The downfall of Lancelot Biggs

Come aboard the Saturn for fun and laughs with Lancelot Biggs--mastermind of the spaceways.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales March 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

We were about three hours out of Long Island Spaceport, and I had just finished swapping farewell insults with Joe Marlowe, head bug-pounder at Lunar III, when the door of my radio turret slid open and in slithered--if round things can slither--Cap Hanson, skipper of our gallant space-going scow, the Saturn.

The Old Man's eyes were as wide as a lady bowler's beam, and his face, which boasts a pale mauve hue even under normal circumstances, was now a ripe, explosive fuchsia. He jammed a pudgy forefinger against his lips.

"_Shh!_" he shhed.

He squeezed in and closed the door behind him, shot a nervous glance about the room, then wheezed throatily, "Is there anybody here, Sparks?"

"Nobody," I told him, "but us amperes. Why all the Desperate Desmond stuff, Skipper? Got an old corpus delicti you want hid? You might try the air-lock--"

He snapped back to normal with a profane bang.

"Don't be a damned fool, Donovan! I ain't murdered any members of my crew yet. Though if I ever do, I've got a good notion who to start with. I got reason to be cautions. I just learned something--Listen!" He hunched forward and shoved his lips so close to my ear that I could almost hear his whiskers sprouting. "You know that Captain Cooper which come aboard at Long Island?"

"The Quarantine officer, you mean?"

"Quarantine officer your eye!" The skipper's voice was triumphant. "He ain't no more a Q.O. than I'm the Queen of Sheba! He's an inspector from the S.S.C.B."

"An inspector!" I gasped. "From the Space Safety Control Board! Why--why, that means--"

"Exactly!" Hanson rubbed his hands gleefully. "It means that Lanse is being examined for a commander's brevet. Well, what do you think of that? My son-in-law. Captain of his own ship. And him with only one year's active service!"

I said, "That's swell!" and meant it. The Old Man exaggerated a trifle when he called Lancelot Biggs his "son-in-law"; Biggs' marriage to Diane Hanson was not scheduled to take place, yet, for a couple of months. But with Hanson I could enthuse over the prospect of seeing Biggs win his four stripes and his own command. Lieutenant Lancelot Biggs was not only my superior officer, he was my friend, as well. He had once been my bunkmate. I had watched him rise from a gangling, awkward, derided Third Mate to First Officer; had been present when he earned his Master Navigator's papers; had seen him overcome seemingly insurmountable handicaps of appearance and personality to win a place in the affections of crew and command alike.

A screwball gent, this Biggs. Tall, angular, inconceivably skinny, graced (or disfigured?) with a phenomenally active Adam's-apple that bobbed eternally up and down in his skinny throat like an unswallowed cud--but blessed with two saving graces. A swell sense of humor and a brain!

True, his thought processes were oftimes fantastically involved. His motto, "Get the theory first!" sometimes led him down dark passageways of logic. But there never was a problem too deep for him; time and again his screwy logic had saved the personnel of the Saturn from peril to person or purse.

So, "That's swell!" I said--and meant it. Then I stared at the skipper thoughtfully. "But why," I asked him, "tell me about it? Biggs is the man to tell."

Hanson's eyes clouded, and he gnawed savagely at a grubby fingernail.

"That's just it, Sparks. I can't tell him."

"Why?" I demanded. "Laryngitis? Or ain't you and him speaking?"

"I can't tell him," explained the skipper, "because it would be unethical. You see, when a man's bein' examined for his commander's stripes, he ain't supposed to know about it. That's why Cooper come aboard under an alias. He wants to watch Lanse perform his routine duties in routine fashion--like nothin' unusual was goin' on.

"Then, at the end of the trip, he'll tell Lanse who he is, give him a verbal exam on the Space Safety Code, navigation practices, etcetera an' so on, an'--there you are!"

"There," I agreed, "I am. So where am I? Still in the dark, Skipper. Why tell me?"

Hanson glared at me witheringly.

"If you was as deaf," he said, making noises like a sizzling steak, "as you are dumb, the Corporation might give me a new radio operator for this here jallop--I mean, ship! Look, stupid! Biggs had ought to know he's bein' watched by an examiner, shouldn't he? Not that he don't know how to do things right, but because--well, because every so often the boy gets whacky ideas an' starts tryin' experiments.

"An' we don't want him tryin' nothin' like that, do we? Not on this shuttle. So, bein' as how you're his chum, an' since it would be unethical for me to spill the beans--_you've_ got to tell him. Warn him to lay off the nonsense--get it?"

I got it. I nodded.

"Okay, Skipper. You're right and I'm wrong, as you usually are. I'll warn him. Only--" I hesitated, and the Old Man halted with one hand on the doorknob, looked back at me impatiently.

"Only what?"

"Only--if it's supposed to be a deep, dark secret, wouldn't it be unethical for me to tell him, too?"

"Don't," snorted Hanson, "be a donkey, Sparks! Whoever heard of a radioman with a sense of honor? Get word to him. An' make it snappy, too. He comes on in half an hour, an' I don't want he should pull any boners in front of Cooper. G'bye, now!"

The door slammed behind him.