“Perfectly.”
“Bushman, you can go.” The man wrote for a few seconds, then got up and left.
“As for you, Robichaux, you are one lucky son of a bitch. Ordinarily, the judge advocate would be up my ass to beat you down hard for barging into Pfelung space, violating your orders to respect all neutral territorial rights. Sanctimonious goddamn paper pushers. Fucking lawyers care more about where to put a fucking semicolon than about where to put a carrier—but they have a lot of pull, and it’s awfully damn hard to tell them to go get fucked. Thanks to your crafty friend here, I can send them an engraved invitation to take a long walk down a short boarding tube. I love this shit.”
Max’s face showed incomprehension.
“You don’t know? Goddamn, son, you should pay closer attention to treaties you help negotiate. It’s right here.” He pulled the information out of his workstation as deftly as a crack CIC officer on a battleship.
“‘Article XXXVII, Paragraph 19. Entry Into Effect: The provisions of this treaty shall take full force and effect nunc pro tunc as of the outset of hostilities between the Krag Hegemony and the Pfelung Association, which outset of hostilities shall be deemed to have occurred when Krag forces first surreptitiously entered Pfelung territorial space for the purpose of engaging in hostile acts against the Pfelung.’”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Admiral.”
“I’ll let your friend, the ambassador, explain it to you.”
Max turned to the doctor, who smiled innocently and said, “Nunc pro tunc means ‘now for then’ in Latin—as long as both parties agree to do it, it is perfectly legal for both to consent as a sort of amiable fraud that the document they signed this morning actually went into effect at noon on yesterday. So, the treaty says that the Union and the Pfelung became Associated Powers when the Krag committed the first Act of War against them—sending those bomb-rigged freighters into their space.”
The admiral smiled broadly. “Don’t you see, Robichaux? Laughed my fat ass off when I first figured this out. That means when you went barging into their territorial space, with the Pfelung screaming that you were violating their sovereignty and that you needed to get the fuck out before they blasted you to kingdom come, technically, under this treaty, they are deemed to have already been our bosom buddies for several hours, and you weren’t violating their neutrality at all! Skated over that problem slicker than owl shit. How hard was it to get this in the treaty?”
“Not at all,” the doctor answered. “When I explained privately how such a provision would protect the captain from any unfortunate consequences resulting from his technical violation of their neutrality, they concurred enthusiastically.”
He turned to Max. “You are liked by them exceedingly, you know. I understand, in fact, that they intend to name after you their new pulse cannon battle station and a very large egg insemination pond that they are currently excavating.”
The coffee arrived at this point, Bushman expertly placing on the front of the admiral’s desk the tray, containing three steaming mugs, a server containing a white slightly viscous liquid laughingly referred to as “cream,” and a small bowl of the granular, allegedly sweet, factory-synthesized substance that the Navy insisted be used in coffee and tea in place of sugar. He made a discrete exit. Everyone paused for a few moments to take a few sips of his coffee. It was hot and strong and good. Bushman had that part of his job down pat.
The admiral chuckled. “An egg insemination pond? I think that’s a fitting tribute to you, Robichaux. Anyway, the acting ambassador here saved me from having to haul your sorry ass in front of a board of inquiry, for which I am thankful, because it would have made this part here very, very awkward. SINKINESH!”
Did the man ever use the comm panel for anything other than ship to ship? The doctor toyed with the idea of checking himself and Max for hearing damage when they got back to the Cumberland.
The flag secretary came in carrying two small hinged boxes, handed them to the admiral, and left. “Frankly, I’ve never seen the commissioners of the Admiralty do anything so goddamn fast. I think the Pfelung leaned on them. Hard. And if they hadn’t, I would have. Anyway, you both need to stand up for this.”
They stood. The admiral stood as well and produced a sheet of paper from a desk drawer. Max was struck by how the man standing before him was both ordinary and extraordinary. He was barely above average height for a man in the twenty-fourth century, maybe 1.9 meters, with a full head of thick, silver hair; a square jaw with a large dimple in the center; piercing gray eyes; and an animated mouth that seemed to flow rapidly from lopsided grin to fearsome scowl with no effort at all. His build was nothing unusual, maybe a little more muscular than was common for a man of his age in a time when most heavy work was done by machine, and maybe a little trimmer around the waist than usual for a man just on the far side of sixty.
What was most striking about him was that he seemed to exude confidence, determination, and energy, as though he could take on the whole Krag fleet single-handedly, armed only with the Model 1911 pistol on his hip. The man presented himself as a winner, someone who would lead men to victory. One got the feeling that the “with Arms” part of the Uniform of the Day was because the admiral liked having a weapon at his side to remind him that he was in the business of killing the enemy.
The admiral put on a pair of reading glasses. “There’s a lengthy citation here, talking about quick thinking, intuitive problem solving, and lots of other things to give you swelled heads. You can read it yourselves later, but then it goes on to say—where is it? blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda—oh yes, here. ‘And therefore, for courageous resourcefulness and conspicuous gallantry in the highest traditions of the Union Space Navy above and beyond the call of duty, the High Commissioners of the Admiralty are pleased to confer upon Maxime Tindall Robichaux and Ibrahim Abdul Sahin the Commissioners’ Medal of Honor, with all the rights, privileges, and emoluments pertaining thereto.’”
