Emile and the Dutchman

by Joel Rosenberg

  Besides, you can't do a really hot landing with a twin-rotor job; they're not built for it.

  My Hummingbird passed over the outer marker and plodded its way, fifty meters above the tarmac, to its berth, descending, hovering, roller-coasting a few meters above the ground, going up, then down.

  The Haswell flight module is terrible at feeling when you pass from a hover to ground effect, when you transfer from actually flying to riding the cushion of air your rotor is pushing against the ground.

  The technical term is transitional lift; whatever you call it, it's the source of a lot of accidents among beginners. If you slip out of transitional lift, fall off that cushion of air, you've got to adjust both cyclic and collective quickly and correctly, or you're going to go somewhere you didn't intend—usually down. The accidents tend—repeat: tend—to be minor, because ground-effect mishaps start from less than three meters up. But there's a lot of energy in fast-moving rotors; if you crash, you'd better pancake.

  The Haswell kept missing the landing; I decided I'd had enough nonsense. So I clamped down on the deadman, the controls coming half-alive, then toed the bandit switch and landed it myself.

  There are better modules than the Haswell, but who needs them? If you can't land a copter, fly an airframe.

  I let the computer do the final check and powerdown, then put itself on standby; I was already in a half-crouch in the rear cabin, gathering my suitcases together and throwing them in the tagalong together with my trunk. I debated a moment whether or not to leave the tagalong behind and have a parcel service pick up the gear, but then I shrugged. It didn't matter; if I was going to be unpopular with the peasants for being the scion of Mark Airways, then I was.

  I tried to look on the bright side. It had to be better than the hell I'd gone through at Auckland Prep. I hoped.

  Clipping the follow-me onto my belt, I opened the door and stepped out onto the tarmac, the tagalong lowering itself after.

  I sniffed happily. There was a trace of fuel in the air; there always is. You may think av-fuel stinks; to a pilot, it means he's home.

  My phone chimed; I dug a hand into my flight suit and pulled it out. "Yes?"

  "Emile," Papa's gentle voice said, "your mother just interrupted a staff meeting to . . . remind me that you promised to call as soon as you arrived in New Haven."

  "I just got in, Papa," I said, as I walked quickly toward the registration building, the tagalong rattling behind. "And I will call you and Mama just as soon as I get settled in. Meaning no offense, Papa, I do have to get the Hummingbird tied down, the berth paid for, and myself checked in at the Academy before one o'clock."

  The orders said to report by public transportation by 1:00 P.M. on September 4, 2237, and the Navy was sure to be picky about the time.

  Although . . . I glanced down at my thumbnail; it was already a quarter past noon. "And I'm almost late now." Damn. If I'd been able either to bring one of the servants or to fly in the Northeast corridor at anything near the Hummingbird's top cruising speed, I wouldn't have had to rush.

  "Well . . ." He paused. "I just wanted to remind you that as long as you are in New Haven . . ."

  "I know. If things don't work out, there's always Yale."

  Wrong, Papa.

  I'd followed the family tradition as far as Auckland went, but that was where it stopped. New Haven, yes; Yale, no. Not with the Naval Academy's buildings beckoning at me in the distance.

  Now, there's nothing wrong with Yale—at least you don't have to play idiot games with swords the way they pressure you to at Heidelberg—but what would they teach me to do there? Manage Mark Airways as Papa was doing and Grosspapa had done before him?

  Ridiculous. Do you know how rarely the CEO of a major airways can actually get his hands on controls? Papa was lucky to get a hundred hours annually, and he'd earned his way onto the flight-test team for the first Hummingbirds, back in the nineties, before he'd let Grosspapa sidetrack him into management at Airways.

  None of that for little Emile. No, sir. I'd go through the Academy, become a flying officer, then get myself a berth as a piloting officer on a cruiser—or maybe a destroyer; destroyers have nice thrust-to-mass ratios—then maybe first officer and finally a captaincy, once my reflexes were too far gone to actually hold live controls in my hands.

  But Papa had to give it another try. "Emile. I could talk to Dean O'Donnell and have you admitted today—"

  "No, Papa."

