Takeoff. Part 23

"What?" the captain asked wheezily.

Drake turned around. "There's no lime left in the grit. It's supplied in the form of crushed oyster sh.e.l.l; the birds need it for bone formation now and egg formation later. It dissolves slowly, so most of the oyster sh.e.l.l is excreted intact. But this grit has been reprocessed so many times that there's no lime left."

Devris pushed open the door and trundled in a can of feed on the improvised wheelbarrow. He listened for a moment to the gasping breath of the captain and watched the worried look on Drake's face. "How much of this can the human system stand?" he asked, of no one in particular. "Mac has eczema, the skipper is coming down with asthma, Drake has ducks, and I have the galloping heebie-jeebies."

Dumbrowski ignored him. "What about this lime, Doc? Can they do without it?"

"Not at this stage of the game; it'd kill them to go without it for very long."

"I will gladly sacrifice my useless bones to be ground up for duck food," Devris volunteered. "Or, if that seems drastic, we can all pull each other's teeth."

"Very funny," said Drake sarcastically.

"It isn't so funny, at that," Dumbrowski told him. "We haven't got any lime on board. Why didn't you think of this before?"

"It's never come up before," Drake said, irritated. "We know how much oyster sh.e.l.l to give them, but the amount that's actually absorbed has never been computed because there's no necessity for it, usually."

"Well, you still should have mentioned it before now"' Dumbrowski's voice was tight.

"Hey! Hey!" Devris interrupted. "Don't go flying off the handle, you two! That fire hose, you know, still works." He set the can of feed gently on the floor, shooing ducks out of the way.

"You know the trouble with you two guys?" he continued. "You, Doc, know everything about ducks and nothing about s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps. And the skipper knows everything about s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps and nothing about ducks. And neither of you knows which bit of information is vitally necessary for the other. And you both think the other is playing it dirty by withholding information."

"You're right," said Dumbrowski, cooling perceptibly. "I'm sorry, Doc; now, let's think about this.

"Lime, you say. I'm not much of a chemist; isn't that calcium oxide?"

"Not in this case. 'Lime' can be calcium oxide, or calcium hydroxide, or calcium phosphate, or calcium carbonate, depending on who's doing the talking. In this case, it's the carbonate."

"You couldn't use calcium chloride, I suppose. We've got plenty of that in the emergency air purifiers."

"I'm afraid not. It'd have to be the carbonate."

"Hey!" Devris said suddenly. "I'm no chemist, either, but couldn't we add carbon dioxide to it or something?"

"Not unless we had plenty of sodium hydroxide or the like-"

"We do!" said Dumbrowski. "We've got that in the air purifiers, too! It takes the CO2 out!"

"Then we've got it!" Drake was excited. "We run enough carbon dioxide through it to make sodium carbonate; then we mix the calcium chloride with it! The calcium carbonate formed will drop to the bottom because it's insoluble,leaving sodium chloride in solution! It's perfect!"

Then his face fell. "But we can't tamper with the air purifiers, can we?"

Devris and Dumbrowski both grinned. The navigator said: "That proves my point-you don't know enough about s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps."

Dumbrowski said: "These are the emergency purifiers. As long as the electronic purifiers work, we don't use the chemicals-too inefficient. We only have 'em aboard in case the electronics go out-and they're in good condition. Besides, we shouldn't have to use all the chemicals. About how much would you need?"

"I'll have to figure it out from the lime removed from the grit, but it shouldn't be too much."

"Good! We're all set, then."

More weeks pa.s.sed. The brooders were taken outside to make more room as the birds increased in size and need for living s.p.a.ce. By the end of the sixteenth week, the Constanza was full of ducks.

From engine room to control dome, there were nothing but ducks-ducks that waddled and quacked and flapped their way freely through the huge s.h.i.+p. All the doors were left open now, except those which sealed off the engines and the control rooms and the sleeping compartments. Everywhere else, there were ducks. Thousands of ducks.

It had been hard work, but the pressure was beginning to let up a little as the hour of their rescue approached. N one of the men had had too much sleep, and all had lost weight. Even Dumbrowski was beginning to look hollow-cheeked.

