Earth 2788 (17 page)

I headed out of
the nearest door, and there was sudden quiet as it closed behind me. Planet
First domes were built with reinforced walls to defend against hostile
wildlife, so they blocked the sound of even the loudest party.

“Sorry, Major,”
I said. “It was very noisy in there. What did you say?”

“General Staff
Central Command Support,” said the Major. “General May sends his compliments
and asks if it’s convenient to talk to you.”

I blinked. It
wasn’t just that this was the third General talking to me in one day. I’d never
had any contact with General May before, and why would a member of the General
Staff be calling me anyway?

“It’s convenient,”
I said.

Part
III

“Transferring the call now,” said
the Major.

A moment later, a
face appeared on my lookup screen. If anything, this General was even older
than me. If he was calling to try and talk me out of retiring, then he might
not accept my age as a good reason.

“Colonel Torrek,”
he said, “I was fascinated to read the notes you attached to the personnel
record of Major Drago Tell Dramis.”

I wasn’t sure
what I’d expected this call to be about, but it certainly wasn’t that! “You
mean the notes marked for the attention of his next commanding officer?”

“That’s right,”
said General May. “I’m particularly intrigued by the part where you say that
some details are difficult to explain in a report and suggest his future
commanding officer calls you to discuss them.”

I hesitated. “I’m
not clear how you came to read the notes, sir.”

“Part of my
duties involves monitoring the career progression of certain officers,” said
General May. “Major Drago Tell Dramis has had an extremely interesting career
progression. Officers usually work their way up the ranks of the Military,
however Drago Tell Dramis manages to progress both up and down. If it was
humanly possible, I expect he’d go sideways as well.”

I gave the
obligatory polite smile in response to a senior officer making a joke, but
didn’t say a word. I still wasn’t sure what was going on here.

“You seem to
have stabilized him a little,” added the General, “because he’s held the rank
of Major for nearly two years now. I even had hopes you’d manage to promote him
to Commander, but I see from your notes that you were deliberately avoiding
doing that.”

He gave me an
expectant look, and I felt I had to say something. “Judging from his history, I
thought he’d come up with a creative way to force me to demote him again. I’ve
been following the alternative tactic of giving him the post of a Commander,
but not the rank. May I ask why you’re monitoring his career, sir?”

“It started with
an incident during the comet blockade on Hera,” said General May. “You’re
familiar with the events there?”

“To a certain
extent.”

“The smaller
incoming comet debris was easily destroyed by fighters, but the comet core itself
was heading straight for the inhabited continent of Hera. Most of the
population had been evacuated, but a few thousand had stubbornly refused to
leave. If the comet core struck the inhabited continent then it would kill
those people, and quite probably leave that area of the planet uninhabitable in
future. The comet core was coming in at an angle that meant the Hera solar
array couldn’t be used against it, so we sent every fighter team assigned to
the blockade to try to destroy it with one huge combined missile attack. The
comet core exploded, but one large fragment survived the attack and was still
on course for the inhabited continent.”

He paused. “The
fighters were out of missiles, but Lieutenant Tell Dramis’s fighter collided
with the comet fragment, changing its course just enough for it to pass within
range of the Hera solar array, which was then able to destroy it. Lieutenant
Tell Dramis claimed this collision was a complete accident.”

“He’s still
claiming that, sir,” I said.

“Do you believe
him, Colonel?”

“No, sir. I
don’t. I’ve just been watching a vid of the man perform an absolutely
impossible feat of flying. Every pilot in the base has tried duplicating it in
a simulator, including me. It was hardly surprising I couldn’t do it, I’m
horribly out of practice, but all the other fighter pilots took several
attempts before they could even get close to making it. I can’t believe the
same man ever flew straight into a rock by accident.”

“You’ll
understand that what happened at Hera attracted the attention of higher
command. Lieutenant Tell Dramis was promoted, and his personnel record flagged
for special monitoring.” General May frowned. “You appear to disapprove of
that, Colonel Torrek. I’d like you to speak your thoughts freely.”

“Exactly how
freely would you like me to speak, sir?” I asked.

“Would it help
if I assure you I was not involved in the decisions made after Hera, and this
conversation will remain totally private between the two of us?”

