said, nonchalantly, “Commander Gurloff thinks he’ll turn around and head back home.”
They spun on him. “What!”
He grinned at their excitement. “April Fool!”
They stared at him, then their eyes went to each other, questioningly.
Doctr Thorndon entered the tiny officer’s mess and wardroom just in time to pick up the end of the conversation. He said soothingly, “Never mind, boys, he’s not down with cafard. It’s a joke.”
“A joke?” Johnny Norsen grumbled. “Why the fat little makron had Dick and me believing him for a minute. What’s this about April something or other?”
Doc Thorndon settled into a chair. He was a cheerful, rolypoly man, his cheeks still pink but his hair thinning and graying. He was about forty-five—old for the space service.
“April Fool,” he said. “It’s a time-honored jest. By the ancient calendar there was a day in the Terran year during which persons played practical jokes on each other. When the victim became indignant, the perpetrator merely called out April Fool! and the other was forced to admit himself duped.”
They still didn’t quite get it. Doc Thorndon added, patiently, “If we were still following the old calendar, this would be April 1st, All Fool’s Day, as they called it.” Dick Roland said, “Well, anyway, here’s the video-news for last April Fool’s Day.” He dimmed the room’s lights and flashed the video wire on the wall so that everyone could read.
Over an hour later, he said, “Should we run it again now, or should we wait another couple of hours.”
“Three times is enough,” Johnny Norsen said, “We’ll get tired of it, otherwise. Remember, it’s another twenty-four hours until we get another one. Let’s sit around and discuss it for awhile.”
“Yeah,” Mart Bakr said. The chubby third officer shook his head in reluctant admiration. “Did you see that item about Jackie Black? They almost got him there on Calypso, but he’s too slick for them.”
Johnny Norsen grunted contemptuously. “I don’t think that was him at all. Too big, for one thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Black was still on Earth. They’ve been reporting him on every planet and satellite in the system, but I’ll bet he never left Neuve Los Angeles, where he pulled his last—”
“Caper,” Doc Thorndon said.
The other three looked at him. “His what?” Mart Bakr asked.
“His caper,” the doctr repeated, pleased with himself. “It’s a new word I ran into today. Criminals used to call a crime a caper.”
Dick Roland shook his head and grinned. “What a hobby. Prehistoric slang.”
There was a gentle knock at the wardroom door and the four of them looked up at the messman who stood there, somewhat nervous at being in officer’s country.
“Yes, Spillane?” Johnny Norsen said.
The messman cleared his throat. “Could you tell me where the skipper is, sir?”
“I think he’s sleeping, Spillane. What is it?”
“Well, sir. Well… there’s a stowaway on board.” He cleared his throat again and said, “We found her in the number eight compartment.” His eyes went from one to the other of them. He added, decisively, “Yes, sir.”
Doc Thorndon was the first to explode. “Her!” he blurted.
Mart Bakr started suddenly to laugh. His chuckle swelled into a roar and the others turned to stare at him in his turn. He was finally able to get out, “April Fool! We all bit again. April Fool!”
Spillane looked blank.
The faces of the others relaxed. Even the angular features of Johnny Norsen twisted themselves in a wry grin. He said, “You certainly caught us, Spillane.”
The messman looked anxiously from one of the ship’s officers to the other. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“What?”
Johnny Norsen scowled and said, “Run along now, Spillane. It was a good joke. Congratulations.”
“Joke, sir? What joke?”
Doc Thorndon had settled back into his chair now. “Oh, come along, Spillane. We—”
A new voice, pitched low, and somewhat timid, said from the doorway, “Could I come in, now?”
Johnny Norsen was facing the other way. He didn’t turn to look at her for a full minute. Instead, he closed his eyes and muttered in pain, “Oh, no. Forty-five men and one woman in a ship that’s to be in space for twelve months!”
She wasn’t beautiful, nor even pretty, as current tastes went—but she had something, very definitely. She was about five foot five and probably in her middle twenties. Her attractiveness lay in a certain eagerness, a brightness, an interest in what was going on about her, no matter what it might be. Yes, she had something, very definitely. It was hard to put your finger on it.
Right now, she was attired in a simple sports dress, wrinkled and somewhat soiled from her period in hiding among the supplies in compartment eight. Her eyes went nervously from one to the other of them and she self consciously brushed her clothes, avoiding her breasts and hips, as though not wishing to bring her sex to their attention.
Johnny Norsen blurted, “Holy Jumping Wodo, Miss! Do you know where you are?”
She looked down at the steel deck, toeing in like a little girl who’d been caught at something naughty. Her voice was very low. “Yes, sir,” she whispered.
“Oh, you do, eh?” Norsen rasped.
Mart Bakr spoke for the first time since the apparition had appeared. “Don’t pick on her, Norsen,” he said truculently. “Can’t you see the poor kid’s scared?”
The first officer spun on him. “Scared?” he said bitterly. “We’re the ones that ought to be scared.” He turned back to the girl. “Come on, Miss. Let’s go see the captain.”
Mart Bakr and Dick Roland, the latter’s eyes still popping, started to follow into the corridor. Johnny Norsen grunted, “You two had better stay here. This many of us can’t crowd into the skipper’s quarters.” He added, sarcastically, “Besides, it’s probably going to be a trifle hot in there.”
He made no protest when Doctr Thorndon followed and the three of them, ship’s first officer, stowaway, and ship’s doctr made a procession down the corridor past a score of open mouthed crew members.
“Oh, brother, a dame on board,” a jetman muttered happily.
“Knock it off, Johnson,” the first officer snapped in irritation over his shoulder.
They rapped at the Captain’s cubbyhole which doubled as his living quarters and the space cruiser’s office. A voice from within growled, “What the kert is it?”
Norsen
