Emile and the Dutchman

by Joel Rosenberg

  "Lieutenant von du Mark." Captain Arnheim's voice was brisk, deep, and businesslike as he spun around in his chair. I quickly swallowed my third Paradram.

  "Sir." The skipper of the Magellan had no real authority over me, except for the fact that he was the skipper of the Magellan.

  He seemed to figure that that was enough. "Contact Service officers are not normally found on the bridge, and particularly not during transition," he said. Someday, I'm going to learn that tone; sort of a cross between a question and a bland but accusatory statement.

  "Yes, sir. Major Norfeldt told me to meet him here during the second shift. Something about Ambassador Vitelli . . . but if you're ordering me off the bridge, I'm not going to put up a fuss, Captain. I try to get along, sir."

  One thing I don't envy about regular Navy people is that they have to keep DP people happy; I was hoping that the half-lie—yes, half; I didn't finish it, after all—would keep him from pressing the matter.

  "I've noticed that last, Lieutenant." Arnheim rubbed at his chin with a beefy hand. His nails were neatly trimmed, and his fingers scrubbed almost pink—one of the badges of upper-ranks Navy. He pursed his lips together for a moment, then let himself notice that I was wearing khaki and leather, not zero-gee fatigues. He didn't notice the Fairbairn or the wiregun; those were just part of the uniform.

  I could almost hear him thinking that there was no point in giving a dead man a hard time.

  "Well, just keep out of the way. Mister. I don't anticipate any serious course change, but when the horn blares, you strap yourself to that wall. I'm not having you bouncing around in freefall. Understood?"

  "Yes, sir." Not aye-aye, just a simple yes.

  "Very well." He turned back to his panel, which gave me a chance to look at the main screen. I'd seen Gates before, of course, but this was different. Normally, a Navy escort releases the scout a few tens of thousands of klicks away—and scouts are tiny little ships, with small view-screens, not like this one, that was easily eight meters by five.

  On the screen, Outbound AlphaCeeGate grew slowly. It looked like a huge metal flower, aluminum foil cupping a node of black.

  Superimposed on the bottom part of the screen were the numerical and flightpath displays. Momentarily, a red flash of a deflection vector appeared, then vanished. It must have been a tiny one; I couldn't feel any sudden boost change at all, just the slowly diminishing gravity as the ship's main-axis flywheels were spun up to take the spin off.

  The direction of the pseudo-gravity, changed too; the boost wasn't being cut back.

  It didn't make any difference to the bridge crew; their panels were swing-mounted to their couches.

  I kept an eye on the helmsman, the closest thing to a pilot that a Navy ship has. Most of the time a ship is flown by numbers—nav data extracted from the computers, decisions fed back in by typing numbers into a keyboard. Sort of like making love wearing an overcoat; no real flying, no magic time.

  But Magellan was a battlecruiser, and there are times when a battlecruiser really has to be flown. There was a sure-enough joystick clipped to the side of the helmsman's panel, and steering yokes over at the fire control panel.

  "Okay, Stan," Arnheim said to the commander strapped in the couch off the internal panel, "I want the rest of the spin off, pronto, then get the shields up."

  Commander Bender turned to the talker. "Sound ack stations; spin off minus two minutes; time to impact by the minute, now."

  "Acceleration stations," the speaker near my ear blared as the talker mouthed the words into his microphone. "Spin off warning. Spin off warning. Two minutes to spin off . . . impact minus eleven minutes."

  Bender punched some numbers on his panel as the elevator door hissed open, and the Dutchman stood there in his poorly cut khakis and leathers, his automatic in a shoulder holster, Vitelli at his elbow.

  While Vitelli made his way over to Arnheim's command chair, Norfeldt blew a cloud of smoke onto the bridge ahead of him as he floated his way in and grabbed a handle next to me.

  "How they hanging, Emmy?" Norfeldt muttered.

  I looked over at him. As the steering jets came on, I went dizzy for a moment. Mind you, I can snap a bird into a barrel roll blindfolded, but I always have a bit of dizziness trouble when I'm not the one flying.

  "Impact minus nine minutes. Shields up."

