Passage at Arms (30 page)

I remember that story about the Commander who insisted on coming home with his dead.

Funny. My threshold for smell seems to adjust as the ship grows more fetid. Our atmosphere is only mildly annoying, though it would gag somebody plucked off a ranch on Canaan.

Lieutenant Diekereide has been running Engineering while his boss is indisposed. Varese recovers suddenly. With a howl. “Get out of the fucking way, Diekereide. Goddamnit, Commander, what the fuck did you do to my CT stores? You jackass...”

“Shut your mouth, Varese. Thank me for the chance to bitch.”

Varese succumbed early. The more thoughtful Diekereide kept himself in action by donning our one remaining suit and using its cooling capability.

The squabble goes on. Pure stress talking. Will the Old Man press it? He’ll have the evidence on the Mission Recorder. Varese is insubordinate. I take no notes, wanting nothing on paper that might be subpoenaed.

“We’re down to a cunt hair over four hours of Climb time,” Varese rages. “With that and some luck, we’ll only get our asses blown off, not baked.”

Yanevich takes over for the Old Man. “Be glad you’re alive. Now tend to your knitting. Don’t give me any of your shit. Understood, mister?”-

Varese has sense enough to shut his mouth. He sulks instead.

Time to get some sleep.

I waken with a heightened sense of fatalism. I’m not alone. The CT is practically gone. The missiles have flown. The graser could be one shot from failing. The other energy weapons are unreliable. Only the magnetic cannon can be used for any length of time. We won’t show much in a fight.

I paid my dues. I hung in there. I did my job while the others fell. I can be proud of myself. Maybe they’ll give me a medal.

We’re still a long way from home. It’ll be a tough, hungry trip. Then we’ll have to run the steel curtain around Canaan. Do we have enough CT?

In Weapons everyone is at war with the mold. “Looks like a victory for mold,” I say to a slightly shy Kuyrath.

“Got a good hold this time, sir. The paint’s ruined. Some of the plastic, too.” He tears the protective wrapping off a roll of electrician’s tape. Two empty cores lie beside him already. “Had to let it ride, though.”

“Yeah. What can you do?”

“Wouldn’t it be the shits if this crap did us in? I mean, they gave it their best shot. The Executioner. But the Old Man pulled us through. So we got mold. What do you do about fucking mold? You can’t outthink it.”

“It would be an ironic end,” I agree. And don’t count the other team out. They’re still looking, my friend.

Piniaz drifts over. “Understand you did some first class shooting, Lieutenant.”

“Uhm.” His attitude has mellowed. “It really happened? Seems like a dream.”

“You took notes the whole time. Interesting. I put them in Bath’s hammock for now.”

“Don’t remember any notes. Be like reading somebody else’s report.” I snort. “Gunners. No respect for anybody but the fastest draw.”

Piniaz frowns, perplexed. “I was offering the olive branch, Lieutenant. I didn’t figure you’d bite my hand.”

“Sorry. Thanks. Just lucky, I guess. What’s happening?”

“We lost them. Or they let go. Something funny about it, if you ask me. Shouldn’t have been this easy.”

“Maybe it wasn’t.”

“They had to know our CT was about gone. That gets them excited.” He shrugs. “The Old Man will take what they give him.”

“For instance?”

“First we make an instelled beacon. Let Command know we’re alive.”

“Uhm. Think Tannian will be disappointed?” Sometimes I think he wants us dead.

Piniaz is capable of his own paranoid reasoning. “I’d guess the Old Man is gambling. People will hear we’re alive before the news reaches the top.”

Could it be true?... No. Not even Tannian... Crazy thinking. I’ve been out too long. “You figure Fred will have to pull all the stops to bring his heroes in?”

“Exactly.”

Ito’s strained, dark little face reveals a truth. He believes there’s a plot. The upcoming leave best be long. These men are all out of their minds. I wouldn’t want to space with them again.

I won’t have to. I smile to myself. One patrol is all I have to survive.

Get me home, Commander. Get me home.

We’ve made our beacon. The Commander reported yesterday. After putzing around for hours, Command told us to come on home, following normal patrol routine, beacon to beacon. They showed no inclination to gossip.

We’ve scrounged a little water and food. Pity we can’t get any CT. Going to be rough if we hit unfriendly territory.

