When Shirley embarked on the space ship to Mars from the landing craft, she went straight to the commons. She was still hungry, and ordered far more food than she could possibly consume. Of course, they would have to leave orbit before they could prepare it; she didn’t want any more Martian tube paste space food; the Martians had donated much of it to ease the Earthians’ hunger. The weightlessness gave her the dry heaves; she, like almost all Earthians, had never left Earth in her life.
Of course, when her first non-Earthian meal arrived she made the same mistake her husband had made, eating so much it made her stomach hurt. Like Duane, she swore that wouldn’t happen again, then ate way too much again the very next meal. She couldn’t believe how good real Martian food tasted. Even the space paste tasted better than the old imperial food before the Great Collapse, and the vegetables she had grown in the artificial soil all had a metallic taste.
The spacecraft from Earth to Mars left orbit about the same time as Duane’s ship left Anglada’s orbit. Edward was the only one subject to space sickness, but the bags were always handy on any ship that subjected people to zero gravity. Even some veterans got sick once in a while.
Unlike the trip to Anglada, the trip home in Duane’s Earthian ship was spartan for the spacers. They had completely stuffed two decks with frozen food and a third with water ice, but missed the high resolution holograms, the commons, and all the other niceties spacers were used to that were completely foreign to Earthians. Niceties like a physician for these elderly scientists, most of whom would be well over a century old when they reached Mars.
The people from the Titanic had been on Anglada for five months when the Earth vessel began its return to the solar system. The scientists were having the time of their lives doing what they loved most: science.
Mark and Linda seemed to be becoming an item, both having been widowed before leaving for Anglada. It was the main reason both had for leaving, wanting a new, useful life. Six months later they asked Bill to marry them, and he was more than happy to oblige. This is lots better than fighting pirates and putting up with rich assholes, he thought.
As there was no rice, they threw popped popcorn; already popped because a corn kernel hitting you in the eye would really hurt. They didn’t know that in the future, throwing popcorn at the bride and groom at weddings would become a tradition on Anglada. Of course, it was the first marriage with live music in centuries. Almost nobody in the solar system had ever heard live music anywhere but on the Titanic, and Anglada was the only place to hear live music in the Centaurian system, mostly because it was the only place there with people.
A little more than a year after they were married, it was time to return to Mars. They decided to stay on Anglada, as when they had been married for six months, someone ran across a store of seeds the biologists had brought, and left behind on the Titanic when they went home on the Earthian ship. Sue decided they needed an agronomist and stayed as well, as did about two dozen others. The band would miss their flute player. How could they play Stairway without a flute? Or Moondance?
Another ship left Mars for Anglada about six months after the Titanic had arrived, carrying live cattle and hogs, and foolhardy young people who weren’t afraid of insanity and in-tended to stay on Anglada. Many of these were the Vestans who began the project in the first place. One was Peter Knolls, a descendant of the famous Captain John Knolls, who still held the record for number of dead or captured pirates over two hundred years later. Peter was one of the wealthiest people in the solar system. Here, he was just Pete. Pete never met his ancestor's best friend, Bill Kelly.
This time there were only a couple of scientists, three captains, three electrical engineers, two psychologists, the aforementioned few dozen foolhardy people who were sick of modern society, and no musicians. That would change on future trips when travelers would watch holos of the Titanic band.
Robots would be building Martian-style domes for the cattle; the domes should be finished long before the cattle arrived.
The band would be returning to Mars, except Sue, who had decided to stay, and none of the other band members or anyone else could get her to return home. Saturday nights wouldn’t be the same, and it wouldn’t be Saturday any more, because it would be changed to a different day of the week once they were back on Mars. Sue did continue flute recitals on Anglada Saturdays, wishing she still had a band backing her up.
Walt rigged up a clock that showed the time and date onboard alongside another one that showed Mars’ time. Before they reached Proxima’s heliopause the numbers on the Mars clock were spinning too fast to see, and they discovered that the new communications simply didn’t work past a certain speed; the paired electrons changed together, but the equipment couldn’t keep up. After two weeks they were back to old fashioned radios again.
