Analog SFF, October 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Three days passed since the raid and neither Boget nor any of the other natives had crossed the river. Wayfield, French, and the XO stood in the company area, discussing their three head of cattle, all steers. They hadn't managed to get one breeding cow or bull, but since they were so few, there was grazing enough in the camp for the animals. Keeping them close meant that the crew didn't have to mount an extra guard detail downstream where they'd planned to corral the stolen herd.

  Nylund wanted to slaughter one of the cattle to supplement their ever-thinning ship's rations—on its face, a good idea. The raid and the death of four sailors had plunged morale through the deck, and fresh meat might help restore them physically and psychologically. Something, though, held Wayfield back.

  “We have enough frames to smoke the meat,” Nylund was saying. “We should probably get on with it while the weather's dry so it doesn't rot."

  “Frenchie, how much meat do you think is on one of those animals?” Wayfield asked.

  The engineering officer looked at the cattle thoughtfully. “The big one is maybe 500 kilos,” he said. “Less than half that is meat ... Say 175 to 225 kilograms per head, Skipper, all dressed out."

  Wayfield did the math in his head. If each crewmember got half a kilo per day of meat, one animal would last them two weeks, at best. He had caused the deaths of four of his crew and several natives for less than six weeks’ worth of food.

  Two of his injured would likely recover, but Soyombo was still touch and go, despite the profligate use of their precious antibiotics and plasmites. They'd reduced his fracture as best they could, but he was in for a longish stint at fleet hospitals to repair the bones and restore destroyed muscle tissue. If he lived.

  In his career Wayfield had made some decisions that were worse than others—that came with the territory when you made dozens of choices every day—but this was the first time in his professional life that he'd made a wrong decision. He hadn't just been mistaken, he'd been too willing to accept a morally repugnant solution. That it had turned out badly was worse for the crew.

  “Captain, I'll tell the crew to slaughter one of the cows?” Nylund said, breaking into his thoughts.

  “No, don't do that."

  “I thought you said...” Nylund began, but he cut her off.

  “No, we're not going to slaughter any of the animals,” he said, a decision crystallizing in him. “Frenchie, round up a detail of drivers—take as many as you need to make sure the cattle don't get out of control—and return them to the natives’ pasture."

  “What?!” Nylund threw her arms in the air. “Captain, what are you talking about? Are you—"

  But Wayfield didn't let her finish. “This isn't a debate, Commander,” he said sharply, raising his voice. “I wasn't soliciting your opinion. Lieutenant French will form a work party and return the cattle forthwith. Period.” He turned to French. “Lieutenant, you'll be the only one armed. Don't fire unless it's to prevent further loss of life, is that clear?"

  “Aye aye, Captain,” French said crisply.

  Some of the crew was within earshot and were obviously following the conversation about the cattle intently, though they'd been doing their best to be unobtrusive. They now gaped openly at the exchange between the officers. None of them had ever heard the captain raise his voice before.

  Nylund, clearly stung by the public rebuke, turned on the watching sailors. “What are you looking at?” she said, “There's a ton of wood that needs cutting. Turn to!"

  “Belay that,” Wayfield said. He only mildly regretted that he had to cut his XO off at the knees in front of the crew—there were bigger issues on the table. “XO, assemble the ship's company in front of the wardroom,” he said.

  Nylund collected herself with visible effort and called the crew to muster—those few that hadn't already noticed the officers’ public disagreement.

  “Not you, Frenchie,” Wayfield said. “Get your people together and go. Now."

  The engineering officer nodded and went to collect his detail.

  Wayfield stood in the wardroom's doorway—its raised floor was an expedient platform to speak from—and waited for the crew to assemble. He was at ease, now that he'd made his decision. The sailor's expressions were mostly expectant, though some looked troubled. He wasted no time when they were all assembled.

  “I've ordered Lieutenant French to return the cattle to the natives,” he said. A murmur ran through the crew.

