“You’re kidding, right?”
“Right,” said Korie. And they still didn’t know if he was or not.
God
The decision to take his accumulated leave with his family saved Jon Korie’s life.
The LS-1066 left on her last cruise with the prototype high-cycle fluctuators. She leapt across the rift and she never came back. She disappeared somewhere on the far side.
At first, the Alliance feared that she had been captured. Later investigation suggested otherwise. The LS-1066 had downloaded her log at every checkpoint; twenty separate ships were on station to monitor her progress; she missed only the last one. The inquiry showed that she had developed a persistent small flutter in her hyperstate envelope; it was assumed that the compensators had overloaded and the envelope had collapsed during a speed run.
Although fifteen other engineers had certified the installation of the high-cycle fluctuators in the LS-1066, Korie still felt personally responsible for the tragedy. He had installed the units, checked them out, and signed off on them first. Fleet Command believed the fault lay in the design of the phase reflex units and put no blame on Korie or anyone else responsible for the installation. Nevertheless, Commander Jonathan Thomas Korie took the loss extremely hard.
He withdrew into himself for a long while; never before in his life had he suffered a blow like this; even Carol was unable to reach him. But Jon Korie had learned a long time ago that whenever his emotions raged, the best cure of all was the immersion in hard, satisfying work. He did that again; he suppressed the urge to brood, concentrating instead on the routines of day-to-day living, taking care of the boys as well as the growing press of work preparatory to receiving a ship of his own. It all served to bring him back to a state approaching normal.
His enthusiasm for the stars remained undiminished, but where before Jon Korie had looked at the night sky with awe and wonder, now his eyes were narrowed with knowledge and respect. He was also—although he was not yet aware of it—growing a hard little nugget of uncorrodable bitterness at the core of his being. He knew that life wasn’t fair. He didn’t like having his nose rubbed in it.
Carol Jane Korie was a smarter woman than her husband ever realized. She was smart enough to know what he was going through, and smart enough not to interfere with the process. She remained supportive and available. She listened carefully when he trusted her enough to talk; she made no demands on him that would make him feel pressured, but she maneuvered him carefully into situations where he could begin the process of healing himself.
And then one day, whatever had been troubling him quietly resolved itself. Without explanation, he apologized to Carol for being so distant for so long, then proved to her in the most pleasant and demonstrative way that he was truly back to normal—and then proved it again by engaging himself in his work with a renewed ferocity.
But he never spoke again of God in reverential terms; God was just another word. He had decided God could not be trusted, therefore God no longer had a part in his life.
Chess
Gatineau set out the first chessboard under a simple plastic crate. He propped the crate up with a stick, and tied a string from the stick to the white king. He also stuck a camera button to the bulkhead to monitor it. Chief Leen was fabricating both real and dummy camera buttons. The imp would not be able to tell which was which.
The trap itself was a silly joke, obvious to anyone who’d studied the history of hunting wabbit, but . . . it was also a place to start. Korie had suggested driving the imp crazy by giving it things it couldn’t understand. Gatineau had never thought of himself as an expert in jokes, cultural references, surreal constructions, and absurdist confections, but he didn’t mind the mental exercise. Starship experience wasn’t turning out to be what he had expected, but . . . he began sketching other ideas on his clipboard, not worrying if he was being observed or not. It wouldn’t make any difference.
It took Gatineau two hours to set up all ten traps and chessboards. The tenth chessboard was on a giant mousetrap. When he finished, he returned to his work station in the machine shop and asked HARLIE, “Has anything happened yet?”
“Everything,” replied the intelligence engine. “The imp has been right behind you the whole time. It has made ten opening moves.”
“Huh?”
HARLIE showed him the video of the first trap. A small brown creature squatted on its haunches and stared at the trap for several seconds. It scratched its head, then scratched its butt, then sniffed its fingers. At last . . . it reached under the box, being very careful not to touch the stick, and moved a pawn. “Pawn to king three,” HARLIE reported. “An aggressive opening. It allows both the queen and the king’s bishop access to the board at the expense of some vulnerability for the king. He’ll have to castle early. Mate within thirty-three, plus or minus six.”
“It’s only his first move, HARLIE!” Gatineau replied. “How can you predict that?”
HARLIE responded politely, “We are here to play games with it, aren’t we?”
“Ah,” said Gatineau, getting it abruptly. He shut up.
The rest of the video played out. The imp studied the box carefully, moving delicately around it, then started to walk away.
“It didn’t notice the camera—?” Gatineau started to ask, but before he could finish the question, the imp stuck its head back into frame, stretching its lips out grotesquely with its fingers, crossing its eyes, waggling its tongue, and making a ghastly “Bhoogah bhoogah” noise. Then it disappeared.
Gatineau recoiled, startled. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t expected that the creature could make noise, or that it had enough personality to say “neener neener neener.” Then he laughed. “This guy is cute. Real cute.” He thought for a moment about playing the “Bhoogah bhoogah” noise back at the imp every time it made a move, but decided against it; he didn’t want to reveal how closely the boards were being monitored.
