"Don't be stupid. Think about it. Second Team didn't die, and all of them except the Team leader were highly positive—more than Kurt. Well," he said, waving his chins at the screen, "at least they didn't die here—they died back on our side. How much do you want to bet that the only First Team member who didn't change his psych profile was the TL?"
"I don't understand."
"Figures. Try thinking about it."
"Wait! They . . . didn't think of you and me as people."
"You're beginning to get it, Emmy." The Dutchman chuckled. "We learned enough down there, just enough to work it out. Remember the greeting that the leader of the aliens gave McCaw?"
"Something like 'We'll give you what you want,' no?"
"Close enough. Hey, Emmy," he said, like an idea had just struck him, "you want a beer?"
It's strictly against regs to drink on duty. And since there were two of us in the scout, one of us had to be on duty.
"Sure." But a spaceside watch isn't something that you really need to be completely sober for, and a beer was going to do me good. Besides, the Dutchman had told me not to quote regs at him.
He leaned over toward the server and punched up a couple of frosty bulbs, tossing the yellowy one to me, saving the purplish one for himself.
I opened mine and took a deep drink, careful of the way it tended to bubble out of my mouth. Usually, I don't like drinking anything bubbly in low-gee, not even out of a bulb—it feels as if I get more in my nose than in my mouth.
"Tell me, Emmy—what do you think Buchholtz wanted, more than anything else in the world?"
I sat back and thought on it for a while. No rush, no rush at all, dammit. Nothing I could say or could think of would bring either of them back. "Maybe . . . maybe he really wanted to die in combat."
"Bingo. That was Kurt. I knew that from the moment I met him, way back when. He was more of a kraut than you are, kid; wanted to die gloriously, in battle final. Kurt Buchholtz was always a Götterdämmerung, looking for a place to happen. The natives gave him that place—just like he wanted."
"And McCaw?"
"C'mon, kid, it's even more obvious about Ari McCaw. He was always bored with the real world. They gave him that way out." Norfeldt rubbed a hand across his face. "Somehow or other, they've developed an esper society based on giving everyone what he wants. And if you've got a strong enough stomach, you'd have to admit that they gave Kurt and Ari what they wanted. A kind of justice, really." He shrugged. "That's the way it goes."
"But that means we don't have to Drop! We don't have to blow up the Gate."
The Dutchman didn't like wireguns; he usually carried an old-fashioned Colt & Wesson point-forty-four Magnum. The "forty-four" comes from the old-fashioned measurements of the diameter of the cartridge; it comes to just a bit more than a centimeter across.
It looks larger when a fat man is holding it in his hand, not—quite—pointed in my direction.
It looked like a cannon, is what it looked like.
"Yes, Emmy, we do have to Drop it. And we will, understood? Any further discussion on the matter is going to get you gigged for insubordination, if I don't shoot you down where you stand. You got me, shithead?"
"Yes, sir."
"Granted, it's not the way I'd like to do it—if I had my way, we'd bring Magellan back through the Gate, unleash a worldwrecker, and blow that dirtball to bits. But there's no way I can count on that, so we're going to take the sure way."
"I . . . don't understand."
"That's because you're still green, Emmy. If you started giving everybody what they want, too damn many millions of them would end up like Kurt and Ari—or worse. Justice." He snorted as he shook his head sadly. "Ever ask anyone, back at the Academy, why all Contact Service people are officers? No enlisted. Why?"
I quoted from memory. "'The responsibilities of each and every member of the Contact Service are—'"
"No. It's because we're not really military, Emmy. We're cops.
"Go ask a cop sometime, kid. Ask him whether he thinks people need justice. Or mercy."
