Worrying, I miss the antimatter ignition sequence. My first hint of how far matters have progressed is the Commander's 'Take her up."
There's no mistaking the groan of the Climb alarm. Tan-man's PR people have saturated the media with it.
"Annihilation stabilized," Engineering reports.
"Take her to ten Bev," the Commander orders.
"Ten Bev, aye, sir."
My companions suddenly acquire an ectoplasmic insub-stantiality. They seem to glow from within.
And the scene has become black and white. It's like looking into a big holo cube with its color module out. Gone are the flashing green, amber, and red lights. Gone are the colors of the nonuniform clothing the men all wear. Gone are the color-codings of piping, wiring, and conduit.
It's a spooky scene, these surroundings. Almost an argument for Fisherman's beliefs.
The glow in the men has nothing to do with life-force or souls. The hardware glows too. Even the atmosphere sparkles. During one of his lectures Diekereide told me we'd be sensing the energies binding subatomic particles when we saw the glow.
I can also discern the big darkness beyond the ship's hull. That's the spookiest part. A big black nothing without stars, trying to push its way in. A black dragon keeping mouth and eyes closed till it's close enough to gobble these fools who dare enter its lair.
I admit that I was warned. I didn't believe. The warning was useless. I'm scared shitless.
"Systems check," the Commander says. "Department heads report."
All departments are go. TerVeen treated the ship well.
"Take her up to twenty Bev."
I mutter, "Holy shit." I'm drowning in my own sweat, and with no better excuse than fear. Internal temperature hasn't risen, a tenth of a degree. My animal brain snarls. The heat converters are secured. The accumulators for the energy weapons haven't been discharged. Fuel Point might be attacked. We could be caught with our endurance limited...
The Commander won't discharge a weapon here, fool. That would be a dead giveway. A subtle treason.
The signature of an energy weapon lasts forever, though it flees the scene at the velocity of light. It can be backtracked to its point of origin.
I'm not the only one sweating before the drill ends. Fisherman, too, is soaked and twitching. Will he settle down? Will the pressure of combat be too much for him?
"Astrogator. Let's see your ten-minute Inoko again."
I stare at a lifeless screen and wonder how Bradley's troops put up with Climb. Their only clues to current events are the alarms. They're shut off from both the universe outside and the rest of the ship. Theirs is a tiny world isolated within our slightly larger universe.
"Loop completed, Commander."
"Very well. Take her down to twenty-five Bev."
'Twenty-five Bev, aye, sir."
Twenty-five? I must have missed us going up. How high were we?
"Ship's Services, commence dehumidification."
The rarefied atmosphere is near saturation. The simple thermometer near the compartment clock says real temperature increase has been but 3.7 degrees. I remind myself that in battle crews routinely endure temperatures approaching eighty degrees.
The Commander eases us back into hyper, shifts to fusion power, then drops to norm. "Vent heat," he orders.
A midnight woods-whisper trickles through the ship. Ship's Services is circulating atmosphere through the radiator vanes. In minutes the air feels chilly.
"Mr. Westhause, return to the tender. Mr. Yanevich, rig for parasite mode. Department heads.
Meeting in the wardroom as soon as the ship is secure."
I invite myself to the conference. As far as the Commander is concerned, I have access to everything but his classified material. None of the others asks me to leave, though Piniaz obviously resents my presence.
Performance in null is the subject. Everyone agrees. The ship is ready. Crew and intangibles remain the question marks.
"I want music piped into the basement," Lieutenant Varese says.
"We went through this last patrol," Yanevich replies.
"We'll keep going through it. I stick by my arguments. It'll help morale."
"And generate heat."
"So secure it in Climb."
"No point discussing it this trip," the Old Man says. "We don't have the tapes."
Varese slaps the table, glares at the First Watch Officer. "Why the hell not?" His voice cracks.
"We had to reduce mass to accommodate eighty-two kilos of writer. The library had to go."
"Everything?"
"All but the study materials. Maybe that'll speed up the cross-rate training."
I shrink from Varese's venomous glare. I'm at the head of his shit list for sure.
"I'll get something from the mother," Yanevich offers. "We've used most of the personal mass."
Varese isn't to be mollified. He wants to fight. "No music?"
"Sorry."
"A magnetic cannon and a goddamned useless extra body. Fucking shitheaded Command."
"Mister Varese," the Commander says. The Lieutenant shifts his glare to his taut, pallid hands.
"How about personnel?" I ask, shoving my fingers into the dragon's mouth. "Fisherman... Junghaus looked like he might crack under pressure."
"So did you," Yanevich says.
Psych Bureau screens to the nth degree, but no test is perfect. People get past. They change under stress. There's no follow-up testing of people assigned to Climber duty.
Four men make the observation list. Junghaus isn't one of them. I am.
My ego has big bruises.
I am an unknown quantity. I haven't had Climber training. I haven't been through the Psych test battery. I would've made the list had I gone through the exercises like a rock.
Chief Nicastro makes the list because this is his last patrol, because he got married, because he'll want so badly to make it home. The stress on him will be severe.
The others are enlisted first patrollers who showed spooky. Jon Baake and Fehrenbach Cinderella.
They're Piniaz's men. He made his own judgments, so it's possible they were considered by harsher standards. Piniaz is a perfectionist.
The nascent hostility between Varese and myself receives no mention. We're like flint and steel, that man and I. He flat doesn't like me. We'll strike sparks no matter what I do to avoid it.
The Old Man detains me when the meeting breaks up. He stares into nothing till I grow nervous, fearing he may be worried enough to leave me aboard the mother when the ship commences her patrol.
Finally, "What do you think?"
"It isn't like the holo shows it."
"You've said that before. You've also said there's got to be a better way." He smiles that pale smile.
"It's true!"
"Nothing is like it is on holo."
"I know that. I just didn't expect it to be this different."
He slides away somewhere behind his eyes. Has he returned to Canaan? What is it? Marie? Navy as a whole? Something unrelated? He isn't the sort to lay his soul out on a dissecting table. He's a human singularity. You have to figure him out by inference and his effect on the orbits of others.
"I'm going to put you in Weapons for a while. Don't mind Piniaz. He's a good man. Just playing an Old Earther role. Learn the magnetic cannon. You were good at ballistics." He fiddles with his pipe, acting as if he wants to light up. I haven't seen him smoke since we came aboard. In fact, this is the first I've seen that nasty little instrument since then. "And do some of your famous observing."
"What am I looking for? Personal problems? Like Jung-haus?"
"Don't worry about Fisherman. He'll be all right. He's found his way to cope. Ito is the man worrying me. Something's eating him. Something more than usual."
"You just said..."
"I know. It's the Commander's prerogative to contradict himself."
"There's always something eating Old Earthers. They're born with chips on their shoulders. What about Varese? I'm scared to turn my back on him."