“I see you know about us,” he said, pleased.
“It’s in our history books. I thought Admiral Esplendadore must be long dead, he’s so famous, or at least very old.”
“I suppose anyone over twenty must seem old to a child like you.”
“I’m eighteen,” I said, “and why didn’t you people announce yourselves first, instead of dropping out of the blue like a Khalian raider?”
“We had to keep radio silence,” Shotwell said. “But a party of us was sent ahead to tell the people about it, so there’d be no alarm.”
“You seem to have arrived a little late for that,” I said, somewhat tartly, I fear. “What do we do now? Go on talking here in the darkness until someone finds us?”
He chuckled. “Nothing I’d like better, miss. I’m glad to see there are some attractive girls on Trinitus. They told us you were a race of pygmies and that you all had warts.”
I was just getting angry again when I noticed, even in the dim light, that he was grinning. He was quite a nice-looking man when he wasn’t trying to scare innocent people to death. He wore a Retrace on his watchband, and began to lead us back to the surface. It was just as well, I wasn’t sure of all the turnings.
On the way I learned that his first name was Milus, and that he piloted a small single-seater spaceship of his own on special missions, and had already seen action twice against the Khalia. He was from the planet Astrakhan II, was twenty-three years old, and unmarried.
It wasn’t until early the next day that the Dreadnought descended to two thousand feet above our city, established radio contact, and rather brusquely asked coordinates for a suitable place to put down. It was a spectacular sight, that great silvery machine coming down majestically through the clouds and settling down at last in the middle of Poletryer Park, a large recreation area close to the city. It landed as light as gossamer, a tribute to the skill of its pilot.
Cruisers are eight hundred feet long, displace thirty thousand tons and carry a crew of four hundred. This I had learned in elementary school. What I also knew was that never before in the history of our planet had a Fleet ship of this size come to call. I had the feeling that something gigantic might be afoot. I was glad, because I had always wanted to live in interesting times.
II.
All the notables of Panador had gathered to greet them, and they were dressed in their best official finery. Closer to the ship now, we could see that its smooth hide had been dented and scorched, then pounded and scraped into near new condition. A blue line one foot in width encircled the entire ship. Some of the more knowledgeable among us recognised this as the fighting colors of Admiral Esplendadore, Baby Blue Esplendadore, as he was known, one of the great fighting admirals we had read about in our history books.
Presently, after keeping us waiting for what they must have judged a sufficient length of time, a tall portal opened in the side of the ship. A landing stage carpeted in light blue velvet came down with it. Out marched the ship’s band, resplendent in turquoise and scarlet with tall black shakos on their heads. After that came the guard of honor, a hundred heavily armed marines. Then a procession of secondary officers and finally Esplendadore himself in a glittering silver uniform decorated with exotic, iridescent feathers and bead work. A barbaric sight, but these were, of course, the emissaries of civilization.
Speaking through the ship’s PA system, which was far more powerful than anything we had on the planet, Esplendadore said, “Good people of Trinitus, forgive us for coming on you unannounced. We did not mean to startle you; but it was judged best to put forth no radio communication. There are spies everywhere.
Esplendadore had a heavy, pompous, self-pleased voice which I disliked at once. Maybe he was one of the great admirals, but I thought he was stuck-up. But what he was saying was of the utmost interest, so I listened carefully.
“Six months, ago,” Esplendadore continued, “advance scouts from the Fleet discovered a planet far from the usual areas. This planet was a small oxygen world and it was uninhabited. It was a poor little place without much in the way of natural resources.
“This planet, circling its small red dwarf star, had one feature, however, that interested us extremely. It was close to a star system from which most Khalian raids emanated.
“Therefore, this deserted planet, which has been named Klaxon, becomes of extreme interest to us as a site for a base from which we can launch a major attack against the Khalia. Our engineers have calculated that in less than one year, we can, by mounting an all-out effort, put up a major base on this location. This will be needed for the large resupply program which is planned. Klaxon will be a major factor in what we expect will be a major surprise blow against the Khalia.
“We have come here, as we have stopped at other worlds, to ask for skilled volunteers to come to Klaxon with us and help us build this new base. Many skilled categories will be open. We are offering standard one-year contracts in which workers will be paid at a level equivalent to Guild Workers from Earth. And, if you choose to stay on beyond the first year, you will be assigned permanent positions with pensions, medical benefits and vacation leaves in the Fleet Civilian Personnel Division.
“I needn’t tell you what a great opportunity this is for some of you. You are provincials, and you live very far away from the First Thirteen. In the normal course of things, most of you would never get the opportunity to leave your home planet. What we are offering is a chance not only to do well-paid labor for the benefit of mankind, but also to have a chance to open yourself to a wider life traveling around the galaxy.
“My men will be setting up recruiting booths around this park. If you wish to apply, you must present two certificates, one from the police department showing that there are no crimes currently lodged against you, and one from the tax authorities showing your taxes are paid to date. In the case of exceptionally desirable categories, the Fleet will waive some of its requirements.
