2061 Odyssey Three

chapter 39 The Captain's Table
It was a pity that viewers on (and off) Earth could not have enjoyed the less formal discussions aboard Universe. Shipboard life had now settled down to a steady routine, punctuated by a few regular landmarks - of which the most important, and certainly the most long-established, was the traditional 'Captain's Table'.

At 18.00 hours exactly, the six passengers, and five of the officers not on duty, would join Captain Smith for dinner. There was, of course, none of the formal dress that had been mandatory aboard the floating palaces of the North Atlantic, but there was usually some attempt at sartorial novelty. Yva could always be relied upon to produce some new brooch, ring, necklace, hair-ribbon, or perfume from an apparently inexhaustible supply.

If the drive was on, the meal would begin with soup; but if the ship was coasting and weightless, there would be a selection of hors-d'oeuvres. In either event, before the main course was served Captain Smith would report the latest news - or try to dispel the latest rumours, usually fuelled by newscasts from Earth or Ganymede.

Accusations and countercharges were flying in all directions, and the most fantastic theories had been proposed to account for Galaxy's hijacking. A finger had been pointed at every secret organization known to exist, and many that were purely imaginary. All the theories, however, had one thing in common. Not one of them could suggest a plausible motive.

The mystery had been compounded by the one fact which had emerged. Strenuous detective work by ASTROPOL had established the surprising fact that the late 'Rose McCullen' was really Ruth Mason, born in North London, recruited to the Metropolitan Police - and then, after a promising start, dismissed for racist activities. She had emigrated to Africa - and vanished. Obviously, she had become involved in that unlucky continent's political underground. SHAKA was frequently mentioned, and as frequently denied by the USSA.

What all this could possibly have to do with Europa was endlessly, and fruitlessly, debated around the table - especially when Maggie M confessed that at one time she had been planning a novel about Shaka, from the viewpoint of one of his thousand unfortunate wives. But the more she researched the project, the more repellent it became. 'By the time I abandoned Shaka,' she wryly admitted, 'I knew exactly what a modern German feels about Hitler.'

Such personal revelations became more and more common as the voyage proceeded. When the main meal was over, one of the group would be given the floor for thirty minutes. Between them; they had a dozen lifetimes of experience, on as many heavenly bodies, so it would be hard to find a better source of after-dinner tales.

The least effective speaker was, somewhat surprisingly, Victor Willis. He was frank enough to admit it, and to give the reason.

'I'm so used,' he said, almost but not quite apologetically, 'to performing for an audience of millions that I find it hard to interact with a friendly little group like this.'

'Could you do better if it wasn't friendly?' asked Mihailovich, always anxious to be helpful. 'That could easily be arranged.'

Yva, on the other hand, turned out to be better than expected, even though her memories were confined entirely to the world of entertainment. She was particularly good on the famous - and infamous - directors she had worked with, especially David Griffin.

'Was it true,' asked Maggie M, doubtless thinking of Shaka, 'that he hated women?'

'Not at all,' Yva answered promptly. 'He just hated actors. He didn't believe they were human beings.'

Mihailovich's reminiscences also covered a somewhat limited territory - the great orchestras and ballet companies, famous conductors and composers, and their innumerable hangers-on. But he was so full of hilarious stories of backstage intrigues and liaisons, and accounts of sabotaged first nights and mortal feuds among prima donnas, that he kept even his most unmusical listeners convulsed with laughter, and was willingly granted extra time.

Colonel Greenburg's matter-of-fact accounts of extraordinary events could hardly have provided a greater contrast. The first landing at Mercury's - relatively - temperate south pole had been so thoroughly reported that there was little new to be said about it; the question that interested everyone was:

'When will we return?' That was usually followed by: 'Would you like to go back?'

'If they ask me to, of course I'll go,' Greenburg answered. 'But I rather think that Mercury is going to be like the Moon. Remember - we landed there in 1969 - and didn't go back again for half a lifetime. Anyway, Mercury isn't as useful as the Moon - though perhaps one day it may be. There's no water there; of course, it was quite a surprise to find any on the Moon. Or I should say in the Moon.

'Though it wasn't as glamorous as landing on Mercury, I did a more important job setting up the Aristarchus Mule-train.'

'Mule-train?'

'Yep. Before the big equatorial launcher was built, and they started shooting the ice straight into orbit, we had to haul it from the pit-head to the Imbrium Spaceport. That meant levelling a road across the lava plains and bridging quite a few crevasses. The Ice Road, we called it - only three hundred kilometres, but it took several lives to build...

'The "mules" were eight-wheeled tractors with huge tyres and independent suspension: they towed up to a dozen trailers, with a hundred tons of ice apiece. Used to travel by night - no need to shield the cargo then.

'I rode with them several times. The trip took about six hours - we weren't out to break speed records - then the ice would be offloaded into big, pressurized tanks, waiting for sunrise. As soon as it melted, it would be pumped into the ships.

'The Ice Road is still there, of course, but only the tourists use it now. If they're sensible, they'll drive by night, as we used to do. It was pure magic, with the full Earth almost directly overhead, so brilliant that we seldom used our own lights. And although we could talk to our friends whenever we wanted to, we often switched off the radio and left it to the automatics to tell them we were OK. We just wanted to be alone, in that great shining emptiness - while it was still there, because we knew it wouldn't last.

'Now they're building the Teravolt quarksmasher, running right around the equator, and domes are going up all over Imbrium and Serenitatis. But we knew the real lunar wilderness, exactly as Armstrong and Aldrin saw it - before you could buy "Wish you were here" cards in the post office at Tranquillity Base.'