The Lotus Eaters (58 page)

"Yes?"

The older man sighed. "Miguel, you've got more talent for submarines than I do. So think I and so thought the Volgans and Yamatans and Zionis who trained us. But you know why you're being the stalking horse while I go in for the test? Because I was afraid that, under pressure, if things go wrong, you might hesitate for just that fraction of a second that might get you all killed. Not hesitate because you're afraid . . . but hesitate because you're afraid of being afraid . . . or showing that you are."

At that, Quijana's scowl deepened.

Frowning at the distraction, John Battaglia, Duke of Pksoi, initialed the electronic tablet showing the daily intelligence report without really reading it. This was understandable; printed, the thing would have run to several hundred pages. What was less understandable was that he barely glanced over even the much shorter summary. If he had, he might have noticed that the intelligence office was unconvinced that—even though a Federates States airship had downed the skimmer from
Harmony
—that it had been the FSC behind the attacks on Santander. He might also have noticed that the Balboan submarine program had apparently launched another boat.

Then again, Battaglia might not have noticed. Those things were trivial and he was already completely taken up with the coming return of the new High Admiral and his own somewhat precarious political position.

If that twat, Wallenstein, hadn't taken the admiral's staff with her, there would be people to handle this sort of trivia for me. Irresponsible bitch!
More philosophically, he thought,
Then again, if she were here with the admiral's staff I wouldn't have to worry about it at all.

Pushing the report aside, Battaglia raised his eyes and asked his aide, "What's on the schedule for today?"

"Sir," the aide de camp answered, "a shuttle is laid on to visit the
Kofi Annan
and the
Mitterand
. If there's time, the
Margot Tebaf
is also standing by for a morale raising visit."

The aide managed to keep her tone neutral through all that. It didn't pay, generally speaking, for Class Two's to question the wisdom of morale visits by Class Ones.

Unlike Battaglia, the aide
had
read the intelligence report in its entirety. And, while she had noted that the wretched little "Republic" of Balboa, below, had moved a new submarine from the factory to the sea, she knew—having looked at the specs of the thing—that there was no way it could pose any threat to her own fleet. It never even crossed her mind, no more than it would have Battaglia's, that one tiny little submarine, stuck down below, could matter in the slightest.

"Engage the clicker," Chu ordered, from his post in the sail. Almost immediately a small box mounted to the hull began emitting a regular
clickclickclick
, simulating a slight irregularity in a jet propulsor, badly insulated from the escape of sound. It sounded exactly like what one might expect of an inherently complex naval system, built in—and to the usual standards of—the undeveloped or semi-developed parts of the planet. The sound from the clicker was faint. Chu could only
just
hear it, and then only if he concentrated.

"Take us out."

There was a slight disturbance in the water around the sub's bow, and a marginally more noticeable one aft. The boat eased itself forward, very slowly and aimed directly at the gate. In a control room overlooking the interior of the pen, one of the sailors pressed a button. Immediately, the armored gate—it was as well armored as the rear portal over the rail lines—began sliding open with the expected deluge of sound. Chu's
Meg
passed through the open gate and made its way toward the middle of the bay.

About two thirds of the way to the middle the captain ordered, "Course one-eight-seven. Take us past the island." The boat began a slow veer to port.

* * *

There was a single trixie, bright green and red quasi-feathers clear against the blue sky, circling the tree-crowned island as it passed astern to the left. Almost immediately, the waves, which had been practically non-existent, grew to a height of a couple of feet. A medium yacht would have noticed them; on the Meg they had no real effect.

A small yacht, its passengers engaged in fishing just at the mouth of the bay, sheltered behind the small island, saw the sail of the Meg pass by about half a mile away. The passengers, sport fisherman from the Federated States, to all appearances, waved at Chu, which wave he returned.

Chu then disappeared into the hull of the
Meg
. A few minutes later, the sail began to sink into the waves.

Though built around a large infantry brigade, Janier's command included both air and naval components, as well as some foreign detachments. As such, the brigade staff was a joint-combined staff. As such, each staff section contained officers, warrants, and non-commissioned officers from the other services, and some from other states in the Tauran Union.
Lieutenant de Vaisseau
—Lieutenant of the Line—Surcouf was the Gallic senior naval type on de Villepin's intelligence staff.

Surcouf shook his head, wonderingly.

"What's that?" asked de Villepin.

"Oh, the latest little Balboan submarine just left the pen at Puerto Lindo," the lieutenant answered. "A test run, I suppose, since it's brand new. Our people doing observation aboard the yacht just waved it out. I honestly don't know why those people even bother; the things are so outrageously noisy that we could find this one, or any of its siblings, any time we like. Seems like such a waste of money and manpower."

"Think we should dispatch the southern frigate"—there was a frigate at each terminus of the Transitway—"to track it?" de Villepin asked.

Surcouf thought about it for a moment before answering, "No . . . no, sir, I think not. If
Ney
tracks it they'll know they're easily spotted. Then they might actually start thinking about and then fix the problem with the noisemakers they think of as water jets. Better this way, I think. Big surprise for the Balboans if it ever comes to a fight."

"Fair enough," de Villepin agreed. "What's
Charlemagne
's progress?"

"Four days sailing; then she'll be here."

De Villepin nodded, then said, "It's kind of odd, isn't it, that the locals aren't reacting to the approach of the carrier. It's not like it's a secret. And one would think that it would at least alarm them some, cause some limited mobilization. But nothing. Not even an increase in telephone traffic."

"I agree it's odd, sir. But who can understand these people, anyway?"

Maybe nobody
, de Villepin thought.
I wish I could, though.

