“And now,” Ertz continued, taking the seat Narby had left, “you might explain why you were going through my writings.”
Narby managed to look hurt. “Isn’t that obvious? We assumed you were dead. Someone had to take over and attend to your department until a new chief was designated. I was acting on behalf of the Captain.”
Ertz looked him in the eyes. “Don’t give me that guff, Narby. You know and I know who puts words in the Captain’s mouth; we’ve planned it often enough. Even if you did think I was dead, it seems to me you could wait longer than the time between two sleeps to pry through my desk.”
“Now really, old man, when a person is missing after a mutie raid, it’s a common-sense assumption that he has made the Trip.”
“O.K., O.K., skip it. Why didn’t Mort Tyler take over in the meantime?”
“He’s in the Converter.”
“Killed, eh? But who ordered him put in the Converter? That much mass will make a terrific peak in the load.”
“I did, in place of Hugh Hoyland. Their masses were nearly the same, and your requisition for the mass of Hugh Hoyland was unfilled.”
“Nearly the same isn’t good enough in handling the Converter. I’ll have to check on it.” He started to rise.
“Don’t get excited,” said Narby. “I’m not an utter fool in engineering, you know. I ordered his mass to be trimmed according to the same schedule you had laid out for Hoyland.”
“Well, all right. That will do for now. But I will have to check it. We can’t afford to waste mass.”
“Speaking of waste mass,” Narby said sweetly, “I found a couple of Unnecessary books in your desk.”
“Well?”
“They are classed as mass available for power, you know.”
“So? And who is the custodian of mass allocated for power?”
“You are certainly. But what were they doing in your desk?”
“Let me point out to you, my dear Captain’s Best Boy, that it lies entirely within my discretion where I choose to store mass available for power.”
“Hm-m-m. I suppose you are right. By the way, if you don’t need them for the power schedule at once, would you mind letting me read them?”
“Not at all, if you want to be reasonable about it. I’ll check them out to you: have to do that; they’ve already been centrifuged. Just be discreet about it.”
“Thanks. Some of those ancients had vivid imaginations. Utterly crazy, of course, but amusing for relaxation.”
Ertz got out the two volumes and prepared a receipt for Narby to sign. He did this absent-mindedly, being preoccupied with the problem of how and when to tackle Narby. Phineas Narby he knew to be a key man in the task he and his blood brothers had undertaken, perhaps the key man. If he could be won over… “Fine,” he said, when Narby had signed, “I wonder if we followed the wisest policy in Hoyland’s case.” Narby looked surprised, but said nothing.
“Oh, I don’t mean that I put any stock in his story,” Ertz added hastily, “but I feel that we missed an opportunity. We should have kidded him along. He was a contact with the muties. The worst handicap we work under in trying to bring mutie country under the rule of the Council is the fact that we know very little about theni. We don’t know how many of them there are, nor how strong they are, or how well organized. Besides that, we will have to carry the fight to them and that’s a big disadvantage. We don’t really know our way around the upper decks. If we had played along with him and pretended to believe his story, we might have learned a lot of things.”
“But we couldn’t rely on what he told us,” Narby pointed out
“We didn’t need to. He offered us an opportunity to go all the way to no-weight, and look around.”
Narby looked astounded. “You surely aren’t serious? A member of the Crew that trusted the muties’ promise not to harm him wouldn’t get up to no-weight; he’d make the Trip — fast!”
“I’m not so certain about that,” Ertz objected. “Hoyland believed his own story, I’m sure of that. And–“