Temporary Duty

by Ric Locke

  Mannix eyed the pitcher as Tollison set it back on the table. “That seems to have gone well,” he observed. “Peters, we are all in your debt. Your given name is John, isn’t it? Please call me Gerald. Not ‘Jerry’, please, I detest the diminutive.”

  “Greg,” Tollison interjected with a nod.

  “Thanks,” said Peters. He took the last sip from his glass; Mannix refilled it from the pitcher without comment, and they looked over the room. Sailors were intercepting waiters, pronouncing the magic formula, and being appropriately rewarded. Not all of them got it right the first time, but the subject was important, and they persevered until they obtained the desired response. “Pos’tive reinforcement,” Peters muttered.

  “That’s exactly it,” Mannix observed. “John, we truly appreciate your help, don’t we, Greg?”

  Tollison nodded, and Mannix went on, “If you’d care to absent yourself and repair to your quarters, perhaps to rest after your labors, be assured that we won’t take it amiss.” He sipped beer. “On the other hand, if you’d care to stay, I for one would like a few more pointers. Greg?”

  “Absolutely,” said Tollison.

  “I reckon I’ll hang here for a little while, Gerald,” Peters said. “Among other things, this here’s pretty good beer.”

  Todd joined them a little later, and together they went on to advanced subjects, such as more beer, what kind of beer do you have, and I like/don’t like this beer. Not all of the sailors joined in, but enough did that Peters was finally moved to remark, “You know, this here’s a pretty bright group o’ in-di-vidjuls.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Mannix beamed owlishly at the assembly. “Provided, that is, that they have incentive.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Star Bay Resort had bars, lounges, restaurants, and a small casino, and offered swimming, boating, hiking among the bucolic farmsteads, and an outdoor game played on rolling downs to the south of the buildings. The object of the game was to hit a ball toward a distant target. Players took turns tossing the ball in a soft underhand lob to a member of the opposite team, who (hopefully) swatted it with a flat-sided bat toward the target, a post with a small statuette perched on top.

  Mannix’s invitation at the bar had segued into the four sailors going around together, although Todd wasn’t completely comfortable palling around with two First Classes and a Second. Tollison was big, burly, and well-nigh imperturbable as such people often are, and Mannix was always cheerful—although they quickly found out that he was never so sunnily loquacious as when he was royally pissed. All four of them found the game addictive, and by the third day were willing, even eager, to spend all afternoon playing “cricket golf”.

  Peters placed his ball with Mannix pitching, declined to try for doubles—if the ball went out of the circle, you had to bat it back—and eyed the statuette bemusedly. They all had names, which the sailors had promptly discarded in favor of Bear, Bat, Gremlin, Ghoul, Monkey, Bubblehead, and Dracula. “Wonder if we’ll get to meet the rest of ‘em,” he wondered aloud.

  “How’s that, John?” Mannix asked.

  Peters gestured at the statuette, then at the staff member who had charge of the equipment, carrying it on a low cart with wire-spoked wheels. “We done met the bats, and here’s the Gremlin,” he explained.

  Mannix raised his eyebrows. “You know, you’re pretty damn bright for a backwoods hick,” he remarked. “I actually hadn’t made the connection.”

  Peters caught movement out of the corner of his eye. “Hold up,” he said. “Somethin’s goin’ on.”

  A Bermuda catamaran about five meters long was drawn up on the beach, and a semicircle of locals was gathered around it. Most of them were in the bright red and flame-yellow livery of the hotel staff, and one, fairly important by the number of tassels and doodads attached to his costume, was haranguing the occupants of the boat, waving pipestem arms to emphasize his points.

  One of the people in the boat was a local, dressed in an abbreviated version of the garish livery suitable for swimming. He was giving as good as he got, or so it seemed, waving his arms and shouting in counterpoint to his accusers on shore. The other two were humans, and had to be officers because one of them was a woman. She was one of the minority who had had her breasts removed and stored for later reattachment when she wasn’t pulling six gees regularly, and the prosthetic skin over her pectoral muscles was bright purple.

