Christopher Stasheff - Starship Troupers 3 - A Slight Detour

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Stasheff, Christopher – Starship Troupers 3 – A Slight Detour

1

Ramou caught Larry by the shoulder and spun him around. Larry lurched back against the wall,

clapping a hand to his shoulder. "Ow!" He stared up at Ramou in anger that turned to fear when he saw

the look in his eye.

"Ramou, stop!" Suzanne cried.

"No, Ramou!" Lacey shouted. "Mr. Burbage, help me!"

I leaped to help even before she called. "Please, Ramou! Whatever his offense, it doesn't merit

this!"

The lounge went into instant pandemonium as everyone tried to deter Ramou. We all knew how

dangerous he might be when enraged. Well, no, not "knew," actually—but we feared the worst.

Ramou virtually shrugged off the hands that tried to contain him, though, and elbowed aside

anyone who dared intervene as he barked at Larry. Larry shrank away, obviously terrified but still trying

to look truculent.

"Strychnine!" Ramou stepped closer to him, crowding him, backing him into the corner. "That

needle was tipped with strychnine!"

"Well, I didn't put it there!" Larry protested.

"Who else?" Ramou snarled. "You're the only one in this company who goes around picking locks!

Opening every locker back there on New Venus—then Charlie turns up with a needle in his tights, and

you're going to tell me you didn't put it there?"

"I didn't! I swear!"

"Yeah, every time somebody crosses you, you swear a blue streak. What's the matter, Larry? Did

Charlie say something you didn't like, when he wasn't looking?"

Barry turned to Charles Publican. "Why didn't you tell us the needle was poisoned, Charles?"

"I didn't intend for anyone to learn of it," Charles said, pale-faced. He had good reason; Ramou was

a martial arts master. It was very unlike him to lose his temper like this— and bullying certainly wasn't

his style.

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"I thought it was a practical joke," Marty protested.

"Yeah, a joke." Ramou was throttling the desire to throttle Larry; it was a visible effort for him to

keep his hands on his hips. "Very funny, Larry. Very funny!"

"Ramou happened to come in while I was running a chemical analysis of the coating on the point,"

Charles explained. "He read the data off the monitor."

Larry bleated, "There are some people on this ship I wouldn't mind seeing dead, Ramou, beginning

with you— but not Charlie!"

It was true. Everyone liked Charles Publican, and no one disliked him, though he was so reticent

that it had taken all of us awhile to come to know him well enough to warm up to him.

"But, Ramou," I said, "didn't you tell me that the Man in Gray had been in the locker room just

before we came in to change into costume? Or that you had met him coming up the stairs, at least."

That gave Ramou pause—and a spark of hope sprang into Larry's eye.

"We know nothing about the man, save that he must be an agent from someone on Terra," I went

on, seized by inspiration. "For all we know, he might be capable of picking locks—and is far more likely

to have access to strychnine than Larry would."

"There's no telling what Larry might get hold of!" Ramou snapped.

He was referring to Larry's attempts at smuggling. "Be honest, Ramou," I said. "You jumped to the

conclusion that Larry poisoned the needle, and only because he could open Charlie's locker when none

of the rest of us could. That's not even strong enough to be circumstantial evidence."

A shadow of doubt crept into Ramou's expression.

Marty stepped around to Larry's other side. "You don't really believe this joker has brains enough to

plan some-thing like that, do you, Ramou?"

Larry turned on Marty. "You, talking about brain power? You, the man to whom 'wit' is only half a

word?"

Larry might have been in danger of a beating, but he still wasn't about to take a threat to his vanity

without fighting back.

Marty grinned. "That's pretty good, coming from the man who thinks that only clothes can be

'smart.' "

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Ramou stepped back a pace, frowning, puzzled.

Charles stepped in for the coup de grace. "Larry had no motive, Ramou. He wouldn't want my

character parts."

That did it; Ramou's expression crumpled into shame and self-disgust. Charles was a utility actor,

playing second comic parts and subordinate older roles; Larry was the company juvenile and aspired to

grow up to be a leading man. He certainly had nothing to gain by Charles' death. "Yeah, I suppose so,"

Ramou growled—but now, the anger in his face was directed at himself. "Sorry, Larry."

