Emily’s heart thumped with unreasonable violence. She clasped her hands tightly to her breast, because one of them had been sneaking toward McConnell’s broad paw. ‘Oh?’ she said out of dry lips. ‘I mean, really?’
‘Yes. An’ sorry I am that our work distresses yez. I can only hope to make amends later. But trust we’ll have fifty or sixty years for that!’
‘Er, yes,’ said Emily.
‘What?’ roared McConnell. He spun on his heel, laid his hands about her waist, and stared wildly down into her eyes. ‘Did I hear ye say yes?’
‘I … I … I – No, please listen to me!’ wailed Emily, pushing against his chest. ‘Let go! I mean, all I wanted to say was, if you don’t really care how this business comes out, if you really don’t think Lois is worth risking a war over and—’ She drew a deep breath and tacked a smile on her face. Now was the time to distract him, as Mr. Syrup had requested. ‘And if you really want to please me, R-r-r-ro—Major McConnell, then why don’t you help us right now? Just let us make that sparky osculator or whatever it is to call New Winchester for help, and everything will be so nice and – I mean—’
His hands fell to his sides and his mouth stretched tight. He turned from her, leaned on the instrument board and stared out at the constellations.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve given me oath to support the Force to the best of me ability. Did I turn on me comrades, there’d be worse than hellfire waitin’ for me, there’d be the knowin’ of meself for less than a man.’
Emily moistened her lips. There must be some way to distract him, she thought frantically. That beautiful lady agent in The Son of the Spider, the one who lured Sir Frederic Banton up to her apartment while the Octopus stole the secret papers from his office – She stood frozen among thunders, unable to bring herself to it, until another memory came, some pictures of an accidental atomic explosion of Callisto and its aftermath. That sort of thing might be done to little children, deliberately, if there was a war.
She stole up behind McConnell, laid her cheek against his back and her arms around his waist. ‘Oh, Rory,’ she said.
‘What?’ He spun around again. He was so quick on his feet she didn’t have time to let go and was whipped around with him. ‘Where are ye?’ he called.
‘Here,’ she said, picking herself up.
She leaned on his arm – she had never before known a man who could take her whole weight thus without even stirring – and forced her eyes toward his. ‘Oh, Rory,’ she tried again.
‘What do ye mean?’ It was a disquieting surprise that he did not sweep her into his embrace, but stood rigidly and stared.
‘Rory,’ she said. Then, feeling that her conversation was too limited, she got out in a rush of words: ‘Let’s just forget all these awful things. I mean, let’s just stay up here and, and, and I’ll explain about Duncanism to you and, well, I mean don’t go back to the engine room, please!’
He said in a rasp: ‘So ’tis me ye’d be keepin’ up here whilst auld Syrup does what he will in the stern? An’ what do ye offer me besides conversation?’
‘Everything!’ said Emily, taking an automatic cue from the beautiful lady agent vs. Sir Frederic; because her own mind felt full of glue and hammers.
‘Everything, eh?’
Suddenly his arm jerked from beneath her. She fell in a heap. The green-clad body towered above, up and up and up, and a voice like gunfire crashed:
‘So that’s the game, is it? So ye think I’d sell the honor of the McConnells for – for – Why, had I known yez for what ye are, I’d not have given yez a second look the third time we met. An’ to think I wanted yez for the mother of me sons!’
‘No,’ cried Emily. She sat up, hearing herself call like a stranger across light-years. ‘No, Rory, when I said everything I didn’t mean everything! I just—’
‘Never mind,’ he snarled, and went from the bridge. The door cracked shut behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Knud Axel Syrup paused a moment in the after transverse corridor. The bulkhead which faced him bore a stencilled KEEP OUT and three doors: the middle one directly to the engine room, the right-hand one to the machine shop, and the left to his small private cabin. These two side chambers also had doors opening directly on the engine room. It made for a lack of privacy distressing in the present cloak-anddagger situation.
However, the wild Erseman would no doubt be up on the bridge for hours. Herr Syrup sighed, a little enviously, and went through the central door.
‘Awwrk,’ said Claus, flapping in from the cabin. ‘Nom d’un nom d’une vache! Schweinhund! Sanamabiche!’