  The four sailors watched the scene for a few moments. “I suppose someone had better intervene,” Mannix suggested, looking sidewise at Peters.

  Peters snorted. “Hmph. I reckon I know who that’ll have to be, the rest of you can just about order beer.” He watched for a bit more, then sighed. “Well, there ain’t nothin’ for it,” he observed sourly. “Todd, you better come along. The rest of you, back us up if it gets nasty.”

  “You got it,” said Mannix, the shortest speech they’d heard out of him.

  Peters and Todd scrambled down the slope, slipping and sliding where the turf of the downs gave way to beach. Their approach caused a pause in the action, both boatman and flunky falling silent and watching as they came closer. “Can I help in some way?” Peters asked, with the abbreviated bow that the locals used on such occasions.

  “Good, somebody can speak these people,” the chief flunky said with noticeable relief, and returned the bow somewhat more deeply. “Tell them this not good place for little boat, need to go back with others.” He gestured to the northwest, where several small craft were sailing back and forth in the light breeze. His Grallt was about like Todd’s, not fluent but understandable.

  “Dih,” the boatman put in. “Rocks. Dangerous.”

  “I’ll tell them,” Peters promised. “Afternoon, sir, ma’am,” he said to the occupants of the boat.

  “What the Hell’s going on here?” the male officer demanded. “Tell these freaks to get us back in the damn water. Why the Hell did this little asshole beach us, anyway?”

  Peters couldn’t place the male officer beyond one of the backseaters. “They say these waters ain’t suitable for small craft, sir. The coxs’n says rocks in the area. They’d be obliged if you’d go back out with the others, sir.”

  The officer looked disgusted. “Dammit, I’ve been sailing small craft since I was three.” He glared at Peters. “I don’t need half-pint freaks and enlisted people telling me where I can go.”

  “No, sir, but it’s their boat, and they know the waters, sir.”

  “Fuck that,” said the female officer; Ms. Williams, 206, it was. “You’re Peters, aren’t you? Tell these creeps to let us go, or I swear to God I’ll toss this one overboard—” She gestured at the boatman “—and we’ll bring the fucking boat back when we’re good and Goddamned ready.”

  “Ma’am, I reckon that ain’t a good—”

  “That was a direct order, sailor,” the male officer spat.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Peters said resignedly. “They say they are experienced operators of small boats,” he told the resort official. “They insist on using the boat as they like.”

  “They never here before,” the official pointed out. “Don’t know conditions. Tell them go back.”

  “I told them that,” Peters advised. “But they are my superiors. I can’t give them instructions.”

  “Boat my charge,” the flunky pointed out. “I give instructions.”

  “What’s going on here?” The tone of the bellow brought Peters’s back straight by reflex. “Are my officers being detained? What for?” Commander Bolton wanted to know, at the top of his lungs.

  “Who this person?” the staff flunky asked.

  “This is the First of all humans aboard Llapaaloapalla,” Peters explained. “He asks why his people are not free to go as they wish.”

  “Hell if I know, sir,” the male officer said indignantly. “We were just going along, no trouble, then this guy—” he indicated the boatman “—beached us. I don’t know what the problem is.”

  “Your First so
unds not patient,” the local observed. “You seem understand situation. You explain?”

  “I’ll try,” said Peters with some reluctance.

  “Do you know anything about this, sailor?” Bolton asked Peters directly.

  “Yes, sir, the manager here—” Peters had decided that the local must be a manager of some sort “—says the boat’s out of its safe area, sir. He’d appreciate it if they’d take it back with the others.”

  Bolton snorted. “Hmph. Do you think you can get to the bottom of this?” he asked Dreelig, who came up panting.

  Dreelig eyed Peters with disfavor and had words with the local. “This is the manager of the boat rental office,” he explained when they’d exchanged a few sentences. “There are rocks near here, and the currents are bad. Small boats like this one aren’t safe in this area, and he was trying to get Mr. Goetz and Ms. Williams to allow the boatman to take the boat back to the safe area.”

