Read Online The Robert Silverberg Science Fiction MEGAPACK® by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online Page B

when we blurped back into the continuum about half a light-year from Shaula the human factor entered the situation. Meaning Murchison, of course.
    It was his job to check and tend the network of telemetering systems that acted as the ship’s eyes, to make sure the mass-detectors were operating, to smooth the bugs out of the communications channels between navigator and captain and drive-deck. In brief, he was the man who made it possible for us to land.
    Every ship carried a spare signalman, just in case. In normal circumstances the spare never got much work. When the time came for the landing, Captain Knight buzzed me and told me to start lining up the men who would take part, and I signaled Murchison first.
    His voice was a slow rasping drawl. “Yeah?”
    “Second Officer Loeb. Prepare for landing, double-fast. Navigator Henrichs has the chart set up for you and he’s waiting for your call.”
    There was a pause. Then: “I don’t feel like it, Loeb.”
    It was my turn to pause. I shut my eyes, held my breath, and counted to three by fractions. Then I said, “Would you mind repeating that, Signalman Murchison?”
    “Yes, sir. No, sir, I mean. Hell, Loeb, I’m fixing something. Why do you want to land now?”
    “I don’t make up the schedules,” I said.
    “Then who in blazes does? Tell him I’m busy!”
    I turned down my phones’ volume. “Busy doing what?”
    “Busy doing nothing. Get off the line and I’ll call Henrichs.”
    I sighed and broke contact. He’d just been ragging me. Once again, Murchison had been ornery for the sheer sake of being ornery. One of these days he was going to refuse to handle the landing entirely.
    And that day, I told myself, is the day we’ll crate him up and shove him through the disposal lock.
    Murchison was a little island. He had his skills, and he applied them—when he felt like it. But only when he believed that he, Murchison, would profit. He never did anything unwillingly, because if he couldn’t find it in himself to do it willingly he wouldn’t do it at all. It was impossible to make him do something.
    Unwisely, we tolerated it. But someday he would get a captain who didn’t understand him, and he’d be slapped with a sentence of mutiny during a fit of temperament. For his sake, I hoped not. The penalty for mutiny in space is death.
    * * * *
    With Murchison’s cooperation gratefully accepted, we targeted on Shaula II, which was then at perihelion, and orbited it. Down in his little cubicle Murchison worked like a demon, taking charge of the ship’s landing system in a tremendous way. He was a fantastic signalman when he wanted to be.
    Later that day the spinning red ball that was Shaula II hung just ahead of us, close enough to let us see the three blobs of continents and the big, choppy hydrocarbon ocean that licked them smooth. The Terran base on Continent Three beamed as a landing-guide; Murchison picked it up, fed it through the computer bank to Navigator Henrichs, and we homed in for the landing.
    The Terran base consisted of a couple of blockhouses, a sprawling barracks, and a good-sized radar parabola, all set in a ring out on an almost mathematically flat plain. Shaula II was a great world for plains; Columbus would have had the devil’s time convincing people this world was round!
    Murchison guided us to a glassy-looking area not far from the base, and we touched down. The Felicific creaked and groaned a little as the landing jacks absorbed its weight. Green lights went on all over the ship. We were free to go outside.
    A welcoming committee was on hand: eight members of the base staff, clad in shorts and topees. Regulation uniforms went by the board on oven-hot Shaula II. The eight looked awfully happy to see us.
    Coming over the flat sandy plain from the base were a dozen or so others, running, and behind them I could see even more. They were understandably glad we were here. Twenty-eight of them had spent a full year on Shaula II; they were