Unwise Child by Randall Garrett

Author:Randall Garrett [Garrett, Randall]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Science fiction, American
Published: 2007-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

Commander Peter Jeffers was in the Control Bridge when Mike the Angel stepped in through the door. Jeffers was standing with his back to the door, facing the bank of instruments that gave him a general picture of the condition of the whole ship.

Overhead, the great dome of the ship’s nose allowed the gleaming points of light from the star field ahead to shine down on those beneath through the heavy, transparent shield of the cast transite and the invisible screen of the external field.

Mike walked over and tapped Pete Jeffers on the shoulder.

“Busy?”

Jeffers turned around slowly and grinned. “Hullo, old soul. Naw, I ain’t busy. Nothin’ outside but stars, and we don’t figger on gettin’ too close to ’em right off the bat. What’s the beef?”

“I have,” said Mike the Angel succinctly, “goofed.”

Jeffers’ keen eyes swept analytically over Mike the Angel’s face. “You want a drink? I snuck a spot o’ brandy aboard, and just by purty ole coincidence, there’s a bottle right over there in the speaker housing.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned away from Mike and walked toward the cabinet that held the intercom speaker. Meantime, he went right on talking.

“Great stuff, brandy. French call it eau de vie, and that, in case you don’t know it, means ‘water of life.’ You want a little, eh, ol’ buddy? Sure you do.” By this time, he’d come back with the bottle and a pair of glasses and was pouring a good dose into each one. “On the other hand, the Irish gave us our name for whisky. Comes from uisge-beatha, and by some bloody peculiar coincidence, that also means ‘water of life.’ So you just set yourself right down here and get some life into you.”

Mike sat down at the computer table, and Jeffers sat down across from him. “Now you just drink on up, buddy-buddy and then tell your ol’ Uncle Pete what the bloody hell the trouble is.”

Mike looked at the brandy for a full half minute. Then, with one quick flip of his wrist and a sudden spasmodic movement of his gullet, he downed it.

Then he took a deep breath and said: “Do I look as bad as all that?”

“Worse,” said Jeffers complacently, meanwhile refilling Mike’s glass. “While we were on active service together, I’ve seen you go through all kinds of things and never look like this. What is it? Reaction from this afternoon’s—or, pardon me—yesterday afternoon’s emergency?”

Mike glanced up at the chronometer. It was two-thirty in the morning, Greenwich time. Jeffers held the bridge from midnight till noon, while Black Bart had the noon to midnight shift.

Still, Mike hadn’t realized that it was as late as all that.

He looked at Jeffers’ lean, bony face. “Reaction? No, it’s not that. Look, Pete, you know me. Would you say I was a pretty levelheaded guy?”

“Sure.”

“My old man always said, ‘Never make an enemy accidentally,’ and I think he was right. So I usually think over what I say before I open my big mouth, don’t I?”

Again Jeffers said, “Sure.

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