“Well, assign it. Do I have to be bothered with every routine matter?”
The Paymaster decided that the Old Man had been missing sleep again. “Bad news, Skipper.”
“Okay, spill it.”
“I don’t know of a charge to cover it I doubt if there is an appropriation to fit even if we could figure out a likely-sounding charge.”
“I don’t care what charge. Pick one and get that message moving. Use that general one. Oh-oh-something.”
” ‘Unpredictable Overhead, Administrative.’ It won’t work, Skipper. Making an identity search on a civilian cannot be construed as ship’s overhead. Oh, I can put that charge number on and you’ll get an answer. But –”
“That’s what I want. An answer.”
“Yes, sir. But eventually it reaches the General Accounting Office and the wheels go around and a card pops out with a red tag. Then my pay is checked until I pay it back. That’s why they make us blokes study law as well as accounting.”
“You’re breaking my heart. Okay, Pay, if you’re too sissy to sign it, tell me what charge number that overhead thing is; I’ll write it in and sign my name and rank. Okay?”
“Yes, sir. But, Skipper –”
“Pay, I’ve had a hard night.”
“Yes, sir. I’m required by law to advise you. You don’t have to take it, of course.”
“Of course,” Brisby agreed grimly.
“Skipper, have you any notion how expensive an identification search can be?”
“It can’t be much. I can’t see why you are making such an aching issue of it. I want a clerk to get off his fundament and look in the files. I doubt if they’ll bill us. Routine courtesy.”
“I wish I thought so, sir. But you’ve made this an unlimited search. Since you haven’t named a planet, first it will go to Tycho City, live files and dead. Or do you want to limit it to live files?”
Brisby thought. If Colonel Baslim had believed that this young man had come from inside civilization, then it was likely that the kid’s family thought he was dead. “No.”
“Too bad. Dead files are three times as big as the live. So they search at Tycho. It takes a while, even with machines — over twenty billion entries. Suppose you get a null result A coded inquiry goes to vital bureaus on all planets, since Great Archives are never up to date and some planetary governments don’t send in records anyhow. Now the cost mounts, especially if you use n-space routing; exact coding on a fingerprint set is a fair-sized book. Of course if you take one planet at a time and use mail –”
“No.”
“Well . . . Skipper, why not put a limit on it? A thousand credits, or whatever you can afford if — I mean ‘when’ — they check your pay.”
“A thousand credits? Ridiculous!”
“If I’m wrong, the limitation won’t matter. If I’m right — and I am, a thousand credits could just be a starter — then your neck isn’t out too far.”
Brisby scowled. “Pay, you aren’t working for me to tell me I can’t do things.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re here to tell me how I can do what I’m going to do anyhow. So start digging through your books and find out how. Legally. And free.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Brisby did not go right to work. He was fuming — some day they would get the service so fouled up in red tape they’d never get a ship off the ground. He bet that the Old Man had gone into the Exotic Corps with a feeling of relief — “X” Corps agents didn’t have red tape; one of ’em finds it necessary to spend money, he just did so, ten credits or ten million. That was how to operate — pick your men, then trust them. No regular reports, no forms, no nothing — just do what needs to be done.
Whereupon he picked up the ship’s quarterly fuel and engineering report. He put it down, reached for a message form, wrote a follow-up on Baslim’s report, informing Exotic Bureau that the unclassified courier who had delivered report was still in jurisdiction of signer and in signer’s opinion additional data could be had if signer were authorized to discuss report with courier at discretion.