We rose and, without enthusiasm, chorused, “Fuck you, sir.” Idiotic custom.
Stott strode out of the room and the ensign followed, smirking.
I turned my ring to my assistant squad leader’s position and talked into it: “Tate, this is Mandella.” Everyone else in the room was doing the same.
A tinny voice came out of the ring. “Tate here. What’s up?”
“Get ahold of the men and tell them we have to be in the shells by 2000. Evasive maneuvers.”
“Crap. They told us it would be days.”
“I guess something new came up. Or maybe the Commodore has a bright idea.”
“The Commodore can stuff it. You up in the lounge?”
“Bring me back a cup when you come, okay? Little sugar?”
“Roger. Be down in about half an hour.”
“Thanks. I’ll get on it.”
There was a general movement toward the coffee machine. I got in line behind Corporal Potter.
“What do you think, Marygay?”
“Maybe the Commodore just wants us to try out the shells once more.”
“Before the real thing.”
“Maybe.” She picked up a cup and blew into it. She looked worried. “Or maybe the Taurans had a ship way out, waiting for us. I’ve wondered why they don’t do it. We do, at Stargate.”
“Stargate’s a different thing. It takes seven cruisers, moving all the time, to cover all the possible exit angles. We can’t afford to do it for more than one collapsar, and neither could they.”
She didn’t say anything while she filled her cup. “Maybe we’ve stumbled on their version of Stargate. Or maybe they have more ships than we do by now.”
I filled and sugared two cups, sealed one. “No way to tell.” We walked back to a table, careful with the cups in the high gravity.
“Maybe Singhe knows something,” she said.
“Maybe he does. But I’d have to get him through Rogers and Cortez. Cortez would jump down my throat if I tried to bother him now.”
“Oh, I can get him directly. We. . .” She dimpled a little bit. “We’ve been friends.”
I sipped some scalding coffee and tried to sound nonchalant. “So that’s where you’ve been disappearing to.”
“You disapprove?” she said, looking innocent.
“Well. . . damn it, no, of course not. But-but he’s an officer! A navy officer!”
“He’s attached to us and that makes him part army.” She twisted her ring and said, “Directory.” To me: “What about you and Little Miss Harmony?”
“That’s not the same thing.” She was whispering a directory code into the ring.
“Yes, it is. You just wanted to do it with an officer. Pervert.” The ring bleated twice. Busy. “How was she?”
“Adequate.” I was recovering.
“Besides, Ensign Singhe is a perfect gentleman. And not the least bit jealous.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “If he ever hurts you, tell me and I’ll break his ass.”
She looked at me across her cup. “If Lieutenant Harmony ever hurts you, tell me and I’ll break her ass.”
“It’s a deal.” We shook on it solemnly.
2
The acceleration shells were something new, installed while we rested and resupplied at Stargate. They enabled us to use the ship at closer to its theoretical efficiency, the tachyon drive boosting it to as much as 25 gravities.
Tate was waiting for me in the shell area. The rest of the squad was milling around, talking. I gave him his coffee.
“Thanks. Find out anything?”
“Afraid not. Except the swabbies don’t seem to be scared, and it’s their show. Probably just another practice run.”
He slurped some coffee. “What the hell. It’s all the same to us, anyhow. Just sit there and get squeezed half to death. God, I hate those things.”
“Maybe they’ll eventually make us obsolete, and we can go home.”
“Sure thing.” The medic came by and gave me my shot. I waited until 1950 and hollered to the squad, “Let’s go. Strip down and zip up.”
The shell is like a flexible spacesuit; at least the fittings on the inside are pretty similar. But instead of a life support package, there’s a hose going into the top of the helmet and two coming out of the heels, as well as two relief tubes per suit. They’re crammed in shoulder-to-shoulder on light acceleration couches; getting to your shell is like picking your way through a giant plate of olive drab spaghetti.