Analog SFF, July-August 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Captain Halstead looked from the members to the trial counsel's table to the defense counsel's table. “The members will now deliberate. Do you anticipate difficulty in rendering findings, LCDR Nasser?"

  Nasser looked to either side at the other members. “No, Your Honor."

  "Then this court is closed and will reconvene at 1000 tomorrow in this same courtroom."

  After everyone else had left, Jen turned to Commander Carr. “I didn't realize my presence here would sandbag Major Hue as much as it did."

  Carr stretched and smiled. “I hoped for that and got more than I expected. But the game isn't over, Lieutenant. I never celebrate prematurely."

  Jen jerked her chin toward the judge's bench. “I was thinking, if they'd just charged Sharpe with disobeying an order, it probably would've got him nonjudicial punishment and he would've taken hits there. But they wanted to nuke him."

  "You're very likely right, lieutenant. But that's one of the perils of trying to classify too much. The right people, the ones who could've kept this from getting this far, didn't hear about it at all or heard too late to impose a little sanity on the process. Chief Sharpe might have been hammered because of that.” Carr yawned. “I'm not even sure what time-zone my body is in. I'll see you in the morning, Lieutenant."

  "Yes, ma'am.” Jen watched Carr leave the courtroom.

  * * * *

  "Have the members reached findings?” Captain Halstead asked.

  "We have.” LCDR Nasser passed over the data pad containing the findings to the bailiff, who carried it to the judge, who studied the pad before handing it back.

  "Chief Sharpe,” Halstead directed, “will you and your counsel stand up. LCDR Nasser, announce the findings, please."

  Nasser gave Sharpe an enigmatic look, then focused back on the data pad. “Chief Petty Officer Ivan Sharpe, this court finds you not guilty as to all charges and specifications."

  There was some more legal boilerplate to go through, but eventually Captain Halstead looked around the courtroom once again. “The court-martial is adjourned."

  As the judge, the members and Major Hue left the courtroom, Chief Sharpe turned to Jen and saluted her. “Thank you, ma'am."

  Jen returned the salute, shaking her head. “You and I both know what Lieutenant Sinclair would have done if I hadn't helped bail you out, Sheriff. You damned well better thank Chief Henga for saving your butt too."

  Sharpe's old grin finally returned. “The woman never listens to me."

  "Lucky you. Get back to work, Sheriff. Try to stay out of trouble from now on."

  "Yes, ma'am. Please give my regards to Lieutenant Sinclair."

  Jen waited while Commander Carr finished wrapping up paperwork with the court, uncertain if her role as assistant had wrapped up as well. When Carr finished and came back to the defense counsel's table she gave Jen a surprised look. “You're free, Lieutenant. I'm officially back on leave, while I try to find the quickest shuttle back to Earth."

  "I know some contacts who might help,” Jen suggested.

  "Do you know a decent place to eat while I work those contacts?"

  "Fogarty's is okay, if you don't mind being around a lot of ship drivers."

  Carr grinned. “Some of my favorite people are ship drivers. Can I treat you to a victory lunch?"

  "Thank you, ma'am.” They began walking out of the courtroom, Jen struggling with words she knew she had to say. “Commander, Paul always told me that you pulled your punches when you were prosecuting me. I never really believed him."

  Carr shook her head in denial, but didn't look at Jen. “I did my duty."

  "Which isn't always that easy to figure out, is it? But I saw what you did to that master chief. If you'd hit me like that, with all the stress I was under, I might've fallen apart."

  "I doubt that,” Carr remarked. “You stood up pretty well on 6 July. I've never thought of myself as being more intimidating than terrorists."

  "Don't sell yourself short, ma'am. Anyway, thanks for what you did for Chief Sharpe."

  Carr swept away Jen's thanks with a wave of her hand. “I'm still trying to balance the scales, Lieutenant. Besides, I wanted to see justice done in this case too. But if you need me again, you call me. Understand?"

