A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet (23 page)

Judikha avoided individual attention during Mr. Queel’s watch, but went to her bunk at eight bells wondering if she were indeed Judikha of Tamlaght, able-bodied spaceman—gunner’s mate first class of the
Indisputable
. She was certainly being judged by standards foreign to her and condemned by this incomprehensible judgment.

At four in the morning, outside the galley hatch, she found Birdwhistle in a quiet rage. He told her that he had tried, that night, to run the gauntlet of the sleeping first and third mates and the steward, only to find the door between the forward and after cabin locked from the captain’s side. Worse, the steward had caught him on his way back and informed Glom that he had caught Birdwhistle sneaking around the officer’s quarters. The second mate had immediate called him aft.

“Fortunately,” explained the lieutenant, “I was able to convince the big fool that I had only been trying to swipe some food from the officer’s mess.”

“What’d he do?”

“It could have been worse, I suppose,” said Birdwhistle, gingerly touching his bruises. “It’s better he thought that I was just trying to steal some food and not the captain’s weapons. I should have waited until it was my turn at the helm, then it would have been easy to slip down the companionway.”

“I could do that,” said Judikha, eagerly. “But so far, the first mate hasn’t left the helm. Wopple attends to everything forward.”

“You would slip down, search the skipper’s room and get the toasters, would you?”

“Certainly.”

“Hm. In that case, I would necessarily be forward, probably asleep. That might work—no; you would never have time to finish the search and get back to the helm. The ship would fall off course and that’d give you away immediately. It wouldn’t do you the least bit of good to have the toasters. You’d have to shoot your way forward to get me—through the mates and the skipper, to say nothing of the cook and engineer. Wopple, too, possibly; wherever his true sympathies may lie, as an officer he’d be bound to try to stop you.”

“Still, luck might be with me.”

“True, but if it isn’t—well, you know your status under space law. If you failed to reach me with enough charge left to finish the job and overcome the crew, you’d surely go in irons, if you weren’t killed outright. That’d be that, because unless I’d be able to repeat your feat and succeed where you failed, you’d be doomed. You’re a common spaceman and the law of space has already placed a noose around your neck and it’s only waiting for you to give it an excuse to tighten it.”

“But why?” asked Judikha. “How would it be so different if you tried it and failed? They’d put you in irons, too, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes, but I’m a commissioned officer of the Space Patrol. I need only contact any planetary consul or governor and save myself, even if I cannot sway the ignorant brutes that command this ship. But it does not follow that I could save
you
. Both in the Patrol and the merchant service a spaceman is denied the right of self-defense. Even more certainly he is denied the right to take the initiative in an assault.”

“But you’re my superior officer! Why not simply order me to take the toasters? How could I be punished under the law for acting as your instrument?”

“No, Judikha, leave this to me. Once I procure the weapons, do as I tell you and you’ll be safe.”

Birdwhistle rejoined his watch and until time for coffee Judikha kept aloof from her watch mates. She understood neither the logic nor the legality of her position nor the lieutenant’s explanation of them. She was more than a little inclined to doubt Birdwhistle’s premises. She was puzzled and distressed in a kind of distracted way to discover that she was so easily accepting his misgivings, that she found it so comfortable to conform to the lieutenant’s position. He had seemed so earnest, and so well-acquainted with space law. However illogical or unfair it seemed, she had to defer to his superior knowledge. She was accustomed to see need and goal attached by a straight, inflexible line, a kind of tunnel vision focused on the desired outcome. She was simply incapable of comprehending the kind of seemingly unnecessary convolutions and complications that so preoccupied Birdwhistle. In the end, the days spent under the dominating egotism of the first mate ultimately decided the point for her. Mr. Queel would not have felled her so dispassionately had he not been dead certain of his legal standing. She was willing to admit the intellectual and social superiority of the lieutenant, now she was forced to admit that he had a legal advantage as well. Was that her fault? No. She had expended every erg available to her to make herself what she was—to transform the weak and undersized schoolgirl, no matter that she was a master thief—into a trained spaceman of the Patrol. But she was of value only to the Patrol. It had been energy misdirected. If this was in fact not her fault, the remedy still lay only in her own hands. Once again she experienced the feverish ambition that had fired her soul when she overlooked the furnaces of the Transmoltus to where the towering contrails of the rockets touched the stars. Nothing but war would ever give her the chance for a commission and war was far from the expectations of the Patrol. She must quit the Patrol, find a planet where she could learn those things not included in the training of a spaceman apprentice. But to quit the service she must first survive this passage, and to do that she must exercise self-control and moderation. But to do
that
she must follow the advice of Birdwhistle who, though he represented everything she must emulate if she ever aspired to gentility, had never laid his hands on an enemy in his life.

