The Guns of Two-Space

by Dave Grossman

  All of which meant the assignment of Kaleb Jones, a graduate of the Westerness Naval Culinary and Catering School, was even more obviously a demonstration of NAVPERS' disaffection with the Fang. In fact, Jones was the worst graduate, with the lowest passing score ever seen. Which had resulted in his original assignment to the Admiralty galley being regarded as a masterpiece of revenge on the part of the Culinary and Catering School's commanding officer. No one was quite sure who he was trying to get revenge upon, but it was widely agreed that he had succeeded admirably! The situation was made even worse by the fact that Roxy's two best helpers had been assigned to Gnasher and Biter. All in all, it did not bode well for the stomachs aboard the Fang.

  Thus it was a grim Shipload of Fangs who faced every meal with angry groans. Kaleb Jones was happily oblivious to the waves of hostility that came his way with every meal.

  "Boys, I'm a gonna feed ya somethin' 'at'll change yer lives!" roared their new cook cheerfully, while he stirred the pot with the barrel of a loaded pistol. Jones had proven early on in Ship's competitions that he was deadly proficient with that pistol, and he handled his various chef's knives in a blinding blur of efficient activity that awed most sailors, so there was an understandable reluctance to confront him. "An' don' ya gimme no grief, now. I've spent all day chopping up these toothsome veggies and putting 'em in these damned cans fer ya. Heh, heh! 'Er majesty didn't send me to eight weeks o' catering school fer nothin'!"

  It was almost as if he relished the curses and growls that his efforts received.

  "Yum, yum," cried Jones. "We gots salt beef and this here alien mystery meat. Ya know wot they says. One meat is a meal, two meats is a feast! 'At's wot they told us grad-yew-ates o' the Royal Caterin' Corps, an' 'ats my motto! Well, come on boys, chow down!"

  When no one stepped forward he continued to encourage them in his own, inimitable way. "Wot ya waitin' fer?" he cried, offering up a reeking slab of mystery meat on the end of his double-barreled pistol. "Ya ain't gonna durty up silverware fer this, air ya? It's toothsome finger food! Us members o' the Royal Caterin' Corps 'as got asbestos hands, but even wimps like you should be able to handle this."

  Melville would have been worried about the safety of his new "cook" except for two things. First was the loaded, double-barrel, two-space pistol that the cook always held in his hand, and his demonstrated proficiency with said pistol and all of the other sharp implements of his profession. He stirred with that pistol, served with it, and did almost everything else that could be done with it in a kitchen. The other thing that probably kept the boy alive was the one singular exception to the almost universal disgust the crew had for Jones' cooking.

  That one exception was Lt. Broadax.

  At her first meal she showed up acting in her normal, morning, pre-coffee, pre-cigar fashion: grumpy and snarling to all in sight. And then, wonder of wonders, she smelled the lumpy, burned, and curdling porridge mess Jones had prepared for breakfast.

  Josiah Westminster summed it up best in the wardroom later. "Well, it was like watching Boye the pup come up on something new and interesting. She actually stopped mangling that stogie of hers and stood up so tall she almost woulda hit my chest bone! Then she turns and starts sniffing. Ah wondered what had hit her and started sniffing myself, but all Ah could smell was the gawdawful concoction that miscreant masquerading as a cook had mangled to death and stuck on the serving line. And she walks over to the line and bounced the deck gang who was waiting to see who would give in to hunger first outta the way, and she leans over it and sniffs! And her eyebrows went up, and her beard starts aquivering, and she starts a playing with her ax, and Ah'm a thinking we were gonna get hurt trying to save the poor benighted idjit.

  "Then she reaches out and grabs the plate from the nearest sailor and shovels in a bite, and Ah jist knew, Ah knew there was gonna be some blood. Ah mean even Cinder don't like that stuff and Lord knows she'll eat anything!

  "So then there was one of those 'pregnant pauses' you're always hearing about, except this one gave birth to a litter of little puppy pauses, each one doing embarrassing things on the deck. And then damn me if she doesn't smile! Ah don't know about y'all but Ah don't remember her smiling anytime someone wasn't gonna get hurt. Ah have to admit Ah was considering right smart whether Ah should fade back or stay and watch the fun.

