Temporary Duty (45 page)

Todd met him with a broad smile. "Messages for you," he said, and indicated two sheets of paper and an envelope lying on the study desk. "Everybody got a copy of the top one, they’re waiting for you to translate. I got part of it." The half-smile became a frank grin. "The other one’s just for you."

The top one was only a couple of sentences; Peters translated it aloud:

"
‘The council of zerkre of
Llapaaloapalla
extends its thanks to the humans. The expenses of your upcoming holiday will be met by the council.’
Well, that’s mighty nice of them," he remarked. "We can both pass the word."

"Yeah." Todd’s grin had become sly. "Now the other."

Peters picked it up, with a doubtful glance at the grinning sailor. It had a salutation:

«
Peters,
Thank you for your assistance in the recent salvage operation. Your efficiency and prompt and effective attention to detail were greatly appreciated by all participants.
By this evidence you are recognized as a zerkre of
Llapaaloapalla
of the third precedence. I have been informed that your airsuit pattern is as required by your position within the human precedence structure. When you are acting as a zerkre, alter your suit pattern to reflect your precedence among the crew. If your superiors permit, on other occasions you may display your precedence among the zerkre as a small square of four divisions on some portion of the suit.
Your living allowance will now reflect your status as a crewmember of the third precedence. The enclosed is provided in additional recognition of your special effort.
By order of Preligotis, First of Llapaaloapalla,
Heelinig, Second for Personnel and Operations.
»

Peters looked up at Todd, who was still beaming. "Yes, I read it. It took me a while to puzzle it out," said the younger sailor without apology. "I thought maybe a little square on the right arm, just below the shoulder, would be about right."

"Hmph." Peters looked down at the paper, then up again. "Somehow I can’t see the Master Chief goin’ along."

Todd shrugged. "Well, it does say if your superiors permit … we never did put the ship’s name on our suits," he pointed out. He gestured at the desk. "I didn’t open the envelope. I expect we both know what’s inside, but I’d like to know how much."

"Yeah." Peters ripped at the envelope, finally getting the flap open. "Not too bad. You need a loan?"

"How much?"

"Let’s see … I ain’t never seen a sixteen-ornh bill before. One, two … sixteen of those. Four squares of ornh."

"Five thousand dollars, more or less. What’s that?"

"That" was a note in Grallt script, clipped to another piece of plastic paper. Peters read it aloud: "«
To crewman Peters, third precedence: This is your share of the salvage of the fighting-ships of
Brindalpoalla»–that’s the name of the pirate ship, I found it in the raider CO’s stuff–«
as supervisor of the salvage crew: two squares of trade shares. The additional four squares of ornh consitute a bonus
.» It’s signed "By order of the First", like the other one, but I don’t recognize the name underneath. Says he’s the third of
Llapaaloapalla
for financial affairs."

"Purser," Todd suggested.

"I reckon." Peters was staring into space, calculating, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come!"

"Just passing the word," said Vogt a little apologetically, looking curiously at the paperwork Peters was holding. "The runner’s just been to the Master Chief." He extended a plastic flimsy. "We think we know what it says, but you better check it for us."

Peters took the sheet and scanned it. "Says here liberty’s going ahead, just a little late. The boats’ll be loadin’ after the second meal tomorrow for the trip down."

"That’s about what we thought we’d made out, but we wanted you to make sure."

"Yeah," Peters nodded. The programmer returned the nod and started to close the door, but Peters interrupted: "Wait."

"Yeah?"

"Everybody got one of these, right?" He picked up the first piece of paper and showed it to the other.

Vogt inspected it briefly and shrugged. "Far as I know. I know I got one, but I haven’t seen the translation yet."

"It says the Grallt are payin’ for our liberty again, except it’s the ship’s crew payin’ this time."

Vogt’s eyes lit. "Hey, great! The last couple haven’t been much fun, what with only having our pay to spend."

"Well, that ain’t a problem this time. Pass the word if you would."

"I sure will! Thanks, Peters." Vogt left, unceremoniously in the way they’d all adopted.

Todd was still grinning. "Well, you don’t need for anybody to pay for your liberty," he pointed out. "I can’t help thinking that a man with a half-million dollars in his pocket can find something interesting to do."

