Kramer

“ Kramer was right. They were as human as I. Human corpses, stripped, packed together, frozen. I pulled back the lightly frosted covering, and studied the glazed white bodies.
Kramer called suddenly from the door. “You found your colonists, Captain. Now that your curiosity is satisfied, we can go back where we belong. Out here man is a tame variety of cattle. We’re lucky they didn’t know we were the same variety, or we’d be in their food lockers now ourselves. Now let’s get started back. The men won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.” ”

“ Kramer said, "Lucky you didn't know it, for a crowd of you boys jiggling and pushing and fooling, as boys do, would have gone over. Stand back there!"
"Hullo, below!" shouted the mate. "Here's some food for you."
Walter and Ned, looking up, saw the basket slowly descending, and the boys listening heard a faint cheer above the roar of the sea.
"Got it?"
"Yes, all right!" shouted Walter, taking the basket from the line.
"There! that's all I can do for them," said the mate, reeling in the line. "Now, boys, I'll give you some advice for nothing: Go back to a safer place, and wait for your friends. ”

“ I looked up at him. “Kramer,” [39] I said in a clear, not too loud voice, “you’re on watch. I don’t want to find you hanging around the wardroom making light chit-chat until you’re properly relieved from duty.” I went back to my near-coffee and the farmland. A river was in view now, and beyond it distant mountains.
Kramer was furious. “Joyce has relieved me, Captain,” he said, controlling his voice with an effort. “I felt I’d better take this matter up with you as soon as possible, since it affects the health of every man aboard.” He was trying to keep cool, in command of himself. ”

“ If she loses it, we lose her for good."
"You think she'll make it to this side?"
"If she's lost, no, sir. She'll just keep on out there until—"
"Until?"
"Until her comptometers break down, until her drive is exhausted, until she makes a mistake. Until eternity."
"Sir," Kramer broke in. "Three minutes since pick-up. Her trajectory's whacky. She's sort of side-slipping in, but at the speed she's making, she's going to miss Barrier just by the width of her skin. She'll tangent off sure." Kramer thrust a hastily prepared three dimensional plot-check forward. ”

“ Is it you, Philip? I can't make you out. Darkness.... Who's there? With you...."
"It's me, Kramer." His fingers tightened against the microphone handle. "You must release the controls, Professor. We have to get back to Terra. You must."
Silence. Then the faint, faltering voice came again, a little stronger than before. "Kramer. Everything so strange. I was right, though. Consciousness result of thinking. Necessary result. Cognito ergo sum. Retain conceptual ability. Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Professor—"
"I altered the wiring. Control. I was fairly certain.... I wonder if I can do it. Try...." ”

“ Kramer said flatly. "Put the knife away, Jim Reese."
Reese glanced past Kramer and saw moving figures—colonists, coming toward him. He recognized them but still there was something unfamiliar about them. They moved stiffly. Like so many zombies, Reese thought.
Sweat poured down his body. He didn't want to hurt Kramer, not even the strangely-possessed Kramer before him.
Stooping quickly, he picked up a handful of the soft, warm Damballa mud and hurled it into Kramer's face. The big man, blinded, spat out mouthfuls of mud. Reese turned and ran.
"After him!" Kramer rumbled. "He's getting away!" ”

“ Don't go adventuring down into life." [Pg 59]
CHAPTER VII
Then I found Joe Kramer.
He had "queered" himself at the beginning in college. I had barely known him. He belonged to no fraternity, and except on the athletic field he kept out of all our genial life. And this life of ours, for all its thoughtlessness, was so rich in genuine friendships, so filled and bubbling over with the joy of being young, that we could not understand how any decent sort of chap could deliberately keep out of it. We put Joe Kramer down as a "grouch." ”

“ I said. “As long as we have a man aboard still able to move. Teeth or no teeth.”
“Deficiency disease is no joke, Captain,” Kramer said. “You can get all the symptoms of leprosy, cancer and syphilis just by skipping a few necessary elements in your diet. And we’re missing most of them.”
“Giving me your opinions is one thing, Kramer,” I said. “Mutiny is another.”
Clay stood beside the main screen, wide-eyed. I couldn’t send Kramer down under his guard. “Let’s go, Kramer,” I said. “I’m locking you up myself.”
We rode down in the lift. ”

