Read Ebook: O Assassino de Macario: Comedia em tres actos by Castelo Branco Camilo

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1860 lines and 16162 words, and 38 pages

Captain PEABODY

BY ROG PHILLIPS

The gavel rapped sharply, and the murmur of conversation throughout the banquet room drifted into hushed silence. The occasion was the seventy-fifth meeting of RETSCAP, the organization of Retired Space Captains; the place, a banquet room in the Empire Club on the hundred and sixty-fourth floor of the New Empire State Building in Manhattan; the time, approximately nine thirty in the evening, August 9, 2231 A.D.; those present, the four hundred and eighteen members of RETSCAP--or rather, four hundred and nineteen, including the new member, Captain Arthur Peabody, who had reached his ninety-fifth birthday just two weeks before, and by doing so had been automatically retired from active service and thereby become eligible for membership while still in the prime of life.

"Quiet everybody," the Secretary and master of ceremonies, Captain John Evers, said good-naturedly, rapping the gavel again. He turned to the new member, sitting next to him. "Captain Peabody," he said in his loud clear voice, "The time has come for fulfillment of a traditional part of our get-togethers--one we all look forward to with great pleasure and anticipation."

There was a subdued clapping of hands, then Captain Evers cleared his throat loudly and continued. "Each of us here has become a member of RETSCAP only after a lifetime of space travel, much of that time as a Captain in charge of the destinies of our crews and passengers and ships. Inevitably each of us has had some unusual experiences in his time, and we like to talk about them, boring each other to death, no doubt, as we repeat the same stories among ourselves meeting after meeting. So it's always a treat to us to get a new member and by so doing get some fresh stories to listen to. I am about to give you the floor, and what we would like to hear is the one experience you have had which you think is the most unusual, in some way, of your entire career. The floor is now yours, Captain Arthur Peabody!"

Arthur Peabody stood up slowly, a tall man, long legged and short bodied in his seven foot height, his sharply bridged nose and high forehead giving his features the stamp of authority comfortably worn, and waited, a quiet smile on his firm lips, until the applause subsided. Then he began his speech.

Even the sight of his name on that list sent an instinctive fear through me. Once, when I was still a space recruit he had whipped me to within an inch of my life and instilled in me the realization that he could do it any time, anywhere.

A man like that is slightly mad, or strikes you that way. You stay out of his way if you can, and if you can't you let him have his way, swallow his insults, do anything to avoid the beating you would get if he took the whim. Live with that for two years as I had thirty years before, and you never get over it.

Now I was captain of my first ship and he was to be one of the crew. And I knew in my heart that if he walked up to me and suddenly reached up to scratch his head I would cringe and turn pale. I wouldn't be able to help it. And if that happened it would be the end of me. The crew would think I was yellow--and I was when it came to Oscar Resnick.

Oh, he wouldn't do anything that would give me cause to toss him in the brig, nor even anything that would give me cause to fire him--at least a reason that would stand up under a union inquiry if he demanded one, which he would. He would just grin at me knowingly with eyes that told me he thought I was yellow, and hesitate just long enough after an order to make me wonder if he was going to obey--the kind of stuff that could break me down completely, in time. And there would be nothing I could do about it.

I made a try to keep him off my crew. The Dispatcher admitted Resnick had the reputation of being a trouble maker, but if I didn't take him there was likelihood the Union would call out the whole crew and ground the ship.

Then the Dispatcher pointed out the fact that the list was short one man, my personal orderly. I hadn't thought about an orderly at all, and hadn't chosen one yet. He gave me the list of available orderlies and I looked it over, most of the names meaning nothing at all to me. Suddenly I ran across a name I knew. I didn't know the man, but I had heard of him, and probably all of you have.

The Dispatcher suggested two or three other men he knew personally, any one of which I would probably like and decide to keep permanently. But a crazy idea was running around in my head. It was a clutching at straws, but what it amounted to was this: I had a bully on my crew, a man who had my number and knew how to use it. Why not balance him out by making my one choice on the crew a man who was the exact opposite, an abject coward? Possibly, on some level of thought, I wanted company if Resnick showed me up to the crew, someone who couldn't look down on me because of the simple fact that he was the lowest there was.

The Dispatcher almost cried with happiness over my choice of David Markham. It turned out he was sorry for the guy, and felt only a man with real guts would have the courage to sign Markham on. He would certainly have been surprised if I had told him the truth.

I met Markham the next morning at seven o'clock when I returned to the Dispatch Office at Spaceport, New Mexico. He was a fine looking fellow, twenty-five, rather short--just over the six foot four minimum of the Space Patrol, about one ninety mass, blonde, square jaw. I took a liking to him at once--but there was a haunting something at the back of his eyes that never went away even when he was smiling, and he smiled often during the time I knew him, though he never laughed but once--and it was a sound I never want to hear again. But that came much later.

I sent him aboard with my bags to get my quarters in order, then steeled myself to check in the crew. You know how it is, you sit at the window and the men come by, one at a time, you introduce yourself, fix his face in your mind, size him up, then call for the next man. Finally it was Oscar Resnick looking through the window at me, his thick shock of sandy red hair glued down, clean-shaven, six foot eight, about two hundred and forty pounds mass, his brown eyes a little too large, his thin lipped mouth a little too small, his teeth a little too long.

