“As one great man put it, ‘Science fiction lets us play out our nightmares and dreams in the theater of the future before turning them into reality. . . . It inspires us and warns us: The future can be better, but be careful what you create.’ And I might add that the readers of science fiction are best prepared to handle the future. Indeed, the influence of Earth’s science fiction and fantasy has been so great that many cultures have learned English in order to read these works in their original format. Over the period of the last four centuries our language has become the lingua franca of trade and culture. Much as Greek culture conquered the Romans, so has our culture, and the ‘all conquering English language,’ as Churchill called it, conquered much of the galaxy.
“Murder mysteries, romances, westerns, contemporary novels . . . bah. Bah to them all. They were wood, hay and stubble, to be washed away by the tides of time and left far, far behind. But those who turned their minds to what might be, and how to deal with it, they were opening the door to the future. Taking the next major developmental step in our civilization, our species.
“When the Crash came, all books and essentially all writing was on the net. There was no such thing as printed books any more. We lost virtually all the literature of the late twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. The works of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century were printed on such poor paper that most of them decayed within a century or so. During the chaos of the Crash most of the few remaining collections were lost. The nineteenth-century works were published on better quality paper, so we have most of them, but we might have lost almost all of the twentieth century’s works, with all that incredible classic science fiction and fantasy, if not for the Cockett stash. It was carefully and very luckily preserved in the mountains of Wyoming, a land so deserted and desolate that even insects shun it.” The monk smiled, thinking on the happy coincidence that preserved the books that meant so much to their civilization.
“Aye, sir,” said Tung thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t want to live in a world without Heinlein, or all the other great masters.”
“Well said, Mister Tung, well said,” replied the monk with a nod. “But we almost did lose it all. There were odds and ends of all genres preserved, but really only the Cockett stash remains as any major body. All we know is the name, ‘Charles Cockett’ written in each book. The funny thing is, we know less about Mr. Cockett than we do about Shakespeare or maybe even Homer. One scrap of information says that Cockett had one child who went on to do great things, but another reputable source says he had thirteen ‘half-witted’ children. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere in between these two extremes.”
The two rangers, Josiah Westminster and Aubrey Valandil, were leaning against the railing listening to the monk, with a pack of dogs and puppies around them, taking a break from their dog training. Looking up at them Petreckski asked, “Josiah, do you have anything to add before we get these young gentlemen back to their training?”
“Well,” drawled the ranger with a grin, “the whole situation can be summed up in a parable about a young marine.” The extended audience now sat back with great pleasure. The usually laconic ranger was also a shameless storyteller. Everyone loved a good marine joke, and they all looked appreciatively at the few red jackets among them.
“O Lor’,” said one old marine, ” ‘Ere we go again.”
“There was this ranger on a vacation at the beach,” Josiah began, scratching a worshipful dog behind the ears. “He was running a little low on cash when he saw a note on the bulletin board that said, ‘Ocean Cruise: Five Dollars.’
” ‘Ocean cruise, five dollars,’ says the ranger, ‘that’s just mah speed.’ The note said to go to room 222 in the hotel so he went up, walked in and said, ‘Hey! Ah’m here for mah ocean cruise!’
” ‘Bam!’ someone smacked him on the head and took his wallet, and he woke up strapped to a log floating out in the ocean.
” ‘This is so embarrassing,’ thought the ranger. ‘All ah had to do was check at the front desk, conduct a proper recon and see what ah was getting mahself into.’ Then he noticed that, strapped to a log right next to him, bobbing on the wave next to him, was a young marine! ‘Waal,’ he says to himself, ‘Ah can’t let this marine know this has got me down.’ So he looks over at the marine and says, ‘Hey buddy!’
“The marine says ‘Wot?’
” ‘Do you suppose they’re gonna serve us any food on this here five-dollar ocean cruise we signed up for?’
“The marine looked up and said ‘Well, they didn’t last year.’ ”
The whole group laughed appreciatively, poking their marine friends in the ribs.
“The moral of the story,” continued the ranger, “is simply this. Always conduct a proper recon, and if you had a hard time last year, dear Lord, let’s not do it again! Mah friends, ah reckon we’ve conducted a recon of the route the high-tech worlds are headed down. We’ve seen their sick cultures, and we’ll be damned if we ever take that ocean cruise again!”
“Sir,” asked Midshipman Faisal, sensing that the break was ending and wanting to extend it, “one last question. Why do you call us ‘grasshopper.’ ”
For the first time the monk looked perplexed. “Because it has ever been so,” he said with a frown, “now enough dawdling! Back to work.” They groaned but Petreckski made the situation clear to them. “No sniveling, gentlemen. If we survive these next few weeks we will have years to educate you fully, but right now all that matters is preparing you for the battles that await us. And I will be damned if any of you die because I didn’t take every available opportunity to prepare you, in sinew, smarts, and spirit.”
The next day, the monkeys started showing up with bizarre, military haircuts, and across the endless seas they trained. Lieutenant Fielder trained the midshipmen on grenades. “Gentlemen, once his pin is pulled, Mister Grenade is not our friend.” The captain trained the middies in navigation, and the lieutenants trained in sword and pistol. While the crew trained endlessly with rigging, sails, emergency drills, and fighting with cannons, bayonets, and rifles.
Broadax particularly delighted in torturing the crew during rifle and bayonet drill as she walked around in a short cloud of toxic cigar smoke: “When I tell ye to open fire, I expect ye ta shoot what’s available, as long as it’s available, until something else becomes available. An’ if yer not shootin’, ye should be loadin’. If yer not loadin’, ye should be movin’. If yer not movin’, someone’s gonna cut yer stinkin’ head off and put it on a stick!”
In many ways the ship was coming together quite nicely as they approached their destination, but Melville was aware of a certain tension among his officers. He didn’t know its exact cause, but everyone else on the ship knew that it was set off by an incautious remark made by Lieutenant Fielder in the wardroom.
“She thinks she’s a Weber!” Fielder had said as he slouched over his wine. “A mighty, beautiful, indestructible female warrior from a high-gee world who can lick any man through her superior strength and exotic martial arts training! Complete with the critter around her neck! Well, gentlemen, now you see that in the real world, a Weber is ugly, fat, bearded, and would be clobbered by any equally trained man from her home world.”
A more indiscreet remark had seldom been uttered, since Broadax happened to have stepped back in and was standing behind him. For such a heavy person, she moved very lightly. Fielder had a brief intuition that something was very, very wrong, probably communicated by the wide-eyed looks of horror on his messmates’ faces, just as Broadax cuffed him alongside the head, stunning him. Fielder’s monkey flipped up to cling to a ceiling rafter as he fell. Broadax’s monkey clung to her, its head deep in its thorax, making faint, confused moaning sounds. Broadax grabbed Fielder by the collar and flipped him around to face her. She drew herself up to her full height, which was hardly worth the effort, and shook him like a rat. Since she was so much shorter than her victim this lost some of its effect as his numbed feet and knees rattled on the deck.
“Aye,” she replied, her cigar stub clenched tightly in her teeth, “ye look at me an’ ye see no Weber. A real heavy worlder female is short and ugly by yer standards. An’ aye a warrior from me own world would like as not defeat me every time in fair combat. But the warriors of the Dwarrowdelf seem t’ like us well enough to ‘get their brats on us. An’ I don’ see any of ’em around to defeat me at the moment. So jus’ who’s gonna prevent me from twisting ye into a ball and bouncing yer ugly body against the bulkheads!”