  “Despite our food situation, it was wrong to take those steers,” he said. “I didn't join the service to be an armed bandit and neither did any of you. Even if we'd brought back the whole herd, even if we didn't lose Street, Vang, Glende, and Lieutenant Carde, we wouldn't be justified in taking cattle at gunpoint."

  The crew gave him their rapt attention.

  “I can't do anything to bring back our shipmates, or the natives we killed in the raid,” he said, “but keeping the cattle would only have made things worse. We're in the rescue service. The law we live by is the law of rescue, and we can't keep that law and the cattle both."

  The crew was intent and silent, their faces mostly unreadable. Wayfield didn't care.

  “Tomorrow we'll send out reconnaissance parties east and west of the river, preparatory to relocating the camp. We can't stay here and starve, and we won't take what we need by force,” he said. “Understand what I mean: we might survive, if I authorized more raids. But I will not. When the rescue cutter grounds here, it will find a Guard crew, not a band of outlaws terrorizing the natives. Okay, that is all."

  Wayfield nodded to Nylund. “XO, dismiss ship's company and join me in the wardroom."

  Nylund waited for him to speak.

  “I don't need to tell you that I expect your complete support, XO,” he said to her.

  “Yes, sir,” she said, not making eye contact. “I understand."

  “Do you?” he said, allowing a little of his own irritation to creep into his voice.

  Nylund hesitated for a long moment before she answered. “Captain, I'm not angry because I think you're wrong about the cattle,” she said stiffly. “I'm angry because you may be right, and I didn't see it before now."

  “You're not the only one,” he said ruefully. “Okay, that's all."

  * * * *

  The crew was quiet the next day. Scouting parties previously turned away volunteers, despite the hardships involved, but after the raid French could barely manage to fill out two groups of four without drafting sailors.

  He and French were going over the maps they'd cobbled together for the scouting missions when a sailor jogged up to the wardroom to tell them that Boget was on his way up from the river.

  The two officers looked at each other. When French returned from driving the cattle back to the native pasture, he'd told Wayfield that they encountered no opposition from the locals, but the crew had been watched closely in icy silence.

  “Want me to stay, Skipper?” French asked.

  “No, it'll be okay,” Wayfield said. Since the raid, all the officers wore sidearms all the time, but he didn't think the native was coming to attack him.

  Boget gave French a long look as they passed in front of the wardroom, then launched into what he had to say without preamble. “Yesterday I returned five of my brothers and sisters to Mesurda,” he said. “Before I am done, your people walk through our village, bringing again the cattle. What does it mean?"

  “What we did was wrong,” Wayfield began. “Bad for you and bad for us. I am very sorry it happened."

  “Yes?” Boget said. “Bringing the cattle again will not stop the badness. My brothers and sisters are gone."

  “And my crew. Four are dead,” he said. “But I didn't order the cattle returned for that reason, because of the ones who were killed."

  “Then why?” Boget asked.

  “Because to keep them would be more wrong, would extend the badness,” he said, groping for words. “It was the right thing to return them."

  “You expect to s
ee the cattle again will make us happy?” Boget asked, his tone incredulous.

  “No, I understand it will only make you less unhappy,” Wayfield said. “That would be a good reason to return the cows, but that isn't why I ordered it. To keep them would be bad for us, for my crew."

  Boget was plainly puzzled. “Bad why? You wanted food, then you took the cattle. So you had food."

  “Yes, we need food, but our mission—not to get home again, but our big mission—is to help others,” Wayfield said. It sounded ridiculous when put in such simple terms, but he needed to make his point in a way the native could understand. “Sometimes we risk our own lives for the mission."

  “Where is this mission from?” Boget asked.

  “From the Guard—from Malagasy,” Wayfield said. To the natives the grounded cutter stood in for a far-flung service they couldn't comprehend. “We will find another way to get food."

  “This mission is more important to you than getting the food?” Boget said.

  “Yes, in this case, it is."

