James White - The Escape Orbit

“I’ve had enough arguing!” Peters shouted again, his voice squeaking with sheer fury. “And more than enough, Lieutenant, of your respectful insubordination!” He swung abruptly to face Warren and, lowering his voice slightly, went on, “I don’t have to go down on my knees. As the senior officer on this planet I can order you to come with me…”

“You can try ,” Kelso broke in savagely. He turned and began raising his hand in some kind of signal to the waiting Committee bow-men.

“Hold it!”

The sheer volume of his voice made everyone jump and surprised even Warren himself. He must be angrier than he realize, he told himself, to have let go with such a blast of sound. He felt no less angry as he went on, “A few minutes ago I asked if we had a choice in this matter. I’m still waiting for an answer.”

There was a long, tense silence which was finally broken by the Fleet Commander.

“I don’t really want to pull rank in this, you understand,” Peters said in a voice which he was trying to make pleasant. “All I can do is explain the situation and trust your natural intelligence to guide you correctly. The choice, however, is yours.”

“The rule…” began Kelso, then he shook his head angrily and ended, “You have a choice, sir, of course.”

“Thank you,” said Warren.

Considering the available information as objectively as possible, Warren thought that there was little to choose between either faction. Kelso had made a strong first impression and his outline of the situation had seemed fair and balanced. On the other hand Peters’ contention that the place was escape-proof and that the prisoners should accept the fact was also, on the surface, eminently sane and logical. All the evidence was not yet in, however, and until it was he was reduced to basing his choice on the effect the two people had had on him.

Where Kelso had been concerned, the effect had been good, in a service where practically every operation consisted of several minutes of action sandwiched between months of boredom, a very special type of person was required to stand the strain. Warren had spent most of his early life in the service with people of that kind—intelligent, stable, yet enthusiastic people who never seemed to give up. A man who maintained clean-shaven when to do so entailed a considerable amount of trouble and to judge from the many raw patches on his face, pain, might very well be one of those people.

The Fleet Commander, so far as Warren could see, was one of the people who had given up. There were far too many officers like him in the services since the continuing war had forced down the entrance standards. He felt sorry for Peters and a little ashamed of himself for not according the other man the respect due his rank—although he had been so busy trying to keep the two factions from killing each other off that there had been no time for the niceties. And he was sorry also because the Fleet Commander, who obviously had been having things all his own way on the planet for a very long time, was in for an unpleasant shock.

“I’ll go with the Lieutenant,” said Warren.

The Fleet Commander’s teeth came together with an audible click. “Very well,” he said stiffly. He turned to face the rest of Warren’s group and his voice was almost pleading as he went on, “You officers also have a choice. I trust that some of you will see the sensible course—”

“My officers will do as they’re told, “Warren broke in quietly. By way of softening the blow he added, “Until such time as we have complete information on both sides of the question and are capable of making a final choice, we will stay together and, for the present, go with the Lieutenant.”

Warren could not see the Fleet Commander’s expression as Peters wheeled and strode away, snapping orders at his men to disperse them as he went. Within seconds Kelso was asking the Committeemen if they would mind taking up escort position around the new arrivals, and Warren realized suddenly that every single member of the escort outranked the Lieutenant although they obeyed his polite requests at the double. Then as they were once again moving up the slope towards the post, with Kelso fighting hard to keep his grin of triumph within dignified limits, Peters came striding back.

“I’m anxious to hear the latest war news, Lieutenant,” the Commander said in a carefully neutral voice. “I take it you’ve no objections to me listening to what they have to say for a while…?”

There could be no objection to what on the surface was a completely reasonable request and Warren began to consider the possibility that he had been a trifle hasty in his estimate of Peters’ character—on the present showing the Fleet Commander did not appear to be a man you gave up easily…

All the way to the post, however, Peters walked at Warren’s side without speaking. Several times he looked as if he was about to say something, and on the other side Kelso edged closer in order to be ready to counter it, but he never progressed farther than clearing his throat. Warren took advantage of the silence to examine the layout of the post.

The stockade which surrounded the post was roughly twenty feet high, composed of logs which had been either buried or driven deeply into the ground, and was supported at each corner by four massive trees. The trees had had their lower branches lopped off up to the level of the top of the stockade, and above this the larger branches supported what seemed to be defense or observation platforms linked by a system of catwalks and ladders to the platform which ran along the inside of the stockade. Because of the position of its corner posts was governed by nature rather than human design the plan-view of the structure was not quite square and its walls, which had a tendency to curve towards the support of smaller intervening trees, were anything but straight. Entrance was by way of a section of log wall, which dropped open like a drawbridge and was hauled into position again as they passed through.

Inside the stockade extensive use had again been made of naturally growing trees, which formed the main supports of several large structures, and many smaller huts had been built under them, some with extensions into the upper branches. Only the lower branches had been stripped from any of the trees which Warren could see, so that the whole of the stockade’s interior was in shadow. He was beginning to realize that the post was a larger and more complex place than he had at first thought, and that it would be practically impossible to spot it from the air.

Or space.

They were shown into a large, log building in which a long table with benches on each side of it occupied one wall while the three other walls were filled with shelves containing hundreds of what seemed to be loose-leaf files. He wondered briefly where all the paper had come from, and added that question to the others on his list. Despite the fact that the log walls and ceiling had been stripped of bark it was still too dim inside the place to make out details.

“When the sun rises a little higher you’ll be able to see comfortably,” Kelso explained as he saw Warren peering about. “The de-briefing can wait until after you’ve eaten. It’s only breakfast, I’m afraid, but there’s plenty and it will probably taste like Christmas dinner after the Bug food. But there are a few preliminaries which we can get out of the way while we are waiting…” He broke off suddenly as someone called to him from the other side of the room, then said hastily, “Excuse me, sir. Be right back.”

The buzz of conversation in the room was growing into a muted roar as the Committeemen extended themselves to make the new arrivals feel at home and answer the questions being shot at them from all sides. Warren did not realize that Peters was speaking to him until the Fleet Commander gripped his arm.