“But a pocket computer?” Renner stared. “You know that’s impossible, don’t you?”
She thought it was a joke. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, it is. Ask Dr. Horvath.” Renner hung up and went back to sleep.
Sally caught up with Dr. Horvath as he was turning into his cabin. She told him about the computer.
“But those things are one big integrated circuit. We don’t even try to repair them…” Horvath muttered other things to himself.
While Renner slept, Horvath and Sally woke the physical sciences staff. None of them got much sleep that night.
“Morning” on a warship is a relative thing. The morning watch is from 0400 to 0800, a time when the human species would normally sleep; but space knows nothing of this. A full crew is needed on the bridge and in the engine rooms no matter what the time. As a watchkeeping officer, Whitbread stood one watch in three, but MacArthur’s orderly quarter bill was confused beyond repair. He had both the morning and forenoon watches off, eight glorious hours of sleep; yet, somehow, he found himself awake and in the warrant officers’ mess at 0900.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Horst Staley protested. “I don’t know where you got that idea. Forget it.”
“OK, Whitbread said easily. He chose juice and cereal and put them on his tray. He was just behind Staley in the cafeteria line, which was natural enough since he had followed Staley in.
“Though I appreciate your concern,” Staley told him. There was no trace of emotion in the voice.
Whitbread nodded agreeably. He picked up his tray and followed Staley’s unnaturally straight back. Predictably, Staley chose an empty table. Whitbread joined him.
In the Empire were numerous worlds where the dominant races were white caucasian. On such worlds the pictures on Navy enlistment posters always looked like Horst Staley. His jaw was square, his eyes icy blue. His face was all planes and angles, bilaterally symmetrical, and without expression. His back was straight, his shoulders broad, his belly was flat and hard and ridged with muscle. He contrasted sharply with Whitbread, who would fight a weight problem all his life, and was at least slightly rounded everywhere.
They ate in silence, a long breakfast. Finally, too casually, Staley asked, as if he had to ask, “How went your mission?”
Whitbread was ready. “Rugged. The worst hour and a half the Motie spent staring at me. Look.” Whitbread stood. He twisted his head sideways and let his knees sag and shoulders slump, to fit him into an invisible coffin 130 cm high. “Like this, for an hour and a half.” He sat down again. “Torture, I tell you. I kept wishing they’d picked you.”
Staley flushed. “I did volunteer.”
Bull’s-eye. “It was my turn. You were the one who accepted Defiant’s surrender, back off New Chicago.”
“And let that maniac steal my bomb!”
Whitbread put his fork down. “Oh?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Of course not. Think Blaine would spread it all over the ship? You did come back a bit shaken after that mission. We wondered why.”
“Now you know. Some jackass tried to renege. Defiant’s captain wouldn’t let him, but he might have.” Staley rubbed his hands together, painfully hard. “He snatched the bomb away from me. And I let him! I’d have given anything for the chance to—” Staley stood up suddenly, but Whitbread was quick enough to catch him by the arm.
“Sit down,” he said. “I can tell you why you weren’t picked.”
“I suppose you can read the Captain’s mind?” They kept their voices low by tacit consent. MacArthur’s interior partitions were all sound-absorbent anyway, and their voices were very clear, if soft.
“Second-guessing officers is good practice for a middie,” said Whitbread.
“Why, then? Was it because of the bomb?”
“Indirectly. You’d have been tempted to prove yourself. But even without that, you’re too much the hero, Horst. Perfect physical shape, good lungs—ever meet an admiral with a soft voice?—utter dedication, and no sense of humor.”
“I do too have a sense of humor.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I don’t?”
“Not a trace. The situation didn’t call for a hero, Horst. It called for someone who didn’t mind being made ridiculous in a good cause.”
“You’re kidding. Damn, I never know when you’re kidding’
“Now would be a poor time. I’m not making fun of you, Horst. Listen, I shouldn’t have to explain this. You watched it all, didn’t you? Sally told me I was on all the intercom screens, live, in color and 3D.”
“You were.” Staley smiled briefly. “We should have had a view of your face. Especially when you started swearing. We got no warning at all. The view jumped a bit, then you screamed at the alien, and everybody cracked up.”
“What would you have done?”
“Not that. I don’t know. Followed orders, I guess.” The icy eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t have tried to shoot my way out, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Maybe a second of cutting laser into the control panel? To kill the force field?”
“Not without orders.”
“What about the sign language? I spent some time making gestures, hoping the alien would understand me, but it never did.”
“We couldn’t see that. What about it?”
“I told you,” Whitbread said. “The mission took someone willing to make a fool of himself in a good cause. Think about how often you heard people laugh at me while I was bringing back the Motie.”
Staley nodded.
“Now forget them and think about the Motie. What about her sense of humor? Would you like a Motie laughing at you, Horst? You might never be sure if she was or wasn’t; you don’t know what it looks like or sounds like—”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“All anyone knew was that the situation called for someone to find out whether the aliens were willing to talk to us. It didn’t need someone to uphold the Imperial honor. Plenty of time for that after we know what we’re facing. There’ll be room for heroes, Horst. There always is.”
“That’s reassuring,” said Staley. He had finished breakfast. Now he stood and walked out fast, with his back very straight, leaving Whitbread wondering.
Oh, well, Whitbread thought. I tried. And just maybe…
Luxury in a warship is relative.
Gunnery Officer Crawford’s stateroom was the size of his bed. When the bed was up, he had room to change clothes and a small sink to brush his teeth. To lower the bed for sleeping he had first to step into the corridor; and being tall for a Navy man, Crawford had learned to sleep curled up.
A bed and a door with a lock on it, instead of a hammock or one tier of many bunks: luxury. He would have fought to keep it; but he had lost the toss. Now he bunked in MacArthur’s cutter while an alien monster occupied his quarters.
“She’s only a little more than a meter tall, of course she fits,” Sally Fowler said judiciously. “Still, it’s only a tiny room. Do you think she can stand it? Otherwise we’ll have to keep her in the lounge.”
“I saw the cabin of her ship. It wasn’t any bigger. She can stand it,” Whitbread said. It was too late to try sleeping in the gun room, and he was supposed to tell the scientists everything he knew: at least that ought to work if Cargill asked why he’d been pestering Sally. “I suppose you’ve got someone watching her through the intercom?”
She nodded. Whitbread followed her into the scientists’ lounge. Part of the room had been screened off with wire netting and the two miniatures were in there. One was nibbling at a head of cabbage, using four arms to hold it to her chest. The other, her abdomen swollen with pregnancy, was playing with a flashlight.