Article 23 (10 page)

"If we should be called upon to react to certain elements in this solar system, I will expect instant obedience to my orders or you shall face the consequences."

The room was silent, Justin wondering if a threat had just been issued.

"You will find this ship to be very different."

MacKenzie
said with a smile. He then turned away and disappeared through the door.

"Prepare for departure in ten minutes," the senior pilot announced. "Acceleration chairs will be found in your rooms fold them down from the wall and strap in. Once clear of the Academy, burn time at four gees will be twenty-two minutes,
then
one gee for three hours and eighteen minutes, so if you need to hit the head better do so now. Ship's company dismissed."

Justin looked over at Matt.

"What do you think that was all about?"

"Shoot, I thought he'd burn a hole in me with his eyeballs," Matt replied, shaking his head. "Darned if I know but I don't feel good about it, old buddy, not one bit good."

Matt moved easily about the tiny galley, accompanying Ship's Cook Kelly O'Brian in the last stanza of "
Gerty
of Ganymede" while slipping a container full of chopped beef into the
rehydrator
.

Justin looked at the two in surprise as they finished the words, glad that Tanya and Madison had not pulled kitchen detail this first night out. On such matters he was still decidedly old-fashioned and wondered if Matt would have joined so lustily in the song about an overly friendly tavern owner if females had been present. Somehow he suspected that O'Brian would have kept on with his unending stream of invective and songs no matter who was present, including Thor
Thorsson
himself.

"You know a zero-gee galley like the back of your hand," O'Brian announced in his strange lilting lisp. "Serve aboard ship before?"

"My Uncle Dan owns a solar sailing ship, grew up on it."

"Which one?"

"Corona Wind, six-master, twenty-nine hundred square
klicks
of sail and out of Ceres."

"Not Dan Everett?"

"The same."

"So that's how you know the songs. We tangled lines a few times. Beat the tar out of me once and that's
somethin
' I don't normally admit, but being his kin and such I tell you he's a friend to have in a scrape. So you're a sailor then."

"That I am and proud of it," Matt announced. "Why, I'd been to near every asteroid mining camp in the system before I was twelve. Even did a Mars to Jupiter run once in eleven months twenty-three days, and not many been that far and that
fast.
Ol
' Dan navigated among them moons by dead reckoning, and not a single burst of thruster."

O'Brian whistled good-naturedly at Mart's boasting.

"And you're an
Earthsider
," he said, looking over at Justin.

"
Indiana
."

"Never been there.
Hey, watch them potatoes."

Kelly shouldered past Justin and snatched several hot potatoes that had drifted out of their container. Cursing soundly, he pushed them back in and snapped the lid shut.

"You ain't
no
galley rat yet, that's for certain.
Quick way to get burned if you don't pay attention in here."

"All hands, all hands, starboard watch prepare for chow in fifteen minutes."

The loudspeaker momentarily interrupted Kelly's tirade about clumsy midshipmen and, worst of all, first-year plebes. Justin just listened; he was fascinated by the man's command of vocabulary.

"Sergeant O'Brian."

O'Brian shot a quick glance at the loudspeaker.

"Here, sir."

"I'll have my dinner now."

"Aye, sir."

O'Brian looked over at Justin and Matt. His gaze shifted from Matt and then focused on Justin.

"
Bell, you'll have to take His Worship's dinner forward."

"His Worship?"

Kelly casually reached over to the wall and turned up the music coming from the computer so that the sound all but drowned out their conversation.

" Ice'
MacKenzie
, the '
Ice
Man.
' "

Justin, a bit startled by O'Brian's disdainful tone, said nothing.

"Now listen here, you young idiot. Just mind your P's and Q's in front of the Old Cuss. Don't speak unless spoken to. Lay his dinner out and for heaven's sake don't spill anything or let anything get loose. If you're lucky he'll just dismiss you, then scurry back here and help me set the spread."

Brian hesitated.

"And another thing, young sir.
If he starts asking you questions just tread careful-like. Don't just go giving the first answer that comes to your mind, think it all through."

"Why?"

"Just do as I tell you. He's a strange bird. Something about youngsters sets him off at times. For the life of me I can't understand why
Thorsson
sent you kiddies on this trip.
MacKenzie
had a fit when the orders came in."

"Thought he'd like the extra hands to command," Matt interjected. "This ship seems empty without us."

"Designed a long time back, thirty years ago," Kelly replied.
"Needed a lot more hands to run her then than we do now.
She's an old
one,
she is, but a
beaut
. At least empty there wasn't much to stir
MacKenzie
up. So just be careful something seemed to be troubling him right after we shipped out from the Academy."

O'Brian snapped a container of soup into a carry tray, followed by a container of beef hash and a cup of hot black coffee.

"Don't spill anything."

With an almost fatherly gesture O'Brian straightened the collar on Justin's jump suit, buttoned a breast pocket and finally nodded his approval.

"Now get."

O'Brian opened the door and ushered Justin out into the corridor.

Justin wove his way down the corridor, stepping cautiously. Cadets of the starboard watch were starting to drift out into the main corridor, some walking with sticky-bottom boots, others floating along.

