Ship of Strangers

CHAPTER THREE

Space had different ways of punishing those who ventured into it. The physical danger was always present, like a threat that was whispered over and over again, and yet it was not the quality of the environment which weighed most heavily on the travellers’ minds. Space was hostile to human life, but it was more forgiving of errors than some other media—for example, the depths of an ocean—in which men had learned to live and work with almost complete equanimity. Its most potent weapon was, simply, its size.

No size of standing on hilltops on dark nights and surveying the heavens could prepare a man for the actuality of space travel, because the earthbound observer saw only the stars, not what separated them. They glittered in his vision, filling his eyes, and he had no choice but to assign them to a position of importance in the cosmic scheme. The space traveller saw things differently. He was made aware that the universe consisted of emptiness, that suns and nebulae were almost an irrelevancy, that the stars were nothing more than a whiff of gas diffusing into infinity. And sooner or later that knowledge began to hurt.

There were no abrupt descents into psychosis among the Cartographical Service crews—the preliminary screening saw to that—and indeed it was rare for the men who drove the survey modules to philosophize about the meaning of their existence, but the stresses imposed by their way of life took a toll just the same. Loneliness and homesickness were occupational diseases. Only uninhabited worlds were surveyed by the Service, quickly sating the mapping crews with views of desert, barren rock and tundra to the point at which they began to pray for something unforeseen to occur, even if it involved hardship or extra danger. But incidents were so rare that a simple mechanical failure would provide conversational fodder for many months.

Against that background, men tended to complete the two years demanded by their employment contracts, follow up with one extra tour which proved to themselves and their friends that they could have gone on indefinitely, and then take their gratuities and retreat to occupations which would enable them to remain at home.

A few men, like Dave Surgenor, had the capacity to endure in the Service regardless of the intellectual and emotional hazards. The Sarafand, therefore, was akin to most other ships in having a cadre of veterans whose lot it was to partner less experienced men in the modules and oversee their progress. They also performed a valuable service, though one for which there was no official recognition, in that they created a stable group identity to which newcomers could relate. Surgenor had seen scores of men—and an occasional woman—come and go, and over the years had developed a wry, avuncular approach to their adjustment problems. Although he sometimes grumbled about the brashness of novices, he had to admit that they helped relieve the monotony of shipboard life.

A year had passed since the encounter with the Grey Man on Prila I, a year of completely routine survey work, and in that time two crew changes had occurred. One man had left the Service, another had transferred to a more modern ship of the Mark Eight class, and both had been replaced by recent recruits. Surgenor had watched the newcomers with unobtrusive interest and had formed the opinion that the more likeable of the pair was, unfortunately, the less likely to remain long in the Service. Bernie Hilliard was a talkative youngster who appeared to enjoy sparking his ideas against the flint of Surgenor’s well-established attitudes. And the breakfast hour, when he was fresh from sleep, was his favourite time for conversational fencing.

“What you don’t appreciate, Dave,” he said one morning, “is that I was home last night. With my wife. I was there.”

Hilliard leaned across the breakfast table as he spoke, pink face childishly solemn with conviction, his blue eyes imploring Surgenor to accept what he was saying, to share the joy which was so freely offered. Surgenor felt well-rested and well-fed, and therefore was in a mood to agree with almost anything—but there were problems. His mind fastened obstinately on the knowledge that the Sarafand was making its way through a dense star cluster many thousands of light-years from Hilliard’s home in Saskatchewan. There was also the obtrusive fact that young Hilliard was not married.

Surgenor shook his head. “You dreamed you were home.”

“You still don’t get it!” Exasperation and evangelist zeal caused Hilliard, who was normally quiet in his manner, to bounce on his chair. Men at the other end of the long table glanced curiously in his direction. The ship-day had just begun and the lighting panels in the semi-circular room, typical of spacecraft living quarters, were glowing most strongly at the end designated “east’.

“The experience of using a Trance-Port has little resemblance to ordinary dreaming,” Hilliard continued. “A dream is only a dream, and when you’re awake you recognize the memories of it as being nothing but dream memories. But with a Trance-Port tape you are transported, in the old sense of the word—that’s the reason for their name—into another existence. The recollections you have next day are indistinguishable from other memories. I tell you, Dave, they are completely real.”

Surgenor poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. “But right now, this morning, you know you weren’t in Canada a few hours ago. And you do know that you were bunked down in this ship on the deck above this room. Alone.”

