by S MacDonald
‘I’m fine,’ he told Buzz, who smiled back warmly.
‘I know that,’ he said, and indicated the screen on which he was reading through his own mail. ‘But I need a word.’
‘Oh.’ Alex realised that he’d assumed that Buzz was concerned about him, and reoriented, ‘Sorry – yes, of course.’
They moved into the daycabin, just beyond the airlock, and closed the door. And, two minutes later they came out again, Alex still laughing, chuckling and grinning hugely as he resumed his place at the table.
Buzz grinned too – one of his correspondents had conveyed a lively account of Admiral Jennar addressing the Senate Sub-Committee which oversaw the Fourth. This was a rare achievement for the Third Lord. One of the things he resented and was always bucking to get around was that it was Dix Harangay who represented the Fleet on that committee and Admiral Jennar couldn’t get to have his say. This time, however, the First Lord had been unexpectedly accommodating. The Sub-Committee was to consider Ambassador Gerard’s request for Captain von Strada to be relieved of his command responsibilities. Dix Harangay had passed on Admiral Jennar’s request to also be permitted to address the Sub-Committee on this matter, and Admiral Jennar had been duly invited to participate.
It was no small thing, attending a Senate Sub-Committee. Just getting into the Senate building required special passes and rigorous security checks, with escorts to the places you were permitted to go. Senate Sub-Committees, too, did not sit in meagre little offices but in one of the many committee venues with which the Senate was endowed. The Fourth’s Sub-Committee sat in the suite primarily used by the Fleet and Armed Forces committees. It was in one of the older parts of the building, with the stone buildings and courtyards which had been fashionable eight hundred years before. The committee room itself was draped with priceless historical wall-hangings. The tall windows still had the original glass, through which could be seen the tight formality of the courtyard garden. Inside, carved tables were arranged in a circle, each on its own plinth around a central floor space in which there was an intricate mosaic of the ancient arms of Cartasay. You could feel, even smell, the centuries of League history.
There was ceremony, too – people didn’t just stroll in and sit down with a takeaway coffee. There was something of the ritual of courtroom about it. Behind each plinth was a workstation where anything up to twenty of the Senator’s staff could be working, some taking notes, others passing files up to the Senator’s desk whilst others were busy on calls, silent within privacy fields. When the Senators and Non-Voting Members entered, the Clerk of the Committee called for silence and everyone stood up. Once each Senator and Non-Voting Member had taken their place – strictly according to precedence within the committee – proceedings ensued at a stately pace, with all remarks addressed through the Chair.
The Chair of the Fourth’s Sub-Committee was Senator Terese Machet. She had travelled with the Fourth herself briefly, on a fact-finding visit during which she’d taught Alex quite a lot about how the Senate and its various committees actually worked. Alex had appeared before that Sub-Committee himself, and knew what it was like to be escorted in to that great chamber, to make his salute to the Chair and be led to one of the seats reserved for Strangers. It made you feel both very grand and humble to walk onto that plinth. Alex, having had that experience, had no difficulty imagining Third Lord Jennar striding in, making his salute and seating himself with victorious pomposity. He would have been brought in specifically for that part of the meeting to discuss Ambassador Gerard’s request, and must wait until he was asked questions or invited to address the committee.
As Buzz’s correspondent had reported, though, Cerdan Jennar had only uttered two words – ‘yes ma’am’. This had been in response to the Clerk of the Committee tabling Admiral Jennar’s memorandum in support of Ambassador Gerard’s application, at which Terese Machet had asked him to confirm that he had sent it to them. The only other thing he’d said, if it could be considered speaking, was the gobbling noise he’d made when the Clerk of the Committee came to escort him out again.
Between the two, Terese Machet had been utterly annihilating.
‘It is understandable, if tedious, for Ambassador Gerard to make ongoing efforts to secure Captain von Strada’s services for the Diplomatic Corps. It is natural and right, too, for First Lord Admiral Harangay to resist those efforts and retain the captain in Fleet service. By what impertinence you seek to instruct the Sub-Committee on this or any other matter is an entirely different affair. How dare you presume to address this Sub-Committee in direct opposition to the views of the Fleet’s appointed Member? This is not the first time you’ve sought to address this Sub-Committee with views counter to the Fleet’s official position – you’re in deep waters, playing politics, and it must stop, understood? In the unlikely event that we want your opinion, on this or anything else, you will be subpoenaed to appear. Other than that, understand now, once and for all, you are not the First Lord of the Admiralty, he is. And as for you, Admiral Harangay, kindly desist from bringing this person before us again.’
Dix had issued a graceful apology as the gobbling Cerdan Jennar was shunted from the room. Nobody would have guessed from her tone that it had been Terese herself who’d told Dix to let the Third Lord come and table his memo. If you were going to play politics, you’d better have ten aces up your sleeve before you even sat down at the table with Terese Machet.
