“Win the war.” He laughed. “He doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Maybe the Commissary is working out a training program for us.”
“Yes, maybe that.” It was a comforting thought. They were used to having every waking second programmed by somebody else. Everybody moaned about the regime the whole time, of course, but Pirius admitted to himself it would be reassuring when they heard a brisk knock on the door and the Commissary issued them their orders.
But twenty-four hours went by, and still they heard no such knock.
They began to grow uncomfortable. It was hard even to sleep. They weren’t used to being enclosed, isolated like this. Back at Arches, where they had grown up, they had spent their whole lives in vast open dormitories, like the ones in the Barracks Ball, places where you could always see thousands of others arrayed around you, eating, sleeping, playing, fighting, bitching. Again everybody complained, and snatched bits of privacy Under the covers of their bunks. But the fact was, it was reassuring to be cocooned in a vast array of humanity — to have your little slot, and to fill it. Now they had been ripped out of all that, and it was disquieting.
Already Pirius could see Captain Seath’s wisdom. If not for the presence of Torec, somebody he could share all this with, he probably would go crazy. The two of them clung to each other for reassurance. But it wasn’t enough.
At the end of that first twenty-four hours they felt a soft judder — probably a docking, causing a ripple in the corvette’s inertial field as it interfaced with a port’s systems. They surely couldn’t be at Earth yet, but they were somewhere.
They jumped out of their tousled bed, pulled on uniforms, and hurried out of their cabin, leaving it for the first time since Arches.
Through the transparent hull they saw a plain of metal that softly curved away, like a plated-over moon. The corvette had nuzzled against a dock on this metallic worldlet, and to left and right they could see more ports, receding beyond the metal world’s tight horizon, complex puckers within which more ships rested.
There was no sign of the corvette’s crew. But Commissary Nilis stood here, gazing out. He hadn’t noticed the ensigns. He had his hands behind his back, and he seemed to be humming.
Torec and Pirius glanced at each other. Pirius stood to attention and plucked up his courage. “Sir.”
Nilis was startled, but he smiled. “Ah, my two ensigns! And how are you enjoying the trip? Well, we’ve barely started. If there’s anything you need, just ask.” He turned back to the window. “Look over there — remarkable — I think that’s a Spline ship.” So it was, Pirius saw. The great living vessel nestled in its dock; it looked like a bulging eyeball.
Torec nudged Pirius, who asked, “Sir — Commissary — can you tell us where we are?”
“Well, this is Base 528, I believe,” Nilis said. “We’re here for our first provisioning stop.” He glanced at them. “And what does that number tell you?”
Pirius was confused, but Torec said: “Sir, that it’s an old base. Arches is 2594. The older the base, the lower the number.”
“Quite so. Good. Now, come, see.” He walked past them to the other wall.
Pirius saw ships: many ships, of all shapes and sizes, crisscrossing before his vision. The nearer ships shuttled into docks, or left them. Beyond there were many more, just sparks too remote to make out any detail, a shifting crowd that sorted itself into streams that swept away. The ships were beyond counting, he thought, stunned, and this vast streaming must continue day and night, all from this one base.
But Torec was looking beyond the ships to the stars. “Pirius. The sky is dark.”
The sky was dense with stars, many of them hot and blue. But in every direction he looked, between the stars the sky was black, black as velvet. “We aren’t in the Galaxy center anymore,” he said.
“Quite right,” Nilis said. “We are actually in a spiral arm — called the Three-Kiloparsec Arm, the innermost arm of the Galaxy’s main disc.”
“Three-Kilo,” said Torec, wondering. “I heard of that.”
“Many famous battles were fought here,” Nilis said. “But long ago. Once this base was on the front line. Now it is a resupply depot. The Front has since been pushed deeper into the heart of the Galaxy, deeper toward the Prime Radiant itself. In this part of the Galaxy there are ports, dry docks, graving yards, weapons ships: it is a belt of factory worlds that encloses the inner center, a hinterland that spans hundreds of light-years.” He sighed. “I’ve traveled here a dozen times, but the scale of it still bewilders me. But then, a war spread across a hundred thousand light-years, and spanning tens of millennia, simply cannot be grasped during a human life spanning mere decades. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that the idea of winning this war is beyond the imagination of even our most senior commanders.”
Torec said hesitantly, “Commissary?”
“Yes, child?”
“Please — what do you want us to do?”
Nilis laughed. “Why, nothing. You must relax — treat this as a holiday, for believe me, we will have plenty to do once we get to Earth.” He slapped them on their shoulders. “For now, just enjoy the ride!” And he disappeared into his cabin.
Pirius and Torec shared a bewildered glance. For Navy brats, leisure was an alien concept. They stared out at the streaming ships.
The next leg of the journey would be the longest, a straight-line cut through the spiral arms of the Galaxy spanning six days and no less than fifteen thousand light-years, before they reached a resupply depot at the Orion Line.
In the humming womb of the corvette, Pirius and Torec still had nothing to do.
By the end of the second day the rich food began to make them feel bloated. There was always sex, of course, but even the appeal of that faded. Pirius came to suspect uneasily that the fact they could screw as much as they liked here took away a lot of the appeal of their under-the-blanket barracks fumbles.
In quiet moments on the third day, Pirius tried to analyze his feelings for Torec.
Obviously Seath had assumed they were a stable couple, that their relationship was strong. But the truth was that Torec had only ever been a buddy. For now she was his favored squeeze, and vice versa, but that might have changed overnight, without hard feelings or regrets. In the Barracks Ball, there was a lot of choice, and a lot of bunk-hopping. Sex was all about athletics, and a bit of comfort. Surely they weren’t in love. Were they doomed to spend their lives together even so?
Of course there was nobody to discuss this with — certainly not the Commissary, and they hadn’t even seen the crew. The ensigns had nobody but each other.
And so, naturally, on the fourth day they turned on each other.
By the fifth day, after hours of screaming rows, they were exhausted and regretful. In their striving to hurt each other they had both said many things they hadn’t meant, the most hurtful for Pirius being the charge that he had ruined Torec’s life, for it held a grain of truth.
They came back to each other for comfort. The day became a good day, a day of tenderness. Having endured the storm, Pirius sensed they had moved to some new level in their relationship. Perhaps, he began to wonder, eventually they really would find love.
But then the sixth day came, just another day in this unwelcome luxury, and still the journey dragged on.
At the end of the sixth day Torec escaped into sleep. But Pirius was restless. He slipped out of bed, sponged down with a clean-cloth, and pulled on a uniform. Torec stayed asleep, or at any rate pretended to.
Pirius found Nilis sitting in a chair before the transparent hull, working at a data desk propped on his knee. The Commissary smiled at Pirius and waved him to another chair.