"Gangway," Justin cried, using the ancient term that announced he was on official business aboard ship and thus others had to clear the way. He crossed the small assembly room and stopped before the cadet guarding the doorway leading forward.

"Captain's dinner," Justin announced.

The cadet opened the door and Justin stepped through. For a moment he looked around, confused. Steps led upward towards the flight control center and cockpit. A narrow corridor turned to his left and at the end of it he saw a handrail leading down. That must he the stairway leading to the lower deck where weapons storage, combat control and the hydroponics tanks were located, he thought.

He tried straight ahead, passing small doorways on either side. At the end of the narrow corridor a door confronted him, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Captain Ian
MacKenzie
" was emblazoned on a gold plaque set at eye level. Holding the tray with one hand, he knocked.

"Enter."

Justin unlatched the door and stepped in.

"Sir, die Captain's dinner," Justin announced, not quite sure what the procedure for this all was.

MacKenzie
, hunched over a computer screen, looked up.

"Set it on the table."

Justin went over to the table in the middle of the room and set the tray down, clipping hold-down snaps to the four corners. He stepped back and decided that it was best to come to attention.

MacKenzie's
attention went back to the screen as he read a report bearing the letterhead of USMC Headquarters. The image flickered and rolled for a moment, as if a glitch were running through the system. He sat for several minutes, attention fixed. Justin wondered if the man simply read slowly or if he was thinking about the contents of the message. An image flashed on the screen of a USMC ship, one similar to the Somers, with a smaller ship docked to its entry port. A strike frigate drifted in front of the camera, its forward turret guns aimed straight at the two ships.

It was a curious image and Justin stared at it intently. The audio was turned down and the screen was too far away for him to read the text scrolling across the bottom. The image again flickered and rolled, turning wavy as if a magnet were being held to the side of the monitor.

Finally
MacKenzie
looked back at the table.

"You still here?"

"Ah, yes, sir. I wasn't dismissed."

MacKenzie
flicked the screen off.

"Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't do, Mister" he hesitated, leaning forward to read Justin's name tag, "Mister Bell. Do you understand me? Whether I dismiss you or not is not yours to question."

"Sir, yes, sir."

Mackenzie's cold gaze studied Justin's face.

"You were standing next to that red-haired cadet, the one who raised his hand."

"Yes, sir."

"What is his name?"

"Cadet Matt Everett, sir."

"He a friend of yours?"

"Yes, sir, he is."

"I could see that by the way you looked over at him. At least you are honest, Bell. Tell me, are you honest?"

"Yes, sir."

"In all things?"

"I try to be."

"Most boys aren't. Most are deceitful, given to vile practices, vile thoughts. Don't you agree, Mr. Bell?"

Justin hesitated for a second. How should he answer? Kelly had warned him about this. As he looked at
MacKenzie
he knew there was only one answer.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly.

"And therefore, Mr. Bell, haven't you contradicted yourself? You say you are honest, therefore implying goodness, yet you agree with me that most boys are deceitful."

"Most boys, sir, as you said."

"And your friend, this Mr. Everett?"

"He is honest, sir."

"Somehow I doubt that,"
MacKenzie
declared. "I could see it in his eyes. The eyes, Mr. Bell, they are the windows of the soul as the philosophers once said. Yes, but a momentary glance can reveal much. For example, Mr. Bell, your eyes speak much."

He fell silent staring at Justin. Though the strain was terrible Justin realized that even a momentary glance away might be construed as an attempt to hide something. He stared straight back at
MacKenzie
. If what
MacKenzie
said was true, Justin thought,
then
the man before him was dead. His eyes revealed nothing; they were emptiness as deep as space itself.

He remembered his grandfather talking about the long years in space, especially in the early years. The endless boring watches, the silence, the months upon months trapped within a tiny speck crawling across the endless sea could drain life itself, leaving a man or woman an empty shell.

MacKenzie
finally broke contact, looking down. Justin wondered if some sort of power game had just been played out, in which he should have broken eye contact first to acknowledge
MacKenzie's
superior power.

"You pass, Mr. Bell."

"Sir?"

"Just that you pass.
You are guileless. Perhaps even a naive fool. I think you can be trusted."

"Yes, sir."

"Ever read Moby Dick?"

Surprised by the sudden shift in conversation, Justin shook his head.

"No, sir."

" 'And
this drama between thee and me was planned a million years before the sea ever rolled',"
MacKenzie
said, his voice distant.

"Read the book by this time next week,"
MacKenzie
ordered. "It's in the ship's computer library."

"Yes, sir."

"Fine.
You are dismissed, Mr. Bell."

"Yes, sir."
Justin braced himself and started to turn.

"And Mr. Bell
avoid
disreputable company. It is the cause of moral decline."

"Yes, sir, I will."

"This
Everett, he is rooming with you."

"Yes, sir."

"That is bad,"
MacKenzie
sighed and then his gaze locked on Justin. "But then again, if there is anything inappropriate I expect an instant report. Instant, do you understand me,
Bell?"

"Yes, sir.
Of course, sir."