Passage at Arms (22 page)

More than one man curses me for having my ass in the sink. I tell them what they can do with their personal hygiene.

No one has gone out of his way for me.

The last I see of the Commander, he’s standing at a still parade rest, staring into the empty display tank.

Our destination proves to be an instel-equipped beacon. The Recorder busies itself reporting the Leviathan affair. It’s a time of relaxation, a time of realization.

We still have our missiles.

7 Orders

The patrol is getting to me. I’ve been rude to or belligerent with almost everybody today. I have a lot of fear and nervous energy pressure-bottled inside me.

I’m not the only Sam Sullen. I see fewer smiles, hear fewer jokes. The tone of the crew is quieter. There’s an unmentioned but obvious increase in tension between individuals. There’ll be a fight before long. Something has to act as a valve to relieve pressure.

I’ll hang around Ops till it happens. I don’t want to be part of the process. The Old Man’s inhibiting effect makes Ops the safest place to be.

Piniaz has the watch when I arrive. The Commander is on hand. Command has responded to our report. Finally.

“The sons of bitches,” Piniaz growls.

The Commander hands me a message flimsy. It’s a congratulatory message. Over Tannian’s chop.

“Not one goddamned word about Johnson,” Piniaz mutters. “The brass-bottomed bastards. Be the same fucking thing when we get ours. Some sad sack of shit will move us to the inactive file, wait a goddamned year, then send the regret-to-informs.”

Nicastro gives Piniaz a poisonous look. His hands are shaking and white.

“Goddamned printout form letter, that’s what they send. Full of Tannian’s bullshit about valiant warriors making the supreme sacrifice. Jesus. Talk about insensitive.”

I get in the way as the Chief lets fly. Startled, he pulls the punch. I tap him back and ask, “How are they hanging, Chief?” He settles into an embarrassed calm.

Piniaz missed the swing, but catches enough of the postmortem to understand. He cans the bitching.

Too many eyes missed nothing. Word gets around.

Maybe this will give me my breakthrough. One ordinary occurrence, entirely unplanned. After all that time trying to engineer something.

The Commander is first to mention the incident. In private, of course. “Happened to notice something odd this morning,” he says, between sips of coffee brewed to spice another of our sparring sessions.

“Uhm? I doubt it.”

“Doubt what?”

“That you happened to do anything. You choreograph your breathing.”

He permits himself a weak, weary, sardonic smile. “You handled that pretty good. Could have caused trouble. Ito would’ve insisted on his prerogatives.” He goes to work on his pipe. “You always were good at that. Guess I’ll have to chew the Chief.” He finds whatever it is that displeases him about the pipe’s bowl, returns the instrument to his pocket.

“Sometimes a patrol goes sour after a fight. Just gets hairier. Like moral gangrene. Between officer and enlisted is bad. Turns the crew into armed camps.” He reaches for the pipe, realizes he’s fiddled it half to death already. “You bought some time. Maybe the Chief will take a look at himself now.” After a pause, “Guess I’ll tell department heads to lean on the big-mouths.”

I can imagine the potential for disaster. A blow struck relieves pressure but plants a seed. Establishes a precedent. We need some sort of distraction. Pity there’s no room anywhere for athletics.

“You might suggest that Mr. Piniaz be less abrasive.”

His eyebrows rise.

“I know. He just said what we’re all thinking. It’s not what he said. It’s the way he said it. It’s the way he says everything.”

Still he says nothing.

“Damn it, the man doesn’t have to keep proving he’s as good as everybody else. We know it. That Old Earther shoulder chip is going to get his head twisted.”

“Could be me doing it, too. I’m tired of it. But what can you do? People will be what they are. They have to learn the hard way.”

He’s been leading me along. I figure it’s time to punch back. “And you? What’s your chip? What’s eating you?”

His face darkens like an old house with the lights going out. He gulps his coffee, leaves without answering. I don’t think to call after him.

Kriegshauser materializes immediately, ostensibly to clean up. But he has something on his mind. He makes a production of the simple task.

I’ve barely tasted my coffee. “You drink this stuff, Kriegshauser? Want the rest? Go ahead. Sit down.” I’m sure he gets his sips off each batch. Real coffee is too great a temptation.

