“I joined the service as a Medical Corpsman,” Patrick said surprisingly, “before I went into Officer’s Training.”
“Go talk to Di Asturien in the hospital, then. For the time being I’ll mark you down as assistant orderly, subject to drafts of all able-bodied men in the building program. An engineer should be able to handle architectural work and designing. As for you, Captain–”
Leicester said irritably, “It’s idiotic to call me Captain. Captain of what, for God’s sake, man!”
“Harry, then,” Moray said, with a small wry grin. “I suspect titles and things will just quietly disappear within three or four years, but I’m not going to deprive anyone of one, if he wants to keep it.”
“Well, consider I’ve phased mine out,” Leicester said. “Going to draft me to hoe in the garden? Once I’m out as a spaceship captain, it’s all I’m good for.”
“No,” Moray said bluntly. I’m going to need whatever it was in you that made you a Captain–leadership, maybe.”
“Any law against salvaging what technological know-how we have? Programming it into the computer, maybe, for those hypothetical grandchildren of ours?”
“Not so hypothetical in your case,” Moray said, “Fiona MacMorair–she’s over in the hospital as ‘possible early pregnancy’–gave us your name as the probable father.”
“Who the hell, pardoning the expression, who on this hell-fired world is Fiona Macwhatsis?” Leicester scowled. “I never heard of the damn girl.”
Moray chuckled. “Does that matter? I happened to spend most of this wind making love to cabbage sprouts and baby bean plants, or at least listening to them telling me their troubles, but most of us spent it a little less–seriously, shall we say. Dr. Di Asturien’s going to ask you the names of any possible female contacts. ”
Leicester said, “The only one I remember, I had to fight for, and I lost.” He rubbed the fading bruise on his chin. “Oh, wait–is this a redheaded girl, one of the Commune group?”
Moray said, “I don’t know the girl by sight. But about three–fourths of the New Hebrides people are red-haired–they’re mostly Scots, and a few Irish. I’d say the chances were better than average that unless the girl miscarries, you’ll have a red-headed son or daughter come nine-ten months from now. So you see, Leicester, you have a stake in this world.”
Leicester flushed, a slow angry blush. He said, “I don’t want my descendants to live in caves and scratch the ground for a living. I want them to know what kind of world we came from.”
Moray did not answer for a moment. Finally he said, “I ask you seriously–don’t answer, I’m not the keeper of your conscience, but think it over–might it not be best to let our descendants evolve a technology indigenous to this world? Rather than tantalizing them with the knowledge of one that could destroy this planet?”
“I’m counting on my descendants having good sense,” Leicester said.
“Go ahead and program the stuff into the computer, then, if you want to,” Moray said with the same small shrug, “maybe they’ll have too much good sense to use it.”
Leicester turned to go. “Can I have my assistant back? Or has Camilla Del Rey been assigned to something important, like cooking or making curtains for the hospital?”
Moray shook his head. “You can have her back when she’s out of the hospital,” he said, “although I’ve got her listed as pregnant, for assignment to light work only, and I thought we’d ask her to write some elementary mathematics texts. But the computer isn’t very strenuous; if she wants to go back to it, I’ve no objection.”
He looked pointedly at the work charts cluttering his desk, and Harry Leicester, ex-captain of the starship, realized that he had been, for all practical purposes, dismissed.
Chapter THIRTEEN
Ewen Ross hesitated over the genetic charts and looked up at Judith Lovat. “Believe me, Judy. I’m not trying to make trouble for you, but it’s going to make our records a lot simpler. Who was the father?”
“You didn’t believe me when I told you before,” Judy said flatly, “so if you know the answer better than I do, say whatever you like.”
“I hardly know how to answer you,” Ewen said. “I don’t remember being with you, but if you say I was–“