“And when Bancroft, that’s the exec whom you’ve relieved, asked for a quick check to confirm our kills, Chase sat on him like a ton of brick. ‘I’m not interested in how many poor devils we blew apart back there,’ our Captain says. ‘Our mission is to scout, to obtain information about enemy movements and get that information back to Base. We cannot transmit information from a vaporized ship, and that convoy had a naval escort. Our mission cannot be jeopardized merely to satisfy morbid curiosity. Request denied. And, Mr. Bancroft, have Communications contact Fleet. This information should be in as soon as possible.’ And then he turned away leaving Bancroft biting his fingernails. He wouldn’t even push out a probe—scooted right back into the blue where we’d be safe!
“You know, we haven’t had one confirmed kill posted on the list since we’ve been in space. It’s getting so we don’t want to come in any more. Like the time—the Atropos came in just after we touched down. She was battered— looked like she’d been through a meatgrinder, but she had ten confirmed and six probable, and four of them were escorts! Hell! Our boys couldn’t hold their heads up. The Lachesis didn’t have a mark on her and all we had was a few possible hits. You know how it goes—someone asks where you’re from. You say the Lachesis and they say ‘Oh, yes, the cruise ship.’ And that’s that. It’s so true you don’t even feel like resenting it.”
I didn’t like the bitter note in Allyn’s voice. He was a reservist, which made it all the worse. Reservists have ten times the outside contacts we regulars do. In general when a regular and reservist tangle, the Academy men close ranks like musk-oxen and meet the challenge with an unbroken ring of horns. But somehow I didn’t feel like ringing up.
I kept hoping there was another side to the story. I’d check around and find out as soon as I got settled. And if there was another side, I was going to take Allyn apart as a malicious trouble-maker. I felt sick to my stomach.
We spent the next three days taking on stores and munitions, and I was too busy supervising the stowage and checking manifests to bother about running down Allyn’s story. I met the other officers—Lt. Pollard the gunnery officer, Ensign Esterhazy the astrogator, and Ensign Blakiston. Nice enough guys, but all- wearing that cowed, frustrated look that seemed to be a Lachesis trademark. Chase, meanwhile, was up in Flag Officer’s Country picking up the dope on our next mission. I hoped that Allyn was wrong but the evidence all seemed to be in his favor. Even more than the officers, the crew was a mess underneath their clean uniforms. From Communications Chief CPO Haskins to Spaceman Zelinski there was about as much spirit in them as you’d find in a punishment detail polishing brightwork in Base Headquarters. I’m a cheerful soul, and usually I find no trouble getting along with a new command, but this one was different. They were efficient enough, but one could see that their hearts weren’t in their work. Most crews preparing to go out are nervous and high tempered. There was none of that here. The men went through the motions with a mechanical indifference that was frightening. I had the feeling that they didn’t give a damn whether they went or not—or came back or not. The indifference was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Yet there was nothing you could put your hand on. You can’t touch people who don’t care.
Four hours after Chase came back, we lifted gravs from Earth. Chase was sitting in the control chair, and to give him credit, we lifted as smooth as a silk scarf slipping through the fingers of a pretty woman. We hypered at eight miles and swept up through the monochromes of Cth until we hit middle blue, when Chase slipped off the helmet, unfastened his webbing, and stood up.
“Take over, Mr. Marsden,” he said. “Lay a course for Parth.”
“Aye, sir,” I replied, slipping into the chair and fastening the web. I slipped the helmet on my head and instantly I was a part of the ship. It’s a strange feeling, this synthesis of man and metal that makes a fighting ship the metallic extension of the Commander’s will. I was conscious of every man on duty. What they saw I saw, what they heard I heard, through the magic of modern electronics. The only thing missing was that I couldn’t feel what they felt, which perhaps was a mercy considering the condition of the crew. Using the sensor circuits in the command helmet, I let my perception roam through the ship, checking the engines, the gun crews, the navigation board, the galley—all the manifold stations of a fighting ship. Everything was secure, the ship was clean and trimmed, the generators were producing their megawatts of power without a hitch, and the converters were humming contentedly, keeping us in the blue as our speed built to fantastic levels.
I checked the course, noted it was true, set the controls on standby and relaxed, half dozing in the chair as Lume after Lume dropped astern with monotonous regularity.
An hour passed and Halloran came up to relieve me. With a sigh of relief I surrendered the chair and headset. The unconscious strain of being in rapport with ship and crew didn’t hit me until I was out of the chair. But when it did, I felt like something was crushing me flat. Not that I didn’t expect it, but the Lachesis was worse than the Clotho had ever been.
I had barely hit my couch when General Quarters sounded. I smothered a curse as I pounded up the companionway to my station at the bridge. Chase was there, stopwatch in hand, counting the seconds.
“Set!” Halloran barked.
“Fourteen seconds,” Chase said. “Not bad. Tell the crew well done.” He put the watch in his pocket and walked away.
I picked up the annunciator mike and pushed the button. “Skipper says well done,” I said.
“He got ten seconds out of us once last trip,” Halloran said. “And he’s been trying to repeat that fluke ever since. Bet you a munit to an “F” ration that he’ll be down with the section chief trying to shave off another second or two. Hey!—what’s that—oh…“He looked at me. “Disturbance in Cth yellow, straight down—shall we go?”
“Stop ship,” I ordered. “Sound general quarters.” There was no deceleration. We merely swapped ends as the alarm sounded, applied full power and stopped. That was the advantage of Cth—no inertia. We backtracked for three seconds and held in middle blue.
“What’s going on?” Chase demanded as he came up from below. His eyes raked the instruments. “Why are we stopped?”
“Disturbance in Cth yellow, sir,” I said. “We’re positioned above it.”
“Very good, Mr. Marsden.” He took the spare helmet from the Exec’s chair, clapped it on, fiddled with the controls for a moment, nodded, and took the helmet off. “Secure and resume course,” he said. “That’s the Amphitrite—fleet supply and maintenance. One of our people.”
“You sure, sir?” I asked, and then looked at the smug grin on Halloran’s face and wished I hadn’t asked.
“Of course,” Chase said. “She’s a three converter job running at full output. Since the Rebels have no three converter ships, she had to be one of ours. And since she’s running at full output and only in Cth yellow, it means she’s big, heavy, and awkward—which means a maintenance or an ammunition supply ship. There’s an off phase beat in her number two converter that gives a twenty cycle pulse to her pattern. And the only heavy ship in the fleet with this pattern is Amphitrite. You see?”