Cirruit did not wear anything, but then he did not have anything that needed to be hidden. He was lying on his towel and then propped himself up and looked over the lake. "I wish I could swim. It looks like a lot of fun."
Har-Hi was the only one of us who was completely dressed and he wore his usual red Dai leathers. He grunted. "Swimming isn't fun!"
I turned to Cirruit and had to shield my eyes as his chrome metal body reflected the sun like a mirror and asked, "Why don't you try it?"
"Because I am too dense. I don't float, no matter how much I paddle. I usually walk along the bottom."
Mao, who had disappeared for a while, came back with a colorful box and he hollered, "They made it. It's done! Oh I’d love to see your face Krabbel!"
Elfi looked interested and teased the Arachnoid saying, "Krabbel does not have a face, just lots of eyes and fangs."
"I do have a face and a very handsome one if I might add. If I wanted to, I could be on the cover of magazines."
Elfi smiled. "Really?"
"Oh yes, only last year a Terran company that makes some sort of insect killer wanted me for their commercials! And there was this magazine called Goosebumps who offered me to appear on a title page, why they wanted me to carry a naked woman in my fangs, I could not say."
We all laughed, as we all knew Krabbel's brand of humor. He delivered his jokes with a dead serious tone in his voice, but only halfway through them he barely was able to suppress his laughter. I realized how well I was able to read the emotions of a being that by all accounts should have been terrifying.
Mao handed the box to Krabbel. "Here you go, happy Nuflug Day to you." Mao stripped off his shirt and revealed his tattoos that covered most of his right arm and right torso. Still talking to Krabbel he added, "And your mother told me to make sure you brush your chelicerae and not skip it as usual. She expects you to call if you can and wanted you to know that your dad and she are very proud of you."
Krabbel took the package and started to unwrap it, while he was doing it I asked Mao, "You know Krabbel's mother?" He nodded. "Oh sure, I spent some time with Krabbel on Archa before we joined the Academy together. I went there again after the second year. I tell you those Archas do not believe in ladders or stairs anywhere!"
We laughed and Krabbel managed to tear the box open and held a strange orange plastic device with dark lenses into the sun.
"What is that?" Elfi asked.
Krabbel put it on his head and said with a happy tone, "They are sunglasses of course! These are the first arachnoid sunglasses. Cirruit designed them and Mao and I are going to mass-produce them and become rich one day!"
"Sunglasses?" was all I could say.
"Have you ever seen a Terran without sunglasses?" Mao asked. If you see sunglasses he or she is from the Sol System! If you want to be on top of what is in fashion you got to follow the Terran example."
I shrugged. "Shaka doesn't wear them and he is from Earth!"
Shaka heard his name and sat up, pointing at a pair of dark glasses he had shoved into his hair. "Because you hardly ever see me out of uniform, I got sunglasses right here."
Instead of lying back down, Shaka looked towards Mao and asked, "How is it on Archa?"
Mao plopped himself down, right next to Elfi and blinked into the sun. "They have the most amazing cities you'll ever see. They are almost completely hidden in the trees. You don't even know you are in a big city while you’re standing in the middle of one. At least as long as you don't look up. Their architecture is hard to describe, but their houses look basically like cocoons made of shiny metals! But no stairs I tell you, no ladders. They do have elevators to ride up those gigantic trees, but they're not for the faint of heart. Little platforms without any railings or anything else to hold onto and then they shoot up and down at great speed, some reaching a mile high!"
Krabbel raised his first leg pair. "We have plenty of limbs to hold on with, so we never invented railings."
Mao continued. "The Archas are the friendliest folks you could ever meet. Very competitive lot with lots of sports venues and they can be quite aggressive when competing; they are predators or have evolved from predators after all. What they call Prey Gardens, local restaurants, aren't for the squeamish either, but they started to have normal restaurants where they serve the food already killed."
"We are getting civilized I tell you!" Krabbel added. "We recently even decided that killing of your sac siblings is perhaps a thing we should change."
"You kill your own kind?" Elfi asked.
