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  He sucked in an uneven breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he faltered. ‘I shouldn’t —’

  ‘Blow off steam? Why not?’ she asked calmly. ‘Would it be better to keep on being the iron man, till one day you put a pistol to your head?’

  ‘You see,’ he said in his misery, ‘I’m responsible. Men and women – children— But I’ll be in deepsleep. I’d go crazy if I tried to stay awake the whole voyage; the organism can’t take it. I’ll be asleep, and there’ll be nothing I can do, but these ships were given into my care!’

  He began to shiver. She took both his hands. Neither of them spoke for a long while.

  4

  When he left the Pioneer Coffin felt oddly hollow, as if he had opened his chest and pulled out heart and lungs. But his mind functioned with machine precision. For that he was grateful to Teresa. She had helped him discover what the facts were. It was a brutal knowledge, but without such understanding the expedition might well be doomed.

  Or might it? Dispassionately, now, Coffin estimated chances. Either they went on to Rustum or they turned back. In either case, while the likelihood of survival could not be gauged in percentages, the odds would be poor. Better than fifty-fifty, no doubt, but not a hazard that the captain had any right to take, if he could avoid it by any means.

  But what means were there?

  As he hauled himself toward the Ranger, Coffin watched the receiver web grow in his eyes till it snared a distorted Milky Way. It seemed very frail to have carried so much hell. And, indeed, it would have to be dismantled before deceleration. No trick to sabotage the thing. But too late for that. If only I had known!

  Or if someone on Earth, the villain or well-meaning fool or whatever he was who wrote that first message … if only he would send another. ‘Ignore preceding. Educational decree still in force.’ Or something. But no. Such things didn’t happen. A man had to make his own luck.

  Coffin sighed and clamped bootsoles to his flagship’s airlock.

  Mardikian helped him through. When he removed his hoarfrosted space helmet, Coffin saw how the boy’s mouth quivered. A few hours had put years on Mardikian.

  He was in medical whites. Unnecessarily, to break the silence with any inane remark, Coffin said: ‘Going on vat duty, I see.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ A mutter. ‘My turn.’ The armor made a Jot of noise while they stowed it. ‘We’ll need some more ethanol soon, Captain,’ blurted Mardikian in a desperate voice.‘What for?’ grumbled Coffin. He had often wished thestuff were not indispensable. He alone had the key to its barrel. Some masters allowed a small liquor ration onvoyages, and said Coffin was only disguising prejudice in; claiming it added risk. (‘What the devil can happen in inter-V stellar orbit? The only reason anyone stays conscious is, the machinery to care properly for sleepers would massmore than the extra supplies do. You can issue the grogwhen a man comes off watch, can’t you? Oh, never mind, never mind, you damned bluenose! I’m just grateful I don’tship under you.’)

  ‘Gammagen fixative … and so on … sir,’ stumbled Mardikian. ‘Mr. Hallmyer will… make the requisition asusual.’

  ‘Okay.’ Coffin faced his radio man, captured the fearful eyes, and snapped, ‘I don’t suppose there have been any further communications?’

  ‘From Earth? No. No, sir. I… I wouldn’t really expectit… we’re about at the, the, the limit of reception now….It’s almost a miracle, sir, I believe, that we picked up thefirst. Of course, we barely might get another—’ Mar-dikian’s words trailed off.

  Coffin continued to stare. At last: ‘They’ve been giving you a hard time, haven’t they?’

  ‘What?’

  The ones like Lochaber, who want to go on. They wish you’d had the sense to keep your mouth shut, at least till you consulted me. And then others, like de Smet, have said the opposite. Even over telecircuit, it’s no fun being a storm center, is it?’

  ‘No, sir….’

  Coffin turned away. Why torment the fellow more? This thing had happened, that was all. And the fewer who realized the danger, and were thereby put under still greater stress, the less that danger would be.

  ‘Avoid such disputes/ordered Coffin. ‘Most especially, don’t brood over those which do arise. That’s just begging for a nervous breakdown – out here. Carry on.’

  Mardikian gulped and went aft.

  Coffin drifted athwartships. The vessel thrummed around him.

  He was not on watch, and had no desire to share the bridge with whoever was. He should eat something, but the idea was nauseating; he should try to sleep, but that would be useless. How long had he been with Teresa, while she cleared his mind and gave him what comfort she had to offer? A couple of hours. In fourteen hours or less, he must confront the spokesmen of crew and colonists. And meanwhile the fleet seethed.

  On Earth, he thought wearily, a choice between going on and turning back would not have drawn men so close to insanity, even if the time elements had been the same. But Earth was long domesticated. Maybe, centuries ago, when a few wind-powered hulks wallowed forth upon hugeness, unsure whether they might sail off the world’s edge, there had been comparable dilemmas. Yes, hadn’t Columbus’ men come near mutiny? Even unknown, though, and monster-peopled by superstition, Earth had not been as cruel an environment as space; nor had a caravel been as unnatural as a spaceship. Medics for hundreds of years had known how quickly a loss of external stimuli brought on hallucinations – and a cramped, sterile, vacuum-enclosed spaceship, month after month after month, began to affect the human mind rather like bandaged vision when afloat in a tank of warm water. Minds could never have disintegrated as quickly in midocean (sun and moon, wind and rain, the infinite shifting pattern of waves, the hope of catching a fish or seeing an island) as they did between the stars. It was accepted that a spaceman near the end of his year-watch was not quite sane.