The Angladicans would be vegetarians after about a decade, as that’s all the frozen meat they left the colonists. They might actually live long enough for another steak after the frozen meat was gone, but they were elderly and might not live that long.
When the unnamed Earthian ship was about halfway to Mars, everyone but Duane was shocked and frightened when they were suddenly at zero G, followed by a banging sound, followed by the ship jerking and gravity quickly returning. It had scared the hell out of Duane when it had happened on the way to Anglada.
He couldn’t ease everyone’s nerves with a ship-wide announcement as Bill could have, because his ship was designed for only two people at a time; robots had added beds and other necessities before they left.
The scare gave Mary a heart attack. Had Harold been there she probably would have survived, but the robots couldn’t save her. Three more biologists’ biology would come to an end before they reached Mars in about three more years, ship’s time, as well.
It was already ten years later on Mars. Shirley had settled down in a nice little two bedroom house, still waiting for Duane, who should be home to a planet he had never stepped foot on, in a year or ten depending on your perspective. She actually had no idea how long it would take.
On the Titanic, the band had just played their last number of the night, or what they thought was their last number, a brand new song that Bob had just written that nobody but the band had heard before. People were yelling “Rock and Roll!” and “Stairway!” and “Encore!”
They played another two songs and shut off the stage lights and sat at a table as a four armed servebot brought beer. Someone yelled “Packle.” Joe grinned and softly said “Sorry, dude, show’s over.”
Harold had missed the entire show, treating a stroke, a heart attack, and a heart failure in three of the scientists seemingly all at once. All three had happened within a half hour. None survived, the funerals all being held the next day.
Ralph had stayed on Anglada. All of the people who stayed there eventually died there, but not many before more ships came with more people, this time with most of them being young.
The robots on Anglada built a fusion generator that produced both oxygen and carbon dioxide. In another century people and plants would be able to breathe outdoors. Fear of the outside morphed into fear of forgetting one’s mask, but everyone in the first voyage there would be long dead before no mask was needed.
The time to turn the Titanic around came, and by then Bill was used to the smokers. He announced the loss of gravity with “Ladies and gentlemen, we will be experiencing a brief period of weightlessness in about ten minutes. Stoners, zero G is coming up, be prepared!” They were thankful for the heads up and got as loaded as they could before they lost weight.
Doc Guisewild was in the commons and suffered a heart attack, which was a big buzzkill, completely ruining the moment despite the fact that there’s nothing anyone but the Doc and his robots could have done. Everyone forgot the party and worried about Harold, despite being powerless. No one could even move without propulsion; not to help someone, only to go to a different part of the ship.
He had to operate on himself, thanking God although he didn’t really believe in Him, and had robots do the actual operation. It was a simple procedure that implanted a stent in the affected artery, which would dissolve after the damaged artery had fixed itself. Salter had been an exception, he had been physically close to life expectancy, but a younger man would have survived easily. They were working on growing limbs for amputees, despite how good computerized prosthetics had gotten. Harold wondered how long before he could grow a new heart?
Jerry wondered if Doc had been taking his own dietary advice. But the party was over and they would just have to wait for orbit around Mars for another weightless high.
Doc was on duty the next day, a bit sheepish, in a wheelchair. He wished he had left the commons before the pain got too bad so it wouldn’t have spoiled anything for anyone. He was not looking forward to therapy at all, but would be awfully glad when it was finished.
Saturday few showed up for the concert. Everyone seemed to have the boredom blues, Jerry saw, and decided to do something about it. First he consulted Bill, who thought it hilarious and wholeheartedly endorsed the idea. Then he talked to Bob. “Jerry,” Bob said, “That’s great! You’re a born showman!”
Jerry let the rumor go that the band was going to do something obviously impossible, like a musical magic trick. “I really don’t know what’s going on, I only overheard it. But it’s a secret, don’t tell anybody, now. I’m not even supposed to know, so you didn’t hear it from me!”
