Collected Fiction Page 3

  “I do,” said the colonel dryly, “when my wife is too busy to get to it. I haven’t noticed that either my dignity or my efficiency have suffered appreciably. I might add,” he continued mildly, “that staff officers are supposed to set a good example for their juniors. I don’t think either your tone or your manner are those that Lieutenant Dixon should be encouraged to emulate.” He gestured toward Kurt and Blick spun on one heel.

  “Lieutenant Dixon!” he roared in an incredulous voice. “By whose authority?”

  “Mine,” said the colonel mildly. “In case you’ve forgotten I am still commanding officer of this battalion.”

  “I protest!” said Blick. “Commissions have always been awarded by decision of the entire staff.”

  “Which you now control,” replied the colonel.

  Kurt coughed nervously. “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I think I’d better leave.”

  Colonel Harris shook his head. “You’re one of our official family now, son, and you might as well get used to our squabbles. This particular one has been going on between Colonel Blick and me for years. He has no patience with some of our old customs.” He turned to Blick. “Have you, colonel?”

  “You’re right, I haven’t!” growled Blick. “And that’s why I’m going to change some of them as soon as I get the chance. The sooner we stop this Tech School nonsense and put the recruits to work in the fields where they belong, the better off we’ll all be. Why should a plowman or a hunter have to know how to read wiring diagrams or set tubes. It’s nonsense, superstitious nonsense. You!” he said, stabbing his finger into the chest of the startled lieutenant. “You! Dixon! You spent fourteen years in the Tech Schools just like I did when I was a recruit. What for?”

  “To learn maintenance, of course,” said Kurt.

  “What’s maintenance?” demanded Blick.

  “Taking stuff apart and putting it back together and polishing jet bores with microplanes and putting plates in alignment and checking the meters when we’re through to see the job was done right. Then there’s class work in Direc calculus and subelectronics and—”

  “That’s enough!” interrupted Blick. “And now that you’ve learned all that, what can you do with it?”

  Kurt looked at him in surprise. “Do with it?” he echoed. “You don’t do anything with it. You just learn it because regulations say you should.”

  “And this,” said Blick, turning to Colonel Harris, “is one of your prize products. Fourteen of his best years poured down the drain and he doesn’t even know what for!” He paused and then said in an arrogant voice, “I’m here for a showdown, Harris!”

  “Yes?” said the colonel mildly.

  “I demand that the Tech Schools be closed at once and the recruits released for work details. If you want to keep your command, you’ll issue that order. The staff is behind me on this!”

  Colonel Harris rose slowly to his feet. Kurt waited for the thunder to roll, but strangely enough it didn’t. It almost seemed to him that there was an expression of concealed amusement playing across the colonel’s face.

  “Some day, just for once,” he said, “I wish somebody around here would do something that hasn’t been done before.”

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded Blick.

  “Nothing,” said the colonel. “You know,” he continued conversationally, “a long time ago I walked into my C.O.’s and made the same demands and the same threats that you’re making now. I didn’t get very far, though—just as you aren’t going to—because I overlooked the little matter of the Inspector General’s annual visit. He’s due in from Imperial Headquarters Saturday night, isn’t he Blick?”

  “You know he is!” growled the other.

  “Aren’t worried, are you? It occurs to me that the I.G. might take a dim view of your new order.”

  “I don’t think he’ll mind,” said Blick with a nasty grin. “Now will you issue the order to close the Tech Schools or won’t you?”

  “Of course not!” said the colonel brusquely.

  “That’s final?”

  Colonel Harris just nodded.

  “All right,” barked Blick, “you asked for it!”

  There was an ugly look on his face as he barked, “Kane! Simmons! Arnett! The rest of you! Get in here!”

  The door to Harris’ office swung slowly open and revealed a group of officers standing sheepishly in the anteroom.

  “Come in, gentlemen,” said Colonel Harris.

  They came slowly forward and grouped themselves just inside the door.

