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

  He said nothing, and I reflected a moment. “Thirty-four months, round-trip. I don’t know, sir. I tested low for claustrophobia, like all of us.” I risked a grin. “It depends whether it’s three years playing chess with you or being reamed out by Lieutenant Cousins.” For a moment I thought I’d overstepped myself, but it was all right.

  Lieutenant Malstrom let out a long, slow breath. “I won’t criticize a brother officer, especially to one of junior rank like yourself. I merely wonder aloud how he ever got into Academy.”

  Or out of it, I added silently. If only Mr. Malstrom had been the one assigned to teach us navigation. But his primary duties were ship security and passenger liaison. Judiciously, I said nothing.

  I wandered back to the wardroom. Inside, Sandy Wilsky sat attentively on the deck, legs crossed. From his bed, Vax Holser scowled. “Well?”

  With a shrug of despair Sandy blurted, “I don’t know, Mr. Holser.”

  Vax’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not by some chance still a cadet? Have we a genuine middy who can’t find the munitions locker?”

  I crossed to my bunk, ignoring the boy’s hopeful look. Vax was entitled to haze him a bit. We all were; Sandy was junior and just out of Academy.

  “I’m sorry.” Sandy glanced to me as if for succor, but I offered none. A middy should know such things. I kicked off my shoes, flopped on my bed.

  Vax demanded, “What’s the Naval Mission?”

  Sandy took a hopeful breath. “The mission of the United Nations Naval Service is to preserve the United Nations Government of and under Lord God, and to protect colonies and outposts of human habitation wherever established. The Naval Service is to defend the United Nations and its—its ...” He faltered.

  Vax glared, and finished for him. “—and its territories from all enemies, internal or foreign, to transport all interstellar cargoes and goods, to convey such persons to and from the colonies who may have lawful business among them, and to carry out such lawful orders as Admiralty may from time to time issue. Section 1, Article 5 of the regs.”

  “Yes, Mr. Holser.”

  Vax said, “It’s worth a demerit or two, Nicky.”

  I made no answer. If Vax had his way, the juniors would spend their lives in the exercise room. Within the wardroom, only I could issue demerits, though Vax could make the middies’ lives miserable in other ways.

  “Laser controls?”

  “In the gun—I mean, the comm room.” The youngster wrinkled his brow. “No, it must be ... I mean ...”

  Vax scowled. “How many push-ups would it take—”

  A few push-ups wouldn’t hurt Sandy—we’d all been subjected to worse hazing—but Vax got on my nerves. He even had the boy calling him “Mr. Holser,” which I resented. By tradition, only the senior middy was addressed as “Mr.” by the juniors.

  I snapped, “Laser controls are in the comm room. You should know that—were you asleep during gunnery practice?”

  “No, Mr. Seafort.” A faint sheen of perspiration; now he had us both annoyed at him.

  I made my tone less grating. “On some ships the lasers are in a separate compartment called the gunroom, which is also what old-fashioned ships call their middy’s berth.”

  “Thank you.” Sandy sounded appropriately humble.

  Vax growled, “He should have known it.”

  “You’re right. Not knowing your way around the ship is a disgrace, Sandy. Give me twenty push-ups.” It was a kindness. Vax would have made it fifty.

  Dinner, as usual, was in the ship’s dining hall rather than the officers’ mess. I sat at my place sipping ice water, waiting for the clink of the glass. When it came I stood with the rest of the officers and passengers, my head bowed. Captain Haag, stocky, graying, and distinguished, began the nightly ritual.

  “Lord God, today is October 19, 2194, on the U.N.S. Hibernia. We ask you to bless us, to bless our voyage, and to bring health and well-being to all aboard.”

  “Amen.” Chairs scraped as we sat. The Ship’s Prayer has been said at evening in every United Nations vessel to sail the void for one hundred sixty-seven years, and always by the Captain, as representative of the government, and therefore of the Reunified Church. Like crewmen everywhere, our sailors considered shipping with a parson to be unlucky, and any minister who sailed in Hibernia did so in his private capacity. Few ships had it otherwise.

  “Good evening, Mr. Seafort.”

