The Sirens of Space

by Caminsky, Jeffrey

  “Heading 250 is the correct answer, Plebe. Swinging past the giant Planet Seven—which gives us our best trajectory toward our destination. Now, do you care to explain why you’re so far off, this time—when the problem isn’t in one of our textbooks, and you couldn’t have stolen the answer from the library’s computers?”

  “With due respect, sir—that course is not optimal.”

  “I plotted in myself, Plebe.”

  “And if the computer was programmed along the same parameters,” the young man continued quietly, “it would probably make the same mistake when you checked it.”

  “What mistake?”

  “If you’ll reset the controls and include the mass of the system’s sun in the problem....”

  His eyes widening, the commander pressed the button to recalculate the parameters. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that he’d been so intent on using the giant planet that he completely forgot to enter the region’s dominant gravity well into the governing equations. His heart sank when the navigation plot revealed the corrected optimal heading.

  Heading 810, by five degrees north.

  “Your heading would be best in open space, with no nearby star,” offered the plebe.

  His face softening, the commander nodded.

  “It’s almost like a melody I can hear,” the young man whispered, squinting as he tried to explain. “All the vectors and gravity wells are kind of like notes and swells that pop into my head whenever I look at the stars. I just follow the melody...and that’s the course to take.”

  “Thank you, Midshipman. Please take your seat.”

  * * *

  “I still don’t understand him.”

  “Welcome to the club, Jeremy.”

  Jeremy sipped his cold drink and placed it back on the coaster, then looked at Janet. The Officers’ Lounge was almost empty; a junior engineer in the small study beyond the bend was their only company. Jeremy looked up at the observation screen looming over their booth. It showed eastward, toward Looking Glass and alien skies. There was a pensive, reflective gloss to his eyes that Janet had never seen before.

  “He expects us to perform with machine tool precision, but he’s never around. Never even lets us know what he wants from us. How are we supposed to live up to his standards if he doesn’t care enough to show us how to do things his way?”

  Janet laughed; she had a merry laugh, Jeremy thought, like a young lady swept up in the excitement of her first dance. “The Weapons Officer on the Constantine asked him that. Right in front of everyone on the bridge, sort of like Talbert did today...before Cook assigned him to laundry detail for a week. You know what he said?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  “Skipper told him that he was a concert pianist and we were his keys, and that he refused to practice on an instrument that wasn’t properly tuned.”

  They both laughed, and Jeremy noticed Janet’s eyes brighten whenever she mentioned the captain. He felt something more than curiosity eating away his insides, but he was too much of a gentleman to ask any personal questions.

  “You know, Jeremy—well, you were there before Cook’s time, so there’s no way you could know. But my first year at the Academy was just after he graduated. He was still a tangible presence on the campus, and I don’t mean merely that his name was carved on all the award plaques. He was reflected everywhere that year: in the lectures of the professors, in the hallways and classrooms. Even in the eyes of the upperclassmen, and the way they approached their drills and studies. Nothing that he touched was unaffected. And I don’t mean that he was universally admired or respected. He left as much bitterness in his wake as anything else. But he affected everyone there quite deeply. They either loved him or they hated him, and both with equal passion.

  “Yet, by the time I left, he’d all but faded from memory. You still see his name plastered all over the grounds, if you know where to look. But the plebes who were there when I was a senior only vaguely recall the name. Today they know him only as the midshipman who still holds all the records. They don’t have the slightest idea how he’d come to leave his mark, or how he changed the whole tenor of instruction there. Not the slightest idea. The cold record doesn’t give any sense of what he was—what he is. You don’t get that until you meet him in the flesh.”

  Jeremy smiled glumly.

  “For instance,” continued Janet, “you remember the Morgan Simulator—the standard aptitude test they give to all the plebes. You know, the test for multi-dimensional tactical conception?”

  Jeremy nodded. “It’s a humbling experience. The best score in my class was seventy-five out of two hundred. As I recall, the record was eighty-four, set by Commodore Jones when he was a plebe, a few years earlier.”