  “I’m taking over!” roared Blick. “This garrison has needed a house cleaning for a long time and I’m just the man to do it!”

  “How about the rest of you?” asked the colonel.

  “Beg pardon, sir,” said one hesitantly, “but we think Colonel Blick’s probably right. I’m afraid we’re going to have to confine you for a few days. Just until after the I.G.’s visit,” he added apologetically.

  “And what do you think the LG. will say to all this?”

  “Colonel Blick says we don’t have to worry about that,” said the officer. “He’s going to take care of everything.”

  A look of sudden anxiety played across Harris’ face and for the first time he seemed on the verge of losing his composure.

  “How?” he demanded, his voice betraying his concern.

  “He didn’t say, sir,” the other replied. Harris relaxed visibly.

  “All right,” said Blick. “Let’s get moving!” He walked behind the desk and plumped into the colonel’s chair. Hoisting his feet on the desk he gave his first command.

  “Take him away!”

  There was a sudden roar from the far corner of the room. “No you don’t!” shouted Kurt. His battle-ax leaped into his hand as he jumped in front of Colonel Harris, his muscular body taut and his gray eyes flashing defiance.

  Blick jumped to his feet. “Disarm that man!” he commanded. There was a certain amount of scuffling as the officers in the front of the group by the door tried to move to the rear and those behind them resolutely defended their more protected positions.

  Blick’s face grew so purple that he seemed on the verge of apoplexy. “Major Kane,” he demanded, “place that man under restraint!”

  Kane advanced toward Kurt with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. Keeping a cautious eye on the glittering ax head, he said in what he obviously hoped to be a placating voice, “Come now, old man. Can’t have this sort of thing, you know.” He stretched out his hand hesitantly toward Kurt. “Why don’t you give me your ax and we’ll forget that the incident ever occurred.”

  Kurt’s ax suddenly leaped toward the major’s head. Kane stood petrified as death whizzed toward him. At the last split second Kurt gave a practiced twist to his wrist and the ax jumped up, cutting the air over the major’s head with a vicious whistle. The top half of his silver staff plume drifted slowly to the floor.

  “You want it,” roared Kurt, his ax flicking back and forth like a snake’s tongue, “you come get it. That goes for the rest of you, too!”

  The little knot of officers retreated still farther. Colonel Harris was having the time of his life.

  “Give it to ’em, son!” he whooped.

  Blick looked contemptuously at the staff and slowly drew his own ax. Colonel Harris suddenly stopped laughing.

  “Wait a minute, Blick!” he said. “This has gone far enough.” He turned to Kurt.

  “Give them your ax, son.”

  Kurt looked at him with an expression of hurt bewilderment in his eyes, hesitated for a moment, and then glumly surrendered his weapon to the relieved major.

  “Now,” snarled Blick, “take that insolent puppy out and feed him to the lizards!”

  Kurt drew himself up in injured dignity. “That is no way to refer to a brother officer,” he said reproachfully.

  The vein in Blick’s forehead started to pulse again. “Get him out of here before I tear him to shreds!” he hissed through clenched teeth.
There was silence for a moment as he fought to regain control of himself. Finally he succeeded.

  “Lock him up!” he said in an approximation to his normal voice. “Tell the provost sergeant I’ll send down the charges as soon as I can think up enough.”

  Kurt was led resentfully from the room.

  “The rest of you clear out,” said Blick. “I want to talk with Colonel Harris about the I.G.”

  VI.

  There was a saying in the Protectorate that when the Lord Protector was angry, stars and heads fell. Commander Krogson felt his wabble on his neck. His far-sweeping scouts were sending back nothing but reports of equipment failure, and the sector commander had coldly informed him that morning that his name rested securely at the bottom of the achievement list. It looked as if War Base Three would shortly have a change of command.

  “Look, Schninkle,” he said desperately, “even if we can’t give them anything, couldn’t we make a promise that would look good enough to take some of the heat off us?”

