“Private vessel I Spy, Captain Sheffield. My compliments to your commanding officer. May I come onboard to pay a call?”
They were pleased to have visitors. The ship was completed save for inspection, trials, and acceptance; the enormous gang which had constructed her had gone to Earth and there was no one aboard but the representatives of the Jordan Foundation and a half dozen engineers employed by the corporation which had been formed to build the ship for the foundation. These few were bored with inactivity, bored with each other, anxious to quit marking time and get back to the pleasures of Earth; a visitor was a welcome diversion.
When the I Spy’s airlock had been sealed to that of the big ship, Lazarus was met by the engineer in charge-technically “captain” since the New Frontiers was a ship under way even though not under power. He introduced himself and took Lazarus on a tour of the ship. They floated through miles of corridors, visited laboratories, storerooms, libraries containing hundreds of thousands of spools, acres of hydroponic tanks for growing food and replenishing oxygen, and comfortable, spacious, even luxurious quarters for a crew colony of ten thousand people. “We believe that the Vanguard expedition was somewhat undermanned,” the skipper-engineer explained. “The socio-dynamicists calculate that this colony will be able to maintain the basics of our present level of culture.”
“Doesn’t sound like enough,” Lazarus commented. “Aren’t there more than ten thousand types of specialization?”
“Oh, certainly! But the idea is to provide experts in all basic arts and indispensable branches of knowledge. Then, as the colony expands, additional specializations can be added through the aid of the reference libraries-anything from tap-dancing to tapestry weaving. That’s the general idea though it’s out of my line. Interesting subject, no doubt, for those who like it.”
“Are you anxious to get started?” asked Lazarus.
The man looked almost shocked. “Me? D’you mean to suggest that I would go in this thing? My dear sir, I’m an engineer, not a damn’ fool.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, I don’t mind a reasonable amount of spacing when there’s a reason for it-I’ve been to Luna City more times than I can count and I’ve even been to Venus. But you don’t think the man who built the Mayflower sailed in her, do you? For my money the only thing that will keep these people who signed up for it from going crazy before they get there is that it’s a dead cinch they’re all crazy before they start.”
Lazarus changed the subject. They did not dally in the main drive space, nor in the armored cell housing the giant atomic converter, once Lazarus learned that they were unmanned, fully-automatic types. The total absence of moving parts in each of these divisions, made possible by recent developments in parastatics, made their inner workings of intellectual interest only, which could wait. What Lazarus did want to see was the control room, and there he lingered, asking endless questions until his host was plainly bored and remaining only out of politeness.
Lazarus finally shut up, not because he minded imposing on his host but because he was confident that he had learned enough about the controls to be willing to chance conning the ship.
He picked up two other important data before he left the ship: in nine Earth days the skeleton crew was planning a weekend on Earth, following which the acceptance trials would be held. But for three days the big ship would be empty, save possibly for a communications operator-Lazarus was too wary to be inquisitive on this point. But there would be no guard left in her because no need for a guard could be imagined. One might as well guard the Mississippi River.
The other thing he learned was how to enter the ship from the outside without help from the inside; he picked that datum up through watching the mail rocket arrive just as he was about to leave the ship.
At Luna City, Joseph McFee, factor for Diana Terminal Corp., subsidiary of Diana Freight Lines, welcomed Lazarus warmly. “Well! Come in, Cap’n, and pull up a chair. What’ll you drink?” He was already pouring as he talked-tax-free paint remover from his own amateur vacuum still. “Haven’t seen you in . . . well, too long. Where d’you raise from last and what’s the gossip there? Heard any new ones?”