  A battlecruiser's ablative outer skin is always brightly polished, then sprayed with some reflective compound—the highly reflective shields that are extended from the hull are just another attempt to give the ship a few more moments of life if it finds itself in a laser's path; the shields can't stop a fist, much less a projectile.

  "Impact minus eight minutes."

  "Where's Bar-El?" I whispered.

  The Dutchman shook his head. "I still don't trust the big Hebe. He's not an obedient little kraut, not like some people I could name."

  "Maj—"

  "Shut up." The Dutchman quirked a smile. "Just curious—could you fly this thing?"

  I didn't let myself think why he was asking that. "Yes, sir." And a fine time to be asking, Major, I added silently. What if my oft-repeated claim that I could fly anything had been nonsense?

  The elevator hissed again, and two of Magellan's marines made their way out of the shaft. Standard procedure aboard a Navy vessel—I guess it gives them something to do during transition.

  "We're on the money, Skipper," Bender called out. "Computer will be cutting drive in ten seconds . . . mark."

  Ten seconds later, Magellan's drive cut out, and we floated rapidly toward the Gate that was growing ever larger in the forward screen. The silvery sheen was picked up and reflected on the sweaty faces of the bridge crew as we approached the singularity.

  The last minutes are always the worst. Just a few scant thousandths of a degree off and . . .

  I took my tube of Paradrams out of my pocket and brought it to my mouth, tonguing another one.

  The Dutchman produced a gas hypo. "This is actually more useful," he said.

  "I'm fine. Major. Just fine."

  "Thirty seconds to impact."

  "Not for you." He jerked his head toward the two bored marines, who floated near the bridge elevator. "It might help them."

  "Twenty seconds to impact.

  "Ten seconds to impact . . . seven, six, five, four, three, two, im—"

  "—pact."

  We were through, and the main screen went wild.

  Among the stars, three points of light blinked on and off like a dancer's strobe.

  The captain must have ordered sensor ports opened and chemical sensors set for boron; ugly red letters flashed on the screen, superimposed over the field of stars:

  BORON DETECTED

  I swallowed. Three lights.

  "Holy Mother of Christ—we got three bandits, Skipper." Numbers flashed so fast I couldn't follow them. "Two of them mass half a million tonnes each, the other's not much smaller than we are—"

  "I don't want your goddam opinion, I want—"

  "—eleven hundred thousand tonnes, sir."

  I didn't know Norfeldt could move so quickly. One moment he was floating next to me, the next he had kicked off the wall and bounced off the two marines, flipping end over end toward the captain's couch as he left the marines and the two now-empty hypos floating in the air.

  "Get the talker's microphone, Mark!"

  I kicked myself toward the bridge talker and jerked his microphone rig off his neck as I hooked one leg around the back of his couch. He clawed at me, but I slapped him across the throat, hard, and he lolled back in his couch.

  At the fire control panel, Hardesty had already unhooked himself from his seat and was floating toward me; I ducked under and slammed a bottom-fist into his groin as he passed overhead.

  "Everybody, freeze!" His plump thighs locked around the back of Arnheim's couch, the Dutchman had the captain's hands handcuffed in front of him and his Korriphila pressed against Arnheim's head, the safety off, the hammer back. />
  Arnheim smiled thinly. "I don't know what you're trying, but it won't work, Major. —Rush him!"

  Bender dove through the air toward the Dutchman, but Norfeldt slugged him with the gun butt, then braced himself against Arnheim's couch and fired a round into the comm panel.

  The explosion of the Glaser was incredibly bright, and incredibly loud in the tight confines of the bridge.

  "I don't fire two warning shots," the Dutchman said.

  Sparks danced behind my eyes. Nobody moved while the air conditioner swept the acrid smell of powder away.

  "Emmy?"

  "Yes, Major."

  "Order battle stations, please—and take over the fire control panel."

  Not the helm? Bizarre. I shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  Vitelli started to speak up, but the Dutchman gestured him to silence. A 10mm automatic's good for that; while the Korriphila is reasonably compact, when it's pointing at you, it looks like it has a maw instead of a barrel.

  I donned the talker's rig and thumbed the mike. "Battle stations, battle stations," I said, hearing my voice echoed back as the klaxon started to bark. "All hands to battle stations."