“Okay, let’s look at the others,” he said. He watched as HARLIE cycled through the videos. The imp made the same opening move on every chessboard. Each time, HARLIE made a prediction how many moves the game would last. Each time, the prediction was different.
“You’re driving me crazy too, y’know,” Gatineau remarked.
“That is one of the hazards, yes,” HARLIE noted.
“It was following us the whole time, eh? That’s interesting. If we get enough traps and cameras placed, maybe we’ll be able to track it throughout the ship.”
“It should constrain its movements, but . . . I think it will start pulling cameras off walls if it has to. In the meantime, I am transferring a list of my countermoves to your clipboard.”
“Yes, of course. Has Mr. Korie seen this yet?”
“He and Mr. Brik are looking at it now. I have also informed Mr. Leen that we will need additional traps and chessboards. I am preparing a list of appropriate locations for you.”
“Thank you, HARLIE.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Gatineau.”
“Uh, just one more question—”
“Yes?”
“How can we be sure that you haven’t been tampered with? That you’re on our side here?”
HARLIE was silent for a moment. “You can’t really be sure at all,” he said thoughtfully; then he added, “However, if I had been taken over by the imp, I don’t think I would be cooperating this enthusiastically, do you?”
Gatineau stared at the work station. “Are you playing games with me, HARLIE?” he demanded.
“Moi?” asked the intelligence engine.
Ship’s Mess
For the most part, Brik chose to take his meals alone. Occasionally he would join the other officers in the officers’ mess, which also doubled as a wardroom. Occasionally, he would accept a cup of chocolate or tea. But he rarely ate in the presence of his human colleagues, and at those times, he did so reluctantly. He was acutely conscious that the sight of a Morthan eating unnerved most humans. While he rarely deferred t
o anyone about anything as irrational as eating habits, in this case he felt that discretion was appropriate. After all, he did have to work with these people.
There was also the small matter of . . . well, prejudice. On more than one occasion, Chief Leen and other members of the Black Hole Gang had abruptly departed the mess room shortly after his arrival. Brik had considered a number of options, up to and including breaking a few bones, but ultimately had decided that the last thing Commander Korie needed right now was a disciplinary problem among his subordinate officers and crew members. By staying out of the eating areas Brik minimized the opportunities for others to get into serious trouble.
Brik knew that the prejudice was really Leen’s problem, not his. He felt no shame or hurt or embarrassment; those were petty emotions; but he did feel some wonder at the way humans accepted irrational belief systems. Most of them were little more than feral animals raised by other feral animals. Only a few of them demonstrated any awareness of the basic trainings necessary to elevate a primitive consciousness to the realm in which true consciousness existed. And even among those who had some sense of the nature of enlightenment and transformation, even fewer were skilled enough to be considered true masters of their own spirit.
Nevertheless, there were times when Commander Brik felt the need for . . . well, not companionship. Morthans don’t get lonely. Not like humans do. But he sometimes felt the need to listen. And at those times, he retired to a dark corner of the crew’s mess and quietly nursed a cup of Japanese tea. What he listened to were not the conversations, but the sounds, the emotions, the mood, of the crew. And in this way he felt closer to the spirit of the starship.
There was too much he still didn’t understand about these pitiable little creatures—and yet he was absolutely certain that there was something there that needed to be understood. Whatever it was, the Morthan Solidarity had no knowledge of it; and ultimately, it could defeat them. Somehow, the crew of the Star Wolf had survived a Morthan assassin. Together, the Star Wolf and the Burke had destroyed the Dragon Lord. What one ship could do, others could too.
The Solidarity was vulnerable. Brik couldn’t explain why he felt that way, but he sensed somehow that the Solidarity’s blindness to human adaptability would be the cause of their inevitable downfall. He had expressed this thought to Korie once and Korie had looked at him very oddly, then asked him if he’d been looking at the war reports recently.
The thought had occurred to Brik that he might be wrong, that his constant exposure to humans might be tainting his consciousness. In which case, there was little he could do about it. But if he was right, if the Solidarity was vulnerable in their ignorance, then so was he. He couldn’t stand that thought. And so, regardless of how uncomfortable it made him, regardless of how uncomfortable it made anyone else, he kept returning to the mess room to listen. And learn.
Tonight, however, there was no one else in the mess. That was not a problem. There would be soon enough. Whatever their distaste of Morthans, they still had to eat. They would sit as far from him as possible, but they would sit. And he would listen, even from across the room. While he waited, he brooded. He closed his eyes and thought of running through dark green corridors, up the stairs, up the ramps, always forward, always deeper. It wasn’t quite dreamtime, it was something else, something disturbing, because he didn’t know where these corridors led, but—
Abruptly, his near-trancelike state was interrupted by Lt. Junior Grade Helen Bach. She brought her tray over to his table and sat down opposite him without asking permission. For a long moment, the two regarded each other blandly; the giant Morthan Tyger looking down, and the much smaller woman looking very up. Her eyes were bright against her dark skin.
“Say it,” Brik finally prompted.
