Tambu

by Robert Asprin

  "Another year like this last one, and I'll be ready for the hard stuff. But, I can't actually accept the shipments. If nothing else, it would show which ship I was on. Instead, I'll have each donor send it off to a different ship, with a note that the ship's crew is to enjoy the gift with my compliments."

  "Sounds like a good deal. Any chance my ship can get in on that?"

  "I'll have to check my lists," he retorted with mock severity. "You know I won't play favorites. Just because you successfully seduced me doesn't mean you should expect special privileges."

  "I stand duly chastised." She hung her head dramatically.

  "Getting back to the original question, jokers like these would be able to tell in no time flat if I wasn't reading their reports."

  "Which would be an open invitation to gimmick the books," Ramona acknowledged.

  "Even if I trusted everyone implicitly, which I don't, but even if I did, I'd still take the time to review the reports. There's a lot of information here once you learn to read between the lines."

  "Such as what?"

  "Well," Tambu squinted, "I can tell how often they conduct target practice, what the condition of their ship is, the state of the crew's morale-"

  "Wait a minute. You lost me. How can you tell all that from just looking at numbers?"

  "By studying various expense items. For example, if a ship is spending less than half the amount on maintenance and parts as other ships the same size and age, I can make an educated guess that its condition is less than excellent."

  "And crew morale?"

  "If a captain is paying his crew low wages and is spending little or nothing on employee luxuries, they will be noticeably less happy than a well-paid crew on a ship with a new lounge and game room."

  "I see," Ramona commented thoughtfully. "Maybe I should take another look at my own reports."

  "I'm not sure how much good it would do you without other reports to compare it to. What you might do is call a couple of the other ships and ask for copies of their reports."

  "I just might do that," Ramona nodded. "Now you've got me wondering."

  Tambu's simply giving her copies of the reports submitted to him was not mentioned by either of them. Yearly reports were strictly confidential between Tambu and the individual captains.

  Tambu continued, "Besides checking on individual ships, I use the reports to look for new ideas. There's one ship in the fleet, for example, that's shown significant savings on their food expenses by allowing planetside food services to open a franchise on board the ship. Food preparation and planning becomes the service's problem, and the crew buys their meals in a cafeteria."

  "Interesting. Does it work?"

  "I'm still checking into it," Tambu said. "Even though their food costs have been reduced, they've had to pay their crews more to cover the price of the meals. It could be a false savings."

  "I can see where it gets a bit complicated," Ramona commented.

  "Oh, that's not the complicated part," Tambu replied innocently. "Where it gets rough is trying to use the reports to find answers to nonspecific quantitative questions."

  "You're showing off now!"

  "You're right. But it's true nonetheless."

  "I'll call your bluff," she challenged. "Give me an example of a nonqualitative... whatever it was you said."

  "Gladly. Do you remember the item on the agenda about next year's captains' meeting that calls for a review of the funds allocation methods?"

  "I glanced over it, but I didn't read it carefully. Why?"

  "You should look at it. It's going to be one of the hottest items on the agenda. Most of the other captains are gearing up for a major brawl."

  "Maybe it's the terminology that's putting me off, What's it all about? In non-accounting terms."

  "Simply put, the planets who subscribe to our services pay their money into a big common pool," Tambu explained. "From that pool, the money gets divided down among the individual ships which comprise the fleet. The question that's being raised is what is a fair basis for determining which ship gets how much."

  "Aside from the fact that everybody gets emotional when there's money on the line, what's the problem?" Ramona yawned. "I mean, how many ways can you carve a pie?"

  "Lots. The trouble is, each way has its drawbacks."

  He rose and began to pace the room as he spoke, unconsciously falling into a lecturer's role.

  "We can't just give a set amount to each ship. Some of our ships are twice as big as others and require larger crews and more maintenance. Similarly, we can't give a set amount to each crewman or captain. On a small ship, a crewman has to do more than one job. Should a navigator gunner be paid the same as a man who is only a gunner?"

  "Or should the captain of a five-man cruiser be paid as much as the captain of a forty-man dreadnought?" Ramona supplied.

  "Exactly." Tambu nodded. "And then there's seniority. Should a five-year crewman be paid the same as someone in the same job who just signed on?"

  "It could get a little sticky."

  "I haven't even gotten to the good part yet. There's also the matter of the patrol range of the individual ship. If two ships are the same size with the same size crew, and one of them is patrolling eight planets and the other patrols twenty, should they be paid the same? Of course, there you have to figure in the currency exchange rates and price of supplies on the various planets."

  "Stop!" Ramona cried. "Okay! I get the picture. It's a morass. What has all this got to do with the financial reports?"

  "Between now and the meeting, I have to formulate a plan. If I don't have something firmly in mind before the item comes ups on the agenda, the discussion will degenerate into a dogfight."

  He poked listlessly at the heap of paper and tapes on his table.

  "Going through this stuff, I'm trying to find a pattern to our costs-by ship and by man. Then I get to sort through it again to define the modifying factors such as patrol sectors. Hopefully, then, I can rough out a proposal that will make everybody happy-or at least make everybody equally unhappy."

  Ramona rose to her feet and stretched lazily.

