Orphans of the Sky

  Narby watched the roster clerk check off the Ship's officers as they arrived, worried under a bland countenance. There were only a few more to arrive; he would soon have no excuse not to notify the Captain that the meeting was ready—but he had received no word from Joe-Jim and Hoyland. Had that fool Alan managed to get himself killed on the way up to deliver the word? Had he fallen and broken his worthless neck? Was he dead with a mutie's knife in his belly?

  Ertz came in, and before seeking his seat among the department heads, went up to where Narby sat in front of the Captain's chair. "How about it?" he inquired softly.

  "All right," Narby told him, "but no word yet."

  "Hm-m-m-" Ertz turned around and assayed his support in the crowd. Narby did likewise. Not a majority, not a certain majority, for anything as drastic as this. Still—the issue would not depend on voting.

  The roster clerk touched his arm. "All present, sir, except those excused for sickness, and one on watch at the Converter."

  Narby directed that the Captain be notified, with a sick feeling that something had gone wrong. The Captain, as usual, with complete disregard for the comfort and convenience of others, took his time about appearing. Narby was glad of the delay, but miserable in enduring it. When the old man finally waddled in, flanked by his orderlies, and settled heavily into his chair, he was, again as usual, impatient to get the meeting over. He waved for the others to be seated and started in on Narby.

  "Very well, Commander Narby, let's have the agenda—you have an agenda, I hope?"

  "Yes, Captain, there is an agenda."

  "Then have it read, man, have it read! Why are you delaying?"

  "Yes, sir." Narby turned to the reading clerk and handed him a sheaf of writings. The clerk glanced at them, looked puzzled, but, receiving no encouragement from Narby, commenced to read: "Petition, to Council and Captain: Lieutenant Braune, administrator of the village of Sector 9, being of frail health and advanced age, prays that he be relieved of all duty and retired—" The clerk continued, setting forth the recommendations of the officers and departments concerned.

  The Captain twisted impatiently in his chair, finally interrupted the reading. "What is this, Narby? Can't you handle routine matters without all this fuss?"

  "I understood that the Captain was displeased with the fashion in which a similar matter was lately handled. I have no wish to trespass on the Captain's prerogatives."

  "Nonsense, man! Don't read Regulations to me. Let the Council act, then bring their decision to me for review."

  "Yes, sir." Narby took the writing from the clerk and gave him another. The clerk read.

  It was an equally fiddling matter. Sector 3 village, because of an unexplained blight which had infected their hydroponic farms, prayed for relief and a suspension of taxes. The Captain put up with still less of this item before interrupting. Narby would have been sorely pressed for any excuse to continue the meeting had not the word he awaited arrived at that moment. It was a mere scrap of parchment, brought in from outside the hall by one of his own men. It contained the single word, "Ready." Narby looked at it, nodded to Ertz, and addressed the Captain:

  "Sir, since you have no wish to listen to the petitions of your Crew, I will continue at once with the main business of this meeting." The veiled insolence of the statement caused the Captain to stare at him suspiciously, but Narby went on. "For many generations, through the lives of a succession of Witnesses, the Crew has suffered from the depredations of the muties. Our livestock, our children, even our own persons, have been in constant jeopardy. Jordan's Regulations are not honored above the levels where we live. Jordan's Captain himself is not free to travel in the upper levels of the Ship.

  "It has been an article of faith that Jordan so ordained it, that the children pay with blood for the sins of their ancestors. It was the will of Jordan—we were told.

  "I, for one, have never been reconciled to this constant drain on the Ship's mass." He paused.

  The old Captain had been having some difficulty in believing his ears. But he found his voice. Pointing, he squealed, "Do you dispute the Teachings?"

  "I do not. I maintain that the Teachings do not command us to leave the muties outside the Regulations, and never did. I demand that they be brought under the Regulations!"

  "You . . . you—You are relieved of duty, sir!"

  "Not," answered Narby, his insolence now overt, "until I have had my say."