Lunch with the Commander; He’s near the end of his tether, yet remains as inaccessible as ever. How do I reach the man? How do I reassure him? I don’t think it can be done now.

He speaks of the pursuit as though it were normal patrol routine.

Six days gone. Six days closer to home. The Old Man is avoiding routine, rather than pursuing it. He doesn’t want to give potential watchers anything they can use. We’re proceeding in short hyper flies separated by extended periods in norm. We do a lot of listening. Paranoia has become a norm.

The computer people winnow every bit of information gathered from the beacons, hunting a clue, believing Command an enemy more deadly than the other firm. I can unearth no rational reason for the attitude. I occasionally succumb myself.

This is dangerous. Too much time wasted on speculation. We could get so spooky we turn into our own worst enemies. This could create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

More time gone. I’ve lost track of the days. We’re close. I’m not sure how close, but near enough that Canaan seems real again. Here, there, men are talking like there’s a human universe outside the Climber.

Space here is crowded. We have frequent contacts. Hardly a watch slides by without Fisherman’s being startled into a croaking panic. Curiously, none of the contacts are interested in us.

We’ve been lucky, maybe. Every contact has been remote, while we were in norm. Chances are we’ve just not been spotted. A ship in norm is harder to detect from hyper than vice versa.

A tongue-in-cheek theory goes the rounds. It says we’re dead already. We’re really a ghost ship. We’re going on because the gods haven’t given us the message yet.

Lieutenant Diekereide half-seriously postulates that our record Climb rendered us permanently invisible. We’d all like to believe that.

I have my own thoughts on why we’re having no trouble.

They terrify me.

“Contact, Commander,” Fisherman says. He’s said it so often, now, that he no longer gets upset. He gives bearing and range and elevation, and, “Unfriendly.”

This one’s coming right at us. Fast. A destroyer. What the hell can we do? Where the hell can we run?

The Old Man powers down, plays possum.

The terror is over. She’s gone. She passed within a few hundred thousand kilometers of us. Is it possible she didn’t see us? What the hell is happening?

The Commander knows. I can see that now. He becomes shifty and evasive when I try to talk to him. All the men have their suspicions. The other firm just doesn’t ignore crippled Climbers. Not without a damned good reason. Somehow, our importance has declined dramatically.

As I say, I have my thoughts. I don’t want to think them. Sufficient unto each watch that I waken and find myself alive. Later, maybe, I’ll want more.

Later, we all will. We’ll want Tannian as guest of honor at a cannibal feast.

10 Homeward Bound

The insecurity has bottomed. Shoots of optimism are sprouting in an infertile soil of pessimism and cynicism so old it’s almost religion. Like the robins coming norm on Old Earth, there are signs of spring. Rose and Throdahl are laying formal plans for predations upon any female not stoutly haremed. Others are harkening to their ritual. We haven’t heard this stuff for over a month.

I’ve begun to realize there may be women out there myself. I get hard just visualizing an hourglass. I’ll make an ass of myself first time I run into a female.

All part of the Climber game. I understand they have Shore Patrol on hand when a Climber disembarks. Just to keep order.

The Chief remains convinced of our impending doom. His despair retards the growth of optimism. The ship is, he claims, in the hands of an infantile, cat-mannered fate. These glimpses of escape are being allowed us only to make our torment more exquisite.

He may be right.

I’m sure the Commander secretly holds the same view. And Lieutenant Varese would agree if he and the Commander were speaking.

The Engineering Officer is behaving like a five-year-old. How did such a petty man get cleared for Climber duty?

Headed home. Man and machine, everything falling apart. Enemy intervention may not be necessary to our destruction. Home is still a long fly, to be made alone.

Command turned down our request for a mother rendezvous. No explanation. Our request for a CT tanker was denied, too. Again, no explanation. That’s scary. Hard to believe that somebody in Command wants us dead.

Throdahl says, “It stinks like a ten-day corpse at high noon. They could at least give us excuses. Some pudsucker just doesn’t want us to make it.” He sings the same song every few hours, like a protective cantrip.

He doesn’t stop making plans. They all continue. They have faith in the Old Man.

“Here it is, Commander.” Throdahl has been hunched over his board for half an hour, awaiting the response to our latest plea. The Commander asked for a rendezvous with a stores ship, or anyone willing to share their victuals. Is that an unreasonable request? Meals are pretty bleak these days.

