Carter's discussion with Foran was concluded. He trundled back toward them and said: "Right; we'll take the hoist lift down. I want to see how Commander Baker is getting along with the drive installations."
As the creaking, swaying lift made its way through the centre of the massive hull, it was like going down past the various levels of some half-completed, highly technical hell. Thick cables led off in all directions like great serpents, and men in brightly coloured coveralls crawled, swung and crouched everywhere like attendant demons. The whole was lit by the flashing of welding torches, and sound effects were provided by the clanging, whining cacophony of metal being trimmed and shaped. The sound seemed amplified by the rounded shape of the hull, bouncing from one surface to another and smashing in on the human ear with a daemonic ferocity that caused Helen and her companions to don the earmuffs that were part of their protective clothing.
Finally the lift slanted down away from the engine area and passed out of the bottom of the hull through a smaller vent into a clearing in the forest of hydraulic jack's. The activity in this area was no less intense, but the noise at least was slightly more bearable. Reaching ground level, the lift stopped with a bump and the party stepped off onto the fused rock floor, and into a bewildering metropolis of trucks, handling machinery and piles of dumped material.
"There's Commander Baker," said Carter.
Ten meters away from them, a long-limbed officer in blue coveralls stood with his. back to them, bawling instructions through a loud-hailer. He was looking upward, toward a team of men who were having some difficulty in manoeuvring a huge, cone-shaped piece of metal which Helen recognized as an auxiliary drive jet
As she followed Carter across the floor, Helen reflected that seldom in her service career had she heard such a colourful and inventive stream of profanity as that being pumped out of the loud-hailer in the direction of the struggling engineers.
"Afternoon, Baker, how's it going?" asked Carter, as they reached the officer.
Commander Baker lowered the loud-hailer and turned to face them. "Going? This palsied lot of ruptured eunuchs? Got their tiny brains in their arses! But we'll manage somehow, I guess."
Admiral Carter nodded. "You usually do. Now, if you can spare a moment, I'd like you to meet Lieutenant Commander Lindstrom and CPO Panos—the Second in Command and Warrant Officer of this tub. Panos puts up his new rank at the end of the week."
Commander Baker turned to look at Helen and her companion. "Glad to know you, Commander." Baker shook hands heartily.
"Commander Baker," acknowledged Helen, looking up at the broom-handle figure and hard-bitten features of the tall officer. There was little doubt that Commander Baker had seen all kinds of service, and he must now be over the age when regulations demanded that he should be grounded.
"Nick Panos," Baker said, moving forward and thrusting out a gloved hand toward the CPO. "Long time no see!"
"Commander." CPO Panos* face darkened slightly as he shook hands with the officer. "Glad to see you again."
Baker turned to Helen, baring discoloured teeth in a death's head grin. "Finest bloody PO in the Corps, you've got here, Commander. Glad you're making warrant rank, Nick."
Helen watched the engineer closely. There was something about Baker, something that she was unable to define, that left her with a feeling of uneasiness.
"Fine!" Baker said, punching Panos in his ample middle. He turned to Carter. "I wanted to have a word with you and Chalovsky about these damned auxiliary jets—they're hell to install, and they're not going to be much better when it comes to any servicing. If we could allow slightly more space . .."
"Why don't we go up and take a look?" Carter said.
"Yes, that would be best." Commander Baker and the Admiral walked across to a small a/g lift and began to float up toward the party of engineers, who were still struggling with the jet.
"The Admiral will never make grade A as a tourist guide, will he?" Helen said, with a grin as she and Panos watched them go. "Maybe it would have been best if he'd let us mooch around and find our own way about."
"What, and miss the pleasure of showing off his baby?" Panos said.
They dodged to one side to avoid a hooting lift truck.
"You've served with just about everybody, seems to me," Helen said. "Where did you know Commander Baker from?"
"She was an engineer on Venturer Eight" Panos said.
Helen gaped. "She?"
"Why, sure—First Lieutenant Sarah Baker she was then," Panos said.
