Lancelot Biggs, Master Navigator

Trust Lancelot Biggs to get his ship into a mess just when speed and good navigation meant the prize contract of the year...!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Adventures May 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Everything happens to me. We finished taking on cargo at 13:10, Solar Constant Time, and I went to my turret for firing orders from the Sun City spacedrome officer. I plugged in the audio and stared into the familiar pan of Commander Allonby.

I said, "Freight lugger Saturn preparing to up gravs, Commander. Standing by for the O.Q."

His jaw dropped like a barometer in a cyclone. He gasped, "You, Sparks? And the Saturn? What in blue space are you doing in port?"

"Don't look now," I advised him, "but we've been here since day before yesterday. Matter of fact, you and me h'isted elbows together last night at the Cosmic Bar, remember?"

"Remember?" he howled. "How could I? The last I heard of you, Cap Hanson was running the Saturn through the planetoids on some sort of cockeyed transmutation experiment![1] When did you get back? How did you--?"

[Footnote 1: Fantastic Adventures, November, 1939.]

"Damn!" I groaned, "and double-damn!" I knew what had happened. It was that confounded new invention of Lancelot Biggs'. It was a uranium audio plate which, when activated in low radiations, acted as what you might call a "time-speech-trap."

In other words, I was talking to Allonby not as he was now, but as he had been five months ago!

Don't ask me how it works. I'm a stranger here myself. Anyhow, I shook my head, shifted the dials, picked up Allonby in the current time level, got a take-off order and relayed it to the bridge. Pretty soon a bell dinged, another one donged, and a slow, humming vibration tingled through the ship as our hypatomics caught hold. I steadied myself for the lift--

And whammo! The stars exploded and seven mules let me have it in the you-know-where, and there I was on the ceiling, squawking like a stuck pig and scrambling to get down to my control banks. I didn't scramble long. For suddenly the artificial gravs came on and I made a perfect three-point landing--nose, knees and navel--on the floor.

I got up gingerly. No arms or legs fell off when I shook myself, so I started for the bridge to ask Cap Hanson whyfore. But just as I reached the door it swung open, and in came the skipper himself. He was swearing with the dull, unemotional fluidity of a man who has abandoned hope.

I knew, then. I said, "Biggs, Skipper?"

He moaned, "Talk to me, Sparks. Talk quick, an' make it interestin'. I promised Diane I wouldn't commit no mayhems on him, but I'm weakenin'. I keep thinkin' how I'd like to--"

"Easy, Cap," I soothed. "Some day he'll choke to death on his own Adam's-apple. But how come Biggs made the take-off? He's only the First Mate on this barge."

Hanson snapped, "Don't call this crate a barge!" Then he added, "Well, Sparks, I lost a bet with Biggs on the last trip. An' he won the right to navigate the next three Venus-to-Earth shuttles. So--" He shrugged. "He's handlin' the controls."

"Maltreating," I corrected, "is the word. I like Lancelot Biggs, Skipper. But I'd as soon ride a Martian firebird bareback as hop gravs with him in the turret. What do you say we--"

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