Midshipman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 1) Read online

  Another pause. “They got the death sentence, didn’t they?”

  “Ah, that’s a lot of crap. This isn’t officers’ country, with all their young gentlemen. We settle things our own way. So what if Terrill got knocked around some? Serves him right for butting in. He knew better.”

  “What if Captain Kid goes through with it, Eddy? What if Rogoff and Tuak and Herney get roped?”

  I strained to hear the answer. “Who’s gonna do the roping, huh? Which crewman’s gonna tie a rope around another joey’s head? Look, they think they run the ship. But it’s us. We do the work. We run the drives, cook the food, recycle the air. We’re symbiotic. You know what that means? It means they need us like we need them. He won’t rope them. He’s smart enough to know that, for all his being a joeykid.”

  I backed away until I reached the ladder, scurried up to Level 3. Still uneasy, I didn’t stop until I’d reached the safety of Level 1.

  Time for lunch. In the officers’ mess I sat by myself at a small table, brooding. As was the custom, conversation went on around me but nobody bothered me. When the Captain sat at the long table he was part of the group. When he sat by himself he was alone and invisible.

  After mess I went back down to Level 2 and wandered along the corridor until I found the hatch I was looking for. I knocked.

  Mr. Ibn Saud seemed disconcerted to see me. “Oh! Come in, Captain.” He stood aside. His prayer rug was folded neatly at his bedside.

  On the bulkhead was a large color print of Jerusalem’s golden mosque of al-Aqsa, its glimmering dome rebuilt after the Last War to look as it had before.

  “Could we talk awhile, Mr. Ibn Saud?”

  “I am at your disposal.” He offered me his only chair, sat on his bunk facing me.

  “I have a decision to make. I know what my superiors would expect, but the choice isn’t theirs, it’s mine. I think it’s arbitrary and rigid to put our condemned sailors to death for a brawl. On the other hand, their riot was just short of mutiny. Wouldn’t it be weak and permissive of us to pardon them?”

  “Have you studied history, Mr. Seafort?”

  “Not with a teacher.” Father had taught me at home, with a page-worn encyclopedia and the Bible as our curriculum, along with used math and physics texts for the holo.

  Mr. Ibn Saud frowned. “Social trends follow a pendulum motion. Repression, then rebellion; rigidity, then anarchy. We’re frozen at one end of the pendulum.”

  I sat. “What do you mean?”

  “Look back, say, to the twentieth century. It began conservatively, swung in the 1920s to more permissive social mores, swung back to conservatism a generation later.”

  “So?” It sounded rude, and I immediately regretted it. He was doing his best.

  “When the Eastern dictatorships collapsed, America was left the dominant power just as it was entering its liberal, or anarchic, phase.”

  I waited, wondering how this would help me.

  “Willing to try new forms, America set up the U.N. Government, and transferred a few powers to it. So the skeleton of world government was in place when the American-Japanese financial structure collapsed. If not for that, who knows what chaos the world would have then endured?” He shuddered.

  I tried not to show my impatience. What did ancient history have to do with Hibernia?

  “Do you know, Nicky”—he paused, perhaps sensing my discomfort at the casual use of my name—“Captain, that the U.N. was once a force for liberal change? In the early twenty-first century most of the great reforms originated in the U.N.”

  “You call the reforms of 2024 liberal? They banned most stimulants, public gambling, racing of horses, even some sexual practices.”

  “Conservative impulses exist even in liberal times,” he admonished. “The U.N.’s basic structure was permissive: loose federalism on a global scale.”

  “The Rebellious Ages.” The folly of permissiveness.

  “Then the reaction,” he said. “The Era of Law. It began after the Final War, when America and Japan lost their ability to dominate the world by sheer financial strength. The devastation of Japan, China, and much of Africa permanently changed the world balance of power and left the U.N. the only strong global institution.”

  My irritation was mounting. Before the day ended, I had to rule on three men’s lives.

  He said, “Christian Reunification swept Europe, which had become the most influential region of the globe. The U.N. grew conservative and authoritarian. It issued the Unidollar, intervened in local conflicts, and took on the attributes of a real government. Incorporating the British Navy into the U.N. military was a key step.”