  “I came within five points of old Jefferson McKinley Jones—and the old record,” said Janet, “and was the star of my class.”

  The corners of Jeremy’s mouth turned up weakly. “I came in twelfth.” He didn’t mention his score; though well above the average score of fifty, it was not very impressive.

  “Do you know what the current record is—set by none other than Roscoe Andrew Cook?”

  “I don’t think I want to know.”

  Janet leaned forward, as if sharing a dark secret. “His score was one hundred seventy-three.” She laughed as Jeremy’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling.

  “His instructor didn’t believe it, either. She was so sure Cook was cheating that they retested him, with the rest of the class invited to watch, to help detect any sign of fraud. The second time around, his score was one-ninety-one. And you know what he said to the instructor then, while he was still strapped into the simulator and the rest of the class was busy checking for a glitch on the computer?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  “He said, in that delicious accent of his: ‘Shall I try it again? I think I’m starting to get the hang of this thing.’” Janet laughed brightly, her eyes shining like emeralds. “And you know why he’s so tough on navigators—why, despite ourselves, we’ll probably come to feel sorrier for Talbert than we will for ourselves?”

  Janet didn’t wait for an answer.

  “It’s because every ship that he commands will have at least two navigators. And one of them will be the greatest navigator in the history of the Cosmic Guard.”

  Janet mistook the look in Jeremy’s eyes for disbelief.

  “You think I’m exaggerating? Well, remember his order to me, to shave six points off Talbert’s navigation arc as we approached the enemy ship? He wasn’t guessing, Jeremy. Check the computer record and you’ll find that we exceeded the optimum approach by exactly six degrees.”

  Now quite subdued, Jeremy shook his head. “Talbert’s mighty fast with the figures, and Cook was wandering around the bridge like a gypsy. There was no way he could— ”

  “Don’t you understand, Jeremy?” Janet interrupted, a distant sparkle lighting her eyes. “He doesn’t need the computer. He knows exactly the right navigation plot before it could ever show on a screen. He sees it all in his head. And he does it without even thinking about it.”

  Slowly, Janet circled the edge of her glass with her finger. “And sometimes, he forgets that we can’t.”

  Jeremy was silent. He sipped his drink and his eyes drifted once more to the viewer, letting his soul wander among the stars. Life in the heavens was often cruel, and often lonely. Friendships bonded men and women together, in the sky as on the ground, helping the days pass as pleasantly as the surroundings allowed, and it was a CosGuard tradition to make the best of things. But wherever fate led them, and whatever came in its wake, it would be hard having a genius in the family.

  Chapter 14

  THE PRESIDENT WILL SEE you now, Miss Yang.”

  An overstuffed briefcase in one arm, and a thick file folder in the other, Suzie Yang eased past the receptionist, a matronly woman too busy being important to open the large oak door leading into the East Office for a mere staff aide. Hitting the do
or latch with her elbow, Suzie edged the door open and guided it the rest of the way with her forearm. Inside, she closed the door with her foot.

  “Miss Yang!” Tossing some papers into a large pile on his work stand, Mikos Sarkisian, president of the Terran League sprang from behind his desk. “Here, let me help you.”

  He took the briefcase and escorted his petite director of communications to the oversized visitor’s chair in front of the president’s desk. The young woman plopped down, amazed that she had dropped the folder on her way from the North Wing only twice. The president put the briefcase on the edge of his desk. Outside, the sun shined gloriously in the cloudless sky. Through the window, Suzie could see the green leaves swaying in the breeze, and the sights and smells of the Presidential Gardens still haunted her senses. It was not the kind of day she wanted to spend inside, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter.

  “You wanted to see me, Mr. President?”

  “Mrs. Dalrymple,” said the president, pressing the button on the intercom. “Could you please bring us some tea?” Sarkisian sat on the front of his desk. He wore a ragged old coat, with patches on the sleeves. Suzie thought the president looked more like a professor than like a politician, and often wondered whether it was an image he tried to cultivate. His desk, after all, was immaculate—every item was in its place, and his in-basket was empty.

  “Did you bring your family scrapbook, Miss Yang?” the president smiled.

