"Good. Well the best way I can see to administer discipline is to stop the creature's food and grog. Your monkey is on bread and water for a week, starting today. You will not permit him to partake of any beer, or anything except bread and water, during that period. If he so much as snags a handful of your food, or anyone else's, it will be you on bread and water. Do I make myself clear?"
"Aye, Cap'n."
"Good, now, put your monkey on the table in front of me. Mr. Aquinar, you do the same." Then he reached up and grabbed his own monkey.
"Huurkk? Heek?" said the surprised monkey as Melville set it down in front of him. The other two monkeys were placed beside it, and Melville stood up and looked down at them sternly, leaning forward with his hands on the table. All three of the monkeys crouched on the table with their eight legs pulled in close and their heads drawn up in their thorax. Only a trace of their eyeballs could be seen peeking out at him, and above the eyeballs their mouths were chittering silently.
"Now you lot listen up," Melville began. Smith and Aquinar looked at him incredulously. What the hell am I doing, thought Melville. I'm lecturing a bunch of damned monkeys! I swear it's See-no-evil, Hear-no-evil and Speak-no-evil. "Those cats are members of our crew, just like you. They serve a function here, and I will not tolerate any further harassment of the cats. Do I make myself clear?"
"Krw?" said his monkey.
" . . . Aye," replied Melville. Now," he continued, pointing his finger at his monkey as it crouched back away from his remonstrating digit. "From this point on you, sir, will be in charge of discipline among the monkeys. You are the captain's monkey, and you'll be in charge of monkey discipline. When I want something done among the monkeys, I will tell you, and you will by God ensure that it is done. Is that understood?"
"Aiee kptnn," responded his monkey faintly, its head nodding inside its thorax. The other two could be seen nodding their heads as well. A strange effect since it caused their eyes to blink in and out of sight.
Damn, thought Melville, I knew it! They really do understand.
"Good. If there are any other occurrences like this, you and all the other monkeys will be put on bread and water. If you cannot submit to authority you will be put off at the next port. Do you understand?"
"Aiee, kptnn." Now their heads crept back out of the thorax and this statement by Melville's monkey was accompanied by a chorus of nods from the three monkeys.
"Good. Very good. Now, what the cats do for us is to hunt down vermin. From this point on I want all of you to start earning your keep on this ship by helping to hunt down vermin. Not only do we have some rats, mice, cockroaches, and weevils, but we have all kinds of weird Guldur infestations. The cats are driven to distraction by having to take care of these critters, and you'll help them. Can you do that?"
Now their heads were extended well out on their accordion necks. There was an eager nodding and a chorus from all three that a good imagination might take as "Aye Captain."
"Good. Now move out!"
Smith and Aquinar saluted while the monkeys spun their necks 360 degrees to watch them. The monkeys mimicked the salutes almost perfectly and scampered to the appropriate shoulders. On their way out the monkeys looked at each other and exchanged relieved glances and a brief chittering. Melville could have sworn that they thought things could have gone much worse and perhaps they had gotten off lightly.
"Damn," said Melville quietly as they left, reaching up to scratch his monkey behind the ears. "I wonder if I should feel sorry for the vermin?"
There were two additional groups that still needed to be integrated into their crew. One was the huge, semi-sentient 24-pounder cannons. The other was Cinder's litter of puppies.
Sired by Josiah's dog, born of Valandil's Cinder, this litter of pups represented some of the finest canine bloodlines known to Sylvan or human kind. For centuries mankind had bred their dogs for intelligence and physical ability, as had the Sylvans. To the best of anyone's knowledge this litter was the first cross between these two mighty breeds. At some time in the primordial past, many of the worlds in the galaxy appeared to have been seeded, perhaps repeatedly, by some elder race, or races. Indeed a strong case could be made for a continuous exchange of genetic material between many planets, so that life coevolved at the same time on all of them. It was generally believed that Sylvan and humans could interbreed. Here was further proof that interbreeding was possible between similar species from far distant worlds.