“Pinky was alone, all right,” Tod Barrow—the second of the new men—put in, winking at the others. “I tried to slip into his room last night for a good-night kiss, but the door was locked. At least, I hope he was alone.”

“Incompatibility doesn’t make a memory any less real,” Hilliard said, ignoring the interruption. “What about all those times you were sure you had done something like packing a toothbrush, and then found you hadn’t? Even when it’s been proved that you didn’t pack the toothbrush you still go on ‘remembering’ how you did it. Same thing.”

“Is it?”

“Of course it is.”

“It all sounds a bit strange to me,” Surgenor said doubtfully, taking refuge in his Oldest Member role, a part which was becoming progressively easier to play with each new voyage he made for the Cartographical Service. The mapping crews seemed to get younger every year and to demand a degree of pampering which would have been unheard of when he had first signed on.

In earlier days it had been accepted that there would be occasional periods of inactivity and boredom. These usually occurred during normal-space planetary approaches or when the ship got into a region which was so congested that the instantaneous drive could not be used to its full extent. The traditional therapy—mainly consisting of poker sessions and increased liquor rations—was one which Surgenor appreciated and understood, and he had visited the recent experimental introduction of Trance-Port tapes without enthusiasm.

“The most important thing about the tapes,” Hilliard went on, “is that they ease the pressure of loneliness. The human nervous system can only stand this sort of life for a strictly limited period, and then something has to give.”

“That’s why I tried to get into Pinky’s room last night,” Barrow said, grinning evilly. He was a former computer engineer and an abrasive individual who made a profession out of being dark, hairy and masculine. From his first hour on the ship he had been verbally sniping at Hilliard over the latter’s baby-pink face and fuzz of blond hair.

“Shamble off and discover fire or invent the wheel or something,” Hilliard said to him casually, without turning his head. “I’m telling you, Dave, you can only take it for so long.”

Surgenor waved a confident denial with his cup. “I’ve been in the Service for seventeen years—without any dream tapes to stop me going crazy.”

“Oh! Sorry, Dave—I wasn’t implying anything. Honest.”

The profuseness of the apology and the gleam in the youngster’s eyes aroused Surgenor’s suspicions. “Are you trying to be funny, junior? Because if you are…’

“Relax, Dave,” Victor Voysey said from two places along the table. “We all know you’re incurably sane. Bernie just wants you to try a tape for a while to see what it’s like. I’m using one myself this trip—got me a nice little Chinese firecracker of a wife I go home to most evenings. It’s a good life, Dave.”

Surgenor stared at him in surprise. Voysey was a red-haired freckle-skinned man with serious blue eyes and a pragmatic outlook on life which was helping him develop into an excellent surveyer. He had been sharing Module Five with Surgenor for more than a year, and looked like building up a respectable record of service. This was the first time he had mentioned going on to the tapes.

“You do it? You put one of those metal pie dishes under your pillow when you bunk down at night?” Surgenor spoke with a kind of amiable scorn he knew would not hurt the other man’s feelings too much.

“Not every night.” Voysey looked slightly uncomfortable as he picked at his ham and eggs.

Surgenor felt his puzzlement increase. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Well, it isn’t the sort of thing you go around talking about.” An incongruous tinge of crimson appeared in Voysey’s cheeks. “The Trance-Port programmes give you a developing relationship with a nice girl, and it’s sort of private. Just like in real life.”

“Better than in real life—you know you’re going to score every time,” Barrow said, making piston movements with his fist. “Tell us all about your Chinese piece, Vic. Is it like they say?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

Barrow was unabashed. “Come on, Vic—I’ll tell you about my little woman. I only want to know if…’

“Shut it!” Voysey, his face losing its colour, picked up his fork and held it under Barrow’s slate-grey chin. “I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t want you to talk to me, and the next time you butt in on me I promise I’ll do some permanent damage.”

There was a taut silence, then Barrow got to his feet, muttering indignantly, and moved down the table to the other side of the small group. “What’s the matter with him?” he whispered to Surgenor. “What did I say?”

Surgenor shook his head. He had no liking for Barrow, but Voysey’s reaction had seemed unnecessarily violent. All Surgenor knew about the Trance-Ports was that they were triggered by the pressure of a man’s head on the pillow, and worked largely by direct cortical stimulation of words and images. Initially they produced a mild form of hypnosis which promoted sleep, and then—after the brain rhythms had begun to indicate sleep, and when periods of rapid eye movement showed that the subject was ready to dream—fed his mind with a programmed scenario.

