Midshipman (18 page)

The cadet-colonel smiled and pulled a datapad out of his breast pocket. He punched a code into it, then slid it across the table. The display showed a middle-aged man dressed up in a raggedy bunny suit and slave collar, carrying a mop. “Who is this?” I asked.

“Fuzzbrain,” the cadet explained, his smile widening. “Formerly Captain Sir Ricardo Gonzales, commander of the Emperor’s light cruiser
Sword of the People
.”

I blinked, then wriggled my nose in puzzlement. Luckily, the Imperials interpreted the expression correctly.

“That’s his punishment,” the Imperial captain explained. “For losing his ship, you see. He’s legally a Rabbit now; the Emperor himself came up with the idea.” He grinned. “See those big buck teeth and the harelip? They’re implants! People make him show them off all the time!”

I looked again into the dead, broken eyes and something snapped inside of me. I’d made an effort to like these Imperials, or at least to like them enough to remain civil throughout dinner. But… “Professor,” I declared.

“Yes, David?”

“I don’t feel well,” I lied. Then I turned to the Imperials. “Forgive me, please. But sometimes human food makes me ill.”

The admiral nodded. “Of course,” he replied, though his eyes showed he knew the truth.

“I don’t feel so good either,” James declared, shaking his head. “Perhaps it wasn’t just because the food was meant for humans, David. I think there was something wrong with it.”

“Actually,” Professor Lambert replied, “I feel a bit queasy too.” He nodded to the Imperials. “Thank you gentlemen
so
much for having us.” He smiled, and the expression might even have been genuine. “All of us will remember this dinner for the rest of our lives, I’m certain.” Then we all stood up, giving the Imperials no choice but to do the same. “Good night, then!” the professor finished up for us. “See you at the games tomorrow!” 

33

Sometimes things work themselves out ways that make a Rabbit wonder. I’d pled illness in order make a polite escape from an awkwardly intolerable dinner. When James and Professor Lambert seconded the motion I figured they were just sort of jumping on the bandwagon. But it turned out that they truly were sick; terribly so by the time that we got back up to our rooms. James actually had to run the last little bit in order to get to a toilet in time, while the professor was so nauseous that he asked me to call a doctor. I did even better than that, on the theory that the professor was ill enough not to be thinking clearly. As soon as he vanished into his room, I hit the little red emergency button that alerted Geneva Station security to a possible assassination attempt. And I was in deadly earnest, too; people just didn’t get that sick that quickly from the food served at a five-star restaurant. The Geneva people agreed, praised me for raising the alarm, and immediately shipped all three of us by ambulance to the VIP wing of their central medical facility. They pumped our stomachs, which was a special shame after such a fine meal, and declared that somewhere along the line we’d been exposed to massive doses of the latest, greatest stomach flu that was making the rounds on Geneva Station. This was a lot nastier than it sounds, because in a station environment viruses were continually exposed to mutagens. This in turn meant that they learned new tricks in a hurry, so quickly in fact that even with the help of the most modern techniques the public-health people were unable to ward off frequent outbreaks. “I’m sorry,” the doctor explained to the professor, whose eyes were dull and feverish. ”But we haven’t developed a serum for this strain yet. You’ll be ill for several days at a minimum.”

Of course it wasn’t possible to prove that the Imperials had deliberately infected us; in fact, Geneva Security assured us that it was impossible. But then again the solido card that the Imperials had found in their hand was impossible too, and turnabout was fair play. Or unfair play, as the case may be.

James took it well, though the professor was angry that his students’ health had been endangered. “One should never undertake significant risks unless the potential rewards justify them,” he always taught us. But the sad fact was that both of them were out for the count. We’d be well on the way home before they fully recovered. It was fortunate that Rabbits weren’t affected by human flus; the doctor told me that he’d once heard that we had gengineered immunity to most highly-communicable human diseases so that we could work in hospitals without fear of spreading infections. So I was lucky. Or maybe not so lucky, I realized once I was halfway back to my room.

Because now, as ranking cadet and team captain, I was completely in charge.