  "Bring the ship about, Mister," the Dutchman ordered the helmsman.

  * * *

  The fire control officer was a young lieutenant I'd met only casually. He was just about my age, I guess, but Navy people look a lot younger than Contact Service folks do.

  He drew himself up straight in his couch. "No, sir." You're not moving me out of this chair while I'm alive, he meant. The pride of the Navy.

  I drew my wiregun and thumbed it to single fire. I probably wouldn't have to shoot him, but I wouldn't miss him by much.

  "Belay that, Mark," Arnheim snapped. "Bolanger, get out of the couch."

  "Everybody over by the racks," the Dutchman said as I strapped myself in. He floated over to where I had belted myself in the couch and quickly exchanged his Korrophila for my wiregun before it could occur to anyone else that he didn't dare fire his weapon while unanchored.

  "Set the lasers for one one-ten-thousandth full," he said, "then get the fuck over to the helm and strap yourself in."

  "Yessir." I did. One-ten-thousandth power wasn't enough to fry a healthy fly. If the Dutchman didn't want to sucker the Navy into fighting this battle for us, what the hell was he doing?

  I unshipped the stick and clicked it into place, then closed my eyes for a brief prayer while the roll pedals rose out of their places in the couch. This was a battlecruiser, massy, not a light scout—I'd have to remember about all that inertia.

  "Bring her about, Mister von du Mark. Vector in on the largest of those babies—evasive."

  "Aye-aye, Major." I thumbed the mike—"Boost warning, boost warning"—punched for a variable acceleration centering on a half-gee, and heeled hard over on the stick.

  The universe spun as Magellan waddled around.

  Magic time. It doesn't matter how, when, or what. I fly.

  "Gimme a hand, here," the Dutchman said, beckoning to Bolanger, the helmsman. "Center that fucker on the crosshairs for me, then—

  "Captain?"

  Later on, at the disciplinary hearing, they played the bridge tape. Frankly, I didn't believe a lot of what I heard. For one thing, my voice came out a lot smoother and calmer than I remember it.

  For another, I know it took forever for Amheim to decide, not the scant two seconds the tape shows. It wasn't a difficult decision for him, although it was a hard one.

  But the Dutchman had been counting on the captain's understanding something about command: that the only thing worse than a successful mutiny was a mutiny in progress. In one case, the wrong decisions are likely to be made; in the other case, there can only be stasis until the mutiny is settled one way or the other.

  Condition Blue is not a situation where you want arguments over who is in command.

  Better to have the wrong person in charge.

  "Do it." Arnheim nodded slowly.

  Vitelli finally spoke up. "Captain, this is—"

  "Mutiny, and a successful one so far. Now shut your mouth and let the mutineers do their job, Ambassador." He gave me a thorough glance as though to say, We'll discuss this later, Mister. At your court-martial.

  At that moment, I sincerely hoped so.

  "Fire!"

  You never actually see the laser beam, not in a vacuum—there's not enough dust to reflect it. But sensors can pick up the ever-so-faint glow of the hydrogen ionized by the beam, and display it on the screen.

  The phony blast caught the main battleship squarely, and played across its hull for a few seconds before it skittered out of the beam.

  "Now, full power—and get those crosshairs as close to the ship as you can, without touching. I don't want you to singe the buggers, just let them know you could."

  "Captain . . . ?"

  "Do what he says, man, and snap to it."

  "Fire!"

  This time, a real blast barely missed the Xeno battle-cruiser.

  "And again." This time, the Dutchman dialed for one-hundredth power. With a-gigawatt-plus laser, that was enough for a sliding blast to score the bright surface of the battlecruiser, but not enough to burrow into the hull.

  "Cross your fingers, Emmy, and get ready to roll us the hell out of the way."

  A light lanced out from the Xeno battlecruiser; alarms clanged as it played across our hull, then died as I rolled the Magellan into a long turn.

  "Damage report, dammit," Arnheim barked out.

  An ensign looked up from his panel, astonishment written all over his white face. "None, sir. Absolutely none."

  "What's our speed relative to the big boy?"

  "We're separating at . . . a bit more than a klick-second, Captain."

