Excellency R’thagna Bar almost as much as they did his seed.
Hansen went back to his reading, only to be interrupted with increasing frequency by message transmissions from an increasingly alarmed Sector Headquarters. Most messages were addressed to Bullard, and were bravely designed to disguise the senders’ hysteria, while at the same time urging Bullard on to more magnificent efforts. A few messages, fairly representative of the state of affairs as time wore on reflected an increasing suspicion on the part of Sector Headquarters that Quemos and Bullard, although certainly tops in their fields, were not tops enough.
SEC HDQ BULLARD, COM. RLY. 43.4SC
PRESIDENT WOULD LIKE ESTIMATE OF WHEN DOOR WILL BE OPENED. YOU SURE YOU CAN HANDLE? EMPHASIZE THAT POLITICAL SITUATION NOW GETTING TOUCHY. REPEAT TOUCHY. R’THAGNA BAR CALLING ON PRESIDENT TODAY TO MAKE DEMAND THAT SEED BE PLANTED ON TIME. SURE YOU DON’T NEED MORE HELP?
CMD GENERAL
CMD GENERAL
NO HELP NEEDED. MAKING PROGRESS, ASSURE PRESIDENT. TODAY FOUND OUT METAL IN MECHANISM IS VERY HARD. IN CONSTANT RADIO TOUCH WITH FROMER. PASSENGER IMPATIENT BUT QUIETER. SLEEPS MORE NOW. THIS SIGNIFICANT? QUEMOS DEVELOPING THEORY OF MECHANISM. SAYS WILL TAKE TIME TO WORK OUT. HOW MUCH TIME WE HAVE? WHEN MUST SEED BE PLANTED?
BULLARD
SEC. HDQ. BULLARD, COM. RLY. 43.4SC
MUST HAVE ESTIMATE WHEN DOOR OPENS. THIS AN ORDER. AMBASSADOR THREATENING WAR. CAN’T GIVE DEADLINE OF SEED PLANTING TIME SINCE SUBJECT VERY TABOO. OUR BIOLOGISTS SAY R’THAGNA BAR SLEEPY SIGNIFICANT. MAY BE PRELUDE TO SEEDING TIME. TELL ABOUT QUEMOS THEORY IN NEXT COMMUNICATION. WILL EVALUATE HERE. NICE TO KNOW METAL IS HARD. KEEP UP GOOD WORK. PRESSURE HERE TO SEND YOU HELP. PRESIDENT SAYS WHOLE FEDERATION PRAYING FOR DOOR TO BE FIXED. SAYS TO HURRY UP.
CMD GENERAL
CMD GENERAL
NO ESTIMATE POSSIBLE. QUEMOS THEORY ALMOST COMPLETE. STATES THAT MECHANISM BUILT ON PRINCIPLE OF WORM GEAR. REPEAT. WORM GEAR. TODAY INSTRUCTED FROMER’S CREW TO JIGGLE MOVING PARTS OF MECHANISM AT RANDOM. PARTS WOULD NOT JIGGLE. FROMER STATES THAT R’THAGNA BAR SLEEPS ALL TIME AND COLOR CHANGES TO BLUE AND RED ON STOMACH. THIS SIGNIFICANT?
BULLARD
SEC HDQ BULLARD, COM. RLY 43.4SC
IMPORTANT YOU AMPLIFY LAST MESSAGE. RED AND BLUE ON STOMACH? WHY R’THAGNA BAR UNDRESSED? INVESTIGATE! PRESIDENT ORDERS HELP SENT. HELP ON WAY. REPEAT. WHY R’THAGNA BAR UNDRESSED?
CMD GENERAL
CMD GENERAL
FROMER ADVISES TELL YOU SHIPS PHYSICIAN HAS PUT R’THAGNA BAR IN REFRIGERATOR.
QUEMOS
SEC HDQ QUEMOS. COM. RLY. 43.4SC.
