by RobertAsprin
The lieutenants nodded slowly.
“Good. For that matter, Rembrandt, I want you to talk to Brandy about her speech patterns. She’s probably the worst violator of all of us.”
“Me, sir?” Rembrandt paled. It was clear she did not relish the thought of confronting the company’s formidable first sergeant.
“I’ll take care of it for you, Remmie,” Armstrong volunteered, jotting a quick note on his pad.
“Thank you, Lieutenant Armstrong,” Phule said levelly, “but I’d rather have Lieutenant Rembrandt handle it herself.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
Phule studied Armstrong’s stiff posture, then shook his head.
“No, Lieutenant, I don’t think you do. I said thank you and I meant it. I really do appreciate your offer. It shows that the two of you are starting to help each other out, and normally I’d encourage it.”
He leaned forward earnestly.
“It’s not that I don’t think you could handle talking to Brandy, it’s that I specifically think Rembrandt should do it … for two reasons. First, she was the one who mentioned the labels Brandy’s using. If you—or I, for that matter—approach Brandy on something Rembrandt said, it leaves the impression that she’s reporting things to us for disciplinary action, which would undermine her efforts to establish herself as an authority figure. I need two junior officers, not one junior officer and an informer. Second, Rembrandt, it’s important to you to address these problems yourself. Sure, Brandy’s intimidating and I don’t think anyone in the room would relish the idea of butting heads with her, but if I let you hide behind either Armstrong or me, you’re never going to grit your teeth and take the plunge yourself, which means you’ll never build the confidence you need to be an effective officer. That’s why I want you to be the one to talk to Brandy.”
He made eye contact with the lieutenants one at a time, and they nodded their agreement.
“As to how to talk to Brandy, if you’ll accept a little unasked-for advice, I’d suggest that you simply avoid approaching it as a confrontation. Oh, I know you’ll be nervous, but make it casual and conversational. It’s my guess she’ll go along with it without realizing her habits have been a subject for conversation among us. The less we have to resort to orders and threats, the smoother this company will run.”
“I’ll try, Captain.”
“Good.” The commander nodded briskly. “Enough said on that subject. Now then, before I interrupted you, you were starting to say something about the Legionnaire you have the most trouble getting a fix on?”
“Oh. Right,” Rembrandt said, rummaging in her notes again. “The one I was thinking of was Rose.”
“Rose?” Armstrong snorted. “You mean Shrinking Violet.”
“That’s what the other Legionnaires call her,” Rembrandt agreed.
Phule frowned. “I don’t think I’ve met her yet.”
“Not surprising,” Rembrandt said. “If you had, you’d probably remember her. Rose, or Shrinking Violet, has to be the shyest person I’ve ever met in my life bar none. It’s impossible to carry on a conversation with her. All she does is mumble and look the other way.”
“I’ve given up trying to talk to her,” Armstrong put in, “and from what I can see, so has everyone else in the company. I mean, she’s a good-looking woman, and when she arrived a lot of the guys tried to get to know her better, but you get tired of being treated like you’re Jack the Ripper.”
“It’s the same with the women,” Rembrandt said. “Everybody seems to make her nervous. Heck, it’s easier to deal with the nonhumans. At least they’ll meet you halfway.”
“Interesting,” the commander murmured thoughtfully. “I’ll have to try to talk with her myself.”
Armstrong grimaced. “Lots of luck, Captain. If you can get her to say half a dozen words, it’ll be more than she’s said since she arrived.”
“Speaking of the nonhumans,” Phule said, “I wanted to bounce a thought off the two of you. Specifically I want to split the two Sinthians when we assign team pairs. I figure it’s hard for humans to relate to and interact with nonhumans. If we team the two of them, it will only make them that much harder to approach. The only problem is, I’m not sure how the Sinthians will react to being separated. What are your thoughts?”
“I don’t think you have to worry about them complaining, Captain.” Armstrong grinned, winking at Rembrandt. “Do you, Remmie?”
“Well,” his partner replied in a mock drawl, “I don’t expect it’ll be a problem.”
The commander glanced back and forth at the two of them.
“I get the feeling I’m missing a joke here.”
“The truth is, Captain,” Rembrandt supplied, “the two of them don’t get along particularly well.”
“They don’t?”
“The way it is, sir,” Armstrong said, “is that apparently there’s a real class prejudice problem on their home world. Both of them headed off-world to get away from conditions.”
“Their names kinda say it all,” Rembrandt continued. “One of them, Spartacus, is a product of the lower class, while Louie, which I believe is short for Louis the XIV, is rooted in the aristocracy. Both of them joined the Legion thinking they would never have to deal with someone from the hated ‘other class,’ and you can imagine how overjoyed they were when they both got assigned to this outfit.”
“I see. How much does their mutual dislike affect their performance?”
“Actually they’re pretty civilized about it,” Rembrandt said. “It’s not like they get violent or anything. They just avoid each other when possible, and maybe glare and mutter a bit when they can’t. At least, I think that’s what they’re doing. Between their eyestalks and the translators, it’s a little hard to tell.”
