“Alex Sherret? Good heavens, so it is. All that face fungus fooled me. You’ve lost a bit of weight, too. Come and sit down, boy. Have a drink.”
“I’d rather have something to eat, sir.”
“Help yourself from that heap. All fresh—today’s offerings.”
Bagshaw became all fat buttocks as he reached behind his chair for another which lay there folded. He dragged it back with a grunt, failed to get the rods in the right slots, and let it subside in shapeless disorder.
“Damn silly things,” he said and abandoned it.
Again, Sherret found it hard to believe that this flushed, careless drunk, all sweaty paunch and flabby limbs, was Captain Robert Bagshaw, one-time Number One Cadet of the Space Academy, champion middleweight boxer of the Space Corps, Fifth Division, renowned disciplinarian, chess master—and total abstainer. For that was as Sherret remembered him. His old hero.
“Have a drink, Alex,” Bagshaw said again.
Sherret had a mouth full of newly baked bread, but he said, muffledly, “Thanks, I will. I need one.”
“Don’t we all?” said the Captain, heaving the wineskin onto his enormous thighs. He poured two large glasses of orange liquid.
“Damn stuff looks like orangeade in this yellow light,” he said. “Don’t let that fool you—it isn’t. In white light, in the ship, it’s red. In the red time, it’s a beautiful dark ruby. Heart’s blood, we call it. Native brew. Potent. It’ll be the death of me. Cheers.”
Sherret watched him over the rim of his glass.
“Is the ship—” he began, and choked as a fireball exploded in his gullet. Captain Bagshaw guffawed. “You’ll get used to that delayed action in time.”
When Sherret could speak, he tried again, “Is the ship still being run under Reparism?”
“Good lord, no. Repairism is passe—don’t you know?”
There was more than a trace of bitterness in Bagshaw’s tone. He took another gulp of the brew.
“Goffism is the bright new hope of Earth,” he went on. “Don’t believe in it myself. Don’t believe in anything much any more.”
“You don’t have Goffism here, then?”
“We do not. We certainly do not. We don’t have any Kings for a Day kicking us around. We all do as we damn well please.”
“But—”
“Look, son, we’ve had it. The dream days of Reparism are over for us. Oh, it’ll come back. Like the horse. After we’re dead. That won’t do us much good, will it?
I’ve no family, so what the hell does it matter to me? I used to sit here on my then respectable ass waiting for notification from HQ that I’d been given an award for the success of this expedition. I lived for those gongs, stars and ribbons, y’know—the eternal fossilized boy scout. I hoped they’d make me a colonel. But those Goffists back on Earth—why, they don’t even bother themselves to answer our messages. What does the latest jack-in-office care about us stuck out here on Amara? They’re too busy with their private vendettas. Look at what happened to that poor chump Maxton.”
“What, sir?”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, Alex. I’m Bob to you. Good old Bob Bagshaw. Maxton? Oh, they hung him. Chief Engineer’s orders —what’s his name?—Mackay. He was sorry afterwards. The Scots get murderous in drink, y’know. They were all blind drunk. Must be a foul native brew in those parts. This stuff isn’t like that. It makes you feel fine, good, benevolent—know what I mean? We
Sherret started. His thoughts were far away. He was thinking about Captain Maxton and his fate, and his own shipmates, and their likely fate.
“Yes, I saw the natives, sir. They seemed to imagine I was a little tin god.”
Bagshaw shook his head. His fat cheeks, wobbled. He tapped the ship’s ladder.
