A. Bertram Chandler - Fall of Knight

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A. BERTRAM CHANDLER

FALL OF KNIGHT

We've all been guilty of the tendency to ascribe to British SF a sobriety of outlook and a

pessimistic approach to the World of Tomorrow natural to a people as close to the historical

realities as they are. Here is proof that this is an unwise generalization.

It is customary for the spacemen serving in the Federation's star ships to sneer at the titles bestowed,

with a lavish hand, by the Kingdom of Waverley upon its spacefaring subjects. An officer who rises to

become Master of one of the Empress Class vessels—equivalent to the Federation's Alpha Class—is

invariably, after a short period of probation, dubbed Knight. His Chief Engineers —Reaction and

Interstellar Drives—usually are given the title of Esquire, as is the First Mate. There are quite a few

Dames among the senior Pursers and Catering Officers.

A spaceman is a spaceman, however, no matter what fancy handle he has to his name. He has to

know his stuff, otherwise he would not be where he is. He has to be efficient, otherwise he would never

wear upon his shoulders the four gold stripes of captaincy.

So it was with Captain Sir Ian MacLachlan Stuart, Master of the interstellar liner Empress of Skye.

When things went wrong he coped, and nobly, and saw to it that his officers coped. It was Sir Ian who

had the gas turbine and the tractor wheels broken out of the cargo and with them rigged a makeshift, but

effective governor for the racing, almost uncontrollable Mannschen Drive unit. It was Sir Ian who caught

James Murdoch, the ship's BioChemist, in the act of introducing poisons into the hydroponics tanks that

would have destroyed every plant aboard the ship—and with them her air purifying and regenerating

plant. (Murdoch later confessed to other acts of sabotage, including the damage done to the Interstellar

Drive unit, claiming that he was actuated by hatred for the Stuart dynasty and love for the Hanoverians.)

It was Sir Ian who brought his almost unmanageable ship down to the inhospitable surface of Rob Roy,

one of the less important planets ruled by King James VI of Waverley, making a landing which, in the

circumstances, could not have been bettered by any space captain in the Galaxy.

Rob Roy is an unimportant planet. There is only one city—Ballantrae—and that, on any other world,

would be called a village. There are no important industries. The colonists rear sheep and cattle, and

distill whiskey. There is something about the radiations from the sun—Epsilon Aurigae—about which

Rob Roy revolves, that has a peculiar effect upon non-indigenous animal life—the sheep, the cattle, and

other imported beasts—but not upon human beings. It is said that the amount of whiskey consumed by

the colonists has an inhibiting effect upon the effects of the radiation. This may well be true. Somebody

once said that if the quality of the Rob Roy mutton were affected to the same extent as the quantity then

Rob Roy would be famous throughout the Galaxy. This may well be true, too.

Incredible though it may seem, Empress of Skye succeeded in dropping unobserved through the

Rob Roy atmosphere. It had been Captain Sir Ian's intention to make his landing at the Ballantrae

spaceport, but this intention he had to abandon—the Hanoverian saboteur had contrived, before his

detection and imprisonment, to make such a mess of the ship's controls that, during the final, ticklish

phases of the landing, officers were having to make hasty, last minute repairs with string and chewing

gum, and Sir Ian was concerned only with setting his ship down anywhere in safety, without overmuch

worry as to the precise location. A further complicating factor was that Empress of Skye's frantic signals

to the spaceport radio station were unanswered. Sir Ian should, perhaps, have remembered that it was

Bums Night—but he had, during his descent to the surface, more things to concern him than dates.

So the big ship dropped through the night and the rain, the flare of her exhausts shrouded by cloud

and storm. She landed in a field, incinerating a half dozen or so of the giant sheep and starting a

short-lived fire in the sodden grass. She rocked gently for a few seconds on her vaned landing gear, then

quivered for a few seconds more before coming to rest.

After a minute or so the airlock door high on her sleek side opened and the long, telescopic ramp

extended itself. Down the ramp came Sir Ian, a tall, spare man bearing himself with knightly dignity,

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A. Bertram Chandler - Fall of Knight

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