Torchship Captain

by Karl K Gallagher

  “I know. I just want to play mechanic for a few.” Guo walked through the clumps of sea grass in the sand to the sloping dirt barrier. Thicker grass surfaced the levee.

  Lian joined him at the levee's base. “Fine, Mr. Mechanic. What's wrong with it?”

  “I’m not sure if there’s something wrong. It’s just asymmetrical. Look. That direction the face is flat, at a constant angle.” He turned to the left. “Here it bulges out in the bottom half.”

  Lian didn’t comment. She just followed him as he walked toward the bulge.

  “This is fresh. There’s gaps in the grass, like stretch marks, and weeds haven’t filled in yet. Oh, shit.”

  “What?” She couldn’t see anything alarming.

  “There’s water coming through at the bottom. This levee is going to breach.” Guo sprinted toward the beach.

  When Lian caught up with him he was in a screaming argument with the head of the food service, who didn’t want an unauthorized interloper disturbing her careful arrangements. Lian looked about for someone of higher rank. They weren’t picnicking with the Elders because she’d wanted to cuddle during the show without someone judging her performance. The crowd was all farmers and workers, none of them willing to defy the local organizer.

  Announcing Guo’s ambassadorial rank wouldn't help. A foreigner would be dismissed. A few people were backing away from the danger area, so he’d done some good. Or maybe they were just afraid of the crazy shouting stranger.

  Looking around for someone she could influence, Lian noticed a trickle of water coming down the slope. She pointed to it and shouted, “Look! Dirty honeywater is leaking out of the paddies!”

  Grunts of disgust sounded as the crowd recoiled from the dirty water.

  She added, “The water's going to get the food dirty!”

  The trickle turned into a stream. It was muddy from the levee and stank of fertilizer. Workers starting to carry the buffet tables down the beach dropped them to scramble away. Parents grabbed children and left blankets.

  The gurgle of the stream became a roar as the bulge blew out in a spray of mud. A flood marched to the ocean. The crowd dashed clear, some falling in the sand. A few had their feet caught in the edge, slipped in the oily flow, and crawled clear.

  The organizer was ignoring Guo, trying to get her surviving food supplies back in order. The beer, alas, had been left in the path of the flood. The kegs were half-visible in the streaming muddy water.

  Lian walked up to Guo. “That could have been much worse,” she said.

  “Yes. I wish I’d done something to prevent it. They ignored me.”

  “No, you alerted them, and when the levee failed they moved instead of standing around wondering where the water was coming from. You probably saved a dozen from being swept into the sea.”

  “Maybe.” He faced toward the gap in the levee. A slow waterfall still poured from the edge of the rice paddy. “It shouldn’t have failed like that.”

  ***

  “If presenting a good example was sufficient to create change we would have succeeded a generation ago,” said Elder Wang. The philosopher hadn’t even broken a sweat in the exercises.

  Guo replied, “You have succeeded. The Confucian Revival doubled its committed adherents in that generation, solely through example and persuasion. To abandon those methods in favor of violent coercion is seen as a confession that Revivalist ways are not better. If they are imposed by force the recipients are denied the opportunity to improve their moral character with better choices.”

  “Violence is a poor method.” Elder Wang began walking. Guo followed. “But it is necessary to keep poor values from being imposed on our people by violence. War has its own logic, dictating initiative and position.”

  “An agreement for peaceful coexistence would eliminate the need for waging war.”

  “Trust is an act of faith, Ambassador Kwan, not a piece of paper.” Wang waved Lian over to join him, Guo and a few students at a larger table. The discussion continued for hours. It was fascinating but Guo never received an answer on where Elder Wang stood on the proposal.

  Which was itself an answer.

  ***

  Lian read down the last column of ideograms. She wiped away a tear. “That’s wonderful. Thank you.” She sat the calligraphed poem carefully on the desk.

  Guo basked in her appreciation. The poem wasn’t his greatest work. He’d rushed through parts trying to finish before she returned from her errand. But he’d put as much of his heart on the page as he could.

