Assegai

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Just try,’ said Alex, ‘to remember not to do it to officers, all right?’

  That made her laugh again, and she dried her eyes this time with an air of having done with crying, now. So, after a few more heartening words, he sent her off to wash her face and get started on all the things that needed doing before the dinner that evening.

  It was a good day. Alex spent most of the morning over on Karadon, not on leave himself but sitting in the security office watching as Jarlner and Bennet went around.

  They were not on leave, either. They had been quietly indignant over any suggestion that they should waste their time in such frivolous, undignified pursuits. Alex, however, had put it to them that this was not a holiday, but research, learning from their own experience about life in the League.

  And so they had gone, and on Alex’s advice, had gone by themselves, exploring independently rather than being taken around by an escort.

  The Diplomatic Corps attaché sitting in the security office with him was doing her best not to betray how terrified she was by that, though sitting on the edge of her seat and with her finger hovering throughout over the panic button which would send an intervention team racing in.

  It wasn’t needed. Alex had been absolutely right – dressing the Samartians in smart-casual clothes had been all the cover that was necessary for them to blend in with the tourists. There were, after all, people here from all over the League, mingling every body type, accent and fashion there was. Since Silvie’s first appearance on camera, too, the fad for silver hair had swept across the League like an infection, so their grey hair was not at all unusual.

  Their hands, of course, were strange. But as Alex had counted on, people very rarely looked at anyone around them with any real attention, certainly not tourists who were fully caught up in their environment and totally focussed on enjoying themselves. If an odd person did happen to spot that either Jarlner or Bennet only had three fingers, they didn’t stare or remark upon it. They might have thought it was due to an accident, a genetic aberration or some kind of body-morph fashion. More likely, they weren’t interested enough to think about it at all.

  Alex had timed the visit perfectly, too. Not only were three liners arriving and discharging their Human Cargo this morning, but a charter ship had arrived the night before, bringing eight hundred high schoolers on a trip from Flancer.

  It was ostensibly an educational visit – actually a prize intended to motivate achievement in science, arranged by the Flancer educational authorities in response to dwindling numbers of kids choosing to take sciences at college level. Science fairs and competitions across the globe had resulted in these eight hundred winning their places on the trip to Karadon. There would be tours to look at scientific aspects of the station, but for this, their first morning, the kids had been allowed a modest amount of spending money and let free on the leisure decks.

  They were actually very well behaved – just fast, and loud, rushing around in groups having high pitched conversations and shrieking whenever they saw something amazing. Which happened a lot. So the unusually stiff, reserved conduct of the couple with the grey hair wasn’t at all striking. Many middle class people assumed an air of lofty disapproval when groups of kids hurtled past shrieking at one another. And anyone who did notice that Jarlner and Bennet weren’t smiling or talking much to one another would simply assume that they were in that phase of a domestic row where they were Not Talking.

  And Jarlner and Bennet, at least, found the visit educational, as Alex discussed with them in a debriefing afterwards. They had liked very much the efficiency of the transit system, been astounded by the range of leisure facilities on offer, and enjoyed their experience of having brunch at a café. Regarding the shopping atrium, however, they were rather more hesitant.

  ‘I know,’ Alex said, interpreting their reserve correctly. ‘There is something almost obscene about it, isn’t there? Like a temple of worship to greed.’

  The Samartians nodded. The shopping atrium was designed with a cathedral splendour, tier upon tier of shops around a high, vast concourse with rich colours, glitter and gleam everywhere you looked. They were not the only ones who’d stopped, looking up and around with awed expressions, as they moved into that space.

  It was always busy, full of people bustling about, most of them with bags of stuff they hadn’t even been able to wait to have delivered to their hotels or their ships. ‘I’ll take it now’ was the mantra on Karadon, as was the exclamation, ‘That’s such a bargain!’

