by M. Alan Marr
“Total loss?” the Flight Admiral says.
“No, sir. Two of its engines need replacing, and some minor structural repair.” He adds, “My apologies, sir, for damaging the quad.”
The Admiral is very no-nonsense. “Your report was more important than the landscaping.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Admiral looks at Dev and speaks discreetly. “Find what you needed to know?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, Admiral.”
“A crisis of conscience is a heavy burden.” The Admiral continues in a more official tone, “I was just telling Commander Chaz we didn’t lose anyone on Hercules.”
“Fled down into the mines, I bet,” Dev says.
“Indeed they did.”
An aide-de-camp brings the Admiral an urgent message. The Admiral reads the pad and says simply, “Triangulum has fallen.”
Everyone within earshot of the Admiral stops what they’re doing upon hearing those words.
“Good God, no,” Dev gasps. The Admiral immediately picks up a stylus and begins drawing sweeping lines on the large tabletop cosmic chart. The lines are remotely displayed on the gigantic main display in the front of the room, making Chaz think of the power of the Admiral’s pen.
“I’m altering fleet deployment,” the Admiral says to those around him, “but without the garrison on Triangulum, our forces are going to be spread dangerously thin.”
Chaz notices the collective mood in the Fleet Combat Center has changed. This latest news is somehow very bad. The main star map display signals a tone and then highlights and plots hash marks the Constellation Triangulum in red. Nothing else about the attack to this point had the effect of halting work all around him, but that’s exactly what this latest news did, brief as it was. Work continues again, and the Admiral concentrates intently on his fleet deployment layouts, drawing lines, re-tasking assets, plotting areas. Dev points to various things on the Admiral’s map. Chaz isn’t certain what’s being said or what’s happening, but he can tell it is very serious. Chaz watches as Dev works with his Admiral and sees a whole other side to him. No longer an enigmatic man who can’t operate a washing machine or understand simple slang, but rather a steely professional with steady confidence and mastery over the complexities of warfare.
Chaz does his best to stay out of the way and try to absorb everything happening around him. He’s surprised he’s even being allowed to remain in the room actually. As such, he tries to be as inconspicuous as he can. A short while later Dev’s pace has dramatically reversed. He is looking down at the tabletop display with a blank thousand-yard stare. He hasn’t moved a muscle in several minutes. Chaz notices. So does the Admiral.
“Commander, when is the last time you slept?” the Admiral asks.
Dev hears the question, but it registers more like an echo.
“Commander Dev.”
Dev is nearly startled. “Admiral?”
“When is the last time you slept, sir?”
“It’s . . . been a while, Admiral.”
“Adonis Fleet Commander reports you stood third watch on his Quarterdeck.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Saved them more than a day and a half of transit time.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you flew a combat mission and rendered ground assistance.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You then conducted a compression flight back to the Crown.”
“Yes . . . sir.”
“You’re officially off-duty for two days. Starting now.”
“Admiral—”
“That would be an order, sir.”
“Aye, sir,” Dev replies, now extremely exhausted, and it shows.
Both the Admiral and Chaz see Dev is a bit wobbly. The Admiral also sees that Chaz is steady and alert. “Commander Chaz, have you slept, sir?”
“I have, Admiral.”
“Compression fatigue sets on fast,” the Admiral tells him. “Get him home or find him a bunk, otherwise you’ll be carrying him.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Very well. Dismissed, sir.” The Admiral salutes and turns his attention back to the fleet deployment schedules.
“Aye, sir.” Chaz salutes, then quickly moves to Dev, who is all but bracing himself against the tabletop by locking his arms in place. Chaz takes hold of Dev’s upper arm and eases him away. “Come on, Dev, time to go.” Dev doesn’t protest. Chaz knows that a tired Dev doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, Dev gets very tired, as is apparently the case here. Even as exhausted as Chaz is, his overriding instinct is to take care of Dev, and finds his second wind. Chaz manages to usher Dev out to the main gates and down to the travel tubes, and even boards the correct train to Bari Province.
Returning to street level in Bari, Chaz now has one of Dev’s arms slung around his neck. He’s got one hand locked onto Dev’s limp arm and his other around Dev’s waist. The short walk from the station isn’t easy.