  "And she ups and smiles again and takes another bite! And then she says, 'Ye know, I ain't et nothin' this good since I left home an' me dear ole mum's cookin'! We finally gots us a decent cook!' And she ups and wanders away, still smiling and eating! Ah haven't been so surprised since the neighbor's daughter taught me boys and girls were different!"

  The indignity of having their beloved cook stolen away was slightly balanced by the arrival of their new carpenter, Joby DeWalt. A wide, loud, hairy bear of a young man with an engaging grin, he had arrived aboard at the last possible moment with an enormous chest of tools balanced on one broad shoulder, and a small bag of personal belongings hanging from the other hand.

  The amazing thing was that he was a member of the Celebrimbor Shipwrights guild, specially assigned to be the Fang's carpenter. The young Celebri had outlined the situation to Melville with disarming honesty, in his booming voice.

  "Well, sir," he said to Melville, "Your NAVPERS wasn't really too accommodating. They kept insisting your Ship had plenty of good solid bosun's mates who were capable of filling in as Ship's carpenter. But the Guild disagreed since we wanted to know more about your Fang, and NAVPERS finally decided to... reconsider. But for some reason they seemed a bit unhappy with sending me." Joby grinned slightly at this last, seeming to find a bit of humor in the situation.

  "Well, Mr. DeWalt, that helps to explain why you're here," Melville said as he reflected upon the profoundly unappetizing lunch that McAndrews had delivered to him. "However," he continued as he pushed the plate aside, untouched, "as captain, I have to ask how your membership in the Celebrimbor Guild is going to impact your job as Ship's carpenter. The Guild are known to be somewhat, mmm, reticent about many aspects of our Ships."

  Joby appeared to be a bluff, hearty young man, open and free, but the man that peered out through his eyes for a moment was one much older and much, much colder. "Sir," he said after a quiet moment, "I am a Celebrimbor master Shipwright. If it doesn't touch on my oaths or honor to the Guild, I am your man. Is that sufficient?"

  For a moment, Melville and Fang, mixed together inside his soul, looked at DeWalt and sensed a kindred spirit that had been touched with the otherness of the Moss. Melville looked deep into those eyes and saw the fierceness and strength, the pain and joy that came with linking your soul to that of an alien creature. With a wry smile he said, "Yes, Mr. DeWalt, I believe that will be more than sufficient. On to other topics then. First, tell me what you think of our Fang."

  Joby thought for a moment, scratching his red beard as he looked out into two-space through the stern windows in the captain's office. "Well, now, for a sloop, she really looks a bit like a three-masted frigate." He chuckled at his own joke and shook his head.

  "Honestly, now, she's well found and masted, built strong as anything from our Shipyards. To be more than a bit honest, she's actually stronger and stouter than anything we've ever made, since we built for speed. The Guldur seem to have built for flat-out fighting ability, and capacity to withstand damage."

  Melville nodded. "I suspected that. The Fang had to be able to handle the 24-pounders, so she was built tougher than most Ships. Even her mast and spars are remarkably stout."

  "Yes, sir, and we're really interested in how you've used that strength to put up more sail and get more speed out of her than anyone would have thought possible." Then Joby grinned and started a comparison, an almost frame-by-frame comparison, of the strengths and weaknesses of the Fang to the Ships of the Author and Poet classes. While interesting in itself, after the first five minutes Melville began to wonder what he had unleashed upon himself and tried to intervene.

  "Do you know,
Mr. DeWalt, that is absolutely the best analysis I have heard of the Longsworth's cargo space loading." At least he tried to say that, with his monkey adding a desperate "Eeek, Eeek!" But Joby continued on, apparently entranced by his subject matter and oblivious to the increasingly desperate attempts by Melville and his monkey to break into his monologue.

  Despite his interest in the subject and his pleasure at having a Celebri Shipwright assigned to his Ship, Melville couldn't help but wonder if putting young DeWalt aboard might have been part of the Admiralty's none too subtle revenge. As his monkey essayed another leap into the air, he kept wondering if there was any way to shut the man up so he could get back to work!