The next day was just awful, so bad that I still wish I could erase it from my memory. It was already late when I got back to the rooms. The Yan’s were missing, off to sample who knew what forbidden pleasures, while Heinrich was fast asleep. He was scheduled to play an ancient-themed game with James in the morning, so I felt obliged to let him know immediately what had gone wrong. Since it was obvious that he and I would have to partner up, he insisted on spending hours going over likely scenarios with me. The result was that we both entered the gaming room half asleep. Meanwhile the Yans, damn them, were bright of eye and practically sparkled with early-morning energy. I knew for fact that they’d still been out at four in the morning; how they managed it, I’ll never know.

I still had maniples and phalanxes and cohorts and other unfamiliar tactical units whirling through my head as I sat down across from Jason, the cadet I’d dined with the previous night. He smiled extra-wide at me. “I hear your friends got some bad meat or something?”

“Something,” I agreed, smiling back through clenched teeth.

He nodded back. “Too bad. I hope they get better. In a few days.”

Just then the judges laid out a board in front of us. “Gentlemen!” a Genevan declared. “Your challenge today is to refight the Battle of Pharsalus!”

I nodded and smiled outwardly even as my mind raced, trying to remember even the tiniest detail about the battle. It took place during one of the Roman civil wars, I knew, and Julius Caesar had personally commanded one side. But beyond that I couldn’t remember a thing.

“Call it,” the judge ordered, looking at the Imperial.

“Heads,” he declared. The gold ten-credit piece spun in the air…

…and came up tails. “Choose your side,” the official declared, looking at me.

I thought things through as well and as quickly as my muzzy brain would allow. If Caesar had commanded personally, then he must’ve won or he’d never have become emperor, right? “The Imperials,” I declared, hoping I had the nomenclature right.

Apparently I did, because the judge silently began apportioning counters. Meanwhile, Jason’s mouth opened for just a millisecond in shock at my choice before he could recover. Soon I saw why; he received almost twice as many counters as I did. And their values were nearly as high as my own.

In later months when I had leisure to study the matter, I learned that Caesar was considered by historians to have been as lucky a general as he was skilled, though he was certainly the latter as well. Even he personally admitted as much. He won the historical Battle of Pharsalus by weaving together both attributes in roughly equal proportion. As an example, his opponent Pompey (a legendary general in his own right) ordered his men not to charge Caesar’s legions and meet them halfway as was the Roman tradition. In theory, this should have left them well-rested after the Imperial men ran twice as far as they were accustomed to. In practice, Caesar’s men were so well-trained that he simply ordered them to stop and take a break in mid-charge, a maneuver requiring such an incredible level of discipline in the ranks that Pompey must’ve considered it impossible. And Caesar also took advantage of a huge dust-cloud to secretly maneuver some infantry into the path of a Republican cavalry charge. This in turn caused the horsemen to flee in panic and eventually made Caesar emperor. All in all I learned a lot from studying the battle, and came away impressed as could be with how Caesar had taken advantage of every circumstance at just the right time to ensure victory.

But all that was much, much later. Then and there, I didn’t know that Caesar had lengthened his line to match Pompey’s by making it only six deep rather than the usual ten; instead, I chose to maintain the standard depth and refused the left flank to compensate. While I was vaguely aware that the “swirling dust” rule was in play, I had no idea that it could be used to counter my foe’s vastly superior cavalry. And while I knew that my units were indeed superior on a man-for-man level, I tried to take advantage of it defensively to wear Jason down instead of chewing a hole and pouring through it for the kill.

In other words, I did pretty much everything wrong.

The result was foreordained, though on top of all my other woes I rolled terrible dice as well. Gamesmanship and dirty tricks are all well and good, but they’re no substitute for at least a modicum of genuine ability. I was out of my depth. In less than half the time it took the actual Julius to secure an empire, I was down to a surrounded knot of men with my “Caeser, +2 on all rolls within three hexes” counter right in the center. To spare such a great man further humiliation, I had him fall on his sword by resigning. A great cheer rose among the Imperials…

…and Jason, grinning like a fool, gave me the erotic bunny drawing he’d been working on since Turn One. “Something to remember today by,” he suggested.

