Chapter 3
Loud honking broke Wolfe out of a dream. Instantly, the visions of the victory, in which he was leading a shining army into the midst of the rebel stronghold on Pteradon, where the insurgents greeted him with open arms, and the beautiful, scantily-clad women who had been held prisoner by the outlaws showered their rescuer with their gratitude, faded from colorful spectacle to the spider-web crackle of the ancient enameled ceiling in his new quarters.
With a gingerly forefinger he poked the control that operated the window shading, trying to discover the source of the noise. The glass cleared. S-shaped white forms bustled around on the grassy slope just outside that led down to the river that ran around two sides of the spaceport. As his eyes grew used to the faint light of false dawn he realized they were geese. The birds, originally from Terra, were frequently employed as guard animals in low-to medium-security areas. They were cheap to feed and aggressively territorial. The only downsides were that they were noisy, and their droppings made traversing the green lawns an obstacle course.
He glanced at his chronometer. Oh four hundred hours! He groaned. That meant he’d only gotten three and a half hours of sleep. He jerked up into a sitting position, but the stabbing sensation in his head told him that fast movement was a very bad idea. New rule, he told himself, moving more gingerly toward the dribbly shower, no more matching the troops drink for drink. They were used to the effects of their white lightning. He, most assuredly, was not.
He peered out the window for the source of the horn music. Was this a new form of reveille? No, it was Mother Nature. Just beyond the barrier fence was a broad wetland. He was being serenaded by a host of marsh hounds. They were local avians whose baying voices reminded the person who named them of howling dogs. By the look of the colony alighting on the water for a predawn breakfast, their numbers were in no danger of decimation, except perhaps by annoyed service personnel whose precious sleep was interrupted by their noise.
He dragged himself to the bathroom to throw cold water on his face. PT started at 0500. Breakfast ran from 0700 to 0800. There ought to be plenty of time to get the barracks in order before Mason arrived for inspection at 1100. He pulled on a sleeveless tunic, light exercise pants, and absorbent-insoled running shoes. No point in showering before he got sweaty.
Well before exercises were scheduled to begin, Wolfe ran out onto the yard, the paved area in between the barracks and the mess hall. Running a quick eye around the perimeter track in the twilight of false dawn he judged that eight laps would be a kilometer. The morning was cold and damp, a bleak contrast to the hot sunny weather prediction that had showed up on his clipboard screen. He started jogging, gradually increasing his speed until his heart beat pounded in his ears, and he felt a healthy sweat break out on his skin. The headache faded, and he began to feel optimistic about the coming day.
The large chrono on the brow of the mess hall showed 0459 when Borden, also in a singlet, shorts and running shoes, emerged from the barracks. Behind her, in swim fins and a boiler suit, was Thielind. They jogged to the center of the exercise field and stood at attention. Their hands flew to their foreheads in salute. Wolfe joined them and threw them a jaunty salute in return.
“Are the others on their way out?” he asked.
“No, sir!” Thielind announced, snapping off the words like firecrackers.
“Why the hell not?”
“Not their day for it, sir!”
“Huh?”
“Rest day, sir!” the thin, darkskinned man explained, still eyes-front. “Firstday, Thirdday and Fifthday, half our force goes back to the main base to train at war games with the other units, and the rest of us helps patrol the spaceport. Secondday, Fourthday and Sixthday, the halves alternate. This is our day off. Sir.”
“They don’t do PT on restdays?” Wolfe asked.
“Nossir! It’s restday!” Thielind announced with conviction. Wolfe shrugged.
“Well, I guess that’s reasonable. They come in for breakfast, then?”
“Nossir! They don’t turn out until maybe ten or ten thirty on restday.”
“That won’t do!” Wolfe said, with a frown. “The commander will be here in a few hours. I want everyone up and dressed in plenty of time.” With purpose he strode toward the barracks. Borden caught up with him.
“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you, sir,” she said, trotting alongside him.
“Why the hell not?” He flung open the door. It crashed against the wall. Twenty bleary faces lifted from pillows or tank, and peered at him.
“Good morning!” he announced. “I know today’s your day off, but we’ve got an inspection later on. Breakfast at 0700! See you there!”
He left Borden and Thielind behind and marched back to his quarters. The pathetic shower stream seemed even lighter than it had the night before. It took three times as long to soap up and scrub down. By the time he got dressed he was fully awake and feeling fit.
By the time he arrived in the mess, he was feeling rather jaunty. The grounds were tidy, his quarters were clean, and he had a hearty appetite for breakfast.