To Surgenor the Trance-Port players were little more than a type of advanced movie projector, and therefore he was puzzled by the depth of the feelings they seemed to engender. He leaned towards Voysey, who was now staring down at his plate, but Hilliard caught his arm.

“Victor’s right in what he says about it being just like real life,” Hilliard said, with a warning frown which indicated that Voysey should be left alone. “A Trance-Port isn’t an erotic dream machine. The psychologists who programme the tapes realize you need something more than that when you’re this far from home. A sexy girl is always the central figure, of course, but she’s a lot of other things besides sexy. Warm. Understanding. Fun to be with, yet dependable. She provides you with all the things that Service life lacks.”

“And she doesn’t cost you a cent,” Barrow said gleefully, apparently recovered from his brush with Voysey.

Hilliard was not put off. “She becomes very important to a man, Dave. I guess that’s why anybody who is Trance-Porting doesn’t talk about it much.”

“You’re talking some.”

“I am, aren’t I?” Hilliard smiled like a schoolboy announcing his first date. He lowered his voice to exclude Barrow. “It must be because I’m feeling so good. I never had an entirely satisfactory relationship with any of the girls I knew back in Saskatoon. There was always something missing.”

“Something missing?” Barrow said. “In your case it’s easy to guess what.” He glanced up and down the table, trying to enlist smiles, but he had made no friends since joining the Sarafand and the faces of the module crews remained impassive.

Hilliard, seizing the psychological moment, got to his feet and spoke in his best high-school declamatory style. “Barrow,” he said solemnly, “if you had as much ability to hurt people as you obviously have the desire, you’d be a deadly conversationalist indeed—as it is, you are merely pathetic.”

There was an admiring whoop of laughter along the table. Hilliard acknowledged it with a dignified nod and sat down again, seemingly oblivious to Barrow’s look of hatred. Surgenor was pleased for the young man, but he had some misgivings about the developing situation, which was another symptom of the strain felt by the Sarafand’s personnel.

The trip had already lasted longer than expected when it was discovered that Martell’s Cluster had four more planetary systems than had been indicated by long-range examination. It was within Aesop’s discretion to reject the four extra surveys, but he had taken the decision to press on. Surgenor, filled with an uncharacteristic wish to reach Earth in time to spend Christmas with his cousins and their families, had voiced objections, only to have them dismissed. Now, with tension building up around the breakfast table, he decided to have yet another private interview with Aesop.

Hilliard, resuming where he left off, said, “Things are different now that I’ve met Julie.”

“Julie? You mean, they have names?”

“Of course they have names!” Hilliard covered his face with his hands for a few seconds. “You just don’t understand, do you, Dave? Real girls have names, so Trance-Port girls have names. Mine happens to be called Julie Cornwallis.”

At that moment Surgenor became aware of two simultaneous events. A chime sounded and Aesop spoke to the crew on the general address system, telling them he had assessed all gravitational forces acting on the ship and was about to make a beta-space jump closer to the heart of Martell’s Cluster. And, while the omnidirectional voice of the computer was flooding the room, the face of Tod Barrow—which had been filled with broody resentment—suddenly registered surprise and happiness. The look was quickly gone, and in any case could have been interpreted as pleasure over Aesop’s announcement.

The incident was less than trivial, and Surgenor forgot it as the module crews abandoned the table and crowded into the dimness of the observation room on the same deck. He went with them, moving with a casual stride which befitted a veteran of many such star jumps, yet contriving to be among the leaders. Watching the Instant Distance drive in action, seeing the star fields abruptly shift and knowing he had covered light-years with the speed of thought, was an experience Surgenor could never regard as commonplace.

The observation room had twelve swivel chairs—one for each member of the ship’s company—which were grouped midway between two hemispherical viewing screens. Forward was a view through the centre of Martell’s Cluster. The curved screen was like a bowl of black champagne, frozen, with a thousand silver bubbles checked in flight by the briefness of man’s existence. Surgenor waited for the jump, trying to feel it happening, even though he knew that any process which was slow enough to be perceived would probably be fatal.

On the instant, with no sense of anything having moved, the disc of a new sun appeared, seemingly to have driven the other stars outwards.

