The Inheritors - A. Bertram Chandler [2]
The table at which I was seated was too far from the bar for me to overhear the conversation, but I was able to make use of my Mark XVII recorder, playing the recording back later that night in the privacy of my lodgings. The spool has been sent to you under separate cover, but herewith is a suitably edited transcript of what was said, with everything of no importance—e .g. the usual friendly blasphemies, obscenities and petty company gossip—deleted.
First Mate of Pomeranian: And where the hell have you been hiding yourselves? You should have been in before us. I suppose that you got lost.
Second Mate of Corgi: I never get lost.
First Mate of Pomeranian: Like hell you don't. I remember when you got your sums wrong when we were together in the old Dalmatian, and we finished up off Hamlet instead of Macbeth . . . But what's twenty light-years between friends?
Second Mate of Corgi: I told you all that the computer was on the blink, but nobody would listen to me. As for this trip, we had to deviate.
First Mate of Corgi: Watch it, Peter!
Second Mate of Corgi: Why?
First Mate of Corgi: You know what the old man told us.
Second Mate of Corgi: Too bloody right I do. He's making his own report to the general manager, with copies every which way. Top Secret. For your eyes only. Destroy by fire before reading. He's wasted in the Dog Star Line. He should have been in the so-called Intelligence Branch of the clottish Survey Service.
First Mate of Pomeranian: What did happen?
First Mate of Corgi: Nothing much. Mannschenn Drive slightly on the blink, so we had to find a suitable planet on which to park our arse while we recalibrated.
Second Mate of Corgi: And what a planet! You know how I like sleek women . . . .
First Mate of Corgi: Watch it, you stupid bastard!
Second Mate of Corgi: Who're you calling a bastard? You can sling your rank around aboard the bloody ship, but not here. If I'd had any sense I'd'a skinned out before the bitch lifted off. Morrowvia'll do me when I retire from the Dog Star Line! Or resign . . .
First Mate of Corgi: Or get fired—as you will be, unless you pipe down!
Second Mate of Corgi: You can't tell me . . .
First Mate of Corgi: I can, and I bloody well am telling you! Come on, finish your drink, and then back to the ship!
At this juncture there are sounds of a scuffle as Corgi's chief officer, a very big man, hustles his junior out of the Red Dragon.
Third Mate of Pomeranian: What the hell was all that about?
First Mate of Pomeranian: Search me.
The rest of the recorded conversation consists of idle and futile speculation by Pomeranian's officers as to the identity of the world landed upon by Corgi.
To date I have been unable to identify this planet myself. There is no Morrowvia listed in the catalogue, even when due allowance is made for variations in spelling. Also I have checked the Navy List, and found that the master of Corgi is not, and never has been, an officer in the FSS Reserve. None of his officers hold a Reserve commission. It may be assumed, therefore, that the master's report on the discovery of what appears to be a Lost Colony will be made only to his owners. Corgi, when she deviated, was bound from Darnstadt to Siluria. Her normal trajectory would have taken her within three light-years of Gamma Argo. The planetary system of Gamma Argo was surveyed in the early days of the Second Expansion, and no indigenous intelligent life was found on any of its worlds . . . .
"Mphm . . . " Grimes refilled and relit his pipe. This was interesting reading.
He turned to the report from the agent at Port Brrooun. He, the shipping advisor to the Terran Consul, had been spending most of his free evenings in an establishment called the Beer Hive. Brrooun had been Corgi's next port of call after Llangowan. Her second officer had confined his troubles to a sympathetic Shaara drone. At Port Mackay, on Rob Roy, he had gotten fighting drunk on the