  “Good evening, ma’am.” Mrs. Donhauser, imposing in her elegant yet practical satin jumpsuit, was the Anabaptist envoy to our Hope Nation colony. “Did yoga go well today?”

  She smiled her appreciation of my offering. Mrs. Donhauser believed that daily yoga would get her to Hope Nation sane and healthy. Her stated mission was to convert every last one of the two hundred thousand residents to her creed. Knowing her, I had no reason to disbelieve it was possible.

  Our state religion was the amalgam of Protestant and Catholic ritual that had been hammered out in the Great Yahwehist Reunification after the Armies of Lord God repressed the Pentecostal heresy. Nonetheless, the U.N. Government tolerated splinter sects such as Mrs. Donhauser’s. Still, I wondered how the Governor of Hope Nation would react if she succeeded too well in her mission. Like Captain Haag, the Governor was ex-officio a representative of the true Church.

  Hibernia carried eleven officers on her long interstellar voyage: four middies, three lieutenants, Chief Engineer, Pilot, Ship’s Doctor, and the Captain. We all took our breakfast and lunch in the spartan and simple officers’ mess, but we sat with our passengers for the evening meal.

  Our hundred thirty passengers, bound for the thriving Hope Nation colony or continuing on to Detour, our second stop, had their informal breakfast and lunch in the passengers’ mess.

  Belowdecks, our crew of seventy—engine room hands, comm specialists, recycler’s mates, hydroponicists, the ship’s boy, and the less skilled crewmen who toiled in the galley or in the purser’s compartments caring for our many passengers—took all their meals in the seamen’s mess below.

  Places at dinner were assigned monthly by the purser, except at the Captain’s table, where seating was by Captain Haag’s invitation only. This month I was assigned to Table 7. In my regulation blues—navy-blue pants, white shirt, black tie, spit-polished black shoes, blue jacket with insignia and medals, and ribbed cap—I always felt stiff and uncomfortable at dinner. I wished again I could wear the uniform with Vax Holser’s confident style.

  At his neighboring table Chief Engineer McAndrews chatted easily with a passenger. Grizzled and stolid, the Chief ran his engine room with unpretentious efficiency. To me he was friendly but reserved, as he seemed to be with all the officers.

  The stewards brought each table its tureen of thick hot mushroom soup. We dished it out ourselves. Ayah Dinh, the Pakistani merchant directly across from me, sucked his soup greedily. Everyone else affected not to notice. Mr. Barstow, a florid sixty-year-old, glared as if daring me to speak to him. I chose not to. Randy Carr, immaculate and athletic, wearing an expensive pastel jumpsuit, smiled politely but looked through me as if I were nonexistent. His aristocratic son Derek strongly resembled him in appearance, and copied his manner. Sixteen and haughty, he did not deign to smile at crew; what courtesy he had was reserved for passengers.

  “I started a diary, Nicky.” Amanda Frowel favored me with a welcome smile. Our civilian education director was twenty, I’d learned. I’d thought her smile was for me alone, until I’d seen her offer it to all the other midshipmen and two of the lieutenants. Ah, well.

  I focused on her comment. “What did you write in it?”

  “The start of my new life,” she said simply. “The end of my old.” Amanda was en route to Hope Nation to teach natural science. It was common practice to have a passenger fill the post of education director.

  “Are you sure you mean that?” I asked. “Doesn’t your new life really start when you arrive, not when you leave?” I took a bite of salad.

  Theodore
Hansen cut in before she could answer. “Exactly so. The boy is correct.” A soy merchant, he was investing three years of his life to found new soy plantations with the hybrid seed in our holds. If all went well he’d be a millionaire many times over, instead of the few times he already was.

  “No, Mr. Hansen.” Her tone was calm. “That would only be true if the voyage is a hiatus in life, just a waiting period before I get to Hope Nation and resume living.”

  Young Derek Carr snorted with disdain. “What else could it be? Is this”—he waved a hand airily—“what you call living?”

  His tone offended me but I had no standing to object. Miss Frowel, though, seemed not to notice. “Yes, I call this living,” she told him. “I have a comfortable berth, lectures to arrange, a trunkful of holovid chips to read, enjoyable dining, and pleasant company to share the voyage.”