“ Kramer walked slowly over to the port and stood staring silently out, his arms folded. Beyond the ship a myriad fragments of light gleamed, countless coals glowing in the dark void. Stars, suns, systems. Endless, without number. A universe of worlds. An infinity of planets, waiting for them, gleaming and winking from the darkness. ”

“ Kramer had watched for an opportunity to escape, but when it came he had had no chance of bringing away any of the stones, as the Bushmen had a vague idea that the white men valued them highly and that if they knew of their presence in the oasis their refuge would soon be lost to them. "He stuck to his tale," said the lieutenant, "and his great idea was that I should help him to go back with a strong expedition as soon as his time of service expired, and he would make me a rich man. Of course," he continued dogmatically, "there are no diamonds in this country, worse luck! ”

“ But the rigorous teachers of Hauptmann's youth had graven their influence upon him, and the new faith announced by Heinrich in The Sunken Bell is still a kind of scientific paganism. In Michael Kramer (1900) , however, he has definitely conquered the positivistic denial of the overwhelming reality of the ultimate problems. For it is after some solution of these that the great heart of Kramer cries out. In Henry of Aue the universe, no longer a harsh and monstrous mechanism, irradiates the human soul with the spirit of its own divinity. ”

“ I plunged ahead, as I saw Kramer take a breath and wrinkle his brow, about to make his pitch.
“The men need a change, a break in the monotony,” I said. [34] “I’ve been considering a number of possibilities.” I fixed my eyes on Fine as I talked. He sat stiffly on the edge of my bunk. Already he was regretting his boldness in presuming to rumple the Captain’s bed.
“It might be a good bit of drill to set up a few live missile runs on random targets,” I said. “There’s also the possibility of setting up a small arms range and qualifying all hands.” I switched my eyes to Kramer. ”

“ Williams pulled his needler, and fired a ricochet down the passage.
“’Bout twelve a you yellow-bellies git outa my way,” he yelled. “I’m comin’ through.”
Nagle moved close to Williams, and shouted something to him. The noise drowned it. Kramer swung back to me, frantic to regain his sway over the mob.
“Once I’m out of the way, there’ll be a general purge,” he roared. The hubbub faded, as men turned to hear him.
“You’re all marked men. He’s gone mad. He won’t let one of you live.” Kramer had their eyes now. “Take him now,” he shouted, and seized my arm to begin the action. ”

“ Gross and Kramer looked up at the board plates, suspended on the wall, still dripping, the images hardening into place. Kramer traced a line with his pencil.
"See that? It's a pseudopodium. They're alive, and so far, a weapon we can't beat. No mechanical system can compete with that, simple or intricate. We'll have to scrap the Johnson Control and find something else."
"Meanwhile the war continues as it is. Stalemate. Checkmate. They can't get to us, and we can't get through their living minefield."
Kramer nodded. "It's a perfect defense, for them. ”

“ Bernard. "The captain is calling."
"All ready there?"
"Ay, ay,--all ready!" shouted the light-keeper.
"They can't hear," said Mr. Bernard; "the wind is this way."
"All ready!" shouted Kramer again, beckoning with his hand.
"Oh, they are launching a big basket!" cried Ned Gould.
"They are coming in that? Whew!" cried Frank Furman, fairly dancing with excitement.
"Ready, there?" was shouted again from the vessel.
"All ready!"
"Steady, then--pull!"
"Now, boys, stand off!" said Kramer, motioning the crowd away. "I only want the men now; steady pulling is what we want."
Mr. Bernard, Mr. ”

“ I said, looking at Kramer. “If so, you’ve got thirty seconds to send them back to their kennels. We’ll go into the matter of unauthorized personnel on the bridge later. As for you, Major, you can consider yourself under arrest in quarters. Now Move.”
Kramer was ready to stare me [40] down, but Fine gave me a break by tugging at his sleeve. Kramer shook him loose, snarling. At that the crew chiefs faded back into the lift. Fine and Taylor hesitated, then joined them. Kramer started to shout after them, then got hold of himself. The lift moved down.
Kramer thought about going for his needler. ”