“Our ship will leave here again in exactly three local days. Those of you who are accepted, please be prepared to assemble here three days from now for embarkation.
“Good people, I thank you for your attention.”
Already, as the Admiral was ending his speech, I was making my way to the outskirts of the crowd. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible in order to get my parents’ permission. Legally, I didn’t need it, of course, because I was of age, but I knew it would please them if I asked and it might be the last nice thing I ever could do for them, because I was going to join the Fleet and travel to distant planets.
My father was very nice about it. He had always dreamed of being a deep-space trader until the carboats shut down in our sector of space for lack of paying markets. He was small and olive-skinned, as I am, and I had inherited his sleek black hair, quick movements and small features. My mother was short and fair and large-boned, sweet-natured and thoughtful.
I don’t think I inherited anything from her except the dubious family gift of second-sight. And it was to this that she referred when she tried to get me to change my mind.
“Lea, dear,” she said, “you realize that your second-sight renders you more delicate than most. The aura of this new planet might not agree with you.”
“Oh, Mother, come on,” I said, somewhat childishly, but that’s the effect she has on me.
“But of course, it’s entirely your decision, my dear.”
“I’ll be all right,” I told her. “The second-sight only comes upon me occasionally. It’s no worse than a headache and it passes in a few hours. And anyway, maybe it will make me better suited for this sort of work than people who can’t glimpse anything ahead.”
Because I was able to do that sometimes; smell out danger when it lay ahead. I never knew specifically what it was, only that something was wrong and something was impending.
“Anyhow, Dr. Bokson said I’d outgrow it. I really do want to go. Is it all right?”
They looked at each other, and then smiled and we all hugged ea
ch other. It takes good parents to love you when you’re leaving.
I hurried back to Poletryer Park. Quite a few people were already lined up at the recruitment booths. I looked around for Milus Shotwell, but didn’t see him anywhere. Finally I found a short line and soon I was facing the recruiter.
He was a big, burly man resplendent in a tight-fitting uniform of forest green with stainless steel buttons. “Well, miss,” he said, looking over my papers, “I guess you’re not old enough to have gotten into much trouble yet, eh?”
“I’m old enough to work for the Fleet,” I said. “It’s true that I haven’t learned a whole lot of things yet, but I can type, and I can enter data, and I was pretty good in all my subjects in school.”
“We’re not looking so much for specific skills as for abilities and propensities,” he said. “Here, put your hand down here. We’ll give you a little intelligence test.”
He indicated a small black machine with blinking red lights that sat on the table beside him. There was a shiny silver plate where I was to put my hand. I did as he wished.
“This is a funny sort of intelligence test,” I said. “Don’t ask any questions?”
He chuckled. “We’re not looking to find out what you’ve learned in school, miss, or even how glibly you can reel off your homework. This machine gives us a readout on your neural functioning. Look here on the screen.”
I looked and saw what looked like a shifting web of closely spaced, interlocking lines.
“What you’re seeing is an analog of neural activity,” he told me. “This just shows us what your intelligence is physically capable of. The more finely spaced the lines, the more complete is the ability to hold complex mental structures in mind. That’s the sort of intelligence we are looking for.”
“Well, how did I do?” I asked.
He laughed again. “You have a fine mind, miss. We are happy to accept you. I don’t know what you’ll do yet, but it’ll be something better than washing dishes.”
He looked at my papers again. “I see here that you have positive reading on the latent psi scale.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s what my family calls the second-sight, but it doesn’t really get in the way.”
“I wasn’t implying that it does,” he said. “Psi ability is one of the things the Fleet keeps its eye on. Quite a few Espers already work in Communications. Sign here and here. Initial here and here. This is the Standard Waiver, sign here. Here is the Pledge of Obedience to the Fleet. Please sign here.”
He put the papers away and shook my hand in a formal manner. “Welcome aboard,” he said. “You are now Civilian Fleet Personnel. Now go say your good-byes. We leave in precisely two and one-half days at 02400 hours.”
III.
I had imagined that I would be able to observe the Fleet cruiser take off, and watch Trinitus dwindle behind us. In this I had been naive. We did see the takeoff, but only through the overhead television monitors as we lay on our acceleration couches.
It was a noble sight, all the same, even given the interference on the television. We watched as Trinitus dwindled to a pea-point in the glowing screens, and then to a single point of light, and then disappeared entirely. Then Admiral Esplendadore had us stand by as he switched to FTL drive. I’m pleased to say that I was not sick to my stomach. So many novices are the first time they are exposed to Faster-Than-Light drive. Our television set blanked out as we entered FTL.
I had no time to marvel at this, however. The Fleet loudspeakers announced indoctrination lectures for the first group of recruits. And now there began a round of lectures, tests and interviews, which was to last for the next six standard days.
Most of the men who joined up were wanted for various jobs on the construction crews. The Fleet is an old hand at managing personnel, and they tried, whenever possible, to give us jobs which would suit our tastes and abilities. Since we were one of the early planetary levies, others to follow weeks or months later, there were many more jobs than there were personnel to perform them. There was even, strange as it may seem, competition among section and project leaders, to try and recruit new people to their specialties.
