Peace and War - Omnibus (23 page)

We had both been given the same information during our three weeks in the can. It was interesting that we'd arrived at such different conclusions about leadership. This Open Door policy, for instance, had shown good results in 'modern' armies in Australia and America. And it seemed especially appropriate to our situation, in which everybody would be cooped up for months or even years at a time. We'd used the system on the
Sangre y Victoria
, the last starship to which I'd been attached, and it had seemed to keep tensions down.

She had them at ease while delivering this organizational harangue; pretty soon she'd call them to attention and introduce me. What would I talk about? I'd planned just to say a few predictable words and explain my Open Door policy, then turn them over to Commodore Antopol, who would say something about the
Masaryk II
. But I'd better put off my explanation until after I'd had a long talk with Hilleboe; in fact, it would be best if she were the one to introduce the policy to the men and women, so it wouldn't look like the two of us were at loggerheads.

My executive officer, Captain Moore, saved me. He came rushing through a side door – he was always rushing, a pudgy meteor – threw a quick salute and handed me an envelope that contained our combat orders. I had a quick whispered conference with the Commodore, and she agreed that it wouldn't do any harm to tell them where we were going, even though the rank and file technically didn't have the 'need to know.'

One thing we didn't have to worry about in this war was enemy agents. With a good coat of paint, a Tauran might be able to disguise himself as an ambulatory mushroom. Bound to raise suspicions.

Hilleboe had called them to attention and was dutifully telling them what a good commander I was going to be; that I'd been in the war from the beginning, and if they intended to survive through their enlistment they had better follow my example. She didn't mention that I was a mediocre soldier with a talent for getting missed. Nor that I'd resigned from the army at the earliest opportunity and only got back in because conditions on Earth were so intolerable.

'Thank you, Lieutenant.' I took her place at the podium. 'At ease.' I unfolded the single sheet that had our orders, and held it up. 'I have some good news and some bad news.' What had been a joke five centuries before was now just a statement of fact.

'These are our combat orders for the Sade-138 campaign. The good news is that we probably won't be fighting, not immediately. The bad news is that we're going to be a target.'

They stirred a little bit at that, but nobody said anything or took his eyes off me. Good discipline. Or maybe just fatalism; I didn't know how realistic a picture they had of their future. Their lack of a future, that is.

'What we are ordered to do … is to find the largest portal planet orbiting the Sade-138 collapsar and build a base there. Then stay at the base until we are relieved. That will be two or three years, probably.

'During that time we will almost certainly be attacked. As most of you probably know, Strike Force Command has uncovered a pattern in the enemy's movements from collapsar to collapsar. They hope eventually to trace this complex pattern back through time and space and find the Tauran's home planet. For the present, they can only send out intercepting forces, to hamper the enemy's expansion.

'In a large perspective, this is what we're ordered to do. We'll be one of several dozen strike forces employed in these blocking maneuvers, on the enemy's frontier. I won't be able to stress often enough or hard enough how important this mission is – if UNEF can keep the enemy from expanding, we may be able to envelop him. And win the war.'

Preferably before we're all dead meat. 'One thing I want to be clear: we may be attacked the day we land, or we may simply occupy the planet for ten years and come on home.' Fat chance. 'Whatever happens, every one of us will stay in the best fighting trim all the time. In transit, we will maintain a regular program of callisthenics as well as a review of our training. Especially construction techniques – we have to set up the base and its defense facilities in the shortest possible time.'

God, I was beginning to sound like an officer. 'Any questions?' There were none. 'Then I'd like to introduce Commodore Antopol. Commodore?'

The commodore didn't try to hide her boredom as she outlined, to this room full of ground-pounders, the characteristics and capabilities of
Masaryk 77
. I had learned most of what she was saying through the can's force-feeding, but the last thing she said caught my attention.

'Sade-138 will be the most distant collapsar men have gone to. It isn't even in the galaxy proper, but rather is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, some 150,000 light years distant.