"I should think you would be, you pithecanthropus!" Larry stepped away from the wall, brushing

imaginary wrinkles out of his clothing. "A cretin could have seen I had nothing to do with that needle."

Ramou's face darkened dangerously again, and Merlo stepped in. "Come off it, kid. Ramou said he

was sorry."

"Oh, and I suppose you don't think I have any cause for indignation!"

"Yeah, you've got reason for a gripe," Merlo admitted, "but you've got a bigger reason to be

thanking your lucky stars you're not in traction."

Larry muttered something about the technical staff always sticking together, then turned away.

Lacey fell in beside him, murmuring reassurances.

Everyone relaxed visibly, but Barry remembered the original cassus belli and turned to Charles.

"Do you really think this Man in Gray was trying to kill you?"

Charles shrugged. "It seems more probable that it was a case of mistaken identity, Mr. Tallendar."

"Either that, or the man is a psychotic who dislikes actors," Ogden wheezed. "A very wealthy

psychotic."

Very wealthy, indeed. Space travel is extremely expensive. The only reason the Star Repertory

Company could get off the ground was because Barry's brother happened to be one of the wealthiest

tycoons on Terra. Intimidated by his older brother's success on the stage, he had eschewed the theater

and gone into business. He could easily have bought and sold us all—and to some extent, he had. Had

sold us his former mistress, that is—Marnie Lulala, our leading lady. He had bought us a ship and a tour,

and she was the price we paid. One week in her presence, and anyone would understand why he had

been willing to pay through the nose to have her escorted several light-years away from him. One could

also understand why only light-years could be far enough.

On the other side of the lounge, the argument was still going on, but one of the principals had

changed.

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"Rash, if you're innocent, hyenas are morose!" Marty spun on his heel and went stalking off down

the corridor.

"Coward!" Larry called. "Stick around for the last word!"

Marty turned back. "False advertising. I'd love to hear your last word, but I think you're planning to

keep living awhile." He started away again.

"You don't get away that easily!" Larry ran after him, caught up, and said, "The only time you can

think of a last word, is when you reach the end of a novel!"

"And I'm really looking forward to the end of this one, if it means I get to be free of you for a

while."

"I'm not free, Kemp—"

Marty chimed in for the punch line. "But you're reasonable." Then solo, "Come on, Rash. That one

was old when the iguanas told it to the first mammal."

And off they went down the hall, bickering.

I heaved a sigh of relief. "That lad Marty is a natural diplomat."

"I agree, Horace." Barry nodded. "He defused the situation very nicely. With only a few words, he

managed to change it from an imminent beating into a verbal duel between himself and Larry. Amazing

chap. Glad we chose him."

Then he turned a stern gaze on Ramou. "I hope you realize that you mustn't explode on so little

evidence again, Mr. Lazarian."

The name itself was a rebuke; Barry had started calling Ramou by his first name halfway through

our abortive run on New Venus.

"Yeah, I know." Ramou looked so far down that he could have been playing Second Grave Digger.

"I don't know what made me pop off like that, Mr. Tallendar. I won't do it again. Sensei would be

ashamed of me."

It was, certainly, the only time I had ever seen Ramou truly lose his temper. He was a martial arts

devotee, and his teacher had taught him at least as much about the philosophy underlying the art as about

its methods of wreaking havoc. In fact, from the few comments Ramou had let drop, I gather that those

principles were the core of his life, and had far more to do with not being violent than with doing it most

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effectively. In attacking Larry, Ramou had betrayed himself as much as his teacher.

"I understand that emotionally, you were reacting to a threat to a friend," Barry said, his tone much

gentler. "It is one of the better aspects of a company of ours, that we begin to care about one another.

But for that very reason, you must be certain of your facts before you accuse another company member

of wrongdoing."

Ramou took it in good part, standing there with his hands on his hips, looking at the floor and

nodding. "Yessir," he mumbled. "Yessir."