  "Mark, bring it down to zero.—If you don't mind, Major."

  "Listen to the nice man, Emmy."

  "You got it, Major."

  That was a job more properly belonging to the computer, but I didn't know how to set up the program. It took me five minutes to wrestle the ship around and kill the relative speed between us and the cruiser.

  And all the time, the Xeno ships lay still, in a loose formation around the Gate.

  "Start the signal laser blinking, Emmy—and you can turn the helm over to Captain Arnheim."

  The Dutchman slid the clip out of the wiregun, signaling to me to do the same with the Korriphila. Which I did, careful to work the slide and pump the round out of the chamber. Mimicking the Dutchman, I undipped my Fairbairn's sheath and pushed it slowly toward the floor, along with the now-empty automatic.

  "Raise 'em, Emmy." Norfeldt held his hands over his head. Absurd, in the low gravity.

  "Captain," the Dutchman said, "we surrender."

  It was more than a week later that Vitelli came down to visit the three of us in the brig, causing me to miss a flush.

  Yes—three. While Bar-El wasn't implicated in the mutiny, Captain Arnheim had ordered him jugged as a material witness, just to be on the safe side. I don't think Akiva particularly minded; he was up a bit in our ongoing poker game, although Norfeldt was the big winner.

  As usual.

  At the moment Vitelli tapped against the bars, I was looking down at a pair of red aces and three little hearts, debating whether to draw to my two aces or go for the flush. It's not one of my favorite decisions to make under the gun.

  Norfeldt had raised before the draw. The Dutchman bluffed a lot; it could have meant anything from a five-card Yarborough up.

  I'd just decided to go for the good hand when Vitelli's tapping interrupted.

  "Good afternoon, gentleman." Vitelli's eyes were so shadowed that he looked like a racoon; the armpits of his zero-gee coverall were stained with sweat and white with salt. "I see you're adjusting nicely."

  "Vacationing," the Dutchman said. "Now, what's your draw, Emmy?"

  "Emile," I said, reflexively throwing away the three little hearts. It's hard to split aces; goes against the grain. "Thre
e."

  "Vacationing?" The ambassador raised an eyebrow.

  "Vacationing. I take it things went well with the Xenos."

  The ambassador started to open his mouth, and then closed it. I later found out that he knew then that these weren't exactly our Xenos—same species, different sub-species, different culture—but that the Sesss could be just as dangerous if handled wrongly. Think of them as Nungs, rather than Rhades—the differences may be important to them, but not to outsiders. To us, the main importance is that the Sesss can be reasoned with, from a position of reasonable power.

  But he didn't say that.

  What he said was: "I'm going to see if I can get you shot."

  The Dutchman snorted. "I don't think it's going to work, but you're welcome to try."

  I'd wanted to go over defensive strategy, but the Dutchman insisted that it wasn't necessary. Strategy is for the chickenshit at heart, he'd explained.

  Norfeldt dealt me three cards. A jack, a ten, and a three—and the jack was the jack of hearts; if I'd gone for the flush, I would have gotten it.

  "What do you mean?"

  "We're fucking heroes, Dom baby—the kraut and I are going to get DSDs to go along with, mebbe, a slight reprimand. I'm going to see if I can get a DSD for the Hebe, too, but I doubt if—"

  "Meaning no offense, Major," Akiva said, "but I'm not interested in a Distinguished Service Device. I don't need your medals, sir."

  The Dutchman looked him over. "I could do with a bit less polite disdain, hear?" He turned back to Vitelli. "In any case, you don't shoot heroes."

  "You—"

  "It's a rule; look it up. The Thousand Worlds is going to be too busy putting us through tickertape parades to—"

  "You're mutineers!" Vitelli hissed. "And cowards."

  "We're Servicemen." The Dutchman smiled. "And what we did is we fucking made it possible for you to open contact with these semi-Xenos."

  "You tried to bring Magellan into combat with their battlecruiser! All so that Captain Amheim would have to retreat back through the Gate." Unspoken: All to save your miserable lives.

  The Dutchman shrugged.

  "Major? Can I?"

  "Go ahead, Emmy. But he won't understand. It took you a while, and you're not a piece of chickenshit Navy crud."