“What about the checks? Why should you have three checks and McCarthy II have two while I only got one? Do I get my cut?”

  “Wait! we get back to the professor. He’ll settle it. Can’t you think of anythin’ else but money?” McCarthy I asked wearily.

  “Ne, we can’t,” McCarthy II told him. “I want my share of that third check. I got a right to it. More’n this dopey guy has, see.”

  “O.K. O.K. Wait’ll we get back to the lab.” McCarthy I pushed down on the chronotransit. The island and the bright sunlight disappeared. They waited.

  DARKNESS! “Hey!” McCarthy II shouted. “Where’s the lab? Where’s Professor Ruddle?”

  McCarthy I tugged at the chronotransit. It wouldn’t move. The other two came over and pulled at it too.

  The chronotransit remained solidly in place.

  “You must’ve pushed down too hard,” McCarthy III yelled. “You busted it!”

  “Yeah,” from McCarthy II. “Who ever told you that you could run a time machine? You busted it and now we’re stranded!”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” McCarthy I pushed them back. “I got an idea. You know what happened? The three of us tried to come back to—to the present, like Professor Ruddle says. But only one of us belongs in the present—see what I mean? So with the three of us inside, the machine just can’t go anywhere.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” said McCarthy III. “I’m the only real—”

  “Don’t be crazy. I know I’m the real McCarthy; I feel it—”

  “Wait,” McCarthy I told them. “This isn’t gettin’ us any place. The air’s gettin’ bad in here. Let’s go back and argue it out.” He pushed the lever down again.

  So they went back a hundred and ten million years to discuss the matter reasonably. And, when they arrived, what do you think they found? Yep—exactly. That’s exactly what they found.

  Confusion Cargo

  The hellship hang motionless in the cold black void. Men tip-toed along her echoing corridors, gun hands trembling. What menace gripped the engines? Who was this Dr. Sims?

  CAPTAIN ANDREAS STEGGO had commanded a light negship in the late war before peace and retirement had given him the master’s position aboard the Sagittarian Line’s Reward. He was big, slightly brutal and accustomed to absolute obedience from his crews.

  On the other hand, the crew hastily signed on by the Aldebaranian office were all ex-cargo jockeys of the twenty-five planet system thrown out of work by the sudden cessation of hostilities. They were rough, fast-thinking and terrifically independent.

  Excepting myself, there were no passengers. The voyage was to be especially long—two months; the cargo was particularly nasty—ten tons of stinking viscodium.

  Anyone with half an ounce of brain would have known there would be trouble. Unfortunately the requirements for an official of the Sagittarian Line include a university degree and galactic license; nothing about half an ounce of brain.

  First we discovered the viscodium, instead of being sealed in dellite drums, was stored in a large tank with an overflow lid. That made for economy in shipping space, but also for certain discomfort in such useful functions as breathing. I’d lie awake at sleep period thinking of what would happen if the lid fell off and the green slime came churning through the loose hatches.

  Then one of the loading pipes developed a leak under the strain of acceleration. The Reward was an old ship and she had been hastily serviced for this, her first trip in five years. Brock, the ship’s welder, burst the pipe while repairing it and we tossed him, stiff within the congealed mass of viscodium, through an air-lock. No second welder either; so when the plumbing . . .

  After the burial service, a delegation from the crew visited Captain Steggo and accused him of negligence in not having the loading pipes inspected for residual viscodium immediately after the take-off. They demanded their protest be logged. Steggo had all five of them clapped in restrainons. He then announced that full-dress discipline would be observed until we arrived; all ship’s officers were to go armed at all times. I heard angry men in cheap hwat suits muttering after that about punishment half-meals and longer watches for a smaller active crew.

  Mr. Skandelli, the chief engineer, visited me and offered a sawed-off shmobber. I looked at the foot-long weapon and declined. “Never touch the stuff.”

  “More than this may be touched before we warp in,” he said grimly. “When Aldebaranian riff-raff gets snappish, I start using the armory. And passengers are classed with officers.”

