Anstruther’s commentary, as her letters back home, was matter of fact and devoid of detail, as if she was afraid of letting any of her personality shine. In her school reports, I saw that her teachers had noted the tendency toward shyness, but she was a hard worker who earned praise for precision and diligence. I made a note to myself to find something to praise as often as I could. The gesture could help lift her toward greater efforts. I would be proud to have her as an executive officer on a future command of my own.
I regretted that my current situation prevented me from spending quality time with my fellow junior officers outside of the dining room, or making the acquaintance of the other brilliant minds whose work I felt a trifle guilty about erasing.
I respected the admiral a good deal more after reading through official dispatches he sent back to the Admiralty. He was precise, intelligent and possessed of a dry wit that must have been on the short list of how he attained command of the North Star Fleet. I had to remind myself he was corresponding with my mother. Even the admiral could fall into dullness when engaged upon the necessary bureaucracy of his position. Knowing that thanks to my password I would not be detected if I read his mail, I sought to dip into the private section of his Infogrid page.
The list of messages sent, even since the last purge, was long. His personal correspondence was nearly as copious as my own. I thought I wouldn’t be able to resist, but respect kept me from opening any of the messages. It had been enough to skim the list of his correspondence. I was about to leave the section, feeling perhaps that a man with as many cares on his mind as Podesta was entitled to keep his personal thoughts private, when I spotted a familiar address. The admiral was corresponding with my mother! This could bode no good for poor Thomas, I thought in alarm. I brought up the segment to read.
“Dear Tariana,” it began.
Honk! Honk! Honk! Sirens blared out of the speakers surrounding my station. The screen turned red, obscuring the print thereon. Everyone in the room turned to look at me, and Wotun came running. Scarlet as the display itself, I sprang to my feet.
“It was an accident,” I said as Wotun swooped past me.
“I very much doubt that, Mr. Kinago.” With a single wave of her identification stud, she brought up a usage history on my station. I reddened further when she realized how much I had been reading of the other people’s confidential Infogrid files. She met my eyes squarely. “Please stop exercising your curiosity, Ensign. You are here to delete the files in the common pool.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I exclaimed, slamming the side of my hand into my forehead.
Wotun tilted her head to one side, her lips twisting to one side. I felt sweat bead on my face. Would she report me? Would I end up on worse punishment duty? My stomach twisted at the thought of a careerful of survival bars and isolation.
“The admiral,” she added, pointedly not looking at me as she closed a series of screens and returned me to the chat files, “has a restricted file, as do several other officers on this ship. There is a device on the top left of the screen, a blue shield. Keep that in mind. No more interruptions.”
“Yes, ma’am! Thank you, ma’am!”
I sat down, surprised and elated. She hadn’t forbidden me to snoop, just to remain out of certain boundaries. I took the point. I would confine my research to those of my rank or thereabout. I sent an admiring glance after the Junoesque officer, offering her silent devotion. She understood the ordinary longings of a curious mind. As long as regulations were nodded to, there was a good deal of leeway. I would approach my job with meekness, knowing that she was capable of mercy as well as sternness.
My finger tapped the delete command with the regularity of a woodpecker pursuing insects. I could see why the task plunged the average being into despair. The majority of the messages were ordinary to the point of being tedious. It took all of my concentration to stay on point as I was following the ramblings of a biomedical engineer to her friends, even though she was excited about the breakthrough she had made, and to her it was the most absorbing subject that had ever existed. All I had to do was make certain that protocols were adhered to, and that classified material was kept classified.
Some of the entries I located along the way did trouble me slightly. The odd message I encountered did skate dangerously close to flouting those regulations that Lt. Wotun had ordered me to follow. Here and there a correspondent had inserted an image of his or her workspace. In one very detailed image I realized that I could clearly read the settings on the pictured screen. Other messages listed technical statistics that seemed copied whole out of a manual, and had little or nothing to do with the cheerful gossip that flanked it. I acknowledged that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for the cut-and-paste, such as the writer having taken those details for use on his station and forgotten into what file he had copied them, but that was not my call to make. I duly flagged those items and continued.
It was inevitable that I began to recognize the writing styles of the finite number of servicebeings on the ship. Out of curiosity, I would guess whose message I was reading, then follow the code number back to its file. A human, noncommissioned officer in engineering (I guessed from context) had sent messages to a relative at home in the Ramulthy system in which he spoke obliquely about the weapons emplacements on board the Wedjet which, I judged from his complaints, he had to repair. His spelling was poor, as was his pronunciation. I assumed that he had risen to service on a major Imperial destroyer because of his skills. His lack of communication skills would keep him from rising farther. It was not difficult to distinguish the same being in other transmissions.
But some of those emplacements were considered classified, not only the location, but their very existence. During my brief training in Wedjet’s fire control section I had been instructed that these were secret, experimental units. They emitted no stray ions or radiation as long as they remained unused. I followed the train back to the sender’s Infogrid file, which was not protected from my scrutiny, and found all these messages were coming from the same human. He showed precious little judgment on matters of importance. The personal videos and images of himself he posted were ill-considered if he meant to spend his career in the Navy.
