The Fleet Book Three: Break Through

by David Drake (ed)

  “Well, I’m not any of those, things,” Brodsky said.

  “I know. None of our explorers has the necessary requirements. They wouldn’t do.”

  “That’s contradictory. Why?”

  “Because the explorer would be so burdened by knowledge that he wouldn’t know how to respond to a new situation. It happens all the time in exploring. On these worlds, nothing is like you were taught, your analogies are imperfect, your inferences are incorrect, and, all in all, you’re best off just playing it by ear.”

  “So how do you choose your explorers?”

  “We take the ones we think will be pretty good at adjusting to weird situations. Misfits and oddballs, that’s what we usually get.”

  “And you think that I fit?”

  “Oh, yes, Brodsky, do you ever fit.”

  “Captain, if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you of having a sense of humor.”

  “That’s probably a compliment, coming from you. But don’t worry, Brodsky, I’m not being funny. I honestly think you might be well suited for this work.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Brodsky said. “I don’t know a thing about alien civilizations or how to greet our long-lost brothers from the old empire.”

  “True, but you have one big thing going for you. You always expect the unexpected.”

  “Of course”, Brodsky said. “What else is there to expect? Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Most people,” the captain said, “expect only the expected, and are very surprised when matters turn out otherwise. You will never have that failing, Brodsky. Now let’s go out and inspect your new ship, and I’ll introduce you to your new partner.”

  III.

  The scoutship was fifty feet long. That seemed generous in a ship designed to carry only two or three people. But most of the narrow hull was taken up with the engines, operating and navigational equipment, and stores. There was a tiny bathroom and shower, a galley and a small recreation room with a sofa and armchairs and entertainment center. The control room was up in the bow, small and cramped and covered from floor to ceiling with instruments.

  Somebody was sitting in one of the command chairs, idly tapping the computer keyboard.

  “Who’s that?” Brodsky asked.

  The occupant of the command chair turned around. She was about seventeen years old, dark skinned with delicate features. She had long lustrous black hair, which she wore down her back in a thick braid. She was small, and she looked fragile. She wore heavy gold bracelets. There was a small caste mark on her forehead.

  “Lieutenant Brodsky,” the company commander said, “let me introduce you to your partner in exploration, Lieutenant Muckerjee.”

  “Are you from India?” Brodsky said. “Or do you just wear a sari for kicks?”

  “Neither,” Anna said. “I am from Khali Twelve, originally settled from India and Pakistan.”

  “I had always been under the impression that Indian women stayed at home and left the fighting to the men.”

  She shook her head firmly. “On Khali Twelve the women are the warriors. I am fully qualified to fly spaceships of this size. What do you specialize in?”

  “Goofing off,” Brodsky said.

  “I’ll leave you two to get better acquainted,” Captain Kelly said and left, grinning to himself.

  IV.

  Their first argument took place on the first day of their flight. That made it easy to remember.

  After blastoff, when the ship had moved beyond the effective gravitational pull of Target, and while they were waiting for the computer-predicted moment to switch to FTL drive, Anna took out several large spiral-bound volumes, opened them, and began to study the contents.

  Brodsky had watched without comment as she had done the entire liftoff herself. She was a trifle unfriendly, perhaps. But nice looking. He liked her eyes, which were long and almond shaped. Her head was well-shaped on a long, graceful neck. She seemed very competent. Brodsky liked that. Or at least he thought he liked that. Brodsky didn’t always know what he liked until later.

  “Nice takeoff,” he told her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It was just a standard takeoff spiral as prescribed in the manual. I tightened it somewhat in response to reports of approaching traffic from the control tower.”

  “That was clever of you,” Brodsky said.

  “But of course it was still within regulation parameters.”

  “Hey, that’s good to hear,” Brodsky said.

  She frowned slightly. “They warned me about you. They said you liked to do things in your own way.”

  Brodsky nodded. “To put it mildly.”

  “But in takeoffs, there’s not much room for self-expression.”

  “I know. That’s why I let you do it.”

  “You let me? I wasn’t aware that you were in charge of this expedition.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that,” Brodsky said; “What I’m trying to say is, if I’d felt that takeoffs were something I did well, I would have done it.”

  She turned to face him. Brodsky noticed what a nicely shaped mouth she had. But he didn’t like what came out of it.

  “Lieutenant Brodsky,” she said, “let’s get something straight right away. I’ve got the technical skills for this job. You do not. As far as I can see, your commander put you here just to get rid of you. You’re dead weight. Okay, I can live with that. I know what to do, and I can do it whether you’re here or not. But I don’t want you interfering. I believe there’s an ample supply of comic books in the ship’s video library. They should keep you occupied while I get on with this job.

  Brodsky stared at her. He was starting to get angry. And then the absurdity of the whole thing got to him, and he had to smile. Here was this woman volunteering to do this job he hadn’t even wanted in the first place. What was he complaining about?