Alex had no doubt, too, that Terese knew that one of her staff had written privately to Buzz with a verbatim account of what had been said. That was naughty – the only reports from inside Committee rooms were supposed to be the official minutes, which Dix Harangay would get and only pass on to Alex what he considered appropriate. Alex himself, by the same mailing, had received official notification that the matter had been adjourned, pending the receipt of a report from His Excellency Ambassador Ganhauser. At the bottom of this, Dix Harangay had added the reassuring comment, Business as usual.
‘Ah hmmn.’ Alex brought his giggles under control, though Buzz himself was still sniggering happily. People on the command deck were looking at them, longing to know what was so funny but knowing, too, that Buzz wouldn’t have taken the skipper to the cabin to tell him whatever it was, if it was something that could be shared. And, tempting as it was to put that delicious account on the notice board, Alex resisted temptation and settled back down to his work.
It was a couple of hours later that he was called in to sickbay, where he spent a few minutes talking to Commander Mikthorn.
Commander Mikthorn was confused. He’d woken up in sickbay, remembered what had happened and spent some time wishing it was possible to die of embarrassment. Then he’d got angry about it, objecting to having been sedated by the rating who had slapped a band on him. His most urgent concern, as always where medical treatment was concerned, was that he should not be defined as unfit for duty on grounds of stress. All right, he conceded, he had got upset, but knocking him out with sedatives had been totally over the top and hadn’t even been done by a doctor, just a rating, so it shouldn’t count as having been officially sedated at all.
Rangi, though, was having none of it. The rating who’d administered the sedative was a qualified paramedic and had given the drug because the diagnostic band had required it, and Rangi himself would have done exactly the same. It had not been an elective treatment at that point – it was psychologically like being in explosive decompression, action had to be taken and it had to be taken fast. As for not recording it as an incident defining him as unfit for duty, on the contrary, Rangi intended to sign him off as such not only from today but back-dating that to the day he’d come aboard.
‘I told you then, and I’ve been telling you all along,’ Rangi said, ‘that it was not just physical exhaustion, that you are suffering from clinical stress and anxiety manifesting as paranoid hysteria. Your refusal to accept that diagnosis and continue working has been made against medical advice and, just as I warned you, you have
now pushed yourself into a complete breakdown. You’re feeling all right now because we’ve given you the medication needed to stabilise and calm you, but you are, as of now and until I say otherwise, signed off on medical stand-down. And I am backdating that to the date of your arrival, no argument about it.’
It took Commander Mikthorn some time to understand that Rangi was doing that in order to protect him. If he was deemed to have been unfit for duty during the whole of his stay on the ship then no disciplinary proceedings could be taken against him for anything he’d done while he was there. This included not only his abortive effort to leak anti-Fourth statements to the media and his ill-considered attempt to lobby the Ambassador but also covered the defamatory nature of the various reports, memos and letters he’d been firing off while he’d been here.
It was kind of him, but Commander Mikthorn felt in honour bound to refuse, to stand up like a man and face the consequences of what he had done.
When he said that to Rangi, though, he got nowhere.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ said Rangi. ‘You’re not well – I’ve been telling you that all along. You’re stressed out, exhausted, function-impaired – there isn’t a medic in the Fleet would certify you as professionally responsible right now. So if you feel inclined to write to the First Lord and tell him he looks like a rabbit, feel free.’
This was a traditional Fleet joke, and though it didn’t raise a smile from Commander Mikthorn it did make his position clear to him. He was not professionally responsible, so whatever he said, or did, or wrote, there would be no disciplinary comeback.
‘I’m fine,’ said Commander Mikthorn, but feebly, and they both knew that he was not going argue against the stand-down, not really. He did, however, continue to argue against it being backdated, till Rangi called the skipper in to back him up.
‘Difficult one, that,’ Alex mused, when Rangi had put his side of things and Commander Mikthorn had made a painfully stilted objection. He was mortified even at being in Alex’s company. ‘The difficulty is that we in the Fleet are so very much aware of the damage it does to an officer’s career to be stood down for stress that we will often go too far the other way – even when someone comes staggering through the airlock and collapses, even when it is entirely obvious that they’re so bugged out they can hardly think straight, so long as they refuse treatment and keep saying ‘I’m fine!’ we pretend to accept it, just keep them away from machinery and give non-medical care. There are, clearly, serious issues with putting career over health needs, and there does come a point in that when we need to say, responsibly, enough is enough, your health must come first. We’ve reached that point now, obviously, and a good thing too, since you can now get the medication and treatment you need. As for backdating it, I wouldn’t dispute Dr Tekawa’s decision on a medical matter in any case, but speaking as a non-medical observer I have to say that it has been entirely obvious throughout your stay here that you are in no fit state to be conducting professional affairs. So just, please, accept that with good grace – and that is an order, Commander.’
Commander Mikthorn could only say ‘yes sir’, so he said it.