“Come on, Dev, we’re almost to your . . . I don’t know what the hell you call it here— apartment, condo, flat?”
“It is a dwelling,” Dev says, sounding almost like a drunkard. “Houses are houses. Dwellings are in . . . residential . . . structures.”
“Okay, well, let’s get you to your dwelling.”
As they approach the building foyer, the now-closed main doors slide open, and the chamberlain hurries out to meet them, seeing their difficulty. “Sir?”
“I’ve got him,” Chaz says, as he heads towards the lift. “Could you call upstairs and let Lieutenant— the Lieutenant— know we’re on our way up?”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
Dev’s adjutant, Bross, rounds the corner of Dev’s kitchen area and is surprised to see Chaz practically dragging Dev out of the lift. The dead weight in this slightly heavier gravity is awkward for Chaz.
“Sir.” Bross hurries to them. He sees Dev is bleary-eyed. “Extreme CFS.”
“Say again?” Chaz says sharply, not at all in the mood for unfamiliar acronyms.
“Compression Fatigue Syndrome, sir.”
“Oh. He hasn’t gotten much sleep for the last couple of days.”
“Yes, sir,” Bross says, taking Dev’s other arm and assisting him inside.
“What’s the cure?”
“Sleep, sir. Just sleep.”
“Well, come on, then, help me get him to bed.”
Chaz and Bross, in a coordinated effort, get the nearly delirious Dev to the bedroom and out of his boots and flight suit. He is sort of crumpled on top of the bedding and out cold. Good enough for right now.
Bross looks at Chaz. “And you, sir?”
“I’m tired, but not like this.”
“You will be, sir,” Bross says. “Compression fatigue sets on fast, but all it takes is a few hours’ sleep to reset your system. If you lie down, I think you’ll find you will fall asleep almost immediately. And if I may say so, sir, you will be far better off.”
“Very well.”
“I’ll see to it you’re not disturbed, sir, and I’ll have a meal waiting for when you wake.”
“Thanks.”—yawn—“I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”
“Bross, sir.”
“Thank you, Bross.”
“Yes, sir. And, sir, congratulations on your commission.”
Chaz yawns again. “News travels fast on Trieste.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chaz remembers from Tertian charm school there is no need to dismiss someone in domestic service duty, be it an adjutant or enlisted domestic (otherwise they would have to be dismissed for every little thing). Chaz pulls off his boots and takes off his flight suit. Casually, he drapes it over the back of a chair and climbs on top of the very comfortable bedding next to the very unconscious Dev.
Compression fatigue represents the exact opposite of compression flight. Closing his eyes now seems like a visit to a blissfully calm spa. Chaz feels all of his exhaustion surface as if emanating from his pores. His brain eases int
o full relaxation and falls into deep recuperative sleep.
Three hours later, Chaz wakes up feeling great. Better than that, actually. The air in his lungs, seasonal allergies gone, and for the first time in decades, perfectly working sinuses. Chaz even takes a deep breath through his nose to make sure. Wow. Looking around the room, even his eyesight seems better. He always had 20/20 vision, but over the last couple of years it seemed 20/20ish. Not anymore! He has a clarity to his being. Chaz realizes the battery of inoculations he received on Adonis must have kicked in, because just as the doctor said, he feels like a new man.
Chaz rolls over and smiles. Dev is still sound asleep. Best to let him rest while he can. Very quietly, Chaz gets up and looks at the chair. No flight suit. Instead, his other uniform is spotlessly clean and hanging up. He also notices his boots are freshly polished. Chaz thinks, Wow, having a houseman is pretty cool. Chaz quietly takes his uniform and boots, leaves the bedroom, and gently closes the door. He puts his pants and shirt on in the living room. The aroma of food makes it to his newly improved nostrils and attracts his attention to the kitchen, er, galley.
