Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 2 - Mercenary

by Anthony, Piers

  In due course I was contacted by the anonymous officer Sergeant Smith had promised: the one who had the list of pirate ships doing business with Chip Off the Old Block. He was Lieutenant Repro, a psychologist attached to the Public Relations staff of the training battalion, and he was a drug addict. I quickly realized that while Sergeant Smith had been relegated to the lowly training unit as an extension of his scapegoat punishment, Lieutenant Repro had been relegated here as an act of mercy. A training battalion had little need of publicity; it did not deal very much with the outside world. Especially not when most of the soldiers were refugee orphans. So this was a sinecure, where Lieutenant Repro could drift out his enlistment in obscurity without doing much harm. No wonder he had not been eager to reveal himself; his shame was best kept private. No wonder, too, that he kept track of pirate vessels: They supplied the drug he had to have.

  Why, then, had he agreed to contact me? I realized that he could not have much interest in my need to locate my sister. There had to be something in it for him. I needed to ascertain what this was, to be sure I could trust him.

  Repro was a friend of Sergeant Smith's, and I learned later that Smith had pointed out that I might be a suitable pawn in a kind of game they were playing. It was a game that was to have amazing impact on my life, and this contact was perhaps the major break of my military career. But, of course, I did not know this then. Let me render this more directly.

  I met Lieutenant Repro in his office in the S-5 section. I should clarify that a battalion has five special sections, each headed by an officer and designated S-l through S-5. They are, respectively, Adjutant, Intelligence, Operations, Logistics, and Public Relations, otherwise known as Propaganda. As an enlisted man, I was hardly aware these existed; later in my career, that was to change.

  Lieutenant Repro was a tall, thin, unhealthy-looking man in his late thirties or early forties—perhaps he looked older than he was because of the ravages of his addiction—with thinning brown hair and deepening lines on his face. He was at the moment in command of his faculties, but I could see he wasn't enjoying it. He must have straightened out temporarily, for this occasion. His Class A uniform was slightly rumpled, and his brass slightly tarnished. He was about as unimpressive an officer as I had seen.

  On his desk was a little stand, from which five steel balls were suspended by angled threads, barely touching each other. He showed me how it operated. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction," he said, lifting an end-ball to the side and letting it go. It swung in its arc down to strike the stationary four, and the ball on the far side swung out, leaving the other four unmoved. The force of the first had been neatly transferred to the last, without moving the intervening masses. Then the end-ball swung back, and the first one rebounded. The principle was simple enough, but I was fascinated to see it in action.

  Repro stilled the motion by touching the center balls with his hand. Then he lifted two balls from the end. "If I drop this pair, what will happen?" he asked.

  I started to answer, then hesitated, realizing that I wasn't sure. Would two balls beget two balls—or one ball with twice the force?

  He let go, and two balls reacted. I had my answer; a ball for a ball, two for two.

  Then he lifted three. "Now?"

  Three balls. That suggested three to react, but only two remained. What would happen?

  He let the three go, and three balls rebounded. Rather, two did, and the third carried through without pause. Fascinating!

  "Action-reaction," Lieutenant Repro said. "Inevitable."

  I wondered what the point was but remained too intrigued by the balls to inquire. Such a simple yet effective way to demonstrate a principle of physics. "May I try it sir?"

  He nodded acquiescence. I lifted one ball, let it go, and watched the far one fling out with similar force. I let the progression continue, noting that the size of the swinging arcs gradually diminished, and that the row of steel balls began to get moving, until finally all five were gently swinging in unison. Friction, I realized. No process was perfect in atmosphere. In a vacuum it would work better, though there would still be some power siphoned away by the inefficiency of the supporting strings.

  I tried two balls, then three, then four, then five—and smiled, for, of course, the five merely swung without collisions. Then I started a ball on each side, watching them rebound outward simultaneously. Then I started two balls on one side and one on the other, and saw the reaction proceed without hitch. The two proceeded back on the one side, the one on the other. This device could handle opposite impulses without confusing them.

  Then I swung a single ball down with a double force. The opposite ball flung out with similar force.

  I looked up. "How does it know the difference between two balls with normal force, and one with double force?"

  "It knows," Repro said gravely.

  I played with it some more. "The double-force ball is traveling faster," I decided. "That speed is transmitted."

  Then I tried two balls at normal force, and then three. Two, then three rebounded. "The velocity is constant," I said, bemused. "But somehow it knows how many there are."

  "It knows," he agreed again. "Action and reaction are constant, anywhere in the universe, and in any form in the universe. One has but to read the forces correctly."

  "Even in human events?" I asked, beginning to catch on.

  "If we read correctly."

  "Then psychology reduces to elementary physics?"

  "If."

  I nodded. "It must be so."

  He looked at me, his wasted body strangely animated. "Show me your power," he said, using a Navy idiom.