He only mentioned it to four people, but he could have stopped with Mrs. Harrington. She had been more responsible than Mary for spreading Snap the Packle. The rumor had all week to spread; Jerry had mentioned it to Mrs. Harrington on Sunday shortly after talking to Bill and Bob.
Even Jerry couldn’t figure her out. He was glad she wasn’t mentally ill. Except for after Mary taught her how to play Packle she had spent most of her time alone. But her work, Jerry thought, had been incredible. She was autistic like many of the scientists and a wizard with numbers.
Saturday night came and it appeared that Jerry was a wizard with minds, even if he couldn’t figure Mrs. Bertha... wait, he can’t call her that in public. But the commons was filling up nicely, whether from the rumor, boredom, or who knows what.
Jerry walked over to the table by the stage where the band was. Joe said “We’re going to tell the audience you’re a magician.”
“What?!”
“Well, you’re behind the magic in this show aren’t you? We’ll explain it afterwards so they’ll know everything’s okay and your magic is fake.”
“Well, all right, I guess. People already think I’m a magician. I guess it won’t hurt too much.”
“Packle!” someone yelled from the back. Bob said “I guess that’s our cue.”
“No it isn’t,” Will said. “Give me that bong.”
“Okay, one more hit and we’re up.” They all hit the bong and got on stage. Bill was in the pilot room with the stage showing on his screen and the audio playing.
Bob said “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we have an especially magical performance for you. But first, we’re starting with Stairway like we always do. I’m surprised you’re all not tired of that tune but the one time we didn’t play it, well, sorry again that we don’t have a flute player any more.” The guitars started.
“There’s a lady who’s sure...”
When he sang the word “heaven,” Bill lowered the thrust almost imperceptibly, for a second, than back to normal. When the song was over, Bob loudly said “Y’all want to get high?”
The audience reacted appropriately. Bob started singing, “Well, when I met you at the station you were standing with a bootleg in your hand...” Bill lowered thrust a little. At the word “high” he cut thrust in half, then quickly restored it. They followed with Strawberry Fields Forever, and gravity lightened when those words were sung. Then they played Rock and Roll, followed by Whole Lot of Love. When the psychedelic part of that song came, Bill removed all thrust, suddenly.
The drums were magnetic, of course, but without gravity all that Joe could do was make noise, not actually play, but nobody seemed to care. When the psychedelia was finished, Bill added enough thrust to keep the musicians grounded. When the song was finished, Bob said “But folks, he ain’t heavy.” Then the song “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” began. Bill added more thrust.
The next song started, this time Will singing “I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin’ ‘bout half past dead.” When he got to the part that went “you put the put the load right on me,” Bill increased the thrust. The audience seemed to enjoy it immensely. This was like a musical roller coaster.
Bill was very surprised. He’d had it all the way to two gravities and the asterites didn’t even complain! Of course, it had been years since they had been home. When the show was over, Bob said “Thank you! Please give a round of applause to the magicians, Doctor Jerry Morton and Captain Bill Kelly!”
Quite a few voices yelled “packle” and nobody was even playing Packle, with a few voices yelling “Encore” and “More.”
And the band played on.
Three days later Bob was looking at a tablet when they were supposed to be practicing, and said “Damn. I went all the way to another solar system to get away from being famous, and here I’m famous again. So are you guys. Look at this, it’s about the holos we sent back and everybody wants to see this strange new thing, music played and sung by real human beings live. They’re calling us “The Titanic Band.”
Will frowned. “I don’t like it. How about Bobby and the Titanics’?” Bob laughed. “Or Willie and the Poor Boys!”
Joe said “Screw that Titanic nonsense, how about...”
“How about handing me that bong?” Will said.
On the Earthian ship, already inside the heliosphere and even almost as close to Mars as Neptune, Duane was startled by the radio beep, the beep that was a voice signal from another ship compressed by the relative speeds of the two craft. Pirates? The computer said it would take an hour to decode, and the ships would meet in two days. All he could do was sit and worry.