  I nodded. The Navy was our senior military service, and I was proud of it. I’d never even considered joining U.N.A.F.

  “The U.N. also set universal education standards, wage rates—all right, I’ll pass over the details.” He smiled apologetically. “The liberal reaction came just as we began our push to colonize space.”

  I asked, “If we were rebelling against central authority when the colonies were being formed, wouldn’t they have become virtually independent?”

  “Not quite, Nick—er, Captain. The rebellion was in the impetus to colonize, to physically escape authority. But the colonies couldn’t stand on their own. In the counterreaction they were brought fully under the control of the Government. Your Navy is the primary instrument of that control; that’s the reason cargo and passengers can only be carried between home and the colonies in a Naval vessel. And it’s why colonial Governors are often Admirals.”

  “I thought it’s because they had the most experience.”

  “Yes, as autocratic leaders. There’s really no difference between a colonial Governor and a Captain. They’re both autocratic symbols of the Government.”

  I tried to follow. “And when you say we’re frozen at one end of the pendulum?”

  “The colonies strain against the pull of the central government. The U.N., pulling the other direction, is locked into repression to maintain control.”

  “That sounds dictatorial.” They’d issued me a voting card the week after I’d made middy, and I took our democracy seriously.

  “Government authority derives from the Reunification. The Yahwehist Church brought together religious forces dispersed for centuries. The U.N. Government is the agent and advocate of our state religion, which in turn supports the authority of the central government.”

  I stirred uneasily; I wouldn’t tolerate heresy, if that’s where he was headed.

  As if in reassurance he added, “The two forces are merged in yourself; you’re both chief magistrate and chaplain. Our system is frozen: the colonies strain against authority; the state and church strain to maintain civil control by arbitrary decrees. It’s been so for seventy years.”

  I stood to pace, troubled by his suggestion. “How can one justify supporting an oppressive government, if men like Tuak and Rogoff are to be hanged because of the rigidity of its rules?”

  Ibn Saud said gravely, “Contrast what harm the repression does, with the harm that would be done without it. The Last War was bad enough; imagine an interplanetary war.”

  “Wouldn’t a liberal say freedom is worth the risk?”

  “And wouldn’t a conservative say civilization is worth the cost?” Ibn Saud, coming from the Saudi sheikhdoms, was of very conservative stock indeed.

  Taking my leave, I climbed back to Level 1, found all quiet on the bridge. I left the Pilot and Vax to their boredom and continued my restless wandering.

  The launch berth was cold, dim, and empty. Suiting up, I called to advise the bridge I was going through to the holds.

  My defogger laboring, I climbed the ladder to the narrow passageway reserved for humankind alongside the huge cargo bays, past crates, containers, heavy machinery, farm implements. The suit didn’t have to protect me from vacuum, it merely assured a good air supply. The hold was pressurized, but its air wasn’t run through the recycler.

  I was inchin
g toward the tip of the pencil, far from the gravitrons in the engine room. As I climbed I felt lighter; as cadets we’d had to memorize the inverse square rule by which our gravity varied, but nothing clarified the rule as well as a practical demonstration.

  The hull began to close in; I was approaching the narrowing point of Hibernia’s bow. At the top of the ladder I stood in the very prow of the ship, almost floating off the landing at the ladder’s end. My eye traced the ribbed skeleton of the ship back to the disk.

  Living in the disk, surrounded by Hibernia’s jostling mass of humanity, I could see only the conflicts and demands it was the Captain’s role to arbitrate.

  But here, at Hibernia’s bow, I became aware of the massive, complicated interweaving of metals and electronics that constituted the ship, bound together by power cables laced through the fabric of the vessel, and propelled by Fusion.

  We were an oddly ritualized society, cramped together in the disk. We tended to forget that the ultimate purpose of our voyage was to sail this vast assemblage of cargo and persons to port, to be absorbed by our fast-growing colonies.

  I sat on the landing, feet dangling from the ladder.