Bross has set up a buffet of sorts on the dining table, which looks to Chaz like the trappings of a tapas bar. Smaller versions of something like fried chicken catch his eye. Chaz picks up a piece and pops it in his mouth. The taste is similar to chicken, but there is a distinct nuttiness to the poultry. It is the oil the fowl is fried in; a tropical nut oil. There is no capulus, but a pitcher of a pastel orange-colored liquid. He pours a small glass of the unknown beverage, sniffs it, takes a sip, and marvels at its subtle orange-vanilla notes. The taste is delicious and quenching. He quickly drains the glass and pours another. Bross enters the kitchen area and sees that Chaz is awake and that the door to the bedroom is closed.
Bross states the obvious. “Feeling better, Commander.”
“I feel like a new man.”
Bross smiles. “Compression flight is extraordinarily taxing, sir. It’s a combination of forces that wreaks havoc with the body’s limbic system. Stimulants and capulus can temporarily stave off its effects, but ultimately, the only sound remedy is sleep. And the more sleep-deprived you are to begin with, the more sudden and severe the onset of compression fatigue.”
“The Admiral told me to get him home or I’d have to carry him.”
“He is right, of course. You don’t become an Admiral by chance. Or a Lieutenant Commander, for that matter.”
“Your system is not seniority driven?”
“Not entirely, sir,” Bross replies. “The progression through the ranks is merit-based.” He continues, “I should add, promotion does not guarantee continuation of rank. A valiant First Leftenant may promote to Lieutenant Commander, but if his service doesn’t measure up, he will find himself a mere Leftenant again. And that applies to all ranks, sir.”
“Does that happen often?”
“On occasion. The promotions board is very thorough and somewhat unforgiving, sir.”
Chaz finishes the juice and pours yet another. “Our service is a little different. Flag rank is very difficult to achieve, and politics play into that. But rather than losing our rank, we will lose our positions if standards are not met. If you fail to promote, your future career can stall out. Sometimes they’ll retire an officer from service or send them to some terrible billet while they figure out what to do with them.”
“Terrible billets are used as punishment, sir?”
“Sometimes. But I think they do that to get a problem child out of their Admiral’s hair.”
Bross is a little uncertain of the idiom, but the gist is clear. “I see. As a newcomer to our system, may I humbly suggest you always do your very best, sir.”
Even here, getting advice about the obvious from a junior officer miffs Chaz ever so slightly. “As an aviator, I never do anything less than my very best.”
“My apologies, Commander. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Bross, I understand.” Chaz looks at the tapas plates. “So, what have we got here?”
“The midday meal is typically the more substantial repast, but given your CFS, smaller is more appropriate. We have a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables from Trieste. The plates with the oils and spices are from our agro worlds on Eridanus. These may soon become scarce, but we had them on hand and they won’t last long. The fowl is a small avian called a Grackle, and the juice is from a native Tertian fruit called Citrum.”
Chaz snacks on the items and finds that many have Earthbound counterparts. Except for one of the Eridani vegetables that looks like an olive but tastes like a cross between cherries and the aroma of geraniums. Bross prepares to leave the dwelling to attend to his other duties, but pulls his interlink device off his belt.
“Commander, on your uniform belt is a interlink device. Have you received instruction on its operation?”
“No, not yet.”
Bross briefly instructs Chaz how to reach him and/or Dev, as well as use of the crisis icon to summon urgent response units to his position in the event of injury or emergency.
“If there is nothing else, Commander, I have duties I need to attend to.”
“Not at all, Bross, carry on.” Chaz suddenly remembers the subtle differences in protocol here and adds, “Sir.”
Bross turns. “Yes, sir?”
“Carry on, sir,” Chaz says. “In our service, we don’t address subordinates as sir. I’m sorry, it may take some time to get used to that.”
Bross smiles. “Never fear, Commander, new environments always come with new challenges.” Although not necessary here, Bross salutes Chaz as a sign of respect. Reflexively, Chaz returns a quick Earth Navy salute and Bross smartly departs.