  "Well, this time I think I'm going to do what everybody else usually does."

  "What's that?" Tambu asked.

  "I'll let you figure it all out, argue for a while, then go along with what you propose. No sense in both of us losing sleep over this."

  "But don't you want to conduct an investigation of your own to check against my findings?" Tambu gaped in mock horror.

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  "Even if I had access to the data you've got, which I don't, I wouldn't know what to do with it-or have the time to do it if I did."

  Tambu shook his head sharply as if trying to clear his ears.

  "Could you repeat that last part? It didn't make any sense at all."

  "Simply put," Ramona sniffed in imitation of his earlier lecture style, "I've got my hands full running my ship. Running the fleet's your job, and you're welcome to it! Bye now!"

  Tambu laughed and returned her wave as she left. But after she was gone, his smile faded.

  Even though she had been joking, she was right. The whole mess was sitting in his lap. It wasn't that the captains didn't care or that they weren't intelligent, it was just that no one else in the fleet had the overview he had when it came to problem solving. Ramona knew much more about the intricacies of running the fleet than she had shown during their conversation. It was obvious to Tambu that she had been playing 'straight man' to his show-off performance so that he would have a chance to talk things out a bit. Still, even she couldn't aid him directly in this work. Like the other captains, she lacked the detailed comparative data which currently only he had access to. The captains' jealous hoarding of information was inadvertently giving him sole proprietorship of the job of fleet coordinator.

  With a sigh, he started to turn towards the desk again when a light on his command console caught his eye. It was only an amber call-next to no
importance or priority, but he was glad to answer it. Anything to stall his return to the reports.

  The viewscreen showed an empty chair, causing Tambu to smile as he leaned toward the mike.

  "Tambu here," he announced in carefully modulated tones.

  Blackjack appeared on the screen, hurrying to his chair, shirtless and half-hopping as he tried to pull on a pair of pants.

  "Sorry, boss," he apologized. "I didn't think you'd answer so fast."

  "It's been a slow day," Tambu explained dryly. "What've you got?"

  Blackjack hedged. "Well, it might be nothing. But when we dropped in on Trepec here, I picked up a bit of information I thought you should have."

  "And that is-" Tambu urged impatiently.

  "It seems there's been a run on guns-big ones like we use on our ships."

  "Interesting." Tambu frowned. "Any word as to who's been buying?"

  "As near as I can find out, they've sold a few each to a lot of planets."

  "Strange." Tambu pursed his lips. "Which planets?"

  "I've got a list here. Some of 'em are on our subscription list, but most aren't."

  "Oh, well," Tambu sighed. "I guess it was bound to happen sometime."

  "What's that?"

  "The planets are arming themselves," Tambu explained, "though what good they expect ground-mounted guns to be against ships in orbit is beyond me."

  "Arming themselves? Against what?"

  "Maybe against pirates," Tambu smiled. "But more likely against us. We have hit a few planets in our time, you know."

  "But that's ridiculous," Blackjack protested. "Ground-mounted guns wouldn't stop us if we decided to hit a planet."

  "You know it, and I know it, but apparently the planets don't know it. Oh well, it's their money."

  "Are you going to alert the fleet?"

  "Why bother?" Tambu yawned. "Any ship of mine that can't hold its own against a ground-mounted attack deserves what they get."

  "But if they set up a battery near a spaceport, they might ambush a shuttlecraft," Blackjack cautioned.

  "I suppose you're right. All right, give me the list, and I'll pass the word."

  He jotted down the names of the planets as Blackjack read them. The list was surprisingly long, between fifteen and twenty planets. Still, it was nothing to worry about.

  "Very well, I'll make sure the fleet is warned. Take a couple of extra days while you're there and see if you can find out anything else."

  "Right, boss. What are your orders for dealing with one of the planets on the list?"

  "I don't know. Hail them from orbit and see what they have to say, I guess. If they make nasty noises, avoid 'em and head for another planet."

  "You mean back down?" Blackjack asked.

  Tambu smiled at the disappointment in the captain's voice.

  "We have to fight often enough already. There's no point in looking for trouble."

  "But you said yourself that taking a ground-mounted gun would be no problem," Blackjack argued.

  "There are lots of planets, Blackjack. Why would we risk a ship in a needless brawl, however one-sided, when there are so many that won't put up a fight at all?"

  "What if they shoot at us?" Blackjack pressed.

  "If you're fired on, you can defend yourself, of course. But under no circumstance will one of my ships fire the first shot. Got it?"

  "Affirmative," Blackjack scowled.

  "Good enough. Tambu out."

  He stared thoughtfully at the blank viewscreen for several moments after signing off. His orders to Blackjack had been rather vague and poorly defined. He'd have to take some time to phrase them better before he sent them out to the fleet. Of course, that would have to wait.

  He set the list of planets to one side and turned back to his work table.

  Right now he had to wade through these reports. He had stalled long enough-too long. He owed it to the fleet to be selective about his priorities.

  INTERVIEW IX

  "Though I didn't realize it at the time, that was the start of the Defense Alliance. It never occurred to me that they might be mounting the weapons on ships, much less that they were planning to band together against us."