  "Yes, sir." I took a breath, studying him with more than my eyes and ears. "You are intelligent—about one point three on the human scale—and have a civilian university education. You are honest but lack physical courage, so you become compromised. You see reality too clearly, but it is painful, so you dull your sensitivity with a drug—and have done so increasingly for the past decade. You had and lost a woman; that contributed. When your Navy enlistment expires, and they deny you reenlistment, you will retire without protest, step off into space, float free toward the sun, and open your suit."

  He was unimpressed. "You could have gotten most of that from Personnel records."

  "Had I known your identity, sir," I agreed.

  He nodded, acknowledging my point. I had been summoned suddenly to an office; I could not have known. "And why did Sergeant Scapegoat connect us?"

  "I have a private mission. You—" I concentrated, seeking to fathom this specific aspect of his nature. My talent is normally a general thing, a perception of fundamental biases, rather than a detailed itemization of traits. It did take time for me to understand a person properly, and this was sudden. Mostly, in the Navy, I had not bothered to use my talent on the soldiers around me; it really wasn't worth it. I had used it on Juana, and on Sergeant Smith, once he caught my attention, but there was no more point in using it on everyone than in studying the complete Personnel files on everyone. It requires an effort to form an informed opinion, and the Navy does not leave a trainee much surplus energy. For routine life and work, it is often best simply to accept people at face value—particularly in a regimented system where deviance from the norm is not encouraged. "You need contact with someone who can apply instinctively the principles you have studied professionally. Such a contact would—would provide some meaning for your life, and you value meaning more than life."

  "Purpose," he said. "Purpose more than meaning, though the two may overlap."

  "Purpose, sir," I agreed.

  "I have measured out my life in chicken shit."

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Shall we deal?"

  "Help me recover my sister, sir, and I'll do anything you want, within reason and legality."

  "What I want is reasonable and legal but too complex for you to fathom at the moment."

  I concentrated on him again. There is nothing supernatur
al about my talent; I merely read people quite well. I can, to a large extent, discover their moods and natures from peripheral signals, but I cannot read minds. Intelligent interpretation, not telepathy, is my secret. Now I saw in this man the signals of an enormous ambition but not one to be expressed in simple things such as promotion or riches or romance. He craved power but not any ordinary or competitive type. Rather it was a kind of vindication he sought—vindication in his own eyes, by his own complex code. He sought, perhaps, to change the course of Man, in a devious fashion that only he himself could properly understand. This was a fascinating man! "Yes, sir," I agreed. "But I will cooperate to the extent feasible."

  "Your destiny may change," he warned me.

  I was aware that he believed he was understating the case. I began to believe it myself. "I have not determined my destiny," I said. "I only want to recover my sister. Then I must become an officer, to fulfill my commitment to Sergeant Smith, so I suppose that means a career in the Navy. I'm satisfied with that."

  He lifted a ball. "Perhaps you are now," he said. "This is me." He indicated the ball he held. "This is you." He indicated the far ball.

  "Yes, sir," I said noncommittally.

  He released his ball. It swung down and struck the group, and my ball rebounded. The implication was clear enough. He intended to apply force to move me, according to his complex will, and I would have to react predictably. He was a strange yet well-meaning man, and his effort would have power, but as I watched the return swing of my ball and the thrust it imparted back to his ball, I knew that once he started me going, he would be subject to my force as much as I was now subject to his.

  "Yes, sir," I repeated.

  The balls swung back and forth, acting and reacting and re-reacting and slowly declining, until at last the entire group was gently swinging. "And there is the Navy," Lieutenant Repro said.

  What we did would have a subtle but definite effect on the entire system. That was a grandiose ambition of his, yet it seemed a credible one.

  "I think of these balls as a physical representation of honor," he said.

  "Honor, sir?" I asked, surprised.

  "Do you know what honor is, Hubris?"

  "Integrity," I said.

  He smiled. "I will educate you about honor. It is not integrity or truth. It is larger, a less straightforward concept. Honor has aspects of personal esteem, respect, dignity, and reputation, but it is more than these. Honor is an intangible concept, based more on appearance than reality, but its fundament is based on reality, and to a considerable extent it fashions its own reality. Civilization is a function of the honor of the human species. You must master the nuances of honor, to know personally what input will bring about what output." He started the balls rebounding in a complex clicking pattern by releasing them sequentially.

  "What do I have to do with honor?" I asked. "It's hard enough just getting through training."

  He shook his head ruefully. "I can see my work is cut out for me." But he was not upset by the challenge. "How can I help you recover your sister?"

  I explained about the need to check the list of pirate ships doing business with Chip Off the Old Block, especially the one that handled EMPTY HAND chips.

  "Yes, I have access to that list," he agreed. "It is considered part of Publicity, because no other department wants to touch the touchy matter of Navy trade with pirate vessels. We do keep track, but we don't advertise it, because then the question might arise why we don't stamp out that trade."

  "Why don't we?" I asked.

  "That is an excellent question, to which I can proffer no adequate answer. Do you wish to stamp out piracy?"

  "Yes!" I said fervently.

  Abruptly he stood up, and I saw just how tall he was. "Private First Class Hubris, I have a temporary detail for you. Come with me." This interview occurred before I was promoted to corporal; it is difficult to maintain a perfectly chronological narration when separate threads come together.

