Walter Williams - Logs

"I mentioned your name," Martinez said. "But last I heard it was a temporary appointment. I think she's going to try a series of people."

"But I'll be first," Chandra said. "If I impress her, she won't need the others."

Martinez smiled encouragingly. "Good luck."

"I'll need more than luck." Chandra bit her lower lip. "Can you give me a hint about how best to impress the squadcom?"

"I wouldn't know," Martinez said. "I don't think I've managed it lately."

She looked at him with narrowed eyes, as if trying to decide whether or not to get angry. He picked up his stylus and said, "Come to dinner tomorrow. We'll discuss your ambitions then."

Her long eyes turned calculating. "Very good, captain."

She braced and he sent her away and went back to reviewing his office work, and nibbling on his dinner between paragraphs. He had no sooner finished both papers and the meal when Kazakov arrived with a new series of documents that, as executive officer, she was passing to him for review.

It was midafternoon before he finished all that, and went into the personnel files to acquaint himself with the petty officers he would be having to supper. They were as Kazakov had said: long-serving professionals, with high scores on their masters' exams and good efficiency reports from past superiors. All received high marks from Fletcher-including Thuc, the man he'd executed.

Martinez then checked the documentary evidence that should have corroborated Fletcher's good opinions, and almost immediately found something that appalled him.

His supper, he thought darkly, would be more than social.

He opened the supper with the traditional toast to the Praxis, and then gave a preamble to the effect that he was counting on the petty officers to maintain continuity in a ship that had just suffered a series of shocks, and he knew from their records and their efficiency reports that they were all more than capable of giving all that was required.

He looked from one of the eight department heads to the next-from round-faced Gawbyan to rat-faced Gulic, from Master Rigger Francis with her brawny arms and formidable jowls to Cho, Thuc's gangly replacement-and Martinez saw pleased satisfaction in their faces.

The satisfaction stayed there for the entire supper, as Perry brought in each course and as Martinez questioned each of his guests about the state of their department. From Master Data Specialist Amelia Zhang he learned the condition and the capacities of the ship's computers. From Master Rigger Francis he received a myriad of details from the stowage of the holds to the state of the air scrubbers. From Master Signaller Nyamugali he had an informative discussion on the new military ciphers introduced since the beginning of the war, a critical task since both sides had started with the same ciphers and the same coding machines.

It was a pleasurable, instructive meal, and the satisfaction on the faces of the department heads had only increased by the time Perry brought in the coffee.

"In the last days I've come to see how well managed a ship we have in Illustrious," Martinez said as the scent of the coffee wafted to his nostrils. "And I had no doubt that much of that excellent management were due to the quality of the senior petty officers here on the ship."

He took a slow, deliberate sip of coffee, then put his cup down in the saucer. "That's what I thought, anyway," he added, "at least until I saw the state of the 77-12s."

Their satisfaction on the petty officers' faces took a long, astounded moment to fade.

"Well, my lord," Gawbyan began.

"Well," said Gulic.

"The 77-12s aren't even remotely current," Martinez said. "I don't see a single department that can give me the information I need in order to know the status of my ship."

The department heads looked across the long table at one another. Martinez read chagrin, exasperation, embarrassment.

And well they should be mortified, Martinez thought.

The 77-12s were a maintenance log supposed to be kept by every department. The petty officers and their crews were supposed to make note of all routine maintenance, cleaning, replacing, lubricating, checking the status of filters, of seals, of fluids, of the airtight gaskets in the bulkheads and airlocks, of the stocks of replacement parts. Every item on Illustrious was designed to a certain tolerance-overdesigned, some would have thought-and each was supposed to be replaced or maintained well before that tolerance was ever reached. Every part inspection, every replacement, every routine maintenance was supposed to be recorded in a department's 77-12.

Keeping the records current was an enormous inconvenience for those responsible, and they all hated it and tried to avoid the duty whenever possible. But the 77-12s, properly maintained, were the most effective way for a superior to know the condition of his ship, and to a newly-appointed captain they were a necessity. If a piece of equipment failed, the 77-12 could tell the captain whether the failure had been due to inadequate maintenance, human error, or some other cause. Without the record, the cause of a failure would be anyone's guess, and finding out the correct reason would take time and could distract an entire department.

In wartime, Martinez felt that Illustrious couldn't afford the time and distraction of tracking the cause of any failure of a critical piece of equipment, not when lives were potentially in the balance. And he simply detested not knowing the condition of his command.

"Well, my lord," Gulik began again. There was a nervous look in his sad eyes, and Martinez remembered the sweat on his upper lip as he stood at the end of the line of weaponers, all passing under Fletcher's gaze. "Well, it all has to do with the way Captain Fletcher ran the ship."

"It's all the inspections, my lord," said Master Rigger Francis. She was a brawny woman, with broken veins in her cheeks and hair that had once been red but was now the color of a dishrag. "You saw how thoroughly Captain Fletcher conducted an inspection. He'd pick a piece of equipment and ask about its maintenance, and we'd have to know the answers. We wouldn't have a chance to look it up in the records, we'd have to know it."

Master Cook Yau leaned his thin arms on the table and peered around Francis' broad body. "We don't have to write the information down, my lord, because we have it all in our heads."

"I understand." Martinez gave a grave nod. "If you have it all in your heads," he added, "then it should be no trouble to put it all in the 77-12s. You should be able to give me a complete report in, say-two days?"

Martinez found himself delighted by the bleak and downcast looks the department heads gave one another. Yes, he thought, yes, it's absolutely time you found out I was a bastard.

"So what's today, then?" he asked cheerfully. "The nineteenth? Have the 77-12's to me by the morning of the twenty-second."

He'd have to continue the inspections, he thought, because he'd have to check everything against the 77-12s to make sure the forms weren't pure fiction. "Yarning the logs," as it was called, was another time-honored custom of the service.

One way or another, Martinez swore he would learn Illustrious and its workings, human and machine both.

He let them drink their coffee in the sudden somber silence, bade them farewell, and went to his sleeping cabin intending to sleep the sleep of the just.

"How did I do, Alikhan?" he asked in the morning, as his orderly brought in his full dress uniform.

"The petty officers who aren't cursing your name are frightened," Alikhan reported. "Some were up half the night working on their 77-12s, and kept a number of recruits up running from one compartment to the next confirming their recollections."

Martinez grinned. "Do they still think I'll do?" he asked.