Glen Cook - Passage At Arms

His PR people are good. Half the population will be waiting breathlessly. Oh, ye mighty megaConmarks, gather ye in mine account—

I think Fearless Fred is going to be pissed. I think he assumes I'll follow the Party line.

Can I really do it straight? I really am afraid I won't give the broader picture that shows why Command does things that make the men in the trenches furious.

My real coup, arranging participation in a Climber mission, didn't reside in getting the Admiral to agree. The man is publicity-mad. No, it was getting the predators senior to Tan-nian to guarantee not to interfere with what I write. I conned them. They think I have to show the warts or the public won't believe.

Maybe the coup isn't that great, though. Maybe they outsmarted me. Tannian's foes are legion, and bitter. A lot of them reside in Luna Command. The guarantees could be a ploy to discredit the popular hero.

I haven't found anything but warts. So many warts that an imp voice keeps telling me to hedge my bets, to be sure I get past not only Tannian but that coterie of Admirals eager to defame him.

After talking to Kriegshauser, I clamber into my hammock. It's been an exhausting few days.

The loss of Johnson's Climber finally rips through the shroud of more immediate concerns. I replay the entire incident, looking for something we might have done differently. And end up shedding tears.

I give up trying to force the gates of slumber and go. looking for the cat. Fearless confesses this confessor. He's awfully patient with me.

He remains as elusive as the eido.

Despite the long, enforced proximity of the patrol, I've begun feeling lonely. I've begun detecting traces of the same internal desolation on other faces.

I'm not unique in remembering our sisters. The long, leave-me-alone faces are everywhere. It's a quiet ship today.

Our ship and Johnson's had an unofficial relationship for a long time, a romance that was a metal wedding, a family understanding. The two hunted and played together through a dozen patrols and leaves, beginning long before anyone in either crew came aboard. In the Climbers that makes an ancient tradition.

I find myself asking a bulkhead, "Do Climbers mate for life?" Will we, like some great, goofy bird, now go hunting our own demise? Have we become a rogue bachelor?

An inattentive part of me notes that the bulkhead has grown a layer of feltlike fur, like bluegreen moleskin. I touch it. My finger leaves a track. I wander off, forgetting it.

In Engineering I find a surly Varese supervising two men cleaning the guts of a junction box with what smells like carbolic. "What's up?"

"Fucking mold."

I recall the moleskin wall. "Ah?" I don't see anything here.

In Weapons half the off-watch are scrubbing and polishing. The carbolic smell is overpowering.

Here the fur is everywhere, on every painted surface. It has a black-green tinge. The paler green paint seems to be the mold's favorite snack.

"How the hell does it get in here?" I ask Holtsnider. "Seems it'd be wiped out going through TerVeen."

"They've tried everything, sir. Just no way to get every spore. It comes in with crew, food, and equipment."

Well. A distraction. Instead of pining about dead women, I can research mold.

It's an Old Earth strain that has adapted to Canaan, becoming a vigorous, fecund beast in the transition. Left unchecked, it can pit metal and foul atmosphere with its odor and spores. Though more nuisance than threat, it becomes dangerous if it reaches sensitive printed circuitry. The heat and humidity of Climb encourage explosive growth. Climber people hate it with an unreasoning passion. They invest it with a symbolic value I don't understand.

"Who won the pool?" I ask as I enter Ops, still having found no sign of Fearless.

Blank faces turn my way. These men are busy with mold and mourning, too.

Laramie catches on. "Baake, in Weapons. The little shit-head."

Rose nods glumly, head bobbing on a pull-string. He says, "He only bought one goddamned slip. To get us to quit bothering him. Ain't that a bite in the ass?"

"Better.get him to teach you his system," Yanevich suggests, with a heaviness that implies this scene has been played before. "You only need one when it's the right one."

"Useless goddamned electric moron." Rose kicks the main computer. "You screwed me out of a month's pay, you know that? What the fuck good are you if you can't figure out..."

Laramie and Throdahl bait him halfheartedly. Others join in. They start to show some spirit.

It's a distraction, the cut-low game. Not an amusement anymore. They go at it viciously, but no tempers flare. They're too drained to get mad.

Throdahl's comm gear pings gently. The games die. Work stops. Everyone stares at the radioman.

We're lying dead in space beside the instelled beacon. The rest of the squadron is parsecs away.

We assume that we'll be ordered to catch up.

Command has other ideas. Only now does Fisherman tell me we've been awaiting special orders.

That little ping brings the Commander swinging down from his cabin, an ape in a metal jungle.

"Code book," he calls ahead. Chief Nicastro produces the key he wears on a chain around his neck.

He opens a small locker. The closure is symbolic. The box is hardly more than foil. A screwdriver could break it open.

The Chief takes out a looseleaf book and pack of color-coded plastic cards banded with magnetic stripes.

"Card four, Chief," the Commander says after a glance at the pattern on Throdahl's screen. He slides the card into a slot. Throdahl thumbs through the code book. He uses a grease pencil to decode on the screen itself.

Only the initial and final groups translate: COMMANDER'S

EYES ONLY and ACKNOWLEDGE.

Muttering, the Old Man scribbles the text groups in his notebook, clambers back to his hideout.

Shortly, a thunderous, "Jesus fucking Christ with a wooden leg!" rips through the compartment.

Pale faces turn upward. "Throdahl, send the acknowledge. Mr. Yanevich, tell Mr. Varese to establish a lock connect with the beacon."

The beacon begins feeding a sector status update while he's talking. Our chase, kill, and escape has kept us out of the biggest Climber operation of the war.

The convoy that took so long to gather at Thompson's System is on the move. Second Fleet pecked at it and let it get away. In his grandiose way, Tannian has declared that none of those empty hulls will survive his attentions. One hundred twelve and one twenty are the estimates. Thirty-four Climbers are hi the hunt. Every ship hi three squadrons. Except ours and Johnson's.

"Shee-it," Nicastro says softly. "That's one hell of a big iron herd." His eyes are wide and frightened.

"Bet that escort figure goes up fast," Yanevich says.

"Hell. With that many Climbers they should take the escort first."

"Smells Eke a trap to me," I say. "With bait Tannian couldn't resist."

The fighting hasn't yet begun. Our brethren are still maneuvering into attack positions.

At first I think the Commander is upset because he's been ordered into the cauldron, too. Wrong.

The sense of that is too clear. Instead, our orders are bizarre.

The Old Man explains over coffee, in the wardroom, with all officers present.

"Gentlemen, we've been chosen—because of our superb record!—to initiate a new era of Climber warfare." There's an ironic cast to his smile. He taps a flimsy. "Don't look at me. I didn't make it up. I'm just telling you what it says here. We're supposed to take advantage of the brawl back yonder." He jerks his head as if in a specific direction.

He doesn't pass the message around. He holds to the eyes-only rule. "A hint or two here that they had this planned all along. It's why we were off chasing that Leviathan. Johnson was supposed to go in with us."