Robert Sheckley: Operating Instructions

Since this was such an important moment, Captain Powell walked into the Main Room with a light, inconsequential air. He thought fleetingly of whistling, but decided against it. Spacemen were adept at smelling out little inconsistencies.

''Hi," he said, dropping into a padded chair. Danton, the navigator, yawned elaborately and nodded. Arriglio, the power engineer, glanced at his watch.

"We still blasting on schedule, Sam?"

"Sure," Powell said. "Two hours." Both men nodded, as though flights to Mars were an everyday occurrence. Powell paused, then said in an offhand manner, "We're adding another crew member."

"What for?" Danton asked at once, suspicion in every plane of his tanned face. Arriglio's mouth tightened ominously.

"Last minute order from Command Three," Powell said casually. The two men didn't move; but they seemed to come physically closer. Powell wondered what made spacemen so clannish.

"What's this job going to be?" Arriglio asked. He was small and dark, with close-fitting, curly black hair and sharp teeth. He looked like an unusually intelligent wire-haired terrier; one prepared to bark at a strange dog even before seeing him.

"You boys know about the psi's, don't you?" Powell asked, with seeming inconsistency.

"Sure," Arriglio answered promptly. "Those crazy guys."

"No, they're not crazy," Danton said, his broad face thoughtful.

"I suppose you know," Powell said, "that a man named Waverley has been organizing the psi's, trying to find jobs for them. He's got telepaths, lightning calculators, all sorts of things."

"I read it in the papers," Danton said. He raised a thick blond eyebrow. "That's the extrasensory stuff, isn't it?"

"That's right. Well, Waverley has been taking these psi's out of the sideshows and placing them in regular work. He feels that there's a place for their talents."

"So our extra crew member is a psi?" Danton said.

"That's right," Powell said, observing the two men carefully. Spacemen were funny ducks. Many of them adjusted to their lonely, dangerous work by adopting an intense asocial-ity. Spacemen were extreme conservatives, also, in the world's newest work. Of course, that conservatism had survival value. If something old works, why try something new that may cost you your life?

It all tended to make acceptance of the psi very difficult.

"Who needs him?" Arriglio asked angrily. He had a notion that his authority in the engine room might be superseded. "We don't need any mind reader aboard this ship."

"He's not a mind reader," Powell said. "The man we're getting will fill a very important place."

"What's he supposed to do?" Danton asked.

Powell hesitated, then said, "He's going to help us in our takeoff."

"How?" Danton asked.

"He's a telekinetic psi," Powell said quickly. "He's going to push."

Danton didn't say anything. Arriglio stared for a moment, then burst into laughter.

"Push! You mean he's going to run along behind and shove?"

"Maybe he's going to carry Venture on his back!"

"Sam, where did you leave your brains?"

Powell grinned at the taunts, congratulating himself on his phrasing. It was better to have them laughing at him than fighting, with him.

He stroked his mustache and said, "He'll be here pretty soon."

"You're serious?" Danton asked.

"Absolutely."

"But Sam—"

"Let me explain," Powell said. "Telekinesis—which is what this man does—is an unexplained form of power. It involves moving masses—often large ones—with no evident physical interaction. And it does work."

The two men were listening intently, though skeptically. Powell glanced at his watch and went on.

"Command figured that if this man could exert some of that force on our takeoff, we'd save an appreciable amount of fuel. That would give us a nice safety margin."

Both men nodded. They were all for saving fuel. It was the biggest single problem in spaceflight. Only so much could be packed; and then, a little error in calculation, a little added expenditure of the precious stuff—and that was it. Of the five ships that had gone out so far, two had been lost for that very reason.

"I assure you," Powell said, "he won't infringe on your jobs. All he's going to do is try to give this thing a push." He smiled, and prepared to give them the rest of the unpleasant news.

"Well, as long as he leaves me alone," Danton said.

"Sorry," Powell told them, "but you can't leave him alone."

"What?"

Powell had many qualifications for his job. The most important one couldn't be taught in college, though. Powell knew how to handle people. He called upon that ability now.

"Psi's, you know, aren't normal people. They're maladjusted, unhappy. There even seems to be some correlation between that and their psi abilities. If we want this psi to help us, we're going to have to treat him right."

"I wasn't planning on spitting on him," Arriglio said.

"You'll have to do better than that," Powell said. "I had a long talk with Waverley about this. He gave me a list of operating instructions." He drew a piece of paper from his breast pocket.

"He gave you operating instructions?"

"Sure. For the psi. Listen now." He straightened the paper and began to read:

"Psi ability has perhaps existed as long as man himself. But operationally, it is very new. Already it has shown some of its potentialities as an extension of man's will. But it will be a while before we understand the why and how of it.

"Therefore, for the interim, these imperically derived operating rules are given as an aid to those working with the psi. We have found that the best results—and often the only results—are obtained by using them.

"Operationally, the psi may be considered a unit of tricky, delicate, powerful machinery. Like all machines, certain maintenance and operating rules must be observed.

"To function, any machine must be:

1. Well-seated.

2. Fueled.

3. Oiled.

4. Regulated.

Taking these in order we find:

1. In order to function at all, a psi must feel at home, secure, wanted .

2. Praise must be afforded the psi at frequent intervals. Since the psi is unstable, his ego must be periodically boosted .

3. Understanding and sympathy must be used at all times when dealing with the psi.

4. The psi must be allowed to run at his own pace. Excess pressure will break him .

Powell looked up and smiled. "That's all there is to it."

"Sam," Danton asked softly, "isn't it enough trouble running a ship without wet-nursing a neurotic? "

"Sure it is," Powell said. "But imagine what it would mean to us— to spaceflight—if we could get off Earth with most of our fuel intact."

"That's true," Arriglio said, remembering times he had sweated blood over the fuel gauges.

"Here's a copy of the operating instructions for each of you," Powell said, taking them out of his pocket. "I want you to learn them better than you know your own names."

"Great," Arriglio said, frowning at the typed sheet. "Are you sure he can do this pushing?"

"No," Powell admitted. "No one knows for sure. His ability works about sixty-five per cent of the time."

"Oh, no," Danton said.

"I'm going to bring him in now, so get those papers out of sight when you hear us." He smiled, showing his teeth. "Rest ye merry." And left the room. He began to whistle as he walked down the corridor. They had taken it very well, on the whole.

In ten minutes he returned. "Boys, this is Billy Walker. Walker, Steve Danton, Phil Arriglio."

"Hiya," Walker said. He was tall— a good six-three, Powell estimated— and impossibly thin. A floating nimbus of pale yellow hair remained on his bald, bony skull. He had a long-nosed, homely unhappy face, and at the moment he was biting his flat lower lip.