It had been a lonely, boring trip. Sylvia wondered how Duane made it to Anglada by himself without going stark raving bonkers. The few fellow passengers were better than no company at all, she thought, although there had been a lot more bickering going home than going to Anglada. It was too bad the new communications devices couldn’t work when they were at interstellar speeds. She would have liked to let Jerry know that loneliness and boredom were also contributors to the Grommler insanity.
She would have to call him when he returned, or better yet, call the institute on Mars when they returned.
Ten elderly spacer biologists and one young Earthian soldier had left Anglada. Six would land on Mars; there had been five deaths. Besides Mary, three other geriatric biologists had met their maker, two of them amazed they had lived so long. Edward had committed suicide, hanging himself. The Earthian ship simply wasn’t as advanced as the Titanic. It couldn’t, for instance, do any better than three quarters of a gravity, but in less than three weeks they would be landing on Mars. The asterites would have to obtain passage to their respective worlds unless they wanted to emigrate to Mars, but it would be set up by the Anglada Institute, as the study had become known.
The computers finally untangled the message. “Unnamed Earthian ship, this is Captain Ramos from the GOTS Security ship Morning Star. Welcome back to civilization, folks. Please respond when communications are better.”
Duane was more relieved than he could imagine. A day later they met the security fleet, who escorted them the rest of the way to Mars.
They reached Mars a week later, and Duane was amazed that it landed itself on the planet, right next to a dome. They would fly two landing craft to inside one of the dome’s huge airlocks.
Sylvia had never been on Mars before but was still shocked at the changes; she had seen videos, of course. The Valles Marineris had melted, or rather the ice that was put there before any of them were born that had been still frozen solid when the Titanic left had melted. She wondered what changes had taken place on Pallas, where she was from; she had never been closer to Mars than in orbit before going to Anglada. She thought about staying here on Mars; this dome is a lot better than the one on Pallas, she thought. Or at least the one that had been on Pallas. Nothing would be anything like it was before, she knew.
The press was there, of course, making Duane fret; he wanted to see his wife! He was excited, and uneasy. He hadn’t seen Shirley in two decades, she hadn’t seen him in four. He took a hopper to the dome where she had been living for eighteen years, and he consulted a map before walking there.
The gravity is weird on Mars, for someone who has lived his life on Earth with its massive gravity except when he was cooped up in an Earthian space ship. He was self-conscious, thinking his gait was probably really odd.
He got to his new home, and Shirley was sitting in a chair in the yard. When she saw him, she got up and started running, as did he. It got as sappy as in any movie, especially at a third of Earth’s gravity, and I won’t recount it because I don’t want to give you diabetes. The two had known each other all their lives until Duane was sent to Anglada, and each had missed the other terribly for decades. Never had tears of joy flowed so freely!
After a lot of kissing and hugging and more, they went to the institute so Duane could meet the psychologists. George and Mildred had retired long ago, and George had died.
On the Titanic, again they almost hit a comet nearly as big as Mars’ moon Deimos. Everyone had plenty of time to strap down safely this time, but it was still a close call. This time it was Bill’s turn to have a heart attack. “This indigestion is killing me,” he said out loud despite being in the pilot room alone, safely passing the comet. Just then Harold burst in looking puzzled, worried, and at his tablet.
“Doc! I was going to go see you, I have indigestion something bad!”
“No you don’t, lie down on this medic.” He did. Doc put a patch on his forehead and said “You just had a heart attack, we need to get you to the infirmary.” At least he didn’t say “hospital,” Bill thought.
Bill grinned. “Am I gonna live?”
Harold said “Hell, no.”
Bill’s grin vanished. “I, uh, wow, how long do I have?”
Doc smiled, “Ten years, maybe twenty. Maybe thirty if you behave! Now, let me put this thing on your head so we can operate.”
“We?”
“Don’t be a smartass.”
“You can’t take me off duty, you know. I have to get us home.”