Borden and Thielind flanked an empty chair at the end of one of the two long tables next to the buffet servers. Borden gestured to him and pointed to the chair. He nodded, and turned his attention to the food bins.
One thing he had to hand the Space Service: they provided excellent coffee, and the servobots knew how to prepare it so it was hot and fragrant, never burned or bitter. He took a pot and mug, placing them on his tray with meat-filled rolls, wholegrain cereals, dairy blocks, pastries, and a bunch of shiny red grapes. He took his time enjoying each selection. Borden ate like an automaton. Thielind eyed each bite suspiciously before putting it into his mouth.
Nearly everyone in the room had availed themselves of the coffee, though he saw many a heavy head hung over the white china mugs. The three nonhumanoid troopers sat at the far end of the second table. The semicat gave Wolfe a look of slit-eyed annoyance and tore the end of a meatroll off with its pointed teeth as if dispatching prey. Boland, who had drunk plenty of home brew the night before, looked as though he could bleed to death through the eyeballs. Mose did not meet anyone’s eyes directly. Lin held her spoon limply, dozing in between bites. Only Jones seemed to be in good spirits, buttering bread and chattering to his neighbors.
When he finished his meal, Daivid stood up and tapped on the side of his coffee mug for attention.
“Company, the commander arrives in three hours. I want everyone to give this inspection their full attention. Get everything sparkling, and I promise you won’t regret it. Thank you. That is all. Fall out at will.”
No one raised head, eyes, or voice to reply. Things were looking up. No one was going to give him an argument. Then he noticed the glance between his two officers.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir,” Borden replied, and took another precise spoonful of cereal.
Gradually, the troopers drifted out of the dining room, followed at last by Thielind and Borden. Alone in the hall, Daivid thought he would treat himself to just one more cup of the excellent coffee. He savored its aroma and complex, bitter taste, thinking command wasn’t as hard as he had feared it would be.
He finished the last sip just as the wall chrono changed from 0759 to 0800. He set his tray in the hatch, where it was taken out of his hands by the robotic dishwasher. Leaving the machines to do their jobs, he strolled across the exercise yard to check on the progress of the cleanup.
Everyone must still be suffering from mighty hangovers. Daivid could hardly hear a sound as he stepped up into the barracks. It was too quiet. Looking in the door, he realized the big room was empty. Not a bunk had been made, nor had any other efforts to make the place neat been made. The square-bodied automatic sweeper was drifting around the floor, sucking up used pows and sorting fallen cards and gathering glasses. It hummed when it sensed him, and veered around his feet. He sidestepped it and headed for the bathrooms. Could they all be in the showers? He couldn’t hear any water running.
The bathroom, too, was empty. And filthy.
He hurried out of the door and circled around to the junior officers’ quarters. On the threshold he stood panting. Borden, her back to him, kicked the cleanerbot.
“Dammit, I said wipe the windows and sweep the floors, not the other way around!” The small robot paused in mid-movement waved its multiple arms at her. Fine sprays of cleaning fluid splashed her. “Gah! Stupid machine!” She lashed out with a foot again. Thielind looked up calmly from making his bed.
“Don’t do that,” he reproved her. “It will never learn from violence. You’ve got to treat them with love, Lizzie.”
“Dammit, don’t call me that! Sir!” She noticed Daivid and swung into a salute, regaining in an instant her stonefaced aplomb.
“Sir!” Thielind echoed, clapping his hand to his head. It was holding what looked like a solid-gold loving cup. Sheepishly, he lowered it and put it behind his back. “What can we do for you?”
“Where is everybody?” Wolfe demanded.
He didn’t have to explain what he meant. The junior officers glanced at one another.
“It’s restday, sir,” Thielind offered. “Everyone’s resting.”
“Where are they ‘resting’?” Daivid asked, apoplectic with fury. “We’ve got an inspection soon! I’ll ream their asses. Where did they go?”
Thielind shook his head. “Maybe a dozen places. Maybe all over.”
“Name them, ensign,” Daivid insisted. “I’ll get a flitter. No, I’ll borrow a riot van from the brig. I’ll handcuff and haul each and every one of them if I have to!”
“You can’t take the time, sir.” Borden shook her head. “One thing they are very good at is disappearing when they don’t want to be found. They’ll come back when they’re good and ready. We’ll help you clean. There’s plenty of time.”
“The bots will help us,” Thielind promised. He hoisted the malfunctioning automaton and carried it with him.
“Damn them, what were they thinking?” Daivid stormed.