  I realized that he did not feel free to talk frankly with me here in the office. "Yes, sir."

  We walked out into the hall system that linked the various offices, and on to the officers' recreation section. "Do you play pool?" Lieutenant Repro asked.

  "Yes, sir. Not well." I had learned all the available games; it was necessary for proper integration into the system.

  "I will show you how to play well."

  "Yes, sir. Am I permitted to play in the officer's room?"

  "You are if I say so." He brought me to a pool table, and we took cues. "The monitors are unable to pick up sounds well in this vicinity," he murmured as he racked the balls. "Just keep your voice low and don't gesture expressively or react overtly."

  "Yes, sir." I wasn't certain whether he was paranoid about being spied on, or whether there was justice to it. I can read much of a person's nature, but human nature is largely subjective. Probably there was both paranoia and justice.

  "You hate all pirates because of what some did to your family?" he asked, not looking at me as he made his shot.

  "Yes. I swore an oath to extirpate piracy from the system."

  "But first you must recover your sister from the pirates."

  "Yes."

  "Suppose you discover that certain powers in the Jupiter hierarchy don't want the pirates extirpated?"

  "I will find a way." I realized that he did have some notion why the Navy traded with pirates.

  "First you must place yourself in a position to take direct action against the pirates. Then you must have an organization that is capable of doing the job."

  "I will find a way, sir."

  "I have amused myself by formulating in my mind the elements and personnel of a unit that would be capable of doing any job required of it, despite the opposition of the hierarchy. This unit could be turned to the extirpation of pirates."

  "An imaginary unit, sir?"

  "Part of my ambition is to make this unit become real."

  "But the Navy would not let you assume such a command, sir," I said, perhaps undiplomatically.

  "True. I can not assemble it myself. But an officer with the right credentials could."

  "Who is that, sir?"

  "That officer does not exist at present. I confess this is a weakness in my scheme."

  "Then how—?"

  "It will be necessary to bring him into existence."

  I was silent, not following his logic.

  "But first things first," he said abruptly. "The pirate trade with military bases is tolerated because there is graft. Therefore, any direct action against the pirates must be organized in secret. Once we locate the ship on which your sister is hostage, it will be necessary to provoke a conflict with that ship, so that it may be captured without affront to the powers that do not wish to disturb pirate ships."

  "You can plan such a mission, sir?" This was obviously the right man to talk to!

  "I? No. For that we require a good S-2 officer, for the necessary intelligence, and a strategist for the actual mission."

  "Just to capture one ship, sir?"

  "To capture it without the loss of your sister's life, and without disturbing the Naval status quo. Both are vital."

  "I see, sir." This was becoming more complex than I had thought, but of course I hadn't thought it through. Sixteen is not the most thoughtful age.

  "I will get on it, Hubris. You continue your training. Chance may put you in the position you need to accomplish your mission."

  "Chance, sir?"

  "We'll call it that." He smiled. "Patience, Hubris. A program of significance may be inaugurating here."

  "Yes, sir." I did not quite realize or believe it then, but he had spoken absolute truth.

  Lieutenant Repro was as good as his word. He was an addict, but he was competent. It is an error to suppose an addict is necessarily an inferior person. This one was a driven person.

  In two weeks I had the name and location of the ship that handled EMPTY HAND: the Hidden Flower, now drifting in
the inner Juclip. It was one of the more disciplined pirate vessels, having originally fled one of the Uranus navies and retaining a fair percentage of military personnel.

  That was definitely the ship I had left Spirit on! My premonition of eventual victory grew.

  When I completed my raider training and made E4, early in the next year when I was just seventeen, I went on for further training in related areas: infiltration, use of nonstandard weapons, disguises, small-ship piloting, practical emergency medicine, and similar. I was in continuous training, and I liked it. I wanted to be skilled at everything I might possibly need. The continuing availability of EMPTY HAND chips assured me that my sister remained functional.

  I made E5, sergeant, at age nineteen, and was put in charge of my own highly trained raider squad. I was ready for action, but there was no action to be had because the pirates were behaving themselves reasonably well in local space, molesting only refugees and incidental stragglers, and it was Naval policy (facilitated by graft) not to make waves. I was helpless.

  Then I received a cryptic message. It was a spacegram from Jupiter: Do you have it? It was signed "Q," with no return address or other identification.

  I pondered that. Why should an obscure nineteen-year-old sergeant in the Jupiter Navy receive a message from Jupiter? As far as I knew, no one on the Colossus planet knew me. Of course, my enlistment record would be available there, but it was undistinguished. I had spent virtually all my time training for a mission that might never be scheduled. Could the spacegram be an error? That hardly seemed likely; it would have required specific information to locate my name and assignment. I was not a name to be read by mistake in an address directory.

  What of that signature? Why was it merely an initial? This anonymity prevented me from responding, even to ask for clarification. Did the sender assume I would recognize him from that single mysterious initial? Why?