Chapter 5 
Chapter 5
“AND NOW, MR. PLESHOFF,” said Grimes sternly, “what have you to say for yourself?”
“I suppose it’s no good my saying that I’m sorry, sir.”
“It’s not,” Grimes told him. But, he thought, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to see a youngster ruin his career.
“I suppose, sir, that I’m finished with Rim Runners.”
“I’m afraid, Mr. Pleshoff, that you’re finished in space. After what you did, your Certificate of Competency will have to be dealt with. There’s no way out of it. But I don’t think that we shall be pressing the mutiny charge.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You haven’t much to thank me for, Mr. Pleshoff. You’re on the beach. You still have to face the drug charges. But I shall instruct our legal people to do what they can for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And you might do something for me.”
“Anything I can, sir.” Pleshoff was pitifully eager.
“I’ll be frank with you. Until now I’ve never taken this drug business seriously. I’ve thought, if people want to blow their minds, let ’em. It just never occurred to me that anybody in a position of trust, of responsibility, would get . . . hooked? Is that the right word?”
“But I’m not hooked, sir. I tried the dreamy weed only once, and they told me that its effects would be for that night only.”
“And who,” demanded Grimes sharply, “are they?”
Pleshoff’s immature features set into a mask of stubbornness. He muttered, “Keep them out of it. They’re my friends.”
“You mean,” said Grimes, “that she’s your friend.”
“Yes,” admitted the young man. And then the words poured out. “I’ve been very lonely, sir. Ever since Sheila and I broke up. Then I met this girl, here, in Port Last. It was in the park. I’d been given the afternoon off and had gone for a walk. You know how it is, sir. You meet somebody and you sort of click. She’s like the girls I used to know at home. You know—more free in her talk than the girls out here on the Rim Worlds, more way out in her dress. I took her to dinner that evening. She decided on the place. A little restaurant. Intimate. Candles on the tables, and all that. The menu on a blackboard. I didn’t know until then that there were such places out here. That was just the first night, of course. There were other nights. We . . . we became friendly. And with the ship on a regular trade, coming in to Port Last every three weeks or so, I . . .” he grinned weakly, “I had it made.
“She had other friends, of course. All in the same age group. One night she asked me round to a party at one of their places. There was music, of course, and plenty to drink, and things to nibble on, and we were all dancing some of the time, and talking some of the time. You know.
“And then the chap who was throwing the party got up and said, ‘Quiet, everybody! Silence in court! I have an announcement!’ Then he went on to say that the pusher had come good at last, and that the gateway to never was open. This didn’t make any sense to me. He started passing out long, pretty, porcelain pipes, and then brought out from somewhere a can of what looked like a greenish tobacco. ‘What is it?’ I asked my girl. ‘Where were you dragged up?’ she asked me. After all we mean to each other, don’t tell me that you’re a block.’”
“A block?” asked Grimes.
“It’s what they call stiff and stodgy and conventional people, sir. Well, I told her that I wasn’t a block. Then she said that I must be, otherwise I’d recognize dreamy weed when I saw it. Well, I’d heard about dreamy weed, of course, but you never see it in the Academy, although when I was there, for my pre-Space training, two senior cadets were booted out for smoking it. And there’s something in TG Clippers’ Company’s Regulations about it not being allowed aboard their ships. So I wasn’t keen on trying it and said that we were lifting off the next day.
“She told me that I’d be right as rain in the morning. She told me, too, that to get the full benefit of it you had to smoke it with somebody, somebody towards whom you felt affectionate. If I wouldn’t smoke with her, she was going to smoke with . . . the name doesn’t matter.
“You know what it’s like, sir. How a girl can make you do things you wouldn’t do ordinarily.”
“‘Lord,’” quoted Grimes, “ ‘the woman tempted me, and I fell.’”
“Who said that, sir?”
“A man called Adam. Rather before your time, and even mine. But go on.”
“It was odd, sir. The smoke, I mean. She and I shared the pipe, passing it back and forth between us. It seemed that I was inhaling something of her, and that she was inhaling something of me. And it was like breathing in a fluid, a liquid, rather than a gas. A warm, sweet, very smooth liquid. And then, somehow, as we smoked we were . . . doing other things.” Pleshoff blushed in embarrassment. “The people round us were . . . doing the same. But it wasn’t always boys with girls. There were some boys with boys, and there were girls together. And the lights were dim, and dimmer all the time, and redder, and redder, like blood. But it wasn’t frightening. It was all . . . warm, and . . . cozy. And there was a pulsing sound like a giant heartbeat. It must have been my own heart that I was hearing, or her heart, or the hearts of all of us. And we were very close, the two of us, all of us. And . . .
“And we reached our climax. It’s the usual way of putting it, sir, and the words are the right words, but . . . can you imagine an orgasm that’s an implosion rather than an explosion? And after that there was the slow, slow falling into a deep velvety darkness, a warm darkness. . . .
“And . . .
“And then it was morning. Most of the others were waking up too. It should have all looked very sordid in the first light, naked bodies sprawled everywhere, but it didn’t. And I felt fine, just fine, as fine as everybody looked, as fine as I knew that I looked myself. Somebody had made coffee, and I’d never tasted coffee as good before. It tasted the way that coffee smells when it’s being ground. And my cigarette tasted the way that somebody else’s cigar usually smells. I’d have liked to have stayed for breakfast with the others, but I had to be getting back to the ship. After all, it was sailing day. So I got back to the ship. I was still feeling fine—on top of the world, on top of all the worlds. I just breezed through all the things I had to do.”
“Including testing the gear,” remarked Grimes.
Pleshoff’s face lost its animation. “Yes, sir. The gear. I was there, by myself, in the control room. I saw that the inertial drive was already on Stand-By. And then, quite suddenly, the thought came to me, ‘Why shouldn’t I show the old bastard—sorry, sir, the Old Man, I mean—that he’s not the only one who can handle a ship?’ I knew that he was still in Captain Dunbar’s office, and I thought it’d be a fine joke if he saw his precious Caribou lifting off without him.”
“Mphm. A very fine joke,” commented Grimes. “You may consider yourself highly fortunate that nobody was hurt or killed. Mphm. I suggest that you tell the authorities the name of your host on that unfortunate evening—although no doubt the local detective force is quite capable of finding it out for themselves. The real villain, of course, is the pusher. If you could name him you’d probably get off with a light sentence.”
“I can’t,” said Pleshoff dully. “And if I could, I wouldn’t.”
Grimes shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what trade you’ll be entering after the authorities turn you loose—but whatever it is, you’ll find that schoolboy code of honor a disadvantage.” He got to his feet. “Well, Mr. Pleshoff, we’ll do our best for you. We pride ourselves that we look after our own. But I’m afraid that you won’t be one of our own for very much longer.”