Well. There wasn't really much more Barry could say, when he took it so well and was so

thoroughly accepting. For myself, I marveled at Charlie Publican's influence—for a quiet, retiring, near-

nonentity, he had managed to win a great deal of liking from the other company members in a very short

time. I wondered how he had managed it—he so rarely seemed to say anything at all. Of course, when

he did, it was during a moment of crisis, which he nicely managed to alleviate.

"Well, that's done, then." Barry gusted out a sigh. "I was about to convene a company meeting—but

under the circumstances, I think I will let it wait until after dinner."

I nodded. People are always much more reasonable with full stomachs. Not that Larry wouldn't

harbor a grudge, of course. Ramou would not—but neither would he warm to Larry in any way. It might

have had something to do with their both being interested in Lacey—or it might not, since Ramou was

also interested in Suzanne. More probably, it had to do with a fundamental philosophical disagreement:

Ramou believed in treating everyone with courtesy, whereas Larry seemed to feel that politeness was

only for those he acknowledged as his superiors, or who were in a position to benefit him—which

company did not include Ramou.

Dinner was done, and the company assembled in the lounge with cheerful chitchat and laughter.

One advantage of occupying a spaceship that began life as a luxury liner was that the food synthesizers

all had gourmet dishes in their memories. One advantage, as I say—there were many others.

However, the liner had carried uniformed waiters, bus-boys, and maitre d's; the tour ship was self-

service in the dining room. Not the lounge, though—self-service meant free access to the beverage

dispensers, and we did not want that. Not for Ogden—and, therefore, not for anybody. It wasn't just that

Ogden would have been constantly drunk, no matter what his good resolutions—it was also that it would

have killed him, sooner or later. Probably sooner, considering the heart attack he had suffered during the

liftoff from Terra. So Ramou served, as he always did, in his capacity as general assistant—one more

thing that no doubt encouraged Larry to believe Ramou to be an inferior. He overlooked the fact that

they were both very young, and that in ten years' time, Ramou might very well be directing a play for

which Larry was auditioning.

Yeah, I blew it, slamming Larry around like that and all but convicting him of attempted murder. I

suppose it was because I'd been wanting to slap him around for a good long time, anyway—that, and the

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fact that he had opened all the lockers.

On the other hand, nobody seemed to be blaming me— except Larry, of course. He gave me an icy

glare as he took his old-fashioned off the tray. I ignored it. Lacey was a bit reserved, but I knew that

would only last until she needed a favor. Suzanne wasn't exactly warm and approving, but she did seem

almost sympathetic, which made me wonder.

Appreciate, but still wonder. Maybe she figured Larry could try the patience of a saint, and lord

knows I'm no saint.

Marty was the only one who actually mentioned the incident at all—sort of.

"So you used to be a short-order cook, huh, Ramou?"

"Short-order cook?" I frowned. "No—or at least, only for a month or two. Why?"

" 'Cause you got a great style for slapping a hamburger onto a flat surface."

Very funny; I gave him the dagger look it deserved—the one that's kind of pointless—and he

understood there was no offense intended, 'cause he just grinned and took his drink.

"Could use a bit more vodka in this, Ramou," Ogden grumbled, heaving his vast bulk forward in

the armchair just far enough to take the drink I was holding out. "Don't know why you won't let me have

anything but screwdrivers, anyway."

I wouldn't let him have anything but screwdrivers for the same reason frat boys feed them to their

dates—it's real hard to tell how much alcohol is in the orange juice. Truly is it said, "Beware of Greeks

bearing gifts"—though I must admit we nonaffiliated types are apt to be a bit underhanded, too. Of

course, I was working just the reverse of your average callow-youth ploy—putting in a lot less vodka

than standard. "More vodka. Right, Mr. Wellesley." After all, I'd only put in a quarter of an ounce—

what harm could three more drops do? After having to help Suzanne haul him to the infirmary, I was

bound and determined to wean him away from the bottle.

The veterans were great—not a look of censure from a one of them. In fact, I could have sworn

there was a gleam of approval in Marnie's eye, and Winston gave me a big smile as he took his glass,

with a lot of emphasis on the "Thank you, Ramou." My immediate boss, Merlo, gave me the kind of

look any master gives an apprentice who has done well, and silently toasted me. My spirits rose with his

glass.

