Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy

It was the first time she had ever spoken his name. But Thorby hardly noticed. "Really? You mean it?"

"It's a very good run... Thorby. We both got hits. But yours is optimum between 'possible' and 'critical limit' -- whereas mine is too eager. See?"

Thorby could read strips only haltingly, but he was happy to take her word for it. Jeri came in, took both strips, looked at Thorby's, then looked more closely. "I dug up the post-analysis before I came down," he said.

"Yes, sir?" Thorby said eagerly.

"Mmm... I'll check it after chow -- but it looks as if your mistakes had cancelled out."

Mata said, "Why, Bud, that's a perfect run and you know it!"

"Suppose it is?" Jeri grinned. "You wouldn't want our star pupil to get a swelled head, would you?"

"Pooh!"

"Right back to you, small and ugly sister. Let's go to chow."

They went through a narrow passage into trunk corridor of second deck, where they walked abreast. Thorby gave a deep sigh.

"Trouble?" his nephew asked.

"Not a bit!" Thorby put an arm around each of them. "Jeri, you and Mata are going to make a marksman out of me yet."

It was the first time "Thorby had addressed his teacher by name since the day he had received the scorching. But Jeri accepted his uncle's overture without stiffness. "Don't get your hopes up, bunkmate. But I think we've got it licked." He added, "I see Great Aunt Tora is giving us her famous cold eye. If anybody wants my opinion, I think Sis can walk unassisted -- I'm sure Great Aunt thinks so."

"Pooh to her, too!" Mata said briskly. "Thorby just made a perfect run."

Sisu came out of darkness, dropping below speed-of-light Losian's sun blazed less than fifty billion kilometers away; in a few days they would reach their next market The ship went to watch-and-watch battle stations.

Mata took her watch alone; Jeri required the trainee to stand watches with him. The first watch was always free from strain; even if a raider had accurate information via n-space communicator of Sisu's time of departure and destination, it was impossible in a jump of many light-years to predict the exact time and place where she would poke her nose out into rational space.

Jeri settled in his chair some minutes after Thorby had strapped down with that age-old tense feeling that this time it was not practice. Jeri grinned at him. "Relax. If you get your blood stream loaded, your back will ache, and you'll never last"

Thorby grinned feebly. "I'll try."

"That's better. We're going to play a game." Jeri pulled a boxlike contrivance out of a pocket, snapped it open.

"What is that?"

"A 'killjoy.' It fits here." Jeri slipped it over the switch that determined which console was in command. "Can you see the switch?"

"Huh? No."

"Hand the man the prize." Jeri fiddled with the switch behind the screen. "Which of us is in control in case we have to launch a bomb now?"

"How can I tell? Take that off, Jeri; it makes me nervous."

"That's the game. Maybe I'm controlling and you are just going through motions; maybe you are the man at the trigger and I'm asleep in my chair. Every so often I'll fiddle with the switch -- but you won't know how I've left it. So when a flap comes -- and one will; I feel it in my bones -- you can't assume that good old Jeri, the man with the micrometer fingers, has the situation under control. You might have to save the firm. You."

Thorby had a queasy vision of waiting men and bombs in the missile room below -- waiting for him to solve precisely an impossible problem of life and death, of warped space and shifting vectors and complex geometry. "You're kidding," he said feebly. "You wouldn't leave me in control. Why, the Captain would skin you alive."

"Ah, that's where you're wrong. There always comes a day when a trainee makes his first real run. After that, he's a controlman... or an angel. But we don't let you worry at the time. Oh no! we just keep you worried all the time. Now here's the game. Any time I say, 'Now!' you guess who has control. You guess right, I owe you one dessert; you guess wrong, you owe me one. Now!"

Thorby thought quickly. "I guess I've got it."

"Wrong." Jeri lifted the killjoy. "You owe me one dessert -- and it's berry tart tonight; my mouth is watering. But faster; you're supposed to make quick decisions. Now!"

"You've still got it!"

"So I have. Even. Now!"

"You!"

"Nope. See? And I eat your tart -- I ought to quit while I'm ahead. Love that juice! Now!"

When Mata relieved them, Jeri owned Thorby's desserts for the next four days. "We start again with that score," Jeri said, "except that I'm going to collect that berry tart. But I forgot to tell you the big prize."

"Which is?"

"Comes the real thing, we bet three desserts. After ifs over, you guess and we settle. Always bet more on real ones."

Mata sniffed. "Bud, are you trying to make him nervous?"

"Are you nervous, Thorby?"

"Nope!"

"Quit fretting, Sis. Got it firmly in your grubby little hands?"

"I relieve you, sir."

"Come on, Thorby; let's eat. Berry tarts -- aaah!"

Three days later the score stood even, but only because Thorby had missed most of his desserts. Sisu was enormously slowed, almost to planetary speeds, and Losian's sun loomed large on the screens. Thorby decided, with mildest regret, that his ability to fight would not be tested this jump.

Then the general alarm made him rear up against safety belts. Jeri had been talking; his head jerked around, he looked at displays, and his hands moved to his controls. "Get on it!" he yelped. "This one's real."

Thorby snapped out of shock and bent over his board. The analog globe was pouring data to them; the ballistic situation had built up. Good heavens, it was close! And matching in fast! How had anything moved in so close without being detected? Then he quit thinking and started investigating answers... no, not yet... before long though... could the bandit turn a little at that boost and reduce his approach?... try a projection at an assumed six gravities of turning... would a missile reach him?... would it still reach him if he did not --

He hardly felt Mata's gentle touch on his shoulder. But he heard Jeri snap, "Stay out, Sis! We're on it, we're on it!"

A light blinked on Thorby's board; the squawk horn sounded, "Friendly craft, friendly craft! Losian planetary patrol, identified. Return to watch-and-watch."

Thorby took a deep breath, felt a great load lift.

"Continue your run!" screamed Jeri.

"Huh?"

"Finish your run! That's no Losian craft; that's a raider! Losian's can't maneuver that way! You've got it, boy, you've got it! Nail him!"

Thorby heard Mata's frightened gasp, but he was again at his problem. Change anything? Could he reach him? Could he still reach him in the cone of possible maneuver? Now! He armed Ms board and let the computer give the order, on projection.

He heard Jeri's voice faintly; Jeri seemed to be talking very slowly. "Missile away. I think you got him... but you were eager. Get off another one before their beam hits us."

Automatically Thorby complied. Time was too short to try another solution; he ordered the machine to send another missile according to projection. He then saw by his board that the target was no longer under power and decided with a curiously empty feeling that his first missile had destroyed it.

"That's all!" Jeri announced. "Now!"

"What?"

"Who had it? You or me? Three desserts."

"I had it," Thorby said with certainty. In another level he decided that he would never really be a Trader -- to Jeri that target had been -- just fraki. Or three desserts.

"Wrong. That puts me three up. I turned coward and kept control myself. Of course the bombs were disarmed and the launchers locked as soon as the Captain gave the word... but I didn't have the nerve to risk an accident with a friendly ship."