The Lotus Eaters (31 page)

Richard snorted. "My Lady, I know my peers. They don't deserve proskynesis. Neither do I. Neither does anyone."

Oh, I can
probably
work with this.

"What do you think about your new responsibilities as captain of a starship."

The boy didn't even hesitate in answering, "That I'm utterly unfit for them. Not necessarily unsuited; about that I just don't know. But I am unfit for them as I am now."

Yes, I can work with this.

"What do
you
think you need to become fit . . . ?"

* * *

Esmeralda knew she wasn't really fit to be the High Admiral's cabin girl. For one thing, she hadn't been aboard ship nearly long enough to become used to the reduced gravity. Nor did she really know any of the protocol. On the plus side, she could at least find her way to the galley and to small cabin Wallenstein had assigned her as quarters.

For that matter, other than for her capture in TransIsthmia and shipment to Razona Market, she hadn't been a slave long enough, or profoundly enough, to really understand it. She'd been raped, of course, by her guards and the vendor. But that was to be expected. Nor was it anything new; she'd been raped with some regularity for the last couple of years by the household troops of Count Castro-Nyere. She didn't like it, not even remotely, but it was something one got used to especially when every girl of her class could expect it, and no one attached any particular shame to it.

On the other hand, she'd had a strong feeling that being a slave, had that status continued, would have been awful indeed. And that's assuming she hadn't been stuffed into a wicker basket and burned alive by the Orthodox Druids as her former owner and vendor had indicated would happen if she failed to find a buyer.

Now? Well, she wasn't precisely free. But she was well clothed, well fed, free from the threat of rape, and was even paid a cabin girl's stipend.

Life could be a lot worse
, Esmeralda thought, as she scurried between the Admiral's quarters and galley,
than it is aboard this starship. And the High Admiral has never made any demands on me for any service my parents wouldn't have approved of.
That
I never expected when she brought me away from the market.

* * *

Starships were their own best flight simulators. Ideally, a captain would practice with his own bridge crew on his own ship. Unfortunately—

We can't do that
, thought Marguerite, as she drilled Richard for approximately the twelfth time on procedures for deploying the sail
. For one thing, for better or worse, and until and unless I decide to space him, he
is
the captain. As such, I need him to be effective. Put him on the bridge and show the crew he knows nothing and I'll have to space him to avert a mutiny. For another, we don't need to actually
go
anywhere right now. So . . . we use the simulator with only
myself
in attendance.

"That was a little
better
," she said. "But we'll do it again even so. And this time, Captain,
do
try to remember to empty the fill ring and draw in the lines
before
you give the order to rotate sail."

Richard looked at the simulated ruin of the sail in the viewscreen, then hung his head, ashamed. "I'll try to do better, High Admiral," he whispered.

Odd
, Wallenstein thought
. I feel sorry for the boy. Do I actually rather like him? Maternal instincts, so long held in check, resurfacing? Elder gods, wouldn't
that
be funny? Me, feeling something beyond contempt for a Class One? Then again, the boy's not a
normal
Class One, is he? No, he's actually pretty human.

And, thinking of Class Ones, I
do
wonder what that inbred idiot I had to leave in charge of the fleet is doing in my absence.

Gods! It was so hard to leave the fleet in that dolt's care. Not that I had any choice.

It has been said, and often repeated, that military and naval officers fell into one of four categories: A) active and intelligent, who made good staff officers, B) lazy and intelligent, who made good commanders because they, being lazy, would always find an easier way, C) lazy and stupid, who could be put to good use by clever staff officers and commanders, and D) active and stupid, who should be shot for the improvement of the breed.

It should be noted that, in a command context, stupid is a fairly relative term; many people, though more than ordinarily bright, are still far too stupid.

* * *

Harmony
was not Battaglia's ship. Rather, that worthy normally commanded UEPF
Spirit of Brotherhood
. Still, he was in charge; he was responsible.

