James White - Mind Changer

She looked at O’Mara and quickly looked away again.

“If it had happened on Kelgia” said Kledenth, “both the queen s and the bodyguard’s fur would have warned the king of what was happening right from the beginning. It could have paid more attention to its young life-mate or got rid of the bodygard, nonviolently since it liked them both. And speaking of emotional signals, O’Mara, are you still misreading or just ignoring yours?”

“My favorite character in that story is Merlin? said O’Mara, trying to move the conversation onto safer ground, “the magician who went through time in reverse and met the elderly king long before meeting Arthur as a boy. Merlin has never been given the attention he deserves, and even though time travel in either direction is impossible…

“There speaks the typical hardheaded technocrat? Joan said softly. “Is there no room in your mind for magic?”

“As a child I had plenty of room 1here for magic? said O’Mara, “but only while reading or, as now, talking about the story. Centuries ago it was the technocrats who formed groups and came together as you people are doing now, but they did it to discuss and write and dream about the effects of future advances in science. Now it has all happened. We have star travel, frequent contact and commerce with other-species sapients, antigravity, advanced medicine, everything, and so there is very little room left to us for scientific dreaming. Yet on every civilized planet there are individuals or groups who spend their spare time thinking about, writing about, or discussing the magic and legends of their pasts. Magic is all we have left.”

There was a moment of silence that was broken by Joan. “So you are a closet fantasy fan? she said. “O’Mara, you’re a strange and very interesting man, as well as being a waste of a valuable natural resource, with muscles.”

Kledenth rippled its fur and said, “O’Mara, normally I would tell you exactly what I think and feel about this situation, and you. But I have been studying a tourist book about polite and nonoffensive conversational usage and wish to practice it before we visit Earth. I think your insensitive behavior toward this female makes me conclude that you are mentally disadvantaged, visually impaired, and that your parents were unmarried.”

Before O’Mara could think of a suitably polite response he felt the instant of vertigo that marked their insertion into hyperspace followed by a momentary unsteadiness in the deck underfoot. The artificial-gravity system, he guessed, had made a less than smooth transition during the changeover from compensating for the five-G thrust of the main engines to the weightlessness of hyperspace. Right now the officer responsible would be having harsh words said to him, her, or it by the captain. Even minor fluctuations in the artificial G could cause nausea in some life-forms and spacesickness on a modern interstellar passenger vessel was just not supposed to happen. Apparently the others hadn’t noticed anything.

“Well, there’s nothing more to see here? said Joan. She tried to encircle his upper arm gently with her long, delicate fingers and pull him away from the viewing panel. “Let’s go for another swimming lesson. I haven’t shown you everything yet.”

Their single Tralthan passenger had completed its round-trip tour and left the ship on its home world, where two others, who as honeymooners were no longer single in either sense of the word, had come aboard. As yet they had shown no interest in otherspecies legends or in anything but each other apart from galloping ponderously up and down the sloping ramp on one side of the pool.

“Theoretically,” said O’Mara, “it is possible for two Earthhumans and a pair of overenthusiastic Tralthans to swim together, but…”

“We’d be mad in the head to try it” Joan finished for him. Laughing, she added, “Am I right in thinking that you dislike the water, Kledenth?”

“You’re wrong,” said the Kelgian, ruffling its fur. “I intensely hate, detest, and abhor the water. Let’s move over to the lounger beside the direct-vision panel. There’s nothing to see, but at least we’ll be out of range of the liquid fallout.”

They picked their way between the multi-species exercising and gaming equipment that filled the remainder of the recreation deck area. Apart from the swimmers, two Nidians playing something fast and complicated that involved knocking two tiny white balls between them, and a Melfan who was lying reading on something that resembled a surrealistic wastepaper basket, they had the place to themselves. Kledenth curled itself into a thick, furry S on a nearby mattress while Joan and O’Mara stretched out on loungers.

With nothing but grey hyperspace showing beyond the big direct-vision panel, they lay watching the two Tralthans charging in and out of the pooi and slapping at the water with their total of eight tentacles while making untranslatable noises to each other that sounded like hysterical foghorns. Every few seconds they were hidden by clouds of self-created spray.

“Extroverts,” said Kledenth.

Joan laughed suddenly and said, “Now, there is a life-form that really enjoys swimming?

“Not so” said O’Mara, watching them and trying not to allow the concern he was feeling from reaching his voice. “They love playing in water and they’re safe so long as their breathing orifices aren’t below the surface for more than a few minutes. But their body density is too great for them to be able to stay afloat even with the aid of maximum muscular effort. Those two are being very foolish.”

“Lieutenant O’Mara” she said, wriggling her slender body int8 a more comfortable position on the lounger in a way that immediately upped his blood pressure, “I bow to your superior knowledge of nonswimming Tralthans. But they can’t go on not swimming and expending energy at that rate for much longer, and then it will be our turn to make fools of ourselves… What the hell!”

Slowly their loungers were tipping sideways as if trying to roll their bodies onto the deck, which had developed a gentle slope in the same direction. Water spilled over the nearest edge of the pool and rolled in a six-inch tidal wave toward them, breaking against the deck supports of intervening equipment as it came. Suddenly the deck tilted in the opposite direction, and the miniature tidal wave gurgled to a stop and began flowing back into the pooi as the deck and their loungers became level again. The Tralthans were still creating so much turbulence that they apparently hadn’t noticed anything.

Again O’Mara felt the instant of vertigo characteristic of reemergence into normal space. He didn’t have to look at the directvision panel to know that it was again showing the stars and that, even though they had been traveling for only a short time in the hyperdimension, the Traltha system had been left far astern. A few seconds later the lounger padding pushed him gently into the air as they went weightless.

This was not a normal occurrence, he knew, particularly on a passenger vessel. Plainly Kreskhallar was having problems, perhaps serious ones. Joan was looking frightened and Kledenth’s fur was agitated.

“There’s nothing to worry about? he said, knowing that he was lying reassuringly to one Earth-person even though there was a Kelgian present who would accept it as the truth. “Is this your first experience of weightlessness? It looks as if the artificial gravity is on the blink, so just hold on to something solid until…

He broke off as the ship’s public-address system cleared its throat.

“This is your captain? it said. “Please remain calm. A minor malfunction has occurred in our artificial-gravity system. There is no danger to the ship and the period of weightlessness is a temporary inconvenience for which I can only apologize. Will all passengers currently occupying their cabins please remain in them until further notice. Those in other parts of the ship, particularly if they are in large, open areas such as the recreation deck, must return to their cabins as soon as possible. Anyone who lacks experience in weightless or low-G maneuvering should request assistance from a crew member, or from a fellow passenger with the necessary ability to assist you to your quarters…