by Darrell Bain
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Good work. Bring them directly to the surgeon's office, if you please.”
“Yes, sir.”
While they were waiting Travis and the surgeon went over the procedure they intended to follow. The com screen had already been set to record and the brain scan apparatus was ready.
When the chime sounded, Doctor Parham opened the door.
“Bring them on in, please,” he said to the two army sergeants who each held a man by the arm. To them, he said, “Please seat those men in the chairs there. This won't take long. Major Grindstaff, you can sit over here, please.” He pointed to a small couch.
“What is this!” Montingham exclaimed haughtily to Travis as he spotted the captain.
“Yes, I'm not accustomed to such high-handedness as being escorted someplace by insolent jackbooted storm troopers,” Fondez added in a tone that would have drawn a rap with a rubber hose in some places on earth.
“If you'll notice, Mister Fondez, neither of these army sergeants are wearing jackboots and in any case, they are under orders,” Travis said. “Now either be seated. Or shall I have you seated forcibly?”
“What for?” Fondez asked, obviously eying the instrument near one of the chairs with some discomfort. It was a hollow half sphere of stiff cables connecting at the apex of the curve and a single mobile screen was situated behind the chair.
Travis nodded to the two sergeants. “Seat them.”
They did so, swiftly and efficiently.
“Now, gentlemen, let me explain,” he said. “You are going to be asked some questions. You may answer them without being subjected to brain scans if you prefer but I must warn you. At the first sign of mendacity, I will have you restrained and questioned under the scan. Am I clear?”
“You have no right to do this!” Fondez shouted.
“On the contrary, as the captain of Carlsbad, I have every right.” He quickly read them both the appropriate regulations. “Now then, let's get started. Doctor Parham?”
The doctor began with Montingham, first asking him a series of innocuous questions while he stared across the room at the two stern-faced army sergeants standing at parade rest.
He answered the questions willingly at first and as it continued, he relaxed, as was intended. But then came a direct query that he could neither dodge nor answer truthfully.
“Have you told other persons in this ship that you believe Captain Callahan either personally drugged or was a party to drugging Captain Gordon in order to assume the position of captain?”
“I don't have to answer that!”
“You may either answer it or go under the mind scan.”
“I'm not going to answer any more questions!”
“Sergeant Friedman, Sergeant Toquerson, if Mister Montingham resists, please assist Doctor Parham in strapping him to the chair and setting and adjusting the helmet,” Travis said.
Parham took the helmet of magnetized cables and attempted to place it over Montingham's head while he cowered lower in the chair.
“Is it going to be necessary to use force, Mister Montingham?”
Unwillingly, he submitted to the inevitable.
Parham asked exactly the same question.
“I won't answer!”
“On the contrary, Mister Montingham, you're already answering. The scan clearly shows that you are lying when I ask you the question.”
“I don't care! It's not legal!”
“Remember the regulations the captain read you? If it weren't perfectly legal, I wouldn't be participating. Now I'm going to read some names and I'd like you to tell me which of these people you personally told that Captain Callahan was guilty of either drugging or abetting the drugging of Captain Gordon in order to take over the captaincy.”
Parham mixed those reported to have been told with others who had been questioned and had denied having heard the tale. In every case, the three areas of the brain known to be highly involved when a person lies lit up on the screen when the ones he had talked to were mentioned.
Fondez had been watching the proceedings and suspected they were being recorded. When his turn came, he said not a word but once in the seat pretended to collapse. Travis and Parham both knew it was a ruse in order to avoid the indignities Montingham had been subjected to.
“It won't do you a bit of good to pretend, Mister Fondez,” Parham said. To prove it, the doctor unobtrusively subjected him to a mild electric shock.
Fondez yelped and sat up straight.
“One way or another you're going to answer these questions,” Travis said. “You can either submit with dignity or not; it's your choice.”
The politician reacted by not saying anything. Travis grinned surreptitiously, knowing he was hoping the recording, if there was one, wouldn't be understandable to the average person. He had no idea what he was in for.
When the doctor was finished, Travis nodded to the soldiers. “Please take these two gentlemen to the brig and find them a place.”
“Yes, sir,” the senior of the two said.
“You can't put us in jail! We haven't done anything wrong!” Fondez screamed.
Montingham said nothing. His shoulders slumped in defeat.
Travis ignored both of them until they were gone then blew out a breath of air. He felt soiled somehow for having seen the depths to which the two men would go to either try gaining power or at the very least to depose him from the captaincy.
“What will you do with them?” Parham asked.
“I'm not certain yet but I have a pretty good idea. You'll hear about it in due course. Thank you very much for your assistance. I couldn't have done this without you.”
“It's nothing, Captain. I was glad to help, but do you know what bothers me? We were sending those two out to govern colonies. It's rather depressing, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Well, I'd better get back to the control room and see how we're coming along in finding us a place to live. Maybe one where politicians can't survive.”
