Robert Heinlein - Time For The Stars

"Can't I?" I was breathing hard and exulting in the chance to hit back. "The Captain can't have his cake and eat it too. A man under arrest doesn't perform duty. It's always been that way end it always will be. You just tell him what I said."

He silently finished the reconnection with quick precision.

"You're sure that's what you want me to tell him?"

"Quite sure."

"All right. Hooked the way that thing is now"—he added, pointing a thumb at the recorder—"you can reach me on if you change your mind. So long."

"One more thing—"

"Eh?"

"Maybe the Captain hasn't thought about it, since his cabin has a bathroom, but I've been in here some hours. Who takes me down the passageway and when? Even a prisoner is entitled to regular policing."

"Oh. I guess I do. Come along."

That was the high point of the morning. I expected Captain Urqhardt to show up five minutes after Mr. Eastman had left me at my room—breathing fire and spitting cinders. So I rehearsed a couple of speeches in my head, carefully phrased to keep me inside the law and quite respectful. I knew I had him.

But nothing happened. The Captain did not show up; nobody showed up. It got to be close to noon. When no word was passed about standing by for boost, I got in my bunk with five minutes to spare and waited.

It was a long five minutes.

About a quarter past twelve I gave up and got up. No lunch either. I heard the gong at twelve-thirty, but still nothing and nobody. I finally decided that I would skip one meal before I complained, because I didn't want to give him the chance to change the subject by pointing out that I had broken arrest. It occurred to me that I could call Unc and tell him about the failure in the beans department, then I decided that the longer I waited, the more wrong the Captain would be.

About an hour after everybody else had finished eating Mr. Krishnamurti showed up with a tray. The fact that he brought it himself instead of sending whoever had pantry duty convinced me that I must be a Very Important Prisoner

—particularly as Kris was unanxious to talk to me and even seemed scared of being near me. He just shoved it in and said, "Put it in the passageway when you are through."

"Thanks, Kris."

But buried in the food on the tray was a note: "Bully for you! Don't weaken and we'll trim this bird's wings. Everybody is pulling for you." It was unsigned and I did not recognize the handwriting. It wasn't Krishnamurti's; I knew his from the time when I was fouling up his farm. Nor was it either of the Travers's, and certainly not Harry's.

Finally I decided that I didn't want to guess whose it was and tore it in pieces and chewed it up, just like the Man in the Iron Mask or the Count of Monte Cristo. I don't really qualify as a romantic hero, however, as I didn't swallow it; I just chewed it up and spat it out. But I made darn sure that note was destroyed, for I not only did not want to know who had sent it, I didn't want anybody ever to know.

Know why? That note didn't make me feel good; it worried me. Oh, for two minutes it bucked me up; I felt larger than life, the champion of the downtrodden.

Then I realized what the note meant...

Mutiny.

It's the ugliest word in space. Any other disaster is better.

One of the first things Uncle Steve had told me—told Pat and myself, way back when we were kids—was: "The Captain is right even when he is wrong." It was years before I understood it; you have to live in a ship to know why it is true. And I didn't understand it in my heart until I read that encouraging note and realized that somebody was seriously thinking of bucking the Captain's authority... and that I was the symbol of their resistance.

A ship is not just a little world; it is more like a human body. You can't have democracy in it, not democratic consent at least, no matter how pleasant and democratic the Captain's manner may be. If you're in a pinch, you don't take a vote from your arms and legs and stomach and gizzard and find out what the majority wants. Darn well you don't! Your brain makes a decision and your whole being carries it out.

A ship in space is like that all the time and has to be. What Uncle Steve meant was that the Captain had better be right, you had better pray that he is right even if you disagree with him... because it won't save the ship to be right yourself if he is wrong.

But a ship is not a human body; it is people working together with a degree of selflessness that doesn't come easy—not to me, at least. The only thing that holds it together is a misty something called its morale, something you hardly know it has until the ship loses it. I realized then that the Elsie had been losing hers for some time. First Doc Devereaux had died and then Mama O'Toole and both of those were body blows. Now we had lost the Captain and most of the rest... and the Elsie was falling to pieces.

Maybe the new captain wasn't too bright, but he was trying to stop it. I began to realize that it wasn't just machinery breaking down or attacks from hostile natives that lost ships; maybe the worst hazard was some bright young idiot deciding that he was smarter than the Captain and convincing enough others that he was right. I wondered bow many of the eight ships that were out of contact had died proving that their captains were wrong and that somebody like me was right.

It wasn't nearly enough to be right.

I got so upset that I thought about going to the Captain and telling him I was wrong and what could I do to help? Then I realized that I couldn't do that, either. He had told me to stay in my room—no 'if's' or 'maybe's.' If it was more important to back up the Captain and respect his authority than anything else, then the only thing was to do as I had been ordered and sit tight.

So I did.

Kris brought me dinner, almost on time. Late that evening the speakers blared the usual warning, I lay down and the, Elsie boosted off Elysia. But we didn't go on, we dropped into an orbit, for we went into free fall right afterwards. I spent a restless night; I don't sleep well when I'm weightless.

I was awakened by the ship going into light boost, about a half gravity. Kris brought me breakfast but I didn't ask what was going on and he didn't offer to tell me. About the middle of the morning the ship's system called out: "Communicator Bartlett, report to the Captain." It was repeated before I realized it meant me... then I jumped up, ran my shaver over my face, decided that my uniform would have to do, and hurried up to the cabin.

He looked up when I reported my presence. "Oh, yes. Bartlett, Upon investigation I find that there is no reason to prefer charges. You are released from arrest and restored to duty. See. Mr. Eastman."

He looked back at his desk and I got sore. I had been seesawing between a feeling of consecrated loyalty to the ship and to the Captain as the head thereof, and an equally strong desire to kick Urqhardt in the stomach. One kind word from him and I think I would have been his boy, come what may. As it was, I was sore.

"Captain!"

He looked up. "Yes?"

"I think you owe me an apology."

"You do? I do not think so. I acted in the interest of the whole ship. However, I harbor no ill feelings, if that is of any interest to you." He looked back at his work, dismissing me... as if my hard feelings, if any, were of no possible importance.

So I got out and reported to Mr. Eastman. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

Mei-Ling was in the comm office, sending code groups. She glanced up and I noticed that she looked tired. Mr. Eastman said, "Hello, Tom. I'm glad you're here; we need you. Will you raise your telepartner, please?"

One good thing about having a telepath run the special watch list is that other people don't seem to realize that the other end of each pair—the Earthside partner—is not a disembodied spirit. They eat and sleep and work and raise families, and they can't be on call whenever somebody decides to send a message. "Is it an emergency?" I asked, glancing at the Greenwich and then at the ship's clock, Vicky wouldn't check with me for another half hour; she might be at home and free, or she might not be.