Matt.
Matthew Crandall, Colonel, Space Force.
Crandall sent the message, turned back to his desk, and glanced at the lieutenant. Crandall rapped his fingers on the desk, looked steadily at the lieutenant, and waited.
The lieutenant started, as if he had been daydreaming. “It would,” he said, “have been an insult to the Space Force, colonel.”
“What would?” said Crandall.
“Sir?” said the lieutenant. “Why, to let a Planetary Development Tech. 3rd precede a senior Space Force officer, sir.”
Crandall let his glance stray to the small bar on the lieutenant’s left shoulder: “What senior Space Force officer, lieutenant?”
“Senior to . . . to the technician, sir.”
“Just how senior was the technician?”
“He was . . . just a Technician 3rd. Sir, if I had let him precede a senior—”
“A what?”
“A . . . A ranking Space Force officer, it would have been a . . . an insult to the service, sir.”
“So you grabbed him and shoved him back?”
The lieutenant’s face turned red, then white. “Sir, I ordered him to stay back. Then I . . . he didn’t, and I had to enforce the order.”
” ‘Enforce’ it. How did you do that?”
“I—Well, I used force, sir.”
“Did you hit him?”
The lieutenant winced, then stood straight. “I just sort of—Sir, he acted as if—”
“Did you hit him?”
“I—No, sir. I just sort of, quickly pushed him aside, and got out in front of him.”
Crandall looked steadily at the lieutenant, and watched as the phrase “got out in front of him” echoed through the lieutenant’s mind.
The message bell pinged and Crandall stepped over to the transceiver. He stripped off the message and read:
Matt: I understand your hesitation, and regret it is my fault for neglecting to mention that suits will of course be thoroughly inspected and checked during interval before arrival of operators. DelGrange is a perfectionist in design, and of course these suits have already been checked by him, prior to being shipped. But we will check them again as ordinary routine.
Dave.
David L. Paley, Chief, Planetary
Development Authority, Cygnes.
Crandall scowled and tapped out his reply.
Dave: I appreciate the thoroughness of your preliminary check on the equipment. But what I have in mind is something that may not show up until the suits are actually in use down on VI. Then if we have committed ourselves by sending them all down, there will be nothing we can do in the heavy gravity down there till another bunch of suits and operators arrive. My suggestion is, that we follow your plan, but a little more slowly.
Matt.
Matthew Crandall, Colonel, Space Force.
Crandall sent the message, went back to his desk, and scowled at the lieutenant. The lieutenant looked uneasy.
“So,” said Crandall, “you shoved the Planetary Development man out of the way and squeezed out first?”
“Sir . . . it wasn’t quite like that.”
“Were you in a hurry? Official business?”
“I—No, I wasn’t sir, but—”
“You weren’t?”
“No, I—”
“Were you, or weren’t you?”
“No, but—”
“Then just what was your reason for shoving the Planetary Development man around?”
“I—It was a slur on the service, colonel.”
“If you,” said Crandall, “had been a civilian on the spaceboat, and seen a junior second lieutenant wrestling with a junior technician to get out the hatch first, what would you have thought of the service?”
The lieutenant’s face turned red. He struggled to say something, then merely looked sick.
Crandall added, “There’s another little point here you might think about.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Planetary Development often uses junior technicians as couriers. Sometimes they carry dangerous chemicals. At other times they carry delicate apparatus. There are occasions when these things are needed in a hurry. It would be natural for a junior technician to forget protocol.”
“Yes, sir. I see. But this one—”
“Some small pieces of apparatus,” said Crandall thoughtfully, “cost upwards of sixty thousand dollars.”
The lieutenant looked totally blank.
The message bell pinged, and Crandall remarked, “At your present rate of pay, it could take you thirty years to pay off the damages. And, of course, it would come under the head of Destroying Government Property. Then there might be enough bad feeling to charge you with Conduct Unbecoming An Officer.” Crandall got up and added thoughtfully, “I saw a sixty-year old lieutenant once.”