"Attention, please, everyone," Barry called out He was sitting at a folding table in front of the 3DT

tank, that being the focus of this end of the lounge—ever notice how the chairs are set up so everybody

can get a look at their favorite stars? Captain McLeod was right beside him, so I had both my ultimate

bosses at the same sitting. That's because my right hand is technical assistant for The Star Company, but

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my left hand is second officer—read: gofer—for the Starship Cotton Blossom. That's because a ship

can't lift off without an official minimum crew of three—"official" because I don't really know

spaceships from steamboats—lot in common, actually. But I'm learning, I'm learning.

"We had a surprising success on New Venus—" Barry began.

"Quite," Marnie interrupted. "I'm sure the petroleum company managers were vastly surprised."

"Surely they must have had some inkling that a revolution was brewing," Winston protested. As

resident villain, he should have been scheming more than the revolutionaries, but he was more than

happy to leave that to Barry and Horace.

"They should have been," Merlo said, "but who ever would have expected Mac . .. uh, the Scottish

play, to trigger a revolt?"

"Looking back, it seems so obvious," Lacey said, with a knowing smile; she may have been the

ingenue, but she was anything but ingenuous. "After all, the play deals with trying to build up a

movement to kick out a tyrant."

"No wonder the management wanted to censor us." Suzanne leaned back with a sigh. My eyes

swiveled over to her with an almost audible click; her sighs were very much worth watching. Soubrettes

are usually well endowed, and Suzanne was keeping up their reputation. Keeping up my interest, too—I

had to keep flirting with Lacey to counterbalance my interest in Suzanne. I was bound and determined

not to be committed—which is to say, determined not to be bound. Not that I think Suzanne was

honestly trying, mind you, but there were other girls who had. It was one of those hassles that had sent

me to New York in the first place.

"You'd be worth censoring all by yourself, Suzanne darling," Lacey said sweetly. "Do you sigh that

way often?"

Suzanne's eyes flashed dangerously, but she just smiled and said, "Your eyes are so green this

evening, Lacey darling."

"Yes, well, our surprise on New Venus notwithstanding, we actually made a profit there." Barry

wrested them back to the issue by main force.

Beside him, Gantry McLeod nodded. "We came out with our fuel tanks full, and that's no mean

feat, considering that water cost like gold on that planet. To actually come out ahead is amazing."

"Especially considering how badly they handicapped our attempts to advertise," Mr. Burbage put

in.

"Quite so, Horace. Apropos of which, we sent Publius Promo on ahead by the fast mail ship, just

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before we lifted off from the Centauri space station—so hopefully, we will arrive at our next port of call

to find our posters already on display."

That was bait if I ever heard any.

"Hopefully?" asked Winston, with his trademark sardonic lift of the eyebrow.

"Next port of call?" Ogden rumbled.

"What is our next port, Barry?" Marnie demanded, in her loftiest grande-dame manner.

"It's rather complicated," Barry began.

"Not a bit," Ogden returned. "Just tell us the name, there's a good chap."

Barry sighed and said, "Citadel."

Instant uproar. Everyone talked at once.

"Citadel? But they're Puritans!"

"From Elector Rudders to the Citadel deacons? Talk about frying pans and fires!"

"A planetful of religious fanatics? What shall we perform—Saint Joan?"

"Hardly—she was a Papist."

"Not the Shaw—they'll riot!"

"We could do the Shakespeare version from Henry VI— you know, the one-act where she really

was a witch."

That quickly, they had gone from protest over the choice of planet to debate over the play. These

actors are great people—well, mostly—but sometimes they don't make the world's greatest amount of

sense.

"Please, people!" Barry raised both hands. "There are good reasons for it."

"Damned well had better be," Mamie warned, with fire in her eye. "Surely we're not going out of

our way to visit such an abysmal setting!"

"Not at all . . ." Barry began, but Captain McLeod cleared his throat, and Barry turned to him,

inclining his head. "Captain?"

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"We're going out of our way by a little less than one light-year," McLeod said, standing. "Your

director has told me that your next major stopover was intended to be Corona—the only habitable planet

around 'Gemma,' otherwise known as Alpha Corona Borealis. Citadel is almost on a line between New

Venus and Corona. Sure, we have to go a little out of our way—but it only adds another month to the

trip time."