  “That’s no compliment on the Reward,”

  He looked at me, holstered the shmobber and left.

  AN HOUR LATER, I was presented with the captain’s compliments and asked to attend him on the bridge. The whole business was beginning to annoy me more than slightly, but under the peculiar circumstances of my status I didn’t feel like arousing any unnecessary antagonism. I went, determined not to be enlisted on either side—if it had come to choosing sides.

  Steggo overflowed a huge armchair. A faint stubble covered his chin which, considering the cheapness of a depilosac, was unnecessarily filthy.

  “Mr. Skandelli tells me you have no desire to be classed with the officers. However,” he waved a huge paw to forestall my objections, “that’s beside the point. You are Dr. R. Sims, late of Naval Research?”

  “Yes. Robert Sims, physical chemist grade 2, Aldebaranian Project CBX-19329.” I tried to keep my voice from quavering. This man wanted to bollix my papers.

  He smiled and studied my questionnaire. “I am interested, Dr. Sims, in why a person of your standing chooses to travel on an uncomfortable cargo ship when the fastest negships and government cruisers are at his disposal.”

  “I am going home to visit my family whom I haven’t seen in more than three years.” I hoped my voice sounded confident. “Naval employees are not allowed aboard negships for matters of personal convenience. It would be six months before obtainable priorities would get me a cabin on a reconverted liner. Since my leave starts immediately, the Reward looked damn good.”

  Papers rustled as he held them up to the light. “The seal is genuine enough. Ordinarily, the matter would not have come to my attention. But remember, we are still traveling under the mercantile sections of the articles of war. After your amazing outburst to Mr. Skandelli—who approached you at my instigation, by the way—I thought you merited looking into.”

  “I told Mr. Skandelli what any passenger in his right mind would have. Having paid for my passage, my protection is in your hands and not in mine.” I touched the door button. “May I go?”

  “One moment.” He turned his massive head slowly. “Mr. Ballew, bring in the prisoners.”

  Ballew was the astrogator. He was a thin fair-haired fellow who had been hunched over his charts during the interview. He grimaced and left, returning in a few seconds with five men.

  The first of them was the tallest man I’d ever seen, not excluding the captain. The yoke of the restrainon about his neck barely seemed able to cover his body with its lines of force. His head was free to permit breathing, and the machine had been adjusted above his knees, enabling him to shuffle along in an odd, broken-legged fashion. The other four were likewise yoked.

  Steggo introduced them to me.

  “Ragin, whom I have logged as the leader of an abortive mutiny. The other woebegone gentlemen have names I either can’t pronounce or don’t choose to remember.”

  I waited, wondering how I came into this situation.

  Suddenly the tall man spoke. The words seemed to come with difficulty because of the restrainon pressing upon his diaphragm. “You’ll remember us, Steggo, if I have to hunt your black heart across the galaxy.”

  The captain smiled. “A shmobber squad on earth will quiet you. And it will be shmobbers for you after my report is in.”

  Ragin glared and shuffled rapidly across the small room. His intention was obviously to hurl himself against the captain. Steggo lurched out of his chair and placed it in front of the moving man. Ragin hit the chair, bounced off it and was hurled against a bulkhead. I heard the thud as his head smashed into metal. The astrogator helped him to his feet.

  “That, too, will go into the log,” Steggo puffed. “Now, Dr. Sims, if you will please come this way.”

  I followed him, disagreeably conscious of the murder thoughts swirling about in the bridge.

  He walked to the ship’s visor, fiddled with the dial and snapped it on. I gasped.

  “That as you see is the hold. I was looking through at the hold where our Mr. Ragin and his little playmates were being kept. I thought I saw somebody bending over Ragin, feeding him. Mr. Skandelli was sent to investigate with the second officer and my suspicions were proven correct. The ship was then searched and six others found. Five of these are the wives of these men here; two belong to other members of the crew who are now being placed in restrainons themselves.”

  “Women!” I muttered. “Aboard a ship. Stowaways!”

