«That's not the case. Any client can quit his job on the usual two weeks notice – I ought to know; I – »
«Yes, I know,» agreed Jones in a tired voice. «You're a lawyer. You know all about contracts. But the trouble with you, you dunder-headed fool, is that all you understand is legal phrases. Free contract – nuts! What I'm talking about is
Wingate emptied his glass and set it down. «So I'm a dunder-headed fool, am I? Well, I'll tell you what you are, Sam Houston Jones – you are a half-baked parlor pink. You've never had to work for a living in your life and you think it's just too dreadful that anyone else should have to. No, wait a minute,» he continued, as Jones opened his mouth, «listen to me. The company's clients on Venus are a damn sight better off than most people of their own class here on earth. They are certain of a job, of food, and a place to sleep. If they get sick, they're certain of medical attention. The trouble with people of that class is that they don't want to work – »
«Who does?»
«Don't be funny. The trouble is, if they weren't under a fairly tight contract, they'd throw up a good job the minute they got bored with it and expect the company to give 'em a free ride back to Earth. Now it may not have occurred to your fine, free charitable mind, but the company has obligations to its stockholders – you, for instance! – and it can't afford to run an interplanetary ferry for the benefit of a class of people that feel that the world owes them a living.»
«You got me that time, pal,» Jones acknowledged with a wry face, « – that crack about me being a stockholder. I'm ashamed of it.»
«Then why don't you sell?»
Jones looked disgusted. «What kind of a solution is that? Do you think I can avoid the responsibility of
«Oh, the devil with it,» said Wingate. «Drink up.»
«Righto,» agreed Jones. It was his first night aground after a practice cruise as a reserve officer; he needed to catch up on his drinking. Too bad, thought Wingate, that the cruise should have touched at Venus —
«All out! All out! Up
He opened his eyes again, and with trembling willpower forced them to track. Legs moved past his eyes, denim clad legs mostly, though some were bare – repulsive hairy nakedness. A confusion of male voices, from which he could catch words but not sentences, was accompanied by an obligate of metallic sounds, muffled but pervasive – shrrg, shrrg, thump! Shrrg, shrrg, thump! The thump with which the cycle was completed hurt his aching head but was not as nerve stretching as another noise, a toneless whirring sibilance which he could neither locate nor escape.
The air was full of the odor of human beings, too many of them in too small a space. There was nothing so distinct as to be fairly termed a stench, nor was the supply of oxygen inadequate. But the room was filled with the warm, slightly musky smell of bodies still heated by bedclothes, bodies not dirty but not freshly washed. It was oppressive and unappetizing – in his present state almost nauseating.
He began to have some appreciation of the nature of his surroundings; he was in a bunkroom of some sort. It was crowded with men, men getting up, shuffling about, pulling on clothes. He lay on the bottom-most of a tier of four narrow bunks. Through the interstices between the legs which crowded around him and moved past his face he could see other such tiers around the walls and away from the walls, stacked floor to ceiling and supported by stanchions.
Someone sat down on the foot of Wingate's bunk, crowding his broad fundament against Wingate's ankles while he drew on his socks. Wingate squirmed his feet away from the intrusion. The stranger turned his face toward him. «Did I crowd 'ja, bud? Sorry.» Then he added, not unkindly, «Better rustle out of there. The Master-at-Arms'll be riding you to get them bunks up.» He yawned hugely, and started to get up, quite evidently having dismissed Wingate and Wingate's affairs from his mind.
«Wait a minute!» Wingate demanded hastily.
«Huh?»
«Where am I? In jail?»
The stranger studied Wingate's bloodshot eyes and puffy, unwashed face with detached but unmalicious interest. «Boy, oh boy, you must 'a' done a good job of drinking up your bounty money.»
«Bounty money? What the hell are you talking about?»
«Honest to God, don't you know where you are?»
«No.»
«Well ... « The other seemed reluctant to proclaim a truth made silly by its self-evidence until Wingate's expression convinced him that he really wanted to know. «Well, you're in the
A couple of minutes later the stranger touched him on the arm. «Don't take it so hard, bud. There's nothing to get excited about.»
Wingate took his hands from his face and pressed them against his temples. «It's not real,» he said, speaking more to himself than to the other. «It can't be real – »
«Stow it. Come and get your breakfast.»
«I couldn't eat anything.»
«Nuts. Know how you feel ... felt that way sometimes myself. Food is just the ticket.»
The Master-at-Arms settled the issue by coming up and prodding Wingate in the ribs with his truncheon.
«What d'yuh think this is – sickbay, or first class? Get those bunks hooked up.»
«Easy, mate, easy,» Wingate's new acquaintance conciliated, «our pal's not himself this morning.» As he spoke he dragged Wingate to his feet with one massive hand, then with the other shoved the tier of bunks up and against the wall. Hooks clicked into their sockets, and the tier stayed up, flat to the wall.
«He'll be a damn sight less himself if he interferes with my routine,» the petty officer predicted. But he moved on. Wingate stood barefooted on the floorplates, immobile and overcome by a feeling of helpless indecision which was reinforced by the fact that he was dressed only in his underwear. His champion studied him.
«You forgot your pillow. Here – « He reached down into the pocket formed by the lowest bunk and the wall and hauled out a flat package covered with transparent plastic. He broke the seal and shook out the contents, a single coverall garment of heavy denim. Wingate put it on gratefully. «You can get the squeezer to issue you a pair of slippers after breakfast,» his friend added. «Right now we gotta eat.»
The last of the queue had left the galley window by the time they reached it and the window was closed. Wingate's companion pounded on it. «Open up in there!»
It slammed open. «No seconds,» a face announced.
The stranger prevented the descent of the window with his hand. «We don't want seconds, shipmate, we want firsts.»
«Why the devil can't you show up on time?» the galley functionary groused. But he slapped two ration cartons down on the broad sill of the issuing window. The big fellow handed one to Wingate, and sat down on the floorplates, his back supported by the galley bulkhead.
«What's your name, bud?» he inquired, as he skinned the cover off his ration. «Mine's Hartley – 'Satchel' Hartley.»
«Mine is Humphrey Wingate.»
«Okay, Hump. Pleased to meet 'cha. Now what's all this song and dance you been giving me?» He spooned up an impossible bite of baked eggs and sucked coffee from the end of his carton.
«Well,» said Wingate, his face twisted with worry, «I guess I've been shanghaied.» He tried to emulate Hartley's method of drinking, and got the brown liquid over his face.
«Here – that's no way to do,» Hartley said hastily. «Put the nipple in your mouth, then don't squeeze any harder than you suck. Like this.» He illustrated. «Your theory don't seem very sound to me. The company don't need crimps when there's plenty of guys standing in line for a chance to sign up. What happened? Can't you remember?»
Wingate tried. «The last thing I recall,» he said, «is arguing with a gyro driver over his fare.»