  “Hmph. All right, Goetz, you and Williams get that thing back over there.” Bolton waved at the other boats.

  “But sir—”

  “No ‘buts’, Goetz, I didn’t bring you people out here to get drowned on some reef. Get going.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Goetz with resignation. “Come on, Claudia, we have to go back and play with the other kiddies.”

  “Yeah,” Williams agreed. She twisted her mouth disgustedly. “Some people got no sense of adventure.”

  “You can confine your adventures to flying the planes,” Bolton pointed out.

  “Yes, sir,” Goetz aknowledged. Williams snorted and swung her legs over the side.

  “What?” the boatman asked in confusion as the two officers began pushing the boat back off the beach. “What happens?”

  “They’ve agreed to go back with the others,” Peters told him.

  “What are you telling these guys, sailor?” Commander Bolton wanted to know.

  “I told the boatman they’d agreed to go back, sir,” Peters explained.

  The manager explained the situation in the local language. “Good,” said the boatman with a nod. “Thanks.” He began adding his own force, and the boat began to slide, grating on the sand until it was bouyed up by an incoming wave. He leaped aboard, hardly getting his feet wet, and the two humans followed with less grace.

  “And just who the Hell are you to be giving my officers instructions?” Bolton demanded. “Peters, isn’t it, sailor?”

  “Yes, sir.” Peters flushed. “Beggin’ the Commander’s pardon, but I ain’t givin’ no orders to nobody. I know the language a little bit, and I was tryin’ to help straighten the situation out, sir.”

  “Hmph.” Bolton watched with sour disapproval as the boat swung in the breeze while the three crew confused one another in an attempt to raise the sail. They got it ready in time to prevent the wind from pushing it back to shore, and the boat set out on a close reach in the general direction of the rest. The Commander gave Peters a lambent glare and turned away. “Come on, Dreelig,” he said to the waiting Grallt. “We’re done here.”

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” Dreelig agreed. He nodded at the boat manager, spared Peters and Todd a brief glance, and followed the Commander up the beach.

  “Your superiors not big polite,” the boat manager observed. “But quick.”

  “Yeah,” said Peters sourly. “Yes,” he repeated in Trade. “Has the situation been resolved to your satisfaction?”

  The manager bowed. “Yes. I am Lulakarithisalozohavi—” and more Peters didn’t get. “Call me Luli. This group much status, ke? You less.”

  “That’s precisely correct, Luli.”

  “Think so,” said Luli with a decisive nod. “This group got boats until star leave. Star come back, come see me.” He glanced at Todd, then at the other two sailors, who had watched with interest but hadn’t dared interject themselves. “Bring friends,” he continued. “We take nice boat, go past rocks. Pretty place, good gabble. Not know word?” he asked slyly when Peters looked blank. “Means catch things live water. Much fun.”

  “Fishing!” said Todd with a grin. “Peters, we’ve got to take him up on that. I haven’t been deep-sea fishing since I left home.”

  “And I ain’t never tried it. Sounds interestin’.” He nodded at the local. “I’ll discuss it with the others. You will probably see us tomorrow.”

  “Star come back,” Luli agreed with a bow. “See you,” another idiom that translated directly. He flashed another big grin and headed up the beach, legs pumping in the half-trot they used, with the rest of the audience following in an irregular bunch.

  “Well, that coulda gone better,” Peters noted. The sailboat was well out to sea, merging with the group.

  Todd grinned. “At least we got a fishing invitation out of it,” he observed. “I can hardly wait.”

  “So I see,” said Peters with an eyebrow lifted. “Well, if you’re that enthusiastic, I reckon I’m willin’ to go along.”

  * * *

  A new star appeared in the west at twilight. “Looks like our ride’s here,” Todd commented, looking up at the bright point.

  “Yep, I reckon you’re right.” Peters turned away from the sunset and surveyed the room. “We better start gettin’ our shit together.”

  “I won’t really be all that sorry to leave,” Todd mused. “This place is the most fun I’ve had with my clothes on in a long time, but all the same, I’ll be glad to get back to the boat.”