  There was a kind of madness to duty-free shopping, with things so cheap compared to back home that people would buy things they had no use or even real desire for – they would make good presents for people back home, or were simply just too cheap to resist: Such a bargain.

  There were no shops at all on Samart. Food, clothing and other goods were distributed by authorities on a tightly rationed system. All manufacturing was under government – and that meant military – control, too, with no capacity anywhere for entrepreneurs to generate luxury goods, even if there’d been any spare income to create a market for them.

  The Samartians knew that things were different, here, of course. They knew about shopping, They had even seen holos of the shopping atrium on Karadon.

  Being there in person, though, as Alex had told them, was far more informative; a fully immersive experience, every sense engaged.

  ‘It smells,’ said Bennet, and it did. The air processing on Karadon was actually a medical screening, part of the extensive anti-pathogen systems that were so necessary with people from so many different worlds intermingling. That was especially important on the shopping atrium where people gathered in large numbers, so the air there was actually suffused with disinfectant. It was, in part, to disguise this hospital smell that Karadon created the impression of intermingling scents from the shops and cafes themselves – perfumes, foods, coffee, baking, even a subtle hint of new leather to create a sense of luxury.

  Alex chuckled, nodding agreement. ‘Not my favourite place either,’ he remarked. ‘But in fairness, I should say that it isn’t a normal experience for any of the people there, really. They’re on holiday, either taking a transit-break here or here for the leisure facilities. Many of them will have been looking forward to the trip for years, even saving up for it as a once in a lifetime experience. So they are, you see, in a ‘make the most of it’ mind-set, eager to see and do everything and inclined to be a little over-excited, perhaps.’

  Bennet smiled, possibly at the memory of running, shrieking kids hurtling through the chattering throngs.

  ‘When we have siliplas,’ she asked, ‘do you think we will end up with shops like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Alex said. ‘Siliplas will provide you with abundant, very cheap production… and our experience does tend to be that when societies find that they can produce abundant goods like that, consumerism levels rise accordingly. But that isn’t always the case – Shanuk, for instance, is a world which has rejected consumerism for a simple, nature-resourced lifestyle. And my own world is notorious, I understand, for consumer resistance. I’m told that corporations have spent huge amounts trying to generate a competitive consumerism there, trying to get people to feel it necessary to replace household items, for instance, purely on the basis of a new style or to impress other people. But that kind of advertising has no effect on Novaterre – we’re a prudent people, that way, like to buy good quality and keep it till it’s no longer functional. My guess is that Samart will be the same. I can’t see your people going into any kind of frenzy of consumerism, really. But shops, perhaps – a choice of things like cooking pots, or cushions.’

  He grinned, with that. Jarlner and Bennet had returned with souvenirs… four cushions, carefully vetted as ship-safe and even more carefully fixed to the sitting mats in their office cabin. It was interesting, Alex thought, that they hadn’t bought four the same, or even four with a connecting theme. The only thing they had in common was that Jarl
ner and Bennet had agreed they liked them. So Alex was sitting on a cushion with a Dark Age Canelon tapestry design, Jarlner’s was gold and red, with frills, and Bennet was sitting on one covered with artificial polar bear fur. The fourth, on the other visitor mat, was a plain dark grey.

  ‘We felt we should blend in, carrying bags,’ said Bennet, with an answering grin. ‘And that we should try to make our office more welcoming to visitors. But yes – I think cushions will be popular.’

  Alex left them enjoying the first things they’d ever bought for themselves, while he went over to the Customs ship for lunch. And that was enjoyable, too – the skipper was far more spacer than customs officer, and they had a lot to talk about, as skippers of the same class of ship but at very different levels of technological upgrade, working protocols and operational experience. It was later than Alex intended, by the time he took his leave, heading over to the Herring for a visit. It was meant to be an informal tour but was of course nothing of the kind. The Herring itself was not an Intel ship, not in the sense of being crewed exclusively by First Irregulars personnel. It had a regular crew and was on general assignment, with only the skipper and one of the officers also working for Admiral Smith. So his visit was not the easy chat he might have had with an Intel team, but the full glory of a flag officer on an escorted tour. The ship had been sparkled to a state of unnatural shine, the crew were all in fresh uniforms and all but one of them showing him bright, shiny, respectful faces.