“The bottom line, though, Captain, is that I don’t think they’ll object to being assigned other partners.” Armstrong grinned.
“Fair enough.” Phule ticked off an item on his list. “All right. Who’s next?”
* * *
The mood of the meeting had relaxed considerably when the commander finally called a halt to the proceedings. All three officers were punchy with fatigue and tended to giggle disproportionately at the lamest attempt at humor.
Phule was pleased with the results as he ushered his junior officers to the door. The long meeting had drawn them closer together, where it could just as easily have put them at each other’s throats.
“Sorry again about losing track of the time,” he told them. “Tell you what. Sleep late tomorrow and we’ll pick it up again at noon.”
The two lieutenants groaned dramatically.
“And hey! Nice work … both of you.”
“‘Nice work,’ he says,” Armstrong said, making a face at his partner. “I didn’t think we were going to get a pat on the back until we fell over from exhaustion. Of course, tomorrow we get to pick up where we left off.”
“He’s just saying that because we knew some things he didn’t,” Rembrandt countered owlishly. “Once he’s squeezed us dry, we’ll be cast aside and forgotten.”
Phule joined in their laughter.
“Go on, get some sleep. Both of you. You’re going to need your strength before I get done with you.”
“Seriously, Captain, what’s the rush?” Rembrandt said, propping herself against the wall. “What happened to our relaxed, informal sessions of note comparing?”
“You put your finger on it a minute ago,” the commander told her. “You two know some things about the troops that I don’t. I want to get as much information out of you as I can before we run everybody through the confidence course day after tomorrow—well, tomorrow, actually.”
He glanced up from his watch to find the lieutenants staring at him, all trace of humor gone.
“What’s wrong?”
Armstrong cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Captain. Did you say we were running the confidence course the day after tomorrow?”
; “That’s right. Didn’t I mention it to you?”
Phule tried to focus his mind to separate what he had and hadn’t said during the last several hours.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Sorry. I thought I had. I told the construction crew to give top priority to completing the new confidence course, and the word is that they finished work on it today.”
“You mean you expect our company to run a confidence course?” Rembrandt seemed to be hoping she had heard wrong.
“Of course. We’ve got them looking like soldiers. It’s about time we started working toward getting them to act and feel like soldiers, don’t you agree?”
For the first time that night there was no automatic chorus of assent. Instead, the two lieutenants just stood looking at him as if he had grown another head.
Chapter Seven
Journal File #087
For those of you who are like me, which is to say dyed-in-the-wool civilians, and therefore unfamiliar with the stuffy quaintness of military jargon, you should at least be made aware that it is a fantasy language all its own, specifically designed to hide its activities and attitudes beneath officious blandness. (My own personal favorite is referring to casualties as inoperative combat units.) Such is the case with the so-called confidence course.
What it is, is a path strewn with obstacles at regular intervals which the soldiers are to traverse in the least possible amount of time. In short, it’s what normal people would refer to as an obstacle course. It is no accident, however, that military personnel are never referred to as “normal people.” Somewhere in their hidden past (you notice no one in the military ever writes about it until after they’ve retired, or shortly before) it was decided to change the image of the old obstacle course. Rather than change the course, they opted to change the name. The theory was that it would be more acceptable to those it was inflicted upon if they understood its function, which is “to increase the soldier’s self-confidence by demonstrating to him (or her) that he (or she) can function successfully under adverse conditions.” This, of course, assumes that said soldier is able to successfully negotiate the prescribed course.
Personally I would have questioned the wisdom of my employer’s use of the confidence course as a means of establishing or reestablishing the self-esteem of the individuals under his command … had I been asked. After reviewing their files, not to mention experiencing the dubious pleasure of viewing and meeting them in person, I would have had serious doubts as to their ability to successfully tie their own shoelaces, much less negotiate an obstacle—excuse me, confidence course. From what I have gleaned of their comments on their first attempts at this exercise, my appraisal was not far from accurate.
* * *
Uncomfortable silence reigned in the small group of observers watching the company run the confidence course … or attempting to. Of the four, only the commanding officer seemed to be studying the scene with a neutral intensity. Brandy, the Amazonian first sergeant, stood in a relaxed parade rest, openly sneering her disdain at the antics on the course, while the two lieutenants alternated between averting their eyes in embarrassment and exchanging uneasy glances, united by their mutual discomfort, at least temporarily.
Surely the captain had known what would happen when he ordered this exercise … hadn’t he? He had every warning that his troops habitually performed at a level far below even the loose standards of the Legion. Still, he had given no indication that his expectations were anything but high. He had even issued new orders modifying the conditions under which the course would be run. Rather than the time being recorded for each individual as they were run through in small groups of half a dozen, the unit would be judged and rated on their performance as a whole. That is, the timer would be started, and not stopped until the last Legionnaire crossed the finish line. What was even worse, he insisted that the Legionnaires run the course in full combat gear, complete with weapons and packs, an announcement met with a mixture of horror and grumbling by the company. Already aghast at the idea of having to run the course at all, the new conditions robbed them of whatever energy and enthusiasm they might have been able to muster. For the moment, at least, their minds were one, even if the binding thought was the delightful fantasy of lynching their new CO.
