Planets of Adventure [сборник]

"Since he ranks you, just say 'sorry, sir.' "

"S-sorry, sir," said Barnes into the microphone.

"Sorry?" snapped the voice from the ground. "I've been calling for five minutes! Your skipper will hear about this! I shall—"

Bordman pulled the microphone before him.

"My name is Bordman," he observed. "I am waiting for instructions to land. My pilot has been listening on boat-frequency, as was proper. You appear to be calling us on an improper channel. Really—"

There was stricken silence. Then babbled apologies from the speaker. Bordman smiled faintly at young Barnes.

"It's quite all right. Let's forget it now. But will you give my pilot his instructions?"

The voice said with strained formality:

"You're to be brought down by landing-grid, sir. Rocket-landings have been ruled non-permitted by the Sector Chief himself, sir. But we are already landing one boat, sir. Senior Officer Werner is being brought in now, sir. His boat is still two diameters out, sir, and it will take us nearly an hour to get him down without extreme discomfort, sir."

"Then we'll wait," said Bordman. "Hm. Call us again before you start hunting us with the landing-beam. My pilot has a rather promising idea. And will you call us on the proper frequency then, please?"

The voice aground said unhappily: "Yes, sir. Certainly, sir."

The carrier-wave hum stopped. Young Barnes said gratefully:

"Thank you, sir. Hell hath no fury like a ranking officer caught in a blunder! He'd have twisted my tail for his mistake, sir, and it could have been bad." Then he paused. He said uneasily, "But—beg pardon, sir. I haven't any promising ideas. Not that I know of."

"You have an hour to develop one," Bordman told him. Internally, Bordman was startled. There were few occasions on which even one Senior Officer was called in to Sector Headquarters. Interstellar distances being what they were, and thirty light-speeds being practically the best available, Senior Officers necessarily acted pretty much as independent authorities. To call one man in meant all his other work had to go by the board for a matter of months. But two! And Werner?

Werner was getting to ground first. If there was something serious ashore, Werner would make a great point of arriving first, even if only by hours. A keen sort of person in giving the right impression. He'd risen in the Service faster than Bordman. That other Lawlor field would have been his ship getting out of the way.

The young officer at his elbow fidgeted.

"Beg pardon, sir. What sort of idea should I develop, sir? I'm not sure I understand—"

"It's rather annoying to have to stay parked in free fall," said Bordman patiently. "And it's always a good practice to review annoying situations and see if they can be bettered."

Barnes' forehead wrinkled.

"We could land much quicker on rockets, sir. And even when the landing-grid reaches out for us, they'll have to handle us very cautiously or they'd break our necks, since we've no gravity coils."

Bordman nodded. Barnes was thinking straight enough, but it takes young officers a long time to think of thinking straight. They have to obey so many orders unquestioningly that they tend to stop doing anything else. Yet at each rise in grade some slight trace of increased capacity to think is required. In order to reach really high rank, an officer has to be capable of thinking which simply isn't possible unless he's kept in practice on the way up.

Young Barnes looked up, startled.

"Look here, sir!" he said, surprised. "If it takes them an hour to let down Senior Officer Werner from two planetary diameters, it'll take much longer to let us down from out here!"

"True," said Bordman.

"And you don't want to spend three hours descending, sir, after waiting an hour for him."

"I don't," admitted Bordman. He could have given orders, of course. But if a junior officer were spurred to the practice of thinking, it meant that some day he'd be a better senior officer. And Bordman knew how desperately few men were really adequate for high authority. Anything that could be done to increase the number.

Young Barnes blinked.

"But it doesn't matter to the landing-grid how far out we are!" he said in an astonished voice. "They could lock on to us at ten diameters, or at one. Once they lock the field-focus on us, when they move it they move us."

Bordman nodded again.

"So by the time they've got that other boat landed—why—I can use rockets and get down to one diameter myself, sir! And they can lock onto us there and let us down a few thousand miles only. So we can get to ground half an hour after the other boat's down instead of four hours from now."

"Just so," agreed Bordman. "At a cost of a little thought and a little fuel. You do have a promising idea after all, Lieutenant. Suppose you carry it out?"

Young Barnes glanced at Bordman's safety-strap. He threw over the fuel-ready lever and conscientiously waited the few seconds for the first molecules of fuel to be catalyzed cold. Once firing started, they'd be warmed to detonation-readiness in the last few millimeters of the injection-gap.