Dinner was monopolised by a hot argument over the next installment of The Scourge of the Spaceways. Hazel was still writing it but the entire family, with the exception of Dr Stone, felt free to insist on their own notions of just what forms of mayhem and violence the characters should indulge in next. It was not until his first pipe after dinner that Mr Stone got around to inquiring about the day’s progress.
Castor explained that they were about to close up the preheater. Mr Stone nodded. ‘Moving right along — good! Wait a minute; you’ll just have to tear it down again to put in the — Or did they send those gaskets out to the ship? I didn’t think they had come in yet?’
‘What gaskets?’ Pollux said innocently. Hazel glanced quickly at him but said nothing.
‘The gaskets for the intermediate injector sequence, of course.’
‘Oh, those!’ Pollux shrugged. ‘They were okay, absolutely perfect to nine decimal places — so we put ’em back in.’
‘Oh, you did? That’s interesting. Tomorrow you can take them out again — and I’ll stand over you when you put the new ones in.’
Castor took over. ‘But Dad, Hazel said they were okay!’
Roger Stone looked at his mother. ‘Well, Hazel?’
She hesitated. She knew that she had not been sufficiently emphatic in telling the twins that their father’s engineering instructions were to be carried out to the letter; on the other hand she had told them to check with him. Or had she? ‘The gaskets were okay, Roger. No harm done.’
He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘So you saw fit to change my instructions? Hazel, are you itching to be left behind?’
She noted the ominously gentle tone of his voice and checked an angry reply. ‘No,’ she said simply.
‘”No” what?’
‘No, Captain.’
‘Not captain yet, perhaps, but that’s the general idea.’ He turned to his sons. ‘I wonder if you two yahoos understand the nature of this situation?’
Castor bit his lip. Pollux looked at his twin, then back at his father. ‘Dad, you’re the one who doesn’t understand the nature of the situation. You’re making a fuss over nothing. If it’ll give you any satisfaction, we’ll open it up again — but you’ll simply see that we were right. If you had seen those gaskets, you would have passed them.’
‘Probably. Almost certainly. But a skipper’s orders as to how he wants his ship gotten ready for space are not subject to change by a dockyard mechanic — which is what you both rate at the moment. Understand me?’
‘Okay, so we should have waited: Tomorrow we’ll open her up, you’ll see that we were right and we’ll close it up again.’
‘Wrong. Tomorrow you will go out, open it up, and bring the old gaskets back to me. Then you will both stay right here at home until the new gaskets arrive. You can spend the time contemplating the notion that orders are meant to be carried out.’
Castor said, ‘Now just a minute, Dad! You’ll put us days behind.’
Pollux added, ‘Not to mention the hours of work you are making us waste already.’
Castor: ‘You can’t expect us to get the ship ready if you insist on jiggling our elbows!’
Pollux: ‘And don’t forget the money we’re saving you.’
Castor: ‘Right! It’s not costing you a square shilling!’
Pollux: ‘And yet you pull this “regulation skipper” act on us.’
Castor: ‘Discouraging! That’s what it is!’
‘Pipe down!’ Without waiting for them to comply he stood up and grasped each of them by the scruff of his jacket. Luna’s one-sixth gravity permitted him to straight-arm them both; he held them high up off the floor and wide apart. They struggled helplessly, unable to reach anything.
‘Listen to me,’ he ordered. ‘Up to now I hadn’t quite decided whether to let you two wild men go along or not. But now my mind’s made up.’
There was a short silence from the two, then Pollux said mournfully, ‘You mean we don’t go?’
‘I mean you do go. You need a taste of strict ship’s discipline a durn sight more than you need to go to school; these modern schools aren’t tough enough for the likes of you. I mean to run a taut ship — prompt, cheerful obedience, on the bounce! Or I throw the book at you. Understand me? Castor?’