“We’ve arrived,” Clifford Pollen said, acknowledging the fact that Aesop had taken them right into the target system, and looking furtively grateful for yet another safe transit. Pollen, still gathering material for his projected book, was a connoisseur of legends about ships which had essayed routine jumps, and in the beta-space universe—where the gravitation flux was like a storm howling among the galaxies—had been swept away by freak eddies, to emerge in normal-space at points remote from their destinations. Surgenor knew there were regions where the intergalactic wind penetrated chinks in the gravity shield of the Milky Way, but their locations and boundaries had been well charted. He had no qualms about the Instant Distance Drive, and derived a gently malicious pleasure from Pollen’s enduring nerviness.

The next few weeks would be occupied by normal-space approaches to planets and, where feasible, direct examination by the survey modules. Depending on how things went, the Sarafand could spend a full month in the present system, and there were three others yet to be visited.

Surgenor looked at the alien sun and thought about the precious fleeting afternoons of winter on Earth, about football matches and cigar stores and women at supper tables, and about the deep comforts of families drawing together at Christmas. And he knew that Aesop was wrong, that the voyage should not have been extended. He stood up without speaking and went to the island of privacy which was his room. Not bothering to lock the door—a rule of shipboard life was that no crewman ever entered another’s quarters uninvited—he sat down and closed his eyes.

“Hear these words,” he said presently, using the code phrase which put any member of the ship’s company on to the computer.

“I’m listening to you, David,” Aesop said mildly, voice accurately beamed to Surgenor’s ears.

“It was a mistake to include four extra system surveys in this mission.”

“Is that an opinion? Or are you in possession of data which have not been made available to me?” A dryness had crept into Aesop’s voice and Surgenor was almost certain that the choice of words constituted sarcasm, but he had never been able to establish the exact degree of verbal subtlety of which Aesop was capable.

“I’m giving you my assessment of the situation,” he said. “There’s a lot of tension building up in the crew.”

“That is predictable. I have made allowances for it.”

“You can’t predict how human beings will react.”

“I did not say I could predict their actions,” Aesop said patiently. “I can assure you, though, that I weighed every important factor before making my decision.”

“What factors?”

There was a barely perceptible pause, an indication that Aesop considered the question a stupid one, before the computer spoke. “The volume of space explored by the Cartographical Service is roughly spherical. As the radius of this sphere increases, its surface area…’

“I know all that stuff,” Surgenor interrupted. “I know the Bubble is growing and that the job gets bigger all the time and that there’s an economic pressure to extend the missions. I was asking about the human factors. What do you go on when you’re trying to assess them?”

“Apart from the body of general psychological data available to me, I can refer you to the relevant abstracts from Mission Final Reports for the past century. Those of the Cartographical Service alone occupy some eight million words; military records, more extensive because of the nature of the activities, run to fifteen million words; then there are the reports of the various civilian agencies which…’

“Forget it.” Surgenor, aware that he was being out-manoeuvred, decided to try a different approach. “Aesop, I’ve been with you on the Sarafand a long time, long enough to start thinking of you as a human being, and I believe I can speak to you just as one man would talk to another.”

“Before you begin, David, will you answer two questions?”

“Of course.”

“One—what gave you the curious notion that I would be subject to flattery? Two—where did you get the even more curious idea that ascribing human attributes to me could possibly be construed as flattery?”

“I have no answers to those questions,” Surgenor said heavily, defeated.

“That is a pity. Proceed.”

“Proceed with what?”

“I’m ready for you to speak to me as one man would talk to another.”

Surgenor did exactly that for almost a minute.

“Now that you have relieved your mental stresses,” Aesop commented at the end of the outburst, “please be reminded that the correct code phrase for verbal disengagement is ‘Hear me no morel’.”

Surgenor tried for a final obscenity as the audio connection was broken, but his imagination failed him. He prowled around the room for a while, forcing himself to accept the realization that there was no way of getting back to Earth by Christmas, then went down to the hangar deck and began carrying out system checks on his survey module. At first he found it difficult to concentrate, but then his professionalism took over and several hours went by quickly. The light panels at the “noon’ section of the circular deck were glowing brightest, giving the impression of a midday sun beyond, when he emerged from the vehicle and went to lunch. He sat down beside Hilliard.

“Where have you been?” Pollen said.

“Checking out my sensor banks.”

“Again?” Pollen raised one eyebrow in amusement, his slightly prominent teeth glistening.

“It keeps him out of mischief,” Hilliard said, winking at the others.