To Drake, everything was fine; his ducks were in fine fettle, all of them. The tanks that had been built and flooded for swimming purposes were being used as the older ducks taught the young ones to swim. Everything was fine except for one thing-he still didn't understand the odd aloofness that concealed Dumbrowski's anger. Why should the captain be sore at Drake before the accident happened? The remark about "Drake and his harem of ducks" still rankled.

He didn't understand it until one evening when Devris broke into song. Durnbrowski was not in the little common room when it happened; he was in his own cabin.

Devris was singing: "Old MacDonald had a s.h.i.+p, E,I,E,I,O! And on this s.h.i.+p, he had some ducks, E,I,E,I,O! With a Quack! Quack! here and a Quack! Quack! there, here a Quack! there a Quack!

everywhere a Quack! Quack! Old MacDonald had a s.h.i.+p, E,I,E,I,O-O-O-O!"

When he'd reached the part where he said "here a Quack!" he'd indicated Drake with a thumb.

The doctor grinned good-humoredly. MacDonald was laughing uproariously.

Devris had started with the second verse: "Old MacDonald got the itch, E,I,E,I,O!"

"That's a lie!" bellowed Dumbrowski's voice from the door. They all stopped and looked at him. It was quite obvious that he had been hitting the Irish bottle.

"No it isn't, skipper," Devris said. "He does have the itch."

"I mean about the s.h.i.+p! This is my s.h.i.+p! It ain't Old MacDonald's s.h.i.+p, or Drake's s.h.i.+p, or the ducks' s.h.i.+p! It's my s.h.i.+p, and I'm captain here!" He swung around to Drake. "You understand that, Quack?"

Drake didn't mind Devris calling him that, but when Dumbrowski did, it made him see red. He stood up. "What makes you think I care who runs this dirty tub?"

"Dirty tub! Who made it dirty? You! You and your carte blanche orders from the Commission!"

MacDonald and Devris were both on their feet, moving to block off the captain.

But Drake said: "Wait a minute! What's all this about? What carte blanche? I don't know what you're talking about!"

Dumbrowski said something foul. Then he added: "And I don't care what the Commission does, either! I'm captain here! See!" He turned back into his cabin and came out again with two sheets of flimsy. "Here!" He threw them at Drake. Then he slammed the door, leaving the three men alone.

Drake picked up the papers and read them.

"What does it say, Doc?" MacDonald asked.

Drake looked up slowly. "He must have got this before takeoff. It says that Dr. Rouen Drake is entirely responsible for the cargo, and that any orders pertaining to the cargo should be obeyed." Devris whistled softly. "Wow!"

"No wonder he's been sore!" MacDonald said.

Drake swore, borrowing some of Dumbrowski's vocabulary. "How stupid can they get! I swear to you, I didn't ask for any such thing. I thought I was just bucking the skipper's bullheadedness. I wonder why he didn't say something about this before?"

"He probably a.s.sumed you knew," Devris said. "He should have said something about it though."

"I'm glad he didn't," Drake said softly. "I've learned a lot in the past eight and a half months."

"What do you mean?"

"I was so stupid then that I might have tried to give orders." Drake's voice was very low.

The captain of the cargo s.h.i.+p Stramaglia looked out of his control blister at the ma.s.s ahead.

"It most certainly does not look like the Constanza," he said, "I wonder what those things are sticking out allover it? And why is it painted white?"

"Mayas well find out," said his engineer. He held his helmet globe under his arm. "Jones and I will go over and take a look."

Captain Dumbrowski and his crew were waiting for the men from the Stramaglia as soon as they came in from the air lock, their s.p.a.cesuits coated with white powder.

Martin, the engineer, and Jones, the navigator of the rescue s.h.i.+p, were confronted by three tired-looking, almost emaciated men. The newcomers found one-point-five gees difficult to bear, but the men from the Constanza seemed to be used to it.

"Don't take your helmets off just yet," Dumbrowski said. "The air pressure in here is pretty high.

Let it leak in".

"O.K.," said Martin. "By the way, what is that white stuff we got all over us. ?" At the same moment he cracked his helmet just a little, and a hissing jet of the s.h.i.+p's atmosphere hit him in the face.

