Passage at Arms (17 page)

“Remarkable crew?” Today is going to be a little different.

“A few individuals. Not as a whole. I’ve seen them all before. A ship produces specific characters the way the body produces specialized cells.”

“You have to get through the hide. Get inside, to the meat and bones.”

“I don’t think I’m that good.” I’m not. I keep seeing the masks they want me to see, not the faces in hiding. I may have been exposed too long now. An immunological process may be taking place. Something of the sort happens in every closed group. After jostling and jousting, the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. People adjust, get along. And they stop being objective about one another.

The Old Man says, “Hmm.” He’s developing that sound into a vocabulary with the inflectional range of Chinese. This “hmm” means “do go on.”

“We’ve got people who want to be something the ship has no niche for. Take Carmon. He believes his propaganda image. He wants to be Tannian’s Horatio at the bridge. The rest of us won’t let him.”

“One right guess. Carmon aside, did you find anybody who gives a rat’s ass about the war?”

Have I stumbled onto something? They are volunteers-----

This is as near an expression of doubt as I’ll ever hear from the Commander.

I’m too eager to pursue it. My sharp glance spooks him.

“What did you think of Marie?”

I think the relationship is symptomatic of a deeper problem. But I won’t say that. “She was under a strain. An unexpected guest. You about to leave...” There’re things a man doesn’t do. One of mine: Never say anything bad about a friend’s mate.

“She won’t be there when we get back.”

I knew that before we left.

Well, it isn’t the realization of his own mortality that has gotten to him. This isn’t the odds-closing-in blues that plagues Climber Commanders. If I look closely, I can catch glimpses of the … it can’t happen to me of our age group.

Is it the realization of his own fallibility? Suppose last patrol he made a grotesque error and got away with it through dumb luck? The kind of man he is, that would bother him bad because forty-seven men might have gone out with him.

Maybe. But that’s more the kind of thing that would break a Piniaz. The Old Man never claimed to be perfect. Just close to it.

“She’ll be gone when I get home.” His eyes are long ago and far away. He had had these thoughts before. “She won’t leave a note, either.”

“You really think so?” I nearly missed the cues telling me to ask.

Marie isn’t his problem. A problem, and a symptom, but not the problem.

“Just a feeling, say. You saw how we got along. Cats and dogs. Only reason we stayed together was we didn’t have anywhere to go. Not that it didn’t look worse.”

“In a way.”

“What?”

“Hell probably offers a sense of security to the damned.”

“Yes. I suppose.” He draws his pipe from his pocket, examines its bowl. “You know Climber Fleet One hasn’t ever had a deserter? Could be.”

For a moment I envision the man as an old-time sea captain, master on a windjammer, standing a lonely, nighted weather-deck, staring at moon-frosted wavetops while a cold breeze fingers his strawlike hair and beard. The sea is obsidian. The wake churns and boils. It glimmers with bio-luminescence.

“For what distant, heathen port be we bound, o’er what enchanted sea?”

He glances up, startled. “What was that?”

“An image that came to me. Remember the poem game?” We played it in Academy, round robin. It was popular during the middle class years, when we were discovering new dimensions faster than we could assimilate them. The themes, then, were mostly prurient.

“My turn to come up with a line, you mean. All right.” He ponders. While he does so, Kriegshauser delivers the coffee.

“Zanzibar? Hadramaut? The Ivory Coast? Or far Trincom-alee?”

“That stinks. It’s not a line, it’s a laundry list.”

“Seemed to fit yours. I never was much good at that, was I?” He puts his pipe away and sips coffee. Under ship’s gravity we can drink from cups if we like. A small touchstone with another reality. “I’m a warrior, not a poet.”

“Ah?”

“‘Ah?’ You sound like a Psych Officer.”

Whatever its nature, his bugbear won’t reveal itself this! time. Not without inspired coaxing from me. And I have no j idea how to bait my hook. ‘

I think I know how a detective hunting a psychopathic killer! must feel. He knows the man is out there, killing because he wants to be caught, yet the very irrationality of the killer makes him impossible to track-----

Can his problem be this role he lives? This total warrior performance? Is there a poet screaming to get out of the Commander? A conflict between the role’s demands and the nature of the actor who has to meet them?