  The many rules that regulated our conduct aboard—the strictures separating passengers and crew, the rigid hierarchy of seamen and officers, the isolation of the Captain—were meant to simplify our lives, to eliminate as many decisions as possible, so we confused and desire-ridden humans could steer this magnificent, complicated, and hugely expensive vessel to safe haven.

  Without our regulations and ship’s customs, we’d face too many choices. Decisions about the human hierarchy: who was smarter, stronger, wiser. Decisions about ethical conduct, about what behaviors were conducive to the proper function of the ship. Decisions about internal controls: which urges, which desires, should be given vent and which should not.

  Hibernia, this great mass of machinery hurled at unimaginable speed through infinite emptiness, could not be controlled by people forever at odds with themselves and each other.

  Mr. Ibn Saud’s theory that repression alternated with permissiveness was irrelevant. For Hibernia to survive, the social system had to be maintained, else we’d all be condemned over and again to carve out our places in the ship’s hierarchy. We were a planet too small to make a place for outsiders, misfits, loners. We had to learn to fit. One man who fought the system could wreck the ship.

  Perhaps, though it could never be known, that was what had happened to Celestina, beyond the pale of civilization.

  The hierarchy of Captain, officers, and crew was necessary to maintain the structure in which we functioned. Here beyond the gleam of our sun, we had to maintain our society unaided.

  Knowing now what I had to do, I got up and started slowly down the ladder to the disk.

  15

  “CHIEF MCANDREWS, REPORT TO the bridge.” I paced. The Chief, wherever he was, would hear my summons. I took the caller again, summoned Dr. Uburu.

  Vax and the Pilot, on watch, observed me without comment.

  “Vax, round up the middies. Quietly, please. I don’t want anyone else to know we’re all on the bridge.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He left on his mission.

  I waited with growing impatience while the officers assembled. When all were present I slapped the hatch shut. “Stand at attention, all of you.”

  They formed a line, eyes front, hands stiff at their sides, Doc Uburu as much as any of them instantly obedient to ship’s discipline. I faced them, picked up the holovid containing the Log.

  “There will be no discussion, no comment on this matter from any of you, here or in private. I have called you to witness an entry into the Log.” I typed quickly as I spoke. “The death sentence imposed on Machinist’s Mate Herney is commuted to five months imprisonment. I have concluded that he was unaware he was striking an officer, and therefore should not suffer death as a penalty for his acts.”

  None of the officers showed any reaction. “The death sentence imposed on seaman Tuak is confirmed. He participated knowingly in an assault on an officer of this ship, and thereby merits execution. That his act was to prevent discovery of a criminal scheme is irrelevant; his execution is punishment solely for his assault.” I finished writing.

  “The death sentence imposed on seaman Rogoff is confirmed. He participated knowingly in an assault on an officer of this ship, and thereby merits execution. That his act was committed in hot blood is irrelevant; the fact of the assault warrants the sentence imposed.”

  I put down the holovid. “Stand at ease.” They moved smartly into the “at ease” position, wrists clasped behind their backs. “We will now discuss the mechanics of the executions.”

  “Mr. Pearson, Mr. Loo: bring the prisoner Tuak. Acknowledge!”

  “Orders received and understood. Aye aye, sir.”

  “Received and understood. Aye aye, sir.” The two exchanged nervous glances before starting up the ladder to Level 3.

  Maintaining outward calm, I reviewed my arrangements. The Pilot and Mr. Vishinsky had visited the brig and cuffed the two prisoners’ hands behind their backs, firmly taping their mouths shut with irremovable skintape. Shortly after, I had brought the ship out of Fusion; we now floated dead in space, light-years from a planetary system.

  On my order the bridge was sealed. All passengers were sent to their cabins and the cabin hatches secured; Alexi and Sandy personally supervised the operation.

  All crew members were ordered to their berths to prepare for inspection. In my dress whites, accompanied by the chief petty officer and a midshipman, I inspected each crew berth and its occupants, who stood at attention while I coldly scrutinized lockers, bunks, and men, liberally dispensing demerits for infractions.