The result was, predictably, chaos. While most of the company could manage at least a few of the obstacles, none could negotiate all of them with any semblance of poise or skill, the vast majority floundering even when they cast dignity to the winds. In no time at all, the course was littered with knots and clumps of Legionnaires bunched together at the more difficult obstacles or simply muttering together darkly while glaring at the knoll where the observers stood.
Even though Armstrong and Rembrandt had anticipated all this and gone to some lengths to point it out to their new commander, they were still haunted by a vague uneasiness. Phule had read them the riot act upon taking command, pointing out that the company was their personal responsibility. While he shared that responsibility, it was doubtful he would acknowledge any hand in the development of the Legionnaires prior to his arrival. In short, despite the apparent camaraderie they had experienced during the skull sessions regarding the individual Legionnaires, the lieutenants saw themselves as holding the bag for the company’s current condition. Though more than a little resentful of this burden, they were still plagued by small voices of guilt as they watched the fiasco on the course.
Should they have run the company through this course more often themselves under normal conditions? Perhaps if they had insisted on daily calisthenics in an effort to improve the physical conditioning of the Legionnaires, today’s showing might not be so grim. Of course, they were aware that if they had tried to implement such a program, they would have probably been shot in the back accidentally at the first opportunity (a possibility that still existed, and made them more than a little uneasy when Phule issued weapons and ammo to the Legionnaires for today’s effort). The fact remained, however, that they hadn’t even tried.
Well, the past was past and there was nothing they could do now except watch glumly as the situation on the course deteriorated. Trying to shut out the overall horror, they began focusing on individual activities.
Super Gnat, the little tomboy Legionnaire, was just approaching the three-meter board wall. This was a particularly challenging obstacle, one that daunted all but the most athletic Legionnaires. Because of this, there was a small path around it to enable the downhearted to bypass this test after a few tries before they became terminally depressed. Needless to say, the bulk of the company chose this route after a token run at the board, and many didn’t even bother pretending to try. Not so with Super Gnat.
Putting on a quick burst of speed, she threw herself at the wall, only to hit barely halfway to the top with an impact that could be heard by, and drew winces from, the watchers at the nearby knoll. It was a sincere, if futile, effort. One which easily should have earned her the walk-around so flagrantly taken by so many of the others. It seemed, however, that Super Gnat was of a different mind.
Picking herself up from the dust, she paused only long enough to resettle her gear, then hurled herself at the obstacle again with a savagery that, if anything, surpassed that of her first effort … with the same unfortunate results. Again she charged the barricade, and again the sound of her body hitting the wall floated up the knoll to the observers. And again …
Other Legionnaires streamed past her, but still she continued her dogged assault on the wall. The lieutenants grimaced and winced sympathetically with each impact, and even the hardhearted Brandy shook her head in wonder over the little Legionnaire’s tenacity. Phule’s reaction, however, was as different as it was unexpected.
With a smooth stride that had him off the knoll before the others knew he had started moving, the CO approached the obstacle himself. Timing his silent approach to match Super Gnat’s rush, he stooped and put an impersonal hand under her rump, boosting her up and over the wall with her next j
ump. Though doubtlessly surprised at the assist, the Legionnaire did not so much as pause for a backward glance, but scurried off toward the next obstacle, blissfully unaware of whose hand it was that had propelled her to success.
The remaining trio on the knoll watched her go, then turned their gaze to their commander, only to be met with an angry, challenging glare as he rejoined them.
“If that’s a loser,” Phule snarled, “then I’m a bad credit risk!”
This time the first sergeant joined the exchange of startled glances as they all groped for something to say. Fortunately they were spared the effort as the CO continued, with a more level voice now.
“All right, Top,” he said. “I think we’ve seen enough. Call ’em in. It’s lecture time.”
Brandy needed no more encouragement than that. Though still skeptical of the changes Phule was introducing, she secretly liked the wrist communicators and was glad of the opportunity to use hers. Depressing the General Broadcast button with her fingertip, she addressed the company through the speaker.
“Abort exercise! Repeat. Abort! All personnel assemble at the reviewing knoll! I mean now, Legionnaires! Let’s move it!”
A few weak cheers drifted up from the course as she ended her announcement. Most of the company, however, broke off their efforts and trudged toward the knoll with downcast eyes. They had looked bad, and they all knew it. While clinging to their righteous indignation over what had been expected of them, no one relished the inevitable tongue-lashing that was to come.
Though Brandy made sure her face was set in an expression of grim annoyance as the company gathered, inwardly she was more than a little elated. It was clear to her that today’s performance more than justified her low opinion that Phule had tried to dismiss as cynicism. If anything, she was looking forward to hearing him enumerate the shortcomings of the rabble he had been defending so staunchly.