The toughest flag officer in Known Space was conferring upon two rather junior officers serving on an inconsequential ship the highest military honor that the Union could bestow, an honor that came with a number of legal and traditional privileges of which Max was certain Dr. Sahin was entirely ignorant.
“Anyway, here you are.” He handed over the medals in their velvet-lined boxes and shook their hands with what seemed to be genuine affection.
“In a few months, we’ll confiscate those so we can hand them back to you in front of a lot of people with bands playing, long speeches, and all sorts of other back-slapping bullshit in one of the big fleet award ceremonies we have four times a year. But I wanted you to have these now. I like to hand out decorations as soon as possible. Besides, I’ve never gotten to award one of these, much less two.
“Well, that’s everything I needed you two for. Cumberland will be staying in the system for about three more weeks. It will take that long for the regularly appointed ambassador to arrive from Earth, and the Pfelung want to engage in some joint exercises with you, Robichaux. Like the doctor here says, seems you’re something of a hero to them.
“After that, I think I have something interesting in mind for you. I bet on horses every now and again, and one of the ways I win is by putting my money on winners. Right now, Robichaux, you’re winning, so that’s where my money goes. Well, haul your sorry butts back to your ship. Even a crotchety old bastard like me needs to get some sleep every now and then. You’re dismissed.”
* * *
EPILOGUE
* * *
12:22Z Hours (08:36 Local Time—High Tide), 21 February 2315
Hatchery Number 1817 was immense. A vast, low building enclosing nearly a square kilometer, it contained secluded, muddy pools where recently fertilized eggs progressed through the early stages of their maturation cycle; another area where the fertilized eggs incubated to maturity and hatched in warm, still water; yet another where the hatchlings swam in a series of ever larger tanks of rapidly
circulating water as they grew; and the enormous, dimly lit area where Max and the doctor, along with more than a hundred of their shipmates, Admiral Hornmeyer (whom Max could hear from eighty meters away) and a contingent from the Task Force; and about two hundred Pfelung, both male and female, stood. They all lined the edge of what Max would have thought of as a swimming pool, if it were not that the now empty basin was at least twenty times the size of any pool he had ever seen.
As the two had spent very little time alone since meeting with the admiral, mainly due to the doctor’s busy schedule as acting union ambassador, Max was filling him in on the meaning of some of what transpired. Sahin was particularly puzzled by the meaning of the ‘E.’
“All that means,” said Max, “is that when we aren’t stealthed, we get to turn on a four-meter-tall letter ‘E’ that we made with temporary running lights—we’ve already installed those—to tell everyone who can see us that the admiral has found the performance of the ship to be ‘Excellent.’ He doesn’t do it all that often. Right now, the Kranz is showing one, and a few cruisers on detached service. I don’t think he has ever given it to a destroyer. It’s right next to the big Bronze Battle Star, which we’ll light up every chance we get between now and when Cumberland goes into the boneyard.”
Once that was cleared up, the doctor explained the operation of the hatchery to Max. He apparently had something of the professor in him, as when he started to talk about this kind of subject, it usually wound up sounding like an academic lecture.
“All of this used to be done in natural ponds, rivers, and lakes, but once the Pfelung became a technological civilization, they found it intolerable having more than half of their hatchlings eaten by wild predators, so they brought the process indoors to keep the little ones safe. This huge tank is where the young juveniles, akin to our toddlers I suppose, swim until they are old enough to fend for themselves in the ocean. They are released from here to the sea, where they spend five years swimming free and wild, eating what they catch. Then, when they reach adolescence, they instinctively swim back to where they were released, where they are reclaimed, by smell, by their families and reared and educated. They spend three years in this tank. It is here that they form the earliest memories that they will still have as adults. I hear that memories formed at this stage are particularly clear.”
“How deep is the tank?” Max asked. “It’s so dark, I can hardly see the inside at all.”
“Quite deep. When the Pfelung are in their preadolescent, or Pelagic, Stage, they don’t keep to the shallows the way the hatchlings or the adults do. They need to hunt for food at several different levels in the water column. They make this tank deep so that the ones at this stage, which I think they call the Lake Dwelling Stage, can become accustomed to diving down into the deep water before going out into the ocean.”
A murmur among the humans and a bubbling sound among the Pfelung indicated that something was afoot. Five females, distinguished from the males by their smaller size, their slightly lighter color, and the camouflaging pattern of spots, swirls, and splotches on their backs, were making their way up a ramp to a meter-and-a-half-tall platform. The largest of the females, flanked on each side by two others, moved to the front of the platform and began speaking into the microphone, which, as was customary for the Pfelung, was mounted in a protective mound about the size of a man’s head, resting on the floor of the platform. Her remarks were swiftly translated by the devices each human wore in his ear.