Krabbel made a specific leg move that meant the same as when a human was nodding. "You see a healthy female can lay 2000 eggs or more and ever since we had our industrial revolution we don't have any natural enemies anymore. We never had any wars among ourselves like the Terrans so if we let all eggs mature it would get crowded very fast. Besides, it is an instinctive process when you are very little. I have no recollection how many sac siblings I killed while I crawled to the sac mouth. This way only one, two or sometimes three siblings survive. Mothers ate the rest.
"About five or 10 years ago we started using fertility control drugs so females produce only two or three eggs in the first place and let them mature."
We all listened, quite fascinated to Krabbel's account. It was completely different to hear something like this from a friend rather than absorbing it during an exobiology lesson.
Krabbel was on a roll and he continued to tell us about Archa. "Only 100 ago years females often killed their male partners at the height of sexual ecstasy and for a male that was the only way to go and the one thing he lived for. Nowadays it happens very rarely and males live long enough to enter political careers." He pointed at himself as he said, "We look very much like spiders of Terra and arachnoids of other worlds and we do have somewhat similar behavior patterns, but we are also very different. See my four upper leg pairs have developed claws, and on each is an opposing claw or finger if you would, we can manipulate objects much like the human hand can, we developed a language and writing and our digestive tract has evolved so we can now consume more solid foods and not just suck liquefied prey."
"I think I would like to see Archa one day!" I said.
"Oh I would love to show you all around. My mom would be so happy to have your company."
Hans came over holding a huge tray piled with steaks, burgers and hot dogs. "Go get it while they're hot, there is more coming!"
"Who're you cooking for, the entire ship's crew?" Har-Hi asked. Hans shrugged and looked at the platter. "Mostly for me and Krabbel of course but Mao can eat a lot too. So there won't be much left if we start eating, you better get it first!"
We ate and Krabbel said between two bites,"I really like the idea of fried food. We've cooked some food now for over a thousand years but frying and roasting are completely new to us."
Elfi nibbled at her burger. "How is your home planet, Mao?"
"Actually not so very different from the planet we just came from, at least climate-wise. We have swamps, lots of jungles and rivers. But we do have oceans and many islands too. When my ancestors left Earth they wanted a world as close to their native home as possible and found it on a planet we call Guayas. Native tribes from Terran regions emigrated to Guayas to be left alone and live the traditional way."
Mao almost looked ashamed. "Almost everyone lives basically in Stone Age conditions. Almost no tech, lots of superstitions and all that." He looked to the ground. "I grew up in a palm leaf-thatched hut with mud walls and no doors."
"Are you ashamed of that?" Wetty asked, with surprise in her voice.
"Not among you, but others have looked down on me because of that and I was actually ashamed of my own thoughts and feelings when I returned after my first Academy year, it was so small and dirty and so primitive in my eyes."
Then he looked up and smiled. "I still would like to take you all to meet my Peppy and Mr. Roundtree, my Union School teacher. Krabbel was there and he was the first non-human alien anyone aliv
e ever saw. We did get invaded by the Nogoll, but that was long ago.
"They really liked Krabbel, especially the kids."
Har-Hi used one of his razor-sharp knives to slice thin strips of his steak and he looked at Wetmouth. "Don't answer if you don't want to, but I always wondered how a Sojonit ended up in the Navy."
She sighed under her ever-present mask. "That is a long story." She looked at Mao and put her slender hand on his knee. "If anyone should be ashamed of her upbringing, it should be me." She sighed and said to Har-Hi, "No, I don't mind, and I am going to tell you the short version. I don't know if you all know about Sin 4. It is the most lawless hellhole in the entire galaxy. Theft, murder and any horrible crime you can imagine happen at every hour, every minute and everywhere. Criminal cartels ruled by big families control our world with an iron fist, but only as far as their own interests go. There is a strict caste system enforced by whoever has the most firepower. The lowest class, the Skath, lie in filth and conditions you would not believe possible. My mother was a Skath and very sick. She put me on a little boat and told me to make my way to the Sojonit Island. I saw her collapse on the shore and be torn apart by Heghoor scavengers.