  The native stared at him for a few seconds, his expression unreadable, then shook his head. “Okay,” Boget said abruptly. It was the word he frequently used when he failed to understand the peculiar visitors’ irritating ways.

  French came in as the native stalked off. “How'd it go, Skipper?” he asked.

  “Another meeting of the minds,” Wayfield said tiredly. “About what you'd expect.” He gestured to the maps, “Let's get back to the scouts; I want them to be outbound at first light tomorrow."

  * * * *

  The weather closed in during the night, and by morning the crew was crowded in the shelter to avoid the cold torrent.

  Wayfield stood in the doorway of the wardroom, disgusted by the weather. The reconnaissance parties would have to be delayed until it broke. The wait would further erode their thin cushion of food supplies.

  Nylund and French morosely pored over inventory lists, triaging what needed to be taken and what could be left behind if and when the scouts found a new location. Though Nylund remained a bit cool, to her credit the weather provoked no word or gesture of reproach from her.

  The scouting parties were a terrible gamble, but at least they'd be assured of surface water for a few days from the rain. Still, the chance that they'd find a location with sufficient game to support the crew, and at a manageable distance, was razor-thin.

  His brown study was interrupted by a chorus of shouts from the river sentries. Now what? he thought, as a messenger slogged uphill in the rain.

  Mixon splashed up to the wardroom door like a muddy scarecrow. “Skipper, you got to see this,” he said breathlessly. “The locals are bringing up a bunch of cattle; a whole herd."

  “Bringing them to us?” Nylund said over Wayfield's shoulder.

  “Yes, ma'am,” Mixon nodded emphatically. “Boget said."

  The three officers tramped back toward the river with Mixon. As the petty officer said, Boget and a dozen other natives were leading at least fifty head of cattle across the fords and up toward the camp. Unlike the raiders, Boget's people weren't driving the cattle from behind; the animals seemed to be following a bull being led on a short rope.

  “What's this?” Wayfield said when he met Boget at the head of the herd.

  “You need cattle. Here are cattle for you,” the native said with customary brusqueness.

  Wayfield looked at his officers. Neither said anything, but even French looked pleasantly surprised.

  “Why?” he asked Boget. “Are these to trade?"

  “No trade,” Boget held up a hand in a preemptory gesture. “That would be bad for us, for my brothers and sisters.” He nodded at the other natives. “When we talked for a long time we saw that this would be a right mission for us. To bring you these cows."

  “I don't understand,” Wayfield said. “You said it was wrong to give us things—like children."

  Boget shook his head and smiled in a gentle way Wayfield hadn't seen before. He leaned forward and tapped the captain's chest with one long finger. “This is from you. From Wayfield, from Malagasy."

  Copyright © 2006 Robert J. Howe

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  * * *

  BIOLOG: ROBERT J. HOWE

  by Richard A. Lovett

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Robert J. Howe may well be the first science fiction writer of the Space Age. That's because he was born in 1957, only six days after the Russians launched the first Sputnik satellite. His story this month is his third in a year, but he wrote several in the 1980s and ‘90s, before his recent return to fiction.

  Like many writers, his is an exotic career history. He's baked bagels, written publicity materials for colleges, and worked as a technician in an emergency veterinary hospital. There were also stints in the Coast Guard and on an oil tanker and an oceanographic vessel in the Merchant Marine.

  Also like many writers, he thinks the ability to craft fiction is born from life's less pleasant experiences.

  “I'm sure that somewhere there's a writer who had a happy childhood,” he says. “But my experience is that a bad childhood makes you a tuning fork for other people's emotions. Fiction is a machine for evoking emotion, and you have to feel those emotions to be able to evoke them."

  But there's also the matter of learning the craft. For Howe, that began at sea. “That was before emails,” he says, “and phone calls were ridiculously expensive. So I wrote hundreds of long letters, trying to be funny and entertaining. When I got out, I knew I wanted to be a writer."

  Next came the 1985 Clarion workshop. Being accepted was his first validation as a writer; then the workshop introduced him to the not-always-gentle realm of story critique.