"He wants to count widgets," the captain of
Harmony
said to his exec. "Widgets and flight line and azimuth cores. He also wants to inspect whatchamacallit maintenance and framistat compliance. Likewise dingas calibration and our ship's ever-critical frobnis program. Similarly, oojamafrip orientation."

"
Sirrr
?" the exec asked. "Sir, I have not the first frigging clue what you're talking about."

"Neither do I," the captain said, with a shrug. "Neither does he. Neither does anyone. What the Earl of Pksoi really wants is to fill up his time by wasting ours."

"Ahhh. I'll get right on it, sir. I'll have the crew polishing widgets and calibrating dingases in no time."

The captain smiled. "See that you do. And don't forget the oojamafrip orientation."

"Oh, yes, sir," the exec agreed, false enthusiasm shining in her face. "Very important to orient our oojamafrips. Or it would be if we had any . . . whatever they may be."

The skipper chewed his lower lip for a few moments, thinking very dark thoughts, and then added, "Remember, we've only got to put up with this shit until Wallenstein gets back."

"If the Consensus doesn't space her, sir."

"Well . . . yeah."

"But, sir, what if they
do
?"

* * *

Did ever a man talk so much and say so little
, wondered
Harmony
's skipper as Battaglia droned on, and on, and on, for the third hour of his little post inspection pep talk.
"Vanguard of order and peace" . . . yeah . . .
that's
gonna resonate. "Inadequate maintenance"? Get my crew some fucking
spares
asshole. "Ration accountability?" What the fuck; do you think they're selling the shit dirtside? Dropping it in containers? Getting the payment exactly
how
? Oh, elder gods, spare me the attentions of the First Class.

Gods; what if the Consensus really
does
space Wallenstein?

High Admiral Marguerite Wallenstein stood in the light. There was minimal gravity in this chamber, perhaps fifteen percent of Earth normal. She held onto a rail with one hand. In the simulation room, Richard, Earl of Care, sat in the silent darkness of a virtual reality helmet that completely enclosed his head. Moreover, he sat on a complex gimbaled chair. Wallenstein hit a button, beginning the disaster response program called, for reasons lost to antiquity, the "
Kobayashi Maru
."

* * *

The exercise was
supposed
to be disconcerting. Some very fine minds, psychologists' minds, had gone into making it so, back in the days when the Peace Fleet had mattered to more than a few.

It began with sensory deprivation. All sound was cut off by the helmet. The comparative lack of gravity made the command chair, and the straps that held Richard to it, something less than real. The stars, or, rather, their images, swirled before his eyes, making it seem as if he were tumbling, end over end, lost and alone. Richard felt nausea begin to rise. He tried to focus on one star alone, in an effort to keep the nausea at bay. It didn't work; they were clustered too close together to blot out the rest.

A voice began to drone in Richard's ears, explaining the situation. He knew he was supposed to pay close attention but with his rising gorge he was barely able to make out the general scenario.

He did catch a few things, ". . . first ship to transit . . . new star system . . . disaster . . . no relief or rescue possible . . ."

It was sufficient for the program that Richard's vital signs show nausea. It wasn't strictly necessary that he actually vomit. Accordingly, as soon as he'd reached the necessary threshold, the stars cut out, being replaced by lifelike images of the bridge crew—rather,
A
bridge crew from sometime back in the Twenty-third century—going about their daily business. Past the bridge crew were several viewing screens. In one of them Saturn receded in the distance. Various well-lit diagrams of his ship stood spaced along the walls.

Richard felt the tiniest shudder in his command chair, even as the images likewise moved slightly in his view. He didn't notice it, but several sections of the diagram changed color subtly.

One of the female crew clasped a hand to one ear. "Captain," she announced, "meteoroid strike amidships. Belts fifty-eight through sixty, decks . . . Zulu through . . . Victor report minor air loss."

Richard hesitated for a moment, the nausea was still with him.

The crewwoman asked, "Shall I seal off the affected sections, Captain? Shall I dispatch damage control?"