Helen stared up at the a/g lift, at the angular, sexless figure that towered a good six inches above the squat form of Admiral Carter.
"My God!" she murmured, unable to restrain a shudder.
"Commander?" said the CPO, his head slightly to one side, questioning.
"Nothing, Panos, nothing," she said briskly.
Back in her quarters, Helen Lindstrom peeled off her clinging uniform and headed thankfully for the shower. It had been a long, energy-sapping day. Afterward, dried, powdered and perfumed, she put on a robe and walked through into the sitting room.
Corps officers' quarters at the shipyard were comfortable, if not luxurious. In the sitting room there was a multi-channel TV, an automatic-selection stereo tape player, a vidphone and a small bar. Air conditioned and insulated against the intrusion of any extraneous
noise, it was a place where an officer could enjoy complete privacy during off-duty hours—a luxury that was hardly possible during service in space—and it was thus all the more appreciated.
With the stereo playing quietly, she poured herself a glass of fine sherry and sat down, attempting by self- imposed calmness to quell her twitching muscles and raw nerve endings. The music was ancient, although the recording was modern—Harold Greenberg playing the Bach Partita in E Major. Normally she found the clean, weaving lines of the single violin soothing in their logical progression, but this evening the magic failed to work.
Rising impatiently, she strode across and switched off the tape player.
Exasperated further by her own lack of inner resource, she switched on the TV. She found a news magazine program. A silver-haired, young-faced commentator, wearing old-fashioned, dark rimmed glasses, was speaking.
". . . the Court of Inquiry into the Athena colonization ship disaster, which begins on Tuesday in Lake Cities, with Supreme Court Judge Alote Jones presiding."
Helen leaned forward, her attention caught at last, as the commentator continued.
"Still on the subject of the Athena disaster, head of the Excelsior Corporation Legal Department, Alger Morton, held a news conference which was attended by representatives from all media."
The studio scene dissolved, to be replaced by a head and shoulders shot of a thin-faced man with slicked- down, dark hair. Helen shuddered at the coldness of the eyes and the uncompromising mouth.
"We at Excelsior welcome a full and unrestricted inquiry into all the circumstances leading to the Athena
disaster. We are fully aware of our public duty and we have nothing to hide.
"Aspersions have already been cast on the character of Captain Lacombe. I would remind you that Captain Lacombe is no longer able to defend himself, but we are prepared to produce sworn testimony of the highest authority that in all his years of service, Captain Lacombe never swerved from loyalty and devotion to his task as an interstellar ship commander. Excelsior will accept no gag nor any white-washing. We stand for humanity and freedom, the freedom to speak the truth
Helen clenched her fists as she stared at the narrow face on the screen.
Morton continued: "We shall produce expert testimony to prove that there is considerable doubt as to whether the Athena, if allowed to continue on the course she was following at the time of her destruction, would indeed have come within a million miles of Earth! If this is the case, then logically it must follow that the lives of these poor people were sacrificed needlessly, sacrificed by a quasi-military organization that hides its incompetence under a cloak of
security. Security against what? Could it be against the truth?"
The pinched face of the lawyer faded from the screen, to be replaced by that of the commentator.
"Mr. Morton, the head of Excelsior Corporation's Legal Department was speaking at a press conference earlier today. With tension rising, the Court of Inquiry promises to be the biggest legal event of the year."
She switched off the TV. On Tuesday her career, her relationship with Tom Bruce, would be placed ruthlessly on the public dissection table.
She walked across to the vidphone and switched it on.
"Get me Commander Bruce, at System Patrol HQ."
The picture fuzzed into an abstract pattern, then a few seconds later re-formed into a human face. But it was not the face she had hoped to see.
"Good evening, Commander," PO Dockridge said cheerfully. "I'm afraid Commander Bruce isn't here at present. He and Lieutenant Takaki are putting the command ship through her paces."
"I ... see," Helen said, unable to hide her disappointment.
"He should be back in a couple of hours," Dockridge said helpfully. "Would you like me to give him a message?"
"No, Dockridge, no message. Don't tell him I called. It's not important."