"I somehow made it and was found on the steps of the Sojonit temple. My mother did the best she could!"
"The best she could," gasped Elfi, "abandoning her child?"
"You don't understand Elfi. Sin 4 is not a nice place like your palace or any other place you've ever seen. Do you know what real hunger is? Being hungry for most of your life, never having enough to eat and when you eat the food is filthy and stinks. Yet you have to fight to the death to keep it! Skath have no rights, no possessions, they are slaughtered for food, sold for cheap slaves, pressed into hard labor whenever needed, kicked and beaten all day long. If there is a hell, Elfi, then the Skath slums of Sin 4 are it. Mothers sell their kids for slaves and yes they sell them for meat. Nothing is sacred and naked survival on the most primitive, brutal level is all there is."
Even I could not help but looked shocked.
She continued with a dry voice, "Sin 4 is populated by beings from all over the galaxy and human meat is just another commodity. So yes, I think my mother did the best she could. It was a feat no less, to organize the shipping crate that served me as a boat. The Sojonit Temple is on an island and not easily accessible for Skath.
"There, Mother Superior raised me and I never had to suffer hunger or thirst from then on. While I was trained like any other Sojonit, she saw my gift and made me wear the veil of abstinence early on and gave me all the help to study knowledge.
"But for the Temple, Sin 4 is limited, very limited, they have more bordellos and whore houses, casinos and amusement of the worst kind than anywhere else in the galaxy but there are no schools, no universities. Sojonites travel everywhere where customers can be found that pay for sexual pleasures. Mother Superior arranged for me to leave Sin 4 and reach Union space. I had no money, I was not a citizen and found out I was too young to apply for anything.
I was very lucky then and was adopted by a very kind man and one thing led to the other and I first joined the Science Corps but I wanted to become a Science Officer aboard a ship and that means I have to complete the Academy and become an officer." She spread her hands. "This is how I ended up in the Fleet."
Elfi hugged her and while she did, tears pearled down her cheeks. "I am so sorry Wetmouth. I promise you have a home on Saran anytime as my sister!"
Our conversation was interrupted by a voice saying, "Those burgers smell mighty good!"
I turned to see it was Admiral Stahl and he was carrying a big cardboard box. He was out of uniform and wore the unmarked black jumpsuit, the same kind I had seen him wear the first time I met him.
I jumped up, but he said, "Relax, kids, I am out of uniform and so are you. I came to keep my promise to Mr. Krabbel. I brought some real ice-cream made from real milk." Krabbel zipped to the ground and came over in his silent fast way.
Stahl grinned and said, "Why don't you trade me this ice-cream for a burger?" Krabbel took the box. "You got a deal! Hurry guys, get the Admiral some meat!"
Stahl sat down just as if he was one of us and took a plate from Hans. Har-Hi handed him a bottle of soda and Krabbel shrieked, "Oh by the sac of grandmother, that's the best kind there is, my favorite, chocolate-dipped soft serve! How did you know, Sir?"
"I am Immortal, my eight-legged friend, I am supposed to be wise beyond human understanding and know everything!" Stahl chuckled while he said that. "Truth to be told, I am not as wise as I wish to be and I am far from knowing everything, so I simply asked Mr. Mao."
He dug into his steak and praised Hans's cooking. "Oh just right, there isn't anything much better than a flame broiled steak done just right. This is my favorite food."
"You should try the cattle baron in Topeka on Wichita Planet," I said. "No place serves a better steak."
He raised one eyebrow. "Ah yes, you have been to Wichita. The planet used to have a mystery too, before you've been there."
I promised the others to tell them later what he meant and the Admiral said, "You are right, Eric. There is no place that serves better steaks, I have been there too. However, I think Mr. Kleinschmitt's steaks are a close second."
Hans looked very proud and forked another one onto the plate of the Immortal.
Stahl chewed and pointed his fork at my holster. "I see you carry the old .45."
"That old piece saved my life and I am glad I developed this habit."
He made me tell the incident while he finished his steak.
