Glen Cook - Passage At Arms

"Not from you," Throdahl says. "You got shit coming out your ears. But you're going to tell it anyway, so get it over with. We can't stand the suspense."

"One of these days, Thro. Pow! You know that? Wham! I got my right hand registered. Know what's wrong with you? You got no couth, Thro. Damn right I'm going to tell it. Get some class."

"What about the slut?"

"You got less couth than Thro, Barbarian. What she does is, she turns to me and says, 'You know, I started fucking when I was eleven.' I shit you not. Just like that. Straight off the bulkhead, and wearing the shit-eatingest smile you ever seen. Dusted me. Only thing I could think to say was,

'You should be pretty good, then.' And she said she is, and started telling me about all the guys she screwed and how they all told her she was the best they ever had."

"Get into her?"

"Fucking well right. Let me tell it..."

"Hey," one of the inner circle calls down. "You pick her up on Heyrdahl Road? She have a big Caesarean scar?" That's Laramie again.

"Yeah. So?" Rose sounds a little defensive.

"He ain't lying, guys. That's the slut that gave me the clap last tune we were in."

General laughter. Catcalls.

"You get that certain feeling when you piss?" Throdahl asks and hoots at his own comedic triumph.

"Knowing him," Laramie shouts, "he better start worrying about spitting."

The First Watch Officer leans past me and punches the general alarm button.

The Commander descends from his eyrie in seconds, surveys the silent compartment. He smiles when he sees me at my station.

He thumbs a switch on the shipwide comm. "This's the Ship's Commander. I have the conn. Stand by for maneuvering exercises. Department heads, report."

Each reports his men on station and ready.

"Engineer, what's your influential status?"

"Go, commander."

"Astrogator, are you clear?"

"Clear, Commander."

I glance at Westhause's back. He seems as embarrassed as Fisherman. Curious. He was no prude at the Pregnant Dragon.

"Engineering, take hyper at my mark. Stand by. Execute."

For an instant the ship's interior seems to spin and twist away into a geometric surreality.

"Departments heads, report."

Again all bailiwicks report a go.

"Mr. Westhause, program me a ten-minute Inoko Loop."

The maneuver is a four-dimensional figure eight. Jokester astrogators call it a Moebius trip. This one will return the ship to her starting point in the stated time.

Aboard normal warships the Bridge Engineer would relay the astrogator's program to his own department. Here the as-trogator and Chief Quartermaster handle the data relay.

"Ready, Commander."

"Execute."

There's no sensation of motion. Momentum has no detectable effect inside an influential field.

There's no evidence of movement inside the display tank, either. Westhause has chosen a small, slow, lazy, tight loop involving very little relative motion.

The man is deft, quick, and certain. He's a first-rate astro-gator. It's nice to know I'm flying with an expert.

The CUmber completes the loop. The Commander polls department heads again, drops hyper, conducts yet another poll. Everything is go-go-go.

He has Westhause program an hour's loop with secondary loops built in. Again the results are satisfactory.

There's but one test left. A Climb.

A terrible cold hand seizes me as the Commander begins the countdown. We're hi hyper again. For a few minutes I'm wholly convinced that we're going to die. Then there's a conviction that nothing can happen to this Climber. I'm aboard. Nothing can happen to me. Then the premonition of doom returns. Back and forth, a ball pounded by emotional racquets.

Worrying, I miss the antimatter ignition sequence. My first hint of how far matters have progressed is the Commander's 'Take her up."

There's no mistaking the groan of the Climb alarm. Tan-man's PR people have saturated the media with it.

"Annihilation stabilized," Engineering reports.

"Take her to ten Bev," the Commander orders.

"Ten Bev, aye, sir."

My companions suddenly acquire an ectoplasmic insub-stantiality. They seem to glow from within.

And the scene has become black and white. It's like looking into a big holo cube with its color module out. Gone are the flashing green, amber, and red lights. Gone are the colors of the nonuniform clothing the men all wear. Gone are the color-codings of piping, wiring, and conduit.

It's a spooky scene, these surroundings. Almost an argument for Fisherman's beliefs.

The glow in the men has nothing to do with life-force or souls. The hardware glows too. Even the atmosphere sparkles. During one of his lectures Diekereide told me we'd be sensing the energies binding subatomic particles when we saw the glow.

I can also discern the big darkness beyond the ship's hull. That's the spookiest part. A big black nothing without stars, trying to push its way in. A black dragon keeping mouth and eyes closed till it's close enough to gobble these fools who dare enter its lair.

I admit that I was warned. I didn't believe. The warning was useless. I'm scared shitless.

"Systems check," the Commander says. "Department heads report."

All departments are go. TerVeen treated the ship well.

"Take her up to twenty Bev."

I mutter, "Holy shit." I'm drowning in my own sweat, and with no better excuse than fear. Internal temperature hasn't risen, a tenth of a degree. My animal brain snarls. The heat converters are secured. The accumulators for the energy weapons haven't been discharged. Fuel Point might be attacked. We could be caught with our endurance limited...

The Commander won't discharge a weapon here, fool. That would be a dead giveway. A subtle treason.

The signature of an energy weapon lasts forever, though it flees the scene at the velocity of light. It can be backtracked to its point of origin.

I'm not the only one sweating before the drill ends. Fisherman, too, is soaked and twitching. Will he settle down? Will the pressure of combat be too much for him?

"Astrogator. Let's see your ten-minute Inoko again."

I stare at a lifeless screen and wonder how Bradley's troops put up with Climb. Their only clues to current events are the alarms. They're shut off from both the universe outside and the rest of the ship. Theirs is a tiny world isolated within our slightly larger universe.

"Loop completed, Commander."

"Very well. Take her down to twenty-five Bev."

'Twenty-five Bev, aye, sir."

Twenty-five? I must have missed us going up. How high were we?

"Ship's Services, commence dehumidification."

The rarefied atmosphere is near saturation. The simple thermometer near the compartment clock says real temperature increase has been but 3.7 degrees. I remind myself that in battle crews routinely endure temperatures approaching eighty degrees.

The Commander eases us back into hyper, shifts to fusion power, then drops to norm. "Vent heat," he orders.

A midnight woods-whisper trickles through the ship. Ship's Services is circulating atmosphere through the radiator vanes. In minutes the air feels chilly.

"Mr. Westhause, return to the tender. Mr. Yanevich, rig for parasite mode. Department heads.

Meeting in the wardroom as soon as the ship is secure."

I invite myself to the conference. As far as the Commander is concerned, I have access to everything but his classified material. None of the others asks me to leave, though Piniaz obviously resents my presence.

Performance in null is the subject. Everyone agrees. The ship is ready. Crew and intangibles remain the question marks.

"I want music piped into the basement," Lieutenant Varese says.

"We went through this last patrol," Yanevich replies.

"We'll keep going through it. I stick by my arguments. It'll help morale."