Dockridge's face lost some of its jauntiness. "Is everything all right, Commander?" he asked.
She felt a sudden surge of nostalgia for the familiar surroundings of System Patrol, for the people she had known and worked with for so long.
"Thank you, Dockridge. Good night," she said sharply and switched off the vidphone. The quiet of the room began to close in on her again. Flinging off the robe, she started to dress.
Twenty minutes later she was seated on a high stool against the bar counter in the officers' mess. She was beginning to realize that she was just as much alone here as she had been in the privacy of her quarters. The number-two uniform had been a mistake too; this was mainly a transit mess, and nobody seemed to be wearing anything more formal than number threes. Some were even in civilian clothes. She sat, staring moodily into an ice-frosted glass of aperitif, still feeling out of place.
She had almost decided to empty her glass and retreat back to her quarters without going through the prolonged ordeal of eating alone, when a hoarse voice spoke at her elbow.
"Hello there, Commander. Mind if I join you?"
She turned her head and found herself looking up into the lined, weather-beaten face of Commander Sarah Baker. Baker was wearing a dog-eared, rather faded suit of number threes. Her short-cut, greyish hair was neatly brushed, and in a cursory gesture of femininity she had outlined her thin lips with deep red lipstick. In combination with her irregular, brownish teeth, the effect was not entirely successful, Helen decided. And then, suffering a sudden attack of conscience about having such bitchy thoughts, she returned Baker's smile with warmth.
"Of course. What will you have?"
Baker, almost predictably, called for bourbon on the rocks, which she drank quickly, at one swallow.
"Ah! That's better," she said, thrusting the glass across the counter. The steward was ready with an immediate refill, as if used to this evening ritual. "After a day out there, a couple of drinks are the only thing that can bring you back to feeling like a human being again."
"That's quite a job you're doing, Commander," Helen said. "I can understand that it must be a strain; the noise alone would fray my edges."
"Hell! You get used to it." Baker tackled her second drink with the same speed, and Helen found herself wondering just how long she sustained this pace. "The name's Sarah, by the way. What's yours?"
"Helen."
Baker's gray eyes swept appraisingly over Helen's immaculate figure. "Good! Suits you. Have another drink, Helen."
The look left Helen with a curiously uneasy feeling, but not wishing to appear unsociable, she agreed.
This time Baker took only a mouthful of her whisky and replaced her glass on the counter. "Smoke?" she said, producing a packet of dark, thin cigars.
Helen shook her head. "No thanks, I don't." The cigars, she noted, were the same brand that Tom Bruce smoked.
"Good for you; filthy habit," Baker said, lighting up. "Well, what did you think of Twelve?"
"She's going to be a fine ship."
"The best," Baker said, her lined face wreathed in blue smoke. "I envy you, going out in her."
"Panos was telling me you were in Venturer Eight"
Baker grimaced. "Yes, and I haven't been off this damned planet since. Med/Psyche grounded me for some stupid reason."
"I'm sorry."
"Comes to all of us in the end," Baker said. "Look at old Junius—he'd give his testicles to be back out there in the big blue, but instead he has to make do with building ships for people who can. Still, it's better than early retirement; that's the real killer."
Helen felt a surge of sympathy for this hard-bitten, slightly grotesque woman, with her mannish figure and life-battered face. After perhaps twenty years of devotion to her chosen profession, after giving the most meaningful part of her life, she was, in effect, on the scrapheap. Other women of her age had husbands, children and grandchildren, but for someone like Sarah Baker there was nothing to look forward to but a useless, lonely retirement. Life, the normal life of a woman, was something that women like Baker never had the chance to experience. Women like Baker; Helen realized with a stab of pain that what she was really thinking was women like me.
"Panos was telling me you had trouble with Venturer
Eight," Helen said, making a desperate effort to keep her tone conversational.
"Uh-uh. She was a bitch." Baker downed her drink and ordered another. "They spent eighteen months trying to iron out the bugs in her steering system. They got it right, and then the first time we got out beyond Mars the whole damned shoot junked again and we had to call for help."
