On Broken Wings

by Francis Porretto

"Well what? Why are the Bruxists guarding the thing factory so carefully? Why is it your objective?"

  She glanced at her planning tables. "The things are an essential component of blivet manufacture, and without blivets, their whole war effort will fall apart."

  He hunched over and peered at her as if she'd stopped in mid-sentence. "And mightn't there be another essential component of the blivets? Something that might be easier to take out of play, such as gizmos? Have you even asked where the gizmos are made?" He sat back in his chair and grinned. "Always look for alternatives, Christine. When you let your adversary define your choices, you're accepting defeat on the installment plan."

  At first, they met only on Sunday afternoons. She spent a good fraction of her personal time during the week mulling over the problems he'd posed the previous Sunday, hoping to have solutions ready for their next meeting. As fall shaded into winter, her progress at strategic analysis accelerated, and he began to push her harder and faster. By mid-November she was reporting to him on Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well. In December she began to bring Boomer with her, so that the Newfoundland wouldn't have to spend so many evenings alone. Fortunately, Loughlin and Boomer took to one another.

  The work absorbed her. Between Onteora Aviation and Loughlin's impromptu school for young generals, time was lacking for everything else. Her contacts with Helen dwindled under the pressure of this new and compelling involvement. Sometimes a whole week would go by without a phone call passing between them. She resolved to address it, but it slipped her mind again and again.

  Loughlin remained distant. Louis had been right: his was not a personality that was easy to love. His knowledge of warfare was limitless, and his pride in it was well deserved, but the flinty reserve that went along with it was hard to penetrate. She often had the feeling that anything she learned about him was against his will.

  She grew to love the games, the complexity of them, the exhilaration of matching her mental powers and growing understanding against problems spread out in space and time and involving a thousand different logistical and tactical factors. It took her a while to realize that, as much as he knew about it, he didn't love it, not in the slightest.

  "Next problem. No maps or planning tables this time. You're the commander of an attacking expeditionary force. Suppose the defenders here have a positional advantage, which allows them to repel any attack at ruinous cost to the attacker. However, it only works in defense, so they mount no counterattacks. Moreover, they don't appear to be interested in counterattack, and you have nothing to tempt them with. What do you do?"

  She pondered. "Well, I don't attack here, that's for sure."

  He snorted. "You think it's always that simple? Maybe there are no tactical alternatives. Imagine that the General Staff disagrees with you about the impossibility of a successful assault, only you know that you're right and just can't demonstrate it without slaughtering a quarter million of your own men. Imagine that you have political pressure building up on your shoulders." Anger crackled through the words. "The people at home are demanding a quick end to the war and the return of their sons. The Emperor has already speculated openly about whether it might be time to replace you. Your troops trust you and will do whatever you say. It's worse: your troops can't imagine what's holding you up. They want to charge across the desert and annihilate those Godless devils, and they're perfectly sure they can do it."

  She grimaced. "You're talking about a no-win scenario. I've been charged with delivering a tactical success from a situation that doesn't allow one, and nobody knows it but me."

  "Exactly."

  "Well, what should I do?"

  He raised his fists over his head as if to smash them against the table, and held them there. After a moment he seemed to recover himself, and brought his hands down before him, staring at them as if he wished they belonged to someone else.

  "I don't know." His voice was bleak. He turned his hands over and stared at his palms, then joined them in a trembling grip. "I didn't know then, and I don't know now."

  "What?"

  "Never mind."

  ====

  Chapter 38

  Terry Arkham turned into the entrance to Christine's cubicle in his usual head-down, charging fashion and came to a shuddering stop, his carefully composed opening line forgotten. The world's largest, blackest, shaggiest dog lay right next to her desk chair. On his arrival it stood and interposed itself between him and Christine, eyeing him without welcome and emitting a faint growl.

  Arkham stood still. Sweat broke out all over his body at once. He'd never gotten along well with dogs, and feared even the smallest ones. This animal could have been mistaken for a small bear. Christine hadn't noticed that she had a visitor.

