Starbuck found the array of tridi pin-ups on the bulkheads of the crew's quarters refreshing, as was the supportive babble of conversation about them and other women. He had almost begun to think there was something unnatural about the men aboard the Gorgon. But Starbuck noticed, to his discomfort, the ebbing of the tide of conversation from the bunks as he stepped inside with his spacebag.
For the moment, he wished Captain Birdsel had paced in with him and offered up an introduction. But a look of disgust had creased Birdsel's face as they got near the crew's compartment. He had sent Starbuck on alone, while he limped back towards the bridge.
A forest of eyes shined out at him from the shadowed desks of the bunks. This is it, he thought. These were the crew, not officers. Sometimes the teachers were nice to you on the first day of school but you knew you were going to get it from the other kids.
"Hi," a gruff voice echoed up at him from a lower bunk.
"Hello," Starbuck said, hugging his spacebag like a teddy-bear, the simile crossed his mind.
A lumbering giant with a blue jaw uncoiled from the lower bunk. "Why don't you stow your bag here, buddy? Till you get used to the centrifugal grav, you may have some trouble climbing top-side."
"You've got the seniority," Starbuck said cautiously. "I wouldn't want to cause you any trouble."
"No trouble," Blue Jaw said obligingly.
He chinned himself with one hand on the rim of the upper bunk and swung his torso around a tidy 180° to settle onto the blankets.
Starbuck threw his bag at the foot and sat down on the bed. He looked around at the arena of faces in neutral positions, waiting faces. He cleared his throat experimentally.
"Could I ask you something?" he called upstairs.
A set of big feet swung down into view. "Sure," Blue Jaw said enthusiastically. "Didn't know you wanted to talk. Thought you might want to rest."
Starbuck looked at the hanging feet. They were expressionless.
"Maybe it isn't so much of a question," he said, working one hand into the other palm. "It's just that I'd like to live through this mission. I know I'm not a regular spaceman and I'm intruding and all, but I don't mean to cause anybody any trouble or do anyone out of a job. I'd just like to do everything I can to see that I don't slip and fall into the reactor. Or anything like that...."
"Don't worry," Blue Jaw said heartily. "We'll take care of you, Ben Starbuck."
Somehow Starbuck could find little comfort in those words.
He inhaled deeply. "Come on down here, will you?"
"You want me down there?" Blue Jaw gasped. "Why sure, sure."
The giant dropped to the deck with a catlike grace that nevertheless vibrated Ben's rear teeth.
"You want to talk about something?" the big spaceman inquired. Ben could almost see the paws hanging down and the tail wagging eagerly.
"Yeah," Starbuck said. "I'd like to talk about all of these men staring at me. What's wrong with them? Nobody's said a word to me but you. What are they waiting for? What are they going to do? I can't stand the suspense. Is that it? I get the silent treatment until I go off my rocker, get violent, and then something happens to me—" He stopped and swallowed. He was talking too much. He was working himself up into a state of terror.
"Say, you sure are friendly," the ox said with some confusion. "My name's Percy Kettleman."
Starbuck steadied his hand and put it in Percy's grasp. It came out whole.
"Those other fellows," Percy inclined his head.
"What about them?" Starbuck asked edgily.
"They'd probably like to come over and say 'hello' but them and me don't get along so good. They know better than to come around bothering me."
"You're not on their side? You wouldn't be a new man too, Percy?"
"Me? Hell, I've been spacing since I was sixteen. Those guys don't have any side. A bunch of anti-social slobs. They can't stand each other any more than I can stand any of them."
Starbuck decided he had picked a good ally in the midst of a pack of lone wolves. Percy was the biggest man on board, physically. Still he didn't like the idea of all the rest of crew looking daggers at him, or throwing them, for that matter.
"Mind if I say 'hello' to the rest of the men?" he inquired of Percy.
"It's your nickel," gruffly. "Spend it the way you want."
Starbuck flexed an elbow. "Hello there, fellows. Looks to be a taut ship." It sounded a shade inane. Starbuck had barely passed Socializing at the university. But the men replied in good spirits, their faces blooming with teeth, arms waggling, calling out modest insults.
Starbuck recalled that among a certain class of men an insult was a good-natured compliment in negative translation.
"Pssst."
"Pssst?" Starbuck asked.
Kettleman passed him down half a roll of white tablet underhand.
Starbuck took it. "Tums?"
"Tranquils. We smuggle them on board. Helps with the blastoff and 'phasing' for the overdrive. Not that those stiffnecked brass will believe it."
"Thanks, Kettleman. You and everybody seems to be pretty helpful to me. I don't know exactly what I've done to deserve it."
"We get tired of looking at the same faces out there month after month. It's a treat to have somebody new on hand."
It sounded reasonable to him, but he felt there was something more to it than that. Well, he was an ethnologist, or almost one. He could figure out group behavior. All he had to do was take time to think about the problem for a little while....
Only he didn't have time to think.
He discovered why everybody was in their bunks.
The spaceship fired its atomic drive.
Starbuck tried to lift a tranquil to his lips. He didn't make it.
Painfully, he found out why a man would prefer to go through a spaceship takeoff in a tranquilized condition.
"Come," the captain said.
Starbuck palmed back the door to the captain's cabin and stepped inside.
Captain Birdsel stood in front of the small wall mirror tattooing a flying dragon on his bared chest. "Yes? What is it, Ben?"
"............