Melville looked with wonder at the little furry blobs mewling at the proud mother's flank as they nursed with dogged perseverance. Above him the monkeys in the rigging were batting around some poor crayfishlike vermin they'd caught, until finally one of them batted it off into the blue plane of Flatland with a belaying pin and a cheer. Melville picked up a pup, with an audible pop as he pulled it from its mother's teat, and stroked its little blind head. Here was another new thing. An ancient Spanish blessing went, "May no new thing arise," but for him many new things had arisen. The monkeys, the Ship, the pups. And he found them all to be a source of great joy in his life.
Melville probably should have realized that Cinder was gravid when they came off of Broadax's World. In retrospect it was pretty obvious, but somehow there were always other things to worry about. He was sincerely surprised when the pups were born, and deeply moved when the rangers presented one to him. He immediately began to bond with the puppy, but the rangers, and Cinder, took responsibility for training the pups. Having seen how splendidly the rangers' dogs performed in combat, Melville asked them if they would assist in training all the ship's dogs. They readily agreed.
The puppies were easily incorporated into the crew. Mankind had vast centuries of experience to draw upon when it came to dogs. It was in the genes of both species to adapt to each other, and this process even seemed to apply to the Guldur. But when it came to integrating the huge cannon, the task wasn't nearly so simple and straightforward.
When you put your hand on the 24-pounder's Keel charge you felt a feral yearning to lash out and destroy. This was true to a lesser extent of their 12-pounders, but in this case there was an intensity and a viciousness that was mildly disturbing. Like the difference between a hunting dog and a feral wolf. All the gun crews for the 24-pounders fired a round early on. When they touched off the cannon the response was something like <
Accurate firing of a Keel-charged cannon in Flatland was accomplished through a bonding with the cannon. The gunner willed the cannonball to hit what he was sighting on, and the Keel charge was capable of adjusting itself to hit the target. The cannons were capable of astounding accuracy if the gunner was experienced, and if the cannon was trained, and if they had practiced together as a team.
The problem with these cannons was that they were so large that the gunner couldn't sight down the barrel and concentrate on his target as he touched off the Keel. Thus the gunner had no choice but to stand to the side as he touched off the cannon, or he'd be crushed by the recoil. But their master gunner, Mister Barlet, had a solution to that problem. His plan was to build a platform over one side of the gun, and the gunner would lie on that, looking down the barrel, making hand motions to the assistant gunners on each side of the carriage. They would pry the gun to left and right according to these signals. Once they got this all in place the result was amazing.
Since nothing but a Keel would "float" in two-space, and Keels were precious and expensive, the process of setting up a target for gunnery practice required significant ingenuity. Their standard procedure was to send out one of the cutters with a target suspended from a boom held out astern. The boom was long, as long as they could manage to lash together, with support lines up to the cutter's masthead, but still there was d
anger of a missent cannonball hitting the cutter. At first the cutter was kept in close as they learned the guns' ability, range and accuracy. The results astounded them. With a few weeks of daily gunnery practice they were able to run the cutter out farther than one of their 12-pound balls could even reach at maximum elevation. Their 24-pounders were still hitting the targets, usually a few suspended barrels, with deadly accuracy.
There was a full stock of round shot, canister and grape for exercising the 24-pounders, but there was only a limited amount for the 12-pounders. All of the ammunition for the 12-pounders had come across from Kestrel in the cutters, so the supply was necessarily limited. This was acceptable, since the 12-pounders' crews were well trained and competent.
Within a few weeks Cinder's pups were small balls of pure energy, gamboling merrily about with out-of-control limbs and a sheer love of life that was simple, pure and complete. They had thick, fluffy, tan and black fur, huge feet, floppy ears, and long, thick tails that wagged their whole bodies. They had the sailors in stitches as they romped back and forth across the decks in a great, hairy horde. The crew dearly loved and appreciated the pups for making them laugh. After the horror of their recent battles the puppies' zest for life and boundless affection was healing, renewing and reenergizing, and most of all contagious.