“I’ve never had to backtrack halfway round a planet,” Surgenor replied, reminding Pollen of an incident he was anxious to forget, and specified his meal on the menu buttons. His soup had just emerged from the dispensing turret when Tod Barrow came into the mess and, after surveying the table, sat down opposite him. Barrow, who had evidently been working out in the gymnasium, was wearing a track suit and smelled of fresh sweat. He greeted Surgenor with unexpected and excessive joviality.

Surgenor gave him a slow nod. “Is the shower unit out of action?”

“How would I know?” Barrow looked innocently surprised at the question.

“People usually go there after a workout.”

“Hell, only dirty people need to keep washing themselves,” Barrow’s slate-grey features creased in a grin as his eyes fixed on Hilliard. “Besides, I was in the tub last night. At home. With my wife.”

“Not another one,” Surgenor muttered.

Barrow ignored him, keeping his gaze on Hilliard. “Real fancy tub, it is. Gold. Just matches my wife’s hair.”

Surgenor noticed that Hilliard, beside him, had set down his fork and was staring at Barrow with a peculiar intensity.

“Her skin’s sort of gold-coloured, as well,” Barrow continued. “And when we’re in the tub together she ties her hair up with a gold ribbon.”

“What’s her name?” Hilliard said, surprising Surgenor with the question.

“Even the faucets are gold on that tub. Gold dolphins.” Barrow’s face was ecstatic. “We shouldn’t have really bought it, but when we saw it in…’

“What’s her name?” Hilliard’s chair tumbled behind him as he jumped to his feet.

“What’s the matter with you, Pinky?”

“For the last time, Barrow—tell me her name.” Red beacons of anger burned in Hilliard’s cheeks.

“It’s Julie,” Barrow announced contentedly. “Julie Cornwallis.”

Hilliard’s jaw sagged. “You’re a liar.”

“I ask you,” Barrow said to the others who were watching the incident, “is that any way to speak to a shipmate?”

Hilliard leaned across the table towards him. “You’re a bloody liar, Barrow.”

“Hey, Bernie!” Surgenor stood up and caught Hilliard’s arm. “Cool off a little.”

“You don’t understand, Dave.” Hilliard shook his arm free. “He’s claiming he’s got a Trance-Port tape the same as mine, but the supply office doesn’t do that. They make sure there’s only one of each type on a ship.”

“They must have made a mistake,” Barrow said, chuckling. “Anybody can make a mistake.”

“Then you can turn yours in and get a different one.”

Barrow shook his head emphatically. “No chance, Pinky. I’m happy with the one I got.”

“If you don’t turn it in I’ll…’

“Yes, Pinky?”

“I’ll…’

“My soup is getting cold,” Surgenor said in his loudest voice. He was a big deep-chested man and could produce an awe-inspiring bellow when he thought it necessary. “I’m not going to eat cold soup for anybody—so we’re all going to sit here quietly and take our food like grown-ups.” He picked up Hilliard’s chair and pushed the younger man into it.

“You don’t understand, Dave,” Hilliard whispered. “It’s like my home has been invaded.”

For a reply, Surgenor pointed at his soup and began to spoon it up in silent concentration.

In the “afternoon’ Surgenor finished reading a book, spent some time in the observation room, then went to the gymnasium and practised fencing with Al Gillespie. He saw nothing of Hilliard or Barrow, and if he thought about the incident of the Trance-Port tapes at all it was only to congratulate himself on having forced some sense into the two men concerned. Peaceful red-gold light was flooding through the “western’ end of the mess when he entered and sat down. Most of the places were filled and the dispensing turret was busy whirring up and down the table’s central slot.

The lively atmosphere would normally have made Surgenor feel cheerful, but on this occasion it served to remind him of Christmas he was not going to have on Earth, of the bleak new year that would begin in the absence of an afterglow from the old. He dropped into a chair, called up a standard dinner and was eating without much pleasure when he became aware of a latecomer sitting down beside him. His spirits sank even further when he saw it was Tod Barrow.

“Sorry I’m late, men,” Barrow said, “but I see you’ve started without me.”

“We took a vote on it,” Sig Carlen growled, “and decided that was what you would want us to do.”

“Quite right.” Barrow stretched luxuriously, immune to sarcasm. “I was dozing most of the afternoon, so I decided to go home. To see my wife.”

There was a groan of complaint from the assembly.

“That Julie is some girl,” Barrow continued, heedless, closing his eyes the better to savour his memories. “The way she dresses you’d think she was a Sunday school teacher or something—but what a line in undies.”