  “You said to bring the whole file.”

  “So I did.”

  Sarkisian walked slowly past the window, then resumed his seat behind the desk.

  “Last year’s trip to Mountain Villa was a logistical disaster,” Suzie began. “You told Records to keep every brochure and paper scrap that we could piece together, so that things would go more smoothly next time.”

  Sarkisian looked inside the briefcase. It was the most disjointed collection of tourist memorabilia he had ever seen.

  “Unfortunately,” Suzie smiled wanly, “Records never did get around to organizing what they’d collected. The result is.... ”

  “I see the result,” the president chuckled. “I guess we can forget about learning from past experience.”

  “As for the itinerary,” Suzie continued, “the only definite commitment we have is the rally for Senator Hanlon. Everything else is flexible. The Villa Theatre even said they’d hold a box open at the opera for your entire stay, so you can have your choice of performances.

  “But the big problem will be— ”

  “Sunday night’s speech at the Lake Armstrong press banquet,” Sarkisian finished. “I know, everyone expects a major address on some topic or other. And it seems that no matter what I say, they’re always disappointed. The simple truth is that with the peace talks and Senate both about to recess, there’s very little to say. Why can’t these people accept the fact that they can’t orchestrate history to fit a timetable? Besides, I’ve said about all I care to say on almost any topic you care to mention.”

  “The Tories will complain if you don’t say something.”

  “The Tories will complain if I do say something, Miss Yang. The Tories are always complaining,” Sarkisian snapped. He was sorry almost at once, and quickly apologized. There was no reason to vent his frustrations on everyone who worked for him; besides, Mikoyan already had that job.

  “That’s all right, Mr. President,” Suzie said. “We’re all feeling the pressure these days.”

  “And I want you to write the speech yourself, Miss Yang,” the president smiled. “The rest of the staff hardly matches your grace of expression. I’ll leave the topic to you.”

  “Is there anything I should know, Mr. President? The rumor mill is rife with speculation. A cabinet shuffle, perhaps? If there’s anything you want me to avoid.... ”

  “No,” the president said distantly. “There are a few projects in the works but it’s best you know nothing about them. Military security and all, you understand.”

  Yang nodded, though CosGuard maneuvers were fairly routine, and the next scheduled exercise was a month or two away. It seemed odd that the president would worry about something like that, but she let it pass.

  “Write something about the recess in the peace talks, I guess. How reconvening on an alien world is a great advance, how lucky we are to be alive at a time when Man is finally reaching across the heavens to clasp an alien hand in friendship, that sort of thing.”

  “You should write your own speeches more often, Mr. President. You have quite an ear for rhetoric.”

  The president chuckled amiably. “Part of the job, Miss Yang. Ah, here comes our tea.”

  * * *

  “As you were, men. You fellows need anything?”

  “No, Skipper. Nothing here we can’t handle. We’ve been over the relay switches once already. We’re double-checking, that’s all. These ancillary guns can be tricky.”

  “You are— ”

  “Patterson, sir. Crewman Technician Patterson. And that’s Bartee, and Baughman, and Ramirez.”

  “You know, you’ll get better readings from your circuitry block if you staunch the input valves on either side—like this—then ease the inserts into place so that they brush against the back of the galvometer...like...there. See?”

  “Thanks, Skipper. Academy teach you tricks like that?”

  “Hardly. It was a grizzled old yeoman, too impatient to stand by while some tyro blueshirt fumbled around, eating into everyone’s down time. Got my head chewed off that time, but I never forgot the technique.”

  “How’s the rest of the ship coming along?”

  “Coming slow, but coming. Never a dull moment, you know. Carry on, gentlemen—and keep up the good work.”

  “Aye aye, Skipper.”

  “Wait. He’s out of range now.”

  “I hear he’s really reaming the blueshirts. They’re sweating twice the bullets we are. And are even pulling triple shifts.”

  “Hey, enough of that. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Oh, come on, Paddy.”

  “You heard the Skipper, back to work. And with a will, this time. We’re already behind schedule, and we’ll never get things trim by New Year if we don’t pull our weight.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Yeah, look who’s bucking for yeoman.”

