He rested his head on the console. Then he continued, “The six passengers are Ms. Ruth Davies, Mr. Edward Hearnes, Mr. Ayah Dinh, Ms. Indira Etra, Mr. Vance Portright, and Mr. Randolph Carr.”
After a moment he reached for the speaker again. “Chief McAndrews, Dr. Uburu, and Pilot Haynes, report to the bridge.” Then he swung toward me, desolate. “God, Nicky, what do I do now?”
“Permission to use the caller, sir.”
“Go ahead.”
I rang Dr. Uburu’s quarters. “This is the bridge. Please bring a tankard of medicinal alcohol to your conference with Captain Malstrom.”
The Captain shot me a grateful look. Then as the import of my words sunk in, he paled. “Captain Malstrom. Dear God!”
‘“Yes, sir.” I wasn’t good at my practical lessons but I knew the regs fairly well. The commanding officer of a Naval vessel was always a Captain. His rank was subject to reconfirmation by Admiralty upon return, but a ship could be commanded only by a Captain. When Lieutenant Malstrom became Hibernianssenior officer, he became Captain Malstrom.
After a moment’s inward reflection he focused on me anew, and muttered, “You’d better go, Nicky. I’ve got to talk to them.”
“Aye aye, sir.” I came to attention and snapped a formal salute. The Captain would need all the support he could get.
He returned the salute and I left him to his desolation.
I trudged back to the wardroom. Sandy’s eyes were red.
Vax, for once, was quiet and withdrawn. I chased them both out of the cabin and lay down in the dark, to cry myself to sleep. At seventeen, I was unaccustomed to horror and loss.
When I woke the next morning, Sandy Wilsky was in the brig pending the official inquiry into the disaster. He’d been arrested by Master-at-arms Vishinsky, on orders of the Captain. I knew he was innocent, and surely so did Mr. Malstrom, but if it hadn’t been for Sandy’s tomfoolery, he, not Lieutenant Dagalow, would have been aboard the launch when it disintegrated.
Troubled, I went in search of Amanda, and found her in her cabin. Seeing my face, she stood aside without a word,
closed the hatch behind us.
Not long after, she sat on her bunk, my head in her lap. “I don’t understand, Nicky. Why can’t he command Hiberniawithout changing rank? He’s still the same Lieutenant Malstrom.”
I was patient. “Think of Captain as a legal position instead of a rank. You think Captain Haag ran the ship, right? He was higher hi rank than the lieutenants, so he was in charge.”
“Right.”
“Well, no. The Captain is the United Nations Government.
All of it. The SecGen, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the World Court. Anything the U.N. can do, he can do. He is its plenipotentiary in space.” For some reason, telling her the obvious made me feel better.
“So?”
“A lieutenant is just an officer, but the Captain is the government. Only the Captain can be that. And only the government can run the ship. So, the person who runs the ship is Captain. His word is law.”
Amanda was already on another topic. “Anyway, Chief Engineer Me Andrews has more seniority. He should be Captain.”
“Hon, it doesn’t work that way.” She stroked my hair in response to my endearment. “The ship had three lieutenants.
Under them are four middies. There are also three other officers on board. Staff officers.”
“I’ve heard that before. What does it mean?”
“A line officer is in line to command the ship. Staff officers can order the middies and the seamen about, but they don’t succeed to command. They’re here to do a specific job, and that’s it.”
“But it’s not fair. Chiefie has more experience than Mr.
Malstrom.”
I wondered when she had begun calling Chief McAndrews “Chiefie”. I considered calling him that someday, but quickly decided against it. “Life isn’t fair, Amanda. Chiefie doesn’t get to run the ship.” She bent over and kissed me.
She had veered off onto yet another topic.
That evening the Captain convened a Board of Inquiry.
Alexi and I might possibly have been appointed--a middy, no matter how young, is by Act of the General Assembly an officer and gentleman, and has his majority--and the Captain had few enough officers left to sit in judgment. But Alexi and I had been in the suiting room with Sandy; we were witnesses.
If there were a plot, we might even have been involved, so on both counts we were disqualified.
Doc Uburu, Pilot Haynes, and Chief McAndrews sat as the Board. They met in the now unused lieutenants’ common room, as if to underscore the purpose of the inquiry.
For two days they sifted through Darla’s records, replaying over and again the last transmission from the launch, compiling a list of every sailor who’d entered the launch berth since Hiberniahad left Earthport Station, reviewing the meager information the launch’s primitive puter had passed to Darla during its shuttles back and forth to Celestina.Hibernianslaunch berth was normally sealed. Darla had record of each occasion our crewmen were admitted for maintenance since we’d left Earthport. Counting the various work details assigned to shepherd the passengers across, seventeen crewmen had been in the launch berth at one time or another.
All four of us middies had gone across to Celestina,and each of the officers save the members of the board.
One by one each sailor who’d been in the berth was questioned. Alexi, Vax, and I sat stiffly in the chairs placed in the corridor, knees tight, caps in hand, waiting our turns.
They brought Sandy from the brig for his interrogation; he marched past us with barely a glance. Two hours later he emerged, pale, shaken. It appeared he’d been crying.
I was next. I smoothed my jacket, tugged at my tie, marched into the crowded mess. My salute was as close to Academy perfection as I could manage.
Chief Engineer McAndrews was in the chair. “Be seated, Mr. Seafort.” He glanced to his holovid, on which he’d been tapping notes. “Tell us what you saw--everything--in the launch berth before the launch’s final trip.”
“Aye aye, sir.” I furrowed my brow, lurched into my recollection. I’d seen nothing suspicious, so all I could do was describe in detail Sandy’s horseplay with Alexi, his torn trousers, Mr. Cousins’s wrath.
“Then what?”
“Lieutenant Cousins ordered Alex--Midshipman Tamarov to take Mr. Wilsky’s place. Ms. Dagalow asked if she could go instead.”
“You’re sure Mr. Cousins didn’t order Dagalow aboard?”
“Quite sure, sir.”
Pilot Haynes cleared his throat. “Did Mr. Tamarov suggest that he and Lieutenant Dagalow switch places?”
“Lord God, of course not!” I gulped, realizing what I’d blurted. Still, the question was preposterous. Were a middy to make such a suggestion to a lieutenant--any lieutenant-he wouldn’t be able to sit for a week. And that’s if he were lucky. Such a remark was as out of place as--as the one I’d just made. I was in deep trouble. “I’m very sorry, sir!”
Chief McAndrews’s tone was frosty, but he otherwise ignored my impertinence. Instead, he led me through a series of probing questions about my previous visits to the launch berth, about the watch rotation according to which I was supposed to be on the bridge.
“But I wason the bridge, sir. The horseplay occurred before my watch. I was helping suit the passengers.”
The Pilot set his fingers together, as if in prayer. “Who told you to do that?”
“No one, sir.”
“Why did you meddle?”
I flushed, knowing my response sounded inane even to myself. “I wanted to be helpful, sir.”
“By being a busybody, instead of going to your post?”
“No, sir, I--yes, sir.” There was no right answer, and I fell silent.
I could understand their frustration. A hydrozine engine doesn’t overheat without cause. And if it did, the launch crew should have been able to shut it down within seconds, before it reached critical temperature. Accidents happen, but unexplained accidents made everyone uneasy. A glance out the porthole to the gaping wound in Celestina’shull was reason enough for that.