The Middle of Nowhere
Page 30
Korie sat forward in his chair. The admiral saw the change in his posture and raised her eyebrows expectantly. Korie was preparing to argue. She was right.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, the Fleet also wants captains who are capable of independent thought. A captain has to take the initiative when he has no higher authority to rely on. I’ve demonstrated my ability to handle that responsibility. Three times over. If you’re not going to promote me now, then it’s obvious that I have no future in the navy. You’ll have to accept my resignation.”
“I’m prepared to do that,” the admiral said. “But if you resign, I will also have to decommission the Star Wolf.”
“I beg your pardon? I thought you said I proved my point.”
“Yes, you did. Perhaps too well. You’ve demonstrated that your crew are dedicated and capable people. We have other ships in the Fleet that need their skills. Your crew has an extraordinary loyalty to you; but without your presence, they’re not the same crew, are they? There’s no glue holding them together.”
“They’ve earned their ship.”
“Yes, they have. And they’ve also earned officers who are loyal to them. If you resign, I’ll put them onto ships with officers who follow orders and don’t act like prima donnas.”
Korie hesitated, torn by conflicting emotions. “This is blackmail!” he blurted.
“Tut tut—that’s not a word you want to use casually, Commander Korie.” Then she added, “But if it is blackmail, then it’s appropriate, isn’t it? You earned it. The karmic chicken always comes home to roost. Not too long ago, in this very office, you tried the same thing on me. You threatened me. Remember? So, you established the precedent that blackmail is an appropriate way to get what you want—or punish someone else if you don’t.”
“You’re punishing me, then?”
“You can view it that way, yes. Or . . . you can look at it this way. I’m hoping to teach you a lesson. We’re bringing twelve new ships online every month. We’re going to need captains. We’re going to need crews. You have experience; someday you might be a good captain. I certainly hope so. You’re at your best when your anger is targeted appropriately. Now do your crew a favor and put your bars back on.”
Korie started to shake his head—but it wasn’t a rejection of the vice admiral’s instructions; it was simply an ironic acknowledgment of disbelief and acceptance. A sad wry expression spread across his face. “You got me,” he admitted. “You got me good.”
“I told you before,” Vice Admiral O’Hara said. “Rule number one: youth and enthusiasm will never be a match for age and experience.”
Korie nodded his agreement. Slowly he reached out and picked up his insignia from the admiral’s desk.
“Be patient, Jon,” she said gently. “Trust me. We do have plans for you. Important plans. Just be patient a while longer.”
Captain Hardesty
“Are you still alive?” Hardesty’s voice rasped from the speaker.
“Are you still dead?” Korie shot right back. Hardesty’s body was motionless on the bed. The maze of tubes and wires around him had grown more elaborate.
“Only clinically.” The voice faded out for a moment, then came back stronger. “What do you want this time?”
Korie grinned. “I came to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“For what you said last time I came to visit.”
“And what was that?”
“You don’t remember? You told me I wasn’t fit for command.”
“Mm,” said the voice. “I must have been in a good mood.”
“I walked out of here saying, ‘I’ll show you, you son of a bitch.’ And I was angry enough to do it. Well, it worked. And I wanted to thank you for it. I learned something.”
The voice remained silent for a moment longer. Finally: “You’re assuming that I told you that because I wanted to produce a result. That’s a very big assumption, Commander.”
“I’m assuming that as a certified star-captain, you would not be nasty to anyone, and certainly not your executive officer, without a very good reason. You don’t waste.”
“Very good, Commander. But you’re still assuming. That’s a dangerous practice. Remember, I’m dead. Dead men don’t care.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll remember that. In the meantime, whether you intended it or not, the anger you gave me saved the ship . . . and very possibly the Stardock.”
“Mm.” The sound was an acknowledgment, nothing more. “Anger is useful,” Hardesty finally replied. “But anger is still a reactive emotion. You can’t depend on it to carry you the distance, Commander. There will come a day when you run out of anger. That’s when you’re going to have to find out what your real source of energy is.”
Korie’s eyes widened, both at the length of Hardesty’s speech, and at the content of it as well.
“I didn’t know you’d studied the zyne, sir.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know. It’s called the arrogance of youth. The real adventure is the wisdom that comes with experience. You’re on your way.”
“Y’know something, Captain. I’ve always respected you, but I think I’m actually beginning to like you.”
“This news will not make my heart beat any faster. If it were beating at all.”
“Nevertheless, Captain Hardesty, I appreciate the service you performed for our ship.” Korie took a step back so Hardesty’s electronic eye could see him clearly, straightened to attention, and snapped a perfect salute.
Hardesty did not return it.
Commander Korie
He returned to the Star Wolf feeling better than he’d expected to. As he stepped through the boarding tube, he felt a sense of familiarity and pride. He was coming home. His ship was safe.
