Carrearranis (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 5)

by S MacDonald

  Tan blinked at him. The last thing he wanted was to air this in public. Then it dawned on him. Alex already knew about this – of course he did, he’d had swathes of mail by the same courier. It became clear, too, that he wanted the discussion on the command deck because all footage from the round the clock coverage there was routinely copied to all the relevant authorities on Chartsey, via the Admiralty, whereas it would need special application to access footage of discussions which had been blind-recorded in the cabin.

  ‘Oh,’ said Tan, and though he would have preferred, himself, to continue in relative privacy, he accepted Alex’s decision and got up, going with him the short distance to the command deck, where they settled at the datatable.

  ‘So,’ Alex said, with a smile, ‘you were saying?’

  ‘Ah – I’ve been advised,’ said Tan, choosing his words very carefully now, ‘that concerns have been expressed over the pressure you are under in continuing to hold ship and squadron command responsibilities in addition to the demands of your role as Presidential Envoy. I feel it only courteous to inform you that I have been asked to prepare a confidential report giving my views on that, as it were, from the front line.’

  Alex looked frankly amused, though with a dash of sympathy. He was fully aware that Tan’s boss, Ambassador Karlos Gerard, was one of those pushing for Alex to be relieved of his shipboard command. That was nothing new. The Diplomatic Corps, personified by Ambassador Gerard, had been trying to have Alex transferred entirely to their service even before they were able to play the exodiplomacy priority card. In this, at least, Ambassador Gerard and Third Lord Jennar were in alliance. Admiral Jennar, of course, was not the slightest bit concerned about the pressure Alex von Strada was under, nor did he consider it beneath his dignity to be carrying out the routine work of a frigate skipper. He was, though, ferociously determined to get Alex stripped of his command and out of the Fleet, so their objectives, if not their motives, were shared. This latest effort had been deliberately timed, kicked off straight after Tan himself had departed, with the full majesty of the Embassy II to follow on. It was, said Ambassador Gerard, really unfair to expect Captain von Strada to cope with all those resources and extra personnel when he was already known to be at full stretch, and since his exodiplomacy role was of immeasurably more importance than routine ship command, it was obvious, self-evident, that he should be relieved of that burden.

  Admiral Jennar was backing him every which way, expressing concern about the state of Captain von Strada’s health, his ability to carry out command duties effectively while so much of his time was taken up with diplomatic responsibilities, and emphatic agreement that his exodiplomacy role was of infinitely more importance.

  It had been a tough call, that one. What Cerdan Jennar really wanted to do was to have Tan Ganhauser take over the prestigious mission lead, preferably in a way that took that arrogant little snot von Strada down a peg or two. More cunning thought, however, and some persuasion from shrewder colleagues, had prevailed. This way, even if it meant that von Strada held on to the prestige of mission lead for a while, he would be out of the Fourth, out of the Fleet on permanent secondment to the Diplomatic Corps, their problem. The way would be open, then, too, to sort out the unholy disgrace that was the Fourth Fleet Irregulars. Even if he couldn’t get them disbanded entirely, he was confident that he could put a stop to their wilder antics and bring them back into line with normal, decent Fleet ways.

  Alex was very much aware that this was a very real, concerted effort by two very powerful players who understood the system they were working very much better than he did, besides having all the advantages of being there in person while he was weeks away. He had long since learned not to let such things get to him, though, merely filing them in a mental box marked ‘Politics’ with a sub-category of ‘Things I can do little about’. The little he could do, he had already done – did as routine, indeed, anticipating that this sort of thing could come at him any day. First Lord Dix Harangay was well equipped with all the time-usage, efficiency evaluations and information on his health that he would need to fight Alex’s corner. And with Dix Harangay as his champion, Alex wasn’t losing any sleep.

  ‘Well, thank you for informing me,’ he smiled. ‘I appreciate the courtesy, though you really didn’t need to, and you are of course, if it needs to be said, entirely at liberty to report on mission affairs to the Diplomatic Corps. So go ahead, Tan, don’t worry, I have no problem whatsoever with you evaluating and reporting my performance.’