  She climbed into his lap and kissed him. “Thank you so much. I’ve always wanted to read another of your poems.” He felt her stiffen slightly. “I want to put this where I can see it every day!”

  Lian scurried to the desk and found a frame in a drawer. She hung the poem to the left of the suite’s entrance.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, admiring the view as she reached up. He wondered which poem of his she’d read. He’d destroyed most of what he’d written. Harmony Intelligence must have found one, or perhaps there’d been a file on him in the old Fusion Counter-Intelligence system.

  Calling her on the careless admission would be entertaining, but she’d surely be punished by her superiors when they reviewed the transcript of this conversation. She was relaxing with him, being lover more than spy. He wanted to encourage that.

  “I’m glad you like it, darling,” said Guo.

  Joshua Chamberlain, Pintoy, gravity 9.4 m/s2

  Scraping dead algae out of a hydroponics screen was below the usual duties of an acting captain. Hiroshi found it restful. He could finish this and know it was done right.

  “Sir?” Mechanic Ye poked his head through the hatch.

  “Yes?” So much for relax time.

  “Sir, Chief Morgan requests guidance on priorities. He has some new tasking from Lt. Marven.”

  “Right. Tell him I’ll be right over.”

  Setta’s only comment on having to task someone else to finish hydroponics maintenance was, “Can I stop putting you on the schedule now?”

  An autocab took Hiroshi to the analyst shop in only a few minutes. The system was almost up to its pre-revolt performance level, a good measure of the improvements the CPS had made.

  The shop was an open bay with tiny offices along its perimeter. All the doors were open as the spacers listened to Lieutenant Marven yelling at Chief Morgan.

  The chief was answering without profanity, bookending the statements with sirs, but by his tone that wouldn’t last.

  Hiroshi had stopped by his quarters to fetch the wooden rod of his rank. He slapped it onto a desk.

  The sound made both combatants step back.

  “There seems to be a problem here,” he said in a dead-level tone.

  Marven pivoted to face him. “The Chief is refusing to carry out my orders.”

  Hiroshi glared at him and lifted the rod. ‘Centurion’ was a broad rank, equivalent to anywhere from a master sergeant to a lieutenant colonel in the Bonaventure Defense Force. Whether a centurion or a tribune in the Shishi Imperial Legion outranked each other was a matter of seniority, assigned position, and personality. As a ‘pilot-centurion’ Hiroshi would be on the lower end of the scale in an SIL unit, since he’d been promoted for technical proficiency rather than leadership ability.

  But Marven didn’t know these subtleties. The vagueness of their ranks let SIL officers seize or evade responsibility on their own judgement. Something the Legion considered a feature, not a bug.

  “Sir,” added Marven grudgingly.

  Hiroshi gently laid the rod back on the desk. “Our mission priority is to look for threats to the CPS, from internal factions or Harmony activity.”

  Both lieutenant and chief nodded.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The Chief is attempting to destroy a successful surveillance operation against a Harmony intelligence cell!” The accusing pointing arm was unnecessary emphasis to Hiroshi.

  “Chief?”


  “Sir, we have identified a Harmony courier planning to take passage off-world on a free trader in,” he glanced at a chronometer, “nine hours.”

  “What are you doing about this?”

  Marven jumped in. “Another courier will receive a packet from the trader, almost certainly. We can track the orders he distributes to identify all the cells he’s supporting. This could give us a big chunk of their network.”

  “What data is the outbound one carrying?”

  “We don’t know,” said Chief Morgan.

  “So it could be critical information.”

  “Or just an amalgamation of open source info,” argued Marven.

  Hiroshi said, “We’re getting close to launching the fleet. Even open source could be critical now.”

  “Dammit, he wants to sic an Action Group on the courier!” snarled Marven. His arm was pointing again. “They won’t interrogate the guy, they’ll just rip his limbs off then behead him.”