  The exception was a rating they encountered on their way through a machine space. Passage was narrow here and the crewman had to stand back to allow the officers to pass. Everyone else they’d passed like that had jumped back, stood up straight and offered a ‘Sir,’ or if they were braver, ‘Afternoon, sir.’

  This man, however, stumped back a step and scowled, looking as if only great self-control was preventing him from muttering imprecations at them. He didn’t actually need to say anything, anyway, as his body language and expression conveyed very effectively that he was busy, they were in the way, he was a hard working and much put upon man and they were galumphing herberts with nothing better to do than lollop around the ship making a damn nuisance of themselves. From the way everyone around him reacted, Alex could see that this was no isolated incident of a normally good crewman having a very bad day, and when he looked at the crewman himself, interested, he got a glare back which would have been grounds for a charge of dumb insolence, had he been inclined to take offence.

  Naro Arrison apologised for that, once they were in his tiny cabin having the obligatory end-of-visit refreshments.

  ‘Every ship has its bullocks,’ Alex observed, with perhaps just a little reserve – not because he had been offended by the man’s attitude, but because he was strongly of the view that crew acting out like that was always due to failings in the officers responsible for them.

  ‘Lagner isn’t a bullock,’ said Naro, with a note of some exasperation – here, with the door closed, he was friend, not subordinate. ‘I’ve had bullocks, I like bullocks – with you a hundred per cent, Alex, people generally don’t act out that way unless things are either overwhelming or frustrating them and either way it’s down to their officers to figure out what’s wrong and to do their best to put it right. But Lagner isn’t a bullock, he just thinks he is.’

  Alex was intrigued, so Naro explained that O/S Lagner had decided that his inability to succeed in training and his consequent lack of promotion was due to career-frustration and officers having a down on him. He kept applying to go on courses way beyond his ability and being enraged when he was refused those and offered entry-level training instead. One of his biggest complaints was that he had not been allowed to train as a pilot, having declared that this was his highest ambition.

  ‘And he has now convinced himself that he has a genius natural talent being stifled by oppressive, tyrannical officers,’ Naro said. ‘And this despite the fact that he has failed helm training four times and lost his aircar licence, too, for driving to the endangerment of other traffic. The man is an idiot, Alex – okay, I know, I probably shouldn’t say that. Let’s say below average IQ and borderline learning quotient, then – two points lower and he wouldn’t have got into the Fleet at all. And whoever decided he was fit for shipboard posting was having a laugh! I have tried, believe me, I have. We’ve put him on intensive training with both peer and officer mentors to support him, a microsteps programme with rewards even for the smallest achievement, and any amount of positivity, counselling and encouragement. The man has taken up forty per cent of our annual pastoral care budget in only six months. And you can laugh,’ he added, as Alex did just that, ‘but you’ve made it worse.’

  ‘Me?’ Alex queried.

  ‘You,’ said Naro, and looked at him accusingly. ‘Three months ago, I tried a reality-check – took him out in a shuttle a good safe way from anything and gave him the controls, told him to show me what he could do. It was terrifying, Alex, he was just poking and prodding controls like some actor on set – honestly, just like that, like he knew what kind of movements he should make but no idea what the controls were actually for. And he was using them like aircar controls. I saw him, I kid you not, turn the air-con down to minus three and run a flush decontam in the airlock…’ he mimed, as he spoke, the finger-slide and button push which would have done those things on a standard shuttle console. ‘I think,’ Naro said, ‘he was looking for the indicators.’