  “You go right ahead and do your thing, sis,” he told her. “When my advice isn’t wanted, I have no desire to volunteer it. But if you ever think I can be of assistance, feel free to call on me.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Brodsky,” Anna said. “Your attitude is entirely appropriate for the situation.”

  “Well, it’s a relief for me to know that,” Brodsky said and went back to the galley. Just his luck. A long trip in space, alien explorations, the whole bit, and here he was, stuck with a woman who went by the rule book and seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. It would be interesting to see how long that would last.

  After setting a course, Lieutenant Muckerjee came back and cooked lunch. Chicken curry. A little spicy, but nice for a change. Brodsky wasn’t to know that this was what he was going to get for dinner every day until the end of the trip.

  At the end of nine days shiptime, Anna brought them out of FTL drive. She had a promising planet lined up. It might even be Khasara, one of the important worlds of the First Empire.

  V.

  Antonin Huue, known as Leo, was a watcher on the upper summits of Mount Forgetful, highest peak in Khasara’s southern hemisphere.

  The watchers were elected by public lottery every year. It was their task to stay on Khasara’s highest mountains, where the air was thin and telepathic telemetry was unimpeded. They were supposed to keep an eye and an ear turned toward space, and to give warning when an alien spaceship approached Khasara.

  It had been a very long time since the last alien ship had come. Things were quiet on the alien front nowadays. But there had to be watchers anyhow because you could never tell about aliens: they always came back, and they were unpredictable and dangerous. It would never do to let them sneak onto the planet without advance warning.

  The year’s solitary duty gave Leo a chance to practice his three-pointed concentration, control his body heat by yogic means, and convert sunlight into sustenance. There wasn’t much practical need for that sort of thing, but Leo
liked doing it anyway.

  It came as a nasty surprise when, one stormy morning, immediately after finishing his morning tea, his daily routine was broken by a weak signal from space. Leo hoped it would turn out to be a meteorite, or maybe even a stray comet. He locked on it, and within an hour the signal had resolved itself into an energy pattern that showed it to be a metallic body propelled by magnetic drive. There could be no doubt of it: it was a spaceship. Somebody was coming to visit, and that was never good news. The lord of the planet would have to be notified immediately, and that meant Leo would have to descend from his comfortable hut on the summit of Mount Forgetful to the tree line in order to send the message via tree network.

  Leo packed a light lunch and put on his warmest clothing, because he was tired of controlling his body temperature, and set off at once.

  His way led downward between precipitous cliffs, overhung with heavy accumulations of snow. It was the sort of place where a man had to exercise extreme caution, extending his radar sense to the uppermost and being ready to respond quickly to the slightest hint of danger. But Leo was thinking so hard about the message he was to deliver that the first warning signal he responded to was a roaring sound from just above him.

  Avalanche coming right at him! And it was too late to take evasive action. Leo remembered now, too late, his father’s final warning before his death—never trust nature, the old man had wheezed—and then Leo was engulfed and tumbled and turned, and somewhere along the line consciousness was lost.

  When he came to, he found that he was tied hand and foot to a bed. With this as a clue, it was easy for Leo to figure out that he must have been rescued by a member of the Guaschi clan, hereditary enemies of his clan, the Huue.

  A large, middle-aged man, holding a knife and clad in ratty furs, came forward from the shadows and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “you have inferred correctly, I am Ottoline Guaschi. I am, of course, going to kill you.”

  “Why didn’t you do it already?” Leo asked. “I mean, why bother rescuing me in the first place?”

  “My dear fellow, rescuing snowbound strangers is incumbent upon us all. In any event, I bear yon no enmity.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Leo said.

  “Or rather, I do bear you enmity, since our clans are mortal enemies, but the enmity I feel is purely formal—it is what goes with the role rather than being a true reflection of what my emotions actually are toward you.”

  “What are your emotions actually toward me?” Leo asked.

  “Profound indifference,” Guaschi said.

  “I’m very glad to hear that.”

  “But I do have a formal role to perform. One is supposed to kill enemies.”

  “But you saved my life.”

  “Well, that’s the sort of thing one does anyhow, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. But it’s inconsistent, this saving me and then saying you’re going to kill me.”

  “Inconsistent? I should think not!” Guaschi said with some heat. “These contradictory actions are entirely consistent with my role, which is that of once discovering and dealing with an ancient clan enemy.”

  “Well, all right,” Leo said. “But before you take any drastic action, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Sorry, no favors,” Guaschi said. “It complicates matters.”

  “This favor will do me no good,” Leo said, “since I’ll be dead. But it will be of considerable benefit to you and the rest of the Eleroi.”

  “Well, I suppose I must grant it, then,” Guaschi said, his tone somewhat peevish. “What is it?”

  “Please go down to the tree line and send a signal to the planetary lord. Tell him that an alien spaceship is approaching our planet.”

