Robert Heinlein - Citizen of the Galaxy

"Nonsense. The kid speaks pure Terran."

"Okay, so it's my ears. I've been exposed to bad influences -- been aboard too long."

"If," Brisby answered calmly, "that is a slur on your commanding officer's pure speech, I consider the source. Stinkpot, is it true that you Riffs write down anything you want understood?"

"Only with Araleshi... sir. Nothing personal, you asked. Well, how about it? I've got the noise filtered out"

"Doc?"

"Hmm... The subject is fatigued. Is this your only opportunity?"

"Eh? He'll be with us quite a while. All right, wake him."

Shortly Thorby was handed over to the berthing P.O. Several liters of coffee, a tray of sandwiches, and one skipped meal later the Colonel and his second in command had recorded in clear the thousands of words of old Baslim the Beggar's final report. Stancke sat back and whistled. "You can relax, Pappy. This stuff didn't cool off -- a half-life of a century, on a guess."

Brisby answered soberly, "Yes, and a lot of good boys will die before it does."

"You ain't foolin'. What gets me is that trader kid -- running around the Galaxy with all that 'burn-before-reading' between his ears. Shall I slide down and poison him?"

"What, and have to fill out all those copies?"

"Well, maybe Kris can wipe it out of his tender gray matter without resorting to a trans-orbital."

"Anybody touches that kid and Colonel Baslim will rise up out of his grave and strangle him, is my guess. Did you know Baslim, Stinky?"

"One course under him in psychological weapons, my last year at the Academy. Just before he went 'X' Corps. Most brilliant mind I've ever met -- except yours, of course, Pappy, sir, boss."

"Don't strain yourself. No doubt he was a brilliant teacher -- he would be tops at anything. But you should have known him before he was on limited duty. I was privileged to serve under him. Now that I have a ship of my own I just ask myself: 'What would Baslim do?' He was the best commanding officer a ship ever had. It was during his second crack at colonel -- he had been up to wing marshal and put in for reduction to have a ship again, to get away from a desk."

Stancke shook his head. "I can't wait for a nice cushy desk, where I can write recommendations nobody will read."

"You aren't Baslim. If it wasn't hard, he didn't like it."

"I'm no hero. I'm more the salt of the earth. Pappy, were you with him in the rescue of the Hansea?"

"You think I would fail to wear the ribbon? No, thank goodness; I had been transferred. That was a hand-weapons job. Messy."

"Maybe you would have had the sense not to volunteer."

"Stinky, even you would volunteer, fat and lazy as you are -- if Baslim asked for volunteers."

"I'm not lazy, I'm efficient. But riddle me this: what was a C.O. doing leading a landing party?"

"The Old Man followed regulations only when he agreed with them. He wanted a crack at slavers with his own hands -- he hated slavers with a cold passion. So he comes back a hero and what can the Department do? Wait until he gets out of the hospital and court-martial him? Stinky, even top brass can be sensible when they have their noses rubbed in it So they cited him for above-and-beyond under unique circumstances and put him on limited duty. But from here on, when 'unique circumstances' arise, every commanding officer knows that he can't thumb through the book for an alibi. It'll be up to him to continue the example."

"Not me," Stancke said firmly.

"You. When you're a C.O. and comes time to do something unpleasant, there you'll be, trying to get your tummy to and your chest out, with your chubby little face set in hero lines. You won't be able to help it. The Baslim conditioned-reflex will hit you."

Around dawn they got to bed. Brisby intended to sleep late but long habit took him to his desk only minutes late. He was not surprised to find his professedly-lazy Exec already at work.

His Paymaster-Lieutenant was waiting. The fiscal officer was holding a message form; Brisby recognized it. The night before, after hours of dividing Baslim's report into phrases, then recoding it to be sent by split routes, he had realized that there was one more chore before he could sleep: arrange for identification search on Colonel Baslim's adopted son. Brisby had no confidence that a waif picked up on Jubbul could be traced in the vital records of the Hegemony -- but if the Old Man sent for a bucket of space, that was what he wanted and no excuses. Toward Baslim, dead or not. Colonel Brisby maintained the attitudes of a junior officer. So he had written a dispatch and left word with the duty officer to have Thorby finger-printed and the prints coded at reveille. Then he could sleep.

Brisby looked at the message. "Hasn't this gone out?" he demanded.

"The photo lab is coding the prints now, Skipper. But the Comm Office brought it to me for a charge, since it is for service outside the ship."

"Well, assign it. Do I have to be bothered with every routine matter?"

The Paymaster decided that the Old Man had been missing sleep again. "Bad news, Skipper."

"Okay, spill it."

"I don't know of a charge to cover it I doubt if there is an appropriation to fit even if we could figure out a likely-sounding charge."

"I don't care what charge. Pick one and get that message moving. Use that general one. Oh-oh-something."

" 'Unpredictable Overhead, Administrative.' It won't work, Skipper. Making an identity search on a civilian cannot be construed as ship's overhead. Oh, I can put that charge number on and you'll get an answer. But --"

"That's what I want. An answer."

"Yes, sir. But eventually it reaches the General Accounting Office and the wheels go around and a card pops out with a red tag. Then my pay is checked until I pay it back. That's why they make us blokes study law as well as accounting."

"You're breaking my heart. Okay, Pay, if you're too sissy to sign it, tell me what charge number that overhead thing is; I'll write it in and sign my name and rank. Okay?"

"Yes, sir. But, Skipper --"

"Pay, I've had a hard night."

"Yes, sir. I'm required by law to advise you. You don't have to take it, of course."

"Of course," Brisby agreed grimly.

"Skipper, have you any notion how expensive an identification search can be?"

"It can't be much. I can't see why you are making such an aching issue of it. I want a clerk to get off his fundament and look in the files. I doubt if they'll bill us. Routine courtesy."

"I wish I thought so, sir. But you've made this an unlimited search. Since you haven't named a planet, first it will go to Tycho City, live files and dead. Or do you want to limit it to live files?"

Brisby thought. If Colonel Baslim had believed that this young man had come from inside civilization, then it was likely that the kid's family thought he was dead. "No."

"Too bad. Dead files are three times as big as the live. So they search at Tycho. It takes a while, even with machines -- over twenty billion entries. Suppose you get a null result A coded inquiry goes to vital bureaus on all planets, since Great Archives are never up to date and some planetary governments don't send in records anyhow. Now the cost mounts, especially if you use n-space routing; exact coding on a fingerprint set is a fair-sized book. Of course if you take one planet at a time and use mail --"

"No."

"Well... Skipper, why not put a limit on it? A thousand credits, or whatever you can afford if -- I mean 'when' -- they check your pay."

"A thousand credits? Ridiculous!"

"If I'm wrong, the limitation won't matter. If I'm right -- and I am, a thousand credits could just be a starter -- then your neck isn't out too far."

Brisby scowled. "Pay, you aren't working for me to tell me I can't do things."