  "Arrest that man!" But the Captain's orderlies stood fast, though they shuffled and looked unhappy—Narby himself had selected them.

  Narby turned back to the amazed Council, and caught the eye of Ertz. "All right," he said. "Now!" Ertz got up and trotted toward the door. Narby continued, "Many of you think as I do, but we always supposed that we would have to fight for it. With the help of Jordan, I have been able to establish a contact with the muties and arrange a truce. Their leaders are coming here to negotiate with us. There!" He pointed dramatically at the door.

  Ertz reappeared; following him came Hugh Hoyland, Joe-Jim, and Bobo. Hoyland turned to the right along the wall and circled the company. He was followed single file by a string of muties—Joe-Jim's best butcher boys. Another such column trailed after Joe-Jim and Bobo to the left.

  Joe-Jim, Hugh, and half a dozen more in each wing were covered with crude armor which extended below their waists. The armor was topped off with clumsy helms, latticeworks of steel, which protected their heads without greatly interfering with vision. Each of the armored ones, a few of the others, carried unheard-of knives—long as a man's arm!

  The startled officers might have stopped the invasion at the bottleneck through which it entered had they been warned and led. But they were disorganized, helpless, and their strongest leaders had invited the invaders in. They shifted in their chairs, reached for their knives, and glanced anxiously from one to another. But no one made the first move which would start a general bloodletting.

  Narby turned to the Captain. "What about it? Do you receive this delegation in peace?"

  It seemed likely that age and fat living would keep the Captain from answering, from ever answering anything again. But he managed to croak, "Get 'em out of here! Get 'em out! You—You'll make the Trip for this!"

  Narby turned back to Joe-Jim and jerked his thumb upward. Jim spoke to Bobo—and a knife was buried to the grip in the Captain's fat belly. He squawked, rather than screamed, and a look of utter bewilderment spread over his features. He plucked awkwardly at the hilt as if to assure himself that it was really there. "Mutiny—" he stated. "Mutiny—" The word trailed off as he collapsed into his chair, and fell heavily forward to the deck on his face.

  Narby shoved it with his foot and spoke to the two orderlies. "Carry it outside," he commanded. They obeyed, seeming relieved at having something to do and someone to tell them to do it. Narby turned back to the silent watching mass. "Does anyone else object to a peace with the muties?"

  An elderly officer, one who had dreamed away his life as judge and spiritual adviser to a remote village, stood up and pointed a bony finger at Narby, while his white beard jutted indignantly. "Jordan will punish you for this! Mutiny and sin—the spirit of Huff!"

  Narby nodded to Joe-Jim; the old man's words gurgled in his throat, the point of a blade sticking out under one ear. Bobo looked pleased with himself.

  "There has been enough talk," Narby announced. "It is better to have a little blood now than much blood later. Let those who stand with me in this matter get up and come forward."

  Ertz set the precedent by striding forward and urging his surest personal supporters to come with him. Reaching the front of the room, he pulled out his knife and raised the point. "I salute Phineas Narby, Jordan's Captain!"

  His own supporters were left with no choice. "Phineas Narby, Jordan's Captain!"

  The hard young men in Narby's clique—the backbone of the dissident rationalist bloc among the scientist priests—joined the swing forward en masse, points raised high and shouting for
the new Captain. The undecided and the opportunists hastened to join, as they saw which side of the blade was edged. When the division was complete, there remained a handful only of Ship's officers still hanging back, almost all of whom were either elderly or hyperreligious.

  Ertz watched Captain Narby look them over, then pick up Joe-Jim with his eyes. Ertz put a hand on his arm. "There are few of them and practically helpless," he pointed out. "Why not disarm them and let them retire?"

  Narby gave him an unfriendly look. "Let them stay alive and breed mutiny. I am quite capable of making my own decisions, Ertz."

  Ertz bit his lip. "Very well, Captain."

  "That's better." He signaled to Joe-Jim. The long knives made short work.