Since my meal breaks consisted of the inevitable survival bar, I had no reason to leave my station. I sipped water and chewed my tasteless bites while perusing the Infogrid files on the message-makers I found the most interesting. I could not conceal my research from Wotun, but I made certain to have an innocent screen ready to bring up should one of my fellow penitents pass by my station.
Lt. Alianthus served the three days left of her sentence without speaking to me. The Wichu, Dicox, still toiled away at the station beside mine. He never looked up at anyone else. I read the Infogrid on each of them, too, and learned a little about their lives. All of them seemed a trifle dull, or so I thought at first. I should not have been so quick to judge, even of those who were less well born than myself.
The crew of the Wedjet came from all over the Imperium. Most had excelled at their studies, and not a few graduated top of the class (among my fellows, the valedictorian was the one who had skipped the fewest sessions, and was top student by default rather than design). They were devoted to their families, sports, hobbies (as well as the blistering array of jokes), and with surprisingly penetrating things to say about their fellow beings. I promised myself to search out and befriend several of them who sounded interesting. To my delight, not a few of them already shared my table at dinnertime.
Sitting at the ensigns’ table that evening, with my survival bar on my plate, I regarded my companions in a new light, as the real nourishment. They were complete beings, not the one-sided junior officers they had at first appeared to me. Many of them were deep thinkers. With hidden tragedies. Redius could probably attribute his clownishness to having seen his mother shot dead by a crazed human from an inner system who hated all Uctu, not because ill had ever befallen him because of one, but simple, blin
d prejudice. I regarded him with sympathy, something that he had no means of understanding the source of. I realized I had to put away the information in a tight little compartment, instead drawing him out about his humorous observations about something else.
“Rising to appropriate station, I,” Redius replied, when I asked him about his duties. “Honored to oversee lowly spacers scrape and re-enamel the floor of the fighter bays, as was done before me just last week, and the week before. Getting most attached, me, to long pit in floor where recorder drone exploded many months ago, but said plate not due for replacement. Its dimensions becoming most dear to me. Should it change, a shock it would be.”
I chuckled. “I am getting used to the bulge in the padding in the back of my chair in Records,” I said. “It hits me just under the right shoulder blade. But enough about me.” I turned to Anstruther, who was toying nervously with her protein entrée. “What news on your project?”
She seemed surprised. “I, uh, well, we, uh, tested the energy outputs of the power plants. I calibrated the gauges. They were off by three microns.”
Xinu let out a snort. “And that will kill how many people?”
Anstruther looked hurt. I swooped in to her rescue. “It could be fatal, in battle situations,” I said. “Three microns represents three hundred thousand kilowatts, doesn’t it? Her precision is admirable. I’d never spot it.” Anstruther blushed with pleasure.
“Your diet’s making you boring,” Nesbitt said, lowering his brows at me. I was taken aback. He was correct. I was not behaving as I usually did.
I took a bite of my survival bar to give myself time to gather my wits. “Sorry not to be more fun,” I said plaintively. “It’s the food. It distracts me to smell those savory aromas and be unable to sample even a bite.”
“I’d give you some,” Anstruther said, bravely.
“Don’t!” I protested. “You’ll bring down the wrath of the admiral upon yourself. It’s bad enough I had to suffer it.” I tried to look pathetic.
“You brought it on yourself,” Xinu, my dark-avisaged friend, said. He waved a forkful of his dinner under my nose. I almost swooned. “You hide behind punishment to avoid showing me how superior you are in tri-tennis.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, blithely. “Normally I would have gotten off by now. I prefer to let you flounder in anticipation, so you will make plenty of faults when I finally face you. Too bad that there’s only a twenty-seven-fold grid here. I’m used to much better than naval issue.”
“It’s the best court in the fleet!” Xinu exclaimed.
“Oh, well, that makes it the largest frog in a small pond,” I said. “You’ll see.”
“If anyone is a frog, that big mouth of yours makes you look more like one than I do!” Xinu and I launched into our customary banter over skill and sportsmanship. I couldn’t tell him how I ached to try what was reported to be an excellent tennis grid, even by civilian standards, or any of the other sports facilities on board. I had sent my cameras out and about where I could not go. I regretted not having taken advantage of the Wedjet’s marvels before getting into the admiral’s bad books.
“You wouldn’t care to lay a small wager, would you?” I asked, as casually as I could frame the question. “First recreation period after my duty is done in Records, and I will scatter points around you like a whirlwind.”
“I’ll take that. You’re all talk. You nobles all are just talk.” Nesbitt smirked, spooning up the last of his fruit dessert. That was better.
We sensed rather than heard the admiral rising from his place and sprang up to attention as he departed the room. I felt myself sigh with relief. Another day of having Podesta ignore me was a good day in my books. Now that service was over, ordinary roboservers moved in to clear the tables, freeing the living staff to depart for their rest periods.
I felt guilty. I had not revealed a single word of what I had seen in the files, but my behavior was colored by it. I had deliberately pressed myself to behave as I had before. My knowledge of them must not come out in any way. That eight-digit code had changed me. The problem was that I knew too much, an ailment that I can truthfully say has never troubled me before in my life.
