She had them at ease while delivering this organizational harangue; pretty soon she’d call them to attention and introduce me. What would I talk about? I’d planned just to say a few predictable words and explain my Open Door policy, then turn them over to Commodore Antopol, who would say something about the Masaryk II. But I’d better put off my explanation until after I’d had a long talk with Hilleboe; in fact, it would be best if she were the one to introduce the policy to the men and women, so it wouldn’t look like the two of us were at loggerheads.
My executive officer, Captain Moore, saved me. He came rushing through a side door-he was always rushing, a pudgy meteor-threw a quick salute and handed me an envelope that contained our combat orders. I had a quick whispered conference with the Commodore, and she agreed that it wouldn’t do any harm to tell them where we were going, even though the rank and file technically didn’t have the “need to know.”
One thing we didn’t have to worry about in this war was enemy agents. With a good coat of paint, a Tauran might be able to disguise himself as an ambulatory mushroom. Bound to raise suspicions.
Hilleboe had called them to attention and was dutifully telling them what a good commander I was going to be; that I’d been in the war from the beginning, and if they intended to survive through their enlistment they had better follow my example. She didn’t mention that I was a mediocre soldier with a talent for getting missed. Nor that I’d resigned from the army at the earliest opportunity and only got back in because conditions on Earth were so intolerable.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” I took her place at the podium. “At ease.” I unfolded the single sheet that had our orders, and held it up. “I have some good news and some bad news.” What had been a joke five centuries before was now just a statement of fact.
“These are our combat orders for the Sade-138 campaign. The good news is that we probably won’t be fighting, not immediately. The bad news is that we’re going to be a target.”
They stirred a little bit at that, but nobody said anything or took his eyes off me. Good discipline. Or maybe just fatalism; I didn’t know how realistic a picture they had of their future. Their lack of a future, that is.
“What we are ordered to do.. . is to find the largest portal planet orbiting the Sade-138 collapsar and build a base there. Then stay at the base until we are relieved. That will be two or three years, probably.
“During that time we will almost certainly be attacked. As most of you probably know, Strike Force Command has uncovered a pattern in the enemy’s movements from collapsar to collapsar. They hope eventually to trace this complex pattern back through tune and space and find the Taurans’ home planet. For the present, they can only send out intercepting forces, to hamper the enemy’s expansion.
“In a large perspective, this is what we’re ordered to do. We’ll be one of several dozen strike forces employed in these blocking maneuvers, on the enemy’s frontier. I won’t be able to stress often enough or hard enough how important this mission is-if UNEF can keep the enemy from expanding, we may be able to envelop him. And win the war.”
Preferably before we’re all dead meat. “One thing I want to be clear we may be attacked the day we land, or we may simply occupy the planet for ten years and come on home.” Fat chance. “Whatever happens, every one of us will stay in the best fighting trim all the time. In transit, we will maintain a regular program of calisthenics as well as a review of our training. Especially construction techniques-we have to set up the base and its defense facilities in the shortest possible time.”
God, I was beginning to sound like an officer. “Any questions?” There were none. “Then I’d like to introduce Commodore Antopol. Commodore?”
The commodore didn’t try to hide her boredom as she outlined, to this room full of ground-pounders, the characteristics and capabilities of Masaryk Ii. I had learned most of what she was saying through the can’s forcefeeding, but the last thing she said caught my attention.