I gave in. I’d
been wanting to say this to someone, and given I was retiring … “Drago’s
promotion was badly mishandled, sir. Anyone making a unique contribution that
helps resolve a critical situation, whether that’s an idea that no one else
could have suggested or an action that no one else could have performed, is
rewarded with a promotion. Everyone understands that. The problem was that
Drago wasn’t promoted to Captain, but straight to Major.”

“Promoting him
to Captain would have been meaningless,” said General May. “Lieutenant isn’t a
real rank. It’s a label saying you’ve just graduated the Military Academy.
Everyone who isn’t completely incompetent will get promoted to Captain after
the end of their six month active service acclimatization period.”

“I can see that,
sir, but it would still have been better to be creative about it, make an
excuse to delay giving Drago his extra promotion until after he’d made the
natural progression to Captain, rather than having him jump over the rank of
Captain entirely. With anyone else, it probably wouldn’t have mattered, but there
was an extra factor in Drago’s case that made it a really bad idea.”

“Please explain
the extra factor to me, Colonel,” said General May.

I sighed. “I
should explain I have personal connections to his family.”

“I’m perfectly
aware of that, Colonel. It’s why I arranged for Major Tell Dramis to be posted
to your command. I’m not clear about your exact relationship, frankly I find
Betan family relationships deeply confusing, but I hoped your inside knowledge
would help you deal with him.”

“Oh.” I’d thought
Drago’s team arriving on K21228 two years ago had been random chance, but … “Yes,
given triad marriages are common, Betan relationships can get confusing,
especially when there’s divorce and re-marriage involved. They have several
hundred Betan dialect terms to describe all the possible relationships.”

I smiled. “Personally,
I always took the easy way out, and called someone cousin rather than risk
using the wrong term. The key thing to remember is that all three members of a
triad marriage are both legally and culturally regarded as parents of any
children, regardless of the actual genetic relationship. This means you can end
up in the situation where, for example, first cousins have no genetic
relationship at all. The Betan clans keep detailed family trees with full
genetic data so it’s clear which family members are free to marry each other.”

“I see,” said
General May, in the voice of someone who was still totally confused.

“Anyway, the
relationship between Drago and myself is one of the simpler ones. There’s no
genetic link between us, but he’s my great-nephew by triad marriage. That gives
me certain advantages in dealing with him. I’m not just his commanding officer,
but a senior member of his family, and nearly 80 years old. That combination
puts immense Betan cultural pressure on Drago to treat me with the deepest
respect. As for inside knowledge …”

I shrugged. “I’ve
been rather distant from the clan for the last two decades, but I’m still in
contact with some of them, and hear most of the family news. As I said, there
was an extra factor that made Drago’s double promotion a bad idea. To be frank,
the extra factor was Drago’s father.”

I paused to give
General May a wary look.

“Please
continue, Colonel,” he said.

“You may be
aware that General Dragon Tell Dramis is a forceful man,” I said. “When he
wants something he pushes hard, and he’s been pushing Drago since he was 2
years old. Telling the boy he has to live up to his heroic ancestors and his
father’s example, and have a brilliant Military career. I’m not sure exactly
what went through Drago’s head when he got that double promotion, but it
wouldn’t surprise me if he thought his father was behind it, trying to give him
a high speed start to his career.”

General May gave
me a startled look. “That would be impossible. Military officers are
automatically excluded from promotion decisions involving partners or close
relatives.”

“I know that,
but if Drago was feeling paranoid … Anyway, something Drago let slip last year
makes me believe he decided to find out the truth about his promotion. Drago’s
notoriously handsome. I think he talked someone in Military Personnel into
letting him look at his confidential personnel record. I can just imagine him
charming them into submission. After all, what could possibly be the harm in
letting Drago look at his
own
record?”

General May
groaned.

“My theory is he
saw a few extremely confidential notes about startling tactical ability and
potential for high rank. Perhaps even a projected career path, with target
ranks for him to reach at certain ages. He was fresh from the Military Academy,
and what he saw scared him to death. He’s been fighting promotion ever since.”

There was a
short silence before General May spoke. “Your theory isn’t entirely untenable.”

What he meant
was that I was precisely right about Drago’s records. I knew it!