“Thank you, sir. Yes sir. I will.”

I wait, unsure how to draw him out. Like everyone else aboard this mobile asylum, the real Kriegshauser is well hidden.

He finds his nerve. “I’ve got a problem, Lieutenant.”

“Yes?”

Kriegshauser chomps his lower lip. “Sex problem, sir.”

“Ah?” It’s hard to disbelieve the claim that he never bathes nor changes his underwear. His personal mass must consist entirely of deodorant and cologne. He reeks.

“This’s my fifth patrol on this ship.”

I nod. I know that much.

“They won’t let me off. I’ve put in.”

What does that have to do with boy-girl? Maybe nothing. Few of us are direct.

“There’s this other guy that’s been on, too...” It gushes.

“Been trying to get me to make it. Putting on pressure. Kept my requests from going through. That’s why I don’t wash. It’s not for luck, like the guys think. Anyway, he’s got me against the wall.”

“How so?”

“There was this girl, see? Leave before last. Said she was eighteen. Well, she wasn’t. And she was a runaway.”

So? I think. The universe festers with unhappy people. Too many of them are children.

“She was using me to get at her parents.”

“Uhn?” That happens. Far too often.

“I found out last leave, when I tried to look her up. Her parents are big in Command. And they’re out for blood. The kid jobbed me, but they think I did her. When they caught up with her, she was too far gone for an abortion.”

“You sure it was you?” That’s a reasonable question considering the situation on Canaan. Anger darkens his face. I change the subject. He cares about the girl. “This other party found out?”

“Yes sir. And if I don’t come across, he passes the word on me.”

Sexual harassment? Here? It’s hard to credit. “Why tell me? I could be the eido. I could put it in my book. Or I could pass the word myself. Don’t officers always stick together?”

“Got to talk to somebody. And you don’t finger people.”

Wish I was as sure of me as he is.

An advice columnist I’m not. As bad as I’ve screwed up my own life, I’d be a positive peril counseling anyone else. “Is he bluffing?”

“No sir. He’s tried petty shit before. Did it to my friend Landtroop.”

“How about you just tell him you’ll kick the shit out of him if he don’t back off?”

“I’d be bluffing.”

I nod. That’s understandable. We’re military and at war. And the thought of personal violence is repellent. An act like Nicastro’s occurs only under stress. People are schooled from childhood to contain their animal violence. Society does a fine job. Then we take the kids and make them warriors. We’re a curiously contrary breed of ape.

“The damage would be done already, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose. But what would happen if he did talk? We’re talking staff-type parents, aren’t we?” Staff people are in a position to exact agonizing bureaucratic revenges.

“I don’t want to find out, sir. I just want to get my ten, get laid in between, and get the hell out when I can. Maybe move to a training billet.”

Few Climber people expect to survive the war. Most suspect they’re playing for the losing team anyway. All they want to do is survive.

This is a strange kind of war. No end in sight. No out till it’s over, unless you’re torn up so bad you’re good for nothing but dog food or sitting by the window at the veteran’s hospital. None of that hope for tomorrow which usually animates the young. It’s a war of despair.

“That’s what you stand to lose. What about him?”

“Huh?”

“It can’t be all one way. Isn’t he vulnerable too?” I feel like an ass, playing games with people’s lives. But I asked for it. I made a deal with Mephistopheles. You can’t be selective about getting into lives. I want to know and understand the crew. The cook is one of them. There’ll be no understanding him without dealing with his problem. Otherwise he’ll remain a simple human curiosity, a bundle of odd quirks.

“Not that I know of, sir.”

“Let’s backtrack. How did he find out about the girl?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Who’d you tell?”

“Just Landtroop and Vossbrink, sir.”

“Landtroop? You mentioned him before.”

“Kurt Landtroop. He was here last patrol. Went cadre. We spent our leaves together.”

“The three of you?”

“Yes sir. What’re you getting at, sir?”

“You talked to Voss? Ask him if he told anybody?”

“Why, sir?”

“If you only told two people, one of them told somebody else. I’d guess Landtroop. You said he was under the same pressure. You should make sure.” He’s being intentionally dense. Doesn’t want to involve his friends, doesn’t want to risk his faith in them. Maybe he figures he’ll lose his best friend if he questions Vossbrink. A very insecure young man. “You need to isolate the leak. It could give you a handle. Get back to me after you talk to Voss. I’ll think on it meantime.”