‘Exactly,’ said Herr Syrup. He entered the little bathroom behind the main energy converter and extracted a bottle of beer from a cooler which he had installed himself. Claus paced impatiently along a rheostat. Herr Syrup crumbled a pretzel for him and poured a little beer into a saucer. The crow jabbed his beak into the liquid, tilted back his black head, shook out his feathers, and croaked: ‘Gaudeatnus igitur!’
‘You’re velcome,’ said Herr Syrup. He inspected the locked electrical cabinet. Duplicating a Yale key would call for delicate instruments and skilled labor. After latching all doors to the outside, he went into the machine shop, selected various items, and returned. First, perhaps, a wire into the slot…
The main door shivered under a mule kick. Faintly through its insulated metal thickness came a harsh roar: ‘Open up, ye auld scut, or I’ll crack the outer hatches an’ let ye choke!’
‘Yumping Yupiter,’ said Herr Syrup.
He pattered across the room and admitted Rory McConnell, who glared down upon him and snarled: ‘So ’tis up to your sneakin’ tricks ye are again, eh? Throw a pretty face an’ long legs at me an’ – Aaargh! Be off wi’ yez!’
‘But,’ bleated Herr Syrup. ‘But vas you not talkin’ vit’ Miss Croft?’
‘I was,’ said McConnell. ‘’Tis not a mistake I’ll make ag’in. Go tell her to save her charms for bigger fools than me. I’m goin’ to sleep now.’ He tore off his various weapons, laid them beside his pack, and sat down on the floor. ‘Git out!’ he rapped, fumbling at a boot zipper. His face was like fire. ‘Tomorry perhaps I can look at ye wi’ out bokin’!’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Herr Syrup.
‘Oh, shucks,’ said Claus, though not in just those words.
Herr Syrup picked up his miscellaneous tools and stole back into the workshop. A moment afterward he remembered his bottle of beer and stuck his head back through the communicating door. McConnell threw a boot at him. Herr Syrup closed the door and toddled out to make another requisition on the cargo.
Having done so, he stopped by the saloon. Emily was there, her face in her arms, her body slumped over the table and shuddering with sobs. At the far end sat Sarmishkidu, puffing his Tyrolean pipe and making calculations.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Herr Syrup again, helplessly.
‘Can you console her?’ asked Sarmishkidu, rolling an eye in his direction. ‘I have endeavored to do so, and am sorry to report absolute failure.’
Herr Syrup took a strengthening pull from his bottle.
‘You see,’ explained the Martian, ‘her noise distracts me.’
He fumed smoke for a dour moment. ‘I should at least think,’ he whined, ‘that having dragged me here, away from my livelihood and all the small comforts which mean so much to a poor lonely exile among aliens like myself – sustaining, heartening consolations which already I find myself in sore need of – namely a table of elliptic integrals – having so ruthlessly forced me into the trackless depths of outer space, and apparently not even to any good purpose, she would have the consideration not to sit there and weep at me.’
‘Dere, dere,’ said Herr Syrup, patting the girl’s shoulder.
‘Uhhhhh,’said Emily.
‘Dere, dere, dere,’ continued Herr Syrup.
The girl raised streaming eyes and sobbed pathetically: ‘Oh, go to hell.’
‘Vat happened vit’ you a
nd de mayor?’
A bit startled, Emily sniffed out: ‘Why, nothing, unless you mean that time last year when he asked me to preside at the Ladies’ Potato Race, during the harvest festi—Oh I The Major!’ She returned her face to her arm. ‘Uhhhh-hoo-hoo-hoo!’
‘I gather she tried to seduce him and failed,’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘Naturally, her professional pride is injured.’
Emily leaped to her feet. ‘What do you mean, professional?’ she screeched.
‘Warum, nothing,’ stammered Sarmishkidu, retreating into a different character. ‘I just meant your female prides. All women are females by profession, nicht war? That is a joke. Ha, ha,’ he added, to make certain he would be understood.
‘And I didn’t try to – to – Oh!’ Emily stormed out of the saloon. A string of firecracker Greek trailed after her.
‘Vat is she saying?’ gaped Herr Syrup.
Herr von Himmelschmidt turned pale. ‘Please don’t to ask,’ he said. ‘I did not know she was familiar with that edition of Aristophanes.’
‘Helledusse!’ said the engineer moodily. ‘Ve ban hashed now.’
‘Hmmm,’ muttered Sarmishkidu. ‘It is correct that the enemy is armed and we are not. Nevertheless, it is an observational datum that there are three of us and only one of him, and so if we could separate him from his weapons, even briefly, and—’
‘And?’
