Free Futures Past by James White Page B

really wasn't a problem at all. He spoke, choosing the words carefully.
       "This is all very unusual. The important thing though is your ability and not your past life. I have a good idea of your character generally, so I think it would be possible to give you a position there." Talking like this made Mathewson feel like a stuffed shirt. He stopped, and then in his more normal tones said, "Buck up, Buster. We'll fiddle it through somehow. It'll be all right."
       Allen said, "Thanks, Doc," very softly, and that was all. But into those two words he put something that made the other sure that he'd just done the greatest good deed of his life. It was an altogether pleasant sensation.
       At their hut, while they were hanging up the snow-shoes, Allen paused and looked up at that glorious sky again. Mathewson joined him. "It's quite a sight, isn't it?" he said softly.
       The other could not have heard him. He murmured, "It's a terrible thing to be homesick, Doc," and turned quickly to enter the hut.
       As the present job would finish in two days this seemed a strange remark to come off with, but when they had bunked down just before going to sleep, Allen came up with an even stranger one. He said, "Do you remember when I was checking our course on top of that drift, and you said I must have been a boy scout? Doc, what is a boy scout?"
       He seemed quite serious about it, too. Mathewson didn't know what to think. He told him to shut up and go to sleep or he'd crown him with something.
       Next morning Allen talked about nothing but Woomera.
       "All right, all right. So he made a neat contact." The major was growing impatient. "But I don't want a whole history. You wangled him the job—by going over my head when I turned him down—and he settled in. Then what? How did he convert you, or was it money?"
       "No. It wasn't money, and he didn't 'convert' me either. It wasn't anything like that at all." Mathewson sighed. The other seemed to have a one-track mind.
       "Oh, so he just asked you nicely for the ship and you gave it to/him, just like that." Turner's tone was bitingly sarcastic. "What's a spaceship more or less between friends sort of thing, is that it?"
       "Yes, something like that." The doctor waited for the shock wave of the inevitable explosion to hit him.
       Turner rose half out of his seat and stiffened in that strained position while his face reddened and a vein in his temple started a measured throbbing. His eyes were pure murder. He opened his mouth, but the explosion didn't come. He eased back into the chair and said dully, "Tell me about the first time he asked for it." Then recovering himself somewhat, "And don't take all day."
       "It was one night about three months ago. I had asked him to stay with us over the weekend. The project looked like it would be finished eight months ahead of schedule. Incidentally, this was due to the amazing work put into new engine designs by Allen, and by his ability at bug-suppressing generally, as anyone here will tell you. We were taking it easy. My wife had taken the children to the pictures and we were just loafing around and talking. He began to get more and more nervous and restless, but I didn't mention it. We were discussing the effect of acceleration on some of the more sensitive valves—they are practically foolproof, of course, but we were being morbid. He kept suggesting improvements, and alternative layouts, just as he did when that refrigeration problem came up. And the time when we bogged down on the venturi linings and he ended up by inventing that new alloy that stayed at white heat for two hours before it softened. These suggestions were like the others, wild, unheard of, and impossibly simple—and, when we'd screwed up enough courage to try them, quite workable. I told him to please, please stop. Most of the radio equipment was already installed and it would mean tearing it all out again. He was undoubtedly a genius, but hadn't