“Lots of luck.”
* * * *
Enthusiasm ran high in the control room as they neared orbit and more and more data poured in.
“Predominantly green chlorophyll, forests, prairie, rivers and mountains on two of the three continents,” Addie related from her office by com. “Air still looks great. I think I've seen herds of herbivores but we're not quite close enough to be sure of that yet. We will be once we're in orbit, though. The carbon dioxide is fairly low by earth standards and the same holds true for nitrous oxide and methane, which suggests the planet is uninhabited by sapient beings, or at least none with a technological civilization.”
“That's great,” Travis said, feeling a sense of relief spread through his body. Earth type worlds were usually just that. They had evolved both plant and animal life, although sometimes in startlingly different forms and occasionally a world produced a strange type of growth incorporating aspects of both flora and fauna. He was glad to find out that this wasn't one of them. Those kinds of worlds were usually livable but took much more effort to tame or even to survive on them. “Sissy, how soon to orbit?”
“Less than twelve hours now, sir. We'll be ready to set the satellite free as soon as the orbit is stabilized.”
Travis had decided that since there was no chance of the ship ever taking off again once it landed, it might be a good idea to put a satellite into orbit. The machine shop was still busy fabricating it.
“It won't be ready that soon, but thanks. I'll tell the crew working on it. For now, though, I think I'd better let the rest of the ship know we're planning on staying here and let them watch a little skit as well.”
Travis finished the short speech he had recorded and immediately told the audience to keep watching. There followed a short sketch of Parham explaining the recording of Montingham and Fondez being questioned, including exactly what the areas of the brain being lit as the grilling proceeded meant.
He comm
ented after the ship's surgeon finished the enlightenment.
“These two men are now in custody. I have yet to formally decide their punishment but I will say there is absolutely no excuse for spreading vile and untrue rumors in this ship. Each and every one of us is entitled to our own opinion on matters but no one has the right to disseminate such malicious lies and for such a base and unworthy purpose. That is what Mister Montingham and Mister Fondez were doing. While I and my crew are in the process of trying our very best and working as hard as we possibly can to save this ship and the people in it, those men were hoping to have me deposed and take power themselves in some fashion I have not bothered to learn. Suffice to say that Captain Gordon is still extremely ill and unable to fill the position of captain. Until and unless he is, I shall continue to carry out my duty as I see it and in accordance with ship's regulations.
“I will repeat, once we have landed and circumstances permit, there will be free and fair elections to determine how you want to be governed, but I urge you to be patient in the meantime. This ship was not designed to land on a planet and yet we must do so in order to survive. Information on the world we are now beginning to orbit will be disseminated as quickly and efficiently as possible. For the present I can say that our scientists tell me it is very earthlike and we should be able to live there with no more than the normal problems of a new colony and our shortage of supplies.”
He hoped that playing the recording with the surgeon's explanation and the thought of the new planet they were to land on would put the rumors of drugging Captain Gordon to rest. It was wearing on him just thinking about how it must have sounded to some of the crew who knew no better. He did his best afterward to put it out of his mind because there were too many other things demanding his attention.
Once the ship was firmly in orbit he called for a conference of the top ship's officers, including Grindstaff and his XO, Lieutenant Brett Freeman, as well as First Sergeant Gomez. After introductions for those of them who didn't know everyone, he began.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I've called you together to go over our situation and I expect you to pass on what we talk about here to the personnel in your departments unless I tell you otherwise. I shall also dispense a summary of our meeting to the entire crew through normal channels.
“The first item on the agenda is picking a spot to land. I've brought Donald and Kellie Juleman along to help in that matter. As you probably already know, they were planning to be colonists on Briarport and have extensive experience and training in agricultural endeavors. Since we shall have to farm in order to survive, I'll let them go first.” He nodded to the couple, a tall tanned man with brown hair and mustache and his slightly plump but pretty wife.
Kellie Juleman began with newly taken views of the two northern continents then started pointing out the pros and cons of prospective spots. She concluded by calling up narrower views of three areas she and her husband agreed offered the most advantages.
“As you can see, all three have open areas where clearing for crops most likely won't take so much effort, yet are near water sources and more heavily forested areas, if that's the right word for the vegetation you see there. It might turn out that what hunting we do will be more profitable in denser vegetation than the more open areas. At any rate, we're trying to pick a spot close to both.” She shrugged and grinned.
Addie entered the discussion, as well as Logman and some of the others. Finally Travis cut it short after deciding there was no more useful data or arguments being offered.
“I'll leave the final choice to the Julemans. Let me know when you've decided but make it soon. Next let's talk about the actual landing. Sissy?”
She took a deep breath and caught Chief Engineer Terrell's eye before speaking. The decision over how best to land the ship had been fraught with argument between the two. “It's not going to be a simple matter of just landing, I hope you all know that. The type spaceship we're in was never designed to touch down on planets. It's going to be ticklish getting us to the ground in one piece, much less to the spot we pick. Furthermore, Mister Effers can't guarantee how the backup computers we'll have to use will perform. You all know how far off course we were when entering this system.”