“It can get us there without you.”
“Yeah? Like the Donapardy?”
“Just be glad you don’t have to climb stairs, you’d be dead in a week. I want you in a wheelchair for that long.”
“But Doc...”
“Do I have to have Jerry help hold you down while I paralyze you?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll ride the goddamned chair!”
“Good.”
“I won’t like it.”
“You don’t have to.”
They frowned at each other, then both burst out laughing. “Look, Bill, Let me operate, okay? Take it easy, will you? I already had four fatalities!”
After surgery was completed and Bill woke back up, Doc told him again to take it easy. Bill asked “Is it okay if I have a beer or two once in a while?”
“One or two, no more. And no muggles!”
“Doc, I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Everybody else seems to.”
“It does seem like that, doesn’t it?
“Yeah. Well, you get your rest, and yell if you need anything. Oh, when you’re out of the chair you’ll meet my dungeon.”
“What?”
Harold grinned. “I had to put up with it, now it’s your turn. You’ll need physical therapy and it’s damned hard work. Physical labor.”
“Worse than stairs?”
“I don’t know, I never climbed stairs. Now get some rest. That’s an order!”
“Yes sir,” Bill replied grinning.
A week later he found that therapy was indeed far more onerous than engine and generator inspections. His first therapy session was on a Saturday morning. He missed the concert that night; he was asleep, worn out. “Doc’s a damned sadist,” he said, again talking to himself before passing out on his couch.
About the time Duane’s ship was landing on Mars, the Titanic was entering the sun’s energy bubble, the heliosphere. They would be on Mars in two months, ship’s time, but it would be over a year on Mars.
A few weeks later a speed beep sounded in Bill’s phone. That would be Charlie, he thought. The computer said via his phone that he would meet the oncoming fleet in three days, earlier than expected, and the signal would be readable in two hours. He got a cup of coffee and went in the pilot room. An hour later the message was decoded.
“Oncoming ship, this is GOTS security. We’re here to escort you back to Mars.”
No you’re not, Bill thought, and said under his breath, “God damned pirates!” As experienced as Bill was there was no way any pirate could fool him. First, he was days early. He shouldn’t see Charlie for at least two more days, probably four or five. And that wasn’t Charlie! If Charlie had been sick or something, his replacement would have said something. Third, the pirate hadn’t known the name of the Titanic, or Bill’s name.
The Titanic hadn’t been armed when they first left the solar system, but it was now, arms having been installed when they thought that Duane was a contingent of armed, violent invaders rather than a lone scared kid who had been forced to go to Anglada against his will. He had two EMPs, a laser, and three hydrogen bombs. It had taken a long time for the generator to produce enough plutonium for a single one in the two weeks from Duane’s threat to his orbit. Two more were made after Duane had defected before Joe shut the robots down.
“Roger,” he answered the pirate before arming his weaponry. He then called Jerry. “You can’t tell anybody, but we’re going to have trouble tomorrow. There are pirates heading this way, pretending to be GOTS security. We’ll all need to strap down. Could you come up with a reasonable excuse for it?”
“Shit. I’ll try to think of something.”
Next he needed to alert his crew, Walt and Joe. There were going to be extra inspections needed, and the inspections needed to be as thorough as possible.
Jerry’s voice came over all of the speakers. “Attention please, folks. I am running a psychological test in a day or two and Captain Knolls says I have to alert you, although alerting you might spoil the study and will at least necessitate an asterisk.
“When the test starts, the captain will ask you all to strap down. Please don’t ignore his request, he will be doing some strange maneuvers. Again, this is just a test.”
Jerry’s a genius, Bill thought.
Two days later as he was eating breakfast in his quarters, Bill’s phone beeped. The pirate was in radio range. He told the machinery to not throw his breakfast away and went to the pilot room to talk to the “escort.” He played the record back.
As he played it, he relayed it using a frequency GOTS used for emergencies; Charlie would be monitoring that frequency. “Oncoming Earthian craft, this is GOTS security,” the message said. “We will meet you in three hours and will dock for inspection.”