  "Yes, ma'am.” Jen extended her hand. “Pax?"

  "Seriously?” Carr stopped, looking at Jen's offered hand, then smiled and shook it. “Thanks.” They started walking again. “How's Paul doing on Mars, by the way?"

  "Getting in trouble."

  "Big shock."

  "Yeah. You heard about the Utopia incident, didn't you?"

  Carr nodded. “I saw the transcripts, but I'd love to hear Paul's personal take on things."

  "Well, stuff started going wrong as soon as he got to Mars, starting with the surprise he got when he reported in..."

  Copyright © 2009 John G. Hemry

  * * * *

  "Not only do we measure the movement by the time, but also the time by the movement, because they define each other."—Aristotle

  "If people behaved in the way nations do, they would all be put in straitjackets."—Tennessee Williams

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Short Story: DUCK AND COVER by Don D'Ammassa

  We all have to try to understand our surroundings—usually with too little information.

  A lot of young men discovered who they really were during the Vietnam war, whether they were drafted or enlisted, fled to Canada or fled to the National Guard and other exemptions. When I disembarked in Cam Ranh Bay in June of 1969, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of myself and others, but my education was just getting started. And sometimes knowing the truth—or part of it anyway—has its drawbacks. When you stand in a crowd and realize that some of the people around you might not actually be people, it changes everything.

  During most of my tour, I was more afraid of my fellow Americans than of the Viet Cong. Four members of my battalion were killed in fights among themselves, while the Vietnamese only managed to slightly wound one tail gunner during those same eleven months. Boredom was one of the main problems; there wasn't much to do in Phu Hiep except sit around and drink or smoke pot. Boredom, booze, and automatic weapons are not a good combination in three-digit heat. You could tell who had which vice by walking between rows of hooches—the unfinished rooms in which we slept—after darkness fell and most of us were off duty. The drinkers were loud; the smokers were silent.

  I shared my hooch with two other guys: Chapman, who wanted to be a marine biologist, and Russell, the chaplain's assistant. We had smokers on our south side so we rarely heard a peep from them after dark, but unfortunately Elmer Colby was just beyond the north wall. Elmer was a hulking thug who'd joined the army to stay out of jail after one too many bar fights back in West Virginia. He was a heavy drinker and a nasty one. No one was willing to share quarters with him and even the officers avoided him.

  One night the three of us were sitting around talking. I had broken down my M-16 and was cleaning it—this section of the coastline was all sand and dust and M-16s tended to malfunction if they weren't pristine. Someone was fumbling around on the other side of the north partition. We didn't have walls, just eight-foot-high barriers separating each hooch from the next. We heard a sudden scratching sound and a moment later were reeling from the latest onslaught of Iron Butterfly played at maximum volume.

  I don't have anything against Iron Butterfly. After I got back to the States and a decent interval had passed, I picked up my own copy of In-a-Gadda-da-Vida and I still play it occasionally. But Colby had bought himself a cheap turntable and speakers by mail order and he only owned two albums, the other being Abbey Road by the Beatles. I like them even better, but when you hear the same two albums played over and over again, day after day, with the volume turned all the way up, even good music gets old very quickly.

  Russell sighed and stood up. “Guess I'll go over to the chapel and catch up on my paperwork."

  Chapman was a short-
timer, due to go home in another two weeks. Not much bothered him anymore, but he swore under his breath and started for the door. “I'll be back in a while."

  I would probably have followed except that I had a disassembled weapon spread all over my bunk. Doggedly, I finished cleaning the components as the album ended. There was a brief moment of blessed silence, then the Beatles began exhorting us to “come together.” I winced and began reassembling my weapon.