  "Chris?"

  She gave a start, then swiveled to face him. "Yes, Terry?"

  "Is he...friendly?"

  She grinned down at the dog. "Oh, yeah. Gentlest creature in the world. Sit, Boomer!" The dog sat at once, but its eyes remained fixed on Arkham. "What can I do for you?"

  You can take that monster out of here and put it in the San Diego Zoo. "Well, I had a little news today, and I thought it might interest you."

  She faced him with an expression of polite interest. He moved toward her guest chair, then stopped. "Will Boomer get upset if I sit down?"

  She chuckled. "No, he's a good dog, I promise you. I just don't like for him to be alone all day, and Rolf said it would be okay to keep him here, as long as he stays in my cubicle."

  He settled into her guest chair, his nerves still jitterbugging. "Rolf's a nice guy."

  "Sure is. What was your news?"

  He forced a smile. "Well, the Navy approved the report on my feasibility study yesterday, and Roger authorized me to add three people to my team for the full-scale development work. Since you were so, ah, helpful about that problem I had a few weeks ago, I thought I'd tell you first, see if you might be interested in getting in deeper."

  She nodded. "Thank you. What's involved?"

  He slid forward to the edge of the chair. "A lot of the same stuff you've already seen. Some of it might even mate up with the work you've been doing for Svenson, except that it would be in a tactical environment instead of a simulation."

  He started to tell her about the enormous importance of the project in the airborne intelligence world, how extensive the funding was likely to be, how many years the development project could stretch into the future, the prestige its participants would acquire within the company. He'd gotten about fifteen seconds into his spiel when she interrupted him.

  "I don't think I can, sorry."

  It was like walking toward an open door and having it closed in his face. Don't think you can? "Why not, Chris?"

  She shrugged. "I don't think I have enough free time. Rolf keeps me pretty busy."

  "Oh!" His relief was considerable. "I get it. You don't understand. This wouldn't be in addition to your simulation work; it would be instead of it. You'd be leaving Svenson's team and joining mine."

  And I'd keep you plenty busy, toots. Count on it.

  But the young woman was shaking her head. "Then I definitely can't. Sorry."

  "Why not?"

  "I like Rolf. I like working for him. And since I joined his group, he's rewritten about a dozen different schedules to account for my being here. If I left him, he'd have to go through that all over again. Probably look pretty bad to management, too. After all, he'd have to explain why I wanted out, right?"

  Arkham did his best to conceal his irritation. He didn't manage to conceal much. He hadn't expected to be refused at all, much less this quickly.

  "Svenson's lost people before. It happens around here all the time. Just how much of an impact do you think you've had on his scheduling, anyway?"

  She said nothing.

  "Look, there's likely to be a category upgrade in it for you. You're what now, a junior engineer? You'd be a full engineer in no time flat. Maybe a raise, too. Considering how generous the fund
ing's going to be, I could probably get you forty, maybe forty-two thousand."

  Her eyes snapped wide at that. For the first time, he thought he had her full attention. The dog looked at her as if worried for her welfare.

  "You could get me a forty thousand dollar raise?"

  He choked on his bark of laughter. "God, no! If only! No, I meant I could get your base salary that high." Christ on a pogo stick, what does she think she is? If I could do that, she'd probably be making seventy-five grand!

  She relaxed. "Oh, I see. Well, either way, I'm afraid I'm not interested, Terry. But thanks for thinking of me." She turned toward her computer.

  "Hey!" It burst out of him.

  She turned back to him. There was little pleasure in her expression.

  "Is there something else?"

  "Just how many opportunities like this do you expect to get offered, toots? Svenson's group is a dead end, and anyone who's been here awhile knows it. If you've got the stuff like he thinks you do, you deserve better, but you ain't gonna get it unless you reach out and take it. Turning it down when it's brought to you on a silver platter won't make anybody very happy."

