The Dispatcher almost cried with happiness over my choice of David Markham. It turned out he was sorry for the guy, and felt only a man with real guts would have the courage to sign Markham on. He would certainly have been surprised if I had told him the truth.
I met Markham the next morning at seven o'clock when I returned to the Dispatch Office at Spaceport, New Mexico. He was a fine looking fellow, twenty-five, rather short—just over the six foot four minimum of the Space Patrol, about one ninety mass, blonde, square jaw. I took a liking to him at once—but there was a haunting something at the back of his eyes that never went away even when he was smiling, and he smiled often during the time I knew him, though he never laughed but once—and it was a sound I never want to hear again. But that came much later.
I sent him aboard with my bags to get my quarters in order, then steeled myself to check in the crew. You know how it is, you sit at the window and the men come by, one at a time, you introduce yourself, fix his face in your mind, size him up, then call for the next man. Finally it was Oscar Resnick looking through the window at me, his thick shock of sandy red hair glued down, clean-shaven, six foot eight, about two hundred and forty pounds mass, his brown eyes a little too large, his thin lipped mouth a little too small, his teeth a little too long.
The minute I saw him the old fear descended. It took him a few seconds to place where he had seen me before. Then he recognized me, and I could see memory flowing through his mind as his wide eyes widened even more, and his thin lips pulled back into a knowing grin. "Well, Cap'n Peabody!" he said, rolling the word Cap'n with his tongue as though flavoring it with contempt. "It's a small world. Fancy...." I could read his thoughts as they flashed across his face. He would play a waiting game, taking his time, but it would be a game to his liking. Showing up the yellow streak in a Captain. Suddenly, he was completely respectful, almost too respectful. "It is certainly good to be shipping with you, sir," he said.
"That's the proper spirit, Resnick," I said. "All right, get aboard. Gate seven."
After he had gone I checked in the rest of the crew, seeing liking and respect in their eyes, and wondering how quickly it would change to barely concealed contempt, wondering what Resnick would do to show me up. Like a renegade wolf he would bide his time, staying out of range, until the moment he decided was right, then he would dart in with a swift attack that would tear open my fear of him for all to see—and dart away again to sit and laugh while my soul withered within me. That's all he would do. That's all he would have to do, and he and I both knew it.
In the days following take-off, I watched the slow build-up with a certainty of knowledge that can only come from personal experience. I knew Resnick's methods.
A successful bully must be a shrewd psychologist and know how to capitalize on weaknesses. I watched Oscar Resnick size up this man and that one, and go to work on each. It's a subtle formula he used. Wait until you are alone with a man, then trip him when he goes by you, or dig your elbow into his ribs painfully, then claim it was an accident, but in such a way that both he and you know it wasn't an accident yet nobody else will believe it. Mock him with your eyes and your smile, dare him to do something about it. What can a man do? He can't go running to the Mate with the complaint that you are picking on him. He can't bring the thing into the open by fighting you without striking the first blow and being branded the aggressor in an unprovoked assault, and unless he is a professional fighter your sneering confidence bluffs him out of an open fight at first. Gradually you establish a fear reaction in him that would keep him from winning a fight even if, originally, he could have beaten you.
When you are the victim of that sort of thing you really have only two courses of action open to you. Try to keep out of his way as much as possible, if you have any personal integrity, or kowtow to him, grovel in his presence, sneer with him at his other victims, flatter him, and hope he will direct his sadistic streak elsewhere.