I don’t think so. He’s the quintessential warrior, as far as I can see.

He chose me because I’m not part of the gang. And maybe now he’s hiding from me for the same reason.

“You slated for CommandCollege?” I ask, shifting my ground. If he hasn’t made the list, that might take him by the balls. Passing an officer over amounts to declaring he’s reached his level of incompetence. No one gets pushed out, especially now, but the promotions do end.

“Yes. Probably won’t get there before this fuss is over. I’m slated for the squadron next two missions, then Staff at Climber Command. Won’t get off Canaan for at least two years. Then back to the Fleet, probably. Either a destroyer squadron or number two in a flotilla. No time for war college these days. All on-the-job training.”

A weak possibility lurks here. Upward mobility threatened by war’s master spirit: Sudden Death.

“Why did you volunteer?”

“For Climbers? I didn’t.”

“Eh? You said...”

“Only on paper. I asked for Canaan. Talk to the officers our age. A lot of them are here on ‘strong recommendation’ from above. What amounted to verbal orders. They’re making it simple. The Climbers are the only thing we have that works. They need officers to operate them. So, no Climber time, no promotion. You have an unprofessional attitude if you don’t respond to the needs of the Service.” A bilious glow of bitterness seeping through here.

He drains half his cup, asks, “Why the hell would I ask for this? The chances of me getting my ass blown to ions are running five to one against me. Do I look fucking stupid?”

He recalls his role. His gaze darts to Kriegshauser, who may have overheard.

“What about rapid advancement? Glory? Because Canaan is your home?”

“That’s shit for the troops and officers coming up. Navy is my home.”

My stare must be a little too sharp. He changes the subject. “Strange patrol. Too quiet. I don’t like it.”

“Think they’re up to something?”

He shrugs. “They’re always up to something. But there are quiet periods. Statistical anomalies, I guess. They’re out there somewhere, slipping through. Maybe they’ve found a pattern to our patrols. We don’t really run random. Human weakness. We have to have order of some kind. If they analyze contacts, sometimes they figure a safe route. We change things. The hunting is good for a while. Then, too, Command wastes a lot of time taking second and third looks at things.”

There’s bitterness whenever he mentions Command. Have I uncovered a theme? Disenchantment? He wouldn’t be the first. Not by thousands.

There’s no describing the shock, even despair, that clamps down on you after you’ve spent a childhood in Academy, preparing for a career, when the Service doesn’t remotely resemble classroom expectations. It’s worse when you find nothing to believe in, or live, or love. And to be a good soldier you have to live it, to believe your work has worth and purpose, and you have to like doing it.

There’s more going on in the Climber than I thought. It’s happening beneath the surface. In the hearts and minds of men, as the cliché goes.

I’m sipping coffee with the Commander when the alarm screams.

“Another rucking drill?” The things have worn my temper to frayed ends. Three, four times a day. And the only time that bitching horn howls is when I have something better to do.

The Commander’s pallor, as he plunges toward the hatch, is answer enough. This time is for real.

For real. I make Ops before the hatch closes, barely a limp behind the Old Man.

It is easier in operational mode.

Yanevich and Nicastro crowd Fisherman. I wriggle into the viewscreen seat. The Commander elbows up to the tachyon detector.

“Ready to Climb, First Watch Officer?”

“Ready, Commander. Engineering is ready for annihilation shift.”

I hunch down, lean till I can peek between arms and elbows. The tachyon detector’s screen is alive for the first time since we lost touch with the mother. It shows a tiny, intense, sideways V at three o’clock, which trails an almost flat ventral progression wave. The dorsal is boomerang-shaped. A dozen cloudy feathers of varying length lie between the two.

“One of ours,” I remark. “Battle Class cruiser. Probably Mediterranean subclass. Salamis or Lepanto. Maybe Alexandria, if she’s finished refitting.”

Four pairs of eyes drill holes into my skull. Too wary to ask, both men are thinking, “What the hell do you know?”

Chief Canzoneri calls out, “Commander, I’ve got an ID on the emission pattern. Friendly. Cruiser. Battle Class. Mediterranean subclass. Salamis or Alexandria. We’ll have to move closer if you want a positive for the log. We need a finer reading in the epsilon.”