“Fellow Guardians of the Ruling Hatchery, ministers and keepers, and human guests, welcome to this ceremony. As the humans present do not know me, I identify myself as Brekluk-Tamm 191. It was only a few tens of tides ago that humans from the Union, who had neither swum in our waters nor tasted mud with us, fought at our sides against an enemy who would prey on us both, who would foul the Quiet Ponds Where Eggs Are Laid and who would eat the hatchlings before they attain the Age of Reason. Although many of those with whom we were hatched, with whom we have swum, and with whom we have tasted mud and shared the waters will swim and taste and share no more, with shared sacrifice we defeated that enemy.
“In doing so, eleven brave humans were carried to the Great Ocean. We can never repay our debt to them and to their mates and hatchlings, but there is one thing we can do. We can remember them.”
Her dorsal fin waved back and forth, apparently some kind of signal. At that moment, four rows of lights in the pool, one running down each corner, sprang into life, illuminating it from its top to its bottom, which Max and the doctor could now see was more than a thousand meters deep.
The ever-artistic Pfelung had decorated the tank. The sides were the color of the sky. Not the light blue of the daytime sky, or the pitch black of space, but the deepest purple of the latest twilight at that last moment before the light fades to true night, pricked with stars. And framed by the twilight, in the center of each wall, was an image, a different one for each wall. On the north wall was a depiction of the freighter explosion destroying the battle station that had defended the jump point. The painting was quite realistic, yet somehow, not photographic, managing to capture through some subtle emphasis on the reds and orange hues of the explosion the shock, horror, and fear it must have inflicted upon the Pfelung who saw it.
On the east wall was an image of the Cumberland. Genius-level artistic talent had turned her utilitarian, inelegant lines into something stirring and graceful by inspired use of light and shadow and by the technique of framing the ship with the sickle crescent of Pfelung’s enormous moon. On the south wall, the squat, stubby shape painted to convey an impression that reminded the human observers of a defiant bulldog, was the cutter, shown with her engines blazing as she accelerated toward her destiny at the jump point. And finally, on the west wall, were arrayed the images of Garcia, Amborsky, and the other men sacrificed to close the jump point and stop the invasion. They were painted full length, standing, wearing their SCUs, as they were on the cutter that day.
The obviously brilliant Pfelung artist, informed by each man’s service record, had managed to capture the essence of each: Garcia’s friendly competence, Amborsky’s gruff exterior and warm heart, and all the rest—some part of the spirit that had once burned within them shining forth from the images.
After letting what they were seeing sink into the minds of her audience, Brekluk went on. “As these young grow, adults swim with them so that they will remember the shapes and faces of adults as those of friends and protectors. So, now, these young will remember the shapes and faces of humans as friends and protectors as well. There are 285 such swimming places for the young throughout our worlds. These images are being placed in each. This is the highest honor we know how to bestow. That is all I have to say on this subject. Let the tank be filled.”
A floodgate twenty meters across opened near the bottom of the tank, admitting water through an aqueduct bored through solid rock to a point under the ocean several miles from shore, to admit the purest sea water. It poured in rapidly, filling the tank in less than two minutes.
“Let the young be admitted,” Brekluk said, and a sluice opened to pour tiny Pfelung by the thousands, each about the size of a man’s hand, into the tank. In a few moments, the torrent of young had run out, and the tank was full of splashing, milling, swirling, enthusiastically swimming creatures, filling the room with a sense of playful, joyful, exuberant life. “This ceremony is concluded.”
* * *
“HEARTS OF STEEL”
* * *
Official Version: Revised as Per General Order 98-153, 9 July 2298
[The Official Anthem and March of the Union Space Navy, with new verses for the current war, sung to the tune of the “Heart of Oak,” the official Anthem and March of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.]
To stations my lads, ’tis to glory we steer,
Oh, sons of the Union, we fight without fear;
’Tis to Honor you call us, for Honor we stand;
>
We brothers in valor await fame’s command.
(Chorus)
Hearts of steel, that’s our ships; hearts of steel, that’s our men.
We always are ready; steady, boys, steady!
We’ll fight, not surrender, again and again.
We’ll take payment in blood for the debt Krag must pay,
And carve them with cutlass when they come to play;
Our courage defiant ennobles the stars,
Stalwart sons of Ares, strong offspring of Mars.
(Chorus)
We still make them bleed and we still make them die,
And shout mighty cheers as they fall from the sky;
So, to stations, me lads, and let’s sing with one heart,
We will win this war if we all do our part.
(Chorus)
* * *
GLOSSARY AND GUIDE TO ABBREVIATIONS
* * *
Alphacen Alpha Centauri.
AU Astronomical unit. The mean distance between Earth and the sun, approximately 150 million kilometers, or 93 million statute miles.
AuxCon Auxiliary Control.
Bravo The second letter of the Union Forces Voicecom Alphabet; a colloquial name for Epsilon Indi III (see).
BuDes (pronounced “bew-dess”) Bureau of Design.
BuPers (pronounced “bew-perz”) Bureau of Personnel. The naval department responsible for managing naval personnel assignments, recruiting, and similar matters.
c The speed of light in a vacuum, commonly stated as “lightspeed,” 299,792,458 meters per second, or 186,282 miles per second.
To Honor You Call Us (Man of War Book 1) Page 39
