Man O' War

by William Shatner

  Those gathered cheered, their cries spreading far enough to be heard by those on outpost duty. Before the whooping and hollering could die down totally, however, Hawkes spotted the sheriff running toward the pit. Stepping away from the assembly to meet him, the ambassador asked, "Bob . . . what is it?"

  "Autopsy reports started coming in. Thought you'd want to see some of these figures."

  Hawkes took the printouts from Morgan. He scanned the entries: reticulocyte counts, red blood cell fragility figures, plasma volume, blood and urine electrolytes, protein counts, glucose levels, heart size, bone strength, calcium levels, cardiac output capabilities . . .

  "See anything interesting?" asked the sheriff.

  "These people . . . it looks like they've all been off-world." Hawkes looked at Morgan, then back to the pages. Eyeing the figures more closely, he asked, "They have, haven't they?" When Morgan merely nodded, the ambassador asked, "How long? What are the estimates on how long they've been gone?"

  "Funny, I thought you might want to know that. I told them to check it out. Lab balanced the deterioration levels against a few factors. They said that, you know, you spend a week on a ship, that's as bad as two months on the Moon. Gravity differences and all. But they were able to measure the effects here against a varying timetable, and. . ."

  "And . . . ?"

  "They figure the corpses all had to have spent the last three years on Mars." Morgan paused, gave the information a moment to sink in. After he could see that it had all sunk in, he added, "They give it a plus ninety-nine that none of them have been back on Earth more than two or three weeks, tops."

  Hawkes tried to contain his anger, but could not. Slowly, he began to shake. Fingers, hands, shoulders— the rage bubbling within him for so long finally took over completely, filling him. He hurled the printouts toward the fire. The pages burst into flames before they could even touch down on the coals. And then, without thought or reason, Benton Hawkes turned and followed them.

  Marching across the open pit to the roasting pig, he could hear the leather of his boots sizzling. Heat ran up his legs, through his clothing, threatening to set them both on fire. Grabbing the blackened carcass, Hawkes jammed his face down into the meat then jerked his head back, pulling away a huge bite of flesh in a long strip. As he turned back to the others—chewing, swallowing, his face slick with grease—he thought, Mars.

  Looking up into the sky, he walked back out of the pit. His boots hissed as they touched the cool ground outside the ring of fire. Downing the last chunk of meat, he felt his anger sliding away, being replaced by something colder—harder. Feeling the normally warm night air suddenly chilling his body, one word filled his mind: Mars.

  Walking away from the pit, he left the sheriff, Celdosso, Keller, Cook, and everyone else behind. He had to. Life had proved to him again that wherever he walked, he had to go alone.

  And now, he thought, he was going to Mars.

  Heaven help whoever he found there.

  10

  HAWKES SAT AT THE DESK IN HIS STATEROOM ABOARD the U.S.S. Bulldog. He had pinned his usual travel picture of Disraeli up over the work area. The heavily armed merchant liner had left Lunar City three solar days previously. She had roughly eight days left in her voyage to Mars— eight more than the ambassador cared for.

  After he had determined that he needed to head off-world to get to the bottom of his troubles, he had snapped instantly into action. Senator Carri had been alerted to Hawkes's acceptance of the Martian posting after the ambassador was already en route to Skyhook. If he did have active enemies in Washington, Hawkes wanted to leave them as little open time as possible within which they could act.

  After a life in the corps, the ambassador knew what to take and how to pack it quickly. Twelve complete changes of clothing, color-matched sets appropriate for whatever different moods he might need to set. Dress suit, of course, formal boots, sword and scabbard, toilet bag, gross pack of beef jerky—everything was bagged in less than ten minutes.

  A half hour after he had walked into the pit fire, he was in his 4 X 4 with Keller, headed for town in the same clothes he had been wearing for the past two days. The drive down the mountain in the dark was a long, slow process. The foreman commented several times on the fact that Hawkes had not changed, and the relative closeness of their quarters. The ambassador just smiled and ignored him.