Interlude
Destination: Second no First Lieutenant Manuel Curdova, Tee Double-you TWCS,
CENSORED
Contact Service Administrative Bureau Building 5, Level Sub-two
Very New York
Routing: I800RQW5R43EE83 change those Os to zeros
Origin: Second Lieutenant Emile von du Mark, TWCS Aboard TWS MAGELLAN (#LC2-559)
Subject: Personnel no eye said personal, you
CENSORED
File
Created: 3 September 2241
if this machine doesn't start listening better it's going to take me more time to clean up this letter than it should to write it in the first CENSORED place and the CENSORED pause button only works when you're pushing down on it? and what is this censored CENSORED question mark
Ridiculous besides this censorship program is a
CENSORED piece of
CENSORED—this is private mail, not
start again and I've got to check out whether or not this thing is hooked into Magellan's main computer mmm appears not which is typical service nonsense they're more concerned about me saying CENSORED than they are about me talking about how you build a grmpmhl
can't even say it
at least eye can talk honestly though with nobody listening
Manny,
CENSORED but eye hate this typewriter—why are all military models half deaf? I would have brought my own, but I've spent most of my life being being hassled for being a rich kid; eye figured I'd try and avoid it here. Not that it matters. The Dutchman gives everyone trouble, regardless of race, creed, or what-CENSORED-ever. Paragraph. CENSORED you I hit the bloody punctuation button. CENSORED thing must have been stuck—try again.
Better. Hmm, can eye say bloody question mark.
Start again.
Many
har rumph!!!
Manny,
It took me more than three hours to drag the routing code out of the ship's computer. Methinks that Magellan's skipper takes this isolation bit too far. It would be nice if he'd just let us access the damn user's manuals, for God's sake!
Norfeldt and I have just finished the en route portion of our psych testing, and have been cleared by the computers. Seems that I still hate stewed carrots and love parboiled spinach, so I must be sane—well, crazy in the way that the service likes, anyway.
Yes, I've met the Dutchman. I don't know why, but I'd always had an image of the famed feared CENSORED Major Alonzo Norfeldt as being somewhat taller—he's actually an average-height fat man. Although he's not necessarily quite as soft as he appears; if a weak man were to actually fire that point-forty-four Magnum of his, it'd him knock head over heels.
Like eye did to that bastard Brubaker, or that blond hooker with the uneven CENSORED did to you ellipsis
CENSORED—...
Sorry. The punctuation button seems to be sticking, although the inflection routines are working awfully well for a military model. Doesn't matter—I'll clean this up later, you'll never see it. But you're going to see some expletives in here that you'll think a bit too mild for your old buddy Emile, since I'm not going to have half my favorite adjectives be CENSORED censored Trust me, and substitute appropriately.
In any case, the Dutchman is an interesting person, for an CENSORED. I'm not sure that I don't believe that he really believes that humanity'd be better off if we just blew away every sentient species we ran into, instead of trying to Contact them.
But he may. Me, I'm still conservative old Emile, who accepts the Contact Service philosophy that we'll have enough to answer for, whenever we blimp into a really advanced civilization.
Enough of that. I'm getting philosophical in my dotage, of all things. Ridiculous.
We just had a delivery, and we're still docked with the mailboat, so I'm going to have to hurry this. I may not have time enough to completely clean it up.
In any case, the new A
LSERV was on the mail-boat. Congratulations, First Lieutenant. As soon as I hit Vee en why cee—VNYC, we're going to drink up a good quarter of my trust's interest and celebrate—matter of fact, if you can access Magellan's TOA, feel free to make some appropriate reservation's at Virgin Mary's, and we'll get ourselves properly swived.
Hey! That worked. Wheee!
In any case, don't worry about allowing me time for rest. Rest is all I'm getting—sometimes (like about twenty times an hour close parenthesis I wish that the Contact Service allowed woman officers. Either that, or we'd stayed in the Navy. Remember Ella what ever her name was from New Haven? I swear she could
Mmmmm, never mind.
If this wasn't going on flimsey, eye wouldn't say this, but I'm working on getting a look at the rating Norfeldt gave me, but so far I haven't been able to crack the codes. Again, if I had my own machine with me, I'd probably be able to—the service can't use the heavy-duty codes for personnel records, can they?
I know. You can't answer that, and won't.