Confusion, however, remained. He was conscious of feeling several different and even contradictory emotions, a state of mind in which Silvie was advised to keep well out of his way. There was humiliation at having collapsed like that, which he felt was a disgraceful way for a Fleet officer to behave. There was despair, too, at how this would end his Fleet career, not with the prestige of having been headhunted by the Second, but with a quiet retirement from ill health. Since he only had four months to go before he was due to retire anyway, they might just put him on leave till then, but there would be meetings with Fleet personnel, medical reports, negotiations about sickness compensation and his pension. It was a wretched, dreary prospect. At the same time, though, there was an odd feeling of relief. It was over; all his struggling to keep going and get on top of things could just stop. It meant giving up, of course, giving up on everything he’d been trying so desperately to achieve, but he was so very tired, so very drained by it all, that to be allowed to give up and not worry about any of it any more was like a gift of rest and freedom.
With all that going on in his head, he really wasn’t sure himself how he felt or what he wanted. He found himself following the path of least resistance, allowing Rangi to look after him. There was more sleep, which was nice, and the inevitable bowl of tea sitting in the healing circle, which was less so.
‘I’m going to discharge you from sickbay,’ Rangi told him, having got him sipping a particularly noxious herbal brew, ‘You’re already wearing a monitor and the meds we’ve given you will stabilise your neural function. It will make you feel very tired – don’t worry, that’s normal, it’s down-time for you to recover. You’ll be on complete rest for four days – nothing more strenuous than a gentle walk, lots of sleep, do not watch the news, fictional reading only and do not even think about opening any files or official correspondence. I will deal with all of that on your behalf, returning mail with the advisory that you are on stand-down backdated to your arrival here. I’d like to backdate it to the time when you left Telathor because I’m as sure as I can be that that’s when you became so stressed you were no longer making fully reasoned and rational decisions, but I can’t do that, I didn’t see you then, so I can only certify you from the time you came into my care. Anyway, four days of complete rest, then a week on convalescent rehab, and then we’ll see how you’re doing.’
Commander Mikthorn worked that out, rather slowly because he seemed to be trying to think with lukewarm porridge where his brain ought to be. He almost needed to use his fingers to work out the days.
‘What about the Minnow?’
He was due to leave in three days. The Stepeasy’s tender would be coming for him – an embarrassment in itself, since it drew attention to the fact that even the thought of making that journey by shuttle made him sick with fear. The tender was to take him to the corvette, which was due to depart for Oreol now that the patrol ship had come in to relieve them. It was not a journey that he wanted to make. The thought of it, of being on the tender and then the ship, was bad enough. The prospect of having to face people at Oreol just made him cringe inside. He could remember only too well how he had thrown his weight about there, pretty much banging his fist on tables and absolutely insisting on his right to come out to the Fourth. It would be beyond embarrassing going back there like this. He didn’t even want to think about what he would have to face when he got back to Telathor, and then beyond that the long, weary haul back to Chartsey.
‘What? No, sorry.’ Rangi said, with decision. ‘No way, Endru. I will not discharge you from my care until you’re fit for travel, and that won’t be for at least two weeks, so forget about the Minnow.’
Again, there were warring emotions – anxiety about the embarrassment of staying here where all those people had seen him in a hysterical collapse, versus the ordeal of having to go back to Oreol. Then it occurred to him that he didn’t have any say in it anyway so there was no point worrying over which would be best.
‘All right,’ he said, surrendering to the apathy which was enveloping him in a slightly foggy, drowsy cloud.
It was embarrassing, going back to his cabin. It couldn’t be anything else, though Rangi went with him and the few Fourth’s people they met just gave him friendly nods. Some of the civilian observers were in the lounge and there was some awkward staring and an even more awkward attempt to cheer him up.
‘You’ll be fine!’ The former army officer now serving with the SDF clearly felt that a bracing heartiness was called for, all but slapping the commander on the arm. He was speaking just a little too loudly, emphatically, as if he thought that Commander Mikthorn was slightly deaf. ‘Rangi will soon have you right, you’ll see!’
It was better once he was in his cabin. Rangi brought him something to eat and saw to it that he was settled and comfortable. He’d put a movie on before he left, an
d when he’d gone Commander Mikthorn just lay curled on the sofa snugged under the blanket Rangi had put over him. He couldn’t quite understand why there was a movie about talking squirrels playing on the comscreen, but it seemed far too much of an effort to turn it off and an impossible task to think of anything else he would want to watch or read. It didn’t feel particularly pleasant to lie there, drifting – it didn’t feel particularly anything. He just felt half asleep, the undemanding movie washing over him without the need for thought.
He was like that for the rest of the day – Rangi popped in later with more food and to see him into bed, and even though he’d slept so much that day already, he was out like a light before Rangi went out. For most of the next day, too, he dozed on the sofa. By the evening, he was sufficiently alert to be aimlessly flicking through the menu of movies and light programmes Rangi had set up for him, rolling round and round them without caring what was on.
The day after that, he had visitors – Tan, of course, who’d been wanting to see him since his collapse and only waiting until Rangi said it was okay. What he wanted to do was apologise, to explain that he was really sorry if anything he’d done had put more pressure on him, that he should have understood that there was more to this than Snowball Syndrome – an arrogant assumption on his part, presuming to a diagnosis and attempting his own kind of treatment.