TAKE OUT OF REFRIGERATOR! THIS AN ORDER! WHY UNDRESSED?
CMD GENERAL
CMD GENERAL
BULLARD MAKING MODEL OF MY DRAWINGS. READY SOON. R’THAGNA BAR OUT OF REFRIGERATOR AS REQUESTED BUT SHIPS PHYSICIAN VERY ANGRY AND WANTS TO PUT BACK IN. COLOR ON STOMACH PINK AND YELLOW WITH BLUE SQUARES. THIS SIGNIFICANT?
QUEMOS
It went on like this for several more days. Hansen, at first amused, was now alarmed and completely convinced that both Quemos and Bullard were thoroughly useless. The messages were his only source of information, since both “experts” were too immersed in their work to talk with him. As his alarm grew, he decided that he might at least try to strike up a friendship with someone on board Captain Fromer’s sealed ship—someone who might have something comforting to report. He called up the ship’s navigator.
“This is Hansen. How’re things going up there?”
“Ha!”
“What’s that mean? Good or bad?”
“It means,” the navigator said, while yawning, “that things are falling apart rapidly. In fact, in a day or two I don’t think it’ll make much difference whether or not they open that damn door.”
“You, er, care to fill me in?”
“Why not?” said the navigator, with the voice of a man who knows that it is too late for anything to matter. “The members of the crew are divided into two factions. It appears that our physician has rallied half the crew to support his medical contention that our exhalted passenger belongs in the refrigerator. The good captain, with some justice, one must admit, thinks that he is in command of the ship, and prefers to believe that R’thagna Bar belongs out of the refrigerator.”
“Who seems to be winning the argument?”
“Argument? There’s no argument, old man—it’s open warfare. No weapons aboard, of course, but the two teams are grappling up and down the corridors and shuttling our exhalted passenger in and out of the ice box about four times each hour. Quite a sight, really. Right now he’s in the refrigerator, but the other team—”
“Let me know who’s ahead from time to time, will you?” Hansen heard himself say.
“Glad to oblige,” the navigator said, yawning again. “Oh, incidentally, have they sent for help yet?”
Hansen said with some surprise, “Why, as a matter of fact, Sector Headquarters is sending some help. How did you know?”
“Bound to happen sooner or later, old man. When the going really gets tough they always get around to sending a Gypsy. Only way to get anything done, you know.”
“I don’t know,” Hansen said reluctantly. “Why is it that everyone knows except me? What, please, is a Gypsy?”
“You’re too young to know everything, old man,” the navigator said. “You’re especially too young to know about one of the Federation’s best kept secrets. But you might as well, I suppose. The fact is that a Gypsy is a generally vagrant, dirty, thieving, clever scoundrel who will not work, who has absolutely no respect for order or authority, who believes that our institutions are effete and—”
“But then why—”
“Patience, patience,” cautioned the navigator, haughtily, “if I am to reveal everything I know, I must do it in my own way. The description I just gave you is not necessarily true. It is simply the way that Sector Headquarters feels about Gypsies. Common jealousy, really. It seems that from time to time, our perfect little galactic society spawns men who don’t care to be cast in the common mold. In short, there are a few men around with brains who don’t think that it means very much to wear pretty uniforms or fancy titles.”
“Uniforms like yours?” asked Hansen.
“Precisely,” the navigator said sadly. “The truth of the matter is, of course, that I only play at being a navigator. I couldn’t get this ship off course, if I tried. The same is true with the four engineering officers who stand around watching the Hegler drive units. They occasionally make a ceremonial adjustment, but beyond that, they simply stand around looking pretty.”
“No moving parts.” Hansen said.
“No moving brains, if you like. Anyway, a Gypsy has—somewhere along the line—learned how to do things. They’ll take an emergency call about once a year—if they happen to feel like it. Then they charge about half a million credits.”
“You mean they have an organization, standard rates and—”
“Heavens no!” the navigator said. “They hate anything that smells like organization. They don’t even
