“What happened?” asked Novee.
“The captain got hold of Annuncio, Sheffield’s little pet wizard, and Sheffield went charging up-deck, bleeding heavily at each eyeball.”
Cimon, having listened so far, turned away, snorting.
Novee said, “Sheffield! The man can’t get angry. I’ve never even heard him raise his voice.”
“He did this time. When he found out the kid had left his cabin without telling him and that the captain was bully-ragging him—Wow! Did you know he was up and about, Novee?”
“No, but I’m not surprised. Spacesickness is one of those things. When you have it, you think you’re dying. In fact, you can hardly wait. Then, in two minutes it’s gone and you feel all right. Weak, but all right. I told Mark this morning we’d be landing next day and I suppose it pulled him through. The thought of a planetary surface in clear prospect does wonders for spacesickness. We are landing soon, aren’t we, Cimon?”
The astrophysicist made a peculiar sound that could have been interpreted as a grunt of assent. At least, Novee so interpreted it.
“Anyway,” said Novee, “what happened?”
Vernadsky said, “Well, Sheffield’s been bunking with me since the kid twirled on his toes and went over backward with spacesickness and he’s sitting there at the desk with his charts and his fist computer chug-chugging away, when the room-phone signals and its the captain. Well, it turns out he’s got the boy with him and he wants to know what the blankety-blank and assorted dot-and-dash the government means by planting a spy on him. So Sheffield yells back at him that he’ll stab him with a Collamore macro-leveling-tube if he’s been fooling with the kid and off he goes leaving the phone activated and the captain frothing.”
“You’re making this up,” said Novee. “Sheffield wouldn’t say anything like that.”