He called Jerry. “Say, Bill, is it time?” Jerry asked as an answer to his phone call.
“Almost, three hours. Could you come to the pilot room?”
“Be right there.” He had been in his quarters watching a holo. He shut it off and went to meet Bill.
Bill told him. “A minor miracle. They think we’re Duane.”
“Duane?”
“The little Earthian, remember? They left for Mars right after the Martian Glory arrived with the new communications gizmos. They’ve probably been on Mars for a year or two now. Here’s the record.” He played the recording.
“Well, shit. I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help, you’ve dealt with pirates.”
“But you have a doctorate in psychology!”
Jerry shook his head. “Nobody knows everything about anything. I’ve never studied the psychology of piracy and pirates, but you’ve dealt with them. You surely know more about the subject than I do.”
Bill was pensive for a few seconds. “Well, stick around, anyway.” He asked the computer for an antique Earthian word for “terrible” and it responded “Verskriklik is Afrikaans for ‘terrible’.”
“What’s ‘Afrikaans’?” he asked Jerry.
Jerry shrugged. “Hell if I know.”
Bill hailed the pirate. “Earth ship Verskriklik to GOTS security,” looking at his screen and hoping he pronounced it correctly, even though it surely wouldn’t have mattered. “We are a robot-controlled ship, and can’t maneuver.”
The pirate responded “Okay, we can match speed and dock.” a second later said “Be prepared, one hour and ten minutes.”
“Roger.”
Jerry got on the ship-wide intercom. “Your attention please, folks. The test will begin in an hour. I will alert you. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Lawrence McMahan was in the commons with Mrs. Harrington. “I don’t like being a guinea pig,” Larry said.
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” she said. “It’s something different to do. Psychology needs study just like geology does. Why do you think they sent psychologists? They want to know why the people on that ship to Sirius went crazy. I’m kind of interested, myself.”
“Well, when you put it like that. Where’s that robot?”
In the pilot room a robot had pulled an unneeded chair in for Jerry, who didn’t need it, either. Bill planned to carry out his plan as easily and painlessly as possible. “Look, Jerry, we might not have to do any fancy maneuvers, I’m going to let him think we’re docking and drop an EMP on his ass. But we’ll strap in for safety, just in case.”
Just then, Charlie came over the radio. “Bad news, Bill, we won’t be there until tomorrow and they have a GOTS ship, brand new, stolen from the shipyard. It hadn’t even been christened yet. We don’t know if he has a fleet, but mine will meet you tomorrow.”
If we survive, Bill thought. GOTS was the one shipper who never got boarded. GOTS vessels were impervious to EMP blasts unless the pulse was the tremendous electromotive force loosed by an a fission or fusion explosion, and it had to be closer than two hundred meters to do any damage at all. Pirates had only gotten hold of two GOTS vessels in the hundreds of years since Green and Osbourne started the company, this would only be the third. It had taken a huge fleet of GOTS battleships each time to defeat the pirates. Both ships had to be destroyed, and there was a lot of damage to the attacking GOTS vessels as well.
He looked at Jerry. “We’re in deep trouble. We could hold off half a dozen normal ships, maybe a dozen, but that’s a GOTS. I sure as hell hope they stole it before arms were installed.”
“Wouldn’t they install their own?”
“Yes, but they only have lasers. The Earthians don’t even have nukes any more since the legendary 2245 meltdown in Botswana. But if they manage to dock, we’re in deep trouble. I’m gonna have to nuke ‘em.”
“Didn’t you say once GOTS ships were impervious to nukes?”
“Almost, might as well be. A nuke won’t destroy one, or even damage it unless it’s closer than two hundred meters. I’ll wait until they’re fifty meters from docking and hit their ass with a magnetic one with a two minute fuse, then get the hell out of there!”
“Sounds good.” Bill’s phone rang. It was Joe, telling him inspection was finished.
