"Uh, I'll try, sir."

"I think you'll make a good chartsman, in time." Dr. Hendrix indicated that the interview was over; Max got up. "One more thing."

"Yes, sir?"

"There are excellent reasons of discipline and efficiency why crew members do not associate with passengers."

Max gulped. "I know, sir."

"Mind your P's and Q's. The members of my department are careful about this point--even then it is difficult."

Max left feeling deflated. He had gone there feeling that he was about to be awarded something--even a chance to become an astrogator. He now felt sweated down to size.

10 GARSON'S PLANET

Max did not see much of Sam during the weeks following; the stiff schedule left him little time for visiting. But Sam had prospered.

Like all large ships the _Asgard_ had a miniature police force, experienced ratings who acted as the First Officer's deputies in enforcing ship's regulations. Sam, with his talent for politics and a faked certffication as steward's mate first class, managed during the reshuffle following Max's transfer to be assigned as master-at-arms for the Purser's department. He did well, treading on no toes, shutting his eyes to such violations as were ancient prerogatives and enforcing those rules of sanitation, economy, and behavior which were actually needed for a taut, happy ship ... all without finding it necessary to haul offenders up before the First Officer for punishment--which suited both Mr. Walther and the crew. When Stores Clerk Maginnis partook too freely of Mr. Gee's product and insisted on serenading his bunk mates, Sam merely took him to the galley and forced black coffee down him--then the following day took him down to 'H' deck, laid his own shield of office aside, and gave Maginnis a scientific going over that left no scars but deeply marked his soul. In his obscure past Sam had learned to fight, not rough house, not in the stylized mock combat of boxing, but in the skilled art in which an unarmed man becomes a lethal machine.

Sam had selected his victim carefully. Had he reported him Maginnis would have regarded Sam as a snoop, a mere busybody to be outwitted or defied, and had the punishment been severe he might have been turned into a permanent discipline problem--not forgetting that reporting Maginnis might also have endangered a sacred cow, Chief Steward Giordano. As it was, it turned Maginnis into Sam's strongest supporter and best publicist, as Maginnis's peculiar but not unique pride required him to regard the man who defeated him as "the hottest thing on two feet, sudden death in each hand, a _real_ man! No nonsense about old Sam--try him yourself and see how _you_ make out. Go on, I want to lay a bet."

It was not necessary for Sam to set up a second lesson.

A senior engineer's mate was chief master-at-arms and Sam's nominal superior; these two constituted the police force of their small town. When the technician asked to go back to power room watch-standing and was replaced by an engineer's mate third, it was natural that Walther should designate Sam as Chief Master-at-Arms.

He had had his eye on the job from the moment he signed on. Any police chief anywhere has powers far beyond those set forth by law. As long as Sam stayed well buttered up with Mr. Kuiper, Mr. Giordano, and (to a lesser extent) with Mr. Dumont, as long as he was careful to avoid exerting his authority in either the engineering spaces or the Worry Hole, he was the most powerful man in the ship--more powerful in all practical matters than the First Officer himself since he was the First Officer's visible presence.

Such was the situation when the ship grounded at Garson's Planet.

Garson's Planet appears to us to be a piece of junk left over when the universe was finished. It has a surface gravity of one-and-a-quarter, too much for comfort, it is cold as a moneylender's heart, and it has a methane atmosphere unbreathable by humans. With the sky swarming with better planets it would be avoided were it not an indispensable way station. There is only one survey Horst congruency near Earth's Sun and transition of it places one near Theta Centauri--and of the thirteen planets of that sun, Carson's Planet possesses the meager virtue of being least unpleasant.

But there are half a dozen plotted congruencies accessible to Theta Centauri, which makes Carson's Planet the inevitable cross-roads for trade of the Solar Union.

Max hit dirt there just once, once was plenty. The colony at the space port, partly domed, partly dug in under the domes, was much like the Lunar cities and not unlike the burrows under any major Earth city, but to Max it was novel since he had never been on Luna and had never seen a big city on Terra other than Earthport. He went dirtside with Sam, dressed in his best and filled with curiosity. It was not necessary to put on a pressure suit; the port supplied each passenger liner with a pressure tube from ship's lock to dome lock.

Once inside Sam headed down into the lower levels. Max protested, "Sam, let's go up and look around."

"Huh? Nothing there. A hotel and some expensive shops and clip joints for the pay passengers. Do you want to pay a month's wages for a steak?"

"No. I want to see _out_. Here I am on a strange planet and I haven't _seen_ it at all. I couldn't see it from the control room when we landed and now I haven't seen anything but the inside of a trans tube and this." He gestured at the corridor walls.

"Nothing to see but a dirty, thick, yellow fog that never lifts. Worse than Venus. But suit yourself. I've got things to do, but if you don't want to stick with me you certainly don't have to."

Max decided to stick. They went on down and came out in a wide, lighted corridor not unlike that street in Earthport where Percy's restaurant was located, save that it was roofed over. There were the same bars, the same tawdry inducements for the stranger to part with cash, even to the tailor shop with the permanent "CLOSING OUT" sale. Several other ships were in and the sector was crowded. Sam looked around. "Now for a place for a quiet drink and a chat."

"How about there?" Max answered, pointing to a sign reading THE BETTER 'OLE. "Looks clean and cheerful."

Sam steered him quickly past it. "It is," he agreed, "but not for us."

"Why not?"

"Didn't you notice the customers? Imperial Marines."

"What of that? I've got nothing against the Imperials."

"Mmm ... no," Sam agreed, still hurrying, "but those boys stick together and they have a nasty habit of resenting a civilian who has the bad taste to sit down in a joint they have staked out. Want to get your ribs kicked in?"

"Huh? That wouldn't happen if I minded my own business, would it?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Suppose a hostess decides that you're 'cute'--and the spit-and-polish boy she was with wants to make something of it? Max, you're a good boy--but there just ain't no demand for good boys. To stay out of trouble you have to stay away from it."

They threaded their way through the crowd for another hundred yards before Sam said, "Here we are-- provided Lippy is still running the place." The sign read THE SAFE LANDING; it was larger but not as pleasant as THE BETTER 'OLE.

"Who's Lippy?"

"You probably won't meet him." Sam led the way in and picked out a table.

Max looked around. It looked like any other fifth-rate bar grille. "Could I get a strawberry soda here? I've had a hankering for one for ages--I used always to get one Saturdays when I went to the Corners."

"They can't rule you out for trying."

"Okay. Sam, something you said--you remember the story you told me about your friend in the Imperials? Sergeant Roberts?"

"Who?"

"Or Richards. I didn't quite catch it."

"Never heard of the guy."