“Good. Then we can do this properly. If you don’t mind, Captain, it would be better for your nerves if you were back with your ship while the news is spread. I have arrangements to make as well.”
“It was out of the question, but now we can cut them? Just like that?”
She gave him a look that made him wonder if he’d make it to his car, but all she said was, “Yes, Captain, just like that. Be at the first trees on time if you want to know the story.”
When he took the car up, he saw hundreds of campfires below. The entire population must have come-and if they never cut the trees, then they’d brought the firewood with them. Yet they were letting him cut them, if it meant striking against the kzinti.
He set the car to take him back to the ship, wished he drank, and got on the radio. The tech on duty was Blackwell, who was evidently startled out of watchstanding trance by the calclass="underline" “Is there an emergency, sir?”
“No, I’m just coming back early. Pass the word that I’ve met the locals, and they are disposed to help.” Had he said “friendly,” it would have told his crew that he was under duress. “I did get a minor injury, but they treated it. I want Meier to look at their work. Some of the things they’ve come up with are likely to be useful.”
“Yes, sir. May I speak freely, sir?”
Wondering, he said, “Granted.”
“The ship doesn’t feel right without you here, sir. Mister Thurston’s a good man to work for, but I’m glad you’re coming back early.”
“Thanks, Blackwell. Fact is, I didn’t feel right being away from the ship. Persoff out.”
Meier kept exclaiming under her breath, and finding more things to exclaim over with every instrument she used. “Did you know your jaw had been broken?” she finally said.
“It was?”
“By some kind of blunt impact. Right at what I would judge to be the weakest spot, if that’s not a silly thing to say about a jawbone. It’s had two pins put in, which the autodoc says are made of cellulose, gelatin, and powdered sterile bone. New bone is already growing as your cells digest the protein. The tooth they restored is pegged, but that seems to have been done out of sheer thoroughness, as it’s already taken root. And as for the scars, if I hadn’t seen you without them I’d swear they were weeks old. You’re absolutely right, I do want to see what else these people have got. It’s like they had to reinvent medicine.”
“I think they did. I didn’t see any equipment from their shuttle, so I think it must have sunk in the last landing. I’d sure want to keep that stuff handy.”
“It wouldn’t have worn out, either,” Tokugawa said from his bed. “Those old colony ships had equipment that was even better than required by law. And in those days you could go to the organ banks for making defective lightbulbs.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Meier said.
“He’s not,” Kershner said, walking in. “I hated the idea of organ banks when they thawed me out, so they had me read about one case. Indicator light on a paranoid’s autodoc burned out. He killed off an entire family, root and branch. I still hate organ banks, but I have to admit the only other thing that could possibly be appropriate for that degree of negligence, when you know how serious the risks are, is eternal damnation. Which is difficult to enforce. You need a demon on monitor duty, at least.”
“They get the paranoid?” Persoff said.
Kershner froze in place, mouth open, an odd habit he had when he couldn’t retrieve a piece of information. It could be disturbing, but he had fewer quirks than a lot of other ex-corpsicles. “I’m sure they must have, but I can’t call up the details. There was something weird about his case. But I was talking about the manufacturer. Three people went to the organ banks for negligent homicide. It was open and shut. One didn’t do maintenance on a monitor that supervised the filament composition, one was the middle manager who used to fire employees in quality inspection for failing too many products, and one was the interviewer who hired the manager and gave her instructions about keeping costs down. If any one of them had been doing a diligent job, the killer would have gone on being treated properly. What really capped it for the jury was that the ARMs investigated all the other lamps they’d sold over the same period, and found two more of inferior quality. We’re talking a specialty light here, made specifically for ’docs.” He frowned. “I wish I could remember-I do recall, the guy who did maintenance on the ’doc in question had to have some serious therapy. Totally blameless, but it was eating him up.”
Kershner didn’t look much happier than the man he was discussing. “Did you have a report for me, Mr. Kershner?”
Kershner came out of his funk and said, with a different kind of gloom, “We’ve got no spares for the hyperwave. It looks like when the railgun shot us, a piece of the bulkhead spalled through that locker. Since I have to use parts from the ’wave for redundant systems in the drive, we won’t be in contact with Earth until we get there.”
Persoff considered, then said, “And after forty years the war may have been won already, and if we carry out our mission we may be starting another.” What a freemother. He carefully did not say that aloud.
“I’m afraid so, sir.”
“The people here hold the trees we have to cut in very high regard, and they’ve given permission based on the idea that it’ll help win the war.”
“I’ll explain the situation to them, sir,” Kershner said.
“Thank you, but it’s not your duty.”
“Beg pardon, Captain, but it is my specialty. If I’m standing by, explaining the fine details as you refer them to me, it’ll look to them like you’re avoiding responsibility. I think it’d better if I explained before you said your piece.”
“Are you trying to let me off the hook, Kershner?”
The hypertech looked startled, then grinned. “Just this once, sir. It is your first time.”
Meier and Tokugawa both made strangled noises, while Persoff just rolled his eyes. “Are you off watch, Kershner?”
“Oh, yes, sir.”
“Then go engage in optional activity,” Persoff said. “Consult McCabe if you’re not certain of the term. Dismissed.”
He brought his crew to the beach as the locals were assembling for whatever they had planned. Full dress uniform, no exceptions. Tokugawa was still in a float chair, but Meier was able to get his blues around his neck brace. The only grumbling anyone did was the sort that was used to complain about the weather, since everyone understood what these people had agreed to give up.
They thought they did, anyway.
Persoff took his senior officers to where most of the orders were coming from, and addressed the elders there. “Before we go on, there’s something I need you to know. Even if everything works right, we may not be able to strike against the kzinti. It took us decades longer than planned to get here, and the war may be over by now. We can’t find out until we get to a human world, because we won’t have the hyperwave. Mr. Kershner can explain the technical details if you wish.”
One very old man said, “Johnson. I can see a civilian vessel just carrying spares, but I would expect a fighting starship to be able to fabricate replacement parts for everything it used. Why can’t you fix the hyperwave?”
Kershner stepped forward. “Sir, it isn’t practical to put something of that complexity aboard a vessel. The parts we need are of mixed composition, and have to be made to standards of molecular precision.”
The Johnson-apparently The Johnson-nodded and said, “That’s to produce an effect that’s necessary for the thing to work.”
“Yes, sir,” Kershner said, looking surprised.
“What’s the effect?”
Kershner gave a faint sigh and began explaining hyperwave physics in baby talk, as if he were describing it to a journalist.
The old man stopped him after no more than fifteen seconds and said, “It sounds like you’re setting up a standing wave to maintain a constant peak pulse, because keeping the whole system at that power level will burn it out.”