  “Ah, you are familiar with the mercantile sections of the articles of war. Any person of the feminine gender found aboard a ship engaged in interstellar flight without naval or military guard shall be subject to death or such other punishment as a court martial may direct. That is the law, is it not?”

  “But captain,” I protested. “That law was directed against members of the Fino Feminist. League who cooperated with the enemy during the war. It has never been used against civilians.”

  “Which is not to say it does not apply to civilians. I am fully aware that women have participated in our government during the entire conflict and even served with distinction during the Battle of the Dead Star. But the law is specific. It considers the costly sabotage at the time we were attacked and forbids women aboard ships on a blanket basis.”

  His heavy face seemed unusually thoughtful. He snapped off the visor. “What do you want me to do?”

  He pointed to the open log. “I’ve entered the entire incident; the fact that these men and two others, prior to the attempt at mutiny, did willfully smuggle their wives on board, in knowing violation by all parties concerned of space law.” Ragin snorted heavily in the background. “I want you to sign the entry, testifying to the physical presence on ship of these women.”

  “But I’m not an officer. I’m not even an employee of the line!”

  “That is precisely why I want your signature. It provides disinterested evidence. If you refuse, in the light of the emergency conditions now revealed as well as your semi-official naval status, I shall be forced to conclude you favor the mutinous elements. You will then be placed—”

  He didn’t have to finish. I signed.

  STEGGO followed me courteously to the door. “Thank you, Dr. Sims. Mr. Ballew, please assemble the court martial.” Ballew had turned a fiery red. “But, sir, you aren’t going to court-martial them before we reach earth!”

  “I am, Mr. Ballew. And you will sit on the court. Remember the mercantile sections: any merchant ship in priority categories 1AA, 1AB or 1AC whether proceeding with or without military or naval escort shall be considered to be on military or naval status for the purpose of discipline at the discretion of the master. A viscodium cargo is sufficiently delicate to place us in category 1AC. And our dendro drive prohibits radio communication even if a ship this size carried an interstellar transmitter, which it doesn’t. Please assemble the court.”

  As Ballew, breathing hard, hurried from the bridge, I thought of what a space lawyer we had for a captain. He’d probably been an administration officer until near the end when the bottom of the barrel was carefully scraped. Early retirement usually pointed to such a background. Kid discipline, himself!

  “You appreciate the fact, captain, that the priority categories as well as the mercantile sections which you quote so glibly were all wartime measures?”

  “I do. Wartime measures which have not yet been repealed. Now, Dr. Sims, if you would return to your cabin?”

  I left, trying to throw some ocular comfort at Ragin while the door closed behind me. He was staring at my parplex jumper oddly, his brows knitted as if he were trying to decide something very important. I was wearing the naval pi with three palms.

  My cabin had been searched. Officers or crew? I didn’t know. It was no fun being a neutral, as many small and sorrowful planets have discovered.

  The suitcase and toilet articles had been hastily rifled, clumsily put back into place. I felt the head of the bed. The invisible blusterbun still reposed on the head of the ledge. Obviously no search scanners or even colored powder had been employed.

  Amateurs. A stellective would have used powder, at least.

  I pocketed the tiny, completely transparent weapon and stretched out on the bed. My toilet articles caught my eye. The half-empty container of depilo-sac had been probed for hidden articles. White drippings of the stuff stained the red shelf. Well, they hadn’t found anything there.

  Nothing incriminating had been found in the suitcase either; I had selected its contents with great care. Rather a nice touch that, choosing something old-fashioned like a suitcase instead of a modern space-saving collapsicon.

  But if this mess got down to really sharp brass tacks, all my precautions wouldn’t be worth a gram of plutonium in an atomic furnace. Damn Steggo anyway. Damn him and his mercantile-sections. Damn Ragin. Damn the war.

  I fell asleep in a wave of homesickness for the earth.

  WEAPONS coughed brokenly at the stern of the ship. I came awake with my hand on the blusterbun. Somebody ran past my cabin screaming. The lights went off, came back on, then went off again.