  Hawkes had other things on his mind. As they made their way to town, he used the trip both to make his travel arrangements and to go over what his foreman should be doing while he was gone. Not only did Keller have to run the ranch, as usual, but he had to do it with fewer hands. He also had to keep a wary eye on their friends at Clean Mountain Enterprises. As Hawkes told him at the airport, "Get me any information the sheriff or the feds come across. Whatever maneuvers CME tries, I want word on it at once. They're not taking our mountain, Ed."

  "Not without a fight, anyways," the grizzled older man agreed.

  The two shook hands on the runway. It was an awkward moment for them both. They had said good-bye to each other a thousand times in the past. None of the previous farewells had had the sense of finality that this one did, however. Finally, Keller stepped back toward the 4 X 4, announcing, "This is gettin' silly, boss. Like we was turnin' inta a pair of ol' women or sumthin'." Hawkes nodded, then stepped up into the small chartered jet waiting to carry him to the other side of the world.

  "I'll be back, Ed," he told his old friend. Then, before either of them could say another word, he ducked his head and entered the jet. Seconds later, he was in the air. Once he was over the Pacific he put his call through to Washington, getting Mick Carri out of bed.

  The senator had told him the Skyhook was booked weeks in advance. Hawkes had answered that if there was no room found for him by the time he arrived, he would make a press announcement that the American Senate was blocking his departure for Mars. By the time the ambassador landed in the Maldives, room had been found.

  He spent the daylong ride to the synchronous orbiting elevator platform sleeping. Arriving rested with all his anger safely in check, he had exited onto the platform demanding instantaneous passage to Lunar City. He was told that nothing was leaving for three days.

  "Nothing?" he had asked, yet with no trace of a question in his tone. "I thought there was constant traffic between here and the Moon. All the time. Every day."

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Ambassador," the lieutenant posted to handle him had countered. "But it's mostly cargo flights. Not much for carrying passengers."

  "Are there pilots? Crew?"

  "Of course, yes. But . . ."

  "Then find me some room on a ship and get me off this platform in fifteen minutes or be prepared to face a board of inquiry." When the man hesitated, Hawkes fixed him with a devastating stare and snapped, "My friend, someone's trying to keep me from getting to Mars. Now, my plan is to see to it that everyone involved ends up behind bars. You want to have to prove you're not one of them . . . you keep standing there."

  In twelve minutes Hawkes was aboard a tug heading out with a load of empty sponge/mush barges ready to be strung back to the Lunar Colony for transfer back to Mars. Hawkes gave the lieutenant his compliments and boarded the old force beamer. Before he had his bags stored he asked the tug's captain what her best time ever to the Moon was—then offered her a thousand-unit bribe to break that record by an hour.

  "When would you like to start marking time, Mr. Ambassador?"

  "I marked time the second I came through the outside hatch," Hawkes had answered.

  "Ah-ha. And who, exactly," asked the captain, taking a backward step, "would be paying any fines we might incur?"

  "A diplomatic ship has no speed restrictions."

  "Oh, then," answered the captain, turning to the nearest hand link to her bridge, "you won't mind if we skip a few of the usual formalities?"

  Hawkes shook his head and smiled as widely as the captain. Eight and three quarters of an hour later, they were in lunar orbit. The captain
was a thousand units richer and Hawkes was off demanding passage on the next ship to Mars. That ship turned out to be the Bulldog. It was a former warship, bought from the military when the newer Galvan engines had made everything else obsolete.

  The Galvans could not go appreciably faster than the old ships, but they could turn a vessel much more quickly. The combat application of the new engines was readily apparent to all involved. Old navy vessels practically flooded the spaceway marketplaces several years after the Galvans' introduction.

  The Bulldog had been converted into a merchanteer, one that moved both freight and passengers. Four other similar ships were berthed at the Moon at the same time, but the Bulldog was the first one slated to leave, and thus the only one Hawkes had been interested in. A series of additional, well-placed bribes got the 120,000-ton liner moving a half day early.

  And now, Hawkes thought, sitting back in his cabin's only chair during the breakaway from the moon, all there's left to do is wait.

