“Well, I–I can’t pretend to know anything about that side of things, sir.”
“You do now.” Merrick arched his fingers in front of his face. “Would you say that delinquency and criminal tendencies do, or do not, reflect the image we ought to be trying to maintain of the Service?”
Faced with a question slanted like that, Fallows could only reply, “Well… no, I suppose not.”
“Aha” Merrick seemed more satisfied. “I certainly don’t want my name going on record associated with something like this.” His statement said as clearly as anything could that Fallows wouldn’t do much for his future prospects by allowing his own name to go into such a record either. Merrick screwed his face up as if. he were experiencing a sour taste. “Low-echelon rabble trying to rise above themselves. We’ve got to keep them in; their places, you know, Fallows. That was what went wrong with the Old Order. It let them climb too high, and they took over. And what happened? They dragged it down-civilization. Do you want to see that happen again?”
“No, of course not,” Fallows said, not very happily.’
“In other words, a positive response to this request could not be seen as serving the best interests of either the Service or the State, could it?” Merrick concluded.
Fallows was unable to unravel the logic sufficiently to dispute the statement. Instead, he shook his head. “It doesn’t sound like it, I suppose.”
Merrick nodded gravely. “An officer who abets an act contrary to the best interests of the Service is being disloyal, and a citizen who acts against the interests of the
State could be considered subversive, wouldn’t you agree?” “Well, that’s true, but–”
“So would you want to go on record as advocating a disloyal and subversive act?” Merrick challenged.
“Definitely not. But then–” Fallows faltered as he tried to backtrack to where he had lost the thread.
“Thank you,” Merrick said, pouncing on the opportunity to conclude. “I agree with and endorse your assessment. Very good, Fallows. Enjoy your leave.” Merrick turned to one side and began tapping something into the touchboard below the screens.
Fallows stood awkwardly and began moving toward the door. When he was halfway there he stopped, hesitated, then turned round again. “Sir, there’s just one thing I’d like–”
“That’s all, Fallows,” Merrick murmured without looking up. “You are dismissed.”
Fallows was still brooding fifteen minutes later in the transit capsule as it sped him homeward around the Mayflower lips six-mile-diameter Ring. Merrick was fight, he had decided. He had been a fool. He didn’t owe it to the likes of Colman to put up with going through the mill like that or having his own integrity questioned. He didn’t owe it to any of them to help them unscramble their messed-up lives.
Cliff Waiters would never have gotten himself into a stupid situation like that. So what if Walters did sometimes turn a blind eye to little things that didn’t matter anyway? Walters was a lot smarter when it came to the things that did matter. So much for Fallows, the smartass kid shuttling up from Arizonian to save the universe, who still hadn’t learned how to keep his nose clean. Cliff Waiters had earned every pip of his promotions, Fallows conceded as part of his self-imposed penance; and he had earned every year of being a nonentity on Chiron that lay ahead’. Someday, maybe, he’d learn to listen to Jean.
CHAPTER THREE
The Mayflower II had the general form of a Wheel mounted near the thin end of a roughly cone-shaped axle, which was known as the Spindle and extended for over six miles from the base of the magnetic ram scoop funnel at its nose to the enormous parabolic reaction dish forming its tail.
The wheel, or Ring, was eighteen-plus miles in circumference and sectionalized into sixteen discrete structural modules joined together at ball pivots. Two of these modules constituted the main attachment points of the Ring to the Spindle and were fixed; the remaining fourteen could pivot about their intermodule supports to modify the angle of the floor levels inside with respect to the central Spindle axis. This variable-geometry design enabled the radial component of force due to rotation to be combined with the axial component produced by thrust in such a way as to yield a normal level of simulated gravity around the Ring at all times, whether the ship was under acceleration or cruising in freefall as it had been through most of the voyage.