Fuck me to tears
, Richard thought.
The High Admiral will have my ass for lunch for that.

"Aye, away damage control parties to the area of the penetration." Richard took a quick glance at the diagram. "Negative on sealing the area."

"Aye, aye, sir. Damage control parties away."

"Casualties?" Richard asked.

"None reported, Captain."

* * *

"Skipper, this is Damage Control Alfa. We've found the hull breach. Sealing it now."

"How large is the breach?" Richard asked.

"Two millimeters, no more," the program answered. "We've leaked a little air but nothing dangerous."

Richard turned his head toward life support, the VR helmet changing scene with the turn. "How do we stand on reserve oxygen?"

"Reserve storage is more than adequate to compensate for the loss, Captain," the program answered, in a man's voice. It then added, "Carbon dioxide filtration and separation continues without degradation."

* * *

Okay. Well enough
, thought Marguerite.
The boy didn't overreact. Of course, he hasn't yet asked the right questions . . .

* * *

His command chair definitely shuddered. And this time it was non-trivial.

"Meteoroid strike, Captain," the same female simulacrum said. "Stern, belts ninety-four through ninety-seven, it has passed through all decks. Captain, there are casualties. The ship has taken on a four mil yaw."

Fuck.

"Damage control?" Richard asked.

"Aye, Damage Control here, Skipper. I've dispatched a team."

"Good," Richard said, then asked of the female bridge crewwoman, "Can we get visual on the damaged sections?"

"On screen now, Skipper."

Apparently power was at least partly out in the most recently struck section. The cameras had to operate off of light enhancement. This was perhaps just as well as the first image the viewscreen caught was of the remains of a crewman, sliced in two and then explosively decompressed. Parts of his torso had gone fairly flat while his inner organs floated outside. The two pieces of the late crewman rotated, one clockwise, the other counter. The grainy green image was at least some insulation from what would, in living color, probably have been another nausea inducing experience.

"Skipper," Damage Control added, "we're not going to be able to get in there until that team suits up."

"How long?" Richard asked.

"Be at least a quarter of an hour," Damage Control answered.

At least the strike wasn't near either of the reactors
, the captain thought.

* * *

And you
still
haven't asked the right question. Tsk.

For a moment Marguerite contemplated giving the boy a hint.
But, no, let him figure it out for himself.

* * *

"Meteoroid strike, Captain. Deck seventy-four, belt X-ray, compartment one-eleven. External cameras show it slicing the hull but not entering the ship. No casualties."

"Elder gods, where in the Hell are they coming from?"

* * *

"Bingo," Marguerite said aloud. In his VR helmet there was no chance of Richard hearing. "That was the right question."

* * *

"I've got nothing forward, Captain," the crewwoman answered. "Nothing on radar, lidar or visual."

"Then look
behind
," Richard commanded.

The simulation was good enough for the crewwoman's face to acquire an expression of horror. She turned back away and began manipulating the controls in front of her. A flip of the switch, just before she faced back toward Richard, changed the viewscreen from slowly orbiting entrails to an outline of the ship. The diagram shrank in scale until a cloud of
something
appeared on the lower right side of the screen. A dotted line, marked with time hacks, showed the ship's course. Another showed the course of the meteoroid cloud. They intersected.

"I ran back the orientation of the spinning decks in time, Captain. All three strikes came from the direction of that cloud."

The simulated crewwoman turned again back toward her panel and the viewscreen. She exclaimed aloud, with a strong note of panic, "Lord Buddha, we're going to die!"

* * *

The program could be used both with or without a human moderator. It was preferred to use such a moderator, because machine intelligence had never proved worth a damn in analyzing or reacting to the nuances of human emotion, or the speech which either moderated it or exacerbated it. A human might get it wrong; a machine was certain to.

Wallenstein listened very carefully to every syllable Richard uttered.

"Calm down," she heard Richard snap. "Give me some options."