  A knock on his door brought him a surprise. It was a lighter rapping than he would have expected from the captain or any of his crew. Deferential. Curious, he called for the unseen knocker to enter. She did.

  "Ambassador. . . I almost didn't make it."

  "What a shame," answered Hawkes. The young woman was tall, shapely, and unknown to him. She had dark hair cut short and eyes a shade of green that normally would have made him think the word delightful. Staring at the woman then, however, the only words that came to his mind were, "Why would I care?"

  "I'm Dina Martel," she told him, a trifle flustered by his question. When he did not respond, she continued on in a questioning voice. "The corps sent me . . . I'm your aide for this mission."

  Hawkes's eyes flashed for a split second. It was a slip— a break in his usual self-control—one she noticed. His mask back in place, he told her pleasantly, "I wasn't aware I needed an aide on this trip."

  "Sir. . .?"

  "What about Daniel Stine?" he asked, curious to hear her answer, to see what she knew and what she did not. Or at least, what she would admit to knowing. "He's my assigned right arm these days. Why would you be sent to replace him?"

  Martel's reaction was confusion. Somewhat flustered, she told Hawkes, "Sir, I was informed Mr. Stine was dead."

  "Hmmm, indeed. Well, news does travel fast in this modern age. So, whose idea was it to replace him so quickly?"

  "I don't know, sir—not exactly. Someone in the State Department, I would imagine."

  "Oh, right," he said with a cold smile. "Who else?"

  Hawkes had then dismissed the woman to go and find her quarters, telling her he would bring her up to speed later. That had been three days earlier. Since that time he had not brought her anywhere. After their first meeting, the ambassador had managed to avoid her at every turn.

  Oh, he's polite about it, Martel thought, far too polite. I'm being kept at arm's length, and if it keeps up I'm going to get damn tired of it.

  It did indeed "keep up." On the third day, Dina Martel had had enough.

  "Come in," said Hawkes to whoever was banging on his stateroom door. As he saw the young woman enter, he said, "Why, hello. How are you enjoying the cruise?"

  "I'm not, Ambassador. It's got me going in too many circles."

  "I believe this ship is on an elliptical approach, Martel. Curved a bit, but no circles."

  "There's something that has me going around in circles on this ship," she countered. "You wouldn't have any guesses as to what that might be, would you . . . sir?"

  "None I'd care to offer," he told her. "No."

  The young woman stood still for a second, pulling her strength together, rejecting her anger. When the moment had passed, she stepped into Hawkes's stateroom and asked, "Then could you please tell me what the problem is?"

  "Problem, Martel? What problem?"

  "The problem with me," she explained. "The reason you don't want to use me."

  "I don't have any need of you. I wasn't expecting an aide on this trip—didn't plan on having someone underfoot. I've already taken care of everything. But if something comes up—if I need a battery recharged, a few files analyzed, or something—I'll call you right away. I promise."

  Martel did not move. Hawkes watched her. He had reviewed her credentials. She had been with the corps for eight years. Had a clean, somewhat distinguished if uneventful record. Her schooling put her in the top of her class. She had brains to match her looks.

  Stine had been handsome, too, he remembered.

  Going cold inside, Hawkes remembered Daniel Stine's record. It glowed compared to hers. More years of service, better achievements—tops at everything. And someone had gotten to him, paid him, bribed him, scared him . . . did something to him or for him that had made him plant bombs, sabotage equipment, and lead murderers into Hawkes's home.

  The ambassador's eyes locked onto the woman in his doorway. Barely able to keep his jaw from shaking, he said, "You want a job, you want something to do to pass time on the voyage, I'll give you a job. You tell me what's going on—who's doing what to get what. Find the names and dates and proofs I need to nail people to the wall."

  "Which people, sir?"

  "Which ones?" sneered Hawkes. "The ones who don't want me to go to Mars. Or maybe who do want me to go to Mars. The ones who want to steal my land. The ones who think I've gotten too popular, who want me out of the way because they're tired of the fact that I can usually cut through the crap."

