Fantastic Stories – March 1961
(1961)*
Randall Garrett
illustrated by BARR
The plot against the Terran spaceship was getting thicker every minute. But Capt. Orselli remembered an old proverb: "If you have two enemies and one puts a bomb in your house, you don't have to decide which of them planted it—just figure out the mechanism and disable it!"
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THE interstellar ship Vesuvio was a passenger liner, not a warship. Moreover, as a vessel of the powerful, but still neutral, Terran Confederate Empire, it would seem foolhardy for either side in the Viran-Plochef War to show any hostility toward the Vesuvio. But nations at war often do foolish things—sometimes by accident, and sometimes by design. When that happens, it takes a very wise decision to counteract the foolish one.
Baron Weissmann, of the Jovian Satellite League, was a round, pleasant-looking, balding man who had spent far too much time under low-gravity conditions to glide around the ballroom of the Vesuvio, even under the one-half Standard Gee conditions that prevailed aboard the vessel. His muscles were too flabby for that kind of exercise. Instead, he sat at a table with his equally round wife and watched the harder-muscled Earthmen and Odinians and others who were used to the gravities of full-sized planets show off their prowess.
There was no envy in him. Let them live out their lives under those strenuous conditions; let them subject themselves to a gee-pull that made their insides sag and their blood as heavy as mercury, that gave them varicose veins and broken capillaries. What were strong muscles against such things as those?
No, thanks, he thought, he would not trade his extra life expectancy for strength.
The chair beside him moved, and he turned his head from the brightly-dressed figures on the floor to see who was sitting down.
"Mind if I sit down, Baron? Frankly, I feel a little giddy." The squat, broad man with the bulging muscles didn't bother to wait for the baron's reply; he was already in his seat.
"Not at all, Dr. Martin," said Baron Weissmann pleasantly. "Though I hope it's nothing serious."
The squat man squinted one eye closed and looked at the baron with a grin. "If that was meant to be a pun, Baron, may I say you're looking pretty jovial tonight yourself?"
"Pun?" The baron blinked. "Oh! Sirius." He chuckled. "No, no; I'm afraid I'm not much of a punster, Doctor. But you said you felt giddy, and I hoped—" He stopped in confusion as he saw that Dr. Martin was still grinning. From that face, with its thick, knotted muscles, the grin looked almost threatening. "I mean to say," he went on hurriedly, "I wasn't trying to make a joke on your home planet."
'"S all right." The Sirian physician waved a thick-fingered hand in the air. "But I am giddy. When you're used to a gravity pull that's twice Earth Standard, this half-gee stuff makes you feel lightheaded."
"I can quite understand," the baron said. "I have the same trouble myself, only the other way round, if you see what I mean."
The Sirian nodded. "Tough to move around, I suppose, when you're used to low-gee. Still, I've seen some of your asteroid men who can do pretty well, even on Sirius IV. Exercise does it, I guess; those asteroid miners have to shove a lot of mass around, and that can build muscles as well as fighting a high gee-pull."
The baron paused, wondering whether the remark had been intended personally or the doctor was just being outspoken.
Before he could say anything, his wife squeezed his arm and said: "There he is, dear."
The baron looked around in confusion. "Who?"
"Captain Orselli," the baroness said in her soft voice. "I notice he's wearing a white uniform this evening. He's quite handsome, in a lean sort of way."
"Mmph," said the baron, pursing his mouth. "I don't care for his manner, frankly. Too oily, if you ask me. And too much of a fop. I'll wager he spends an hour a day curling and oiling that beard." It did not occur to the baron that some might think that the time he spent keeping his own skin smooth and baby-pink belonged in the same class of foppery.
Dr. Martin did, for instance. But, outspoken though he was, he didn't mention anything about skin-care to the baron. After all, he thought to himself, a physician is supposed to have some sort of tact.
As a matter of fact, Captain Orselli had impressed him as a bit of a dandy, too—altogether too much of a ladies' man. He was lean and flat of abdomen, and he carried himself with an erectness that had none of the stiffness of the military. It was more like that of a superbly trained ballet dancer. But the captain had a little too much of the quick-smiling, overly courtly manner about him to suit Martin's taste. Still—
"He must have something on the ball," Dr. Martin said aloud, "or he wouldn't be captain of an interstellar liner."