  Tan gave a smile in return, but he was really angry over this. The Diplomatic Corps had no tradition of juniors evaluating and reporting on their seniors, appraisals were always carried out top-down. His position here with regard to Alex was equivocal anyway, not working for him as such but training and then working alongside him during a gradual handover process. By the end of it, he would be the one in the leading role. For right now, though, he was a guest on Alex’s ship and in training, allowed only such mission involvement as Alex saw fit. To order him to conduct an appraisal of the man who was currently his boss was so outrageous to Tan that he was tempted to write back with a flat refusal. Only the knowledge that that really wouldn’t help Alex had made him think again.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tan said. ‘You are being very understanding.’ And because he wanted it on public record just how deeply unhappy he was with what Ambassador Gerard had told him to do, he added, ‘It puts me in an awkward position, of course, since I’m here as your guest, and could very easily have compromised my relationship with you, and with the Fourth.’

  Alex could see that he was upset, for all the calm urbanity of his manner, and he looked kindly at him, then.

  ‘It isn’t a problem,’ he said, ‘for me, for any of us…’ he glanced around to show that he understood that Tan was concerned that the Heron’s officers and crew might well take exception to him appraising and reporting on their skipper, losing some of that goodwill he’d achieved and which would be so important as the mission progressed. ‘This is a culture-clash issue, I think,’ Alex observed. ‘In the Fleet, officers on fast-track and in command school training are assigned to evaluate ship and command performance whilst serving as juniors within that hierarchy – it’s part of the training, and quite a challenge for a young Sub, for instance, to have to tell an experienced skipper their opinion on how their efficiency and leadership could be improved. All of the officers serving with us do those exercises – it’s one of the advantages we offer, see, enabling officers to have the same training and experience with us as they would if they’d been chosen for fast-track development. Writing up case study evaluations of leadership styles is also part of the training for petty officer, which many of our crew are undertaking. So there aren’t many days, really, when there isn’t someone analysing and reporting what I do. To be honest, Tan, I rather took it for granted that you would be writing your own confidential reports, that seems perfectly in order and reasonable to me.’

  It still didn’t to Tan, but he accepted Alex’s reassurance, at least, that he was not offended.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘though I will, as a matter of principle, be copying you in on a memorandum to Head Office expressing my disquiet at being put in this position.’

  For the first time, Alex saw the Diplomatic Corps in Tan. For all his easy going manner and informality amongst them, he had spent his whole working life operating in an ultra-slow bureaucracy and that had left its mark. Alex knew enough about Diplomatic Corps culture, too, to recognise that the use of the word ‘disquiet’ was about Mach 6 on the scale of outrage – strong words there from Tan, which would cause some ructions back home. There might, even, be seriously indrawn breath.

  With that, too, Tan held out his hand, and Alex shook it, accepting in his turn that Tan was doing everything he could to ensure that this did not become a problem between them.

  Tan was still feeling ruffled, though, when he went back to the interdeck. There, feeling the need for some chi
ll-out time, he settled himself at a table in the lounge and began playing a game on his comp. This was one of his most famous eccentricities – famous and considered eccentric in the Diplomatic Corps, at least, where senior personnel were not expected to amuse themselves with the kind of computer games Tan liked. There was a legend in the Corps that Ambassador Ganhauser had once heard an office clerk telling a colleague that he’d got to level 89 in Cosmos Warfare before realising that his Excellency was in the corridor behind them. Famously, instead of glancing at a subordinate to have a word with them on the subject of talking about games on Embassy time, his Excellency had remarked that 89 was a good one, but that the solution to 97 was doing his head in.

  He was playing a different game, then – one of the new ones acquired to help keep him sane during the journey out here. It was a casual sim, System Lord, in which players began with the raw materials of a nebulae cloud. Tan had formed his system – a really interesting one with three stars and eighteen planets in complex orbits – and was now at a good bit, designing the bacteria which would kick-start life on his chosen world. It was important to get that right if you wanted life forms to develop in fun and creative ways, so he was giving it his full attention.

  ‘Hello.’ Commander Mikthorn slipped into the seat opposite with no more than a glance and a smile at what Tan was doing. It was extraordinary, Tan thought; people who wouldn’t dream of interrupting if they could see you were reading or watching a concert would just dump themselves on you if they saw you were ‘only’ playing a game.