  Hugh hung back from the slaughter. His old teacher, Lieutenant Nelson, the village scientist who had seen his ability and selected him for scientisthood, was one of the group. It was a factor he had not anticipated.

  World conquest—and consolidation. Faith, or the Sword. Joe-Jim's bullies, amplified by hot-blooded young cadets supplied by Captain Narby, combed the middle decks and the upper decks. The unities, individualists by the very nature of their existence and owing no allegiance higher than that to the leaders of their gangs, were no match for the planned generalship of Joe-Jim, nor did their weapons match the strange, long knives that bit before a man was ready.

  The rumor spread through mutie country that it was better to surrender quietly to the gang of the Two Wise Heads—good eating for those who surrendered, death inescapable for those who did not.

  But it was nevertheless a long slow process—there were so many, many decks, so many miles of gloomy corridors, so many countless compartments in which unreconstructed muties might lurk. Furthermore, the process grew slower as it advanced, as Joe-Jim attempted to establish a police patrol, an interior guard, over each sector, deck, and stairway trunk, as fast as his striking groups mopped them up.

  To Narby's disappointment, the two-headed man was not killed in his campaigns. Joe-Jim had learned from his own books that a general need not necessarily expose himself to direct combat.

  Hugh buried himself in the Control Room. Not only was he more interested in the subtle problems of mastering the how and why of the complex controls and the parallel complexity of starship ballistics, but also the whole matter of the blood purge was distasteful to him—because of Lieutenant Nelson. Violence and death he was used to; they were commonplace even on the lower levels—but the incident made him vaguely unhappy, even though his own evaluations were not sufficiently clean-cut for him to feel personal responsibility for the old man's death.

  He just wished it had not happened.

  But the controls—ah! There was something a man could put his heart into. He was attempting a task that an Earthman would have rejected as impossible—an Earthman would have known that the piloting and operation of an interstellar ship was a task so difficult that the best possible technical education combined with extensive experience in the handling of lesser spacecraft would constitute a barely adequate grounding for additional intensive highly specialized training for the task.

  Hugh Hoyland did not know that. So he went ahead and did it anyhow.

  In which attempt he was aided by the genius of the designers. The controls of most machinery may be considered under the head of simple pairs, stop-and-go, push-and-pull, up-and-down, in-and-out, on-and-off, right-and-left, their permutations and combinations. The real difficulties have to do with upkeep and repair, adjustment and replacements.

  But the controls and main drive machinery of the starship Vanguard required no upkeep and no repair; their complexities were below the molar level, they contained no moving parts, friction took no toll and they did not fall out of adjustment. Had it been necessary for him to understand and repair the machines he dealt with, it would have been impossible. A fourteen-year-old child may safely be entrusted with a family skycar and be allowed to make thousand-mile jaunts overnight unaccompanied; it is much more probable that he will injure himself on the trip by overeating than by finding some way to mismanage or damage the vehicle. But if the skycar should fall out of adjustment, ground itself, and signal for a repair crew, the repair crew is essential; the child cannot fix it himself.

  The Vanguard needed no repair crew—save for nonessential auxiliary machinery such as transbelts, elevators, automassagers, dining services, and the like. Such machinery which necessarily used moving parts had worn out before the time of the first Witness; the useless mass involved had gone into the auxiliary Converter, or had been adapted to other simpler purposes. Hugh was not even aware that there ever had been such machinery; the stripped condition of most compartments was a simple fact of nature to him, no cause for wonder.

  Hugh was aided in his quest for understanding by two other facts:

  First, spaceship ballistics is a very simple subject, being hardly more than the application of the second law of motion to an inverse-square field. That statement runs contrary to our usual credos; it happens to be true. Baking a cake calls for much greater, though subconscious, knowledge of engineering; knitting a sweater requires a grasp of much more complex mathematical relationships. The topology of a knitted garment—but try it yourself sometime!

  For a complex subject, consider neurology, or catalysts—but don't mention ballistics.