Helen listened, personal heart-searchings forgotten as Baker talked of the voyage of Venturer Eight. Plunging back into memory, the strange bony features of the woman took on a new life, seeming to bring back the image of the younger, less hard-bitten female creature who had once inhabited that gaunt frame.
Some twenty minutes later, even though she had drunk only three glasses against Baker's half-dozen or more, Helen was beginning to feel a certain headiness, and to have difficulty in focusing her eyes properly. "Phew!" she exclaimed, grasping the edge of the counter as a sudden dizziness hit her.
"What's the matter?" asked Baker.
"Stupid of me," Helen said. "I'm not much of a drinker, and I didn't have any lunch."
"You poor kid!" Baker said, putting one strong brown hand on Helen's arm. "Here am I blowing off like this, and you're starving."
"Not really," Helen said. 'But I suppose I ought to eat something."
"In that case, why don't we go along to my quarters?" Baker said. "I could fix you up with a snack, an omelette maybe?"
"Very kind of you," Helen said. In her present state she was quite prepared to have her decisions made for her.
"The food in this mausoleum is only fit for spacemen and horses anyway," Baker said, grinning. "You’ll be far better off with my cooking." Slipping her arm through Helen's, she helped her down from the stool. The two of them walked out of the officers' mess together.
Baker's quarters were the exact duplicate of those Helen herself was occupying; the same pastel-coloured walls, carpets and built-in amenities. Despite the fact that Baker must have occupied these rooms for some time, and would most probably do so for some time to come, the only mark of individuality was a large painting which hung on the wall at right angles to the TV screen.
Seated alone on the sofa, while Sarah Baker played host at the bar, Helen's eyes were drawn irresistibly to the painting. Executed in curiously shimmering oils, its subject was a slim, dark-haired girl of considerable beauty. The girl was wearing a long pink dress of some semi-transparent material, possibly chiffon, and she was dancing. Captured in this frozen moment, the artist had somehow managed to conv
ey at the same time a dynamic impression of movement. Against the background of a starry night sky, the girl danced eternally, with her arms outstretched, her eyes looking toward something, or somebody, who was out of sight beyond the border of the canvas.
"How beautiful!" Helen said, completely captivated by the portrait.
"Romantic twaddle!" Sarah Baker said gruffly, thrusting an ice-tinkling glass into Helen's hand. "I call it 'Star Dancer.'"
"You painted it?" Helen said, looking up into the lined features.
Sarah Baker nodded. "Used to do quite a lot at one time. Made a change from bloody engine rooms and the stink of grease." She sat down beside Helen.
"I'm not much of a judge, but I think it's very good," Helen said sincerely. It crossed her mind that the painting was in some strange way a self-portrait of Sarah Baker, not as she ever was, but as she might have been, in her dreams, many years before. As she realized this, Helen felt a bond of sympathy with Baker stronger than anything that had gone before.. This woman had experienced all the conflicts, all the misgivings about herself as a woman and at the same time a Corps officer, that Helen had been going through. In an unconscious expression of this rare moment of understanding, Helen reached out and touched Sarah Baker's hand, holding it with a gentle firmness.
Baker's response was immediate and shattering. Helen fought to free herself from the grasp of those wry arms, whimpering in terror as she realized just how disastrously misjudged her gesture of sympathy had been. The struggle was brief. Baker was probably more than a match for Helen physically. Certainly in the first moments of the struggle she had the advantage; but when their faces came close together, and she recognized the disgust and loathing in Helen's eyes, the heart went out of her. Releasing her grip, she turned her back on Helen and slumped into the corner of the sofa, head in her hands.
Shivering with shock and horror, Helen stood up and rearranged her uniform. Then, without a word, she bolted from the room, slamming the door behind her.
Her own quarters were mercifully near. She opened the door with trembling hands and staggered through into the bathroom, where she retched up the acid contents of her stomach. Afterward, she stood shivering, regarding her streaming eyes and smeared face in the mirror and cursing herself for being such a stupid, naive fool.
A Thunder Of Stars Page 8