“Never mind. Command can decide who it was.” He continues staring holes through me. Some of the men look at me as if they’ve just noted my presence. “Mr. Yanevich. We’ll take her up for a minute. No point them wasting time chasing us.”

Making a Climb is a simple way of saying friend.

Back in the wardroom, the Old Man demands, “How did you do that?”

Why not play a little? They’re always playing with me. “What?”

“ID that cruiser.”

I was surprised when they stared but was more amazed that Fisherman bothered with the alarm. “The display. Any good operator can read progression lines. I saw a lot of the Mediterraneans, back when.”

“Junghaus is good. I’ve never seen him do anything like that.”

“Battle Class ships have unique tails. Usually you look at the feathers. But Battle Class has a severe arch in the dorsal line. The Meds have a top line longer than the bottom. From there it’s just arithmetic. There’re only three Meds out here. I can’t remember the feathers or I would’ve told you which one. I didn’t do any magic.”

“I don’t think Fisherman could’ve done it. He’s good, but he doesn’t worry about details. He’ll argue Bible trivia from now till doomsday, but can’t always tell a Main Battle from a Titan tug. Maybe he doesn’t care.”

“I thought that was the point of having an operator and a screen.”

“In Climbers we only need to know if something’s out there. Junghaus is just cruising till he gets his ticket to the Promised Land.”

“That’s a harsh judgment.”

“The man gets on my nerves? But they all do. They’re like children. You’ve got to watch them every minute. You’ve got to wipe their noses and kiss their bruises... Sorry. Maybe we should’ve had a longer leave. Or a different one.”

Fearless Fred wanders in. This is the first I’ve seen him this week. He one-eyes us, chooses my lap.

“Remember Ivan the Terrible?” I ask, scratching the cat’s head and ears.

“That idiot Marine unarmed combat instructor? I hope he’s getting his ass kicked from pole to pole on some outback?

“No. The other one. The cat we had in kindergarten.”

“Kindergarten? I don’t remember that far back.” After a moment, “The mascot. The cat that had puppies.”

“Kittens.”

“Whatever. Yeah. I remember.”

First year in Academy. Kindgergarten year. You were still human enough and child enough to rate a few live cuddly toys. Ivan the Terrible was our mascot, and less reputable than Fearless. All bones and battle scars after countless years of a litter every four months. The best that could be said for her was that she loved us kids as much as we loved her, and brought her offspring marching proudly in as soon as they could stumble. She died beneath the wheels of a runaway electric scooter, leaving battalions of descendants behind. I think her death was the first traumatic experience of the Commander’s young life.

It was my biggest disappointment for years. That one shrieking moment unmasked the cruel indifference of my universe. Thereafter it was all downhill from innocence. Nothing surprised or hurt me for a long time. Nor the Commander, that I saw, though we eventually suffered worse on an adult value scale.

“I remember,” the Commander says again. “Fearless, there was a lady of your own stripe.”

“Bad joke.”

Fred cracks an eyelid. He considers the Commander. He yawns.

“But he don’t care,” I say.

“That’s the problem. Nobody cares. We’re out here getting our asses blown off, and nobody cares. Not the people we’re protecting, not Navy, not the other firm, not even ourselves most of the time.” He stares at the cat for half a minute. “We’re just going through the motions, getting it over so we can go on leave again.”

He’s getting at purpose again, obliquely. I felt the same way during my first active-duty tour. They hammered and hammered and hammered at us in Academy, then sent us out where nobody had a sense of mission. Where no one gave a damn. All anyone wanted was to make grade and get the retirement points in. They did only what they had to do, and not a minim more. And denied any responsibility for doing more.

Admiral Tannian, for all his shortcomings, has striven to correct that in his bailiwick. He may be going about it the wrong way, but... were the Commander suddenly deposited on one of the Inner Worlds, he’d find himself a genuine, certified hero. Tannian has made those people care.

Even the smoothest Climberman, though, would abrade the edge off his welcome. Like a pair of dress boots worn through a rough campaign, even Academy’s finest lose their polish in Tannian’s war.

“Don’t scratch. It’ll cause sores.”

I find myself digging through my beard again. Is that a double entendre? “Too late now. I’ve got them already. The damned thing won’t stop itching.”