“What's the main problem?” Brandon asked from his position next to Travis. “Will it be a crash landing? Should we batten down everything movable?”
“It wouldn't be a bad idea to get everyone working on that,” Terrell said. “I think it's going to be a rough ride, rougher than Sissy thinks.”
“What's your worst estimate of what might happen, James?” Travis asked.
“Well, Captain, the worst is that the ship will break up on the way down, in which case we won't have to worry about anything else.” His dour expression took on the bare hint of a smile before continuing. “I don't think it's likely but my calculations show it's possible. I believe what we're probably going to see is a very rough ride with the ship possibly losing its stability as it nears the ground and coming down hard enough to shake us up. Probably some breakage and damage to the ship, not that it'll be going into space again. That's my best case scenario. I've already told you the worst.”
“Damn. Sissy, how about you? What do you think?” Borg Johannsen, the weapons officer asked. The big Swedish officer looked worried.
“James is the engineer but I don't think it will be quite as bad as he's suggesting. I'm more concerned with not landing exactly where we intend to than anything else. In some cases, it might not matter but it damn sure would if we came down in a river or a lake, for instance!”
“Sissy, how far off could we possibly wind up from our prospective landing site?” Travis asked with real concern. He hadn't heard that particular scenario before.
“Maybe as much as ten or twenty miles, but hopefully not nearly that much. Say anything from a hundred yards to a mile or so.”
“That still presents a danger.” He turned to the Julemans. “See that the site you pick isn't near a major river or lake.”
“Sir, we need to land near a water source in case of dry seasons. One of the sites does have a pretty fair-sized river near it, and the other two are near smaller ones.”
“Pick one of the sites near the smaller rivers, then.”
“Yes, sir.”
Travis glanced down at his notes and looked back up. “Next item: I'd like to get the convicts off our hands as quickly as possible after we land. We'll use one of the tenders and drop them off on the other continent at a site where they can survive if they cooperate, but I won't lose any sleep over them either way. I'd like to assign that duty to Major Grindstaff and Mister Masters. Major, you'll provide the guard duty and Brandon, please have some of your people outfit one of tenders for prisoners and provision it with a few weapons, some seeds and enough food for a month or two. It doesn't have to be good food.”
A chuckle ran around the room as Grindstaff and Brandon nodded.
“Also, when the flight to remove the convicts takes place it can circle our landing area for fifteen or twenty miles around to give us some really sharp footage of the area we're in.
“And next, we need to set a landing date as soon as possible. Suggestions and comments?”
“The satellite will be ready to launch by day after tomorrow,” Terrell said. “We've equipped it with one of the compound scopes and it will have communication capability. About the best we can do on such short notice is a working life of around two years but during that span we can get some really close views of the terrain and its characteristics. Not as good as the tender can do, of course.”
“That ought to be enough time for us learn a lot about the place,” Travis said. “If we're not well established by then, we'll be in trouble. More trouble than we're already in, that is.”
Another chuckle.
The discussion for a landing date went on longer than Travis had intended. It diverged to include related subjects such as how far along preparations and plans were for unloading the ship and gettin
g crops started to how he intended for them to be governed once on land. Since the last was an item on the agenda he went ahead with it.
“That is a problem we're going to have to face sooner rather than later. Once anyone leaves the ship, I have no legal authority over them. On the other hand we can't all just go our own way so I expect to continue in command once we're on the ground. That will be for a limited period, though. We're going to need some other kind of government. I propose that we continue as we are now for a set period of time before having elections and deciding on how to govern ourselves. But in the meantime we almost have to have some kind of a constitutional committee or a council of informed persons to figure out just what we want. We can't elect new leaders and expect them to start from scratch. There has to be continuity.”
“How much time are you thinking of, Captain?” Grindstaff asked.
He grimaced. “God knows I don't really want this job but I'd like to make it as long as possible, consistent with the majority being satisfied with how I'm running things. A new, unexplored planet with a limited population is not a great place for politics.”
“It'll come to that soon enough, though,” Sissy said positively.
“Yes, I know. What I want us to decide now is first, how long do we wait for elections and second, how do we go about getting some people together to figure out a good form of government for this particular situation?”
“The second one is easy,” she responded. “I'm sure the professional politicians we have onboard will be more than glad to help.”
“That's what I'm afraid of. We don't need any help like I've seen so far!”
More chuckles and some outright laughter.
“I'd just as soon not have those folks involved after seeing what Montingham and Fondez were up to,” Brandon noted.
“We have to give everyone a voice, don't we?” Sissy asked. She looked around the table to see whether others agreed with her.
“Yes we do,” Travis said, “but not right at first. How about if we nominate several people we know we can trust to do a good job then ask for volunteers to sit on a committee with them?”
