nothing for me there now,' he admitted.
'You mean you did all this work for nothing?' the Doctor cried incredulously, waving the notebook.
'It made my point,' Adric replied. 'And who knows - I might change my mind.
Again!'
27
5. Stowaways
Not far beyond the orbit of the remotest planet in the solar system a gigantic bulk freighter of the Galactic Services Commission hung motionless in space. Its colossal hulk dwarfed the small, elegant, wheel-shaped space-station revolving slowly on its axis near by. The freighter resembled an irregular cluster of vast steel buildings with other smaller ones added on all over it as a kind of afterthought. Its hundreds of exterior surfaces bristled with antennae and revolving dishes and hatches of all shapes and sizes. In stark contrast to the brilliantly illuminated portholes of the space-station, the freighter loomed dark and unwelcoming. One tiny section, high up at one end, displayed a few faint lights through the observation ports of the navigation bridge.
Inside, the bridge was long, wide and low-ceilinged and almost every available surface was crammed with displays, instruments and controls. At one end was a long low console with banks of screens suspended above, and two large heavily-padded seats with high backs positioned on a low dais in front of it. At the other end of the bridge were two sets of sliding doors leading into the main body of the ship, and in between, set into the side of the bridge, was an emergency airlock with ESCAPE POD stencilled in red. Most of the floor space was occupied by cabinets containing computers and navigational devices. The air was warm and filled with low humming and electronic chattering sounds.
In one of the command seats a lean hard woman of about fifty with straight fair hair and a boney pear-shaped face was sitting reading. She was wearing a faded greyish uniform, quite plain except for First Officer flashes on the shoulders. Near by, a tall sinewy young man with chiselled features and very short dark hair was standing stiffly upright, staring blankly at the image of the space-station on one of the monitor screens. He wore a similar uniform but with Navigator flashes. His thin hands were clasping and unclasping nervously behind his back.
'The Captain's been gone for hours,' he said in a thin nasal voice.
The woman turned a page of her book. 'Everything will be all right, Ringway,'
she replied complacently after a pause.
The young man gave a hollow laugh. 'I wish I had your confidence, Berger.
Three crewmen disappear without trace in the last two weeks: a word in the wrong place and we could be stuck out here for weeks, pending an inquiry.'
'No one's going to breathe a word,' Berger said soothingly without raising her eyes. 'They all know that any delay now will cost them their bonuses.'
Ringway narrowed his eyes at the screen as if he were trying to see into the interior of the space-station. 'Don't be too sure,' he snapped, 'morale is very low.'
Berger turned another page. 'Well, yours obviously is,' she laughed. 'But you're supposed to be an officer, Ringway. Try smiling to the crew occasionally.
Reassure them.'
The young Navigator spun round angrily, but before he could speak, a voice announced over the ship's intercom that the Captain had just come aboard.
First Officer Berger snapped her book shut and stood up. 'There. Mum's home again,' she scoffed. 'How's that for morale?'
One of the access doors zipped smartly aside and a short but fierce-looking woman with elegantly styled coppery hair and a pale sharp face walked wearily onto the bridge. She was about the same age as Berger, but her green eyes were piercingly alert. She was wearing a black jerkin with a high wide collar, grey trousers tucked into black boots and black gloves.
28
'Take that straight to my cabin,' she ordered in a brittle, haughty voice as two crewmen carrying a heavy metal trunk followed her in.
Ringway
June Gray
Mignon F. Ballard
Claire Thompson
Valerie Thomas
Molly Birnbaum
Ashley Weaver
David B. Coe
Desiree Holt
Niecey Roy
Meg Jackson