“The incident at
Hera attracted the attention of the General Marshal and his General Staff,”
said General May. “We had the highest hopes of Drago Tell Dramis back then, and
we haven’t changed our minds about his ability. There’ve been several more
interesting incidents since Hera.”

“I know,” I said.
“Seven people died to make this world safe. It would have been well over two
hundred if Drago hadn’t dreamed up a way to make an incoming group of giant
lizards fly over our fuel dump and then blown it up.”

“So how do you
suggest the situation should be handled?” asked General May.

“Stop pushing
the man,” I said. “I’ve had Drago holding the position of a Commander, while
only having the rank of Major, for two years. I’ve resisted several obvious
opportunities to promote him. He’s nearing thirty now, gaining maturity, and
he’s got a good team around him. His current deputy has an unusual history,
joining the Military when she was slightly older than most recruits, and she’s
a strong minded, steadying influence.”

I paused. “Drago’s
slowly starting to realize that it’s ridiculous he doesn’t have the rank to
match his position. Give him another Commander’s post, let him settle in there
for a while, and suffer the embarrassment of a whole new set of officers
gossiping about his situation. After that, he should accept being promoted to
Commander without too many problems. Once he’s made it safely to Commander, he
should progress naturally after that. I’m not asking what you have in mind for
him in the end, but whatever it is he’s at least had time to adjust to the idea.”

General May
nodded.

“It would be
ideal if you could send Drago’s team along with Commander Stone to her next
posting, because she knows exactly how to handle him.”

General May
nodded again.

“Of course, it
would also help if you could get his father to stop lecturing him,” I added, “but
I doubt that’s humanly possible.”

General May
laughed. “Thank you, Colonel. It’s unfortunate you’re retiring. I don’t suppose
you’d like to …”

“No, sir,” I
said hastily. “Thank you, but I’ve considered this very thoroughly. I’m
fortunate that I’ve been able to clear up the final few things that have been
worrying me, like Drago’s situation, so I can retire in the happy knowledge I’m
not leaving any jobs undone.”

“Very well,”
said General May. “I hope you enjoy your retirement.”

The call ended,
and I turned and went back into the dome. The vid clips were still running. I
joined in the laughter at a dozen moments ranging from tense to comical, then
the vid sequence ended and the floating suns went to full brightness again.

I had a speech
to give, and Drago had thoughtfully put a podium at one end of the dome, so I
went to stand on it. This time I’d remembered to wear a microphone. The crowd
quietened down and looked expectantly at me.

“As you know,
I’m retiring. I don’t want to make a tediously long speech that drones on about
six decades in the Military, and I’ve forbidden Commander Stone to make one for
me. It’s not necessary, because today says it all. Handing over a new world to
its first colonists sums up everything that Planet First missions are about. It’s
been a pleasure serving with so many fine officers. Thank you for helping me to
finish my years of service on the highest possible note by adding Maia to the
worlds of humanity.”

I let them clap
for a bit, and then waved at them to quieten down. “And now I have to give you
the standard information and warnings before the real party starts. Firstly,
this planet is now officially under civilian law. Since the whole of Kappa
sector is still using the rules of the Colony Ten charter, you can register
Twoing or Threeing contracts yourselves by contacting Kappa Sector Central
Registry directly.”

I paused. “You
can also enter into either a duo or triad marriage without prior notice or
previous relationship contracts, but that marriage must be authorized and
registered by an appropriate official. As your commanding officer, I qualify as
an appropriate official, but Colony Ten rules say I can’t authorize marriages
for anyone who is even slightly drunk or powered. If you’re going to propose to
anyone, make sure you do it while all the parties concerned can still pass a
blood test!”

Everyone
cheered.

“Secondly, the
Military must always show respect for variations in cultural attitudes. This
dome is the main party zone, and standards of behaviour and dress may not be
acceptable to certain officers, particularly those from Delta sector. There is
a side dome marked Quiet Zone, with a secondary party area where Delta sector
standards will apply. There is a further side dome marked Rest Zone, where
those officers without quarters here can go to sleep, and I emphasize the word ‘sleep’
in that sentence. Other activities should be limited to an officer’s private
quarters or to the dome marked …”