He went over to the transceiver, stripped off the paper, and read:
Matt: I agree with you in principle, but the trouble in slowing things down is that we won’t be in position for another drop till thirty days from now. This ore is vitally important back home. We have to send back as much as we can as fast as we can.
Dave.
David L. Paley, Chief, Planetary
Development Authority, Cygnes.
Crandall frowned, thought a moment, then sent:
Dave: If it will be thirty days till the next drop, I see your point. But I still think we should hold some of the suits in reserve in the event of emergency.
Matt.
Matthew Crandall, Colonel, Space Force.
Crandall walked back to his desk and sat down. He observed that the lieutenant looked sick. “Sir,” said the lieutenant, “I’m sorry. I should have known better. But this P.D.A. technician—Was this technician carrying anything? I didn’t see anything, but—”
Crandall shrugged. “We haven’t had a damage notice yet. Sometimes an interservice damage complaint takes time to clear through channels.”
“Sir, I’m sorry.”
“All right,” said Crandall. “And remember one more thing when you’re tempted to fight with an opposite number on Planetary Development.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“A pair of pliers,” said Crandall, using an argument he had used many times before and found serviceable, “is a useful tool. But take out the little bolt that holds the two halves together, and those two halves, separated, aren’t worth much.” Crandall leaned back and heard the message bell ping again. “Planetary Development,” he said, “and the Space Force, are like the two halves of a pair of pliers. You don’t want to hurt the co-operation that holds them together. Remember that.”
“Yes, sir,” said the lieutenant fervently. “I’ll remember.”
They exchanged salutes. The lieutenant about-faced and left the room. Crandall got up and stripped another message from the transceiver:
Matt: Everything we hold back will be out of action and useless for thirty days. Every operator held out will result in thirty man-days totally and irrevocably lost. They need this ore back home. Please give me your signature on my original plan as soon as possible.
Dave.
Crandall took a deep breath.
The intercom buzzed, and Crandall turned to snap it on.
“Sir,” said a voice. “There’s a courier from Planetary out here. He’s got a Triple-A priority. Should I send him in, sir? Or just the papers?”
“Just the papers.”
“Yes, sir.”
A tall sergeant brought in a sheaf of papers, and Crandall scanned them carefully. He looked up at the sergeant. “Make out exact duplicates of these papers, but substitute the figure 276 for 300 in this item ‘300 delGrange suits and 300 operators.’ ”
“Yes, sir.”
Crandall went back to the transceiver.
Dave: I have received your suggested plan. While I agree this would be excellent if we knew more about these new suits and about VI, right now I don’t think we should take the risk. Thirty man-days wasted is a serious thing, but what we have at stake is a total of nine thousand man-days. While I agree with you in principle, I can’t agree in detail. To save delay, I am having a new set of papers made up, will sign them and send them back with your courier.
Matt.
A brief pause followed, and an answering message came in:
Matt: How many suits are you planning to hold out?
Dave.
Crandall sent:
Dave: Twenty-four. Matt.
The sergeant came in with the revised sheets, and Crandall signed them. The message bell pinged.
Matt: Twenty-four is damned near a fourth of one hundred, or about one-twelfth the whole force. What are you trying to do, hamstring me?
Dave.
Crandall puffed out his cheeks.
Dave: The only prudent thing to do is to reserve at least some small force in the event of emergency. There may be new developments. In thirty days we may need these suits. Twenty-four suits is only eight percent of your total force. This is a very modest reserve.
Matt.
Matt: We aren’t fighting a war on VI. What do we have to hold out any “reserve” for? Our only enemies down there are gravity and pressure. What you are asking me to do is to sacrifice three thousand six hundred man-days to satisfy your misplaced military notions. Planetary development isn’t war. There is no enemy down there. There is no need for a reserve. Our job is to get up the ore as fast as we can in as large a quantity as possible. Kindly sign my original papers and send them on immediately.