  "Boy, you have your mother's stubbornness." I could almost hear Papa cringe at what he'd just said. Mother tyrannizes everyone else by remote control, but Papa has to sleep in the next room. "Don't tell her I said that."

  "Of course not, Papa."

  He sighed. "Very well. Just remember, you are a von du Mark—"

  "Yes, Papa. I've got to go. I'll call you tonight. Goodbye."

  "Aufwiedersehen, Emile."

  I hung the phone back on my belt as I entered the registration building. The terminals were near the door; I stuck my left thumb in the slot of the nearest one and tapped on the keyboard with my right hand as the menu came up. I made arrangements to have the Hummingbird hangared and fueled, its engines and drive train serviced, and its avionics package tested remotely, only—when the bandit's off, it's transparent to remote testing.

  Someone cleared his throat behind me.

  "I'll be done in a minute," I said, "just finishing—"

  He cleared his throat again.

  "—or you could just use another terminal."

  He tapped me on the shoulder.

  Now I was starting to get angry. "Do that again, and you'll eat that finger." I asked the machine to repeat the price list for various tiedown and hangaring services. If he was going to be annoying, I'd take more time.

  "If you are Cadet Candidate Emile von du Mark, Mister, you have exactly three seconds to turn around and come to attention, or you will be former Cadet Candidate Emile von du Mark."

  I pulled my thumb from the slot and turned around.

  "You call that attention?" he asked. Rhetorically, I assumed. He was a tall, raw-boned man in his early twenties, dressed in Academy White informals, his cap firmly on his head. I couldn't—then—read the short row of cadet ribbons over his heart, but I did see the two broken silver stripes on each sleeve.

  Goddam. He was a cadet lieutenant—not just a j.g. The ident bar on the right side of his uniform blouse said BRUBAKER. I pulled my shoulders back.

  "Never mind." Smiling sadly, he shook his head slowly. "Slouch. It comes much more naturally to you. I am Cadet Lieutenant Ernest Brubaker."

  "Pleased to—"

  "You don't speak out when you're slouching at attention. Are you Cadet Candidate Emile von du Mark?"

  "Yes, I—"

  "First lesson. Cadet Candidate Emile von du Mark. When you speak to an upperclassman, the first word out of your mouth will be 'sir.' The last word out of your mouth will be 'sir.' Both the words are the same; I hope they won't strain your puerile little memory." He looked at me, a corner of his mouth twisted up.

  "Sir. Yes—"

  "Second lesson, Cadet Candidate von du Mark. Except when answering a question, you do not address an upper-classman without asking permission."

  Pray tell, how do I ask permission to talk to you? Would you like me to stick a love note in your shorts?

  I thought it, but I didn't say that—this fellow had me fully intimidated.

  "Very good. You have your orders with you?"

  "Y-sir. Yes, sir." I don't know what it was, but this Brubaker person actually had me stuttering as I reached for my hip pocket.

  "I didn't ask to see them," he said.

  As I let my hand drop to my side, he sneered again. "They read in part, and I quote, '. . . inasmuch as you have accepted Cadet Candidate status, you are required to report, utilizing public transportation, to the Thousand Worlds Naval Academy at New Haven NAF on 4 September 2247.' Correct?"

  "Yes."

  He pretended not to hear me.<
br />
  "Sir. Yes, sir."

  "Very well. Now, for your information, Mister von du Mark, the Whale that just landed is the last regularly scheduled public carrier due into New Haven before the reporting deadline, and of all the six hundred-odd cadet candidates, all but one had either previously reported or were on that shuttle.

  "Further—and again for your information—there are thirty-four cadet candidates sitting aboard a non-air-conditioned bus that is supposed to carry them immediately to the Academy, and I suspect that these, your future classmates, are none too pleased with you for blithely choosing to disobey the orders that said you were to report by public, and not private, transportation, and—yes, what is it?"

  "Sir. The Hummingbird, sir, that I came in on, sir?"

  "You didn't ask permission. But never mind—speak up, Cadet Candidate, speak up."

  "Sir, it's owned and operated by the Public Transport division of the company that owns the Whale, sir. I believe that means that it is public transportation, sir."