  “Yes, Fusion Counter-Intelligence is in disarray,” observed Hiroshi. With riots, desertions, and defections to the Harmony it had collapsed.

  Chief Morgan offered, “I can request an interrogation, and they’d send us a video, but they don’t have any training in it.”

  Hiroshi looked at him in surprise. “They’d share classified information?”

  “Lorraine Q trusts my judgement.”

  Hiroshi didn’t want to know how the bloodthirsty action group leader had come to trust the NCO.

  “Even if they do get something useful out of the courier,” complained Marven, “grabbing him will tip off the Harmony network that they’re in danger.”

  The centurion lifted a hand for silence as he thought. “Monitoring the courier is the best long-term strategy. But with the war shifting to fleet actions we need to focus on the short term. Suppressing the Harmony’s spies while they shift to new locations is almost as good as rolling them up. Let’s tell Lorraine Q to get him.”

  “Sir, there’s a tradition,” Marven burst out. “Intelligence agencies capture each other’s agents, they don’t kill them. We’re putting our own people at risk with this.”

  “Tradition didn’t protect Noisy Water. Make the call, Chief.”

  Tiantan, gravity 8.7 m/s2

  The beach levee accident investigation was confidential, not something any off-planeter could see. But Daifu Ping could see any document he wanted. After a week of badgering he condescended to read it and relay a summary to Guo over breakfast.

  “Nothing dramatic. Two well-intentioned policies combining for a bad result. Bots don’t catch everything so the irrigation inspectors are required to walk all the structures in person. But the retirement age is high enough that one wasn’t up to doing the walking any more. So he faked his inspections. After all, that levee had been solid every time he’d checked it before.”

  Guo snarled. Proper inspections were something he was obsessive about, and made sure his apprentice mechanics were as well. “Dammit. So he’s lazy and nearly got people killed.”

  “Hardly laziness. The poor man’s on the waiting list to have his hip joints regrown. And while your warning kept people from being caught I doubt there would have been deaths. A simulation showed three children and an adult swept out by the breach. There were lifeguards there.”

  “What’s happening to the inspector?”

  Ping shrugged. “Nothing. He confessed his error to his work group and made a detailed self-criticism. Work assignments will be reshuffled to ease the amount of walking he does. And in three years he’ll retire.”

  “No punishment at all?”

  “Humiliation, the scorn of his peers, and the knowledge he failed at his most important duty. That's plenty of punishment.”

  “No, it’s not, dammit.” Guo bit back harsher words, trying to be a diplomat instead of a spaceship mechanic. “There need to be consequences. Otherwise there’s no incentive to keep the next one from slacking off.”

  “Ah, yes, the famed meritocracy of the Disconnect. On Akiak a man who failed at his duties would be thrown into the snows to starve, yes?”

  “No. Well, someone who failed at a bunch of different jobs and pissed off everyone who could offer him charity might starve. Somebody who screws up a nice desk job will wind up scrubbing floors, not exiled.”

  “A precarious life. We don’t want that here. We have stability. People are in their roles, and we keep them in their roles, so everyone knows what to expect. That gives us social order. Harmony in the most literal sense. It may cost us the occasional life from someone falling down on their job. But we don’t have thousands killed in the fragmentation of society. You witnessed that. Is a levee breach such a high price to pay for avoiding it?”

  ***

  Lian looked up from her datasheet. “Industry Minister Yang wasn’t willing to discuss it?” she asked.

  Guo sat down at the breakfast table. “Oh, he was. But I wanted to talk about the gains from mutual trade. He wanted to know how much the Committee would pay to buy peace. I quoted him part of an old poem, made sure he knew he was playing the part of the barbarians, and walked off.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, that was rude of me.”

  “It’s all right. I’m not a very good diplomat.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “You’re good for me.”

  ***

  Master Su declined an invitation to the gourmet establishments of Elder’s Rest. He brought Guo to his school, where they dined on the efforts of Su’s students.

  “I don’t know if you’ve had time to look at the proposed treaty,” began Guo.