Before I could commit another fault, I felt a familiar tapping upon my shoulder. As usual, Parsons had managed to sneak up on yours truly. I didn’t jump far, being accustomed to it, but the severe look on his face gave me cause for concern.
“What is it, Parsons?” I asked.
“The admiral wishes to see you, sir,” he said. My tablemates smirked.
“I haven’t done anything!” I protested. My conscience was clear. I had not written down a single joke, and I had controlled myself mightily on the subject of my friends’ hidden pasts.
“You are not in trouble,” Parsons assured me. “He wishes to give you the assignment you have been awaiting.”
All my panic turned to preening, and my companions’ smug expressions sank into open, rampant jealousy. I wished them all a good night, and followed Parsons with alacrity. My mission! If I couldn’t see a spot of war, then an individual mission was good for bragging rights when I started to message home.
* * *
“. . . And you understand the limitations of your brief?” Admiral Podesta asked, as if he believed me incapable of comprehending the words he had spoken.
“I do, Admiral, sir!” I exclaimed, saluting neatly. I continued to stare at the wall ahead of me. Young Thomas would not be caught out again in a lack of military etiquette. “I will be honored to represent the Imperium and your good self to the militia of Smithereen, Admiral!”
Podesta looked weary, I could see out of the corner of my eye. His eyebrows floated mid-forehead, too exhausted to arch high or scowl low. “All you are doing is reviewing the volunteers, Ensign. It is not a vital diplomatic or military assignment. As we are passing by this mining colony, it behooves me to send a representative to show that the militia is not forgotten. That is all. Commander Parsons assures me that you cannot foul—that this is well within your capabilities. I am taking his word for it. Don’t prove him wrong.”
I shot a look of gratitude to Parsons, who stood near the door at attention, his expressionless mien gazing toward nothing, then snapped my eyes forward again. “I won’t, Admiral! You will be proud of me.”
“At least don’t give me cause to send a message to your mother, that is all I ask,” Podesta said. “Report to the shuttle bay at oh-seven-hundred. Dismiss.”
“Sir!” I executed another brain-scrambling salute and spun on my heel.
Chapter 6
“And that, my friends, is the last word I will say on the subject. Vote to rejoin the Imperium,” Councillor Thirty said. Her curly red hair had wilted around her shoulders, and her face was pink with the effort of her speech. “It is the right thing to do.”
DeKarn looked wearily at the time. Of the forty councillors present, sixteen of them had taken up their full allotted time exhorting one another to convert his, her or its vote to that of the speaker. After every speech, she had called for another poll. The numbers had changed slightly now and again, but no clear majority for any of the three possibilities had emerged and, it seemed, never would. Her back ached, her eyes burned, and her head pounded. She was fighting not to be bored into nodding off. Nothing new was being said, except about Captain Sgarthad.
The Yolkovians kept fretting toward the closed door of the chamber, as if hoping for a glimpse of their rescuer. His image was constantly on one screen or another. DeKarn was getting weary of seeing it.
“The vote, please?” she said hoarsely. She recorded the results without looking at them and swept the number to Rengin.
“This is ridiculous!” Sixteen said, rising. Protests arose with him.
“You are out of order, Councillor!” snapped Bruke.
“Oh, what does it matter?” asked Six. He had messed his fancy hair into a bird’s nest from impatience. “I move we should interrupt the debate to listen to him. If he has some
thing new to say.”
“Seconded,” DeKarn said rapidly, to forestall another protest. They all knew that Councillor Sixteen was a patient and just man. If he had something to say, it was most likely worthwhile, and thank goodness!
“Thank you,” Sixteen said. He straightened his robe. “My friends, we are not going to agree, not so soon. How long did it take us to work out the details of our biennial market, and we all wanted that event! This is far more important. I move that we discuss our doubts and misgivings with the ambassador and hear what the Imperium has to offer. Then we can vote out of knowledge. It could be that there is no good reason but that we were once a part. If Shojan—”
“His Imperial Highness,” Twenty-Three interrupted, with peevish punctiliousness.
“—His Imperial Highness Shojan XII wants to redress the wrongs of the past, then it may sway some of you to change your minds.”
“Oh, anything to get me out of here before my next birthday!” snapped Ten. “I hear a ‘but’ in there. What is it?”
“I want to go back to the earlier discussion on having one face, one voice, to represent the council. We can be overwhelming as a body. To have one being acting on point would be more efficient than the full quorum. That person should conduct the interview with Ambassador Ben, and report back to us. We could even watch the interview remotely, as long as it is understood that our questions were to be submitted to our representative and not put directly. It wastes the good ambassador’s time and our own to do otherwise.”
“A fine idea,” DeKarn said. “I believed it to have merit. So did Twenty-Nine, whom I thought would be an excellent representative.”
“I rather thought I . . .” Sixteen said, looking hurt.
“You, too, would be a fine choice,” DeKarn said at once. “Very well, colleagues, what do you say?”
“Anything to get out of here,” Ten said. “So moved.”
“Second,” Six said, raising a finger.
The View from the Imperium Page 10
