I gave him a shove toward the door. He disappeared in a haze of little pink clouds. And I flopped into a seat, feeling so bad I could have bawled like a kid, but despising myself for feeling that way.
It was selfish, I guess. Biggs deserved the honor. But somehow—well, dammit! I sort of hated to see him leave the Saturn. We'd had a lot of fun together, our bunch. Cap Hanson and Chief Garrity, Dick Todd, the Second, and Wilson, the Third. And Biggs. And me.
Well, things settled down into normalcy, then. The Saturn is a ten day freighter, which meant that Cooper would have beaucoup opportunity to judge Biggs' capabilities. So tempus fidgeted, and I fidgeted, and the Old Man came within two spasms of a nervous breakdown, and Biggs—as might have been expected—got his nerves on ice after that first shock and performed his routine duties in ultra-stellar fashion.
My duties were far from exacting. Four times a day I had to contact a Space Station to check our course, speed, and declination against Solar Constant. That was just regulation blah, though, because with Biggs plotting the course, we had about as much chance of getting off the line as a rural subscriber when a juicy scandal is being discussed.
It was also my job to keep in touch with Lunar III, which daily interlude—Joe Marlowe being the low scut he is—was the only disturbing influence in an otherwise languid existence. Understand, I don't believe for a minute that my gal, Maisie Belle, was out with him. She's true to me. But it was a dirty trick for him to say she was, and beside, how the hell did he learn about that birthmark if—?
Oh, the hell with it! The fact is that time passed and pretty soon it was the sixth day, and in just a few more days we'd dock at Mars Central and Lt. Biggs would be Capt. Biggs.
Because if I had been idle on this shuttle, my rawboned friend had not. Cooper had been putting him through a series of strenuous paces to test his knowledge, ability and resourcefulness. The trajectory computations had mysteriously disappeared, for instance, and Biggs had to compile a new set. When he went to use the calculometer, he discovered it to be accidentally-on-purpose "out of order." So he had to evolve the figures from his own cranium.
Then there was the false alarm fire in the storage compartments—while Biggs was on the bridge. And the hypos went on the blink—with Biggs on duty. And one of the aft jets clogged. Guess who was standing watch at the time?
That sort of thing. But Biggs came through, every time, with flying colors. And with each succeeding success, another of the grim, suspicious lines melted from around the corners of Inspector Cooper's mouth, until he was beginning to look almost like a human being. Meanwhile, Cap Hanson's face got daily ruddier, happier, and grinnier. He was just one big smile on legs as he saw his son-in-law-to-be coming closer and closer to the coveted stripes.