  She sat silent for several seconds. "Terry, I don't worry about opportunity. Maybe I should, but I don't. I like what I'm doing, and I like the man I'm doing it for." She laid a delicate but definite stress on man. "Go talk to Rolf. If he tells you he can do without me, I'll consider it. Now, can I get back to work, or was there something else you wanted to talk about?"

  He rose from her guest chair quivering with frustration. He wanted to scream at her at the top of his lungs, but that damned dog was still tracking his every move like a high performance radar.

  As he left her cubicle and started back toward his own, his brain was boiling with plans.

  ***

  "Roger?"

  Morrison looked up from his paperwork. "What is it, Terry?"

  "The new girl -- what's her name again?"

  Morrison grinned. "Christine D'Alessandro. What about her?"

  "Have you seen the monster she's keeping in her cubicle?"

  "Oh, the dog?" Morrison chuckled. "A little disconcerting, isn't he? But I forgot, he's probably bigger than you are."

  Arkham slid into one of Morrison's guest chairs. "Makes it hard to talk to her, with him staring at you."

  "Really? I haven't had a problem with it. Are you objecting, Terry? Do you want me to tell her she can't bring her dog to work with her any more?"

  No, because you'd make damned sure she knew who raised the objection, wouldn't you? Anything would beat taking responsibility for it yourself.

  Arkham waved in dismissal. "Let it ride. It was a surprise, but the beast didn't leap at me or anything. I don't think she thinks much of this place, Roger."

  "And why do you say that?" A note of mockery hid behind the words.

  "I offered her a place on the full-scale development team, and she wouldn't even think about it. Everyone in the building is already maneuvering to get onto this job, and she turned it down without even hearing me out!"

  "You did, did you?" Morrison sat back in his chair. "I'm surprised, Terry, her being so new and all. What is it about her that persuades you that she'd be more of an asset than, say, Emil Deukmeijian?"

  Arkham sputtered, then collected himself. "Emil's been here twenty-some years. If the dictionary had an entry for 'broken-down old war horse,' his picture would be next to it."

  "Emil's younger than you are, Terry. And his record of accomplishment speaks for itself," Morrison said brightly. "He'd be a team leader if I could justify creating another team. Everyone knows you don't like him. Damn near everyone knows why."

  Arkham's lips drew back from his teeth. He struggled for control.

  "All right, so Deukmeijian and I don't connect. So? This chick is good. Really good. She's wasted in simulation, but she won't even consider my bunch. I don't think it speaks well of her attitude." He scowled. "I think she's become personally attached to Svenson, frankly."

  Morrison clucked in mock disapproval. "Bad girl. Getting attached to the wrong team leader like that. Poppa spank."

  "Are we going to be nurturing cults of personality from now on, Roger? Wasn't that why you always came out against making Redmond a team leader?"

  Morrison laughed.

  "No, Terry, I was against that because it would have put the little prick within striking distance of my job. If he'd ever decided he wanted it, there wouldn't have been anything I could have done about it, anyway. Dick Orloff thought Louis Redmond sat at the right hand of God." The project director's smile became stiletto sharp. "Now, you and Rolf, I don't worry about."

  For the thousandth time, Arkham renewed his vow that someday he'd cram a pound of dogshit down Roger Morrison's throat.

  "Did you come in here expecting that I'd twist her arm for you, Terry? I won't. Svenson's got four people, including her. You've got fifteen. I couldn't make the case to Orloff that you have to have her with a straight face. And if I'm going to piss one of you off, I'd just as soon it was you."

  "One of who? Me and Orloff?"

  Morrison shook his head. "You and Christine."

  Ah. You want to get into her pants, don't you, Roger? You won't get there, bucko. Her dog would tear you to pieces and swallow the pieces if she so much as frowned at you.

  "I know what you're thinking, Terry." Morrison rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I suppose you've got good reason. But it's not that way. I'm fifty, she's twenty-five. I know when I'm out of my league. I stick to middle-aged divorcees these days. It's a lot simpler than that, chum. Svenson says she's the best he's ever seen. That makes her better than Louis Redmond. And that makes her a lot better than you. If you think I'm going to risk losing a talent like that to gratify your sawed-off dictator's whims, you're certifiable."

