Robert Heinlein - Time For The Stars

The Captain sent a dispatch: "I am preparing to land."

I promptly volunteered for the reconnaissance party. First I braced my uncle Major Lucas to let me join his guard. He told me to go roll my hoop. "If you think I have any use for an untrained recruit, you're crazier than you apparently think I am. If you wanted to soldier, you should have thought of it as soon as we torched off."

"But you've got men from all the departments in your guard."

"Every one of 'em trained soldiers. Seriously, Tom, I can't afford it. I need men who will protect me; not somebody so green I'll have to protect him. Sorry."

So I tackled Harry Gates to let me join the scientific party the ship's guard would protect. He said, "Certainly, why not? Plenty of dirty work that my gang of prima donnas won't want to do. You can start by checking this inventory."

So I checked while he counted. Presently he said, "How does it feel to be a little green man in a flying saucer?"

"What?"

"An oofoe. We're an oofoe, do you realize that?"

I finally understood him-an U.F.O., an "unidentified flying object." There were accounts of the U.F.O. hysteria in all the histories of space flight. "I suppose we are an U.F.O., sort of."

"It's exactly what we are. The U.F.O.'s were survey ships, just as we are. They looked us over, didn't like what they saw, and went away. If they hadn't found Earth crawling with hostile natives, they would have landed and set up housekeeping, just as we are going to do."

"Harry, do you really believe the U.F.O.'s were anything but imagination or mistakes in reporting? I thought that theory was exploded long ago."

"Take another look at the evidence, Tom. There was something going on up in our sky shortly before we took up space jumping ourselves. Sure, most of the reports were phonies. But some weren't. You have to believe evidence when you have it in front of you, or else the universe is just too fantastic. Surely you don't think that human beings are the only ones who ever built star ships?"

"Well... maybe not. But if somebody else has, why haven't they visited us long ago?"

"Simple arithmetic, pal; it's a big universe and we're just one small corner of it. Or maybe they did. That's my own notion; they surveyed us end Earth wasn't what they wanted—maybe us, maybe the climate. So the U.F.O.'s went away." He considered it. "Maybe they landed just long enough to fuel."

That was all I got out of my tenure as a member of the scientific party; when Harry submitted my name an his list, the Captain drew a line through it. "No special communicators will leave the ship."

That settled it; the Captain had a will of iron. Van got to go, as his brother had been killed in an accident while we were at peak—so I called Pat and told him about Van and suggested that Pat drop dead. He didn't see anything funny in it.

The Elsie landed in ocean comfortably deep, then they used the auxiliaries to bring her close to the shore. She floated high out of the water, as two-thirds of her tanks were empty, burned up, the water completely disintegrated in boosting us first up to the speed of light, then backing us down again. The engineers were already overhauling her torch before we reached final anchorage. So far as I know, none of them volunteered for the landing party; I think that to most of the engineers the stop on Constance was just a chance to pick up more boost mass and take care of repairs and overhauls they had been unable to do while underway. They didn't care where they were or where they were going so long as the torch worked and all the machinery ticked. Dr. Devereaux told me that the Staff Metallurgist had been out to Pluto six times and had never set foot on any planet but Earth.

"Is that normal?" I asked, thinking how fussy Doc had been about everybody else, including me.

"For his breed of cat, it's robust mental health. Any other breed I would lock up and feed through the keyhole."

Sam Rojas was as annoyed as I was at the discrimination against us telepaths; he had counted on planting his feet on strange soil, like Balboa and Columbus and Lundy. He came around to see me about it. "Tom, are you going to stand for it?"

"Well, I don't want to—but what can we do?

"I've been talking to some of the others. It's simple. We don't."

"We don't what?"

"Mmm... we just don't. Tom, ever since we slowed down, I've detected a falling off in my telepathic ability. It seems to be affecting all of us—those I've talked to. How about yourself?"

"Why, I haven't—"

"Think hard," he interrupted. "Surely you've noticed it. Why, I doubt if I could raise my twin right now. It must have something to do with where we are... maybe there is something odd about the radiation of Tau Ceti, or something. Or maybe it comes from Connie. Who knows? And, for that matter, who can check on us?"

I began to get the pattern. I didn't answer, because it was a tempting idea.

"If we can't communicate," he went on, "we ought to be useful for something else... like the landing party, for instance. Once we are out of range of this mysterious influence probably we would be able to make our reports back to Earth all right. Or maybe it would turn out that some of the girls who didn't want to go with the landing party could manage to get in touch with Earth and carry the reports ... provided us freaks weren't discriminated against."

"It's an idea," I admitted.

"Think about it. You'll find your special talent getting weaker and weaker. Me, I'm stone deaf already." He went away.

I toyed with the idea. I knew the Captain would recognize a strike when he saw one... but what could he do? Call us all liars and hang us by our thumbs until we gave in? How could he be certain that we hadn't all gone sour as m-r's? The answer was that he could not be certain; nobody but a mind reader knows what it feels like, nobody but the mind reader himself can tell that he is doing it. When we slipped out of contact at peak he hadn't doubted us, he had just accepted it. He would have to accept it now, no matter what he thought.

For he had to have us; we were indispensable.

Dad used to he arbitration representative in his guild local; I remembered his saying once that the only strike worth calling was one in which the workers were so badly needed that the strike would be won before a walkout. That was the pinch we had the Captain in; he had to have us. No strikebreakers closer than eleven light-years. He wouldn't dare get rough with us.

Except that any one of us could break the strike. Let's see—Van was out of it and so was Cas Warner; they were no longer telepaired, their twins were dead. Pru's sister Patience was still alive, but that telepair had never been mended after peak—her sister had refused the risky drugs and hypnosis routine and they never got back into rapport. Miss Gamma did not count, because the ships her two sisters were in were still peaking, so we were cut off from sidewise relay back to Earth until one of them decelerated. Not counting Sam and myself, whom did that leave? And could they be counted on? There was Rupe, Gloria, Anna, and Dusty... and Unc of course. And Mei-Ling.

Yes, they were solid. Making us feel that we were freaks when we first came aboard had consolidated us, Even if one or two didn't feel right about it, nobody would let the others down. Not even Mei-Ling who was married to an outsider. It would work. If Sam could line them up.

I wanted to go dirtside the worst way.., and maybe this was the worst way, but I still wanted to.

Just the same, there was something sneaky about it, like a kid spending his Sunday School collection money.

Sam had until noon the next day to get it lined up, because we were down to one watch a day. A continuous communication watch was not necessary and them was more ship's work to do now that we were getting ready to explore. I tabled the matter and went down to tag the rats that would he used by the scientific survey.