“Request denied,” the Commander says softly. He takes a deep breath, obviously controlling his temper. I meander over and read the full text. Its tone says we should shut up and leave Command alone.

I smack fist into palm. What the hell is with those people? We’re in a bad way.

Fisherman blurts, “It doesn’t make sense!” We’ve had two days of silence from Command. “They always try... now they don’t even say, ‘Sorry.’” Even he lusts for a solid planet beneath his feet.

The Commander has commenced gravity drills despite the fuel shortage. Regular exercise is mandatory.

I catch Yanevich alone. “Steve, I have an idea. Next instelled beacon, report me dead. See how the dominoes fall.”

“Sheer genius!” He roars. “Yeah. Probably a ton of stuff published that they wouldn’t want you to recant. But shit...”

He pauses thoughtfully. “It won’t do. You aren’t the reason. Too late for that anyway. They know you’re the healthiest son of a bitch aboard.” At a hair above a whisper, he adds, “Don’t pin tails on devils. Not yet. It’s an act the Admiral does. Got to hate somebody in this goddamned war.”

“Uhm.” Actually, Tannian’s system is due only a few complaints. The Admiral is playing on a big chessboard, for stakes more important than any one Climber. How can you fault him? He’s managing admirably for a man who started with nothing.

“But how long will I stay healthy?” I’m in my hammock, talking it over with Fearless. Other hammock space is available, but I’ll stay where I am. I don’t have to share.

Fred seems none the worse for wear, though he’s lost weight. Poor Fearless. He doesn’t know any better. The Climber is his whole damned universe.

Gaunt he is, but he’s not going hungry. He makes out like a bandit. He’s the ship’s most talented moocher. This is just a diet for him. A dozen soft-hearts slip him nibbles from their rations.

Were it not for the generosity of manned beacons, we’d be subsisting on Kriegshauser’s famed water soup.

Hungry days. Hungry days. But we’re getting closer to home. Distance can be a balm as soothing as time. Even Throdahl no longer mentions Johnson’s Climber.

Can there be a more powerful indictment of the Climber experience? A year ago these boys would’ve been stricken by any violent death.

What are we making of ourselves?

Sometimes there’s a niggling fear. What will become of the survivors?

There will be survivors. And, no matter how bad it looks from here, the fighting won’t last forever.

What becomes of those whose entire adult lives have been devoted to war? I’ve met a few who came in right at the beginning. They know no peacetime service past, can foresee no other future. War is their whole life.

I adapted to civilian life, barely. I didn’t have to endure years of life-and-death pressure before I went outside. I think that will be an important factor.

If, as some experts predict, the war lasts a generation, there’ll be big trouble when this ends. A generation will see warfare as the norm.

Kriegshauser draws me back from an imaginary era where whole fleets turn on the worlds they’ve been defending. “This isn’t the fourteenth century,” I mutter.

“Found something for Fearless,” the cook says. He massages a tube of protein paste with thin, pale fingers.

“Something you had squirreled away?”

Kriegshauser grins. ‘The cook knows where to look for the overlooked.”

“You traitor, Fred.” The cat has deserted me. He’s purring around Kriegshauser’s ankles. “Judas.”

“His only allegiance is to his stomach, sir.”

“Only loyalty any of us have when you get to the narrow passage.”

“Laramie says we might be home day after tomorrow, sir.”

“Haven’t heard anything that definite. The Old Man is playing them close to his chest.”

“But Laramie would know, sir.”

“Maybe. I think it’ll be longer than that.” I can’t raise the subject that brought him to me. He’s let it slide a long time. I forgot about it. I have no answers.

Eight men died. I sort of hoped one would be his nemesis.

Like most young men, I’ve experimented. I find homosexual relationships too alien, too sterile.... I can’t picture Kriegshauser being attractive to man or woman. Beyond being unwashed, he’s the ugliest man I’ve ever met. His pursuer must get off on the bizarre.

Beauty is in the eye, and so forth. And the cook has personality, as they say. He’s a likable rogue.

“My problem... have you thought about it?”

“A great deal,” I lie. “Have you? You know where the leak was?” Kriegshauser is an insecure, dependent-type personality. He wants decisions made for him. He will, if he survives the Climbers and the war, make Navy his career. The Ship’s Services assignments draw people who need secure, changeless niches.