“ I said.
“That load of fresh meat your star-born pals gave us consists of about six families of human beings; men, women, and children.” Kramer was talking for the crowd now, shouting. “Those last should be pretty tender when you ration out our ounce a week, Captain.”
The men milled, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as I thrust through to the cargo lock. The door stood ajar and wisps of white vapor curled out into the passage.
I stepped through the door. It was bitter cold in the lock. Near the outer hatch the bulky cannister, rimed with white frost, lay in a pool of melting ice. ”

“ I called Kramer and told him to meet the incoming crew and open and inspect the cargo. If it was the same as the sample, I thought, we had made a terrific trade. Discipline would recover if the men felt we still had our luck.
Then Mannion called again. “Captain,” he said excitedly, “I think there may be trouble coming. Will you come down, sir?”
“I’ll go to the bridge, Mannion,” I said. “Keep talking.”
I tuned my speaker down low and listened to Mannion as I ran for the lift.
“They tell us to watch for a little display of Mancji power. They ran out some kind of antenna. ”

“ We get one or two every day." He shrugged. "There's nothing here that's interesting," he said as he released the clamps and tilted the table. For what seemed to Mary an interminable time, the cadaver clung to the polished steel. Then abruptly it slid off the shining surface and disappeared through the square hole in the floor. "We'll clean up now," Kramer said as he placed the instruments in the autoclave, closed the door and locked it, and pressed three buttons on the console.
From jets embedded in the walls a fine spray filled the room with fog.
"Germicide," Kramer said. ”

“ We had moved in to televideo range before realizing it was an all-sea world.
Now we had five new main-sequence suns ahead within six months’ range. I hoped for a confirmation on a planet at any time. To turn back now to a world that had pinned its last hopes on our success was unthinkable, yet this was Kramer’s plan, and that of his followers. They would not prevail while I lived. Still it was not my plan to be a party to our failure through martyrdom. I intended to stay alive and carry through to success. ”

“ The tide will be down low enough to let you out of that trap in about two hours and a half, or three, at most."
The boys groaned, and then Ned said dolefully, "We'll starve to death. I didn't know I was hungry until the danger was over."
"You'll be hungrier before you get off," shouted the hard-hearted Kramer, laughing provokingly.--"A good lesson for the young scamps. It seems they made a fuss about having a teacher go along with 'em to look after them, so the head man, Mr. Bernard, let 'em off alone to-day. That little chap, Joe, he owned they'd got enough of it." ”

“ Grimes came up with a similar plot-check, described on a regulation ship's form. The senior Patrol officer compared the two, the flight plan and the running trajectory laid out by Kramer, and Cragin's teeth glinted through his lips as they went slack in amazement.
"God, sir, that's impossible. It ends at the square of light-speed!"
"Fowler Griffin is—was—one of Earth's topmost scientists. His work is beyond question, Mister Cragin. More so, perhaps, than that of any other. Your irreverence is out of order." ”

“ Scholz and Mrs. Kramer. But, in the former, bodily suffering and nervous terror have slackened the moral fibre, and this abnormality speaks in every word and gesture. Mrs. Kramer is simply average, with the tenacity and the corroding power of the average.
Another noteworthy group is that of the three Lutheran clergymen: Kolin in Lonely Lives, Kittelhaus in The Weavers, and Spitta in The Rats. Kolin has the utter sincerity which can afford to be trivial and not cease to be lovable; Kittelhaus is the conscious time-server whose opinions might be anything ”

“ Kramer gripped the vidphone stand. "Is it serious?"
"Yes, it's serious, Mr. Kramer. Are you able to come here? The quicker you can come the better."
"Yes." Kramer nodded. "I'll come. Thanks."
*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*
The screen died as the connection was broken. Kramer waited a moment. Then he tapped the button. The screen relit again. "Yes, sir," the monitor said.
"Can I get a ship to Terra at once? It's an emergency. My wife—"
"There's no ship leaving the moon for eight hours. You'll have to wait until the next period." ”

“ The water drives in furiously, and then sucks back enough to drag the solid cliff after it, if it wasn't anchored very strong."
This the light-keeper said to the two boys near him; and Ned and Walter, in their perilous position under the cliff, waited breathlessly for an answer, nearly frantic at the delay.
"Mr. Kramer, O Mr. Kramer! How high does the tide come here?"
"I can't see. Can't you tell by the looks of the rocks?" ”