The Fleet could have settled any disputes that arose over this because they had every job prioritized and ranked. But they also liked to allow a certain amount of individual initiative among section chiefs. This is, after all, one of the things we were fighting for, and it gave us recruits a measure of choice as to which branches of the services we would go to.
And there was also this to consider: the branch of service that we joined would have a direct effect upon our ability to progress in rank in the Fleet, assuming we made the decision to stay on after our year contract. Some services were looked upon with more favor in the Fleet than others.
The first time I saw Allan Bantry was at the welcome ceremony for new Fleet personnel. It’s quite an important occasion, and everyone wears their best. It’s the time when you get together with the people you’re going to share the station with, the people who are going to help you in the struggle against the Khalia. You’re maybe a little anxious to make a good impression. Allan Bantry chose that occasion to wear his tharg suit.
To say the least, he stood out.
“Who is that fellow?” I asked Milus Shot well.
“It is our new alien psychologist, Dr. Allan Bantry.”
“And what’s that he’s wearing?”
“A tharg suit. Where he comes from it’s considered formal dress.”
The tharg suit, I learned, is worn by male populations of twenty-two human planets with combined populations of sixty-three billion, all of them directly related to our remote ancestor, Adam Sapiens. But those populations live rather far away from Earth and the two hundred or so planets in our vicinity that adhere to the Terran dress code, with its emphasis on the sort of tailored, rugged good looks that only a uniform can give you. A tharg suit is large and baggy with huge pockets for carrying the sort of stuff men must have, such as pencils and sandwiches. It makes even a rather rugged man look a bit like an Easter bunny. In any event, it doesn’t have the tailored look which some people, especially military ones like Commander Esplendadore, consider vital in males.
“If that’s their idea of formal dress,” said Shotwell, “I’d hate to see what they wear to run down to the supermarket.” He collapsed into loud laughter at his own unfortunate joke.
Among the many disciplines which the Fleet embraces, and from time to time makes use of, is that of Alien Psychologist. The post is invariably held by a civilian since some of the more influential of the warlords of the Fleet had never admitted that aliens can have a psychology. It was not a favored branch of service, and so I had more or less made up my mind in advance to avoid it, even before Dr. Allan Bantry asked to interview me.
Allan Bantry was very tall and thin and looked too young to be called “doctor.” I found out later that he was twenty-seven years old, which seems quite old when you’re eighteen, and that he had taken his doctorate at Luna University three years before. He wore dark, baggy tweeds, the sort of thing university people wear all over the galaxy. He had an odd manner of being either totally attentive, or impossibly distracted, with very little in between.
I liked him at once, because he seemed to me to be the sort of person who thought a great deal about what he wanted to get done rather than how he looked or what other people thought of him.
Dr. Bantry explained to me a little about his specialty. An Alien Psychologist, as the name implies, is a specialist in the psychology of nonhuman races. There are quite a few in the Alliance. Some of our allies derive their heritage from remote reptilian ancestors, others avian.
The way Dr. Bantry, or Allan, as I came to know him, described it, Alien Psychologist was really an important position, for he was the man in charge of the first communications with races unlike our own. So tsar, these races had had no particular significance, militarily.
Because of this, the Fleet high brass thought of their Alien Psy
chologists as about as important as their etiquette officers. But I was interested, and at the conclusion of my interview I told Dr. Bantry that I would certainly consider his proposal that I sign on as his assistant.
I had several more interviews, and then, abruptly, our time in space was at an end. The announcement came over the loudspeakers.
“All personnel, prepare for changeover from FTL to normal drive.”
Then Esplendadore’s voice came on, saying, “Now all you people, hear this: we have arrived at our destination. Go to your acceleration couches and keep your eyes fixed on your screens. The next sight you will see will be your new home, the planet Klaxon.”
We came out of FTL drive without incident. My eyes were fixed on the screen. Slowly, a glowing dot appeared. It enlarged swiftly and I had my first view of Klaxon.
Frankly, I was not too impressed. The first view from the air showed a sphere in which oranges, yellows and tans predominated. As we descended, I saw long layers of grayish-yellow clouds hiding the land from us. We passed through them to see mountains and deserts, and a great empty plain which might once have been a sea bed. Then more mountains and rugged rolling land.
We broke through another layer of cloud cover, and I saw below me a wide green valley enclosed between barren mountain ranges. This, I learned, was the only fertile area on this side of the planet, a single valley, about a hundred miles long, by twenty-five miles at its widest point. This was where the new base would be built. The Valley was named AT334L, but the Fleet people referred to it as Xanadu.
I had a sudden irrational sensation of fear as we began our descent to the surface. It was that second-sight of mine kicking up again. It was like I had received a quick, instant mental snapshot of the planet Klaxon and the main emotion it had given me was one of struggle, pain and outrage. It was an uncanny feeling, and I couldn’t account for it at all.
I managed to shrug it off as the ship’s doors opened.
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