“All right, sir.” He isn’t pleased. He wants miracles. He wants me to push a magic button and make everything right. It’s a nasty little habit we humans have, wanting an easy way out. “Thanks for the coffee, sir.”

“You’re welcome.” It would help if he could give me a name. I could corner the predator and threaten him with my book. Power of the press, what? But Kriegshauser won’t reveal it. I don’t have to ask to know that. The fear in nun is obvious.

There could be a second side, too. We humans, even when we try, tend to tint the facts. Kriegshauser might be doing more than tinting.

My proposed book is a for-instance. I want to be objective. I plan to be objective. Of course. But how objective can I be? I saw little of Command and wasn’t impressed by what I did see. I identify with the fighting men too much already. I’m too much tempted to ignore the reasons why they have to endure this hell....

I snort in self-mockery. I’m a powerful man. One reason these people won’t open up is that they’re afraid of what I’ll do to them in print. So I’m a species of eido after all.

The occasional threat might have amazing results.

Yanevich says that clown Tannian has ballyhooed my presence since I boarded the Climber. He’s promised all Confederation a report from inside, the true story of the everyday life of heroes. His PR people are good. Half the population will be waiting breathlessly. Oh, ye mighty megaConmarks, gather ye in mine account?

I think Fearless Fred is going to be pissed. I think he assumes I’ll follow the Party line.

Can I really do it straight? I really am afraid I won’t give the broader picture that shows why Command does things that make the men in the trenches furious.

***

My real coup, arranging participation in a Climber mission, didn’t reside in getting the Admiral to agree. The man is publicity-mad. No, it was getting the predators senior to Tannian to guarantee not to interfere with what I write. I conned them. They think I have to show the warts or the public won’t believe.

Maybe the coup isn’t that great, though. Maybe they outsmarted me. Tannian’s foes are legion, and bitter. A lot of them reside in Luna Command. The guarantees could be a ploy to discredit the popular hero.

I haven’t found anything but warts. So many warts that an imp voice keeps telling me to hedge my bets, to be sure I get past not only Tannian but that coterie of Admirals eager to defame him.

After talking to Kriegshauser, I clamber into my hammock. It’s been an exhausting few days.

The loss of Johnson’s Climber finally rips through the shroud of more immediate concerns. I replay the entire incident, looking for something we might have done differently. And end up shedding tears.

I give up trying to force the gates of slumber and go. looking for the cat. Fearless confesses this confessor. He’s awfully patient with me.

He remains as elusive as the eido.

Despite the long, enforced proximity of the patrol, I’ve begun feeling lonely. I’ve begun detecting traces of the same internal desolation on other faces.

I’m not unique in remembering our sisters. The long, leave-me-alone faces are everywhere. It’s a quiet ship today.

Our ship and Johnson’s had an unofficial relationship for a long time, a romance that was a metal wedding, a family understanding. The two hunted and played together through a dozen patrols and leaves, beginning long before anyone in either crew came aboard. In the Climbers that makes an ancient tradition.

I find myself asking a bulkhead, “Do Climbers mate for life?” Will we, like some great, goofy bird, now go hunting our own demise? Have we become a rogue bachelor?

An inattentive part of me notes that the bulkhead has grown a layer of feltlike fur, like blue-green moleskin. I touch it. My finger leaves a track. I wander off, forgetting it.

In Engineering I find a surly Varese supervising two men cleaning the guts of a junction box with what smells like carbolic. “What’s up?”

“Fucking mold.”

I recall the moleskin wall. “Ah?” I don’t see anything here.

In Weapons half the off-watch are scrubbing and polishing. The carbolic smell is overpowering. Here the fur is everywhere, on every painted surface. It has a black-green tinge. The paler green paint seems to be the mold’s favorite snack.

“How the hell does it get in here?” I ask Holtsnider. “Seems it’d be wiped out going through TerVeen.”

“They’ve tried everything, sir. Just no way to get every spore. It comes in with crew, food, and equipment.”

Well. A distraction. Instead of pining about dead women, I can research mold.