Peters grinned thinly. "I reckon you’re right." He eyed the younger sailor. "If I do, you’re invited. My treat."

"Thankee."

"Hunh. We been in this together since the beginnin’, wouldn’t seem right otherwise." Peters regarded the share paper and the number written on it: dash dash two. "Anyhow I reckon it’s better if I go ahead and spend it."

"How’s that?"

"You forgot who we are? Couple of enlisted pukes. What do you bet there’s some kind of regulation’ll make us turn this in when we get home?"

"You think so?"

"Don’t see how it could happen any other way. The suits’ll be antsy to get all this stuff." He waved vaguely, indicating
Llapaaloapalla
and all it contained. "Can’t see ‘em lettin’ a little thing like it belongin’ to me stand in their way."

Todd had sobered. "You’re probably right."

"Yeah. Oh, they’ll figure out some way to make it all elegant like, probably like they did when we got back from Palestine, we gotta turn it in for American money."

"Or they might just call it income and tax it away," Todd suggested. "You ever had a run-in with the IRS?"

"Not personally… Hunh. 2055 already, and we ain’t even got our forms, let alone turned ‘em in. ‘Course we been kinda busy and pretty far from a mail drop, but that ain’t no excuse to the Revenue."

"You got that right… what do you suppose they’ll say it’s worth?"

Peters grinned without amusement. "Hell, I don’t know. Dollar a share or somethin’. Whatever it is, it won’t be enough for us to buy any of the shit we’ve been seein’."

"You’re probably right," Todd acknowledged with a nod. "So you figure that paper’s either about two good drunks apiece…"

"… or a pretty damn nice time the rest of the cruise," Peters finished. "I know which one I’m gonna pick. Like I say, my treat. Let’s see if we can spend it all before we get home."

* * *

It wasn’t at all clear what a white web belt and a 5.56mm automatic would do to keep the boogers off if the said boogers came calling with spaceships and nukes, but on balance Peters approved of the bow and stern watches in spite of their seeming futility. As the Master Chief had said, they’d been slipping into a sloppy disciplineless state, and having the regular watches was a Navy-like arrangement that tended to keep their minds on business.

The Master Chief had kept his word: the only ones not on the watch rota were the medics. For some strange reason he and the other Chiefs tended to get the morning and midday watches instead of missing their sleep, but the principle was clear and the example was impressive, if not quite what Peters would have done in the situation.

Llapaaloapalla
was rotating slowly, stars drifting by from lower left to upper right. The Grallt didn’t seem to care about that, or maybe they didn’t have the fineness of control to prevent it; at any rate, whenever they were on orbit the ship seemed to wander … as did his mind in this circumstance.

Liberty on P’Vip had been a bust, fortune in his pocket or no. The site, a timber lodge in the midst of a vast snowy plain with little copses of scruffy trees, hadn’t been to anyone’s taste. There’d been nothing around it, and no transportation to more salubrious climes available–Peters had asked that first thing, and gotten what amounted to sneers. The only entertainment available had been trekking in the snow, either on foot or using riding animals like skinny cows.

It had been a relief, really, that the Master Chief insisted on rotating people back up to
Llapaaloapalla
for the security watches. About all they could do on P’Vip that they couldn’t do on the ship was get stone stinking drunk, and Peters for one didn’t find that terribly entertaining.

One thing: The food had improved, as promised. The inhabitants of P’Vip, surly and graceless as they were, had a biochemistry closer to human and Grallt than the last few they’d visited, and tasty items were again appearing on the menu. One of them was something like pasta, flat strips of a starchy substance, and another was a spicy preserved meat. Combined with tomatoes and a few spices from the Grallt supply, they made a very acceptable substitute for spaghetti that almost everyone, Grallt or human, liked and took whenever it was available.

The watch finally dragged to an end, as watches do no matter how seemingly interminible, and Peters surrendered the duty belt and sidearm to his relief. Gonsoles donned the gear, having to let the belt out to accomplish that, and set himself at parade rest in the dead center of the opening, facing outward at the stars. Peters snorted to himself. He hadn’t thought the roughneck was that imaginative.