  Second, the designers had clearly in mind that the Vanguard would reach her destination not sooner than two generations after her departure; they wished to make things easy for the then-not-yet-born pilots who would control her on arrival. Although they anticipated no such hiatus in technical culture as took place, they did their best to make the controls simple, self-explanatory, and foolproof. The sophisticated fourteen-year-old mentioned above, oriented as he would be to the concept of space travel, would doubtless have figured them out in a few hours. Hugh, reared in a culture which believed that the Ship was the whole world, made no such quick job of it.

  He was hampered by two foreign concepts, deep space and metrical time. He had to learn to operate the distance finder, a delayed-action, long-base, parallax type especially designed for the Vanguard, and had taken readings on a couple of dozen stellar bodies before it occurred to him that the results he was getting could possibly mean anything. The readings were in parsecs and meaningless emotionally. The attempt with the aid of the Sacred books to translate his readings into linear units he could understand resulted in figures which he felt sure were wrong, obviously preposterous. Check and recheck, followed by long periods of brooding, forced him unwillingly into some dim comprehension of astronomical magnitudes.

  The concepts frightened him and bewildered him. For a period of several sleeps he stayed away from the Control Room, and gave way to a feeling of futility and defeat. He occupied the time in sorting over the women available; it being the first time since his capture by Joe-Jim long ago that he had had both the opportunity and the mood to consider the subject. The candidates were numerous, for, in addition to the usual crop of village maidens, Joe-Jim's military operations had produced a number of prime widows. Hugh availed himself of his leading position in the Ship's new setup to select two women. The first was a widow, a strong competent woman, adept at providing a man with domestic comforts. He set her up in his new apartment, high up in low-weight, gave her a free hand, and allowed her to retain her former name of Chloe.

  The other was a maiden, untrained and wild as a mutie. Hugh could not have told himself why he picked her. Certainly she had no virtues, but—she made him feel funny. She had bitten him while he was inspecting her; he had slapped her, naturally, and that should have been an end to the matter. But he sent word back later for her father to send her along.

  He had not got around to naming her.

  Metrical time caused him as much mental confusion as astronomical distances, but no emotional upset. The trouble was again the lack of the concept in the Ship. The Crew had the notion of topological time; they understood "now," "before," "after," "has been," "will
be," even such notions as long time and short time, but the notion of measured time had dropped out of the culture. The lowest of earthbound cultures has some idea of measured time, even if limited to days and seasons, but every earthly concept of measured time originates in astronomical phenomena—the Crew had been insulated from all astronomical phenomena for uncounted generations.

  Hugh had before him, on the control consoles, the only working timepieces in the Ship—but it was a long, long time before he grasped what they were for, and what bearing they had on other instruments. But until he did, he could not control the Ship. Speed, and its derivatives, acceleration and flexure, are based on measured time.

  But when these two new concepts were finally grasped, chewed over, and ancient books reread in the light of these concepts, he was, in a greatly restricted and theoretical sense, an astrogator.

  Hugh sought out Joe-Jim to ask him a question. Joe-Jim's minds were brilliantly penetrating when he cared to exert himself; he remained a superficial dilettante because he rarely cared.

  Hugh found Narby just leaving. In order to conduct the campaign of pacification of the muties it had been necessary for Narby and Joe-Jim to confer frequently; to their mutual surprise they got along well together. Narby was a capable administrator, able to delegate authority and not given to useless elbow jogging; Joe-Jim surprised and pleased Narby by being more able than any subordinate he had ever dealt with before. There was no love wasted between them, but each recognized in the other both intelligence and a hard self-interest which matched his own. There was respect and grudging contemptuous liking.

  "Good eating, Captain," Hugh greeted Narby formally.

  "Oh—hello, Hugh," Narby answered, then turned back to Joe-Jim. "I'll expect a report, then."

  "You'll get it," Joe agreed. "There can't be more than a few dozen stragglers. We'll hunt them out, or starve them."

  "Am I butting in?" Hugh asked.

  "No—I'm just leaving. How goes the great work, my dear fellow?" He smiled irritatingly.