  The ambassador stepped away from his desk, moving across the cabin. Martel held her ground, though every instinct she had was urging her to back up. His eyes still riveted to hers, Hawkes snarled, "You figure all that out, then you tell me who it was that had my home attacked— who it is that's responsible for killing seven members of my staff. . . burning my home down . . . all the rest of it. You find out who sent the people who did all that. All right? You want a job, there's your job."

  "Ah, okay . . . certainly, sir. If I might . . ."

  Hawkes paid no attention to the words the young woman was saying. Closing in on her, backing her the rest of the way to the door with his presence, he snapped, "And I'll give you a little message to go with it: This whole business—the problems between the Martian Colony's provisional government . . . them and their Earth corpor/national sponsors and the unions forming up there and anyone else—all of it . . . I don't care."

  The woman swallowed. It was a difficult gesture. Hawkes had rattled her severely. Pulling herself together, she asked, "You don't care about . . . about . . . which aspects, sir?"

  "Any of it, Martel. Any of it. I'm going to Mars to find out who tried to kill me. Solving their petty problems seems to be the only way I can get my hands around the throat of the son of a bitch who killed my dog."

  "But, Ambassador"—her voice came out weak and strained—"won't you still need someone to assist you . . . do your day-to-day . . . ah, everything?"

  Hawkes pulled back a few inches, giving the woman a bit of room. Feeling the smallest bit of sympathy for her, remembering that he did not know if she was a replacement for Stine in any dark sense, he asked, "How is it you were assigned to serve as aide for me, Martel?"

  The woman was caught off guard by his shift in tactics. She stumbled for a split second, then told him, "I happened to be on the Indian subcontinent when word came in that you were headed for the Martian Colony and that you were traveling unescorted. I was told to drop everything and to get to the Skyhook and rendezvous with you at Lunar."

  "And why you?"

  "Because I was the closest person to the Skyhook. They said that you were moving fast and that I would just have time to make it if I left immediately."

  "So you just dropped your current assignment and jetted right down." The woman turned her eyes away for a moment.

  "I wasn't on assignment, sir."

  "Oh. You just happened to be in India . . ."

  "I was on my honeymoon—sir," she snapped, suddenly tired of whatever game was being played.
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  "But you were willing to follow the call of duty—even then. How noble of you."

  Martel's eyes opened wider. An almost overwhelming urge to strike back at the ambassador roared through her. Catching hold of herself, however, she said, "No, sir. It was not so noble. It's true that I'd like to see the Mars difficulties solved simply because the possibility of doing that kind of work is why I joined the corps in the first place."

  More composed, fire building behind her own eyes, she spat, "But in this case, when I was told Benton Hawkes had accepted the Martian posting after all, and that I was supposed to accompany him . . . . You can imagine the thrill. What a coup—Mars and Hawkes on the same plate. Quite a feather in my cap, I thought. Doing the work of a lifetime at the side of a lifelong hero. Now there, I told my husband, was a wedding present."

  Smoothing imaginary creases from her skirt and jacket, the woman continued, telling Hawkes, "I left with the clothes on my back. I rode in a car with mining replacement workers—standing room only. Eighteen hours on my feet with less than charming company. But that was okay. I had pulled the prize plum—Martian duty with Benton Hawkes. I missed you at the platform. The next ship out to the Moon was a troopship . . . which didn't leave for a half a day. But there was an asteroid tramper that was making a fuel stop on the Moon. Oh, yes, he was happy to get me there. Happy as a clam."

  Hawkes put up his hand, cutting the woman off.

  Well, he thought, judging the barely controlled passion in her voice, she's either innocent or a hell of an actress. Ready to bet your life on being able to guess which?

  "Martel, you tell a sad story very well. Now tell me something else: Do you know why I need an aide? Do you know who you're replacing? Or why?"

  "The news didn't get to me until I was able to do a message pickup on the Moon. I was told your last aide was killed."

  "Do you know why? Or how?"

  "No, sir . . . the memo didn't go into any detail."