being on the verge of mutiny because of Kathy? What’s this about Mart Bakr and Dick Roland starting a fist fight in the wardroom the other day? And Rosen going on duty soused to the eyeballs?” His voice became more incisive. “Discipline aboard this ship is falling apart, Doc. And, to my surprise, I seem to find your fine meddlesome finger in every case I note that’s adding to this collapse.”
The doctr nodded, “That’s right,” he said agreeably.
“That’s right?” Gurloff blurted. “What do you mean? I come in here expecting you to have some explanations of your actions and here you merely say it’s true, that everything I’ve accused you of is true.”
“It is,” the Doctr said mildly.
“That you’re inciting the crew to mutiny, that you’re encouraging fighting and drink, that—”
“Yes,” the Doctr said.
Gurloff blinked at him. Stared for a moment. Then came to his feet. He stood, looking down at the other, the back of his hands on his hips. He was incredulous.
He snapped, “Doctr, you realize that a crew without discipline is incapable of running a ship?”
“Let us say that it’s incapable of running a. ship indefinitely.”
“And you say that you’re deliberately encouraging a collapse of half the rules in the service?”
Doc sat up, putting his feet on the deck. He said, very seriously, “Mike, how long have we been out thus far?”
The other scowled. “Somewhat over six months.”
“How many cases of space cafard, so far?”
The answer was a growled “None.”
“Without books, without games, without any entertainment, for all practical purposes, we’re through half of this cruise without one case of mental collapse, and that in spite of the fact that the crew had less than two weeks rest after the last trip.”
Mike Gurloff leaned back against the bulkhead and scowled at him. “You mean you’re preventing cafard by—”
Doc Thorndon leveled a finger at his skipper. “I’m preventing the complete collapse of this crew by every method I can devise. I can tell you right now, if we ever get back to Terra, this crew as a unit, will probably never be fit to take a ship out again. It was you, Mike, who said we had to make the cruise; you said that if you could make it you’d be in a position to upset the corrupt bunch of bureaucrats that are running the space service now.
“All right, Mike Gurloff, I believe in you. I’m trying to get this ship back before it turns into an asylum of howling, raving maniacs. It’s taking every dirty deal, every little trick, every bit of double dealing I can think of to keep monotony and boredom, the breeding ground of cafard, from setting in.”
“Including using that girl, Kathy, to keep the men in a continual dither?”
“Definitely! She’s my best weapon.”
Mike Gurloff thrust his hands into his tunic pockets and stared, unseeingly, at the medicine chest. He muttered, “There’s one other thing, Doc, that I hadn’t thought of before.”
“Yes?”
“It’s true that the New Taos has become the most popular craft in the fleet. Why?”
Doc Thorndon said indignantly, “For good reason! In the past two or three years it’s made at least four cruises with outstanding success against the Kradens. Every time the New Taos returns from a cruise, it has a victory to report. Why—”
“Every time but this time, Doc,” Gurloff said wearily. “And how long does a hero remain in the public eye when he slacks off on his heroism?”
Thorndon frowned.
Gurloff said, “Doc, this time they’ve sent us off on a year’s cruise into empty space. There’s nothing in this direction. No enemy, no galaxy that we’ll reach. No nothing. When we return—after a full year of being out of the news—we’ll have nothing to report.” He thought it over for a minute. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the powers that be so time it that just about when the New Taos berths, some other ship, with a skipper and crew more amenable to the present administration, hits the headlines with some outstanding deed. Just you watch.”
He turned on his heel, mumbled a farewell, and left. Mike Gurloff was beginning to show both his age and the accumulated bitterness of years of having his career thwarted.
Doc Thorndon gazed after him, and rubbed the end of his nose with a thoughtful forefinger. “I hadn’t thought of that angle,” he said out loud.
* * * *
It was the traditional toast of the officers of a space ship after a successful cruise, held in the ship’s wardroom only moments after landing and immediately before opening the hatches.
Commander Mike Gurloff had brought the bottle of stone age brandy from his quarters and was filling the glasses. He said, spiritlessly, “Where’s Doc Thorndon? If anybody is to be given credit for bringing us through this time, it’s him.”
“Saw him just a few minutes before landing. He was talking with Kathy,” Johnny Norsen said.
“Well, let’s get about it, gentlemen,” Gurloff growled. He took up his glass and eyed them, one by one. “My last cruise, gentlemen,” he said, his mouth a straight line.
They stood there, holding their glasses, their eyes widening.
He said tightly, “Surprised, gentlemen? What could you expect? It’s either that or they’d have this craft out into space in another week or so.—And this time, we wouldn’t come back.”
They said nothing. There was nothing to say. Each took down the drink, stiff wristed. Then they set their glasses down on the small table.
Dick Roland flushed noticeably and said, “As a matter of fact, sir, the same goes for me.”
All eyes went to the second officer.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mike Gurloff rapped. “Your career has just started.”
Dick Roland squared his shoulders and said, “Kathy and I are going to be married and—”
“What!” Johnny Norsen blurted, angrily. “Are you trying to make a fool of—”
“Marry you?” Mart Bakr yelled. “Kathy and I are engaged. I’m the one that’s quitting the space service and—”
Johnny Norsen spun on him, then back to Roland. “Is this supposed to be some stupid joke?” he bit out. “Kathy and I are—”
Gurloff was looking from one to the other of them in utter astonishment.
“Boys, boys,” a voice from behind them said softly. They turned, each still sputtering his indignation. It was Doc Thorndon.
“In the first place,” he said mildly, “polyandry is still illegal on Terra and the latest statistics show that Jackie—that is, Kathy—is engaged to forty-three of this ship’s complement of forty-five officers and men.”
There were four different ejaculations, but he went on. “And, in the second place, in spite of his capable disguise over the past year, Jackie Black is a very masculine character, and I doubt if he’d be interested in marriage—not to anybody of the male sex.”
They were dumb. It was just too much to assimilate.
Doc Thorndon handed an envelope to Commander Gurloff. “Jackie Black thinks you’ll be able to use these documents in your next speech, Mike. You didn’t bring home your usual victory, perhaps, but you’ll draw your usual attention!” He rubbed the end of his nose with a forefinger and grinned, cheerfully. “When he saw what a hornet’s nest he’d awakened when he swiped them, he could figure only one way of avoiding the regiments of police on his