“No. Let’s try it.” They went back inside to toss shirts and trousers on the various bunks, then started out.
The water, when they dove in, turned out to be not quite ice-cold. They plunged and swam, were buffeted and rolled over and over by the breakers, staggered to their feet, sinking slightly in the soft sand, and dove in again. The sun blazed steadily down from above, and the white-capped breakers crashed endlessly in. Before an hour was up, feeling refreshed and yet tired out, they sprinted back across the blazing sand, showered in hot spray, and then stretched out on their bunks, to fall asleep at once.
Roberts became aware of the distant clanging of a gong. He fought his way up some kind of dark tunnel, and sat up dizzily, to find that he was lying on a bunk in a room where three other men were stretched out insensible, the covers over their heads. Roberts, overtired and feeling irritated, dropped off his bunk, and at once the clanging stopped. He looked out the door to the “beach,” and it was just starting to get dark out there. Then he became aware of a smell of freshly-grilled steak. It hadn’t occurred to him until then that he was hungry. He looked around, to see a tray of steak and French fries on each of the small desks in the room. He took hold of the metal uprights of the bunks, and shook them. Hammell and Morrissey staggered out, stupefied and muttering incoherently. From the last bunk, a lean face about twenty years old looked out. This face was pink complexioned, with angry light-blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair so light that it was almost white, and an out-thrust chin with a slight cleft or dimple that seemed to set the seal of stubbornness and pugnacity on the face.
Roberts sensed a tough material that something useful might possibly be made out of. “You’re Dan Bergen?”
“Yes,” said Dan Bergen roughly, putting a thin muscular arm threateningly over the edge of the bunk, “And who do you think you are?”
Hammell and Morrissey glanced at each other, picked up their trays, and abruptly started for the “outside.”
Roberts’ irritation heightened for an instant, then transmuted itself into pure pleasure. He yanked Bergen off the cot—mattress, mattress cover, sheets, blankets, and all, so that he landed with a solid thump on top of the mattress with the covers strewn all over him.
“Conceivably, I am your commanding officer,” said Roberts, “but don’t let that bother us. Stop hiding under the sheets, unless you’ve got a broken arm, and let’s hear you use that tone again.”
Morrissey opened the door, and carried his tray outside.
Hammell followed close behind.
Bergen erupted out of the tangle of covers like a jaguar out of a brush patch, and slammed Roberts back against the corridor door.
Roberts struck Bergen an open-handed blow to the side of the head, that gave a crack like a fusion gun. He pinned Bergen’s legs with one arm, heaved him over his shoulder, and dumped him on the other upper bunk.
“Now, friend, we begin again. The alarm has rung, knocking one of your fellow roommates out of bed. Time is passing, and we all have to get to Room 18 in thirty minutes. It would be easier to let you sleep but duty calls. With gentle blandishments, we bid you cast off the blinkers of Morpheus.”
Roberts gripped the bunk, and shook it till Bergen was flung around like a boat in a hurricane. “Please decide,” said Roberts, “whether you wish to get up or stay in bed. The choice is entirely yours, of course.”
Bergen stared out dazedly as the room danced around him. “O.K. I’ll get up.”
“There’s a little word,” said Roberts, stepping back politely as Bergen dizzily swung his feet over the edge, “that soothes the egos of those who hunger and thirst after rank. It’s only a short word, but what self-respecting man can say it without its catching in his throat and gagging him? His stomach turns over, he feels nauseous and cheapened, but—”
Bergen stared at him. “Sir.”
“That’s it,” said Roberts, smiling. “How it soothes my soul to hear it. Drop it into the conversation now and then, when you have time. It will cement our friendship.”
Bergen dropped off the edge of the bunk, steadied himself with one hand, and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I always wake up in a bad mood when I’m tired, and I was worn out. I—”
“Say no more about it. I understand. Count on me to waken you with the softest whisperings from this time forward. But meanwhile, time’s passing. Take a tray.”
“Yes, sir,” Bergen sat down beside the nearest tray. He looked up at Roberts, who waved his hand beside his head, and called out to Hammell and Morrissey. “Better come back in. That alsens is so real I’ve got illusions of gnats flying around my head.”
They came inside and shut the door. “It would be nice if we could figure the thing out.”
“Better save our strength for Room 18,” said Roberts.
* * *
They all sat down with their trays, and ate hurriedly.
On the wall, the second hand of the clock swung steadily around.
The uniforms the colonel had said they needn’t worry about turned out to be a poor fit: Tight at the shoulders, loose at the waist, the sleeves binding their muscles when they bent their arms. Roberts, Hammell, and Morrissey angrily expressed their opinion of these sack-like uniforms, in words of few syllables. Then Bergen said, “My uniform fit the same at first. I don’t understand it, but it’s looser where it used to bind, and tighter where it sagged, and now is a decent fit.”
“Another puzzle,” said Roberts. “Come on, it’s almost 1830.”
They went out and down the corridor to Room 18. They shoved the door open and went in, to experience a peculiar blur that caused them to pause just inside, then step on through the doorway, pull the door shut behind them, glance up and down the now extremely dim corridor, then turn to look back blankly at the closed door, marked “18,” behind them.
For a second, they stood frozen, then Roberts shoved hard on the door. The door didn’t move.
“What in—”
“We just went in there!”
Roberts shook his head. “Wait.” Mentally, he retraced his steps, down the corridor at 1830, through the door, and, with no memory of turning, back out to pull the same door shut behind him, and find himself in this dimly-lit corridor.
“Hold on,” said Roberts. “There was a blur back there. What did the colonel say we were going there for?”
“To get an eight-hour orientation course, that would acquaint us with their methods, and also with the details of Operation New Vote.”
And then they all stood there in silence.
Operation New Vote, they now knew, without any memory of being told, was the problem of getting a Rest & Refit Center accepted on that planet run by a collection of petty humanoid princes. Roberts could see the planet in his mind, could see the inhabited continent’s rocky coast, the small farms, the haughty princes, and the enduring trudging people. And, with all of this vivid information, there was the reservation, “This is the information as received from Planetary Developmental Authority. Reserve final judgment until we see it ourselves at first hand.”
Hammell said, in a peculiar tone, “Daira go nasht?”
The meaning came across to Roberts clearly: “And this that transpires here—It is what?”
Morrissey said dazedly, “We’ve even got the languages!”
Dan Bergen said, “And—We’re all members of Garoujik Construction Corporation!”
That was right there in their minds, too. PDA wanted someone to bid on a contract to put up the R & R Center. This had now happened. The Garoujik Construction Corporation had bid on the contract.
And what was the Garoujik Construction Corporation?
PDA didn’t know it, but Garoujik Construction Corporation was the Interstellar Patrol.
VII
When they got back to their room, they got another shock. That the clock should stand at 2156 was no surprise. They had already deduced the passage of time, and made allowance for it in their minds. What they hadn’t suspected in the darkened corridor looked at them now out of the mirror in the tiled washroom. When they stood before the mirror, not a one of them could recognize his own features. Four strangers looked back at them with expressions of amazement.
They washed, and got ready for bed. “What was it the colonel said this would do—acquaint us with their methods?”
“Yeah,” growled Hammell.
Morrissey said, “I can’t think of anything having to do with their methods.”
Roberts growled, “The whole thing acquaints us with their methods—indirectly.”
Overhead, the inconspicuous lights of the room suddenly dimmed. The slightly-glowing clock face showed that it was one minute before 2200.