Somebody at the other end of the table gave an appreciative guffaw. Surgenor glanced around, looking for Hilliard, and saw him sitting with his head bowed. There was a rigid stillness about the young man which Surgenor did not like.

Surgenor leaned closer to Barrow, meeting his gaze squarely. “Why don’t you give it a rest?”

Barrow waved a dismissive hand. “But you’ve got to hear this. Lotsa married women will only perform in bed, but my Julie has a habit of…’ He stopped speaking and a grin spread over his face as Hilliard jumped to his feet and ran from the room. “Aw, look at that! Young Pink’s gone and left us, just as I was getting to the good bit. Perhaps he’s gone to warn Julie about two-timing him.” More laughter greeted the remark and Barrow looked gratified.

“You’re laying it on too thick,” Surgenor told him. “Leave the kid alone.”

“It’s only a joke. He should be able to take a joke.”

“You should be able to make one.”

Barrow shrugged and, apparently having satisfied himself as regards getting even with Hilliard, scanned his menu display. He ordered corn-and-crab soup and took it slowly, pausing every now and then to shake his head and chuckle. Surgenor tried to repress the anger he felt at Barrow for being such a disruptive influence, at Hilliard for allowing himself to get so worked up over nothing more than a piece of dream tape, at the Service psychologists for issuing the Trance-Ports in the first place, and at Aesop for prolonging the trip beyond its normal term. The effort stretched his tolerance to the limit.

He was toying with the remains of his meat loaf when the conversational hum in the room faded away. Surgenor looked up and saw that Bernie Hilliard, unnaturally pale, had come back into the room. The young man walked around the table and came to a halt beside Barrow, who twisted in his chair to look up at him.

“What’s on your mind, Pinky?” Barrow seemed slightly taken aback by the new development.

“That soup you’re eating looks a bit thin,” Hilliard said woodenly. “What do you think?”

Barrow looked puzzled. “Seems all right to me.”

“No. It’s definitely too thin—try some noodles.” Hilliard produced a tangle of silver-and-green tape from behind his back and slapped it down into the other man’s soup.

“Hey! What is this?” Barrow stared at the knotted mass and suddenly was able to supply his own answer. “That’s a Trance-Port tape!”

“Correct.”

“But…’ Barrow’s eyes shuttled as he reached an inevitable conclusion. “It’s my tape!”

“Right again.”

“That means you went into my room.” Barrow sent a scandalized glance around the other men, making them witnesses to the confession, then he leapt at Hilliard’s throat. Hilliard tried to twist free and both men fell to the floor, with Barrow uppermost.

“You shouldn’t…have gone…into my room!” Still holding Hilliard by the throat, Barrow punctuated his words by hammering the young man’s head against the floor.

Surgenor, who had risen from his place, lifted one foot and stamped it down hard between Barrow’s shoulder blades. Barrow collapsed like a pile of sticks and lay on his side, gasping, while Surgenor and Voysey picked Hilliard up.

“Do me a favour, Bernie, for God’s sake,” Surgenor said. “Try to unscramble your brains.”

“Sorry, Dave.” Hilliard looked shaken, but triumphant. “He had no right…’

“You had no right to go into his room—that’s one thing you just don’t do shipboard.”

“Yeah, how about that?” Barrow put in, struggling to his feet. “He violated my privacy.”

“Not as much as you violated mine,” Hilliard said.

“It was my tape.” Barrow turned and lifted the dripping tangle from his plate. “Anyway, a smear of soup won’t do it any harm. I’ll clean it and feed it back in the cassette.”

“Go ahead.” Hilliard paused to smile. “But it won’t do you any good—I wiped it first.”

Barrow swore and moved towards Hilliard again, but was pushed down into his chair by several men acting in concert. Surgenor was relieved to see that the general weight of opinion was against Barrow—a situation less likely to get out of hand than one where there were two evenly matched sides. Barrow surveyed the ring of unfriendly faces for a moment, then gave an incredulous laugh.

“Look at them! All screwed up over nothing! Relax, men, relax!” He dropped the green-and-silver tape back into his soup and pretended to spoon it into his mouth. “Hey, this is good stuff, Pinky I think you found the best thing to do with these stinking Trance-Ports.” A number of men laughed, and there was an immediate easing of tension. Barrow clowned his way through the rest of the meal, giving an excellent impression of a man who was incapable of bearing a grudge. But Surgenor, watching him closely, was unable to accept that it was anything more than an impression. He left the table with a premonition that the episode was far from ended.