“Would anyone else care to comment?” asked the major
Gerswin looked down, finally pressing the red stud.
“You have a comment, Cadet Gerswin?”
“A question, ser. If wars aren’t fought for material gain, does that mean that there are other logical reasons for war? Or material ones?” he added.
“The original question assumed there was a distinction, if you please, between wars within systems, and wars between systems. Are you questioning that distinction?”
“Yes, ser…I mean…no, ser…I mean…” Gerswin closed his mouth.
“Would you like to clarify what you mean, Cadet Gerswin?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Please do so.”
“Ser, I wasn’t going to question the distinction. Not sure now. Text indicates costs of war almost always outweigh the gains. Doesn’t say that, but the numbers seem to—”
“What numbers, Cadet Gerswin?”
Gerswin repressed a sigh. “Looked up military budget differentials, reconstruction costs, death benefits…”
“I’ll accept that for purposes of discussion. Are you saying that the costs to even the victor outweigh the quantifiable benefits?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Aha. Cadet Gerswin is suggesting that since the costs of war outweigh the benefits, no wars have a logical basis. A novel approach. Any takers?” Major Gonnell surveyed the hall again, his metal support skeleton swiveling him from side to side. “Any dissenters?”
Another sweep of the room followed.
“I see. Cadet Gerswin’s suggestion is so novel none of you have considered it. Very well, your first submission, due in five days, is: ‘Wars Have No Logical Basis.’
“The submission must be a proof, although documented anecdotal material may be used, and you must take a definite position. Any submission which fails to support or refute the illogicality of war will be failed.”
The major surveyed the class once again before concluding in his rasping squeak, “Section dismissed.”
“Ten’stet!”
The cadets snapped out of their seats to attention as the major departed.
XIV
“All hands! All hands! Stand by for jump! Stand by for jump!”
Gerswin laid back in his couch, made sure the webbing across his chest was tight, although there was scarcely any chance that it would be needed. As a second class cadet, he had no permanent duty assignment. Consequently, he had no station from which to watch the jump.
Only Tammilan had managed that, and only because the Fordin’s number three navigator billet was unfilled. The missing officer had stepped in front of a lift loading a cargo shuttle less than an hour before orbit break. While the emergency releases had stopped the lift in time, not all of the weapon spares had been securely fastened, and the junior navigator was now recovering from multiple fractures in the I.S.S. medical facilities at Standora Base.
Gerswin waited for the blackness that filled the ship during the jump itself, that and the accompanying distortion. Supposedly, the jumps were instantaneous, but the longer the jump, the longer the subjective feeling of blackness and disorientation.
While Gerswin had been on a jumpship before the Fordin, this tour was his first trip since learning enough to understand what a jump really was. The upcoming jump was only the third since the cadets had boarded the Fordin off Alphane, using the Academy’s shuttles to reach the cruiser.
The battlecruiser was headed for quarantine duty in New Smyrna system, along with two other cruisers and two corvettes.
“Jump!”
BRrrinnngggg!!!
The jump alarm seemed to stretch out through the darkness like an organ reverberating in slowtime.
With his third jump, Gerswin could see that the blackness was not uniform, but a swirl of differing blacks, as if each had a different shape and depth.
Just as suddenly as the darkness had dropped over the colored plasteel corridors of the cruiser, it was gone.
Gerswin unstrapped, checked his uniform, and scurried out of the closetlike room he shared with Tammilan. Since he was now assigned to the Gunnery department that was where he headed, down the corridor to the spool and in two layers to the central spoke.
No sooner had he entered the Gunnery operations center, with its spark screens and representation plots, than a voice boomed out.
“Cadet Gerswin!”
“Yes, ser.”
“What is the maximum effective range of a Mark II?”
Gerswin braced himself. Lieutenant G’Maine, the junior of the three Gunnery officers, always tried the question on unwary cadets, or so Tammilan had told him.
“There is no effective range for a Mark II, ser, since there is no Mark II, ser.”
“A smart cadet. Tell me, Mister Gerswin, the difference between the calibration technology used in the tachead rangers and the EDI detectors.”
Gerswin wished the lieutenant would quit booming out questions, but he remained at attention beside the detector console.
“Tacheads have no rangers; calibration is independent and based on mass detection proximity indications. EDI tracks are actually a flow ratio compared against background energy flows.”
“A really smart cadet! Can you tell me, Mister Gerswin, the power flow managed by this center at full utilization?”
“No, ser.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know, ser.”
“And why don’t you know—”
“Lieutenant, would you spare the cadet for a moment? I have some rather menial and less intellectually demanding tasks for him.”
Gerswin was glad someone had rescued him, though he did not recognize the voice. From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the uniform, which seemed to be that of a major. If so, it had to be Major Trillo, the chief Gunner of the Fordin.
“Certainly, Major.”
Gerswin waited.
“On your way, Mr. Cadet Gerswin.”
“Yes, ser.”
“And, Lieutenant,” added the Major, “I also need a word with you after Cadet Gerswin is dispatched.”
The lieutenant nodded, his blocky face bobbing up and down.