The crew in the cargo deck noted his jaunty mood, and Chief Petty Officer Toad Hall quickly reported that the weather was moderate and sunny with only a few high clouds. Then he noticed there were still no stars on Korie’s collar and passed that word too. “The Star Wolf still has no captain.” A few groans of disappointment ricocheted around the Bridge and the wardroom and everywhere else the news was heard.
Hall watched as Korie climbed the ladder to the forward catwalk. Abruptly, he made a decision that he would never be able to explain. “Never mind. Operation Flag is still go!” he said quickly. “He’s coming up the starboard passage.”
Korie hadn’t been listening to the all-talk channel. He missed Hall’s weather report. And he was so involved in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice immediately that the corridor ahead of him was filling up with more people than usual. Some of them were heading aft, others were just standing and waiting.
What did startle him out of his thoughts was the fact that each and every one of them he passed saluted. Goldberg. Reynolds. Cappy. MacHeath. Even the Black Hole Gang. And Leen—yes, Leen! The chief engineer scowled, but he still saluted.
They knew. How could they not know? Korie was suddenly struck by the humanity of this crew. The corridor was so full now, he almost had to push his way through. Williger. Ikama. Green. The Quillas. He hadn’t realized there were so many of them. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta...
He felt an ember of pride glowing in his chest. He nodded his acknowledgment of each and every salute as he passed. Stolchak. Bach. Brik—Brik saluting? Korie did a double-take. Armstrong. Saffari. Hodel. Jonesy. Even the new kid, Gatineau. Eakins. Freeman. Hernandez. All of them. Every single member of the crew, he realized.
The surges of emotion he felt were almost overwhelming. He had to blink quickly to keep his eyes from tearing up as he realized: it wasn’t the ship that was home.
It was the crew that made it so. They were his family now.
Somehow he made it to his cabin without breaking. The final few meters were the hardest walk of his life. He had always known how to withstand abuse. He did not know how to accept appreciation and acknowledgment ; and the intensity of the feelings was staggering.
Then he stepped quickly into his cabin before they could see how moved he was. He crossed to his desk and sat down quickly, the tears welling up in his eyes and flowing freely down his cheeks. He wiped his nose, then his eyes. He couldn’t believe how overwhelmed he was. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt like this about the crew of a starship.
He wished . . . he wished he could put the thought aside that he had let them down. But he couldn’t. Wistfully, he took a tiny box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it and looked inside at the two bright captain’s stars. Carol had given him these stars, the last night they’d been together. He’d been carrying them ever since.
Sadly, he closed the box again and put it back on the shelf next to the only other award he cherished, a small black plaque bearing a golden moebius wrench with his name, Jonathan Thomas Korie, inscribed below the handle. The sight of it gave him a poignant mix of sad and happy memories all mixed together. It made him remember again how much he cared. And how much caring hurt.
While he was standing there, HARLIE chimed for his attention.
“Yes, HARLIE?”
“I have some information for you.”
“Is it important?”
“I believe so.”
“Go ahead.”
“There was an evacuation off of Shaleen before it was scourged. Over three hundred ships participated. Perhaps half a million refugees got offplanet. The records are confused, possibly inaccurate—”
“Tell me!”
“A child matching the description of one of your sons may have been aboard the Wandering Cow, a cargo vessel. The identification is uncertain, but it is possible that Timothy Korie is still alive. I have requested all the records.”
“Where? Where did they go?” demanded Korie.
“Taalamar,” HARLIE answered. “The Wandering Cow went to Taalamar.”
“Oh, my God . . .”
“I’m making additional inquiries now. I’ll inform you as soon as I have word.”
“Is that it? Is that all you have?”
“I’m sorry, sir. That’s all there is at the moment.”
Korie sank into his chair, tears of joy and fear streaming down his cheeks. He buried his face in his hands and began to weep.
Fanfare
There was one more thing to do.
It was six weeks before they could do it, and even then half of the refits had not been completed; but a series of shakedown runs had been called for, and Korie decided to take advantage of the opportunity.
At eighteen hundred hours, the ship arrived on station. Korie stepped onto the Bridge wearing his whites. He glanced around and took note of the fact that every other crewmember present was also wearing his or her dress uniform. Even Brik. On the big Morthan, the uniform looked somehow . . . bizarre; but if Brik felt ill-at-ease, he did not display it.
“Is this the point?” Korie asked his senior astrogator.
Tor nodded. “As close as we could figure it.”
“Good,” said Korie. He stepped down to the Ops deck and looked up at the big display. An empty starfield beckoned.
“Mr. Jones? Is the package ready?”
Jonesy nodded and stood up. Around the Bridge, the other officers were standing up now too. Tor. Green. Goldberg. Hodel.
“Go ahead, Mr. Jones.”