The junior officers followed him in silence, giving Daivid plenty of time to think about what he would do to the company when he found them. Keelhauling? If he could find a keel, he’d tie them all end to end and sling them underneath it until …
“Whoo!” Thielind whistled. “Someone musta had a party in here. It looks worse than when I left, around 0300.” He put the cleanerbot on the floor and flipped open its maintenance lid. “There. It’ll work like new.”
“Good,” said Wolfe. “Now I want you to go out and find them. Tell them that if they are not back here, clean, sober and in their dress whites by 1100 hours their asses will be grass. Is that clear?”
“Yessir!” Thielind said. “Aye aye.” The skinny ensign scooted out of the door.
Borden put her hands on her hips. “It’s not as bad as it looks, sir,” she said. “Between us we can get this done in an hour.”
“Where do we start?” Wolfe asked, looking at the mess in dismay.
“Bathroom last,” she suggested. “It’s what we’ll be clearing the rest of the mess into. Dusting first. The robots will take care of that. Then beds.”
They turned the cleanerbots loose on the dusting and clearing up of the debris from the party, but the beds had to be done by hand. That was a longstanding service tradition. The custom of spacers, in fact members of all branches of the armed forces, straightening up their own sleeping pads was one that went back all the way to Old Earth. No matter what else, no matter what services or technology were available, each man or woman or whatever had to make the bed. Wolfe thought it was a stupid throwback, but rules were rules. Until he was in a position to change them, he had to follow them. He snapped out a sheet, the harsh sound reflecting his bad mood. How dare the Cockroaches flout his order? he thought, stuffing in loose ends with a knife-sharp hand. What the hell was the matter with them?
He was furious to realize that they held the cards on this one. He could report them. X-Ray Company would all have to face dereliction of duty punishment, but they didn’t care. They were already in the worst unit in the service. But he, he would be removed from command as being unable to hold his own with them. First impressions: if he was perceived as inept from the very beginning he would have no chance of changing that perception once it got into the minds of the brass. As badly as the people upstairs wanted him out of the regular chain of command they couldn’t leave him in charge of a band of creative screwups. Listening to them last night had convinced him they were guilty of far more than the service had been able to prove. That uncertainty was why they continued to wear the uniform. They had outmaneuvered him first time out of the gate. He had to find a way to turn that around.
Still, there was a homey satisfaction to completing a simple task like making beds. By the third bunk he found himself falling into a rhythm, bending, shaking out the sheets, tucking in the corners.
“This takes me all the way back to summer camp,” he said to Borden, thumping a pillow between his hands. “My dad used to send us to Parker’s Planet for eight weeks every year. It took a week’s transit to get there, and another back again. Those were good times.” Ah, those were the days, he thought, slinging the pillow against the headrail. He had a vision of those carefree summers, full of swimming, hiking, sleeping out of doors, getting bitten by a range of insects and scraping himself up by falling out of trees or off rocks, learning how to make annoying noises and how to tell even more annoying jokes, the bigger boys teaching but just as frequently picking on the younger boys. The counselors attempted to impose discipline from above, but things had a way of getting settled down in the lower echelons by themselves by means of minor torture and often cruel practical jokes. The perpetrators got away with it because to rat out a fellow camper was punishable by even more of the same. Camp and the space service had a lot in common. Simple times. Simple responsibilities. Simple relationships. Simple revenge.
He had held his own back on Parker’s Planet, learning the bigger boys’ techniques and turning it around on them. No one got the better of a Wolfe. No one should. Involuntarily his upper lip drew back, showing his teeth. Suddenly, he caught Borden staring at him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“With respect, I don’t like the look on your face, sir,” the officer said. “You … looked for a moment like you might bite someone.”
“Nothing like that. I just had an idea,” he replied, unable to keep from grinning ferally. “I was just thinking that you learn a lot about coping with life from living with your peer group. Were you ever at sleepaway camp?” Borden nodded. “Ever heard of the Vortex?”
“… No …”
“Well,” Wolfe said, flicking out another bedsheet with practiced hands. “Watch and learn.”
She did watch, respect dawning on her face for the first time.
“Sir, we can’t do that?”
Daivid was in no mood to argue. “This is an order. If I have to earn the privilege from you I’ll do it later. For now, just do it.”
Borden watched him again, as he took all the bedclothes off Ewanowski’s bunk and remade it deftly. “No, sir, you’ve earned this one just for teaching me something new. I never saw that before.”
“Good.” Daivid made sure she knew all the steps, then turned her loose to work on her own. The tall woman’s hands were even more adept than his. Very shortly, the two of them had remade all the beds on one side of the room, and were starting on the other.