  "Huh?"

  "Sir, my . . . father is von du Mark of Mark Airways, sir."

  "Nicely put." Brubaker's smile grew broader; I had the feeling that he already knew that.

  "Very, very good, Cadet Candidate von du Mark. Let me give you some more information. There are two things in the universe that I absolutely despise: rich boys, and barracks lawyers. Despite that, despite the fact that you are both of the things that I most despise, you might notice that I'm smiling. Have you noticed that, Cadet Candidate von du Mark?"

  "Sir. Yes, sir."

  "Doesn't it impress you as strange that I'd be smiling, given the situation?"

  "Sir. Yes, sir."

  "Oh? You think I'm strange, do you? Never mind, Mister, we can discuss your lack of respect for an upper-classman later. The reason that I'm smiling, Mark, is that it is going to be my great personal pleasure to run your rich barracks lawyer's ass out of the Academy. Now, about that landing of yours—did you override the autopilot?"

  As I opened my mouth to deny the accusation, he raised a warning finger. "Say whatever you want now, Cadet Candidate von du Mark. Right now, you're a cadet candidate—but if you pass your physical and take the oath, you will be a cadet—of sorts—and cadets don't lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate others who do. Understood?"

  "Sir. Yes, sir."

  "Now, was that a legal landing?"

  I didn't say anything. He probably couldn't kick me out for it, but he might try.

  "Very good, Cadet Candidate von du Mark, very good. There's nothing in the honor code that forbids a cadet from standing mute." He held out a palm. "Oh, and I'll have your phone—we don't need you crying on your mommy's shoulder. Now."

  Reluctantly, I handed it over. He set it gently on the floor and then ground it under his heel.

  "Get on the bus."

  The Dutchman chuckled. "Damn, but this Brubaker sounds like my kind of person. He rode you hard, I take it?"

  I nodded. "Fair to medium. Not just me, but all three of my roommates. Drove Gardner right out of the Navy—"

  "Right out? I thought the deal is that if you drop out of the Naval Academy, the sailorboys can still hold you to two years enlisted service."

  "If they want to; in practice, they only do if you don't have any pull. But he really broke Gardner; the poor bastard was carried off on a stretcher." He spent four years in an asylum, Major, I thought. It isn't funny.

  "Maybe he wasn't the Navy type after all."

  "Permission to speak bluntly, sir?"

  "Sure." The Dutchman nodded. "I take it you don't agree."

  "I've heard that bullshit ever since my first day as a plebe. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now, Major. Anybody can be broken by the right kind of pressure—maybe, with a bit of time and patience, Gardner could have been one hell of a good officer, maybe even a fine captain."

  The Dutchman snorted. "You don't think command is all that big a deal, do you?"

  "Not necessarily." I shrugged. "And I don't think that riding someone until he breaks will ever help him exercise it."

  The Dutchman didn't answer. "Go on."

  "It went on for what felt like forever. There was the nonsense about the cow and leather and the Contact Service, and what a plebe was. Now, that was the normal sort of hazing that goes on at the Naval Academy. But Brubaker had some extras in mind for me. . . ."

  III

  I was in full uniform, book bag tucked under my left arm to keep my right arm free for saluting, heading down the quad to class. My uniform was absolutely immaculate, a spare pair of heavily shined shoes tucked into my book bag because earlier there had been a light rain and the water on the walk was certain to spot the shoes I was wearing.

  I was taking special precautions to be spotless for this class: Lieutenant Commander Farrell was a stickler for clean uniforms.

  I smiled inside. You have to keep the smile inside: an upperclassman might—will—notice a plebe with a grin on his face. And you don't want the upperclassmen to notice you; the idea is to try to get through the first year doing a Claude Rains imitation.

  But I was excited about the class: Rotary Wing Familiarization. With a bit of luck, Farrell would let me have a turn at the controls; at the very least, I'd get in some time off the ground.

  My feet flew out from underneath me, and I landed flat on my back in a puddle.

  "Good afternoon, scumsucker," Brubaker said, smiling down at me. "And be more careful next time."