  After each crew berth was inspected, its occupants were marched in absolute silence down to the lower deck of the engine room. They were lined three deep on the deck surrounding the gaping hole of the fusion drive shaft.

  Across the open shaft was placed a plank. A chain ran from a bolt through the end of the plank to a powered dolly. Three meters above the plank, a pole tilted across the shaft. A rope hung from the pole. The noose at its end nearly touched the plank.

  The Doctor, the Pilot, the Chief, and my three midshipmen, all in dress whites, stood at ease facing the lines of crewmen. We waited for the two seamen and their charge.

  A sailor moved.

  “Mr. Tamarov! Place that man on report!” Perhaps he had just been flexing a cramped muscle. “Take his name! I’ll see him at next Captain’s Mast!”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Alexi made a show of writing the seaman’s name. The sailor glared sullenly before resuming eyes-front position.

  “Mr. Tamarov! On dismissal, escort that man to the brig! Bread and water until Captain’s Mast!”

  “Aye aye, sir!” Alexi moved directly in front of the offending seaman who, subdued now, stood at proper attention.

  From the ladder, a sound. Pearson and Loo each gripped one of the unfortunate Mr. Tuak’s arms as they frog-marched him down to the engine room, his feet half walking, half dragging.

  Tuak’s mouth was firmly gagged. His eyes darted wildly back and forth from the assembled men to the shaft with its horrid accoutrements. Then to me. He screamed through his gag.

  The party reached the lower deck. “Mr. Holser, Mr. Vishinsky! Cuff the prisoner’s feet and place him on the gallows.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The midshipman and the master-at-arms broke ranks and took the prisoner from the two sailors. Tuak kicked desperately. Vishinsky bent, captured a frenzied foot and put the cuff on it, then locked it to the other.

  “Mr. Pearson, Mr. Loo, back in ranks!” They complied.

  Vax and Vishinsky dragged the condemned man to the plank. Tuak tried to kick out, balked by his cuffs. I nodded; Vax stepped back into ranks. The man’s eyes darted in frenzy. Muffled sounds emerged from the gag as the noose was tugged tight.

  It had to be done quickly. I was glad of the pills the Doctor had given me
; I felt neither nauseous nor faint. “Mr. Tuak, I commend your soul to Lord God.” I flipped the power switch; the dolly rolled slowly away from the shaft, tightening the chain attached to the plank.

  The plank scraped across the deck until one end cleared the shaft wall. It dropped into the shaft. Tuak plummeted. The rope flexed, recoiled, became tight again. A groan came from behind.

  I whirled around. “Silence!” Several men had gone pale; one swayed as if about to faint. But they held ranks.

  “Mr. Browning, Ms. Edwards: bring the prisoner Rogoff. Acknowledge!” The purser and the gunner’s mate departed. I knew that Mr. Browning would comply; he had too much invested in his status to help a roughneck escape, even if that were possible. Ms. Edwards was one whom Vishinsky thought reliable; that was enough for me.

  “Mr. Vishinsky, Mr. Holser, remove the body and reset the plank.” They hauled on the rope holding Tuak’s remains. I kept my eyes on the crew, both to ensure discipline and to avoid keeling over in a dead faint: Dr. Uburu’s pills had ceased to function.

  The body rose out of the shaft; several crewmen started.

  I knew it was necessary that I watch.

  Tuak’s clothes were soiled where his sphincters had given way. His empurpled face and bulging eyes were enough to sear my soul.

  Behind me, a low angry murmur. My tone was sharp. “The first to break ranks will be hanged as this man was!” We were seconds from being rushed; if one sailor broke, they all would. I regretted my refusal to carry arms.

  I walked down the line of sullen crewmen, hands clasped behind me. “Eyes front! Shoulders stiff! You, there! You’re on report for sloppy position!” What in Lord God’s own hell was keeping Browning and Edwards?

  I paced back down the line. Sandy Wilsky was very pale, his breath shallow. “Midshipman, stomach in! Chest out! Set a good example or I’ll barrel you myself!” Not kind to Sandy, but necessary. The boy sucked in his stomach, his color improving as his mind snapped back to his duty.