“Mr. Gerswin, don’t stand there like a statue. We’ve all got things to do. Get on over here.”
“Here” meant to the main console, which was a quarter of a deck high and at one end of the narrow room overlooking the banks of screens.
Gerswin stepped up.
Major Trillo was short, only to Gerswin’s shoulder level, square, with shoulders broader than his, deep violet eyes, and short, black curly hair. Her voice was velvet over frozen iron.
One tech stood near her control seat, and the major looked, merely looked, and the tech retreated to the main operating screen level.
Gerswin was impressed. He felt more secure with the Lieutenant G’Maine’s of the I.S.S.
“Gerswin, I can’t blame you, but it’s not smart to make your senior officers look stupid, even when they behave like robomules. You must have known what G’Maine would do. You had the answers down pat. If you’d played a little dumber, G’Maine could have crowed and been delighted to teach you all he knows, which isn’t that much.
“Now, I’ll have to make him responsible for teaching you more than he knows or he’ll make everyone’s life miserable. So…if you don’t learn everything he has to teach you and more, it will go in your record under lack of adaptability. But I don’t expect that.”
Unexpectedly, the major sighed. “Maybe it’s better this way. I have an excuse to force him to learn more. But it takes more of my time, and I have little enough of that anyway. So put it all down to experience, and don’t do it again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ser.” Gerswin nodded.
“Understand, Cadet Gerswin, I am not opposed to your knowing more than your superiors, nor to learning anything and everything you can. I am opposed to junior officers flaunting such knowledge when it is totally unnecessary. Do
you understand that?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Further, young man, if you breathe a word of this conversation to anyone, I will insure that you spend the rest of this cruise on maintenance detail and that there is a half-black on your cruise file.”
Gerswin swallowed, swallowed hard. A half-black amounted almost to a bust-out. A half-black with a year to go at the Academy—only two had ever graduated with a half-black, only two in the last century, according to the rumors.
“Yes, ser.”
Major Trillo smiled, and the smile was friendly.
“If you understand, you’ve learned more from this encounter than some officers learn in an entire career.”
Her voice hardened slightly. “For the past week, the ES section has been promising to reclaim the contents of the repair and recycle locker and take back the material. Would you please gather it all together—all the junk in bin ER-7 over there—and take it down to the E-section senior tech, Erasmus.
“On the way back, stop by the mess and bring back two cafes, one liftea, and whatever you would like.”
“Yes, ser.”
“And don’t mind Erasmus. He’ll grouse.”
The major switched her attention from the cadet to the screen, effectively dismissing him.
Gerswin found a snapbag two bins away from the one labeled ER-7 and carefully placed in it all the mysterious pieces of the transequips and solicube segments.
He wondered if the major saw through his carefully cultivated facade, if she read the contempt he tried to avoid displaying when he ran across Service types who fancied themselves great warriors. Most wouldn’t have lasted a night on the high plains.
His lips quirked as he thought about the major. He had no doubts that she would have survived anywhere.
At the Academy he had avoided cadet rank, had tried to blend into the middle of the class. He had been successful, except in the physical development classes. Even there, he’d minimized his strength by concentrating on skill-oriented combat forms, or on learning and mastering the range of energy weapons.
His reflexes made him number one in unarmed combat. He could usually beat the instructors, when he tried, but he made certain that he never won all the time. Instead he worked on learning new techniques until perfected, at which point he began to learn a new repertoire.
He shook his head and concentrated fully on placing each component within a separate insulated section of the carrying case.
Finding E section was harder than he had anticipated, since it wasn’t listed except by spoke and frame number. He had to retrace his steps twice before he knocked and stepped inside.
Grouse wasn’t exactly the word Gerswin would have used to express the tech’s outburst.
“That malingering she-cat knows I have no use for this despicable pile of misbegotten droppings from the devil’s offspring! And she sends an innocent to the slaughter, knowing full well how I feel!”
Gerswin’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Never had he heard anyone discuss a major in the I.S.S. that way in public, let alone a technician who hadn’t even a commission. Even if Erasmus was a senior tech—and Gerswin couldn’t tell that because the man’s white tech suit, contrary to regulations, had no insignia, not even his name—Erasmus should not have discussed a senior officer so candidly.
Gerswin said nothing, certain he had failed to understand something.
Finally, he spoke. “Will that be all, Senior Technician Erasmus?”
“Will that be all, Senior Technician? Will that be all, Senior Cadet? Is it not enough to have been given sewer sweepings, the remnants of proud equipment, without as much as a by-your-leave? Do you think that good equipment springs full-blown from the heads of gods? Will that be all indeed?”
Gerswin tried to hide the beginnings of a smile.
“And you, would-be officer, smirk upon what you see as the rantings and ravings of a demented technician. Do you also smirk at the equipment upon which your very life rests? Do you?”
The cadet had to take a step backward to avoid the long probe the technician waved in his face.
“Do you?”
“No. Not at all.”
Erasmus looked at the carrying case in Gerswin’s arms.
“Ah, well. Bring it in. We’ll do what we must.” The technician shook his head sadly. “But the sheer effrontery, the sheer underhandedness! At least she did not send that bonehead, the one with the skull so thick and so empty that not even a laser would have any effect.”
