“Make him tell us about the mutiny, Daddy.”
“All in good time.” He dismissed his daughter impatiently and refocused his attention on Yankee. “I’ve been hearing that you want to take a ship to Hssin? Is that true?”
“It’s an Intelligence matter.”
“I, too, want to take a ship to Hssin but lack the authority. I have the clearance to look at your orders if you wish to show them to me. It is possible that we might strike a deal.”
Puzzled, Yankee brought out his infocomp.
Rear Admiral Blumenhandler talked while he perused. “Well, well, well,” he smiled. “I have ships but no orders. You have orders but no ship.” He grumbled, continuing to read the fine print. “Now this is what I call an airtight order. If you commandeered one of my ships, I don’t see how I could refuse you. I might be upset; I might be enraged at the imposition, but I couldn’t refuse you.” His eyes twinkled. “Of course, I’ll want a favor in return, just a gentlemen’s agreement, mind you; nothing in writing.”
“And Jenkins?”
“Jenkins has made suggestions on this matter—but I don’t believe a suggestion has ever earned the same weight as an order, now has it? Let me be plain—off the record Jenkins is a foreigner. I am of the Wundervolk; my family has served the Nineteen Families for centuries. Jenkins serves the ARM. I’ve sworn loyalty to the ARM—but my heart lies with the security of Wunderland. Let’s assume for my peace of mind that there is no higher contradiction between my sworn loyalties. Loyally to Wunderland, even loyalty to the ARM, doesn’t require me to kiss the seat of Jenkins’ power. Do we understand each other?”
“I’m sworn to carry out my naval duties. My orders are clear.” It was Yankee’s polite way of saying that he was not interested in exceeding his authority.
“Of course. Let me tell you where my interest lies. Hssin calls up a special dread in my heart. Many powerful Wundervolk feel as I do. Hssin, the ARM tells us, has been destroyed. I believe them because I was there. But has it been reinfested? Jenkins scoffs at the idea. Kzinti supply ships long en route to Hssin have been intercepted and destroyed. There have been flyby patrols. These quickie patrols have found nothing. What does that mean? There are thousands of places to hide on a planet. If you were given the assignment, could you hide yourself on Hssin?”
“I don’t think it would be difficult. I intend to find out.”
“What you intend to do on that planet does not interest me. It’s an Intelligence matter I don’t want to know about. The favor that I’m going to ask you does interest me and will ensure my full cooperation. I want a thorough study done of Hssin. When we left it in ‘22 there was not a kzin left alive on that world. When you leave it I want to be sure that the same is true.”
“I’m bringing a kzin with me. I had to make a deal.”
“You’ll be bringing him out again. Right?”
“The deal is that if he comes with me, I’ll rubberstamp Markham’s repatriation release. He wants passage to Kzin.”
“And good riddance. I don’t expect you to find kzinti on Hssin. If you do I don’t care if you kill them or bring them out with you—so long as Hssin is dead when you leave it. I’ll send ten Wunderland marines with you, experienced men, men who were there. If they give it a clean bill of health, I’ll believe you when you say you’ve done the job. This is a gentlemen’s agreement. No orders, no talk, no paperwork.”
Yankee did a quick scan for catches. He didn’t like to take on high risks without careful evaluation, but sometimes an immediate call was the only way. “It’s a deal.”
The admiral was smiling. “Not so fast. I don’t put one of my ships in the hands of a coward. You’ll have to tell me about your mutiny.”
“Yes,” said Chloe enthusiastically. “Adventure time!”
“What are you doing here?” Yankee groaned. “It’s your bedtime. Scram.”
“No. I made a deal with my father.”
Trapped. “It’s simple.” Yankee was angry now. “I disobeyed orders.”
The admiral paused. “There’s more to the story.” It was a command.
“We were horsing around in the kzinti backwoods where no man had dared go before. We didn’t know anything. We were looking around for signs of life. At 59 Virginis we found it. A major kzin world. Commander Shimmel planned a deep probing raid. Surprise was assumed. No electromagnetic message could have told them that they had a hyperspatial enemy. Shimmel went in. I held my wing back against orders. His twelve ships disappeared. The official story is that the kzin got him because I wasn’t there to cover him. What I think is that Shimmel rammed his ships into the singularity. I think his officers followed him against the wall out of blind loyalty. I didn’t. I told him his math was suspect, he was cutting it too fine. He got mad and ordered me in. I dallied. When he disappeared I was pretty freaked and went in, on my own calculations, at my own entrance point, and tried to find him. I didn’t find anybody. The kzin found me and the wing had to fight its way out again.”
“Why didn’t you trust his calculations? He had standard UNSN computers and standard code. We all used the same code.”
“A commander has discretion about how fine he’s going to cut it. You trust the code. I don’t. For Finagle’s sake, nobody understands that stuff. It’s all ad hoc. Its rules of thumb. The simplest rule of thumb is that the singularity is a sphere with radius, in AU, of thirty-six times the root of the mass of the star in solar masses. Would you bet your ship on that? Damn right you wouldn’t. The code takes a thousand things into consideration to come up with a better answer. Do you trust that answer? I don’t. I know it’s not based on a theoretical understanding of hyperspace. It’s based on experience and a bit of mumbo-jumbo distilled out of that incomprehensible manual the Outsiders sold us. When I was training at We Made It, one of the trainees walked his ship into the wall. He was using the then current code. What we found of him was a string of vapor three AUs long. The motor is probably still in hyperspace. Who knows? Scared me out of my mind. I studied singularities. Made up my own rules of thumb, and I’m damned if anybody will tell me not to use them. Yes, they are conservative rules but I’m still alive.”
“Your loyalty to yourself is greater than your loyalty to the navy?”
“Daddy! You promised to be diplomatic! It was part of our deal!”
Yankee couldn’t help himself. He rose to the bait. “I’m more loyal to the navy than you can imagine, sir. If I had my way, men like Jenkins and Buford Early would be composting the slat of the newest recruits. With shovels!”
“So you think there is a time when a loyal officer must disobey orders?”
“I couldn’t say. I wasn’t thinking at the time. I was reacting. It was a judgment call. I was trying to keep my men alive to fight the kzinti. Going through the wall didn’t make sense on any counts. Sometimes you have to sacrifice—but it has to count. When I came home I found a poem. I know it by heart. 1854. October twenty-fifth. The Battle of Balaclava. Tennyson. The British were better at obeying orders than I’ll ever be.” He closed his eyes.