  I hit the floor of the bed as my pneumastic mattress was turned off too. Something rattled against the outside bulkhead and passed down the spaceship. Meteor dust? Not this far out. Probably Steggo turning on the gas sprinkler system. Or the mutineers.

  So this was a mutiny. I had been in an atomic explosion and a devastating space negation in my time. I had been in the photonite plant on Rigel VIII when molecular joint lubricant was spilled against the dome, allowing our air to leak out into space. Now I was in a mutiny.

  Fingers tapped on my door in a frantic message. I threw it open.

  The man lying outside was evidently a crew member. He had a gaping, smoking hole instead of his chest.

  “Jobal!” he almost whispered. “Please, please Jobal—” He seemed to belch; when he didn’t move I realized it was a death rattle. I moved his hand gently and closed the door. I went back to the side-board of the bed and sat down.

  Who was Jobal? A friend? His wife, sweetheart? One of his gods? I must have sat in the darkness for an hour. After a while I noticed the ship was silent again. There was only the rolling hum of the Dendros.

  Footsteps became louder and stopped outside my door. There was the sound of a man stepping over the body. Then the door was flung open and two huge Aldebaranians strode in. They leveled still-throbbing shmobbers at my waist.

  “Captain Ragin wants to see you.” Uh-huh. So the score was in. And now, I imagined, all bets were being paid. And which side was I supposed to be on? I walked carelessly to the door, keeping the pocket in which I had the blusterbun away from them.

  RAGIN sat in Steggo’s chair. Me didn’t fill it as completely, but he looked just as dominant as the captain. Ballew pored over his charts in a corner. Except for the splash of blood on the floor, the room was as I had left it.

  “Hello, Dr. Sims,” Ragin grinned through puffed lips. Ballew didn’t look up, “Some changes been made.”

  “For the better, I hope.” I waited. This might be played a number of ways.

  “Yeah. We think so.” He looked behind me at my guards. “He’s been searched?”

  “Weill—” one of them began.

  “We didn’t think—” the other fumbled. “Great exploding novas! What do you blastheads think this is—a meeting of the Aldebaranian Benevolent Association?” He was on his feet snarling at them, his head almost two feet above mine.

  “I can save you the trouble—er, captain.” I flipped the blusterbun from my pocket and held it out, butt foremost.

  He stared uncomprehendingly at my outstretched hand for a few moments. Then he reached forward gingerly and took the invisible weapon.

  A smile twisted his mouth as he ran his fingers over its intricacies. “Well, I’ll be washed by a comet’s tail! A blusterbun! Dainty and deadly. I’ve heard about these things but I never hoped to have one. How does a civilian rate it?”

  “Naval research,” I reminded him. Coolly, he appraised me. “Maybe. Maybe: not. I’ll still have to have you searched.” The guards came up.

  I moved away. “Now, wait a moment. I gave you my weapon. Had I wanted to, I could have shot you with the same motion before your zombie friends decided to swallow or wipe their mouths. I carry documents on my person that I most definitely don’t want seen until I reach earth. Unless I’m mistaken, you want some favor of me. If you read those documents, all deals are automatically off; and you’ll be in a mess about five times as disagreeable as a mutiny.”

  He took time to chew on that. Finally: “O.K. Not that you can kill more than one man even if you have another weapon. If you start shooting, you’ll be thoroughly butchered. And we do want a good deed out of you.”

  A tall, blonde woman came in with a tray. She prodded me with it Catching on, I took a cup of hot liquid. Aldebaranian hialiau juice. Things were looking up.

  “Elsa and I were just married. I wasn’t going to leave her to the tender mercies of a fat sadist. The boys were all for mutiny thirty-six hours after we cleared Booma City, but I held them down until our wives were discovered. We’ve been miners and independent freightmen; we’re not used to this sort of disciplinary guff.”

  My chin pointed at the red mess on the floor. “Steggo?”

  “No. One of our boys. We’ve been careful to keep this a completely bloodless mutiny as far as the officers were concerned. As a result, there’ve been more casualties on our side than there should have been. We lost four men.”