"You don't know these Earth-men," the baron said. After all, he thought to himself, Dr. Martin came from a star system nine light-years from Sol, while he, Baron Weissmann, lived practically next door to Earth. "I'm not much of a traveler, you understand, but, from what I gather, the captain of a liner like this isn't really anything but a figurehead. He takes care of all the social contacts and the Executive Officer runs the ship."
"Influence of the Imperium, I suppose," said Dr. Martin. "We seem to like to have a lot of noble figureheads around for pomp and ceremony."
Baron Weissmann didn't quite know how to take that remark, either.
Neither the baron and his wife nor the Sirian doctor noticed the bronze-skinned young officer sitting behind them who had overheard the last part of their conversation. With an amused smile, Third Officer Cavendish leaned over and whispered to the blonde girl sitting at the table with him:
"Orselli a figurehead! I wonder what he'd say to that?"
CAPTAIN Gaetano Orselli couldn't have cared less. He was fully conscious of his own abilities, duties, and efficiency, and he bore their burdens and privileges with equal aplomb. He knew perfectly well that the moment he had stepped into the music-and-voice-filled ballroom everyone had become aware of his presence. He knew it and accepted it in the same way he accepted the existence of the Universe.
Orselli's personal pride was not of the Pooh-Bah kind; it was a conscious knowledge of his own ability and of his own relationship to the rest of mankind. His was not just the pride that marks the Earthman, since it went even deeper than that. He was aware that, genetically, his line went back through centuries of careful breeding. Although only in the last two centuries had there been anything scientific in that breeding, his forebears, long before that, had instinctively picked mates that would improve the line.
Even the name was old. Many centuries before, a Gaetano Orselli had been a shining example of Renaissance Man, a man whose ability with both sword and pen were equally renowned in his native Florence. '
Five centuries later, another Gaetano Orselli had fought gallantly as a naval officer in the Great War of 1914 and had filially been murdered, just before the second Great War, because of his underground fight against the Facisti.
And those weren't even all the Gaetano's, much less all the Orselli's. It was an often brilliant and always capable line.
Captain Gaetano Orselli was so aware of all these things that he rarely thought of them; they were simply a part of him, like his face or his heart or his brain, and were infinitely more durable.
It did not displease him to act the part of the perfect host aboard his own ship; it was one of the enjoyable parts of a many-faceted life. He had dressed with care, wearing his uniform with just the proper shade of jauntiness. Other officers who took such care about their dress tended to look a little stiff; Orselli merely managed to look perfect.
"You look wonderful, as usual, Captain Orselli," said Lady Susan Feng. There was a hint of amusement in her almond-shaped eyes as she looked up at him from a height scarcely two inches below his own six feet. "Tell me: how do you always manage to look so beautiful?"
Orselli smiled. "I think beautiful thoughts, Lady Susan; I've always heard that thinking beautiful thoughts will make the exterior beautiful as well."
"Beautiful thoughts? Such as ...?"
"Thoughts about beautiful ladies, such as yourself."
The gaunt-faced man standing next to Lady Susan chuckled.
"Neatly turned, Captain. But I'm afraid your philosophy falls through. I often think about Lady Susan, but I'm afraid it doesn't make me beautiful; it doesn't show on the outside."
Lady Susan turned to him, "Oh, but it does, Jerrol; your face betrays the fact that your thoughts about me are far from beautiful."
Jerrol's smile faded by the barest trifle. "I dare say the captain entertains the same thoughts."
"He may contemplate the same actions," Lady Susan said, "but his motivations are those of a poet in love, while yours are those of a bull ape in rut."
"Come, come, Lady Susan," Orselli interjected smoothly. "I assure you that you're far too complimentary to me. I may give the impression of being a deep thinker, but, way down inside, I'm quite shallow."
Jerrol regained his smile and his chuckle blended with the tinkling laughter of Lady Susan Feng.
