“Because the longscanner can’t kill the crew.”
“The hell he can’t!”
“Not in that sense.”
“Your tests don’t simulate combat. That’s what we’ve been telling you—you keep concentrating on the fire rate, always the damned fire rate and you’re not dealing with the reason we recruited these particular crews. Nobody at Lendler Corp has been in combat, none of your pilots have been, the UDC hasn’t been, since it was founded—your tests are set up wrong!”
Not saying Tanzer himself hadn’t been in combat. Red in the face, Tanzer got a breath. “Let’s talk about exceeding human limits, lieutenant: what happened out there was exactly why we’ve got men in hospital over there who can’t walk a level floor without staggering, it’s why we’ve had cardiac symptoms in men under thirty, and those aren’t from four-hour runs.” A jab of the finger in his direction. “Let me tell you, lieutenant, I’ve met the kind of attitude your command is fostering among the trainees. Show-outs and ego-freaks. And I wish them out of my command. You may have toddled down a deck in your diapers, and so may Mazian’s ragtag enlistees out of the Belt, but how are you going to teach them anything when they already know it all and you acquired your know-how by superior genes? You can’t lose 50% of your ships and crews at every pass. 96% retrievability, wasn’t that the original design criterion? Or isn’t that retrievability word going to be in the manual when we put this ship on the line?”
“If a Union armscomper gets your numbers you have zero retrievability, colonel, that’s my point. You have to exceed your own numbers, you have to surprise your own interfaces in order to surprise that other ship’s computers and mat means being at the top of the architecture of your Adaptive Assists. The enemy knows your name out there. Union says, That’s Victoria, that’s Btzroy or Graff at Helm, because Victoria wouldn’t go in with Helm Three. They know you and they know your style, and it’s in their double A’s, but you innovate and they innovate. One AI sitting on top of the human and his interfaces is like any other damn AI sitting on top of the interfaces—there aren’t mat many models, the enemy knows them all, and the second its logic signature develops in the enemy’s intelligence about you, hell, they’ll have a fire-track lying in wait for you.”
“Then you’d better damn well improve your security, hadn’t you?”
“Colonel, there are four manufacturers in friendly space for this tetralogic equipment and we can’t swear there’s not an Eye sitting right outside the system right now. Any merchanter who ever came into system could have dropped one, before the embargo, and it’s next to impossible to find it. Merchanters are your friends and your enemies: that’s the war the Company made, and that’s what’s going on out there—they don’t all declare their loyalties and a lot of them haven’t got any, not them and not us. They’ll find out the names. They’ll find out the manufacturers and the software designers. They’ll learn us. That’s a top priority—who’s at Helm and who’s in command, and if it’s even one in four brands of tetralogic—“
“All the more reason for interchangeable personnel.”
“It’s doesn’t work that way! You don’t go into an engagement with anybody who just happens to be on watch. You try to get your best online. No question. You don’t trade personnel and you don’t trade equipment. You haven’t time at .5 light coming down off jump to think about what ship you’re in or what crew you’re with. I’m telling you, colonel, my captain has no wish to raise the substitution as an issue against your decisions, but on his orders, as judiciously as I can, I am going to make the point that it was a critical factor. We cannot integrate a computerized ship into our operations. In that condition it is no better than a missile.”
“You haven’t the credentials to say what it is and isn’t, lieutenant. You’re not a psychiatrist and you’re not a computer specialist.”
“I am a combat pilot. One of two at this base.”
A cold, dark silence. “I’ll tell you—if you want to raise issues this afternoon, I’m perfectly willing to make clear to the committee that you’re a composite, lieutenant, a shell steered by non-command personnel and an absentee captain, and you clearly don’t have the administrative experience to handle your own security, much less speak with expert knowledge on systems you’ve never seen. I’ve held this office for thirty years, I’ve seen all sorts of games, and your commanding officer’s leaving that carrier to subordinates and your own abuse of your commanding officer’s communications privileges is an official report in my chain of command. This is not the frontier, this is not a bare-based militia operation, and if your service ever hopes to turn these trainees into competent military personnel you can start by setting a personal example. Clean up your own command and stop fomenting dissension in this facility!”
“I do not accept that assessment.”
“Then you can leave this office. And if you are called on to testify, you’ll be there as one of the pilots personally involved in the accident, not as a systems expert. You’d be very unwise to push past mat position—or you’ll find questions raised that could be damned embarrassing to your absentee superior and your entire service. I’m talking about adverse publicity, if you give grounds to any of these senators or to the high command. Do you understand that? Because 1 won’t pull any punches. And the one security no one can guarantee is a senator’s personal staff.”
“Are you attempting to dictate my testimony, colonel? Is that what I’m hearing?”
“In no wise. Give my regards to your captain. Good day, lieutenant.”
Something had come loose. Banging. The tumble did that. Dekker reached after the cabinet, tried to get to the com.
Hand caught his arm. Something shoved him back and he hit pillows.
Bang from elsewhere.
“Hey, Dek. You want eggs or pancakes?”
He couldn’t figure how Ben had gotten onto the ship. Ben had rescued him. But he didn’t remember that.
“Eggs or pancakes?”
“Eggs aren’t real,” he said. “Awful stuff.”
“They’re real, Dek-boy. Not to my taste, living things, but they’re real enough to upset my stomach. Eggs, you want? Orange juice?”
He tried to move. Usually he couldn’t. But his arms were free. He stuffed pillows under his head and Ben did something that propped the head up. Ben went out in-the hall and came back and set a tray down on the table, swung it over him.
“Eat it. That’s an order, Dek-boy.”
He picked up a fork. It seemed foreign, difficult to balance in .9 g. His head kept going around. His arm weighed more than he remembered and it was hard to keep his head up. But he stabbed a bit of scrambled egg and got a bite down. Another. He reached for the orange juice but Ben did it for him, took a sip himself beforehand and said, “We got better at Sol One.”
Maybe it was. Maybe he was supposed to know that. Ben held the cup to his lips and he sipped a little of it. It stung cuts in his mouth and it hit his stomach with a sugar impact.
“Keep it up, Dek-boy, and they’ll take that tube out.”
He didn’t know there was a tube. Didn’t know how Ben had gotten here. Or where they were now. Didn’t look like the Hole at all. Didn’t look like R2 hospital. He reached after the fork, took another tentative nibble at the eggs. God, he was weak.
“Where’s Bird?” he asked.
“What year is it, Dek-boy? I warned you there’d be a test this morning.”