  If a mind so shaky were given a perfectly genuine wrong to brood on —

  Coffin grew aware, startled, that he had wandered to the radio shack.

  He entered. It was a mere cubbyhole, one wall occupied by gleaming electronic controls, the rest full of racked equipment, tools, testers, spare parts, half-assembled units for this and that special purpose. The fleet did not absolutely need a Com officer – any spaceman could do the minimal jobs, and any officer had intensive electronics training – but Mardikian was a good, conscientious, useful technician.

  His trouble was, perhaps, only that he was human.

  Coffin pulled himself to the main receiver. A tape whirred slowly between spools, preserving what the web gathered. Coffin looked at a clipboard. Mardikian had written half an hour ago: ‘Nothing received. Tape wiped and reset, 1530 hr,’ Maybe since then—? Coffin flipped a switch. A scanner went quickly through the recording, found only cosmic noise – none of the orderliness which would have meant code or speech – and informed the man.

  Now if it had just—

  Coffin grew rigid. He floated among the mechanisms for a long time, blank-eyed as they. Alone the quick harsh breath showed him to be alive.

  O God, help me do that which is right.

  But what is right?

  I should wrestle with Thine angel until I knew. But there is no time. Lord, be not wroth with me because I have no. time.

  Anguish ebbed. Coffin got busy.

  Decision would be reached at the meeting, fourteen hours hence. A message which was to affect that decision must be received before then. But not very much before; nor very late, eleventh-hour reprieve style, either.

  What should its wording be? Coffin didn’t have to look up the previous one. It was branded on his brain. An invitation to return and talk matters over. But necessarily short, compact, with minimum redundancy: which meant an increased danger of misinterpretation.

  He braced himself before the typer and began to com- pose, struck out his words and started again, and again and again. It had to be exactly right. A mere cancellation of the first message wouldn’t do. Too pat. And a suspicion, turned over and ove
r in the mind during a year watch, could be as destructive of sanity as could an outright sense of betrayal. So…

  Since fleet now approaching equal-time point, quick action necessary. Colonization plans abandoned. Expedition ordered, repeat ordered to return to Earth. Education decree already rescinded (a man back home wouldn’t be certain the first beam had made contact) and appeals for further concessions will be permitted through proper channels. Constitutionalists reminded that their first duty is to put their skills at disposal of society.

  Would that serve? Coffin read it over. It didn’t contradict the first one; it only changed a suggestion to a command, as if someone were growing more frantic by the hour. (And a picture of near-chaos in government wasn’t attractive, was it?) The bit about ‘proper channels’ underlined that speech was not free on Earth, and that the bureaucracy could restore the school decree whenever it wished. The pompous last sentence ought to irritate men who had turned their backs on the thing which Terrestrial society was becoming.

  Maybe it could be improved, though … Coffin resumed work.

  When he ripped out Ms last version, he was astonished to note that two hours had passed. Already? The ship seemed very quiet. Too quiet. He grew feverishly aware that anyone might break in on him at any time.

  The tape could run for a day, but was usually checked and wiped every six or eight hours. Coffin decided to put his words on it at a spot corresponding to seven hours hence. Mardikian would have come off vat duty, but probably be asleep; he wouldn’t play back until shortly before the council meeting.

  Coffin turned to an auxiliary recorder. He had to tape his voice through a circuit which would alter it beyond recognition. And, of course, the whole thing had to be blurred, had to fade and come back, and to be full of squeals and buzzes and the crackling talk of the stars. No easy job to blend so many elements, in null-gee at that. Coffin lost himself in the task. He dared not do otherwise, for then he would be alone with himself.

  Plug in this modulator, add an oscillation – let’s see, where’s that slide rule, what quantities do you want for —

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Coffin twisted about. Fingers clamped on his heart.

  Mardikian floated in the doorway, looking dazed and afraid as he saw who the intruder was. ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘You’re on watch,’ breathed Coffin. ‘Vat duty.’

  ‘Tea break, sir. I thought I’d check and—’ The boy pushed himself into the shack. Coffin saw him framed in meters and transformer banks, like some futuristic saint. But sweat glistened on the dark young face, broke free and drifted in tiny spheroids toward the ventilator grille.

  ‘Get out of here,’ said Coffin thickly. And then: ‘No! I don’t mean that. Stay where you are!’

  ‘But—’ Almost, the captain could read a mind: If the old man has gone space dizzy, name of fate, whats to become of us? ‘Yes, sir.’

  Coffin licked sandy lips. ‘Everything’s okay,’ he said. ‘You surprised me, our nerves are on edge. That’s why I hollered.’

  ‘S-s-sorry, sir.’

  ‘Anyone else around?’

  ‘No, sir. All on duty or—’ I shouldn’t have told him that! Coffin read. Now he knows I’m alone with him.