“What’s wrong with Lizzie?” Wolfe wondered aloud. “It’s in your bio. At least, it’s a derivative of one of your middle names.…”
“With all due respect, sir,” Borden’s voice returned to its original ice-cold tone of the day before, “I don’t care for the implication. Everyone in this unit has a combat name, a handle. If you perused the records you have seen them all noted. Mine is not Lizzie.”
In his mildest voice, Daivid said, “I just thought it was a nickname, lieutenant. No offense intended.” He bent all of his natural charm on her, smiling warmly, willing her to thaw out. As one of the only people in the company to prove a trusted ally, he didn’t want to lose her good will. In some lights he knew his yellow-hazel eyes could turn a mellow gold. He’d used the effect to beguile treats out of schoolmates, and less innocent favors out of dates. “Please. I’ve been here less than a day. You’ll have to let me have more than one gotcha.”
Borden hesitated. “Well …”
Daivid fluttered his eyelashes. “Pretty please?”
A brief smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Aye, sir. Sorry to be so quick on the trigger. You’ve walked into an ancient minefield.”
A bright ping! from the cleanerbots informed him that they had finished their assignments. Daivid went to inspect. All the windows glistened, the tabletops and even the locker tops had been cleared and wiped, and the lavatories looked pristine enough to do surgery on. The barracks was clean.
On the other hand, he wasn’t. His neatly pressed dress uniform was now a mass of crumples and smudges from bumping into the edges of the bunks. It was a quarter to eleven. There wasn’t time left to put the uniform through a full pressing cycle. He would be lucky if the box could sponge off the dirt spots. He felt his temper rising all over again. He glanced up at Borden.
“Lieutenant, why did they go off without cleaning up? Don’t they want to look good for the brass? You’d think that they would want to gain some points, not lose them. Don’t they give a damn?”
Borden hesitated, her cool eyes wary. “Permission to speak freely?”
Wolfe nodded.
“With respect, we,” and Wolfe understood that he wasn’t part of the ‘we’ yet, “really don’t give a damn.”
Wolfe eyed her. “Then why are you helping me?”
The harsh face softened just a little. “Permission to continue speaking freely? Because I feel sorry for you. You’re so gung-ho. You’re an idealist.” Pain etched itself between the perfect eyebrows, then smoothed out again. “I almost remember what that high feels like, before it got wrung out of me by … circumstances.” Ouch. That stung Daivid, remembering the bogus reasons that he had been sent here to X-Ray. The others all had similar stories to tell, probably worse than his. He had been sheltered from a lot of bad treatment because of the command’s fear of his family. He promised himself he would read the personnel records in more detail as soon as he could. “The others sort of feel sorry for you, too.”
“Then why aren’t they here?” Daivid asked reasonably.
Her eyebrows went up. “Permission to express an opinion? Because you gave them an order.”
Daivid felt outraged. “What? But that’s my job! And it’s theirs to obey!”
“Yeah, it is, in a way, but you haven’t earned the right. The one thing that’s missing in any military is a way to make sure that officers are worthy of leading the troops under them. You’ve read history—officers used to be nobles, who bought their commissions. The peasants under them didn’t have any choice but to follow. It didn’t matter if the officers could lead their way out of a one-way door. Times have changed over the last few millennia. With few exceptions, the service has been all volunteer. We’re better educated, more experienced, and have more to offer than any army humankind has been able to muster since they started carrying sticks and stones. You’ve got guys in here who have been in the service since long before you were born. Look at Jones. How old do you think he is?”
Wolfe thought about the chunky man, mentally counted the few white hairs shot through the dark curls. “Fifty.”
“Seventy-two. He’s been in fifty years. He’s going to go easier on you than a five-year spacer will, but why should he? He’s buried about one officer every other year since he joined up.”
Wolfe brushed at his tunic thoughtfully. “I had no idea troopers thought that way. Every other unit I’ve been in everyone is so young and inexperienced. All our officers were older than we were, and their CO’s were older and had been in longer than they had.”
The look Borden gave him had sympathy in it. “Well, the real thing is more messy than that. Once you really get out into the void you’ll be serving with sixty-year-old recruits and twenty-year-old colonels. Nothing wrong with that. But if it was me walking in here I’d download the company records as a bedtime book. Sir.”
“Don’t mess with them, huh?”
“In my personal opinion. Sir.”
“Well, that’s good advice, but it goes both ways,” Wolfe said, straightening his shoulders. “I’m here to do a job, and I’m serious about it, so they’re going to have to respect that. If we have a little rough going on the maiden voyage, so be it.”
“Fine, sir,” Borden said tonelessly. “We’ll see who breaks first.”