Bach took a sip of her coffee, then raised her eyes to his again. “I’m sorry for embarrassing you during your shower,” she said.
Brik blinked slowly. “You didn’t embarrass me. You embarrassed yourself.”
“Whatever. I apologize.”
“To be perfectly candid, Lieutenant, I have never understood the concept of apology. Does the apology make the event not have happened? No. Therefore, does the apology make it all right that the event did happen? No. So why apologize?”
“Because if I don’t, I’ll feel that I somehow compromised you. And if you don’t accept my apology, I’ll feel that our relationship is . . . well, damaged.”
“Relationship?” The big Morthan shook his head. “We have no relationship. I am the chief of security and strategic operations. You are my assistant. This is not my choice, nor yours either. The assassin killed eight members of the security team and you are, by succession, my new assistant. I give you orders. You follow them. That’s not a relationship. That’s military discipline.”
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“Easy? I don’t understand.”
“I saw you naked in the shower. You’re not like . . . other men.”
“Oh, that.”
“Oh, that?” Bach looked genuinely surprised.
“It’s such a little thing,” Brik said, meaning the incident, nothing else, completely unaware of the double entendre.
“Little?” Bach replied with real astonishment. “It’s not even there at all.” She caught herself too late, after the words were already spoken. She clapped her hands across her mouth. “Never mind. I’m sorry.” She pushed her tray away. “Every time I try to talk to you, it’s a conversational meltdown. A disaster,” she explained to his look. “It’s like we’re not even using the same language. It’s not that you don’t understand what I mean. It’s like you don’t want to understand.” She started to rise.
“Wait—” said Brik.
She hesitated, searching his face. She sat down again. “Okay, what?”
“I mean you no harm. No, that’s incorrect. I mean you no insult.” His gaze turned inward for a moment as he searched his repertoire for appropriate phrases or gestures. There was nothing there. He couldn’t even find a context for this conversation. He was suddenly painfully aware that right here, right now, he was stuck in the very middle of the great aching darkness of his own ignorance of human relationships. This was what he was most... uncomfortable with. He looked back to Bach again. She was growing impatient with his silence. “I must ask your forbearance.”
“Why?” she said. It was almost a demand.
“Candor does not come easily to me. You must know Morthans well enough to know that. You only know about a Morthan that which he wants you to know. I have been thinking about what you know. I am considering whether I want you to know something more.”
“Go on,” Bach said.
Brik nodded. “All of my training suggests that it would be very dangerous to ask a certain kind of question because it would reveal too much of the scope of my own knowledge. Nevertheless, if I do not ask the question of someone I can trust, I will remain stuck in my own ignorance. Even acknowledging that I have ignorance in this matter to another may be dangerous. It could be considered weakness. Vulnerability. And yet I have put myself into the position where I must ask, because I cannot afford not to ask, because that creates another even greater kind of vulnerability. Do you see the . . . philosophical trap that such logic produces?”
Despite herself, she smiled. “You guys really have turned paranoia into an art form, haven’t you?”
“Yes, we have. Perhaps that’s why the Morthan species has been so successful in such a very short time.”
“If you can call that success. Paranoia is its own punishment.” She shook the thought away. It was distasteful. “Do you want to talk about this other thing?”
Brik nodded stiffly. “Lieutenant, I do not want you to assume that I have weaknesses or vulnerabilities that you can exploit.”
Bach looked at him. She looked him up and down. Mostly, she looked up. And up. “Believe me, Commander,” she said. “Vulnerability is not a word that comes to mind when I think
about you.”
“Thank you,” he said. He considered his next words very carefully. Finally, he admitted, “I have been aboard this ship long enough to understand its workings. That is, I should understand its workings. When I served as an aide to Captain Hardesty, I had no trouble understanding the job. He gave orders, I followed them. I gave orders, others followed them. But here, now, aboard the Star Wolf, it doesn’t seem to work the same way, and . . . as loathe as I am to admit it, I think that either one of two possibilities is operative. Either this ship is insane. Or... I do not understand the operating context of certain areas of human relationships.”
“And this is important to you.” It wasn’t a question.
“You lost your temper with me, because you did not feel that we were communicating adequately,” Brik replied.
“I didn’t lose my temper. I just got frustrated. Well, maybe I did, a little bit,” she corrected.
“Yes, you did,” he agreed. “And that’s the point. When you talk to me about military matters of any kind, we have no trouble communicating at all. But when we discuss matters of . . . I don’t even know the word for it. If there is a word. But when we discuss matters of nakedness, for instance, I’m not sure what we’re really talking about at all.”
“Ahh,” she said, nodding knowledgeably. She allowed herself a smile. “I think I’m beginning to get it.”
“Would you explain it to me?”
“Mm.” She made a face. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Just do.”
“Well . . .” She took a sip of her coffee. “You understand relationships of power, don’t you?”
“Of course,” he said. “In a relationship of power, there is always a threat involved. If you do not do what I tell you, I will hurt you in some way. The military is based totally on that. Both the Morthan Solidarity and the Allies. There is no question of authority, because it is clearly drawn.”
The Middle of Nowhere Page 20