Chow and a nap, in that order. Flight ops at the beginning of the next
ande
.

The planet framed slightly off-center in the forward bay door was called Irkinnik, and its inhabitants were "bür". Most of the sailors had trouble with the umlaut, but "beer" was close enough for most purposes. Dee had said they were warlike, and very, very good. She’d also said she thought the Navy pilots were better. That was about to be tested.

Peters checked off another statuette. Here were the "Draculas": tall, thin to the point of shoulder blades and hipbones showing clearly in their
kathir
suits, with long narrow faces, bright red lips, sharply pointed jaws and noses, and close-cropped head hair with distinct widows-peaks. All they needed was long black cloaks, especially when one smiled, bringing distinct, and sharp, canines into view. Either there wasn’t much difference between their sexes or only one sex was represented among the visitors to
Llapaaloapalla
.

They were nice people, soft-spoken and unfailingly polite, and didn’t have much use for military drill or formal punctilio, but they weren’t the least sloppy. They’d approached in well-kept diamond formations, individuals peeling off to land while the others circled around, and their ships were parked in neat echelon alongside the demo plane, which was a Hornet this time. All their
kathir
suits were marked the same, a rich blue with red simulated briefs, except for different numbers and designs of yellow stripes on the sleeves, probably rank designations.

"Well, now we know where this bucket of bolts came from," Tollison rumbled cheerfully. Todd had expounded his theory about different "flavors" or "feels" of technology, and the two First Classes had talked it around; it was now the consensus of the humans, or at least the enlisted, and the evidence was persuasive. Bür ships were rectangular blocks with rounded corners, painted white with geometric designs here and there, collateral descendants of
Llapaaloapalla
if not direct ones.

"The theory seems sound," Mannix observed, "but perhaps we should ask someone likely to know more about it. Dee, did the bür build
Llapaaloapalla
?"

"I don’t know," Dee confessed. "If so, it was before I was born." Theoretically she was now liaison between the enlisted and the Grallt, and she was useful in dealing with the Trade organization–even after all this time none of the sailors had met her superiors–but that wasn’t necessary very often, and in fact Peters had better relations with the
zerkre
than Dee did. If the sailors needed to know something, usually Dhuvening or Linvenig told Peters, Peters told Dee, and Dee told the Master Chief.

It kept Peters out of Joshua’s sight; he was even beginning to rub along fairly well with Howell. The fact that it didn’t make sense wasn’t worth considering.

"Now hear this," Joshua said over the general push. "Flight operations will begin in three-two minutes. All hands, rig for flight operations. I say again, flight operations will begin at the turn of the next
ande
. All hands rig for flight operations. That is all. "

"I wish he’d decide whether to use Earth time or Grallt time," Peters groused. "Mixin’ ‘em up that way’s likely to get everybody confused."

"Look on the bright side," Mannix advised. "At least he’s using the ship’s designations sometimes. He started out using nothing but Earth time and bells." Peters just grinned and headed up to collect his deck gear. Aunt Lulu had believed in ouija boards. Peters was certain that he’d never accept a message from beyond the grave as being from Mannix if it didn’t include the phrase "Look on the bright side" or some equivalent.

Rupert was waiting at Retard Three, and Jacks ambled up as Peters was checking the settings: all correct. One of the ways the bür had endeared themselves to the sailors was by sending pathfinders–the first out of six alien encounters–with the proper mass and speed settings, and by seeming content to allow humans to operate the retarders instead of supplying their own crews. Not that they really needed them. The ships the bür flew might not look sleek and flashy, but they handled them with sure deftness, matching speeds so perfectly that the fields were rarely deployed. Peters recalled Keezer’s comments, but made sure the settings were correct anyway.

The humans’ planes were first out as usual, Hornets in the lead this time, so the visitors could see how the system worked. Over the voyage they’d refined their plane-handling techniques with the enkhei remarks about "performances" in mind. The result was highly stylized, and would probably get them in trouble when they got home and had to operate twice as many planes in a quarter of the space, but it sure as Hell looked pretty. When the bür’s turn came they made an attempt to go along with the gag, mistaking a few of the ground-guides’ wand signals but not doing badly for newbies.