Now that Chaz is alone, he looks around the rest of Dev’s dwelling. He enters the kitchen—galley— first. As expected, there is a refrigerator-type unit, something that looks like a stove. Several cupboards with cutlery, dishes, cookware, the usual kitchen stuff. Living room is already familiar, so Chaz takes three steps up into the next room, obviously Dev’s study, where a large curving wall of windows looks out onto the sea. There is a large desk with several electronic pads and a computer interface. Chaz doesn’t open the drawers. The two walls of the study opposite the windows are adorned with many pictures, mementos, and military citations. The first picture Chaz looks at is a younger, then-Ensign, Dev. No doubt his commissioning photo. Several medals and military ribbons are mounted in shadow boxes, just as most military officers on Earth would display. There is a photo of Dev as a Midshipman along with two other Mids, a man and a woman. All three have wide smiles and appear to be close friends. Another is a photo of Dev and Vijay, then both Lieutenants. Various squadron photos are on the wall with Dev appearing in each of them. The adjacent wall has a picture of Dev’s parents. Chaz can see a little of Dev in each of them. “So that’s Mom and Dad.” Another photo of the parents shows them wading in the shallow waters of some exotic locale with three large pastel moons overhead. Dev’s mother is looking into some kind of scientific instrument in the water, and his father is taking notes and towing a float.
On the same wall is another distinctive picture: a grainy sepia photograph of a man standing on the deck of a boat. A sign reading Pier 33 is visible on the left, and Alcatraz in the background. The man is holding a playbill. “What the? Pier 33, that’s San Francisco.” Chaz knows San Francisco, but there is something odd about the photo. Definitely Alcatraz, and he can see Sausalito in the background, but no Golden Gate. Then he realizes the reason the Golden Gate Bridge is missing in the picture is because it hadn’t been built yet. The smiling man is holding a playbill from the Charlie Chaplin film The Gold Rush.
“I’ll be damned,” Chaz says to himself. “Grandpa Camelopardalis.” Next to the sepia photo is the framed actual playbill for The Gold Rush brought back from Earth in 1925. “Wow. Unbelievable,” Chaz comments to himself. Behind the desk is an open box mounted on the wall. At its center, a jagged piece of shiny silver metal with blast
burns along one edge. The hairs on the back of Chaz’s neck bristle. “That’s a piece of a Yeti ship.” A placard on the thick-edged box reads Hercules and has two rows of numbers that must indicate coordinates, time, and date. The numbers may not make any sense to Chaz, but he’s willing to bet this trophy artifact is part of a Brigand that met its fate by Dev’s cannons. The frame of box itself appears more industrial than the others on the wall, and seems to be covered in some kind of rubber coating. Despite its unique nature that suggests not to touch, Chaz slowly reaches in toward the chunk of metal. The lightning-quick buzz and strong electric shock causes him to recoil. “Jesus!” Chaz watches the artifact as a small electrical current washes over it again. Rubbing his fingers, Chaz takes a cautious couple of steps backward and runs into the back of Dev’s desk chair.
Moving from the study back into the living room, Chaz shakes his hand a few times, then decides to gaze out at the beautiful (and less dangerous) view. He doesn’t see any hardware to open the doors to the balcony and finally notices a small control panel on the wall. One touch of the top icon triggers the doors to slide open. Chaz stands out in the gentle breeze on the large balcony, looking at the water. It isn’t long before he decides he wants to go out and take a closer look. He ventures back into the kitchen and wants to leave Dev a note, but can’t find a pen (or paper, for that matter). He is certain the interlink device can deliver messages, but he doesn’t know how to do that yet, and he doesn’t want to risk ringing Dev’s device and waking him up. Instead, Chaz arranges the silverware on the table in the form of an arrow that points toward the open doors to the balcony.
Chaz exits the lift in the lobby and, as usual, the chamberlain stands. Chaz addresses him as he passes by. “I’m going out to the waterfront, if Commander Dev is looking for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Outside, the air is clean. The sky is clean. The streets, walkways, landscaping, everything, is clean. The blue-white sun, Chaz notices, appears mostly white, perhaps a little blue around its corona, although it probably just blends in with the blue sky. Chaz also realizes the gleaming white of Dev’s building has a sort of bluish sheen at points where the sun reflects off the edges. People are going about their business like anywhere else, but there doesn’t seem to be that air of impatience—that stressed-out always-on-the-move attitude ever present on Earth. Everyone just seems so normal.