Burned from the ore's rejected dross,
The iron whitens in the heat.
With plangent strokes of pain and loss
The hammers on the iron beat.
Searched by the fire, through death and dole
We feel the iron in our soul.
They'd been forged in fire and death, but now the fire was quenched in laughter, just as the white-hot sword is quenched in water. They were stronger for the quenching and there was, indeed, iron in their souls.
Soon the puppies each carried a baby monkey, a true kindred spirit riding gleefully upon their backs. The inspired naughtiness and boundless energy of the puppies seemed to be reflected perfectly in the monkeys. Together they persistently went about the serious business of play, attacking the toes of the barefooted sailors, chewing at the railing, and mounting combined-arms offensives on the mops that flogged the decks each morning. Like the cats, the puppies needed to be taught to use the heads, dropping their urine and feces into interstellar space. This batch of puppies seemed to be learning particularly quickly, apparently helped along by their monkeys.
Every day the great guns fired and, like the monkeys and puppies, they too were learning how to integrate themselves as full-fledged members of the team. And each day the crew members were drilled extensively in combat craft. For the sailors, that meant rifle practice and bayonet drill. For the midshipmen, it meant extensive pistol training.
Petreckski was in charge of most aspects of the midshipmen's training. He was their schoolmaster, teaching them in the classics and many other areas, but he took particular delight at training them in pistolcraft. With a battle pending he saw this as a priority task.
"Gentlemen," said the monk to his students as they began pistol practice on targets hanging from the yardarms, "I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to focus your eyes on the front sight of your pistol. You want to look at the target, but even though you look with all your might, it will accomplish nothing. You cannot influence the target one little bit by looking at it, but you can influence your pistol by focusing on the front sight." He looked at Hezikiah Jubal and shook his head sadly. Jubal was an excellent sailor but he was adjusting poorly to using a pistol.
The middies stood facing the targets suspended over the dark blue plain of Flatland. The targets were chunks of wood and canvas carefully shaped and painted to look like human beings. In front of them was a rack of pistols. Petreckski stood to the left of the line, facing them. "Each of you pick up a pistol from the rack and face the target in the low ready position. The pistols have been loaded.
"Now, think of yourselves as artists. Your pistol is your brush. The artist uses the brush to paint with. He moves the brush, not the painting. He focuses on the tip of the brush to get the stroke right. What you are painting, my friends, is literally a masterpiece of life and death. Life for you and your friends, death for the enemy who is trying to kill you. All painted on a canvas of flesh with your little front sight. Do you understand?"
"Aye, sir," they answered in chorus. The new middies had all acquired monkeys. Now each middy had a monkey on his back, nodding in unison with its master. Petreckski also had a new monkey. It had quickly acquired a comical air of dignity and grave wisdom. It looked like a little Buddha sitting on his shoulder, folding its hands on its thorax, and comically mimicking the monk's gravity.
"Gentlemen, today I have a special drill to be sure you focus on your front sight. A number has been painted on each of your front sights. No, don't look! It's very small, and the only way you can read it is to focus very carefully on the front sight. So now, one by one, you will raise your pistols and place the front sight on the target. Then focus on the number, calling it off as you fire. Do you understand?"
"Aye, sir . . ." they said, with some uncertainly.
"Starting from the right. Mr. Jubal, ready, fire."
Jubal raised the weapon up to point at the chunk of scrap wood that was his target. Beneath them were the floorboards, before them the railing, behind them stood the mainmast, above them hung the mainyard. All were coated with Moss and glowing like vast florescent bulbs. By this ample light he brought his pistol up onto the target and read the number painted on the sight as he slipped his thumb over the Keel charge. "Three." <
"Good! Did you see how that worked?"