The string across the open was noticeably bowed. The depth meter read six hundred meters. Location was roughly sixty miles out in the Shimmering Sea. The crew was alternately sleeping, or snacking, or playing games at their battle stations, while waiting for the clock to run. A small buoy on a wire linked the
Meg
with the surface, receiving the Global Locating System signal while Chu and company listened for any code words that would indicate a change in plans.

"Time, skipper," announced Guillermo Aleman.

"Retrieve the buoy," Chu said.

* * *

On the surface the captain of the tender that always accompanied test runs noted the time. "They'll be taking off soon," he muttered.

Glancing over his chart, the tender's captain gave the order, "Turn on the clicker simulator. Set course for Point Bravo. Speed, six knots." He smiled, thinking,
Just exactly as if we were still following the sub around
.

* * *

It took about three minutes for the small electric motor to bring the buoy back to its station atop the sail, which also closed the tiny doors above it as the buoy settled. The motor, itself, was contained in and shielded by the sail. It was essentially a silent process.

"Tender's taking off, skipper," sonar announced. "Heading generally to Point Bravo at . . . call it six knots. She's engaged her clicker."

Chu gave the order, "Ensure the clicker's off. Sailing stations. Boys, let's go link up with
Orca
at the rendezvous point."

Surcouf stood in front of a wall-mounted map on which the course of the
Charlemagne
battle group was plotted. There was another plot, too, on the map. This was the plot of the second Balboan submarine which had sortied the night prior. The second plot was on an intercept course with the first. Still a third plot showed the course of the Gallic Navy frigate, the
Michael Ney
.
Ney
was shadowing the sub at a considerable distance. Then again, because of the sub's apparently appalling internal workings, shadowing at a distance was easy.

"Why did you sortie the frigate for this?" de Villepin asked. "I thought you said . . ."

"Yes, sir," Surcouf interrupted. "I did. But this one"—he tapped the map—"this one is heading for the battle group. I figured that sending the frigate out now would not be suspicious, since we would want to escort the
Charlemagne
in, anyway. But I
am
suspicious. I think they intend to try to get through the screen."

"If they try and we intercept, won't that alert them that they're noisy."

Surcouf looked worried. "Yes, sir, it would. I'm still thinking about how to warn them off without letting them know they're so easy to track."

De Villepin thought about that briefly, then asked, "How common would it be for the submarine escorting
Charlemagne
to separate itself from the battle group and then try to penetrate the screen?"

Surcouf rocked his head a bit from side to side, thinking. He finally answered, "Not uncommon. Though the submarine with a battle group usually takes point by as much as fifty kilometers, they do—situation permitting—sometimes test their own defenses. Good practice for the submariners, too."

"How hard to vector that escort sub close enough to the Balboan that active sonar would pick both up?"

"Only a little more difficult. A submarine would almost never use active sonar. Surface ships do . . . at least for some purposes and under some circumstances.
Diamant
is
Charlemagne
's escort. If they're hunting her, they might well use active . . ."

De Villepin caught Surcouf's hesitation. "Yes?"

"We also sometimes go to active targeting sonar in the wake of an attack."

De Villepin looked appalled. "I didn't mean we should have the escort sub actually
fire
on the carrier."

"No, no, sir. We do simulated firings, basically we shoot a blast of water and air out the torpedo tubes."

"Let's try that, then."

"There is a problem, though, sir," Surcouf mentioned.

"What's that?"

"Well, sir, pinging a submarine with sonar on firing mode, rather than a general search, is rarely done except by prior arrangement. It's
almost
an act of war. It's certainly considered a threat. Submariners start filling torpedo tubes and calculating firing solutions when they get pinged by targeting sonar from a ship or another submarine. They've been known to open fire, even in times of peace, though that is never officially admitted to by the parties concerned. Never."

Sonar heard it even though no one else did. He pressed a button and waited for the computer to do the analysis. When that was done, a matter of a few seconds, he announced in a soft voice, "Captain,
Orca
's passing two hundred meters above us and twelve hundred meters off of our starboard bow."

"Put it on screen," Chu ordered. Immediately the large plasma screen that was mounted a half dozen meters in front of Chu's command chair lit up with generated images of the
Meg
, centered, and the
Orca
, some distance off. Numbers arrayed around the images gave information on depth, course and speed. The whole effect of the screen was keystoned, as if to display the ocean not from above but from an angle.

"Helm, follow her once she's eight thousand meters ahead. Maintain this depth."

What, then, would be a proper test of civic virtue? Perhaps better said, what range of tests would be proper?
At a bare minimum, such a set of tests must be undertaken voluntarily, at least in practice. It would, presumably, be appropriate to inform the people that there is such a battery of tests. This could be in the form of a draft notice, provided that it is only form and there are no other legal or social costs—not even so much as implied—to failure to report.
The tests, themselves, should have the following characteristics, if we are to deny the voting franchise to those who lack civic virtue:
They must be dangerous, difficult, and dirty; enough so, at least, to dissuade enough of those who lack civic virtue from undertaking them. They should be useful to society. Lastly, they must train those who have demonstrated sufficient civic virtue to sufficient skill in violence to be able to maintain their rule, for the good of all.
"Sufficient skill" is, of course, a relative matter. A solid basic combat training is adequate for this, when those who lack the vote (because lacking in civic virtue) have no such training. Beyond that, whatever jobs are required by society should suffice. If what society needs for the foreseeable future is a mass of infantry, armor, artillery, and combat engineers, then that is where the prospective citizen should go, and those the branches into which he or she should train. If building roads in the hot sun is more valuable, that is where they should go, consistent with the need for roads. Work of any kind, done primarily in a comfortable building, without danger, stress, and hardship, should not qualify. Nor should they be given any real choice in the matter.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral
,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468