Har-Hi took cigars out of his leg pocket, but the Admiral declined and preferred one of Shaka's cigarettes.
Then he leaned back and gave us all a long look. "It is not just steaks and ice-cream that brought me here."
He took a sip of his soda. "I really enjoyed your company, I must confess. I feel things I haven't felt in quite a while looking at you, Princess, and having a legendary Sojonit sister in a bikini there as well make me realize I am still just a man and human after all. It is a good realization!"
He sighed. "I also came to tell you that you are most likely going to leave the ship tomorrow."
Wetmouth covered her bare legs with a towel more instinctively than consciously and said, "Sir, we still have six months to go before we hopefully graduate. Would you be willing to inform us where we have erred or not met expectations?"
"You did not do anything wrong and you exceeded expectations in every way, I don't think this ship ever had such an extraordinary group as yours.
"That is why Captain Harris wants you to go to Newport and compete with other senior cadets for the Reagan Trophy."
He crushed his cigarette. "I am sure Wetmouth knows what I am talking about but let me explain anyway.
"There is not just one Naval Academy; there are many branches all over the Union Territory. We recently opened one across the Bridge in the Andromeda Galaxy and another will open its doors for new recruits in the LMC later this year."
He pointed at me. "Mr. Olafson and Her Majesty the Princess were tested, evaluated and accepted at the Academy HQ on Arsenal II.
"If my memory serves me right, you Mr. Hi and Your Royal Highness Mr. Shaka did the same at Annapolis Earth."
They both nodded in agreement.
The Immortal Admiral continued. "This should illustrate the point I am trying to make, there are several branches, but there is one you may or may not have heard of; it is the Naval Academy College on Newport. Officially designated Advanced Officer Training Facility Newport, but generally referred to as Newport Academy and it is an advanced school where the best cadets and Midshipmen are sent to complete their officer's training."
I rolled my eyes. "I have heard of it all right and met a few who studied there as well."
"Yes you have, Commander Letsgo told me about your adventure." Stahl nodded his head and motioned me to tell the others about the duel I fought against the fencing instructor of Newport.
Har-Hi laughed. "You really do get mixed up in situations more than others, so it appears."
Stahl lost much of his stern, Immortal looks as he suddenly grinned widely and appeared very human. "That is putting it mildly, and he left out the part of the story where he stripped poor Master Milieu naked in front of everyone. Frankly, part of the reason I am sitting here with you is because in all my long life I have not met quite a group like yours, even though I was partially responsible for all of you ending up on the Devi and on the same team."
He became serious again and lost most of his smile, but some of it kept lingering in the corner of his gray eyes. "Anyway, back to what I am trying to explain to you. Every four years there is a traditional challenge called the Newport Challenge, they invite senior teams from all over the Fleet to Newport for a competition. A test of all skills and knowledge that future officers are supposed to have and the winning team gets the Reagan Trophy, an ugly metal bowl, and the bragging rights to be the very best. The award is a team prize and goes to the ship or academy of the winning team."
None of us wanted to interrupt him, except for Krabbel who tried to manage to eat his fifth, now melting ice-cream cone without dripping too much of it on Mao's back, who more or less sat right below the spider. Krabbel whispered a shy, "Sorry."
That caused Stahl to interrupt his narration to toss him a napkin and then, while he tried to fight a new grin coming over his lips, he went on. "They do that more or less to prove to everyone just how good they are at Newport and for the last 30 years only Newport has won the trophy. I don't like Newport and between you and me I don't like Admiral Dent who runs the College. Your former special friend Lt. Clusen was a graduate of Newport and that should illustrate best how they act. I don't like this kind of elite breeding. I prefer earned excellence while doing a real job over this Ivy League, ivory tower elitist attitude with which they indoctrinate their graduates. I didn't like it when I was a cadet, so long ago at Quantico where I had to deal with holier-than-thou cadets from a place called West Point, and I don't like it now.
"But they produce results and no one seems to be able to beat them. Captain Harris was kicked out of Newport and was told he would never amount to anything. So it won't surprise you when I tell you he has an even greater dislike for that place.
Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 7 Page 45