'Our voyage will require four collapsar jumps and will last some four months, subjective. Maneuvering into collapsar insertion will put us about three hundred years behind Stargate's calendar by the time we reach Sade-138.'

And another seven hundred years gone, if I lived to return. Not that it would make that much difference; Marygay was as good as dead and there wasn't another person alive who meant anything to me.

'As the major said, you mustn't let these figures lull you into complacency. The enemy is also headed for Sade-138; we may all get there the same day. The mathematics of the situation is complicated, but take our word for it; it's going to be a close race.

'Major, do you have anything more for them?'

I started to rise. 'Well…'

'Tench-
hut!
' Hilleboe shouted. Had to learn to expect that.

'Only that I'd like to meet with my senior officers, echelon 4 and above, for a few minutes. Platoon sergeants, you're responsible for getting your troops to Staging Area 67 at 0400 tomorrow morning. Your time's your own until then. Dismissed.'

I invited the five officers up to my billet and brought out a bottle of real French brandy. It had cost two months' pay, but what else could I do with the money? Invest it?

I passed around glasses but Alsever, the doctor, demurred. Instead she broke a little capsule under her nose and inhaled deeply. Then tried without too much success to mask her euphoric expression.

'First let's get down to one basic personnel problem,' I said, pouring. 'Do all of you know that I'm not homosexual?'

Mixed chorus of yes sirs and no sirs.

'Do you think this is going to … complicate my situation as commander? As far as the rank and file?'

'Sir, I don't–' Moore began.

'No need for honorifics,' I said, 'not in this closed circle; I was a private four years ago, in my own time frame. When there aren't any troops around, I'm just Mandella, or William.' I had a feeling that was a mistake even as I was saying it. 'Go on.'

'Well, William,' he continued, 'it might have been a problem a hundred years ago. You know how people felt then.'

'Actually, I don't. All I know about the period from the twenty-first century to the present is military history.'

'Oh. Well, it was, uh, it was, how to say it?' His hands fluttered.

'It was a crime,' Alsever said laconically. 'That was when the Eugenics Council was first getting people used to the idea of universal homosex.'

'Eugenics Council?'

'Part of UNEF. Only has authority on Earth.' She took a deep sniff at the empty capsule. 'The idea was to keep people from making babies the biological way. Because, A, people showed a regrettable lack of sense in choosing their genetic partner. And
B
, the Council saw that racial differences had an unnecessarily divisive effect on humanity; with total control over births, they could make everybody the same race in a few generations.'

I didn't know they had gone quite that far. But I suppose it was logical. 'You approve? As a doctor.'

'As a doctor? I'm not sure.' She took another capsule from her pocket and rolled it between thumb and forefinger, staring at nothing. Or something the rest of us couldn't see. 'In a way, it makes my job simpler. A lot of diseases simply no longer exist. But I don't think they know as much about genetics as they think they do. It's not an exact science; they could be doing something very wrong, and the results wouldn't show up for centuries.'

She cracked the capsule under her nose and took two deep breaths. 'As a woman, though, I'm all in favor of it.' Hilleboe and Rusk nodded vigorously.

'Not having to go through childbirth?'

'That's part of it.' She crossed her eyes comically, looking at the capsule, gave it a final sniff. 'Mostly, though, it's not … having to … have a man. Inside me. You understand. It's disgusting.'

Moore laughed. 'If you haven't tried it, Diana, don't–'

'Oh, shut up.' She threw the empty capsule at him playfully.

'But it's perfectly natural,' I protested.

'So is swinging through trees. Digging for roots with a blunt stick. Progress, my good major; progress.'

'Anyway,' Moore said, 'it was only a crime for a short period. Then it was considered a, oh, curable…'

'Dysfunction,' Alsever said.

'Thank you. And now, well, it's so rare … I doubt that any of the men and women have any strong feelings about it, one way or the other.'

'Just an eccentricity,' Diana said, magnanimously. 'Not as if you ate babies.'

'That's right, Mandella,' Hilleboe said. 'I don't feel any differently toward you because of it.'