You're going to find this hard to believe, but I'm actually losing at poker. Yes, me. The Dutch man plays five-card stud better than even that kid who dropped out in our second year—what was his name?
Nevermind.
In any case, let us coupling get down to the main body of the message, which is that eye have gone through FIRST no first no First CENSORED Assignment and have come out okay, although Captains McCaw and Buchholtz did not, either of them. Requiescat in pochem. Open parenthesis Got the air of a female dog. I know I pronounced the latin correctly, but it didn't spell it right. I'm going to take along my own machine on the next job and to CENSORED with this machine.)
As I was saying, I've gotten through First Assignment intact. There are times when I almost wish I was a bit less hot with the stick and pedals, though; the weak pilots get the nice, safe, First Team photo surveys, where the worst that'll happen to you is a case of low-gee acne.
I said almost, Manual
That's not right, either. Manny, when we're both wearing stars, we've got to see if we can arrange to have whoever ordered these writers shot. In the kneecap, to start with.
Speaking of First, we've gotten orders for a quick orbital survey of an M-zero, which promises to be dull. I suppose there'll be some leave sometime after that; although there's going to be a thousand cheapjack stars Gated this year, until we get a comm officer and a weapons officer assigned, I doubt that we'll get any Second or Third jobs.
Yeah. Third. I don't know what it is, but there's something about being Third Team that I like.
Maybe because it's important, dammit. At least, it damn well had better be.
In any case, congratulations again. I’ll write again soon, honest.
One question, though—why didn't we take the court-martial?
All they could have done was shoot us.
Well
Hey the mailboat's leaving in three minutes minus a scant Emmy you might think about moving your CENSORED and get your CENSORED letter on it thanks major I should print out and I mean
File Transmitted; 3 September 2241
TRAINING GROUND
I
Puffing on another of his cigars, the Dutchman waddled into Magellan's Rec Room, a compboard under one arm, a bottle of some possibly nontoxic Chianti under another. He was clean, for once—directly out of the shower, wrapped in four of the seemingly endless supply of huge, fluffy Navy-issue towels that came with Magellan's Rec level.
"How they hangin', Emmy?" he said, as he seated himself across from me at the table and popped the cork. He took a quick swig and smacked his lips, then flicked cigar ash on the floor and stuck the moist end back in his mouth.
I was tempted to ask if he'd ever made a mistake and stuck the lit end between his lips, but he might have figured that for a wish—which it was—and gigged me for insubordination.
"I'm fine, sir," I said. I shut down my compboard and rubbed at my tired eyes. I had been busy working on a Qualification Course—Logistics; if there's anything duller, I don't want to have to study it—and any excuse to take a break was welcome.
Well, almost welcome; the Dutchman was barely an exception.
"Entirely a matter of opinion." He puffed another cloud of foul smoke in my direction. "That all depends on this—I've been working on your Quarterly, and amusing myself with your Pers file."
That last is nonreg: accessing a Personnel file without proper need is, technically, a court-martial offense. On the other hand, a commanding officer presumably has the need to know anything and everything on record about his subordinates. On another hand, the purpose is supposed to be to help him do his job better; strolling through Personnel records isn't supposed to be a hobby.
I've run out of hands, but I wasn't about to try and do anything about it: tattling on senior officers about trivial offenses isn't known to do a lot of good for junior officers' careers.
Besides, everybody I know in the Service seems to spend inordinate amounts of time cracking, or trying to crack, computer security systems. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it is traditional.
He furrowed his brow for a moment. "Trouble is, I can't seem to find any paper on you before you showed up at Alton—either the data ain't onboard or I can't access it. You were a transfer from New Haven?"
"That's right." In a manner of speaking. . . .
"Asshole." Norfeldt smiled. "I thought you were a dumbass kraut, but now I know it."
"Sir, I am not German. My family has been Austrian for more than two hundred years, sir."
"And the transfer? To the CS? If that doesn't make you a dumb shit, what does?"
I snorted. "I had a hell of a choice, Major. Either transfer or sit down at a Naval court-martial. I didn't think I'd like ten years at hard labor on Thellonee . . . so I picked the CS transfer."