“Are you upstairs?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Time to strap in!”
“Headed to my quarters now.”
“Wait, go to the commons. When I get on the intercom, make sure everyone has left, then call me when you’re strapped down.”
“Okay.”
He switched to shipwide. “Ladies and gentlemen, Ralph won’t tell me exactly when his test starts, but you need to be strapped down in five minutes, and I’m serious about this. Remember the comet!”
The stolen ship came closer, and a landing craft exited. “Damn,” Bill said. “I thought they’d dock ships. Son of a bitch!” He put on a holster with a projectile pistol on one hip and a microwave pistol on the other, and three grenades. The projectile pistol was chemical rather than a rail gun, but as deadly. The microwave gun only caused excruciating burns. He gave Jerry a look.
Jerry said “What are you going to do now?”
“Probably die.”
“Die?” Jerry asked.
“I sure hope not. If I don’t kill those pirates we’re all dead.”
“Those?”
“We can’t assume there’s only one. There almost never is.”
He called Walt and asked him to go to the pilot room and do whatever Jerry told him to, then called Joe. “I hope you’re ready for a fight, old man. Please meet me by the landing craft hangars.” He grabbed another holster and headed there.
Joe met him on the way. “Uh, Bill? What are we doing?”
“Maybe killing a man. Put this on.”
“Holy shit... it’s really pirates?”
“Yeah. Ever shoot a... no, never mind. Here’s a microwave gun,” he said, putting down the holster it had come from. A robot would pick it up.
“Just point it and shoot. But not at me, they hurt like hell and you need medical help. Stand right here, and if he kills me, when he comes through the door, pull that trigger and hold it down until he does what you say.”
“Holy shit...”
“I might get ‘em first. Stay out of the way of the door, if I pop off a grenade there will be shrapnel. I’ll be dead, but so will they, and Charlie will meet you tomorrow and supply a new captain.”
“Holy shit!”
“Stop saying that! Snap out of it, man, everybody’s life might depend on you!”
Joe shuddered. “Sorry.” He moved to a corner and Bill went in the empty hanger’s airlock door, waiting with his radio pistol pointed.
The door finally opened and Bill fired. A little Earthian- looking fellow with some strange glass things held in front of his eyes with wires that attached them to his ears screamed and fell on the floor writhing in pain. The thing fell off of his face and the glass broke when it hit the floor. He appeared to be unarmed.
Harold came running in and put a patch on the little man’s forehead. A medic rolled in. Bill said “Wait, Doc.”
“I have to get this man to surgery!”
“Not yet, you don’t...”
“Holy forks and splinters, this can’t possibly be part of the test.”
“Look, Doc, we may all be in great danger. Just wait. You!” he demanded, pointing at the little man. What’s your name?”
“Günter Heineken, sir. How is it the pain is still there but doesn’t hurt?”
Bill squinted and frowned. “What kind of name is that?”
“Bill...” Harold said.
“Shut up, Doc, this man is a pirate and I need to find out how many more there are.”
“Pirate?” the pirate said. “Huh?”
“How many on that ship?”
“Huh? Nobody, I’m by myself.”
“Take him to the infirmary, doc, but I want to finish my interrogation before you start operating. You, Grunter, if you’re by yourself, how did you get that ship?”
“Well, I’ve been living at that shipyard for five years. I found it all unguarded and just decided to take it for a ride.”
Joe had walked alongside, not knowing what else to do. “Joe, do you know how to operate that boat remotely?”
“I know the controls and readings, but...”
“Can you tell if there’s anybody inside?”
“Sure, accessing the medical readouts is easy.”
“Would you go do it, and call me?”
“Sure.” He left for the pilot room. A couple minutes later he called. “It’s empty as a zipped down angle trimmer.”
“Good! Tell Jerry to call off the ‘test’.”
They were at the infirmary by then, and Doc said “Okay, Bill, now it’s time to operate on this poor fellow. You can interrogate him later.”