  ‘Evening,’ Tan put his half completed RNA structure on pause, but he could see that he was not going to be allowed to get on with it, so closed the game down and gave the commander a smile. He was, after all, a diplomat, and it was apparent that Commander Mikthorn wanted to talk.

  It took him a while to get around to it, though, making random small talk for several minutes before he plucked up the nerve to say what he really wanted to.

  ‘What you asked…’ he ventured at last. ‘I’ve thought about it, and… it was when I got the letter back from Professor Parrot. I’d written to him, you see, explaining the situation and enclosing all the files, and it came back to me with the files not even opened, just No written on the letter. That’s what started me getting … well… angry about things.’

  ‘Well, that was discourteous,’ Tan observed. ‘It would have annoyed anyone. But what was going on with that, then, that made you feel so strongly about it?’

  ‘Well… it was discourteous, like you say. Downright rude, in fact. And I had done my best to be conciliatory, you know? I know how touchy he can be and I knew he wouldn’t want to move, so I went to some trouble writing the letter and laying out the files so he could see why I was asking, offering to organise whatever he wanted at Oreol – I expected to get back a long list of demands, okay, but just a flat, downright no, no reasons, not even bothering to sign it, that was just so… so dismissive. It really got to me.’ He looked down at his hands, clasped rather tightly on the table, and grimaced. ‘Still does,’ he admitted.

  ‘Because of the lack of respect?’ Tan queried.

  ‘No, not really – I’m used to that with these scientists,’ Commander Mikthorn observed, with a rueful look. ‘If you haven’t got at least a doctorate they’re either patronising or dismissive, sometimes both, with this fundamental attitude that you don’t understand what they’re doing so you don’t have the right to tell them what to do.’

  ‘It might be argued that they have a point,’ Tan said mildly. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone who didn’t understand what I’m doing to be telling me how to do my job.’

  ‘Yes, fair enough, up to a point,’ Commander Mikthorn conceded. ‘But it’s not as if I’m going in their labs telling them what to research and how to set about it, all I’m doing is managing their budgets, allocating resources according to project priorities and asking that they deliver what they’ve said they will, when they’ve said they’ll do it. They hardly ever do, of course – it’s amazing if a project comes in on time, and even more so if it comes in under budget. What they don’t seem to be able to understand is that it really isn’t anything personal, not even really my decision. Projects do come with a certain amount of leeway, authorisation on the file to allow so much extra time or funding providing that the terms of the funding agreement are being adhered to – and by that I mean basic things like them actually being at work, not just taking the grant and clearing off to the beach. So if they’re asking for more time or funding I just look at the file and if there are no agreement violations I authorise the extension, up to the point at which the line is drawn – I can’t do anything about that, if they want more funding than that they have to take it up with the grants committee. But they always blame me, of course, because I’m the person right there telling them no. They seem to take it personally, too, when a higher priority project calls on resources – staffing, perhaps, or vehicles, those are the big ones – and I have to take it from them. It isn’t my decision, those priorities are decided by the grants committee and I have no say in it.’

  Tan looked intrigued. ‘Do they really just take the money and go to the beach?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ Commander Mikthorn snorted with remembered indignation. ‘I got a call telling me that one of our projects appeared to be shut down, no answer to comms but a rather disconcerting recording. So I called and sure enough, there was a bunch of people dressed up in outlandish costumes, dancing and singing ‘Out for Fiesta!’ I went down there, of course, and found the entire project locked – two hundred and thirty seven staff who should have been at work there, not a sign of any of them, flowers and a banner across the security gate, again, Out for Fiesta!’ He shook his head. ‘I eventually tracked the management team to a beach where they were dancing and drinking and having a great time. I soon found out, of course, what was going on – it was a local festival, an annual thing, the usual parades and parties. The management team had just decided to give themselves and everyone else the day off.’ He shook his head again, marvelling. ‘Can you imagine,’ he asked, ‘turning up at an Embassy to find it shut up because the ambassador has given everyone the day off and gone to a party?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Tan said. ‘There are rules, after all.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Commander Mikthorn exclaimed, as if in triumphant vindication, finding somebody who finally got it. ‘The Second aren’t slave drivers, and it’s understood, too, that creatives sometimes need to do things their own way so if they prefer to think walking round the streets or whatever that’s fine. But shutting down an entire project… and there are rules, clear and straightforward rules, projects can shut down for global holidays or if the research makes that impracticable they take time off in lieu, and on the other hand if they do want to take time off for things like local fiesta they can take time from their leave allocation, take it as unpaid leave or work back the time in lieu. What they can’t do is just not turn up for work, expect to be paid and go to a party. If an individual did that they’d be sacked, and this was the whole project. You would not believe the row I had with them – it was still going on, really, when I left, been rumbling on for months.’