  “With a will, gentlemen, or you’ll have a real greenshirt on your butt before you know it.”

  * * *

  The portraits and wall-hangings were stored in packing crates for the trip home. For diplomats and aides alike, the Terran wasteland was one lodging none were sad to leave. In friendlier surroundings, empty walls were symbols of passing; on this strange world, emptiness fitted the planet nicely. But the glashenzhi blossoms growing in a pot near the door gave the room a lilting fragrance, awakening the mood of renewal and warmth, and the promise that their long trip would bring them back to less rigorous surroundings. They were finally departing from the cold wasteland that the Terrans called Sh’tar, and they were leaving with hope. The talks would resume soon on the Crutchtan planet Gr’Shuna, the capital of the Shunite Region. And the Terran ambassador had promised to bring a response to their newest proposal for a two-generation moratorium on settlements.

  Zatar sat alone in the small, windowless room that had served as the central meeting place for the delegation of the Grand Alliance. The floor was hard—Terran floors were not made for sitting—and most of the cushions were already packed for the trip. From the start, misgivings had haunted his thoughts, misgivings about the length of the trip and the harsh alien climate, but mostly about the Terrans themselves. When he arrived they had seemed so brusque and aggressive, like buduri guarding their harems. Even after the Veshnans arrived to take charge of the talks, Terran and Crutchtan negotiators could barely keep from shouting across the table. It had taken all of Zatar’s skill as a diplomat to enforce minimal standards of civility at their early sessions, as the participants insisted on acting like uncivilized children.
For the longest time, they seemed destined to measure their progress by eons. Zatar had even begun to entertain thoughts that the radical anthrobiologists might be right after all, and that the mutual aversion felt by Terran and Crutchtan alike might stem from passions deeper than simple rivalry. Scientific ridicule had long since buried the notion that organic chemistry had anything to do with racial antipathy, but there was something sinister in the visceral hatreds that he saw rising around him, something ancient and unsettling.

  The wind gusted noisily outside and Zatar could feel the barrenness around him. Despite their mistrust, he thought with satisfaction, both sides had made substantial progress. The Crutchtans no longer insisted on foreclosing contact between the races, now and forever; the Terrans seemed willing to limit and delay their eastward expansion for the sake of peace. It confirmed what Zatar had long believed, that the essence of humanity was the capacity to transcend animal passions and soar to heaven on the wings of dreams. And with the arrival of Gr’Raun-te, the latest Terran ambassador, they had started viewing one another as they should have from the start—not as monsters, but as different species of human being. They still had far to go to achieve a real peace, but the first tentative steps had been taken. They now discussed their differences, rather than talking across their fears.

  “Zatar?”

  Zatar turned to see his favorite translator walking slowly toward him through the emptiness of the deserted room.

  “Yes, Munshi. What is it?”

  “Our belongings are packed and ready to take to the transfer point. Do you require anything else?”

  Zatar smiled. “No, you and the others may leave when you like. I will follow shortly.”

  “You will actually miss this place, won’t you?”

  Zatar stood to look out the thin window. The narrow slit showed little of the outside, but he could see dust whipping through the air, like a pelting rainstorm on the warm worlds of home. Desolation was everywhere, even in the city. The Terran delegates themselves were often heard to grumble about holding such important talks on such a world, and Zatar could not imagine a less hospitable planet to host emissaries from other civilizations. At the same time, he had grown used to the heavy clothing the planet forced upon its inhabitants. There was a rough elegance to the landscape, like the pictures of the lifeless moons and asteroids he had first seen as a child. He had always found it difficult to imagine a place without rain or soft grass, in which sun and cold beat the senses with equal ferocity. Most of all, his soul burned with a hunger he had never known—for a place where men were looked upon as equals to be respected, not as distractions to be indulged, and where there was no need to prove that success was not a fluke, but was earned by the sweat of a back or the power of a brain. It amused and saddened him to know that among the Terrans, his status—the lone male in a house of Veshnan women—was the object of envy.