Captain Orselli touched his right eyebrow in a casual salute. "And now, if you'll excuse me, having already spoken to the most beautiful woman here, I must continue with what must now be a boring job—tending to the rest of my guests." He moved away gracefully.
He had no intention of getting involved in any argument between Lady Susan Feng and Jerrol Vane-Seljak, Jerrol had been pursuing Lady Susan for some time now—he had even made two trips on the Vesuvio with her, /under conditions that the Feng heiress had made sure were well-chaperoned. But, even though she quite obviously detested him, the political situation on Odin was such that she couldn't flatly turn him down any more than he could afford to be too forward in his attentions. Jerrol had evidently allowed himself to think that the girl's actions were merely a case of "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," that she was concealing a deep affection beneath a thin guise of loathing. And Lady Susan was content to let him think so.
The two were at cross purposes, and Captain Orselli had no intention of becoming the hypotenuse to that triangle.
"Ah, Gaetano, old friend. Are you as distracted as all that?"
Orselli smiled at the tall, graying man in the scarlet jacket and midnight blue trousers. "Sorry, Esteban; my mind was a bit preoccupied, but don't think I'd have ignored an old friend."
"I know, I know," said Cardinal Esteban, dismissing the whole thing with a slight wave of his left hand. "Captain Orselli, I'd like to introduce my secretarial assistant. Father Fermi, and his wife."
The priest was almost as tall as the Cardinal, and dressed similarly, although his jacket was, the same midnight blue as his trousers, with only a tab of scarlet on his left shoulder to show that he was a Cardinal's secretary. He was younger and rather better looking than the older prelate, but there was a similarity of expression around the eyes—a serenity of expression that even the shy and pretty Mrs. Fermi seemed to share. But there was a toughness there, too, the hardness of unshakable faith and determination.
At least, Orselli thought, Father Fermi wasn't one of these wishy-washy, holier-than-thou, small-minded, fussy men who were too often found in the Church these days.
Orselli was not a particularly religious man, but he felt that, no matter what a man professed, he should at least do his job well. Still, there were always slackers in any outfit; one had to take them into account in any organization.
Briefly—as he always did when he talked with Cardinal Esteban—Orselli wished faintly that he had lived in the Second Age of Faith, during and immediately after the Great Communist Persecutions, when the Christian Church had been driven underground and only those who still held to the Faith remained loyal to the Church, when all differences in dogma and ceremony and ritual had dissolved, when the Second Reformation had fused Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox together again. The Church had emerged, cleansed by fire and sword, as a unified body which would probably have appeared heretical to any one of the Christian sects that had existed before that time. A hierarchy that combined the best elements of the Roman Communion with those of the Salvation Army would have shocked both groups before the Persecutions.
But the Second Age of Faith had passed, and now there were signs of another breakup. Hume had been rebuilt over the slag of the old city, and now there were those who insisted that the bishop of that city should be Heavenly Vicar, regardless of who had been elected by the Episcopate.
Another hundred years, and who knew what might happen?
"What is bothering you, Gaetano?" Cardinal Esteban's voice was soft in his ear.
Orselli knew that no one else had heard.
He gave Esteban a quick, noncommittal smile. Mrs. Fermi was speaking:
"Isn't it terrible about the war, Captain? So many people losing their lives."
Orselli nodded automatically. "Terrible, indeed, Mrs. Fermi," he said, wondering why the woman had brought the subject up. It wasn't considered a fit topic of conversation among genteel people of the Empire, although it was certainly lurking in the back of every mind.
"Do you think we shall be involved, Captain?" she asked, her pretty eyes looking at him with a touch of worry behind their innocence.
Before Orselli could answer, Father Fermi said: "My dear, how could anyone—even the astute Captain Orselli—know the answer to that?"
"Oh!" She suddenly seemed to realize that she'd committed a slight faux pas. "I'm sorry."
"Will you excuse me, Captain?" the priest asked; "I promised my wife I'd dance one darusha with her, and it looks as though this is our chance."
Orselli touched his right eyebrow again, and the couple moved out to the floor.
Odd, Orselli thought. ...
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