He flinched. "And what's that smell?"

"Duck excrement," said Dumbrowski, answering two questions with two syllables.

"These two men are Lieutenant Devris, my navigator, and Dr. Drake, in charge of ducks. My engineer, MacDonald, is confined to quarters for being allergic to ducks."

"Uh...I...uh, yeah. Sure. Are you ready to start work on the control systems?"

"Let's go," said Dumbrowski. "And mind the ducks."

"Huh?"

"Never mind-come along."

"This place isn't so bad," said Devris. "It isn't nearly as hot as I thought."

Dumbrowski looked around him at the scenery of Okeefenokee. Overhead hung drifts of clouds, through which a bright yellow sun blazed. "It isn't as hot as it was on the s.h.i.+p. This is in the southern hemisphere; the ducks are to be set free farther north, nearer the equator."

"Have they got the ducks unloaded yet?"

"Yeah," said Dumbrowski. "Now they're airing it out and was.h.i.+ng it down."

The Constanza and the Stramaglia towered high over the little cl.u.s.ter of buildings around the planet's one small s.p.a.ceport. So far, the planet only had a population of eighty, and these were mostly ecologists and biologists studying the planet. It wouldn't be fit to really colonize for a while yet.

They had been on the planet less than twenty-four hours, but they had been ordered to return to Earth as soon as practicable-which meant immediately.

MacDonald was walking toward Dumbrowski and Devris, holding a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Communication from Earth," he said, handing the sheet to the captain.

Dumbrowski read it and said: "What the devil? Listen to this: 'Excellent job on preserving s.h.i.+pment to Okeefenokee. Citation is being placed in your promotion file for job above and beyond call of duty.

Congratulations.'" He looked wonderingly at MacDonald and Devris. "How could that be?"

"Devris-tell him," said MacDonald. "Drake worked it out," Devris explained. "That stupid order wasn't his idea. He didn't even know anything about it. So he wrote a report that ought to keep the top bra.s.s from ever pulling a stunt like that again." "But...but...how?"

"They'd put him in charge of the cargo, hadn't they? Well, remember Section XIX, Paragraph Seven?"

"No."

"Well, Drake did after seeing it once. It says that the cargo officer is responsible for all damage due to s.h.i.+fting cargo, because it's his job to make sure it doesn't s.h.i.+ft-follow? Well, technically, a duck is cargo in this case, and if it s.h.i.+fted-or walked, or flew-in such a way as to damage the s.h.i.+p, it's the cargo officer's fault. And that message you got from the Commission technically appointed him cargo officer. And that's against regs, because the Constanza only rates a three-man crew. Drake tied 'em up good."

"But what will they do to him?" MacDonald asked.

Dumbrowski grinned. "Nothing. What can they do? He's not a member of the s.p.a.ce Service."

"They could give him a commission and then bust him," Devris said helpfully.

The voyage home would be pure vacation. It would be cool and comfortable, and a one-gee pull all the way. Nothing to do but loaf and get soft after eighteen weeks of h.e.l.l.

The Constanza lifted comfortably from the surface of Okeefenokee and speared Earthwards at ten thousand light speeds.

"Ahhhh!" said Dumbrowski. "Feel that air! Smell that air! Deelightfull! Open another beer."

"Glad to," said Drake. "I am going to enjoy this trip." Dumbrowski hadn't apologized, and Drake hadn't even worried about it. Each knew how the other felt.

"I'm going to have to juggle my books," Drake said, sipping at his beer. "Otherwise, I'll get h.e.l.l when we get home."

"How's that?" Devris asked interestedly.

"Evidently my egg count was off. I know how many ducks died en route-about average. But I must have miscounted the number of eggs that didn't hatch. I was one short."

"What'll they do? Charge you two thousand bucks for it?"

"Nope. I'll just add one to my bad egg count, that's all."

"d.a.m.n!" said MacDonald. "I itch?" He scratched furiously at his arm.

"Maybe there's a duck feather around," said Devris.

Then they heard a far-off sound, and all four men stared at each other in horror. They knew, then, why MacDonald itched, and what had happened to the extra duck.