‘Oh. Well, nothing, I suppose.’ Sarmishkidu brooded. ‘True,’ he said at last, ‘one of him would still be equivalent to four or five of us.’ He pounded the table with an indignant hand. Since the hand, being boneless, merely flopped when it struck, this was not very dramatic. ‘It is most unfair of him,’ he squeaked. ‘Ganging up on us like that.’
Herr Syrup stiffened with thought.
‘Unlautere Wettbewerb,’ amplified the Martian.
‘Do you know—’ whispered the Dane.
‘What?’
‘I hate to do dis. It does not seem right. I know it is not right. But by Yoe, maybe he ban asleep now!’
The idea dawned on Sarmishkidu. ‘Well, I’ll be an unelegandy proven lemma,’ he breathed. ‘So he doubtless is.’
‘And for veapons, in de machine shop is all de tools. Like wrenches, hammers, vire cable—’
‘Blowtorches,’ added Sarmishkidu eagerly. ‘Hacksaws, sulfuric acid—’
‘No, hoy, vait dere! Just a minute! I don’t vant to hurt him. Yust a little bonk on de head to make him sleep sounder, vile ve tie him up, dat’s all.’ Herr Syrup leaped erect. ‘Let’s go!’
‘Good luck,’ said Sarmishkidu, returning to his calculations.
‘Vat? But hey! Is you leaving me to do dis all alone?’
Sarmishkidu looked up. ‘Go!’ he said in a ringing croak. ‘Remember the Vikings! Remember Gustavus Adolphus! Remember King Christian standing by the high mast in smoke and steam! The blood of heroes is in your veins. Go, go to glory!’
Fired, Herr Syrup started for the door. He stopped there and asked wistfully, ‘Don’t you vant a little glory too?’
Sarmishkidu blew a smoke ring and scribbled an equation. ‘I am more the intellectual type,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ Herr Syrup sighed and went down the corridors. His resolution endured till he actually stood in the workshop, by the glow of a dim night light, hefting a pipe wrench. Then he wavered.
The sound of deep, regular breathing assured him that Major McConnell slept in the adjoining bedchamber. But—‘I don’t vant to hurt him,’ repeated Herr Syrup. ‘I could so easy clop him too hard.’ He shuddered. ‘Or not hard enough. I better make another requisition on de cargo first. … No. Here ve go.’ Puffing out his mustache and mopping the sweat off his pate, the descendant of Vikings tiptoed into the engine room.
Rory McConnell would scarcely have been visible at all, had his taste in pajamas not run to iridescent synthesilc embroidered with tiny shamrocks. As it was, his body, sprawled on a military bedroll, seemed in the murk to stretch on and on, interminably, besides having more breadth and thickness than was fair in anything but a gorilla. Herr Syrup hunkered shakily down by the massive red head, squinted till he had a spot, just behind one ear identified, and raised his weapon.
There was a snick of metal. The wan light glimmered along a pistol barrel. It prodded Herr Syrup’s nose. He let out a yelp and broke all Olympic records for the squatting high jump.
Rory McConnell chuckled. ‘I’m a sound sleeper when no one else comes sneakin’ close to me,’ he said, ‘but I’ve hunted in too many forests not to awaken thin. Goodnight, Mister Syrup.’
‘Goodnight,’ said Knud Axel Syrup in a low voice.
Blushing, he went back to the machine room. He waited there a moment, ashamed to return to his cabin past McConnell and yet angry that he must detour. Oh, the devil with it! He heard the slow breath of slumber resume. Viciously, he slammed his tool back into the rack loudly enough to wake an estivating Venusian. The sleeper did not even stir. And that was the unkindest cut of all.
Stamping his feet, slamming doors, and kicking panels as he went by – all without so much as breaking the calm rhythm of Rory McConnell’s lungs – Herr Syrup took the roundabout way to his cabin. He switched on the light and pointed a finger at Claus. The crow hopped off the Selected Works of Oehlenschlager and perched on the finger.
‘Claus,’ said Herr Syrup, not quite bellowing, ‘repeat after me: McConnell is a louse. McConnell is no good. McConnel eats vorms. On Friday. McConnell—’
—slept on.
Herr Syrup decided at last to retire himself. With a final sentence for Claus to memorize, an opinion in crude language of Major McConnell’s pajamas, he took off his own clothes and slipped a candy-striped nightshirt over his head. Stretched out in his bunk, he counted herrings for a full half hour before realizing that he was more awake than ever.
