Free Microcosmic God by Theodore Sturgeon

minutes!”
    “Good stuff!” I said, and whistled for the skipper. He must have felt that mighty lurch. I couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t on the bridge.
    He answered sleepily: “Vell?”
    “We’re afloat!” I spluttered.
    “So?”
    “What do you want to do—lay here? Or are we going some place?”
    There was silence for a long time—so long that I called and asked him if he was still on the other end of the tube.
    “I vas getting my orders,” he said. “Yes, ve go. Full speed ahead.”
    “What course?”
    “How should I know? I’m through now, third. Y’u’ll get y’ur orders.”
    “From Toole?”
    “No!”
    “Hey, if you ain’t captain, who is?”
    “I vouldn’t know about dat. Full speed ahead!” The plug on his end of the tube clicked into place, and I turned toward Johnny, uncertain what to do.
    “He said full ahead, didn’t he?” asked Johnny quietly.
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” he said with just a trace of sarcasm, and pulled the handle of the telegraph over from “Stand-by” to “Full ahead.”
    I put out my hand, and then shrugged and stuck it in my pocket. I’d tell Toole about it when I came off watch. “As you go,” I said,not looking at the compass.
    “As she goes, sir,” said Johnny, and began to steer as the shudder of the engines pounded through the ship.
    The mate came up with Harry at noon, and we had a little confab. Toole was rubbing his hands and visibly expanding under the warmth of the bright sun, which had shone since three bells with a fierce brilliance, as if it wanted to make up for our three days of fog. “How’s she go?” he asked me.
    “Due west,” I said meaningly.
    “
What?
And we have a cargo for the Mediterranean?”
    “I only work here,” I said. “Skipper’s orders.”
    Harry shrugged. “Then west it is, that’s all I say,” he grunted.
    “Do you want to get paid this trip?” snapped Toole. He picked up the slip on which I had written the ship’s position, which I’d worked out as soon as I could after the sun came out. “We’re due south of the Madeiras and heading home,” he went on. “How do you think those arms shippers are going to like our returning with their cargo? This is the payoff.”
    Harry tried to catch his arm, but he twisted away and strode into the wheelhouse. The twelve-to-four quartermaster hadn’t relieved Johnny Weiss yet.
    “Change course,” barked the mate, his small, chunky body trembling. “East-nor’east!”
    Johnny looked him over coolly and spat. “Cap’n changes course, mate.”
    “Then change course!” Toole roared. “The squarehead’s nuts. From now on I’m running this ship!”
    “I ain’t been told of it,” said Johnny quietly, and steadied on his westerly course.
    “Well, by God, I’m the mate!” Toole said. “You’ve had no orders from that lunatic to disregard a command of a superior officer. Steer east!”
    Weiss gazed out of the wheelhouse window, taking his time about thinking it over. The mate had made his point; to refuse further would be rank insubordination. Though Johnny was strong in his loyalty to the skipper, he was too much of a seaman to be pig-headed aboutthis until he knew a little better where he stood.
    “East it is, sir,” he said, and his eyes were baleful. He hauled at the wheel, and a hint of a grin cracked his leathery face. “She—won’t answer, sir!”
    I saw red. “Go below!” I growled, and butted him from behind the wheel with my shoulder. He laughed aloud and went out.
    I grasped the two top spokes, hunched my shoulders and gave a mighty heave. There was suddenly no resistance at all on the wheel, and my own violence threw me heels over crupper into the second mate, and we spun and tumbled, all his mass of lard on top of me. It was like lying under an anchor. The wind was knocked out of him, and he couldn’t move. I was smothering, and the mate was too surprised to do anything but stare. When Harry finally rolled off me it was a