One moment of letting my anger loose . . .
"Oh? Tell me about it."
"I'd rather not."
The Dutchman raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, Emmy. I guess I must be hearing things—you disobeying a direct order, shithead?" He jerked his head at my coffee cup. "Take a swig and start spewing it out. From the beginning, Mister."
An order is an order.
Of course, there are usually more ways than one to obey an order, unless the giver is very careful. "Yes, sir. To begin: my Grosspapa was born in Vienna—"
"Shut up, Mister. A touch of white mutiny, eh?" He downed some more Chianti. "I wouldn't, Emmy, I really wouldn't. Start again, and take it from where you arrived at the Naval Academy."
I thought it over for a moment. I could go into such detail that I'd never get past the first day, or . . .
Oh, to hell with it. Why not? "Sure, Major. I arrived by copter . . ."
II
A klick below, the grounds of the Thousand Worlds Naval Academy were white, green, and gold, clusters of low granite buildings spread out over the grass, cupping the sandy beach of New Haven harbor.
I eased over the cyclic and gave it a bit more throttle as I banked the Hummingbird for a better look.
And instantly caught a buzz on the comset.
new haven control flashed on the heads-up display.
"VNYC 401, we show you as deviating from your logged flightpath. Is it a wind gust, or are you having, ahem, 'autopilot difficulty'?" the firm contralto said, the voice carefully larded with just the slightest bit of sympathy, as well as the sarcasm.
"Negative, Long Wharf. No problem."
I switched off my throat mike and allowed myself a light chuckle. She must have been a pilot, too, and understood that I wasn't having any kind of difficulty at all. One minute after I'd taken off from Koch, the moment that radar showed that I was safely outside the cluttered VNYC approaches, I'd set the deadman on the yoke, then toed the bandit switch and put the copter on full manual, not the so-called "computer-assisted" version that only lets you think you're flying.
I like fly-by-wire—as long as there's sufficient feedback to the st
ick—but copters don't need all that computerized stabilization gunk the way frontswept airframes or variwings do.
Even if real flight was illegal, it wasn't really unsafe, no matter what the regs said. If, say, I suffered a stroke or heart attack—and never mind how an eighteen-year-old in perfect health is going to suffer a stroke or a heart attack—my hand would slip off the yoke, popping the deadman and bringing the Hummingbird's flight computer back fully online.
In any case, as long as I didn't deviate too much from the flight path or exceed speed limits by too much, I'd be unlikely to be called on it. Even if I was, so what? I was reporting as a cadet candidate at the CS Naval Academy, and from the moment I'd left Graz I had been officially under TW military discipline; I wasn't subject to the laws of the North America Federation, and neither the NAFAA, the NAFBI, nor the local police could touch me; all they could do would be report me. The Navy would be unlikely to want to punish a pilot for insisting on really flying.
Hmm . . . the ATC sounded nice; if she was as pretty as she sounded, it might be worthwhile to get her phone code.
I turned the mike back on. "I repeat, negative, no problem. Just a wind gust," I said, damning myself as my voice cracked, and dropping the idea of asking for her code. I was eighteen, dammit—that was supposed to have stopped.
I toed the bandit switch off, then thumbed the GCA on. I don't have anything against computers—for one thing, they handle final approaches in traffic much more safely than humans can.
I thumbed the mike again. "Request landing vector."
As I let my hand come off the deadman, both the cyclic and collective went dead on me while the pedals retracted.
The Hummingbird took a slight lurch to starboard, away from the field; I dropped my hands and looked out the window.
A thousand meters away, the regular VNYC noon copter was already down, its front-and-back rotors grinding down into visibility. I gave the von du Mark eagle on its broad side a halfhearted salute. I have never liked Sikorsky Whales, but then I've never had the chance to really fly one—inspections for larger craft are both more frequent and more severe than for small ones, and being a biological backup for a computer has never excited me.
Emile and the Dutchman Page 4