“Yes, we will, lieutenant,” Wolfe said, with some satisfaction as Thielind led the sheepish-looking troopers back into the barracks. “Remember the Vortex.” He smiled at the smug looks on the faces of his company as they looked around at the spotless room. Throwing salutes toward the officers they shrugged out of their fatigues and headed for the showers to clean up. “Where’d you find ‘em, ensign?”
“Oh, usual place,” Thielind replied vaguely. “Permission to tidy up, sir?”
“Granted,” Daivid said. “Let’s make this an inspection to remember.”
O O O
“Very nice, very nice,” Mason said, ambling slowly through the room. She wore white gloves that all but fluoresced in the acid lights. Occasionally, she ran a finger over the top of a doorjamb or underneath a bed frame. Not a mark. The cleanerbots had done a good job. Daivid had done a hasty steam on his uniform tunic, hoping to hide most of the stains with a layer of soapcream. It would only convince if she didn’t look too closely. A lot of things were going on underneath the surface in this unit. Mason might have locked them all up if she had had an inkling.
He marched stiffly behind her, pausing with hands folded behind his back every time she paused. The Cockroaches had turned out decently, though in everyday uniforms instead of dress. When he had started to fulminate over the omission, Thielind had caught his eye and dragged a forefinger across his throat. Wolfe had stopped his protest in mid-syllable. He would get an explanation from the ensign later. It was the only change upon which Mason commented.
“Though it is a restday,” she amended. “And I didn’t give you much time to polish up your best bibs and tuckers, did I?”
“Er, no, ma’am,” Wolfe said, without intonation. He knew that his troopers were watching him, trying to guess what he was thinking, and wondering why he wasn’t mad. The commander avoided the packing crate at the end of the room, which informed Wolfe that she knew its contents and had decided there were better battles to fight. At his insistence the Cockroaches had turned off the heating element before she had arrived, so the still wasn’t emitting either telltale steam or its burbling sound. No sense in throwing the commander’s kind omission directly in her face. Mason went out the back door to the armory, where she praised the spotlessness of the company’s weaponry and battle armor. One more pass through the barracks, and the commander swung around smartly to face him.
“Congratulations, Lieutenant Wolfe,” she beamed. “Everything looks top drawer. A robot couldn’t have done better. Anything I ought to know about?”
“Most of the infrastructure is in pretty good repair, ma’am,” Wolfe replied. “Most of the fixtures show a lot of wear, but they’re working. With one exception, I’m afraid: the plumbing in my quarters seems to have no pressure.”
One of the Cockroaches cleared his throat loudly. The trooper next to him hit him in the ribs with her elbow, never breaking her parade-ground stare.
Commander Mason glanced at her aide, who recorded a note. “I think you’ll find that your water problems are largely due to the unstable ground conditions here, lieutenant,” she said. “I have heard that complaint a lot. But maintenance will be out to take a look at it, and see if there’s anything they can do. Anything else?”
“No, ma’am. Everything’s shipshape.” Mason was openly relieved. “Good! You have done well on your first day, Lieutenant. I’m very pleased to see that you have everything under control so soon.” She raised her voice so everyone could hear. “That makes it much easier for me to inform you that I’ve got your orders for your first mission with X-Ray platoon.” The others looked wary, but Daivid felt pleased. A chance to prove himself, already!
“May I ask what it is, ma’am?” he asked, mentally kicking himself because he knew how eager he sounded.
Mason looked grave. “I’m afraid the orders are sealed until you are aboard the transport that’s coming for you, lieutenant.” A groan erupted from the company. Daivid frowned, and Mason started nervously. Perhaps he was jumping the gun. Borden said he was too gung-ho. Slide it down a little, he warned himself.
“Aye, ma’am.”
The commander glanced at the adjutant who waited by her elbow. “Five days, ma’am.”
“The Eastwood will be here in five days,” Mason repeated. “Get your unit ready. Again, well done, lieutenant.”
The commander and her entourage marched out of the barracks. Wolfe almost enjoyed the aura of worried anticipation around him as he surveyed his company.
“We passed,” he said, presenting a bland countenance. “I’ll expect a little more cooperation from the rest of you next time. Borden, Thielind, Lin, will you come to my office with me?”
“Aye, sir!” the two junior officers chimed.
Back straight, he marched out of the door with the others behind him.
“You know what?” Injaru asked the others, before he was quite out of hearing range, “I figured out why he’s not in the Family business. He doesn’t kick ass. He’s too soft. We got away with it!”
“Yeah,” Meyers smirked. “It sure was nice of him to make our beds for us.”
Certain none of them could see his face by then, Wolfe allowed himself a grin.
***