  “Parts of it,” said Master Su. “It’s not a philosophical document. Very practical. I enjoyed reverse-engineering it to expose the underlying philosophy. Individualistic, almost atomistic.”

  “It’s intended to be a framework. People can create individualist or traditionalist or technocratic groups within it.” Guo added some rice to his plate.

  “Which would be a fascinating experiment. I award you high marks for creating a debate topic.”

  “How do you rate it as a peace treaty? And will you share your opinion with the Elders?”

  “Ah, the Elders. They’re not nearly as interested in philosophy now that they’re engaged in the exercise of power. Practical issues drown out thought. It’s worse than wine.” Su refilled his and Guo’s cups with plum wine.

  Guo took a sip. “Is this from the same batch as when I was here last?”

  “Oh, yes. We gave you two bottles for your help with the bottling, didn’t we?”

  “Yes. They’re gone now. I served the last of it when I made my first marriage proposal to Mitchie.”

  Su gave him an inscrutable look over the rim of his cup. “Needing more than one proposal is a bad omen.”

  “We’re a good fit together,” Guo said defensively.

  “Your parents would like Lian.”

  Guo flushed. There hadn’t been any hope of keeping the relationship a secret, but the mix of adultery, manipulation, and conflict of interest made him uncomfortable discussing it. “She wouldn’t survive halfway through a winter on Akiak.”

  “So stay here.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about me, dammit. We need to get the Elders to see reason before the war kills millions.”

  “But I like you more than the Elders. They’re boring.” Su met Guo’s glare without changing expression. He took another sip then put his cup down with a sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Talk to them. Persuade them to negotiate for peace. You’re one of the most highly respected philosophers in the entire Revivalist movement.”

  Su slid off his cushion and lay on his side, propping his head up on his elbow. “Am I drunk enough that I can’t sit up straight?”

  “No, you haven’t had nearly that much wine,” Guo laughed.

  “If I drank all those bottles would I be that drunk?” He waved at the shelf to his left.

  “You’d pass out before you finished a third of
them.”

  “Yes. There’s a limit to how drunk one may be on wine.” Su took another sip. “But there is no limit to being drunk on power.”

  Guo shifted on his cushion. “Are you saying . . . ?”

  “I am saying nothing. I am philosophizing. It is in the nature of men who hold power to seek more power. The Master’s teachings prepare rulers for their ascension, so they may use it best for all. But you cannot know the strength of one’s moral character until you have been tempted.”

  “I’d hope peace would tempt them.”

  “Peace tempts you. It will tempt you to lie and cheat for its sake. To other men peace is a barrier. It puts a lid on their power, shackles on their means of gaining more. Such men cannot be persuaded to seek peace. They will accept it as an alternative to losing what power they already have.”

  “Have you said that to them?”

  Su’s laugh was a real one, not the artful chuckle he deployed to underscore his arguments. “My boy, how do you think I’ve grown so respected? I only tell people what they’ve grown ready to hear. The art is recognizing when they’ve grown enough to accept a new truth. I will not tell the Elders what they are not ready to hear. Just as I do not say to you what you are not ready for.”

  Guo took a deep drink to hide his face as he tried to work out what Su thought he wasn’t ready for. Combining their discussions on past visits with the hints dropped tonight made it easy. ‘Divorce Mitchie, abandon the Disconnect, and settle down with your Harmony-issued wife.’ He flared with anger just imagining it. The Master’s words were a good guide to life, but he’d fight before letting anyone else’s interpretation control how he lived his life.

  Which I guess makes me a terrible Confucian.

  ***

  Guo’s quarters had been fine when he was there on his own. Now that Lian was spending all her spare time there the space seemed vast and empty while she was away.

  He knew he shouldn’t worry. A doctor visit to see why she was “feeling a little off” was nothing. This was the Fusion, where doctors cured everything with genetically-engineered white blood cells. Not Akiak. Guo’s father might have survived his injuries from the mine collapse, if the deep winter cold hadn’t kept the tractors from starting.