  Schninkle looked dubious.

  “Maybe a new five-year plan?” suggested Krogson.

  The little man shook his head. “That’s a subject we’d better avoid entirely,” he said. “They’re still asking nasty questions about what happened to the last one. Mainly on the matter of our transport quota. I took the liberty of passing the buck on down to Logistics. Several of them have been . . . eh . . . removed as a consequence.”

  “Serves them right!” snorted Krogson. “They got me into that mess with their ‘if a freighter and a half flies a light-year and a half in a month and a half, ten freighters can fly ten light-years in ten months!’ I knew there was something fishy about it at the time but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

  “It’s always darkest before the storm,” said Schninkle helpfully.

  VII.

  “Take off your war bonnet and make yourself comfortable,” said Colonel Harris hospitably.

  Blick grunted assent. “This thing is sort of heavy,” he said. “I think I’ll change uniform regulations while I’m at it.”

  “There was something you wanted to tell me?” suggested the colonel “Yeah,” said Blick. “I figure that you figure the I.G.’s going to bail you out of this. Right?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I would,” said Blick. “I was up snoopin’ around the armory last week. There was something there that started me doing some heavy thinking. Do you know what it was?”

  “I can guess,” said the colonel.

  “As I looked at it it suddenly occurred to me what a happy coincidence it is that the Inspector General always arrives just when you happen to need him.”

  “It is odd, come to think of it.”

  “Something else occurred to me, too. I got to thinking that if I were C.O. and I wanted to keep the troops whipped into line, the easiest way to do it would be to have a visible symbol of Imperial Headquarters appear in person once in a while.”

  “That makes sense,” admitted Harris, “especially since the chaplain has started preaching that Imperial Headquarters is where good marines go when they die—if they follow regulations while they’re alive. But how would you manage it?”

  “Just the way you did. I’d take one of the old battle suits, wait until it was good and dark, and then slip out the back way and climb up six or seven thousand feet. Then I’d switch on my landing lights and drift slowly down to the parade field to review the troops.” Blick grinned triumphantly.

  “It might work,”-admitted Colonel Harris, “but I was under the impression that those rigs were so heavy that a man couldn’t even walk in one, let alone fly.”

  Blick grinned triumphantly. “Not if the suit was powered. If a man were to go up into the tower of the arsenal and pick the lock of the little door labeled ‘Danger! Absolutely No Admittance,’ he might find a whole stack of shiny little cubes that look suspiciously like the illustrations of power packs in the tech manuals.”

  “That he might,” agreed the colonel.

  Blick shifted back in his chair. “Aren’t worried, are you?”

  Colonel Harris shook his head. “I was for a moment when I thought you’d told the rest of the staff, but I’m not now.”

  “You should be! When the I.G. arrives this time I’m going to be inside that suit. There’s going to be a new order around here and he’s just what I need to put the stamp of approval on it. When the Inspector General talks, nobody questions!”

  He looked at Harris expectantly, waiting for a look of consternation to sweep across his face. The colonel just laughed.

  “Blick,” he said, “you’re in for a big surprise!”

  “What do you mean?” said the other suspiciously.

  “Simply that I know you better than you know yourself. You wouldn’t be executive officer if I didn’t. You know, Blick, I’ve got a hunch that the battalion is going to change the man more than the man is going to change the battalion. And now if you’ll excuse me—” He started toward the door. Blick moved to intercept him.

  “Don’t trouble yourself,” chuckled the colonel, “I can find my own way to the cell block.” There was a broad grin on his face. “Besides, you’ve got work to do.”

  There was a look of bewilderment in Blick’s face as the erect figure went out the door. “I don’t get it,” he said to himself. “I just don’t get it!”

  VIII.