  As Alex cracked into laughter again at that, Naro continued, ‘I think I did quite well to be as restrained as I was, but I did have to point out to him that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing, at which point he decided that I have some kind of vendetta against him, and put in for a transfer. Nothing would have made me happier than to approve it, believe me, but this wasn’t any normal transfer request. No. Oh, no.’ He gave Alex a hard look. ‘He applied to join the Fourth.’

  Alex snurged merrily. ‘I guess we turned him down.’

  ‘Yes – the letter came last week,’ Naro confirmed, ‘Telling him he doesn’t meet Fourth’s recruitment criteria – which is what I and everyone else here had already told him, of course, you only take people of above average ability or with extraordinary talent. But he truly believes, God alone knows why, that he is an undiscovered genius, and being rejected by you has just made him ten times more obstreperous even than he was before. I’m at my wits’ end, frankly – what I want to do is give him a good hard boot up the backside, but Fleet regs do not allow for that…’ he spoke with a modicum of regret, making Alex laugh again. ‘But I just don’t see how this is going to end any other way than me dismissing him the ship – and however much of a relief that might be, all round, none of us like to give up on people, do we?’ He looked at Alex with a glimmer of hope. ‘If it was you…?’

  ‘You are,’ Alex asked, ‘absolutely sure that he has no potential as a pilot?’ He saw the answer on Naro’s face, and grinned. ‘All right. If it was me, then, I’d schedule him an hour in a simulator two or three times a week and just let him get on with it.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘If that makes him happy, to poke around the controls and play at being a pilot, why not?’ Alex observed. ‘He can call it pilot training if he likes – give him self-study courses and let him do them if he wants, but my guess is he’ll be satisfied just to sit in the big chair and fiddle with controls. Like those people, you know, who buy yachts and go aboard them every weekend, but never actually leave the marina.’

  Naro laughed at that, nodding recognition of the type.

  ‘I’m not sure if that’s mad,’ he said, ‘or brilliant.’ Then, as he thought about it, astonished, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  Alex grinned. ‘Credit Buzz for that.’ He said. ‘Years ago, back when I was a Sub and he was the Exec, there was a rating allowed to play with a cannon – took me a while to realise that was what it was, but I spotted it eventually, that he wasn’t doing any kind of training, really, just sitting there playing with
a cannon like it was a holo-game. When I asked Buzz about it he said it was a small thing to do for the man to be happy. It was a similar situation, a man who’d never make gun captain if he practised all day every day for years. But it was enough for him to be able to pretend, and it might be for your Lagner, too. Worth a try, anyway.’

  ‘Yes… yes, it is.’ Naro said, and laughed, giving Alex a mock-salute. ‘Thank you, Captain.’

  They parted with that, Alex heading back to the Assegai. He hadn’t been there long, not planning to do very much, when the Stepeasy arrived.

  It wasn’t entirely unexpected – Davie had said that he might join them at Therik, ‘depending’. He hadn’t specified what that decision might depend on, but Alex had a good idea – it would depend on how things were going at Serenity, on what the Diplomatic Corps wanted him to do, and perhaps too on what Davie’s father wanted.

  But here he was, having come to Karadon straight from Serenity – either he had worked it out for himself what was likely to happen at Chartsey, or more likely, had had courier-rendezvous on his own way to Chartsey which had told him the situation and diverted him to Karadon.

  Things had been going well at Serenity, according to the coverage raced out here by the media for on-going distribution. Salomah, it had just been confirmed, had left Serenity to make the crossing back to Quarus, not because she was unhappy there but to report back to her people, sharing with them not just an account of what things were like there but her feelings about it. She would be coming back, too, bringing more visitors with her – anything up to twenty of them, that being the most the ships making the transit could accommodate in comfort, yet. And the Entrepus, at Salomah’s request, was one of the ships making the crossing.

  ‘Papa is so proud, he could burst,’ Davie confided, having come over to see Alex almost before his ship had eased into orbit.