Gerswin repressed another smile. To hear Lieutenant G’Maine so described by someone else was a pleasure.
“And you, Mister Cadet Gerswin by your name plate, what do you think?”
Theoretically, second class cadets outranked even senior technicians, but in practice, Gerswin had known from his devilkid days, things didn’t always conform to theory.
So while Gerswin theoretically did not have to respond to Erasmus’s questions, he swallowed his smile and did.
“I don’t know enough to make an intelligent answer.”
“Wish more had the nerve to admit what they didn’t know. But you did not answer my first question. Your life rests on technology, on equipment like that.” His probe jabbed down at the bag Gerswin had carried in. “Put it on the work bench next to the console.”
As Gerswin did, the technician’s questions continued.
“That equipment carries your life, and yet you do not understand it, except how to use it? Is that not so?”
“Right now, you’re right. I don’t.”
“Will you ever? Don’t answer that. You might answer honestly and disappoint me. Or you might answer honestly and fail to live up to what your answer promises. Or you might lie. Not much chance that you’ll ever really understand technology. Not if you become the standard I.S.S. officer.”
Erasmus sighed. “That’s why you have technicians. To keep you running. Don’t forget it, Mr. Gerswin. Don’t forget it.”
“You make a strong case, Senior Technician.”
“Damned right, Cadet. They put up with my ‘peculiarities’ because I can repair anything in this Emperor’s Navy. But I’m right anyway. And don’t you forget it.”
Gerswin didn’t know what else to say. If he used the formal “will that be all?” Erasmus would think he had been merely half listening.
“Would you like me to convey anything else to Major Trillo, generally?”
“Ha! HA! HAAA!” Erasmus laughed, then stopped. “You’re cautious, Cadet. But you’re learning. She wouldn’t take official notice, and no sense putting you on the spot. Besides, we understand each other, she and I do.”
Even the chuckling stopped.
“That will be all, Cadet. Keep listening. It’s worth all the cubes and lectures at the Academy.”
Despite the feeling that he had suffered a mental bombardment, Gerswin found his feet leading him back to the wardroom, where he picked up two cafes and two lifteas, not that he particularly liked liftea, but the tea was far better than the oily taste of the cafe, which reminded him all too strongly of landpoison.
Once back inside the weapons center, he saw Lieutenant G’Maine standing between him and the main console, which seemed vacant except for a single tech.
Gerswin walked straight to G’Maine.
“Lieutenant, did you want cafe or liftea? The major asked me to bring some on my way back, but I don’t know which you prefer, ser.”
“Appreciate it, Cadet. I prefer cafe. So does Lieutenant Swabo, but the major likes liftea.”
G’Maine took a cafe and turned away without another word.
Gerswin searched for the major, located her in the far corner, the missile center, with Lieutenant Swabo.
Once he made his way there he stood, holding the tray, waiting to be noticed, as the two women conferred about something with gestures toward the small plot in the center of Swabo’s console.
Without looking up, the major said, “Cafe for the Lieutenant, lift
ea for me.”
Gerswin placed the beverages in the holders on the consoles and retreated to a corner folddown where he sipped his own liftea.
XV
Ding! Ding! Ding!
With the sound of the third bell the captain’s face appeared on all the screens on the Fordin, and her voice echoed through all the passageway speakers.
Gerswin looked over Lieutenant G’Maine’s shoulder to get a view of the skipper. He had met Captain Montora once, when he had been formally introduced by the executive officer after he had reported from the Academy.
She looked as crisp now as she had then, short and bobbed blond hair in perfect place, ice green eyes steady into the screen, square jawed, smooth olive skin. A closer study might have showed the hints of age—the slight shadow and fine lines around the eyes, the sharpened nose, the lines in the otherwise smooth forehead.
“This is the captain. Shortly, we will be changing course and jumping for Newparra. This will be a two-jump trip. Once in-system, we will become the nucleus of the quarantine battle group.
“While a full backgrounder will be available through the ship’s infonet, for those of you who have not participated in a quarantine action before, our job is to isolate the system from any outside contact and to keep any system ships from departing until a new government can be recognized by the Emperor.
“We will be joined initially in this action by the Krushnei, the Saladin, and the Kemal. Before system entry, you will be ordered to alert status.
“That is all.”
As the screen blanked, Gerswin looked up to the raised deck and to Major Trillo, the Gunnery officer.
“Ten’stet!” The major’s voice cut off the rising murmurs of speculation.
“All Gunnery officers and cadets, report to the main console here immediately.”
Gerswin tagged along behind Lieutenants G’Maine and Swabo as the three of them trooped between the consoles toward the major.
“Relax.” The major gestured vaguely in a circular motion. “I don’t believe any of you except Lieutenant Swabo have participated in a quarantine action. When we’re done here, you all, and especially you, Cadet Gerswin, need to call up that backgrounder and to review the Imperial articles of quarantine. Study them, if you need to. If what I recall of Newparra is still current, this could be one of the nastier quarantines you will ever see.
The Forever Hero Page 5