  All might still have been well if Colby hadn't been so thoroughly drunk. I had just locked a magazine into the M-16 and was putting my cleaning supplies away when a half-empty can of beer arced up over the partition and came down, with a splash, in the middle of my bunk. Why Colby would throw away a nearly full can of beer was never clear to me. Maybe it was too warm, or had gone flat, or he was just being more ornery than usual. In any case, it was very hot and humid, I had been on guard duty the night before and hadn't slept well, and I snapped. I picked the can up, rotated my body, and tossed it back where it had come.

  There was the brittle sound of impact and the music died. With deadly if inadvertent accuracy, I had scored a direct hit on Abbey Road, right in the middle of “Maxwell's Silver Hammer.” There was sudden, palpable silence from Colby's hooch.

  I was, frankly, befuddled. I had acted without thinking, and now my mind refused to consider the potential repercussions. I was still a bit dazed when Colby appeared at the door.

  "Kramer, I'm going to rip you a new asshole.” No matter how much he drank, Colby never slurred his words, and always seemed calm and unemotional. He could be falling down, semi-conscious, threatening to kill someone, but he would still speak clearly and without heat. And he didn't make idle threats.

  My M-16 was lying on the bunk and I picked it up. “Take one step inside that door and I'll shoot you through the kneecap."

  I know he heard me because his eyes blinked and his mouth tightened. He raised one foot and placed it deliberately on the threshold. “You ain't got the balls."

  I looked into his face and knew I wasn't going to be able to talk myself out of this. What I didn't discover until later was that not only had my return volley broken the record, but the still half full beer can had splashed down inside the turntable and shorted it out. “Try me,” I said, hoping that I sounded more sincere than I felt.

  Colby stepped through the doorway. Without hesitation, I turned the weapon in his direction and pulled the trigger. The round passed him at hip level and buried itself in the sandbagged bunker just beyond.

  Colby froze where he was. “You're lucky I'm a bad shot,” I said quietly, pleased that my voice remained level. “But I probably won't miss the next time."

  The only way to frighten off a madman is to act like you're madder than he is. Colby's face registered doubt for the first time and he stayed where he was. “You'd better watch your back, Kramer, because I'm not going to forget this."

  Somehow I managed not to shake visibly. We stared at each other for a few more seconds, and then he was gone. I was so relieved that I nearly passed out.

  * * * *

  There was a good chance that Colby would have forgotten the entire incident once he'd sobered up if it hadn't been for the broken record and turntable. I figured, rightly, that he'd be watching for a chance to get even. Or better than even. So I had to be circumspect. He wasn't due to rotate out of our battalion for almost six months, so that was no solution. I might have requested a transfer, but I had a comparatively soft job in a helicopter support unit, well away from combat, shielded from attack by a large Korean contingent whose encampment surrounded our base. I alternated between being clerking for the colonel and for the battalion intelligence officer, typing and filing rather than sweating in the field or helping to maintain the aircraft or dodging bullets. I liked it where I was.

  The alternative was to stay out of Colby's reach, at least when there weren't other people around, preferably an NCO or an officer. Colby was nuts, but not completely nuts. He wouldn't assault me if it would clearly result in disciplinary action. He could be patient when necessary, and I knew he was sly as well as violent.

  For the next couple of days I spent a lot of time in my two offices, “catching up” after everyone else was off duty. Actually, I always smuggled in paperbacks and read until late in the evening, then made my way circumspectly back to my hooch, lurking long enough to be certain Colby wasn't lying in wait. Several days passed in this fashion before I realized this couldn't go on. Sooner or later he'd outsmart me, or I'd be careless, or coincidence would put us together without witnesses. I could have gone to one of my superiors to complain, or maybe the chaplain, but they weren't likely to do anything except yell at Colby and make the situation worse. Apologizing and offering to pay for the turntable was not really an option. It would only have told Colby how much I feared retribution.

  If I wasn't going to leave, then Colby would have to go, and I'd have to help him along.