"That's the proper spirit, Resnick," I said. "All right, get aboard. Gate seven."

After he had gone I checked in the rest of the crew, seeing liking and respect in their eyes, and wondering how quickly it would change to barely concealed contempt, wondering what Resnick would do to show me up. Like a renegade wolf he would bide his time, staying out of range, until the moment he decided was right, then he would dart in with a swift attack that would tear open my fear of him for all to see--and dart away again to sit and laugh while my soul withered within me. That's all he would do. That's all he would have to do, and he and I both knew it.

In the days following take-off, I watched the slow build-up with a certainty of knowledge that can only come from personal experience. I knew Resnick's methods.

A successful bully must be a shrewd psychologist and know how to capitalize on weaknesses. I watched Oscar Resnick size up this man and that one, and go to work on each. It's a subtle formula he used. Wait until you are alone with a man, then trip him when he goes by you, or dig your elbow into his ribs painfully, then claim it was an accident, but in such a way that both he and you know it wasn't an accident yet nobody else will believe it. Mock him with your eyes and your smile, dare him to do something about it. What can a man do? He can't go running to the Mate with the complaint that you are picking on him. He can't bring the thing into the open by fighting you without striking the first blow and being branded the aggressor in an unprovoked assault, and unless he is a professional fighter your sneering confidence bluffs him out of an open fight at first. Gradually you establish a fear reaction in him that would keep him from winning a fight even if, originally, he could have beaten you.

When you are the victim of that sort of thing you really have only two courses of action open to you. Try to keep out of his way as much as possible, if you have any personal integrity, or kowtow to him, grovel in his presence, sneer with him at his other victims, flatter him, and hope he will direct his sadistic streak elsewhere.

Soon four or five of the crewmen start hanging around with the bully, admiring him too much, laughing too much at what he says, siding with him against others, and even doing a little minor bullying themselves by ganging up on this or that victim as soon as each has recognized the streak of cowardly sadism in the other which binds them together as human jackals.

A man like Resnick leaves the strong alone at first; waits until the jackals have gathered around him. When this stage is reached, when anybody who says anything is a yellow stool-pigeon, you find the best man in your crew a hospital case with bleeding nose, bruised face, black eyes, and maybe a couple of broken ribs caved in by someone's shoe. After the doctor gives him first aid you go to the infirmary and ask him who did it. He clamps his lips together and tells you he didn't see who it was. He's lying, and he knows you know he is lying, but can you torture it out of him or punish him for not telling you? No. And there's nothing a Captain can do about it. He must have the testimony of the injured party in writing, signed and witnessed, and the Code Book must be followed specifically in punishing the aggressors; and if the Captain does anything at all he is almost certain to be tied up in court at the first port of call by the punished parties. Even if the Captain has provable justification for putting a man in the brig or fining him or giving him a demotion in assigned type of work, his ship will be delayed by the trial, and the owners will decide they need a Captain who knows how to avoid such costly delays.

A man like Oscar Resnick is a social cancer, and I saw the symptoms of his presence on the ship come into being, and grow, and I knew he was too cunning and too shrewd to let them get out of hand. Any other Captain, knowing all this, would sit back and do nothing, knowing that that was his only safe course consistent with his duty of keeping the ship on schedule.

I had to follow this course of action too. But I knew that it was just a prelude, that when Resnick sensed the time was ripe for his purposes, he would get at me.

It would be subtle and would only takbrigada, meu pae, obrigada!

BARNAB?

Agora, asfixias-me... Cruzes!

ITELVINA

Mas o silencio d'elle assusta-me, meu pae! Trez dias sem noticias! Vou escrever a Macario; e, se me n?o responder, amanhan parto para Braga. Se lhe tivesse acontecido algum revez! Sebastiana, n?o estou em casa para ninguem, absolutamente para ninguem

BARNAB?

Sou o pae d'esta pombinha... ? um anjo... Se eu me vejo livre d'esta ardente creatura do Mexico... Sebastiana, d?-me o casaco e o chap?o.

SEBASTIANA

Sim, senhor.

BARNAB?

Deix?l-a casar com o Macario! O que eu quero, sobre tudo, ? paz e socego... O casamento favorece os meus projectos... Fallaram-me d'uma quinta que se vende em S. Mamede de Infesta. O dono mora perto d'aqui; vou tratar com elle; e, se n?o f?r muito cara, o meu sonho d'esta noite realisa-se... O repuxo! Ah! o repuxo!

SEBASTIANA

Aqui est?o as coisas.

BARNAB?

Obrigado... Ajuda-me... Irei viver sosinho em paz e socego.

SEBASTIANA

O senhor vem jantar?

BARNAB?

Sim, mas ha de ser tarde. Em paz e socego...

SEBASTIANA

SCENA VI

Sebastiana e Liborio

SEBASTIANA

Ai! n?o ? elle!

LIBORIO

N?o ? elle: sou eu.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet