Fisherman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 4)

by David Feintuch

  “Nav and pilotage, sir.”

  I had to draw him out, to show there were no hard feelings. “Were you good at it?”

  He looked down. “First in my class, sir.”

  “You were?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.

  “Yes, sir.” His tone was bitter. “I’m not always incompetent, sir. Though you’d have no way of knowing that.”

  “That’s quite enough, Mr. Ten—”

  “No, Mr. Keene. He’s feeling badly. We had, um, a run-in yesterday.” My shoulder was still sore from it.

  We left the classroom warrens. “What’s down there?”

  “The ladder to belowdecks, sir. The gravitrons, and engineering. Off-limits to us.” Adam looked hopeful.

  I saw no reason to take them below. I’d only been there once myself, on a failed mission with Midshipman Jeffrey Thorne. “And that way?”

  “The service corridor, sir. It goes to mess hall.” They led me down the deserted corridor, used by sailors to wheel cleaning machines and other heavy equipment to the domes.

  “This way’s longer, but it’s faster if you’re late to class,” Adam Tenere confided. “No cadets allowed.” I imagined an anxious midshipman sprinting to class along the service corridor to avoid the displeasure of his instructor. Running in the main corridors, on the other hand, was strictly prohibited.

  “Here’s the mess hall, sir. The cadets enter from the far side.”

  “Yes, I remember.” We continued toward the barracks, passing an emergency hatch, open now, but ready to slam shut at decompression. “The barracks are to the right, I recall.”

  “Yes, sir.” In a few moments the warren widened.

  I chose a dorm at random. “Let’s look in.”

  As the hatch slid open Keene bellowed “Attention!” Cadets leaped from their bunks to form a straight line along the aisle.

  I’d thought the barracks would be unoccupied, during term break. “As you were. Carry on.” I smiled. “This isn’t an inspection.” Keene shot me a dubious look, said nothing. I understood his confusion; a Commandant was explaining himself to mere cadets. I knew I’d appear even more ridiculous poking my head in and disappearing immediately. I strode down the rows of beds. I paused.

  A duffel lay atop an empty bunk. The bed had been stripped and remade without sheets. I asked the girl in the next bunk, “Edwards?”

  “Yessir.”

  The duffel would remain overnight. In the morning the cadets would gather round, open the duffel, go through the meager belongings. Close friends would help themselves to mementos, and the duffel would be repacked for shipment home. It was the Navy way.

  I looked around. “Where’s Mr. Arnweil?”

  Another boy spoke up. “With Sergeant Radz, sir.”

  “Very well. Come along, gentlemen.” We left.

  Keene said, “Edwards seemed a decent joey.”

  I was brusque. “I didn’t know him.”

  “Would you like to stop at Krane Barracks?”

  “Why?” One barracks was like another.

  “You stayed there, sir.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is there a bronze plaque on the head I used?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head, disgusted. Somehow I’d have to put a stop to it. “We have, let’s see, sixteen barracks?”

  “Twenty now,” Tenere blurted.

  Of course. I’d read that, somewhere. “Not all in use.”

  “Not until the plebes come aloft, sir.”

  Thirty cadets to a dorm. Housing for six hundred cadets at a time. The Training Station could take another fifty. Terrestrial Academy at Devon had barracks for another three hundred eighty. Some overcapacity was necessary; otherwise no cadet could be transferred without another cadet being shipped out. I shook my head. Logistics.

  I let them tour me through the exercise dome, then down the ladder to the service level. I stopped. Enough for one day. “Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  I hesitated. “Mr. Tenere, I’ll have a word with Mr. Keene.”

  “Yes, sir? I mean, aye aye, sir.”

  “Alone,” I prompted.

  “Aye aye, sir!” Red-faced, he saluted and hurried away.

  “Sir, I’m sorry about—”

  “I was first middy, once. On Hibernia.”

  “Yes, sir.” Keene waited, puzzled.

  “It isn’t an easy job. You might think, for example, that I’d want you to go hard on Tenere.”

  “He’s—Of course I’d—I’ll do whatever you want, sir.”

  “Will you? Good, then. Do as you’d have done if we’d never met this evening.” I smiled pleasantly. “Sometimes, Mr. Keene, problems work themselves out on their own.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He smiled back quizzically.

  “That’s all.”

  I found my way back to my apartment. I was undressing when the caller buzzed. “Sorry, sir.” Tolliver. “Just a reminder. Senator Boland’s boy will be reporting to Devon in two days.”

  “What of it?”

  “Don’t you want to be there, just in case?”

  “In case what, Edgar?” I tossed my shirt on the chair.

  “His father will most likely drop him off. He’s on the Naval Affairs Committee, you know.” Of course I knew. If Boland hadn’t talked me out of it I’d have carried through with my resignation, after Victoria brought me home.

  “Tolliver, the Boland boy’s a cadet like any other. Anyway, we’re going groundside tomorrow night, after I talk over the budget with Admiralty.”

  “Very well, sir. Sorry if I woke you.”

  I growled a reply, rang off. If Tolliver thought I could be a politician, he was mistaken. I drifted to sleep.

  Once again, I waited in the crowded anteroom of Admiral Duhaney’s Lunapolis office. The last time I’d been there, months before, I’d been ragged from the long hostile voyage in Victoria, and barely recovered from my lung implant. I’d stalked out of the Admiral’s office in a rage, expecting court-martial and not giving a damn. Instead, they’d chosen to reward me with Academy.

  When the bored lieutenant called my name I passed through the hatch, saluted, came to attention with the same discipline I’d require of my cadets.

  “Hello, Seafort.” Duhaney came to me, hand extended. I took it as permission to stand easy. He beckoned to a chair. “Sorry my call missed you yesterday.” Was it a reproach? It didn’t seem so.

  “I apologize, sir. We had an accident. A cadet died.”

  He pursed his lips, shook his head. Still, I knew he’d received too many reports of death to be shocked by one more. As Sergeant Radz had said, soldiers die, especially in wartime. “Why did you want to see me, Commandant?”

  I couldn’t bring up the issue of Lieutenant Crossburn; Dustin Edwards’s death made that issue seem too trivial. I would cope. “I had some questions about the budget.”

  “I can’t get you any more money, Seafort. Don’t even ask. We’re strained tight.”

  “No, sir, I understand that. I wasn’t asking.”

  He stared at me suspiciously. “I’ve heard that before. I tell you, no special appropriations!”

  Despite myself, I smiled. “Orders acknowledged and understood, sir. If I’d wanted more money I’d say so.”

  “Well, then?”

  I fished in my pocket for a chipcase, opened it. “May I?” I slipped the chip into his holovid. “These expense columns, sir. Why do they say ‘guidelines’?”

  He frowned. “Didn’t Kearsey go over any of this with you?”

  “He gave me the budget to study. That’s all.”

  “Don’t worry about it. The number that counts is that bottom line.” He stabbed at the expense totals.

  “But this column, sir, that details the food expense per cadet, the uniform cost—”

  He waved them away. “They don’t mean anything, Seafort. How often do I have to tell you?”

&n
bsp; I spoke coolly. “That depends, sir.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you want me as Commandant.”

  He glared at me. “Don’t start that again. I have too many prima donnas as it is.” I held his eye; he sighed. “Very well, what don’t you understand?”

  “How do I find out how much we’re spending on food per cadet? I won’t know until we exceed our budget.”

  “You have a quartermaster to keep it straight, Seafort. Let him do his job. All you need be concerned with is that you have two point six million unidollars to spend. How you allocate them is your own business.”

  I shook my head. “But the uniforms per cadet, training allocation per cadet—”

  “You have some seven hundred sixty joeys, right? We try to break costs down per cadet, because the Senate committee likes it that way. That’s the only reason the columns are there.”

  “But—” My head spun. “When we go to the Naval Affairs Committee, don’t we have to assure them—”

  “Yes, we tell them how much we intend to spend, and on what. But the Security Council knows better than to tie us to our line estimates. Spend your allocation for the good of your cadets. Don’t forget to reserve for structural repairs. Look, Seafort, it all comes down to seven hundred sixty cadets. For years we’ve run the number through a simple formula to pull out the guidelines. You don’t have to follow them. In theory, you don’t even have to account for the number of cadets.”

  “Huh? What about Final Cull?”

  “Oh, the Selection Board presents your candidates, you have no choice about that. But they only go by—” The caller buzzed; he picked it up. “Duhaney. He what? Are you sure?” He listened. “The son of a bitch! Yes, I’ll be down. This afternoon. Potomac Shuttleport. Set up a meeting.” He keyed the caller.

  “Bill, cancel this afternoon. Get me a seat on the Potomac. Bump someone if you have to.”

  He slammed down the caller. “We had a deal with Naval Affairs, and Senator Wyvern is jumping ship. Now he wants our promise the hull components will come from North American foundries. We’ve already promised them to—look, Seafort, I’ve got to clear my calendar and be out of here in less than an hour. Let me know if you run into a problem.” He popped my chip from the holovid, handed it to me.

  “But—”

  “Thanks for coming. Get out of my hair, will you? If we lose the replacement fleet, we won’t need your cadets.”

  He had a point. “Yes, sir.” I paused at the hatch. “That memo I wrote about the caterwauling bomb, sir. Are you going—”

  “We have a team studying it. It’s more complex than you think.” He opened his drawer, fished for a chipcase, thrust it in his pocket.

  “Sir, it’s too important to—”

  “Damn it, man, you want us to take a puter-operated drone, send it somewhere and let it generate skewed N-waves, or caterwaul, as you call it. Not too close to home, because it will call every fish within hearing. But we’ve never sent a successful drone out before, not one with a fusion drive. Anyway, the drive is inherently inaccurate by one percent, so we won’t even be quite sure where we’re sending it.”

  He took a leather case, stuffed papers within. “Say it caterwauls until it attracts fish. How many fish is enough? How close would they come?”

  I said, “It doesn’t matter if a bomb doesn’t get every last—”

  “Let me finish, I have to catch the shuttle. At some point the bomb goes off, unless the fish destroy it first. Well, when it goes boom, how can we be sure it got all the fish? Could any surviving fish follow its trail back to us? And most important, if this caterwauling calls fish, how can we send a ship into a sector swarming with fish to find out if the bloody thing works, without risking the ship? If the fish didn’t get our ship the bomb would.”

  He paused, waved me to the hatch. “The idea has merit, Seafort, but we need to iron out the bugs.” He snatched up the caller. “Karl? Make sure Boland is told about this afternoon’s meeting.”

  I retrieved my duffel from the anteroom, trudged along the busy corridor toward Old Lunapolis, absentmindedly returning salutes while I pondered Duhaney’s comments about my budget. Running Academy wasn’t quite like commanding a ship; I couldn’t execute a felon, for example. But in other respects the Navy allowed me to act as autocratically as any shipboard Captain. Here are your tools: accomplish the job. Don’t bother us with details.

  I checked in with Naval Transport, learned the next shuttle was full. Three hours to kill, until I could connect through Earthport Station to London. I should have hitched a ride with Duhaney. Well, he’d left me ample time for a meal here in the Lunapolis warrens, where I had a better choice of restaurants and the prices were lower than on the Station.

  I dined alone, unaccustomed to the solitude. Though several of my officers had gone groundside for start of term, none of them had detoured with me to Lunapolis.

  After dinner I boarded the London shuttle. Most of the other passengers were civilians, a few Navy. There were also U.N.A.F. personnel, but we pointedly ignored each other. The Armed Forces were another service, and we had little in common.

  To my discomfort, the Pilot unstrapped and came back into the cabin, stopping at my seat. “Captain Seafort? My name is Stanner. I’ll be flying you down tonight.” He offered his hand. Resignedly, I took it, muttered some polite phrase.

  “It’s an honor to meet you.” He hesitated, turned back to the cockpit. “If there’s anything we can do for you ...

  Just take me home. “No thank you, Mr. Stanner.”

  “Very well, then.” Again he hesitated. “The copilot’s seat is empty tonight. Would you care to ride up front?”

  What I wanted was to be left alone. On the other hand, I’d had one experience piloting a shuttle, a wild ride with Lieutenant Tolliver across Hope Nation’s Farreach Ocean. It might be interesting to watch an expert handle the craft.

  Ignoring the envy of the U.N.A.F. officers, I got to my feet. “Well, if you don’t mind ...

  “Of course not.” He ushered me to the cockpit. I suspected it wasn’t really me he wanted sitting alongside him, but my damned notoriety. Now he’d be able to say He’d flown with Nicholas Seafort as his copilot. I couldn’t avoid that sort of thing unless I chose to become a hermit.

  I strapped in. Once the cockpit hatch slid shut the Pilot gave the checklist his full attention. I wondered if my presence had anything to do with that; flying the shuttle must be second nature to him.

  “Steward, confirm shuttle hatch closed, please.” He wouldn’t rely on the blinking light on his console. Quite right. Consoles and puters could be wrong.

  “Shuttle hatch is secured, Mr. Stanner.”

  “Departure Control, London Shuttle Victor three four oh ready for breakaway, requesting clearance.”

  The speaker crackled. “Just a moment, Pilot.” Several minutes passed before flight control came back on the line. “London Shuttle Victor three four oh, you’re cleared for breakaway. Have a pleasant flight.”

  “Thank you.” Stanner’s hand settled over the thrusters. The shuttle’s maneuvering engines, like most craft, used hydrazine as propellant.

  With a deft hand the Pilot squirted first his forward thrusters, then the thrusters abaft, rocking us ever so gently until the airlock seals parted. Once we drifted free of the Station he maneuvered us to a safe distance, ignited the main engines. The hull throbbed with muted power.

  I tore my eye from the receding Station to focus on Earth, looming in the starboard viewscreens. We didn’t appear to be heading toward Terra, but of course we were. If the shuttle dived headfirst into the atmosphere we’d go incandescent. Instead, we’d enter at an angle, almost parallel with the planet’s surface.

  The Pilot flipped switches on his console, watching his display closely. As the readout counted to zero he cut the power. The engines went silent.

  His work done for the moment, Stanner relaxed. “You’re headed to groundside Academy, Captain?”
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  “Yes.” It seemed too bald a statement. “My new cadets report tomorrow.”

  “A busy time for you, then.”

  “I suppose.” I had no idea what was expected of me. Perhaps the sergeants knew.

  He punched in numbers, erased the screen, ran more calculations. “Twenty-five minutes. If you’d like coffee we can—”

  “London Shuttle, respond to Departure Control.”

  The pilot keyed his mike. “London Shuttle.”

  “This is a scramble. Repeat, a scramble.” The voice was edged with tension. “Steepen your glide path for immediate entry. You’ll be out of position for London; divert to New York Von Walthers, or Potomac Shuttleport.”

  The Pilot swallowed once, but his voice was calm. “London Shuttle commencing dive.” He flipped switches, reignited our engines. He glanced to me, back to the console. “Something’s up.”

  “Obviously.” I reached for the caller, remembered that this was his craft. “Can you get Naval frequencies?”

  “General comm, but not the restricted channels. Go ahead.”

  I keyed the caller. Voices flooded the speaker.

  “—have a visual on him at four thousand kilometers. We’re on him.”

  “Understood, Charleston. You and Tripoli are the closest.”

  “Tell the Admiral we have radio contact with Tripoli.”

  A crisp voice. “This is Admiral Le Tour, acting as ComCincLuna. I’m on the circuit, Captain Briggs. Are you absolutely sure?”

  “The puter’s on full magnification, sir. He’s just sitting there, plain as life. A fish, just like the training holos.”

  My grip tightened on the console. Lord God, no.

  “Just one?”

  Briggs’ laugh was harsh. “At the moment, sir.”

  Stanner said, “Stay strapped in tight, Captain. We’ll get some buffeting.”

  I checked my belts. They couldn’t go any tighter. “Just drive us home, Pilot.”

  “We’ll probably lose radio contact for a few minutes. That’s natural when we’re diving into the atmosphere.”

  “I’m not a groundsider.” My tone was sharp.

  “I know, sir.”

  “Sorry. Nerves.” Fish, in home system? Queasy, I swallowed several times.