  While most of the crew was settling back into the cycle of work, sleep, and play without any real difficulty, the middies themselves were having trouble returning to their usual cycle of learning and mischief. After finding their lives expanded by the high-tech world of Earth and the myriad forms of visual entertainment so readily available, they found another enduring truth: withdrawal from any addiction, no matter how brief or mild, is unpleasant. In this case, the addiction was to violent visual mush in the form of classic television and movies.

  Brother Theo knew what they were going through. It took about four days to detox from a heavy diet of violent, visual entertainment. Which is why the first three days of most summer camps for kids in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries were pure hell, but by the end of the week, the kids didn't want to go home! For the first time in their lives those children were surrounded by other healthy kids, and they were healthy as well!

  Theo kindly tried to help, in the finest Navy fashion, by keeping the boys working harder than they had since refitting the Fang after battle. "Young gentlemen," he declared, "your immersion in the classics of TV and movies was of great value in your professional development, but it was also kind of like going on a drinking binge, or a drug trip.

  "The effect that you are feeling was almost the undoing of civilization in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. By the early twenty-first century, the average child in America was spending forty-five hours a week in front of the tube, and the impact was so toxic and powerful that when schools started programs designed to convince kids (and their parents) to turn it all off, the improvement was stunning and irrefutable. The first school district in human history to turn off all TV, movies, and video games was Escanaba, Michigan, in the early twenty-first century. That momentous occasion, which has been called the 'Escanaba Miracle' led the way for a staggering, worldwide decrease in violence, bullying, sleep deprivation, and obesity, and tremendous improvements in test scores, attendance, academic achievement, learning, and behavior.

  "John Lang, a particularly astute observer from that turbulent era, wrote a nice piece of poetry that communicates the growing concerns of the time:

  "Back in Medieval days

  Cathedrals once held Passion Plays

  Since Peasants couldn't read but only look;

  That's how they learned the lessons

  In the Bible's many sessions,

  For few people could afford a hand-penned book.

  "Technology's new printing press

  Soon made books cost a whole lot less

  And people started reading far and wide;

  Soon words were found on bonds and stocks

  And on your breakfast cereal box,

  Where many kids' first words were 'Free Inside!'

  "Our stories now are mostly seen

  On TV's or the movie screen

  And reading books scares strong, stout-hearted men.

  Technology is paving ways

  To lead us back to Passion Plays,

  And might just send us further back again.

  "Of course," Theo continued, "we now know that the impact of violent visual imagery goes much further than just undermining literacy. By the early twenty-first century they had brain scan studies demonstrating that a steady diet of violent visual imagery resulted in emaciated, malnourished forebrains, catastrophically shut down left-brain processing, and overdeveloped midbrains. Which is the state you gentlemen are in today.

  "We let you go on this little electronic binge for the learning experience and the exposure to the great classics. But I think you can see how potentially addictive it could be if you had access to it all the time. Never forget that the electronic screen is a cross between Medusa and Cyclops. It has one eye and turns you (or at least your brain) into stone. The only known cure is to make sure you sweat the stone out of your brains! And your hind ends as well!"

  With the assistance of Lt. Fielder and Mrs. Vodi, Brother Theo managed to keep their every waking moment, and not a few of their sleeping dreams, filled with studies and work. All in all, he felt that they were recovering nicely from their battle and the subsequent overdose of technology they received on Earth.

  Already the effects of their last battle were fading. Memories of Shipmates killed and crippled friends left on Earth had become like old scars, forgotten except when a twinge brought them to painful remembrance. Remembrances which were dealt with by breathing ("In through the nose, two, three, four..."), gentle counseling, and more hard work.

  "Remember your training," said Brother Theo in one session, "we have talked about how the body reacts after you have been in a fight: a real fight, a killing fight, where even if you know you are doing right, it is hard, because you and your friends are in peril, and some won't come back. Anything can trigger your memories of that incident and those remembrances are powerful and will affect you." He paused, "Or any one of us," he continued quietly. Gunny Von Rito, and several other hardened veterans, who were leaning against the rail nearby, nodded slowly. "The only cure is time, and applying the old maxim: pain shared is pain divided, and joy shared is joy multiplied. Never forget, you must talk about the incident—and when you do, you must focus on the positive aspects. You cannot not think about something. Trying to not think about the event can send you down the path of madness."