  Randy Carr poked his son ungently in the ribs. The boy glared at him; he glowered back. Some signal passed between them. After a moment Derek said coolly, “Forgive me if I was rude, Miss Frowel,” not sounding greatly concerned.

  She smiled and the conversation turned elsewhere. As I finished my baked chicken I closed my ears and imagined the two of us alone in her cabin. Well, it would be a long voyage. We’d see.

  “So you finally got something right, Mr. Seafort!” Lieutenant Cousins examined my solution on the plotting screen, rubbing his balding head. “But Lord God, can’t Mr. Tamarov even learn the basics? If he’s ever let loose on a bridge he’ll destroy his vessel!”

  Mr. Cousins had us calculating when to Defuse to locate the derelict U.N.S. Celestina, lost a hundred twelve years ago with all hands. I checked Alexi’s solution out of the corner of my eye. He’d made a math error matching stellar velocities. Basically correct, except for the one lapse, but his omission could have been catastrophic. Perhaps Celestina had foundered because of some careless navigation error. No one knew.

  “I’m very sorry, sir,” Alexi said meekly.

  “You’re very sorry indeed, Mr. Tamarov,” the lieutenant echoed. “Of all the middies in the Navy, I get you! Perhaps Mr. Seafort and Mr. Holser will inspire you to study your Nav text. If they don’t, I will.”

  Not good; it was an open invitation to Vax Holser to redouble his hazing, and there was already bad blood between the two.

  I had nothing against hazing; we all had to go through it and it strengthens character, or so they say, but Vax took a sadistic pleasure in it that disturbed me. Naturally, as first middy, I’d hazed Alexi and Sandy myself. From time to time I’d had one or the other of them stand on a chair in the wardroom in his shorts for a couple of hours, reciting ship’s regs, or given extra mop-up duty for minuscule infractions. As low men, they had to expect that sort of thing, and did. I decided to keep an eye open. I couldn’t wholly protect Alexi from Vax, who was second in seniority, but I could try to keep the brooding middy from going too far.

  “Back to work.” With an irritable swipe, Mr. Cousins cleared Alexi’s screen and brought up another plot.

  Of course, our calculations were only simulated, with the help of Darla, the ship’s puter. In reality Hibernia was Fused and all our outer sensors were blind.

  Our first stop was to be at Celestina, if we could find her without too much delay. She was but a small object, and deep in interstellar space. Then, after many months, we would drop off supplies at Miningcamp, sixty-three light-years distant, before completing our run to Hope Nation. But simulation or no, Lieutenant Cousins expected perfection, and rightly so.

  While the fusion drive made interstellar travel practical, the drive was inherently inaccurate by up to six percent of the distance traveled in Fusion. So, we aimed for a point at least six percent of our journey from our target system, stopped, recalculated, and Fused again, as a safeguard against blindly Fusing into a sun, which had happened at least once in the early days. During Fusion our external instruments were useless; we couldn’t determine our position until we actually turned off the drive.

  I tapped at the keys. So many variables. Our N-waves traversed the galaxy faster than any known form of communication. Though the Navy talked of sending out messenger drones equipped with fusion drive, in practice it didn’t work well. The drones frequently disappeared, and no one knew just why. You’d think a puter could handle a ship as well as a mere human, but—

  “Pay attention, Seafort!”

  “Aye aye, sir!” I squinted at the screen, corrected my error.

  Anyway, engineering a fusion drive was so expensive, it made more sense for the Navy to surround it with a manned ship, to ferry passengers and supplies to our colonies as well as mere messages.

  Perhaps someday, if the drones were perfected, our profession would be obsolete. It would be a shame. Ours was a glamorous career, despite the slight risk of developing melanoma T, the vicious carcinoma triggered by long exposure to fusion fields.

  Fortunately, humans whose cells were exposed to N-waves within five years of puberty seemed almost immune, though there were exceptions. Even for adults going interstellar for the first time, the risks weren’t excessive, but they grew with each successive voyage. So, officers were started young, and crew men and women were recruited for short—

  “Daydreaming again, Mr. Seafort? If it’s about a young lady, you could go to your wardroom for privacy.”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir.” Blushing, I bent over the console, my fingers flying.