  "That must have been an ugly surprise," Erickson laughed.

  There was a moment of silence before the reply came.

  "I lost five ships the first day the Defense Alliance began functioning as a unit. The humor of that escapes me."

  "I'm sorry," the reporter squirmed. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to make light of it."

  "You aren't the only one who didn't know," Tambu sighed. "You see, Mr. Erickson, the Alliance's counteroffensive came before I had gotten around to passing the warning to the fleet."

  "So when the Alliance attacked, they were totally unprepared," Erickson finished softly. "I can see where you would feel guilty about that."

  "I never like losing a ship, but I don't feel particularly guilty. They were fighting ships and should have been ready for trouble. They fell to attack because the years of low resistance had taken the edge off their alertness."

  "But if you had warned them, it might have made a difference," Erickson insisted.

  "It might," Tambu admitted. "But I don't think so. Remember that the warning I would have issued would have been against ground installations, not armed ships. One of the things I neglected to mention was that Blackjack's ship was one of those lost on the first day--and he had been warned."

  "What happened? Was he caught unaware?"

  "Again, the answer is yes and no," Tambu replied. "He saw an armed ship in his vicinity, but he wasn't expecting to be attacked. As a matter of fact, he was on the viewscreen asking me for instructions when the Alliance ship opened fire on him."

  "You seem surprisingly unmoved by the memory."

  "Do I? That's a strange criticism coming from someone who was just appalled at the Zarn incident."

  "Both examples show a callousness to loss of life," the reporter countered.

  "True enough," Tambu acknowledged without rancor, "but you must try to see my side of things, Mr. Erickson. In the course of my career I have lost ships, men, and close friends. I feel their loss, but for self-defense I must keep my distance emotionally. If I didn't, I would go insane."

  Erickson refrained from comment.

  "So the Alliance's threat was felt from the first day on," he said instead.

  "You flatter the Alliance with your word choice. The Defense Alliance has never constituted a serious threat to my fleet-then or now."

  "But you just said they destroyed five of your ships!"

  "Five out of nearly two hundred," Tambu remarked pointedly. "I'll also admit they've downed several of our ships since-just as we've destroyed several of theirs. I tend to attribute their victories to shortcomings in my own captains rather to any brilliance or competence on their part."

  "Excuse my asking, but isn't that a little conceited of you?"

  "What's so conceited about acknowledging the weakness of my own fleet?" Tambu asked innocently. "If I wanted to brag, I'd claim that it requires an expert tactician or an ace crew to down one of my ships. The truth is that it's really quite easy to do-if you're faced with a hot-headed captain who won't follow orders."

  "I thought your captains followed your orders to the letter," Erickson probed.

  "I've never claimed that, Mr. Erickson," Tambu corrected. "In fact, I've given you several examples to the contrary. My captains are human, and they follow popular orders much more strictly than orders they disagree with."

  "Then you've issued orders which were unpopular with the fleet?"

  "Yes, I have. Orders that were very unpopular."

  CHAPTER NINE

  Tambu glared at his console viewscreen, fingers tapping his thigh in fierce impatience.

  "I would ask that the captains sit down.!" he ordered in a tone that left no room for rebuttal.

  Slowly, the forest of figures on the screen sank back into their chairs-individually, as each captai
n lost the battle with rebellious indignation.

  Tambu waited impatiently until all were seated.

  "Put your hands down, too!" he growled dangerously.

  Again, the captains complied with grudging hesitancy.

  "Very well. I'm going to say this once and once only. This meeting is too large for any vague semblance of democracy. With nearly two hundred of you jammed into one room, I can't even see everyone, much less recognize them to speak."

  He paused to wet his lips.

  "What is more, even if I could, with this many people present, simple time parameters dictate that not everyone who wants to speak would be able to."

  Mentally he crossed his fingers.

  "It is therefore my decision," he announced, "that for the duration of this discussion, I will not recognize speakers from the floor. Instead, I will call upon specific captains whom I feel are most representative of the feelings I have heard expressed over the last several months and let them speak for the fleet."

  A low growl of disapproval rose from the assemblage.

  "If you are called upon and have nothing to say or feel someone else can say it better," he continued, ignoring the protests, "you may yield the floor to a speaker of your choice. However, independent outbursts or interruptions will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?"

  A sea of angry eyes glared back at him from the viewscreen, but no one chose to challenge him openly.

  "Good." He nodded. "Our first speaker will be Pepe, captain of the Raven. Pepe, if you were to be the only speaker for the fleet, how would you describe the current views of the Defense Alliance?"

  The swarthy little captain rose slowly to his feet, eyes downcast and brow furrowed as he struggled to organize his thoughts. The crowed waited in patient silence until he was ready to begin.

  "The Defense Alliance... is not a good thing for us," Pepe managed finally. "We've got a whole bunch of ships there who do nothing-nothing but chase us away from planets we're supposed to be protecting. That's bad for business. How are we going to do our jobs if we've always got to be watching the screens for Alliance ships, eh?"

  Tambu broke in. "Excuse me for interrupting, Pepe, but how many planets were you patrolling before the Defense Alliance began their operations?"