  One of the crew lounging nearby called out, "'Pain shared is pain divided?' How does that apply to our so-called breakfast, Brother?"

  Amid a background of combined moans, groans, and laughs Brother Theo replied, "I stand by my statement, my son. After all, contemplate upon how you would feel if you had to consume it all by yourself."

  "Eep!" added his monkey, and then they delved back into the lessons at full speed.

  Lt. Fielder had just settled into the morning watch when he saw Cuthbert Asquith XVI wander over to the rail. While Asquith was not normally a dandy, he usually looked quite a bit more put-together than he did this morning: unshaven, a bit pale in the face, and somewhat disheveled. It might not have been noticeable on another man, but for Asquith it was like a waving flag saying, "I... I... I don't feeeel so goood...' Even his monkey looked downcast and dejected.

  Fielder walked up to him quietly and said, "Bert, what's the matter?" Then he offered optimistically if not too hopefully, "Did one of Jones' so-called meals finally poison someone enough that we can fire him?"

  "Thanks for your concern, Daniel. But, no, he hasn't succeeded in poisoning anyone... yet. That I know of. Although I do think his 'chef's special' today was Heimlich maneuvers..." He sighed. "Do you know, I never understood why they called it a 'mess' in the old books until I started eating, or rather trying to eat his cooking."

  Fielder laughed quietly and said, "Well, according to Lady Elphinstone the food is in fact nutritious and healthy and will sustain life indefinitely, or at least as long as you can stomach it. She says that by Dwarrowdelf standards the food would be considered adequate, if not outstanding, due to its soft texture."

  "Soft!" Asquith exclaimed. "Soft, she says? Daniel, there was a sailor last night who was using some of the salt meat in the stew as a carving medium. He said it had softened just enough he didn't have to use a chisel to work it!"

  Off in the distance, their new cook was waving his pistol in the air and berating a s
ailor who had complained that the meat was too tough. "Just set about it with a couple of forks," explained Jones. "If 'at don't wurk, ya just kind of maul it with a bit of knife work..."

  Fielder found it hard to maintain his usual sardonic humor in the face of this situation and stared glumly off into the stars of two-space. "Like I said, the Dwarrowdelf would consider it a bit soft. Lady Elphinstone reminded me that food under high gravity has to be fairly dense simply to grow upright, which means those who eat it have to have equally stout teeth and jaws." He sighed again. "Like Broadax's."

  "Yeah, Daniel," replied Asquith. "Broadax certainly seems to like it."

  Fielder chuckled. "Apparently so, Bert. And since she is happy, life is better for the marines and sailors she has to work with, which means they have a Catch-22 situation: if they complain about Jones and get him replaced, then they have to deal with an unhappy Broadax; but if they keep Broadax happy, they have to eat Jones' cooking."

  "Damned if they do, and damned if they don't", Asquith laughed. "And here I thought I had some difficult decisions."

  Again a snatch of angry conversation came to them from the mess line.

  "I saw ya put innocent potatoes in there," cried a sailor, "an' this is wat came out. How can you git potatoes to be so tough?"

  "Ya just cooks 'em fer a long time. Tumble 'em in, bobble 'em around, and fry the hell out of 'em. Fry the hell out of 'em, 'at's my motto. An' a dab o cookin' sherry. Ya needs lots a cookin' sherry. Call me obvious, but ya can never have too much cookin' sherry or bitterash root. At's my motto."

  "What's troubling you then?" Fielder asked, looking around to check on the Ship and make sure they were relatively private.

  "Well," Asquith said shyly, "a while back Lt. Archer was telling me about... dreams." He paused, then said, "He was telling me about dreams where the subconscious is sending a message and he mentioned that when you start having dreams of failure that your unconscious mind is telling you to practice."