"I wondered where we were going," he said. "It really doesn't tell a captain much when an owner staggers aboard and says, 'For God's sakes, sail!' Any particular port?"
"Napoleon's home."
"I think that would be Ajaccio, if memory serves me right. A bit more than halfway down the Corsican west coast. But wait a minute. That place is French. I don't think you'd better go ashore. I don't want to lose an owner to some (bleeped) French whore. I already lost four fire nozzles."
I promised I would stay aboard. He went into the chartroom to plot his course and I left quickly before he noticed I was looking as bad as I felt. He might give me the Marezine injection.
It didn't do me any good. The sports director shortly had me doing laps.
We came to anchor in the port of Ajaccio the next day. Thankfully, I stood on a steady deck and looked at the dramatic silhouettes of the mountains, jutting ruggedly to the sky. Rose, crimson and violet granites made splashes of color amongst the luxuriant vegetation.
We weren't permitted to use our own boats because it might deprive the inhabitants of francs, and Teenie and Madison went ashore in a puffing tug.
I did my laps and exercises obediently and after lunch went down to my owner's salon. I thought I was up to watching the viewers.
It was early in the day in New York but Heller was in his office reading texts, flipping the pages too fast for me to see what they were.
The Countess Krak came in, dressed in a severe black suit, her blond hair in a bun on the back of her head. She looked like a school teacher except considerably more so.
"My microwave engineers are doing fine," she said. Then she walked around the desk, put a hand on his shoulder and looked at what he was reading. She could follow it; I couldn't. "Why, Jettero," she said. "What in the world are you doing with a textbook on primitive electronics?"
"They think that's the way things are," he said. "And if you put any truth down on an examination paper, you'd flunk."
"Examination? You don't have to take any college examinations. Izzy has that all fixed up. Exam papers will be handed in at Empire for you."
"Oh, no," said Heller. "It's one thing to do class attendance for me or even hand in quizzes. But I couldn't accept a diploma until I had been examined for it and passed. It's only three days to examination week. I've got to bone up."
"Oh, Jettero. You're too honest to live! Their science reeks with incorrect premises. I battle them every day with these microwave people. The errors are so stupid even I can catch them and I know little enough."
"You've got to say what the professor said," he replied. "I'd flunk if I didn't. And I need that diploma or nobody will believe me."
"Hi, hi, hi," said another voice. "Anybody home?" It was Bang-Bang. "Come on, Jet. I've got the M-l."
The Countess Krak looked at him. He was standing there with a rifle. "Who you going to shoot?" she said.
"No, no," said Bang-Bang. "Got a lot of candidates but no time. Jet here has got to graduate from the ROTC and he never once has been to a drill. He don't even know the manual of arms."
"Teach her," said Jet. "And she'll teach me. I've got to finish this crazy text on quadratic equations."
Bang-Bang stared at the Countess Krak. His jaw was dropped.
"Go ahead," said Heller. "It won't take her long. She already knows a manual or two."
"WHAT?" said Bang-Bang.
"I have a few minutes," said the Countess Krak. "Show me how it goes."
Very diffidently, Bang-Bang tightened the rifle strap and began to go through an army manual of arms. Right shoulder arms, order arms, inspection arms, parade rest, calling the orders and counting the movements by the numbers.
"I've got it," said the Countess Krak.
"You've got it?" said Bang-Bang, incredulous. "You haven't touched the rifle!"
"Well, why?" said the Countess Krak. "It looks pretty primitive to me."
"Oh, yeah," said Bang-Bang. "That's the army way and it is pretty primitive. Here's the real way to do it. Marine Corps."
He went through a manual punctuated with very sharp slaps of strap and butt.
"I've got it," said the Countess Krak.
"Oh, come off of it, Miss Joy. Don't try to snow me. I haven't had my first drink of Scotch today."
The Countess Krak took the M-l from him. She examined it. "Seems a little light," she said. She studied its working parts. Then she checked its balance.
Suddenly, very fast, she went through the army manual. Then, without pausing, she went through the Marine Corps manual.
Bang-Bang stood there, popeyed.
"Now, a real manual," said the Countess Krak, "would go like this."
And despite the restrictions of the office, she sent the rifle through a manual of arms that was so spinning and so ornate that the weapon was a blur except at those instants when it came to split-second positions, dead still. And then she went into a Fleet marine dress parade manual. The swirling weapon made loud swooshes as it spun and the slaps were as loud as pistol shots. She finished.
"Jesus Christ!" said Bang-Bang. "I ain't never seen nothing like that before in my life! And done by a beautiful woman, too!"
"A captain by the name of Snelz taught her," said Heller. "So she could be smuggled in and out of a ship."
"Snelz?" said Bang-Bang.
"Yes," said Heller. "He was a Fleet marine once."
"Oh, that accounts for it," said Bang-Bang. "Miss Joy, could you show me how that last manual you did goes?"
The whole thing made me very uneasy. I had forgotten she had been taught to handle a rifle. I wouldn't put it beyond Snelz to have taught her how to shoot it, too. Gods, supposing she took it into her head to go gunning for me? She was deadly enough already without this.
Oh, I didn't like the way things were going. Miss Simmons was out of the running. The spores project was completed. Heller was going to take his exams and get a diploma. The Countess Krak was training microwave engineers for some purpose I could not fathom.
Without me right on the ground to trip them up, they might very well succeed!
I could feel the assassin's blade going into my back. For that was my lot if they did.
I looked at the two-way-response radio. I wished fervently I could think of something to order Raht to do. I couldn't, but I must.
My only choice right now was to stay good and lost, keep out of Turkey and the U. S. and hope that my training and brilliance would come up with something which would stop this juggernaut of disaster. I couldn't dawdle forever. I would be squashed.
Little did I know that that malign Earth God, Juggernaut, already had his foot far more than halfway down on the back of my neck right that minute!
They came back in the pink glow of evening. From their chatter at dinner, I made out that they had been at the Maison Bonaparte and the Musee Napoleonien and hadn't learned a blessed thing about Napoleon except that the island depended on tourism and didn't like tourists.
"What can you tell about an outlaw from his baby clothes?" Madison said. "Things have certainly become decadent. Corsica was once synonymous for bandits, but now they are running the restaurants and hotels. The criminal fraternity is always tight-lipped, though."
"You'd have thought we were the fuzz," said Teenie, getting around her second pheasant under glass. "Every time Maddie would get the interpreter to ask, 'Where was the main hideout of this great outlaw, Napoleon?' they'd just clam up and glare. As soon as I get around two or three helpings of ice cream, I've got to put in library time."