Glen Cook - Passage At Arms

My opinion? Another triumph for the people who blessed us with V- 1.

I lost my faith in God as soon as I was old enough to discern the rampant inconsistencies and contradictions in Catholic dogma. My faith in the dogma of physics went when, after having been browbeaten with the implacable laws of thermodynamics for years, I discovered the inconsistencies and contradictions involving neutron stars, black holes, hyper, and the Hell Stars. I just can't buy a package of laws that's good every day but Tuesday.

But I believe what I see and feel. I believe what works.

As a practical matter, to make the ship Climb, or go null, Engineering pumps massive energies into the Climber's torus, which is a closed hyper drive. When the energies become violent enough, hyper cannot tolerate the ship's existence. It spits the tub out like a peach pit, into a level of reality wherein nothing outside the toroid's field responds to ordinary physical law.

I'm reminded of those constructs topologists love to play with on computers. They don't try for just fourth- or fifth-dimensional constructs, they go for eighth or fifteenth. The ordinary mortal mind just can't encompass that.

Welcome to Flatland.

I'm an observer. A narrator. I should observe and report, not comment. As a commentator I tend to become flip and shallow.

Diekereide is a babbler, as mouthy as Westhause is off-ship. He meanders deeper into the forest. I hear the latest gossip about matter without fixed energy states, the new rumor about atoms with the nuclei outside. He gives me a blushing peek through the curtain at nonconcentric electron shells and light hydrogen atoms where electron and proton are separated by infinity. He whispers that matter in null has to exist in a state of excitement cubing that the same atom would have at the heart of a star. I don't ask which star. He might give individual specs.

Strange and wonderful things. I glance at the opening leading to Ship's Services and wonder if it's the same hole Alice tumbled down. I decide to keep an eye peeled for a talking rabbit with his nose in a wacky watch.

Diekereide has more secrets to share.

The more energy fed to the torus, the "higher" into null a Climber goes. Altitude represents a movement across a range of null wherein the physical constants change at a constant and predictable rate, for reasons as yet unknown.

"Oh, really?"

Diekereide is deep into his mysteries. He only catches the edge of my sarcasm. He gives me one puzzled glance. "Of course."

One of my nastier habits. If I don't understand, I tend to mock. I caution myself again: Observe and report.

Jokingly I ask, "What would happen if you threw the whole thing in reverse?"

"Reverse?"

"Sure. Sucked power out of the torus. Right out of the fabric of the universe."

The man has no sense of humor. He fires up Engineering's main computer and begins pecking out questions.

"I wasn't serious. I was joking. For God's sake, I don't want to know. Tell me more about altitude."

Altitude is important. I know that from my pre-reading. Altitude helps determine how difficult a Climber is to detect. The higher she goes, the smaller her "shadow" or "cross section."

Enter the rabbit. His name is Lieutenant Varese, the Engineering Officer. He indicates that Diekereide is late for a very important date and takes over the explaining. He has a whole different style.

Our paths have never crossed before, in this life or any other. Still, Varese has decided he isn't going to like me. He sends a clear message. It won't help even if I save his life. Diekereide, on the other hand, will remain my comrade and champion simply because I nod and "Uh-huh" in the right places during his monologues.

Varcse's unflattering estimate of my mental capacity is nearer the mark than his assistant's. He gives me a quick PR handout of a lecture.

He says the Effect—by which he means the Climb phenomenon—was first detected aboard overpowered singleships of the unsyncopated rotary-drive type. "The Mark Twelve fusion drive?" I ask brightly.

One sharp nod. "Without governor or Fleet synchronization." Scowl. Fool. You can't buy into the club that easily.

Pilots claimed that sudden, massive applications of power caused their drives to behave strangely, as if stalling, if you think in internal combustion terms, or temporarily flaming out, if you favor jets. Something was going on. External sensors recorded brief lapses of contact with hyper, without making concomitant brushes with norm.

Those reports came out of the first few actions of the war. The problem didn't arise earlier because in peacetime the vessels weren't subjected to such vicious treatment. There were apparent psychological effects, too. The affected pilots claimed that their surroundings became "ghostly."

Physicists immediately posited the existence of a state wherein fusion couldn't take place. The overexcited pilot would jam himself into null, his drive would cease fusing hydrogen, his ship would fall back...

Frenetic research produced the mass annihilation plant. Con-traterrene hydrogen, mixing with terrene in controlled amounts, can bang out one hell of a lot of energy in any reality state.

Demand produced a CT technology almost overnight. The first combat Climber went on patrol thirteen months after the discovery of the Climb phenomenon.

End of PR statement. Thank you very much for your kind interest. Now will you please go away?

We're very busy down here.

Varese doesn't use those exact words but makes his meaning perfectly clear. I don't think I'm going to like him much, either.

My second hour aboard. I've learned a valuable lesson about serving in the Climbers. Don't try to meet everybody and see everything right away. I've made myself odd man out in the hammock race.

I returned to Ops figuring I'd take whatever was left over, once everything was settled down.

There isn't anything. The enlisted men are eyeing me. I don't know if it's apprehension they feel, or if my response will give them some measure of me as a man.

This ship has no Officers' Country. No Petty Officers' Quarters. No Chiefs' Quarters. The wardroom is a meter-long drop table in Ship's Services. It doubles as a cook's bench and ironing board.

Everything has its round-the-clock use.

I work my way through Weapons without finding a home. Feeling foolish, I'm working my way through Ship's Services, to continuous polite negatives, when I notice Bradley watching. "Charlie, this scow is too damned egalitarian."

"I saw your problem coming, Lieutenant. Made you a place. Ship's laundry."

The ship's laundry is a sink-and-drainboard arrangement that doubles as a wash basin and sick bay operating table. Bradley has stretched an extra hammock in the clear space overhead. I up my estimate of the man. This is his first mission. He knows little more about the ship than I, yet he has identified a problem and taken corrective action.

"I won't get much sleep here." Under ship's gravity the nadir of the hammock should dip into the sink.

"Maybe not. It's the only basin aboard. But consider the bright side. You won't have to share with anyone else."

"I'm tempted to throw a tantrum. Only I think I'd get damned unpopular damned fast, throwing my commission around." A couple of Bradley's men are watching me with stony faces, waiting for my reaction.

"True." He's begun whispering. "The Old Man says seeing how much the new officers will take is their favorite sport."

"You and me against the universe, then. Thanks. If there's a next time, I'll know better than to play tourist."

"It's your time outside the Service, I guess. Dulled your instincts. I caught on right away."

He's skirting the edge of a painful subject. I beat the wolf down and reply, "The instincts better come back fast. I don't want to be the poor relation at the feast forever."