of steel with an aluminum alloy wheel gear and the two parts have corroded and stuck. The whole mechanism was originally designed for submarines.”

Quemos started to say something, then turned and looked at Bullard for reassurance. “He’s crazy,” Bullard said, “he’s making it up as he goes along. How could he possibly know what he’s talking about? Why, there haven’t been any submarines for centuries.”