The Galaxy Primes | Page 4

of space. Hence,
there are no Operators and no Primes. That means that from now until
we get back to Tellus...."
"If we get back to Tellus," Belle corrected, sweetly.
"Until we get back to Tellus there will be no Gunthering aboard this

ship...."
"What?" Belle broke in again. "Have you lost your mind?"
"There will be little if any lepping, and nothing else at all. At the table,
if we want sugar, we will reach for it or have it passed. We will pick up
things, such as cigarettes, with our fingers. We will carry lighters and
use them. When we go from place to place, we will walk. Is that clear?"
"You seem to be talking English," Belle sneered, "but the words don't
make sense."
"I didn't think you were that stupid." Eyes locked and held. Then
Garlock grinned savagely. "Okay. You tell her, Lola, in words of as
few syllables as possible."
"Why, to get used to it, of course," Lola explained, while Belle glared
at Garlock in frustrated anger. "So as not to reveal anything we don't
have to."
"Thank you, Miss Montandon, you may go to the head of the class. All
monosyllables except two. That should make it clear, even to Miss
Bellamy."
"You ... you beast!" Belle drove a tight-beamed thought. "I was never
so insulted in my life!"
"You asked for it. Keep on asking for it and you'll keep on getting it."
Then, aloud, to all three, "In emergencies, of course, anything goes. We
will now proceed with business." He paused, then went on, bitingly, "If
possible."
"One minute, please!" Belle snapped. "Just why, Captain Garlock, are
you insisting on oral communication, when lepping is so much faster
and better? It's stupid--reactionary. Don't you ever lep?"
"With Jim, on business, yes; with women, no more than I have to. What
I think is nobody's business but mine."

"What a way to run a ship! Or a project!"
"Running this project is my business, not yours; and if there's any one
thing in the entire universe it does not need, it's a female exhibitionist.
Besides your obvious qualifications to be one of the Eves in case of
Ultimate Contingency...." he broke off and stared at her, his
contemptuous gaze traveling slowly, dissectingly, from her toes to the
topmost wave of her hair-do.
"Forty-two, twenty, forty?" he sneered.
"You flatter me." Her glare was an almost tangible force; her voice was
controlled fury.
"Thirty-nine, twenty-two, thirty-five. Five seven. One thirty-five. If any
of it's any of your business, which it isn't. You should be discussing
brains and ability, not vital statistics."
"Brains? You? No, I'll take that back. As a Prime, you have got a
brain--one that really works. What do you think you're good for on this
project? What can you do?"
"I can do anything any man ever born can do, and do it better!"
"Okay. Compute a Gunther field that will put us two hundred thousand
feet directly above the peak of that mountain."
"That isn't fair--not that I expected fairness from you--and you know it.
That doesn't take either brains or ability...."
"Oh, no?"
"No. Merely highly specialized training that you know I haven't had.
Give me a five-tape course on it and I'll come closer than either you or
James; for a hundred credits a shot."
"I'll do just that. Something you are supposed to know, then. How
would you go about making first contact?"

"Well, I wouldn't do it the way you would--by knocking down the first
native I saw, putting my foot on his face, and yelling 'Bow down, you
stupid, ignorant beasts, and worship me, the Supreme God of the
Macrocosmic Universe'!"
"Try again, Belle, that one missed me by...."
"Hold it, both of you!" James broke in. "What the hell are you trying to
prove? How about cutting out this cat-and-dog act and getting some
work done?"
"You've got a point there," Garlock admitted, holding his temper by a
visible effort. "Sorry, Jim. Belle, what were you briefed for?"
"To understudy you." She, too, fought her temper down. "To learn
everything about Project Gunther. I have a whole box of tapes in my
room, including advanced Gunther math and first-contact techniques.
I'm to study them during all my on-watch time unless you assign other
duties."
"No matter what your duties may be, you'll have to have time to study.
If you don't find what you want in your own tapes--and you probably
won't, since Ferber and his Miss Foster ran the selections--use our
library. It's good--designed to carry on our civilization. Miss
Montandon? No, that's silly, the way we're fixed. Lola?"
"I'm to learn how to be Doctor James'...."
"Jim, please, Lola," James said. "And call him Clee."
"I'd like that." She smiled winningly. "And my friends