‘Satans ogsaa,’ he mumbled, and switched on the light and reached at random for a book. It turned out to be a poetry anthology. He opened it and read:
‘—The secret workings of the yeast of life.’
‘Yudas,’ he groaned. ‘Yeast.’
For a moment Herr Syrup, though ordinarily the gentlest of men, entertained bloodshot fantasies of turning the ship’s atomic-hydrogen torch into a sort of science fiction blaster and burning Major McConnell down. Then he decided that it was impractical and that all he could do was requisition a case of lager and thus get to sleep. Or at least pass the night watch more agreeably. He decorated his feet with outsize slippers and padded into the corridor.
Emily Croft jumped. ‘Oh!’ she squeaked, whipping her robe about her. The engineer brightened a little, having glimpsed that her own taste in sleeping apparel ran merely to what nature had provided.
‘Vich is sure better dan little green clovers,’ he muttered.
‘Oh … you startled me.’ The girl blinked. ‘What did you say?’
‘Dat crook in dere.’ Herr Syrup jerked a splay thumb at the engine room door. ‘He goes to bed in shiny payamas vit’ shamrocks measled all over.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Emily. ‘I hope his wife can teach him—’ She skidded to a halt and blushed. ‘I mean, if any woman would be so foolish as to have such a big oaf.’
‘I doubt it,’ snarled the Dane. ‘I bet he snores.’
‘He does not!’ Emily stamped her foot.
‘Oh-ho,’ said Herr Syrup. ‘You ban listening?’
‘I was only out for a constitutional in the hope of overcoming an unfortunate insomnia,’ said Miss Croft primly. ‘It was sheer chance which took me past here. I mean, nobody who can lie there like a pig and, and sleep when—’ She clouded up for a rainstorm. ‘I mean, how could he?’
‘Vell, but you don’t care about him anyvay, do you?’
‘Of course not! I hope he rots, I mean decays. No, I don’t actually mean that, you know, because even if he is an awful lout he is still a human being and, well, I would just like to teach him a lesson. I mean, teach him to have more consideration for others and not go ri
ght to sleep as if nothing at all had happened, because I could see that he was hurt and if he had only given me a chance to explain, I – Oh, never mind!’ Emily clenched her fists and stamped her foot again. ‘I’d just like to lock him up in there, since he’s sleeping so soundly. That would teach him that other people have feelings even if he doesn’t!’
Herr Syrup’s jaw dropped with an audible clank.
Emily’s eyes widened. One small hand stole to her mouth. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘is anything wrong?’
‘By yiminy,’ whispered Herr Syrup. ‘By yumping yiminy.’
‘Oh, really now, it isn’t that bad. I mean, I know we’re in an awful pickle and all that sort of thing, but really—’
‘No. I got it figured. I got a vay to get de Erser off of our necks!’
‘What?’
‘Ja, ja, ja, it is so simple I could beat my old knucklebone brains dat I don’t t’ink of it right avay. Look, so long as ve stay out of de engine room he sleeps yust like de dummy in a bridge game vaiting for de last trump. No? Okay, so I close all de doors to him, dere is only t’ree, dis main vun and vun to my cabin and vun to de vorkshop. I close dem and veld dem shut and dere he is!’
Emily gasped.
She leaned forward and kissed him.
‘Yudas priest,’ murmured Herr Syrup faintly. His revolving eyeballs slowed and he licked his lips. ‘T’ank you very kind,’ he said.
‘You’re wonderful!’ glowed Emily, brushing mustache hairs off her nose.
And then, suddenly: ‘No. No, we can’t. I mean, he’ll be right in there with the machinery and if he turns it off—’
‘Dat’s okay. All de generators and t’ings is locked in deir shieldings, and dose keys I have got.’ Herr Syrup stumped quickly down the hall and into the machine shop. ‘His gun does him no good behind velded alloy plating.’ He selected a torch, plugged it in, and checked the current. ‘So. Please to hand me dat helmet and apron and dose gloves. Don’t look bare-eyed at de flame.’
Gently, he closed the side door. Momentarily he was terrifield that McConnell would awaken: not that the Erseman would do him any harm, but the scoundrel was so unfairly large. However, even the reek of burning paint, which sent Emily gagging back into the corridor, failed to stir him.
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