  Flight Officer Ozaki was unhappy. Trouble had started two hours after he lifted his battered scout off War Base Three and showed no signs of letting up. He sat glumly at his controls and enumerated his woes. First there was the matter of the air conditioner which had acquired an odd little hum and discharged into the cabin oxygen redolent with the rich ripe odor of rotting fish. Secondly, something had happened in the complex insides of his food synthesizer and no matter what buttons he punched, all that emerged from the ejector were quivering slabs of undercooked protein base smeared with a raspberry flavored goo.

  Not last, but worst of all, the ship’s fuel converter was rapidly becoming more erratic. Instead of a slow, steady feeding of the plutonite ribbon into the combustion chamber, there were moments when the mechanism would falter and then leap ahead. The resulting sudden injection of several square millimicrons of tape would send a sudden tremendous flare of energy spouting out through the rear jets. The pulse only lasted for a fraction of a second but the sudden application of several G’s meant a momentary blackout and, unless he was strapped carefully into the pilot seat, several new bruises to add to the old.

  What made Ozaki the unhappiest was that there was nothing he could do about it. Pilots who wanted to stay alive just didn’t tinker with the mechanism of their ships.

  Glumly he pulled out another red-bordered IMMEDIATE MAINTENANCE card from the rack and began to fill it in.

  Description of item requiring maintenance: “Shower thermostat, M7, Small Standard.”

  Nature of malfunction: “Shower will deliver only boiling water.”

  Justification for immediate maintenance: Slowly in large block letters Ozaki bitterly inked in “Haven’t had a bath since I left base!” and tossed the card into the already overflowing gripe box with a feeling of helpless anger.

  “Kitchen mechanics,” he muttered. “Couldn’t do a decent repair job if they wanted to—and most of the time they don’t. I’d like to see one of them three days out on a scout sweep with a toilet that won’t flush!”

  IX.

  It was a roomy cell as cells go but Kurt wasn’t happy there. His continual striding up and down was making Colonel Harris nervous.

  “Relax, son,” he said gently, “you’ll just wear yourself out.”

  Kurt turned to face the colonel who was stretched out comfortably on his cot. “Sir,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper, “we’ve got to break out of here.”

  “What for?” asked Harris. “This is the first decent rest I’ve had in years.”

  “You aren’t going to let Blick get away with this?” de
manded Kurt in a shocked voice.

  “Why not?” said the colonel. “He’s the exec, isn’t he? If something happened to me, he’d have to take over command anyway. He’s just going through the impatient stage, that’s all. A few days behind my desk will settle him down. In two weeks he’ll be so sick of the job he’ll be down on his knees begging me to take over again.”

  Kurt decided to try a new tack. “But, sir, he’s going to shut down the Tech Schools!”

  “A little vacation won’t hurt the kids,” said the colonel indulgently.

  “After a week or so the wives will get so sick of having them underfoot all day that they’ll turn the heat on him. Blick has six kids himself and I’ve a hunch his wife won’t be any happier than the rest. She’s a very determined woman, Kurt; a very determined woman!”

  Kurt had a feeling he was getting no place rapidly. “.Please, sir,” he said earnestly, “I’ve got a plan.”

  “Yes?”

  “Just before the guard makes his evening check-in, stretch out on the bed and start moaning. I’ll yell that you’re dying and when he comes in to check I’ll jump him!”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” said the colonel sternly. “Sergeant Wetzel is an old friend of mine. Can’t you get it through your thick head that I don’t want to escape. When you’ve held command as long as I have you’ll welcome a chance for a little peace and quiet. I know Blick inside out and I’m not worried about him. But, if you’ve got your heart set on escaping, I suppose there’s no particular reason why you shouldn’t. Do it the easy way though. Like this.” He walked to the bars that fronted the cell and bellowed, “Sergeant Wetzel! Sergeant Wetzel!”

  “Coming, sir!” called a voice from down the corridor. There was a shuffle of running feet and a gray scalp-locked and extremely portly sergeant puffed into view.

  “What will it be, sir?” he asked.

  “Colonel Blick or any of the staff around?” questioned the colonel.

  “No, sir,” said the sergeant. “They’re all upstairs celebrating.