  “This is not some kind of joke?” Guaschi asked.

  “Note my insignia. I am an official watcher, duly elected by the lottery. I detected an alien ship some hours ago. That is my last word on the subject.”

  “No need to get huffy about it,” Guaschi said. “I had to express some degree of incredulity, didn’t I? It’s been a thousand years since the last alien showed up, hasn’t it?”

  “About that,” Leo said. “But before that they used to come here quite frequently, sometimes to settle, sometimes to conquer, sometimes to explore, sometimes for no reason at all. In the end we always got rid of them, of course.”

  “Of course,” Guaschi said. “And we shall this time, too. Shan’t we?”

  “Well, one hopes for the best,’” Leo said.

  “Do you think they’ll give us trouble?”

  “They’re certain to if you don’t get on with killing me and going down to the tree line to send the signal.”

  “You can go down to the tree line yourself,” Guaschi said. “It’s a nasty bit of slippery climbing, and I don’t fancy it.”

  “Then you’re not going to kill me?”

  “I didn’t say that. You jumped to a conclusion.” Guaschi smiled. “That’s a good one on you.”

  “Yes, all right, it is,” Leo said. “But you did say I was to go to the tree line and give the message?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then I’ll be on my way.”

  Guaschi drew a small revolver out of his pocket. “Not until you promise me to return after giving the signal.”

  “Of course I promise,” Leo said. He walked off, thinking, Simple-minded sod.

  “Hurry back,” Guaschi called after him. “My daughter will be impatient to meet you.”

  Leo stopped and turned around. “Daughter? How does your daughter come into this?”

  “I would have thought you would have inferred the answer to that very question by now. Quite obviously, I thought up an alternative to killing you. Instead, you can return and marry my daughter. It’s dramatically acceptable, uniting the two opposing families and thereby resolving the ancient conflict. An admirable resolution every bit as acceptable as killing you.”

  “Of course, it’s obvious enough now,” Leo said. “Tell me, what does your daughter look like?”

  “Come back and find out.”

  VI.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Aftenby,” Denton said. “I have something rather unpleasant to report.”

  “Have you indeed?” Lord Aftenby said. He was upset. He permitted Denton to see this by a very slight frown. A frown which said, “You know this is my last day of being lord of the planet, couldn’t you have waited until the next lord was selected by lottery?”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Denton said, cognizing Aftenby’s thoughts by the rapid reading of a multitude of facial sub-cues. Learning this sort of reading was one of the main educational features of the Eleroi race. Anybody could punch up information on a computer. The real question was, did you know what’s going on around you?

  “All right, if it’s so important, I suppose I should attend to it.” Aftenby practiced a sort of offhandedness in his manner which was one of the accepted norms of Eleroi protocol.

  Denton had opted for casual but firm directness in his manner. It was really the best personality for the job of prime minister, which was the position the lottery had won him this year.

  “To get straight to the point,” Denton said, “Leo Huue, the watcher on Mount Forgetful, just signaled. He has picked up a spaceship coming straight for our planet.”

  “A spaceship?” Aftenby said. “An alien spaceship from outer space?”

  “Well, obviously,” Denton said. “Since it’s not one of ours it must be alien, and since it doesn’t come from here it must come from there. The fact that we have no spaceships of our own also inclines me to the belief that it is, at least from our point of view, alien, though from its own outlook quite human, no doubt.”

  “I know all that,” Aftenby said crossly. “I was simply expressing an appropriate amount of surprise. After all, it’s been over a thousand years since the last
one, hasn’t it?”

  “Something like that,” Denton said. “And I knew that you knew that, but I made my speech anyhow to practice didactics. No offense meant, I assure you.”

  “And none taken. I suppose I had better get things going. The procedures are clear. We must go into defensive mode, first degree. Come with me while I broadcast the message.”

  Denton accompanied Aftenby across the broad Lord’s Room to the open mullioned window. Outside the window were small red-and-white blossoms that hung on the tips of a tall multi-branched tree.

  Aftenby reached out and grasped one of the branches. “Priority message,” he said. “Clear the track.”

  He waited until the network was clear, then announced, “There is an alien spaceship approaching our airspace. Please notify anyone around you who is not interfaced with the biological network. We are going into Defense Procedure A immediately.”

  Aftenby could feel his message going out along the tree’s roots and branches, entering the nearby forest, from where it was rebroadcast by vines and creepers and grasses until it had completed a circuit of the entire planet. Wherever an Eleroi was in contact with tree or vine, the message was received.

  He turned to Denton. “That ought to do it.”

  “Shouldn’t you tell them who you are?” Denton asked.

  “I clean forgot.” Aftenby grasped the branch again. “This is your lord speaking. Aftenby. The ruler of the planet, you may remember. Duly elected by lottery last year.”

  Aftenby turned to Denton. “How’s that?”