Halfway through the word “later” Jerry came on the intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, you can all unstrap now, the test is finished. Please meet me in the commons in half an hour and I’ll explain the findings.” The gravity hadn’t changed once.
In the commons, everyone but Bill, Harold, and the pirate assembled. Harold thought, now this is normal, missing the show again until tomorrow. Jerry stood on the stage.
“Sorry to annoy you folks like that, but it’s better that you be a bit annoyed than scared out of your wits. We encountered a pirate...” there were murmurs from the crowd. When it quieted, he continued “We thought it was a fleet after the returning Earthian ship...” someone yelled “You lied to us! There was no study!”
“But there is,” Ralph answered her. “In fact, it’s not quite finished. Why do you think they sent Ralph and me? Two reasons, first to find out what besides the time warp causes mental illnesses from interstellar travel, and secondly to try to prevent or alleviate those illnesses in you folks.
“Part of the test is a survey on your phones now. For the sake of science, please answer as fully and accurately as possible. Are there any questions? Yes, Daniel?”
“Well, what happened? Did you kill the pirates? How many were there?”
Bill was in the pilot room, remotely rigging the stolen craft to cruise alongside the Titanic. He then walked back towards the infirmary. In the infirmary the robots woke the pirate. “It stopped hurting,” he said. Then a surprised look came on his face, and he said “What... where’s my glasses? And how can I see? I’m blind without them!”

Bill walked in. “Hi, Doc. You, Grunter or whatever the hell your name is, how did you know about the Earth ship?”
“It’s Günter, sir. It was the videos! It’s been all over everywhere for years. Look, I’m really sorry about everything but I’ve never had anything!”
Bill frowned. “Goon Turd? What the hell kind of name is that?”
“German, sir.”
“What? You’re Earthian?”
“Yes, sir. Please don’t kill me!”
“What? Why would I want to kill you?”
“You said I was a pirate, and you kill pirates. They say on video spacers kill Earthians on sight!”
“That’s not how it works. We don’t murder anybody, but if a pirate freezes to death in his stolen craft, or dies in a shootout with security, nobody’s going to mourn a murderous thief. Now, how did you get off of Earth?”
“I stowed away on a spaceplane, then a spaceship.”
“How?”
“It’s not hard if you pay attention and figure it out.”
“But it’s been years since a ship left Earth, before we left.”
“One left about twenty years ago, that’s the one I stowed away on.”
“Why did you try to steal this ship? You just like taking what isn’t yours?”
“No, I... I wasn’t going to steal it, I was going to give you an escort. Maybe they’d let me stay in space.”
“You might spend some time in weightlessness, orbiting Mars in its prison.”
“But...”
“You stole a space ship. Doc, paralyze him until Charlie gets here tomorrow, I don’t trust this little thief.”
“Wait! How can I see without my glasses?”
Harold put a patch on Günter’s neck, paralyzing him from the waist down. “I operated on you for astigmatism and extreme myopia. You were next to blind.”
There had been a cure for myopia, or nearsightedness; presbyopia, or farsightedness, even age-related; and astigmatism since the very first years of the twenty first century, but back then it was almost never used except for cataract patients.
Bill went to the commons for a beer, just in time to hear the band’s second number. It wasn’t Saturday, but somehow they had wound up on the stage.
The next day they met Charlie’s fleet. “Guess who gets the finder’s fee this time?” Charlie asked.
“You?”
“Bill, you got the ship back in one hundred percent perfect working order. It needs some maintenance after your prisoner had it a while, but nobody’s ever retrieved a stolen GOTS ship before, ever. The first two had to be destroyed. You get the fee and it will be huge.”
“He’ll be your prisoner shortly. Doc has him paralyzed. But if I’m getting a finder’s fee I’m splitting it with Joe and Walt. Joe especially deserves it, I think he might have shit his pants once. Guy’s brave, scared to death but did what he had to do.”
Charlie laughed. “We have two craft out, one’s going to you and one to the unchristened ship. I’ll buy you a beer on Mars in a week or so.”