Read Ebook: Softie by Loomis Noel M Napoli Vincent Illustrator

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Ebook has 143 lines and 7702 words, and 3 pages

Illustrator: Vincent Napoli

SOFTIE

Lt. Stevens, his roommate, came stamping in from the sixth watch slapping his hands.

"Cold outside!" He wiped the fog from his glasses. "Must be nearly freezing. Hear they had a strike in the Heating Corps. The Old Man better step in and settle that before it gets serious."

Lt. Braniff sighed wearily. "Oh, he'll step in and tell them to go back to work or go without food. Sometimes I think the Old Man hasn't any feelings at all."

Stevens stared at him. Stevens was a handsome, dark-haired, glossy-eyebrowed young man who always seemed to be imbued with the recklessness of space.

"Homesickness eating on you again?" He snorted. "Why don't you go take a walk? There are some very nice girls over in the Kitchens."

"It's too far," Braniff said listlessly.

"You can catch a ride on the truck--if you want to." Stevens tossed his trim space jacket on the bed. "You might as well quit mooning over that wife and kid of yours. It'll be ten years yet before we get back to Earth."

"Do you really think it will be that long?" Lt. Braniff, to tell the truth, was horribly homesick. He was almost so homesick that he didn't care if Stevens knew it.

He got up and paced the floor while Stevens washed his face. Four years from home, and six years to go! They had spent three years and four months getting to the Pass, and they were to patrol it for three years. Suddenly he felt he couldn't stand it.

"I've got to get promoted," he said aloud. "That's the only answer. If I could get to the rank of captain by the time we get back, I could rate a job at home--back on Earth."

Stevens looked up, his black eyebrows dripping water. "Don't expect me to sit back and wait for you to be made a captain. After all, I can use the money--and the rank."

Braniff knew it. He also knew that Stevens was two years older and three years more experienced--and, if he wanted to face the truth, a lot tougher. Stevens would inevitably get the first chance, unless the admiral should unaccountably soften, and Braniff saw no hope of that.

That very day Admiral Gorthy had given him a dressing-down for failing to report a tube burned out in the detector. It was a spare tube in the alternate circuit of the tenth stage of amplification, but the grizzled old admiral had threatened to keep him a lieutenant the rest of his life.

"I gave orders for you to inspect those tubes every day. That means every twenty-four hours. And quit mooning. If everybody were to be like you, we'd never get home."

But everybody wasn't as lonesome as Lt. Braniff. His only daughter was now three years old and he hadn't even seen her. His wife--since they'd left the constellation of Laerta, he hadn't even heard from her. It took too much power to send personal messages so far.

"You've got to learn to follow orders and do as you're told."

That was the Old Man, unfeeling, uncaring. The only thing he was interested in was discipline. Lt. Braniff could have been very fond of the Old Man if the Old Man had been human. All the staff officers felt that way. The Old Man was always alone, distant, unmoved by anybody else's troubles.

Yes, Admiral Gorthy undoubtedly would give the first promotion to Lt. Stevens, and there were not many promotions on a single cruise. Spacemen were physically perfect, and they didn't often die. They couldn't resign, they couldn't be transferred. Somehow, the life of a space officer was not as glamorous as Lt. Braniff had thought it would be. It would be financially good, for the pay was double what one could get on Earth, and Lt. Braniff was economical with his money.

Lt. Braniff caught himself in mid-stride. He'd better take a turn in the crisp air. He was getting moody. No, he was already moody. He put on his jacket and stepped outside. His breath made funnels of steam under the lights.

He walked the quarter-mile to the bridge. He turned into the big room that housed all the great complexity of instruments that had to do with the navigation and maneuvering of a great cruiser. This was not the administrative headquarters. That was at the opposite end of the vessel in an alternate control-room. This room was only for the immediate problems of moving the ship.

Lt. Braniff became aware that the junior lieutenant on duty had spoken to him. "I beg your pardon. What did you say?"

"I said we picked up something on the detector band a little while back."

Lt. Braniff opened his eyes. "What?"

"The officer of the day thinks it was a ship."

"Did they ask for clearance?"

"No."

The control-room was buzzing with talk now. A junior admiral and two captains were watching the detector plate. "It's within a couple of a.u.'s," the admiral said, watching intently the faint yellow spot on the screen.

The young officer with the earphones on his head turned a switch. The sound of a sharp, broken whistle came from somewhere. "It's metal, sir," said the young officer.

The young officer looked up. "Mass around two million tons, sir."

Eyebrows raised. "Sounds like Zhute," said the admiral. "That's what we're looking for. Give a reading to the Pilot Room every ten seconds. I'll have the controls set to follow him. Orderly!" A sergeant hurried up. "Awaken Admiral Gorthy. Request his presence on the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

Braniff hurried back to tell Stevens. He caught him just as Stevens was crawling into bed. The man bounced out of his bunk and started putting on clothes.

"First contact we've made in eight months," he said. "Thanks for telling me, Mister--but don't think I'll give up my promotion."

Braniff swallowed and tried for a moment to forget about going home. "Who is Zhute?" he asked.

"Zhute's a renegade robot from somewhere. Nobody even knows what galaxy produced him. Nobody knows what he looks like. All we know is that he's done some of the neatest wholesale smuggling that's ever been done in this section. They know he's the one who runs those multiple-armed Stenorians through the Pass from the I Supergalaxy to the Fox-men of Fomelhaut in our galaxy."

"Who are the Fox-men of Fomelhaut?"

Lt. Stevens considered. "Well, I suppose out of some forty billion constellations in the galaxy, you couldn't learn all about all the worlds. These Fox-men are on Fomelhaut Twenty-One, a world about the size of Jupiter. That is, that's their original world. Since then, they've taken over all the worlds in their system, and as that was before the galactic federation, nobody can squawk. But there are trillions of them; they're highly developed mentally, but they're carnivorous and they're deadly and practically devoid of sentiment. If they could ever get enough weapons they could raise the devil with the whole galaxy. Luckily, they haven't developed an opposed thumb."

"How do they make trouble, then?"

Stevens pulled on his boots. "They never got very far until they enslaved the reptilian citizens on Fomelhaut Eleven. Now of course the reptiles are freed, and the foxes are on their own, but we do know that from somewhere they get periodic shipments of these ten-armed fellows from Stenor, over in the I Supergalaxy, in spite of intergalactic regulations and in spite of the fact that by smuggling alone they could start a war between the galaxies."

"Is that why we're out here--to find out how they're getting their slaves?"

"That's our Number One secret order of business, so they say." Stevens stood up and slipped into his jacket, took a last look at himself in the mirror. "Come on, let's move. This may be the only action of ten years in space."

"The idiot!" growled Admiral Gorthy. "Why doesn't he stop? Doesn't he know we can catch him?"

"He acts," said the junior admiral, "like some sort of alien intelligence. He may not figure as we do. He might think that if you could destroy him, you would have done so as soon as you sighted him."

"Maybe so, but he ought to stop now. He should at least answer. Have you sent out a challenge on the all-wave length, Mr. Hale?"

"Aye, sir," said the radio officer. "I've broadcast on everything we have."

"And no answer?"

"No acknowledgement, sir."

Gorthy said, "Captain, are we within range for your heat-projectors?"

"Aye, sir," said the ordnance officer.

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