  One way to determine our location was to plot our position relative to three known stars and consult the star charts in the ship’s puter. We could also calculate the energy variations recorded during Fusion and estimate the percentage of error that would result. This method gave us a sphere of error; we could be at any point in the sphere. Then we merely had to calculate what our target would look like and see if we observed anything that matched.

  I don’t care what the textbooks say. Navigation is more art than science.

  When nav drill was over at last, I chewed out Alexi and sent him to the wardroom with a chip of Lambert and Greeley’s Elements of Astronavigation for his holovid.

  2

  THE CLOCK TICKED AGAINST me. Blindfolded, I felt for the bulkheads, hoping not to trip over an unexpected obstacle. I groped my way to a hatch. Lockable from the inside, full-size handle. That meant I was in a passenger’s cabin. I felt my way out to the corridor. I turned left, arbitrarily, and walked slowly, my arm scraping along the corridor bulkhead. I sensed I was moving upward, almost imperceptibly. It meant I was coming to a ladder.

  One of our training exercises was to figure out where we were, without sight. We’d be given a Dozeoff and would wake some minutes later, Lord God knew where. If we took too long to orient ourselves, we were demerited. I suppose, if a ship’s power backups and all our emergency lighting failed at once, the drill could be useful. But I couldn’t imagine a situation that would cause that to happen.

  I bumped into the ladder railing. It extended both up and down; that meant I was on Level 2, in passenger country. Amanda’s cabin was somewhere near; as our friendship had progressed I’d finally been invited inside it.

  Where was I, east or west? If east, there’d be an exercise room about twenty steps past the railing. I couldn’t remember what was west, except that it wasn’t the exercise room. Throwing caution aside to improve my time I staggered down the passage. If Mr. Cousins had put a chair in the corridor I was done for.

  No exercise room. “Passenger quarters, second level west, about fifteen meters west of the ladder, sir.”

  “Very good, Nicky.” Lieutenant Malstrom’s voice. I took off the blindfold and blinked in the light. I grinned, and he smiled back. I could imagine how our first lieutenant would have said the same thing.

  Cut out three foam rubber disks an inch thick, set them one on top of another, and stick a short pencil through the center. Now stand the pencil on end. You’d have a rough model of our ship. The engine room was within the pencil underneath the disks; below that sat the drive itself, fl
aring into the wave emission chamber at the stubby end of the pencil.

  We, crew and passengers, lived and worked in the three disks. The portion of the pencil above the disks would be our cargo holds, full of equipment and supplies for the colony on Hope Nation and for Miningcamp.

  A circular passage called the circumference corridor ran around each disk, dividing it into inner and outer segments. To either side, hatches opened onto the disk’s cabins and compartments. At intervals along the corridor, airtight hatches were poised to slam shut in case of decompression; they’d seal off each section from the rest.

  Two ladders—stairwells, in civilian terms—ascended from the east and west sections of Level 3 to the lofty precincts of Level 1. The bridge was on the uppermost level, along with the officers’ cabins and the Captain’s sacrosanct quarters I’d never been allowed to view.

  Level 2 was passenger country, holding most of the passenger staterooms. A few passengers were lodged above on Level I, and the remainder had cabins below on Level 3, where the crew was housed.

  Passenger cabins were about twice the size of those given the lieutenants. Below, the Level 3 crew berths made even our crowded middy wardroom seem luxurious. Naval policy was to crowd us for sleeping but allow us ample play room. The crew had a gymnasium, theater, rec room, privacy rooms, and its own mess.

  The exercise over, Mr. Malstrom and I climbed up to Level 1.

  I had just time enough to get ready for my docking drill on the bridge. I showered carefully before reporting to Captain Haag. I still only shaved about once a week, so I had no problem there.

  I dressed, tension beginning to knot my stomach. Though I was a long way from making lieutenant, I had no hope of eventual promotion until I could demonstrate to the Captain some basic skill at pilotage.

  I gave my uniform a last tuck, took a deep breath, and knocked firmly on the bridge hatch. “Permission to enter bridge, sir.”

  “Granted.” The Captain, standing by the Nav console, didn’t bother to turn around. He’d sent for me, and he knew my voice.