  Tan could see both sides of that one, but refrained from saying so. He knew enough about Telethoran culture to be aware that they had a low work ethic and a remarkably chilled out attitude to such petty things as schedules and deadlines. A more culturally sensitive man would have handled an incident like that with good humoured tolerance. Cultural sensitivity, though, was clearly not one of Commander Mikthorn’s strengths.

  ‘You have be firm, upholding the same rules for everyone,’ Tan suggested, and again the commander nodded eagerly.

  ‘Firm, yes – that’s what I was told, the advice I was given on being sent out there. Courteous but firm, and don’t stand any nonsense.’

  Tan felt a momentary temptation to drop his head onto his arms and groan, but he managed to smile instead. For an authoritarian personality type like the com
mander, this instruction from on high had become a mantra which directed his attitude to the time-wasting, irresponsible scientists. It was advice which had made him heartily disliked by all forty seven of the research projects on Telathor in which the Second had some degree of funding or involvement.

  ‘I’m only,’ Commander Mikthorn declared, in the self-righteous tone of all tyrants, ‘doing my job.’

  Echoes of other phrases ran as subtext, I’m only following orders and I don’t make the rules.

  Tan achieved another smile.

  ‘A difficult one, evidently.’

  ‘Don’t get me started,’ said the commander, darkly. ‘Ever heard the expression ‘trying to herd cats’? Well, that’s what it’s like, confusion all over the place and no sooner do you get one bit sorted out than three other things have gone haywire. It didn’t take me long, I can tell you, to understand what they meant when they said that Telathor was an interesting assignment. Interesting, clearly, being Second-speak for horrible. When I was offered my final year on secondment to them I was really pleased, you know?’ He spoke with a kind of wonder, as if looking back on the naivety of childhood rather than a decision made just a year or so earlier. ‘Mostly, your final year in Fleet service is spent in low key, routine office work, winding down. When I was told that the Second had asked for me to take on a global admin post for them I was really pleased – quite delighted, really, if I’m being honest. It was a compliment to be asked for, and they obviously thought I was the right man for the job, efficient, you know, and dependable. It all seemed quite straightforward, too, the work I had to do, until I actually arrived on Telathor and tried to do it. They should have told me what it would be like. And they certainly should have told me about the Fourth going out there – they must have known that was going to happen by then, and there was never a word about it. Even when it was on the news that they were on their way, I got hardly more than a memo telling me about the unlimited funding thing and to get them everything they asked for. Actually,’ he said, with an air of forcing himself to be honest, ‘I was surprised – the Fourth themselves didn’t really ask for anything much at all, and whatever the Parrot team wanted they sorted out for themselves. So it wasn’t that, really – it was after they’d gone, when all the other projects started turning up.’ He eyed Tan guardedly. ‘I’m not a fool,’ he said. ‘I know I’ve been dumped on from a great height by Chartsey, the Second’s head office on Chartsey. I know that they’re under pressure for places on the Heron, though I can’t for the life of me understand why – I mean yes, a hot tech lab and the Fourth helps out, but there are hot tech labs all over the League with much bigger and better facilities and whole universities full of expertise to draw on, so I just don’t get why the ten places here are considered so wonderful. But there it is, I know, there are hundreds of project applications for every place available and that puts head office under pressure. What I don’t understand is why, knowing that Professor Parrot wouldn’t give up his place here, the Second’s offices on Chartsey and Therik sent out five times more projects than could be fitted in even if he did, and left it all for me to deal with. Or rather, I can understand, it was just a simple case of passing the buck, shoving the problem off their desks and onto mine.’