  “I told someone the best thing he could do for art was cut off his hands and bury his typewriter,” Howe admits. “And my own first story was so dreadful that one of the kindest things people said was that it was like Ken and Barbie in space."

  In some groups, such remarks might produce fisticuffs, but Howe's bonded. Now, he helps run a more kindly critique group in Manhattan.

  “Fiction writing is the most difficult thing I've ever done,” he says, “because it involves keeping so many balls in the air. You rarely manage them all perfectly, but you can't drop any. You have to keep the plot going, you have to have the background, and you have to have a certain facility with character and dialog. There's infinite room for improvement."

  Copyright © 2006 Richard A Lovett

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  THE REFERENCE LIBRARY

  by Tom Easton

  Odyssey, Jack McDevitt, Ace, $24.95, 416 pp. (ISBN: 0-441-01433-X).

  Proven Guilty, Jim Butcher, Roc, $23.95, 406 pp. (ISBN: 0-451-46085-5).

  Echelon, Josh Conviser, Del Rey, $13.95, 291 pp. (ISBN: 0-345-48502-5).

  Temping Fate, Esther Friesner, Dutton, $16.99, 279 pp. (ISBN: 0-525-47730-6).

  Bad Prince Charlie, John Moore, Ace, $6.99, 230 pp. (ISBN: 0-441-01396-1).

  Code Noir, Marianne de Pierres, Roc, $6.99, 309 pp. (ISBN: 0-451-46100-2).

  The Space Opera Renaissance, David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds., Tor, $34.95, 941 pp. (ISBN: 0-765-30617-4).

  * * * *

  Jack McDevitt has two series currently running. The last entry in the Alex Benedict series was Seeker (reviewed here in November 2005). The last entry in the Priscilla Hutchins series was Omega (reviewed here November 2003), and now we have Odyssey. Hutch is now the operations director for the Academy that sends out the starships that explore the galaxy. Living worlds are few and far between, and those with intelligent species or their ruins (some of which have been fetched back to Earth) are even scarcer. In Omega, we saw a possible reason why: automated engines of destruction that roam the galaxy and target straight lines (think of our own cities!). The bottom line is that there are neither colony worlds to appropriate nor friends to converse or trade with.

  Perhaps it is no surpris
e that the government of the North American Union, which pays the Academy's bills, is having second thoughts. There are plenty of problems at home. Global warming is melting the Antarctic ice cap, and it could all go at once any day now. Overpopulation is an issue, as is public health. And when one of the Academy's ships vanishes, supposedly many light years from Earth, only to show up on the fringes of the solar system (the engines were having trouble getting traction on hyperspace), the Academy does not look good. Hutch tells her boss that the ships are old, obsolete, in need of expensive overhauls and more expensive replacement. “Fat chance” is the word.

  But then sightings of “moonriders” start picking up. Moonriders are black globes that travel in formation. They seem to be spaceships, but they don't respond to attempts to communicate. Government and academic “experts” view them as the latest incarnation of the flying saucer delusion. But Hutch decides to send out a ship to plant sensor systems that might be able to provide hard evidence. Gregory McAllister, the cranky journalist we have met before, goes along. So does Amy, an anti-Academy senator's teenaged daughter. Among other places, the trip takes them to the Origins project, where the biggest particle accelerator ever built is under construction and researchers hope to gain insight into conditions before the Big Bang. McAllister has already heard from physicists who say the experiment might, just maybe, rip a hole in the space-time continuum and destroy the universe. (If you have paid much attention to the science news in the last few years, you've heard the “rip in space” worry voiced in connection with the Brookhaven accelerator [see www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/ chronicle/archive/2003/04/14/MN255128.DTL], so McDevitt isn't just making this up.)

  And it isn't long before they see moonriders. They even witness them pushing an asteroid onto a collision course with one of the few life-bearing worlds out there. And when a tourist resort under construction reports a giant asteroid heading their way, the ship hies off to help rescue the staff.