“Sorry,” admitted Pirx.
McGuirr turned to the others, who were stationed around a circular table littered with magazines.
“Men, meet Commander Pirx, your new CO. Commander, your crew: John Calder, chief pilot; Harry Brown, copilot; Andy Thomson, nucleonics engineer; John Burton, radio-electronics engineer, and Thomas Bums, neurologist, cyberneticist, and medic all rolled into one.”
Pirx shook hands with each, then all sat down, sliding their metal-framed chairs, which bent under the weight of their bodies, up closer to the table. Silence reigned until it was rent by McGuirr’s stentorian baritone.
“On behalf of the board of directors of Cybertronics, Inteltron and Nortronics, thank you for showing such confidence in our undertaking. To avoid any possible misunderstandings, I should warn you that some among us were born of mothers and fathers, others not. Each knows of his own origin, but not of the others’. You’ll be decent enough, I trust, not to probe or pry. Otherwise, you will have a completely free hand. They will be conscientious, and show initiative and character, both on and off duty. But when asked who or what they are, they have all been taught a standard reply: normal human beings. It’s not a matter of lying but of necessity, dictated by our mutual interest.”
“No questions asked; is that it?”
“Of course you can ask. But since no one will be above suspicion, why bother, frankly? True or false, you’ll always get the same answer.”
“Which is it in your case?” asked Pirx.
There was a split second’s pause before all burst out laughing, McGuirr’s cackle being the loudest.
“You
A straight-faced Pirx waited for the laughter to die down.
“The joke’s on me, in other words?”
“I beg your pardon! The deal spoke of a ‘new type of crew’; it said nothing about its uniformity. We just wanted to forestall any … purely irrational bias. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? We’re only trying to create the optimal test conditions, to ensure maximum impartiality.”
“Thanks loads!” said Pirx. “Well, tricked or not, I’m not backing out. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get acquainted with my”—he hesitated—“people…”
“Hear them recite their qualifications, you mean? By all means! Don’t mind me! Shoot!”
McGuirr extracted a cigar from the upper pocket of his smock, cropped the end, and lit it, while five pairs of serene and attentive eyes reposed on Pirx’s face. The two blonds, both pilots, looked somewhat alike, though Calder had more Scandinavian features, his curly hair looking almost sun-bleached. Brown’s was the color of gold; his doll-like, cherubic features, as of a male fashion model, having a prettiness offset only by the jaws and the constant, seemingly sardonic curl of his colorless thin lips. A white scar ran diagonally across his cheek from the left-hand corner of his mouth. It was on him that Pirx’s gaze settled first.
“Great…” he said, as if in delayed response to McGuirr’s invitation, and in the same almost offhand tone, he inquired of the man with the scar:
“Do you believe in God?”
Brown’s lips quivered—a suppressed smile? an ironic sneer?—but he made no immediate answer. He looked freshly shaven, a few hairs in the vicinity of his ear and the flecks of foam visible on his cheeks testifying to a job done in some haste.
“Not my department, sir,” he answered in a pleasant, purling voice.
McGuirr, caught off guard by Pirx’s question, his eyes blinking, suddenly exhaled a trapped puff of cigar smoke, as if to say, “How’s that for a comeback?”
“Mr. Brown,” said Pirx in the same phlegmatic voice, “you haven’t answered my question.”
“Sorry, Commander, but as I said, it’s not my—”
“As your commanding officer, I’m the one who decides what your duties are.”
McGuirr’s face registered surprise. Throughout this exchange, the others sat like model pupils, stiff-backed and with undivided attention.
“If that’s an order,” answered Brown in his soft, clearly modulated baritone, “I can only say I haven’t been sufficiently trained to deal with that problem.”
“Well, think it over for tomorrow. Your signing on will depend on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pirx turned to Calder, and their eyes met. The suite’s spacious window was reflected in the chief pilot’s nearly transparent irises.
“You’re a pilot?”
“I am.”
“Your credentials?”
“I’m certified in team piloting, I’ve soloed two hundred ninety hours on low tonnage, and I’ve made ten solo landings, including four on the Moon and two on Mars and Venus.”
Pirx, seemingly unimpressed, went on to the next.
“Burton,” he said, “are you the radio-electronics engineer?”
“Yes.”
“How many rems per hour can you take?”
The man twitched his lips, barely mustering a smile.
“About four hundred, I guess,” he said. “Tops. More than that, and it’s off to sick bay.”
“No more than four hundred?”
“I—no, I don’t think so.”
“Home state?”
“Arizona.”
“Any illnesses?”
“None. Or at least nothing serious.”
“How’s your eyesight?”
“Good.”
Pirx was attending less to what was being said than to the sound of each man’s voice, to its modulation and pitch, to the movements of the facial muscles and lips. There were times when he gave way to the senseless hope that it was all a grand but silly hoax intended to make fun of his gullible faith in the omnipotence of technology. Or maybe to punish him for it. Because these were plain, ordinary human beings. That secretary was crazy—oh, the power of prejudice! And to think that she even took McGuirr…
Until now, it would have been a fairly routine briefing, if not for his none-too-subtle God question. Not only was that not subtle, it was also in bad taste, sophomoric. Pirx could feel it in his bones; he was a real klutz for trying a cute stunt like that. They were still staring at him, except Thomson, the redhead, and the two pilots seemed more poker-faced than before, as if to conceal the fact that they were wise to the deep-down klutziness of this drone who’d just seen his glib, customary, and ever-so-pat composure blown. He felt compelled to go on, to put an end to the silence, which was growing more incriminating by the second, but his mind drew a blank, leaving only despair to tempt him into doing something wild, screwy, something that, in his heart of hearts, he knew he could never bring himself to do. He’d made a fool of himself; it was time to quit; his eyes sought out McGuirr.
“When can I board?”
“Any time you like. Today, even.”
“What about the health inspection?”
“All arranged. Don’t worry about it.”
The engineer sounded indulgent, or so it seemed to Pirx. “I
“That’s it for now. Except for Brown, consider yourselves signed on. Brown, be ready tomorrow with the answer to my question. Mr. McGuirr, do you have the ship’s articles ready for signing?”
“I have, but not with me. They’re up in the office. Shall we?”
“Let’s.”
Pirx stood up, and the others did the same.
“Until tomorrow.” He nodded, and was the first to exit. The engineer caught up with him by the elevator.