  I leaped to my feet. The filthy water had soaked me from the back of my neck to my ankles.

  "Go ahead, plebe. Please. Assaulting an upperclassman?"

  * * *

  "Chickenshit." The Dutchman smirked. "What's the penalty for assault? A couple of weeks in jail?"

  I shook my head. "Military discipline, remember—court-martial."

  "You could have run into him off grounds."

  "I might have, if I'd ever been allowed off grounds. But even so, I wouldn't have. Try that and the upperclassmen'll run you right out of the Academy. At least with Brubaker bullying me I had a bit of sympathy coming from some quarters."

  The Dutchman snorted. "Yeah. Sympathy."

  "Such as it was."

  "You were saying that he was riding all three of your roommates. One of the others was this asshole buddy of yours?"

  I gave the Dutchman a long, hard look. It was intended to say, There are some lines you had better not cross. Major. It's been tried before.

  Norfeldt shook his head. "Not really, Emmy. How about the fourth roommate?"

  "Ortega took an upperclassman's suggestion and transferred out. Of the room, that is."

  IV

  Phil Ortega spread his hands. "I am very sorry, my friends. And if you ask me to change my mind . . ."

  Manny Curdova shook his head as he sprawled back on his bed, smoothing his uniform blouse underneath him to avoid leaving wrinkles. Technically, lying on the bed between 0600 and 2200 was a violation, but Phil wouldn't tell—an officer and a gentleman doesn't go out of his way to squeal on his comrades.

  Besides, if Brubaker wanted to find something to punish Manny or me for, he would, regardless of whether or not we had violated a rule.

  "Maybe there's an easier solution. Hey, Manny," I said idly. "How good are you with a knife? Think you could put a blade in the bugger's ten-ring?"

  He chuckled thinly. "Actually, I can hit a flying sherry cork at twenty paces."

  "Serious?"

  "Close. But, as I understand it, the Navy would be likely to . . . frown on our killing the pig."

  True. Our actual policy was to keep our noses clean enough to avoid trouble from Tac officers and benign upperclassmen, but not to bother doing anything to avoid the attentions of Brubaker and the few other uppers who made a hobby of finding new and interesting ways to harass plebes in general and us in particular.

  Ortega frowned. "I repeat: I will stay, if you ask me."

  "No need," Manny said, slipping back into hi
s thick Castilian accent. "I get the feeling that it isn't you that Brubaker wants." He shrugged. "You're not a ricon, after all."

  "Or a smartass," I put in, taking out my ruler and measuring the placement of my compboard. Its edge was precisely six centimeters from the edge of another one of the Navy's contradictions; the high-tech compboard and a battered but decent voicewriter sat on an unpowered wooden desk.

  Ortega finished rolling up and tying his mattress, then hoisted it to his shoulder with one hand and picked up one of his Val-paks with the other. Manny and I each grabbed one with our left hands, leaving our right hands free for saluting.

  I swung the door open and stepped out into the hall. It was 2030 or so, well into the study hour. Down the immaculate white hall, each door was ajar at precisely forty-five degrees, plebes all sitting at their desks and studying, their commitment aided by the two guards, one at each end of the hall.

  The walls were whitewashed wood: I'd whitewashed them myself, once each weekend in place of Sunday liberty. Even the cracks between the floor panels were clean—that was Brubaker's usual assignment to Manny and his toothbrush. Nice fellow, Brubaker.

  We walked down the hall three abreast, pausing at the guard table to drop our burdens to the floor, come to attention, and salute.

  The guard was a senior cadet sergeant named Morphy. Not quite as much of a jerk as the rest, but not a prince among men, either. He had a certain affection for a phrase that I don't particularly enjoy hearing:

  "Puke it out, lady," he said, clearly bored.

  I was senior, for the moment; my most recent full demerit was three days old. That's sort of like being senior by being the one busted first—it doesn't exactly get you the red-carpet treatment.

  "Sir. Plebes von du Mark, Curdova, and Ortega requesting permission to leave the floor. Purpose: to move Plebe Ortega's belongings down to his new billet on the fifth floor. Sir."