Heinrich did a little better than me, though only marginally. Roman civil wars were the theme of the day, and he drew Marc Antony’s side at the Battle of Actium. Unlike me Heinrich knew all about his subject, and he maneuvered with the verve and reckless skill that made him such a fearful opponent. He at least put on a good show. But his opponent cast charmed dice to an even greater extent than mine had. Thus Antony’s flagship eventually burned, Cleopatra met her appointment with the asp…

…and we left the gaming room with our heads high but our butts well chewed, tied 3-3.

34

“The dice were loaded!” Heinrich protested for perhaps the fifth time as he and I and the Yans sat around the little conference table in the professor’s room. “They
must’ve
been!”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “Or maybe not. We can’t prove it either way.” I tried to meet Yan Chang’s eyes, but he turned away. As adept as he and his brother were at all the various forms of cheating, neither had been able to detect anyone messing with the dice. “But the study you and I did showed a normal probability curve, no?”

He nodded and sighed. In point of fact, both he and I and our respective Imperial opponents had rolled precisely the expected dispersion of “good” and “bad” numbers. What had killed us, and especially my team-mate, were the circumstances under which the best and worst rolls had occurred. While I’d have lost regardless, Heinrich might well have won and made Marc Antony and Cleopatra the joint rulers of the Empire had a few key rolls gone differently. Or even just a little less disastrously. He’d rolled badly when attempting to grapple the enemy flagship at the height of the battle, for example, while hitting sky-high maximums for damage on already-crippled ships that were about to sink anyway. It’d been painful to watch; I could certainly understand why he was suspicious. But the fact that the overall averages were dead-on for both sides argued heavily that the Imperials hadn’t been able to figure out a way to fix the dice any more than we had. “So,” I continued. “We have to assume it was just a streak of bad luck. Tomorrow will be better.”

“Maybe,” Heinrich replied, his head hanging. For all his rebelliousness and general contempt for things military, Heinrich wasn’t accustomed to defeat when he really, truly exerted himself. After losing first at chess and now at ancient games, he seemed broken inside. “I just don’t know anymore.”

I sighed and leaned back, looking down at the ruins of dinner. To be safe, I’d bought everything except my own hay from a randomly-chosen vending machine and carried it back to the room myself. My own food I obtained from a travel-supply shop down in the main terminal that catered to rich passengers. They offered packets of hay for the servants. My dinner was half-green and tasted terrible, and I gathered that the tuna-fish sandwiches weren’t much better. But the food was at least borderline nourishing, and as safe as could be managed for the moment. The military life wasn’t meant to be one of luxury.

I sighed and gave up on Heinrich for the moment, then turned back to the Yans. Someone had to partner me during the twentieth-century session tomorrow and if Heinrich’s spirit was broken, well…“Are you
sure
you two aren’t up to a board-gaming match?”

Ho met his brother’s eyes, then shook his head sadly. “Not at this level, sir.” He sighed and looked away. “You know what we are, at heart. All soft skills, no actual brains.”

I winced as my own words were thrown back at me. It had fallen to me to punish the Yans for being AWOL the night before, and I’d come down on them like a ton of bricks. It was perfectly justified, I still believed—after all, we’d needed them badly after James and the professor grew ill and they’d been nowhere to be found. While it was an unwritten rule at the Academy that cadets never ratted each other out—I’d never report their absence formally and they knew it—the pair could at least have taken turns and covered for each other, as they’d done so superbly while sneaking off the Academy grounds back home. I’d put them on indefinite watch-and-watch, with one assigned to stand sentry down in the lobby at all times except when both were required elsewhere. It was a harsh punishment; in a few days they’d both be dizzy with fatigue. But their offense hadn’t exactly been insignificant either, and I of all people couldn’t afford to be taken lightly even by my fellow cadets.

They were also correct, however. The Yans were terrible at chess and only slightly better at higher-level board games. Their true genius lay in their ability to understand and exploit human blindnesses, foibles and frailties. It was damnably difficult, however, to cheat at the higher forms of gaming. They might or might not make good naval officers; the jury was still very much out on that one. For the purposes at hand, however, they were superlative card sharks and nothing more. I sighed and turned back to Heinrich.