Everyone groaned.

"Add a week to that," Barry said, "a week on the ground. We're not planning a long stay, of course

—but we should be able to realize a modest profit from the detour."

We all perked up at that. "How long would the trip to Corona be without the side trip?" Grudy

asked, polishing her glasses. The old dear couldn't have lens surgery for some reason and, being a

costumer, she did need close vision.

"About seventy-five days," Barry answered.

There was a rumble of alarm as everyone glanced at everyone else. Sure, each one of us got along

with several of the others, and there were a few, such as Charlie and Winston and Horace, who pretty

much got along with everybody—but the idea of being stuck with each other for such a long stretch

bothered us all.

But something wasn't making sense. I frowned and asked, "If Corona is almost fourteen times

farther away than New Venus was from Terra, how come it doesn't take us fourteen times as long to get

there?"

Larry and a few others hissed at me to be quiet—almost as if asking the question would make the

trip take that extra fourteen times as long. I ignored them and listened to McLeod.

"The actual transit time in H-space doesn't take very long at all," he explained to me—and just

incidentally, to everybody else at the same time. "Once you can go faster than the speed of light, you can

build up a very fast speed indeed. The limiting factor isn't the ship or the fuel—we have a hydrogen

scoop, and there's hydrogen in H-space, too. No, what limits how fast we can build up speed is our own

bodies. We have to travel under constant acceleration, and if we let that go harder than one G, everybody

would start hurting very quickly—not to mention a dozen other ailments that happen when your body

has to try to work under heavier gravity than it was designed for."

Everybody glanced at Ogden, remembering his heart attack. The huge old actor shuddered.

"So most of the travel time is spent accelerating and decelerating," I inferred.

"Very good, Number Two!" Gantry's eyes gleamed. "That means that the farther we have to go, the

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higher the speed we can build up. The good part is that it's never going to take more than about one day

per light-year, once we're going more than thirty light-years; a month is about the minimum travel time,

and that's only if nobody minds being a little heavy all the way."

I nodded. "Minimum acceleration time?"

"And deceleration. The bad part is that thirty days is pretty much the minimum."

Everybody groaned.

Marty piped up: "But isn't Corona Borealis kind of in another part of the sky from the Centaur?"

I looked up at him, surprised—I hadn't pegged Marty for a man who would ever have looked up at

the night sky.

"From Terra, yes." McLeod fairly gleamed with approval. "But not very much. Alpha Centauri and

Terra are right next door to each other, in astronomical distances. I hate to say it, but when you can go so

much faster than light as we can, four light-years isn't really all that much."

"So this slight detour would give us a break in the middle of the trip?" Winston asked.

"Not the middle," McLeod said. "More like one-third and two-thirds. Actual travel time to Citadel

would be about three and a half weeks—twenty-five days."

"And twice that to Corona." Marnie shivered. "Why did I ever involve myself with this calamitous

undertaking? Not even room service!"

No one answered. We all knew why Mamie had joined us, and so did she—because Valdor

Tallendar had given her an ultimatum: leave Terra with The Star Company and a fat settlement, or leave

his house with as little as the courts would allow—and the judicial system may have recognized the

rights of mistresses, but it hasn't been very generous about it.

Of course, I'm sure Valdor was much nicer about it than that. He's a top executive, after all—or

was, until he bought the company—his first one, that is. No, he would have hinted, have laid it on thick

about how she really needed to be back before her public, how badly they were missing her, how starved

the poor folk of the outer regions were for theater, and so on. Marnie would have gotten the message;

she's not stupid. Obtuse, maybe, but not stupid.

"Everything considered, I do think it's best to break the trip," Horace said. They pay attention when

he talks, partly because he's an old hand who knows the ropes—sixty, at least—and partly because he's

Barry's best and oldest buddy. Everyone knows that if Barry says it, he's talked it over with Horace first.

"Breaking the trip is fine," Winston said. "A stopover on Citadel is not. Are you sure this is well

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Christopher Stasheff - Starship Troupers 3 - A Slight Detour

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