  ‘Everything’s okay, son,’ repeated the captain. But his voice came out like a buzz saw cutting through bone. ‘I had a little project here I was, uh, playing with, and – uh—’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course.’ Humor him till I can get away. Then see Mr. Kivi. Let him take the responsibility. I don’t want it! I don’t want to be the skipper-in-chieft with nobody between me and the sky. Its too much. It’ll crack a man wide open.

  Mardikian’s trapped eyes circled the room. They fell on the typer, and the drafts Coffin had not yet destroyed.

  Silence closed in.

  ‘Well,’ said Coffin at last. ‘Now you know.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Mardikian could scarcely be heard.

  ‘I’m going to fake this onto the receiver tape.’

  ‘B-b— Yes, sir.’ Humor him! Mardikian’s nostrils flared with terror.

  ‘You see,’ rasped Coffin, ‘it has to look genuine. This ought to get their backs up. They’ll be more united on colonizing Rustum than they ever were before. As for me, though, I’ll resist them. I’ll claim I have my orders to turn about and don’t want to get into trouble. Finally, of course, I’ll let myself be talked into continuing, however reluctantly. So nobody will suspect me of … fraud.’

  Mardikian’s lips moved soundlessly. He was close to hysteria, Coffin saw.

  ‘It’s unavoidable,’ the captain said, and cursed himself for the roughness in his tone. Though maybe no orator could persuade this boy. What did he know of psychic breaking stress, who had never been tried to his own limit? ‘We’ll have to keep the secret, you and I, or—’ No, what was the use? Within Mairdikian’s short experience, it was so much more natural to believe that one man, Coffin, had gone awry, than to understand a month-by-month rotting of the human soul under loneliness and frustration.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Mardikian husked. ‘Of course, sir.’

  Even if he meant that, Coffin thought, he might talk in his sleep. Or I might; but the admiral, alone of the whole fleet, has a completely private room.

  He racked his tools, most carefully, and faced about. Mardikian shoved away, bulging-eyed. ‘No,’ whispered Mardikian. ‘No. Please.’

  He opened his mouth to scream, but he didn’t get time. Coffin chopped him on the neck.. As he doubled up, Coffin gripped him with legs and one hand, balled the other fist, and hit him often in the solar plexus.

  Mardikian rolled in the air like a drowned man.

  Swiftly, then, Coffin towed him down the corridor to the pharmacy room. He unlocked the alcohol barrel, tapped a hypo, diluted it with sufficient water, and injected. Lucky the fleet didn’t carry a real psychiatrist. If you broke, you went into deepsleep and weren’t revived till you got home again to the clinics.

  Coffin dragged the boy to a point near the airlock and shouted. Hallmyer came from the bridge. ‘He started raving and attacked me,’ panted the captain. I had to knock him out.’

  Mardikian was roused for a checkup, but since he only mumbled incoherently, he was given a sedative. Two men began processing him for the vat. Coffin said he would make sure the Com officer hadn’t damaged any equipment He went back to the radio shack.

  5

  Teresa Zeleny met him. She did not speak, but led him to her room.

  ‘Well,’ he said, strangling on it, ‘so we’re continuing to Rustum, by unanimous vote. Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘I was,’ she said quietly, ‘till now, when I see that you aren’t. I doubt if you’re worried about legal trouble on Earth. You have authority to ignore such orders if the situation warrants. So what is the matter?’

  He stared beyond her. ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ he said. ‘But I had to talk with someone, and only you might understand. Will you bear with me a few minutes? I won’t bother you again.’

  ‘Not till Rustum.’ Her smile was a gesture of compassion. ‘And it’s no bother.’ After waiting a bit: ‘What did you want to say?’

  He told her, in short savage words.

  She grew a little pale. The kid was actually dead drunk, and they didn’t know it when they processed him?’ she said. ‘That’s a grave risk. He might die.’

  ‘I know,’ said Coffin, and covered his eyes.

  Her hand fell on his shoulder, ‘I suppose you’ve done the only possible thing,’ she said with much gentleness. ‘Or, if there was a better way, you didn’t have time to think of it.’

  He said through his fingers, while his head turned away from her: ‘If you don’t tell on me, and I know you won’t, then you’re violating your own principles too: total information, free discussion and decision. Aren’t you?’

  She sighed. ‘I imagine so. But doesn’t every principle have its limits? How litertarian, or kind … how human can you be, out he
re?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  Then, briskly, as if she too fled something, the woman said: ‘If, as we both hope, Mardikian lives, then the truth is bound to come out when your fleet returns to Earth. So we’ll need to work out a defense for you. Or can you plead necessity?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He raised his head, and now he could speak steadily. ‘I don’t figure to skulk more than I must. Let them say what they will, eight decades hence. I’ll already have been judged.’

  ‘What?’ She retreated a pace, perhaps to see the gaunt form better. ‘You don’t mean you’ll stay on Rustum? But that isn’t necessary! We can—’

  ‘A liar … quite likely a murderer … I am not worthy to be the master of a ship.’ His tone cracked over. ‘And maybe, after all, there isn’t going to be any more space travel to come home to.’