"Yes sir! That was amazing! Now I understand what you meant about focusing on the front sight."
"Good," replied the monk with a pleased smile, folding his hands on his ample belly. "We will all do that, reload, switch pistols, and do it again and again."
Later, as the excited and pleased middies took a break after their drill, Tung asked, "Sir, why do we fire at targets shaped like people? Why not Guldur, since that's what we are likely to face?"
"Ah, grasshopper," replied the monk with a smile. "That's because anyone can kill a member of another species. That's easy. But inside the midbrain of most healthy members of most species is a hardwired resistance to killing your own kind. Animals with horns fight each other head-to-head in their territorial and mating battles, while they try to gut and gore any other species. Piranha, a breed of fish that is essentially teeth with fins attached, fight each other with flicks of the tail, but they will devour anything else that hits the water. Rattlesnakes will sink their fangs into anything and everything, except each other . . . and lawyers," he added with a blissful smile. "Any species that didn't have this resistance would soon be driven extinct by their own territorial and mating battles."
The midshipmen sat on the deck, leaning back against the railing and listening intently as the monk continued. They were sore from days of pistol practice. Their arm and shoulder muscles ached. Their hands were rubbed raw from the recoil of thousands of rounds of ammunition, and they were happy to take a break and exercise their ears and their minds for a change as their teacher leaned against the mainmast and continued. "In the twentieth century, mankind became aware of this resistance when research showed that the vast majority of soldiers in combat wouldn't fire their weapons at an exposed enemy, even to save their own lives.
"Now, my friends, the question you should ask yourself at this point is . . . what?" Then he waited, and the tension built as the midshipmen looked at each other.
"Well, sir," said Tung, frowning with concentration, "If it's so hard for humans to kill each other, how did we fill so many military cemeteries over the centuries?"
"Excellent, Mr. Tung! You win the big 'no prize' for today. Consider, gentlemen, that we weren't born with the ability to fly, yet we have this brain that permits us to overcome that limitation. And although we may have som
e innate difficulty in bringing ourselves to kill members of our own species, the entire evolution of military history has been a process of ever better mechanisms to enable us to kill. Groups, leaders, distance, all these things are effective and useful at enabling killing, but nothing beats training.
"Remember, you might have to shoot in an ambush, gunning down your enemy in cold blood before they even know you're there. Anyone can understand shooting to protect themselves. You give me five minutes and I'll make any sentient being in the galaxy mad enough to shoot me. The real question is, will they have that much time in a fight? The time to decide whether or not you can calmly gun down an enemy soldier, before they have a chance to kill you, is now, before the battle. Your life, and the lives of your comrades depend on it.
"Thus you must always practice on the most realistic simulator possible. A simulator of the thing that is hardest to kill. Perhaps we will face human pirates, or some species so similar to ourselves that our brain is tricked. We must prepare for these eventualities, but mostly it's the principle of the matter. Anyone can kill a member of another species, but only a well trained warrior can kill members of his own species in cold blood."
"But, sir, isn't that dangerous?" asked Aquinar. His monkey, sitting wide-eyed on his shoulder seemed to nod in agreement.
"Yes, it can be dangerous, but failing to prepare your warriors to kill in combat is far, far more dangerous. Ultimately the safeguard is discipline. Every warrior has two values pounded into his skull from the very earliest days. Violence, and discipline." The midshipmen nodded and many of the sailors were finding nearby tasks to complete so they could listen. The whole ship felt honored to have such a "learned cove" as their purser, and this was a subject that interested them greatly.
But not everyone could stop what they were doing and listen to the lecture. "Johanson, ya witless booby!" shouted the bosun to one distracted sailor. "I swear you shall never shite a true seaman's turd! If ya leave that stirrup like that the next person on it might fall through to their death. Now get back up there and finish the job. Then go up to the masthead and stay there and consider the magnitude of yer sin until I tell ya to come down!"
Two Space War Page 21