  Like I said, I did the clerical work for the S2 office. S2 was intelligence, of which we had very little—of the military kind anyway. Most of the documents in our files concerned members of the battalion rather than the Vietnamese. We had information on their criminal records while in the military, disciplinary histories, and other things you'd expect to find. We also had information I wasn't supposed to talk about. There were presently mail covers on half a dozen of our personnel. A mail cover is when they keep track of how much mail you get and record all the return addresses, but don't actually open anything. We also had a few pieces of actual correspondence that had been discarded and later retrieved. They were pretty much what you'd suspect, letters criticizing the war or President Johnson or the military authorities. There were typed reports from officers and enlisted men who had witnessed, or professed to have witnessed, disloyal or dubious acts. A lot of the smokers had notes about their drug use, although I noticed that no one bothered to report the heavy drinkers. There were also summaries of rumors, observations, even unsubstantiated opinions. I'd read all of them, and had yet to find a credible account suggesting disloyalty. Nevertheless, these files were reviewed on a regular basis and personnel were reassigned based on their contents.

  Clearly it would not do to add suggestions that Colby was a communist sympathizer, an anti-war activist, or anything similar. No one would believe it. So I had to be more subtle. I checked the activity log and confirmed that Colby's file had not been reviewed since Captain Wescott became our new S2 Officer, so I could add as much as I liked without raising suspicion. I could also alter the schedule so that it would be on his desk anytime I wanted. But what could I add to his file—currently empty of prejudicial material except for notes about three Article 15 disciplinary actions for missing roll call?

  I would have to become creative. Using his service record to make sure I had times and places recorded correctly, I composed observations by completely imaginary officers who suggested that Colby was selling government property on the black market, that he'd assaulted an officer under cover of darkness, and a couple of similar peccadilloes while stationed at Fort Dix and Fort Lee. Colby had briefly been assigned to a unit in Nha Trang before coming to Phu Hiep, and I wrote an official sounding report advising against charging Colby with selling a box of hand grenades to suspected enemy agents because there was insufficient evidence. “Subject should be closely watched, however, in view of the severity of the situation should the charges be accurate.” As an afterthought, I included a handwritten note to the effect that the two witnesses to this imaginary transaction had both been seriously beaten by an unknown assailant and had recanted their original testimony.

  Our previous company commander had finished his tour, so I used his name to append a note to his most recent evaluation. “There are persistent rumors that Private Colby has been seen fraternizing with the locals in unsupervised situations. Recommend that the situation be monitored.” A few other, more subtle alterations were designed to suggest that Colby would sell equipment, ammunition, even inform
ation without a second thought, which was probably true, although I didn't think he was bright enough to actually do any of the things I ascribed to him. It was enough to mark him as potential trouble, and support group commands like ours routinely provided involuntary reinforcements to the grunts in the field, or in this case, jungle.

  I also looked at his personnel jacket and noted his hometown, Walnut Falls, West Virginia. We had a form letter we used to request background information from civilian authorities and I ran one into the typewriter and filled in Colby's name. It wouldn't hurt to have something genuine in the file and Colby made no secret of the fact that he'd enlisted to avoid jail. I forged Wescott's signature and put it in the mail.

  Nothing happened for several days and I started to relax. Then I was careless one night and went out for a smoke without checking the lay of the land. Colby seemed to materialize out of nowhere and I was about to bolt when First Sergeant Grimes showed up, staggering drunk. I took his arm and offered to help him back to his quarters. Colby never said a word, but even his silence was eloquent.

  Two days later my request for background information came back. No such zip code, no such town. The information in Colby's jacket was wrong. I wasn't about to be defeated that easily, however. I faxed a request up the chain of command for a corrected jacket. Someone was on the ball for a change because a return fax was waiting for me when I got to the office the following morning. To my dismay, it also listed Walnut Falls as his hometown. But then I read the rest and my day brightened. Upon arriving in Cam Ranh Bay, Private Elmer Colby had been assigned to the 312th Support Company based in Tuy Hoa. Not only was Tuy Hoa not far away, but I knew Brian, their company clerk. I rang him up on the field phone.