  Arkham gaped in astonishment. "You'd risk losing me before her."

  The project director nodded. "You've got it."

  Without another word, Terry Arkham rose from his seat and crept back to his cubicle. Roger Morrison snorted once at Arkham's receding back before returning his attention to his paperwork.

  ***

  Svenson bit his lip and stared at his cubicle wall. Christine sat in silence, waiting for his reaction.

  Why am I so surprised? I knew Terry was an empire builder. This is hardly out of character for him.

  Maybe I'm surprised because it's the first time he's ever tried to do it to me. My area's always looked like small potatoes to him.

  And I thought it was Morrison I had to worry about.

  "So you told him no, never?"

  She nodded. "Rolf, I may not know much, but I know a turd when I see one."

  The vulgarity pricked a laugh out of him. "You're ahead of the game, then. Have you talked with any of Terry's current subordinates?"

  "Not knowingly." She raised an eyebrow. "Do they love him, hate him, what?"

  "I wouldn't know, Chris. I try not to intrude on his domain. He's got a much bigger team than I have, that's all I know." Svenson rose from his chair and writhed to stretch the muscles of his lower back. "You're worried about the possible repercussions from turning him down, right?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, then stop worrying. He and I are equals. What he did, going to you before notifying me, is a breach of the unwritten rules around here, and I'm going to take a few steps so that he'll know not to do it again. You don't have to fear for your job."

  Her sudden laughter disconcerted him. "Oh, no, Rolf, I wasn't worried for me. I thought he might try to take it out on you."

  He stared at her. As far as he could tell, she was being sincere.

  First job. No degree. Not even a high school diploma. But she isn't worried for herself. You don't need this job, Christine?

  "Why are you here, Chris?" He tried to keep his tone casual.

  She tensed. "I figured you'd want to be told."

  "No, I meant, why do you work for Onteora Aviation?"

  "Oh." The ten
sion vanished. "Louis brought me here. He said it was the best of a bad set of choices."

  "But you don't really need to work, do you? I mean, to pay the rent, feed Boomer, and so on."

  "No, not really." For a moment she looked as if she would elaborate, but she offered nothing further.

  "So this is just to stay busy, right?"

  Her eyes widened. "No, Rolf, I like this stuff! This is fun. When I'm not doing it here, I'm doing it at home." She made a gesture of helplessness. "Besides, everybody ought to work, and this is the only thing I'm any good at. What would I do, if I didn't work at this?"

  Her artlessness drove her words home with sledgehammer blows. He turned away and clasped his arms tightly across his chest.

  Everybody ought to work. Even if you feel it as a scar across your soul. Even if the work costs you everything else you treasure. Even if you have nightmares about what would happen if your work became important. You may have a few things to learn after all, Christine.

  He heard her rise and approach him, felt her put a hand on his shoulder. "Rolf? Is everything okay?" Her voice was softer even than usual.

  "Yeah," he rasped. "Couldn't be better."

  He turned back to her, and she stepped back. What he saw in her face was concern for him. It was the first time he'd seen that anywhere since Anna left him, and it rocked him.

  Don't concern yourself with me, kid. It's too risky.

  He swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "Do you have any dinner plans?"

  She started at the change of subject. "Just to go home and eat it. Why?"

  "Join me, maybe? There's a little place not too far away that grills a nice swordfish steak, and on Fridays it's usually fresh." He reached for his coat. "My treat. We'll drive Boomer back to your place and go."

  She considered it. "Could I drive Boomer home myself and then meet you back here? I'd like to take a few minutes to change, anyway."

  "Sure."

  She said "Give me half an hour," and was gone.

  He settled into his desk chair, closed his eyes, and began to breathe slowly and deeply, in the cadence Louis Redmond had taught him for dealing with pain.