  Peters snorted. “Yeah, me too.”

  They packed before going down to dinner, not that it was a big problem. Kathir suits solved a lot of wardrobe requirements, and the uniforms they’d brought had stayed in the seabags. Some of what they were packing were souvenirs; the locals on the farms surrounding the resort had a nice line in handicrafts. Todd’s prize was a flick-knife, a pair of handles of shiny wood concealing a blade over ten centimeters long. Peters eyed it. “You realize if you try to carry that thing back home they’ll put you in jail, don’t you?”

  Todd grinned and performed the finger-twisting midair pass that gave the knife its name and left it with its blade extended from his fist. “Yeah. It’s fun to have anyway.” He gestured again, the blade disappearing like a magic trick, and stowed the folded knife in his bag.

  Not all the sailors had seen the portent in the sky, but the word got passed over dinner. Most of them devoted the evening to packing, but quite a few used a portion of the night to practice their Grallt by ordering a last few sips of excellent beer and saying goodbye to the bartender, whose name had three and seven eights of syllables but who answered to “Wally”. Morning brought the skystar and the dli, in that order, and the bellmen helped hump bags down to the landing field.

  Officers arrived, spiffy in whites, and the enlisted watched in idle chatting groups as the stewards toted bags aboard the dli. It lifted off and rose toward the puffy white clouds, and then it was their turn. Working parties loaded the little freight hauler, passing bags from hand to hand. Some of them clinked, and Peters shared a raised eyebrow with Mannix. Apparently a few of the sailors had mastered “beer to go.”

  Peters turned to take a last look. Blue sky over cobalt grass seemed perfectly reasonable after a week, and the gentle curve of black sand properly and correctly defined the margin of the gray-blue sea. Another sailor pushed by with a grunted semiapology, and Peters shook his head, stepped through, and took his seat next to Todd, who glanced at him and returned to staring out the window.

  Nice place.

  Next?

  * * *

  Next was five planet visits, with long transits between and no liberty at any of them. The trade delegations went Down, but nobody else paid attention. Two of the visits involved mock combats between the Navy crews and the locals. Neither of those seemed like much of a challenge.

  They all settled into a routine, and began to pay about as much attention to where the ship was and what was going on as the Grallt did, which is to say nearly none. It was relaxing rather than boring, with n
ot much changing, and that slowly. Peters ran his retarder and stayed out of sight.

  “This last coffee,” Zeef told them at first meal. “You not here early, not get any.”

  “That’s really unfortunate,” Mannix observed. “Our efficiency is likely to plummet.”

  Zeef grinned. “Us too. Everybody likes, used up quick.” He poured, alternating between cups so each of the four sailors got the same amount. “Really, not bad,” he suggested. “Little goes long way. Lasted almost three zul.”

  “Well, that leaves tomatoes,” said Todd as the waiter bustled off. “No reason to run out of those unless all the lights burn out.”

  Tollison grunted sourly. “Hmph. Hate the things.”

  “I do believe we have heard quite enough from you on that subject,” Mannix told him with mock sternness. “You should look on the bright side.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Someone could have brought zucchini.”

  That got a slightly sour laugh. Their diet was becoming restricted, with only a dozen or so items to choose from, and Chief Gill had made a general issue of nutritional supplements in the form of pills to be taken with each meal. Word from Dr. Steward via HM/2 Kiel had it that they were in no danger of malnutrition so long as the supplements held out, and they had plenty of supplements. The pudgier ones were starting to slim down, though.

  Peters sipped coffee and regarded the others. Mannix and Tollison didn’t seem disposed to break off the relationship begun during liberty. The four of them had retraced some of the steps Peters and Todd had taken, discovering in the process that the Grallt were growing other Earth plants in the big factory trays below the ops bay. So far only tomatoes were available in numbers large enough to serve the sailors, let alone provide them to the rest of the crew of Llapaaloapalla, and several of the plants hadn’t grown at all. Peters would have welcomed zucchini. He didn’t like the stuff, but it would have been another source of vitamins—and familiarity.