At his work station, Jones leaned forward and pressed a single button. There came a soft thump through the floor of the ship. After a moment, something became visible on the forward screen. It was a wreath. A large green wreath, glowing in the illumination of the Star Wolf ’s intense spotlights.
Hodel tapped a button on his board. The music began softly, slowly. He’d written a new arrangement, especially for this ceremony. The steady beat of a military drum came snapping up first, followed by the nearplaintive wail of a golden horn; it sounded faint and faraway—then the rest of the band came swelling up. Korie could almost hear the words. “Oh, I wish I were in the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, Dixieland. . . .”
Slowly, Korie raised one hand in salute. Around him, the other officers did likewise. Throughout the ship, at their stations, in the corridors, in the cargo bay, in the engine room, in the mess room, in the bright channels of the farm, wherever brave men and women remembered their own, the rest of the crew stood tall and proud as well. They all wore their whites, and they all stood at attention. And each and every one held a salute to their fallen comrades. On more than a few faces, tears rolled slowly down their cheeks.
And then, finally, it was over. Korie lowered his hand slowly and turned away from the screen. His throat was painfully tight. He wondered if someday, someone would be dropping a wreath for the Star Wolf. He wondered if they would be as proud of their duty.
And he wondered what music would be played.
“Mr. Hodel?” The acting captain asked. “Did you find an appropriate piece of music to represent this vessel?”
“Yes, sir, I did. Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, Fourth Movement.”
Korie raised an eyebrow at his helmsman. “I’m afraid I don’t know that one—”
“Yes, you do,” said Hodel. He tapped another button, and as the ship started to ease forward again, a softer sound was heard across the Bridge and throughout the ship.
First the distant twinkling notes, then the horns, coming up in a dramatic fanfare, and Korie recognized the same bold statement he had heard at Lambda’s funeral. He recognized not only the music, but the meaning behind it as well.
The music had been written long ago and far away, and yet across all that vast gulf of time, it still spoke eloquently. It had not been written by a starman, nor had it been written with star travelers in mind, and yet . . . and yet... it was still about the experience of challenging the darkness.
The same theme had been adapted for the composer’s other piece, the more famous one: The Fanfare for the Common Man. But this symphonic arrangement was even grander. This was a work that honored life itself. The music swelled and filled the command deck.
Korie looked to Hodel, surprised and honored and pleased. He had not realized that his helmsman had the soul of a poet. It was a gratifying discovery. “You did good,” Korie said, quietly patting Hodel on the shoulder. “Commander Tor. Log this music as our official calling card.”
“Aye aye, Cap—Commander.”
“Not yet. Not yet. But thank you. Now, take us home please. Take us home.”
David Gerrold’s Legendary Novel Is Back!
“The whole thing has an uncanny allegorical force and underneath the diverting brilliance there begins to emerge, gratuitously, a genuine philosophic melancholy . . . altogether most impressive”
—TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
“This is all widely imaginative and mindbending . . . Gerrold is such a good writer that he keeps us reading through . . . shifts of time, space and character—right into pre-history . . . After reading this one, time-machine addicts will never quite be able to look at the gadget again as a simple plaything.”
—PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY
Available in Trade Paperback or Signed Limited Edition Hardcover
Coming in January 2004 from BenBella Books
“In my view this is one of the very best fictional portrayals of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence ever written. The scientific background is generally well drawn and authentic; and the (human) protagonists are real people, finely and movingly characterized.”
—CARL SAGAN
“Quite simply, The Listeners is one of the finest books of speculative fiction ever written. It is strong, thoughtful, marvelously human, and to my eye without flaw. In sum, an unforgettable reading experience.”
—HARLAN ELLISON
Also from BenBella Books
An intellectual thrill-ride through
the world of THE MATRIX.
Available at fine bookstores.
Win a Matrix Reloaded DVD at
www.benbellabooks.com.
FROM BENBELLA BOOKS
Joss Whedon:
The Genius Behind Buffy
“Possibly the finest book of the century; it’s exactly like A Tale of Two Cities, but with 30% more me.”
—Joss Whedon
“Candace Havens nails the guy who nailed the zeitgeist.
This dishy dissection of a true TV genius is smart, sur-
prising and vastly entertaining—just like Buffy itself.
Even Sunny dale know-it-alls will adore this book.”
—Michael Logan, TV Guide
Joss Whedon explores the life and work of the brilliant Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Fray and Firefly and the Academy Award nominated screenwriter behind Toy Story, Speed, and Alien Resurrection.
When Joss Whedon set out to create Buffy, he wasn’t just looking to create a successful show. Whedon deliberately set out to create a cult phenomenon. “I wanted Buffy to be a cultural phenomenon, period . . . that was always the plan,” Whedon confesses. Joss Whedon describes the reasons behind Whedon’s intense creative drive and shows how he, very deliberately, crafted a cult sensation.