'I – I'm glad.' That was just great. It was dawning on me that I had not the slightest idea of how to conduct myself socially. So much of my 'normal' behavior was based on a complex unspoken code of sexual etiquette. Was I supposed to treat the men like women, and vice versa? Or treat everybody like brothers and sisters? It was all very confusing.

I finished off my glass and set it down. 'Well, thanks for your reassurances. That was mainly what I wanted to ask you about … I'm sure you all have things to do, goodbyes and such. Don't let me hold you prisoner.'

They all wandered off except for Charlie Moore. He and I decided to go on a monumental binge, trying to hit every bar and officers' club in the sector. We managed twelve and probably could have hit them all, but I decided to get a few hours' sleep before the next day's muster.

The one time Charlie made a pass at me, he was very polite about it. I hoped my refusal was also polite – but figured I'd be getting lots of practice.

3

UNEF's first starships had been possessed of a kind of spidery, delicate beauty. But with various technological improvements, structural strength became more important than conserving mass (one of the old ships would have folded up like an accordion if you'd tried a twenty-five-gee maneuver), and that was reflected in the design: stolid, heavy, functional-looking. The only decoration was the name
MASARYK II
, stenciled in dull blue letters across the obsidian hull.

Our shuttle drifted over the name on its way to the loading bay, and there was a crew of tiny men and women doing maintenance on the hull. With them as a reference, we could see that the letters were a good hundred meters tall. The ship was over a kilometer long (1036.5 meters, my latent memory said), and about a third that wide (319.4 meters).

That didn't mean there was going to be plenty of elbow-room. In its belly, the ship held six large tachyondrive fighters and fifty robot drones. The infantry was tucked off in a corner.
War is the province of friction
, Chuck von Clausewitz said; I had a feeling we were going to put him to the test.

We had about six hours before going into the acceleration tank. I dropped my kit in the tiny billet that would be my home for the next twenty months and went off to explore.

Charlie had beaten me to the lounge and to the privilege of being first to evaluate the quality of
Masaryk II
's coffee.

'Rhinoceros bile,' he said.

'At least it isn't soya,' I said, taking a first cautious sip. Decided I might be longing for soya in a week.

The officers' lounge was a cubicle about three meters by four, metal floor and walls, with a coffee machine and a library readout. Six hard chairs and a table with a typer on it.

'Jolly place, isn't it?' He idly punched up a general index on the library machine. 'Lots of military theory.'

'That's good. Refresh our memories.'

'Sign up for officer training?'

'Me? No. Orders.'

'At least you have an excuse.' He slapped the on-off button and watched the green spot dwindle. 'I signed up. They didn't tell me it'd feel like this.'

'Yeah.' He wasn't talking about any subtle problem: burden of responsibility or anything. 'They say it wears off, a little at a time.' All of that information they force into you; a constant silent whispering.

'Ah, there you are.' Hilleboe came through the door and exchanged greetings with us. She gave the room a quick survey, and it was obvious that the Spartan arrangements met with her approval. 'Will you be wanting to address the company before we go into the acceleration tanks?'

'No, I don't see why that would be … necessary.' I almost said 'desirable.' The art of chastising subordinates is a delicate art. I could see that I'd have to keep reminding Hilleboe that she wasn't in charge.

Or I could just switch insignia with her. Let her experience the joys of command.

'You could, please, round up all platoon leaders and go over the immersion sequence with them. Eventually we'll be doing speed drills. But for now, I think the troops could use a few hours' rest.' If they were as hungover as their commander.

'Yes, sir.' She turned and left. A little miffed, because what I'd asked her to do should properly have been a job for Riland or Rusk.

Charlie eased his pudgy self into one of the hard chairs and sighed. 'Twenty months on this greasy machine. With her. Shit.'

'Well, if you're nice to me, I won't billet the two of you together.'

'All right. I'm your slave forever. Starting, oh, next Friday.' He peered into his cup and decided against drinking the dregs. 'Seriously, she's going to be a problem. What are you going to do with her?'