-XII-

This was her frame of mind when she went to get her coffee. Perhaps it was because Judikha had been the nearest of the crew to the galley that the cook had placed the pot on the deck plating just far enough from the door that she had to step over the sill to fetch it. Perhaps it had been only accidental. In any case, she entered the galley boldly, one foot after the other, and as she stooped for the pot she heard the cook snarl from his place at the ovens. “Get out of my galley, you worthless slut. What’re you doing in here?” Then, before she had a chance to stand erect, the cook upended the contents of a huge kettle onto her back and shoulders. It had been filled with boiling salt water.

The pain struck her like an electric shock; her back arched like a clubbed cat’s. With a furious cry of pain and rage she drew back, then—all of Birdwhistle’s ethical considerations forgotten—she flew across the galley after the cook, who snatched at his knife as he retreated. Judikha caught him by his throat and wrenched the blade from his grip, throwing it aside. Then, still frantic with pain, blind with anger, gripped the scaley throat as hard as her wiry muscles enabled her, fingers like steel cables squeezing to silence the hated voice. Then she remembered.
She must not kill.
And with this realization came the recollection that she had not seen red. Again she gave vent to her rage, but she revised its expression to merely pounding the cook’s already unfortunate face until it lost its last few remaining human characteristics. She only stopped when interrupted by Wopple, who caught at her hand.

“What’s it all about, Veronica?”

“S-scalded me,” she replied, choking with the pain that now rushed in to replace the fury that was abating. “Scalded me just for stepping into the galley for the coffee.”

Wopple pulled the rags of her shirt away from her back and went
tsk
at the awful sight. Judikha winced and hissed at even that light touch. The cool air felt like red hot razors.

“Aye, you’ll be all of a blister. Never mind the Serpukhoffian—he’s going nowhere. Go get some oil outta the locker and rub it on yourself. I’ll see the old man and tell him about this business when he turns out.”

The Serpukhoffian spluttered a parting threat at Judikha as she was helped from the galley by Wopple. She was still weak from the wound she had suffered the day before. Back in her quarters, her watch mates helped her remove the sodden shirt and apply the oil to her blistered shoulders. As gentle as they tried to be, she bit through her lips at the touch of their fingers, and blood poured down her chin and spattered her chest. She did not replace the shirt. The oil helped relieve the smarting, but even the imponderable pressure of a vagrant breath of air was agony. She sat on a crate and sipped her hard-won coffee, trying to wash away the coppery taste of the blood. When the others had left to begin the routine valve-topping, she remained, waiting for the captain to turn out. Only at his orders could she expect pain relief from the ship’s medical stores. But she had not reckoned on Mr. Queel, who appeared at the door only moments after four bells had struck.

“Your watch?” he asked in his quiet voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then come out and take it. You’re too fond of these quarters. You’ve had time enough to fix yourself up. Now, out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, reaching for her shirt. She was a pitiable object, with her haggard face made even leaner from the pain, her naked, blistered shoulders shivering with the agony of every movement. But there was no pity in the colorless eyes that were watching her and she knew better than to appeal. She drew the shirt over her head, involuntarily sucking in air through her clenched teeth as the linty cloth abraded the raw wounds like sandpaper.

“There’s the little girl,” the mate sneered. “Now, don’t cry this time and the next voyage you can bring your mamma with you. Put on your little coat and your little cap and come along.”

And thus did Judikha learn the standard of fortitude expected of Rastablanaplanian merchant spacemen. She did not absorb this lesson all at once—she was in too much pain. But as she doggedly worked her trick in torment, enough of a stubborn, helpless fury flooded her soul to prevent her begging the captain for mercy. And when the captain, just arisen and in a pre-breakfast ill-humor, looked at her contemptuously as Wopple explained the events of that morning, he said: “Working the helm all right, ain’t she? Able to work? What more’s she want?” She was glad she hadn’t spoken and her content was bitter.

She recovered more slowly than she liked or was accustomed to as the
Rasputin
traversed the first long leg of its journey. But even though she was in truth fit for a hospital, this did not give her immunity from the ill-treatment of her superiors.

Wopple, of course, never raised a hand to her, and seldom his voice. He treated the rest of the crew the same way and found no trouble in being understood and obeyed. But each man and woman of the crew, on the average of at least four or five times a week, ran afoul of Glom’s fists or boots, or the lash of Mr. Queel’s toaster—500 watts being intensely painful but seldom fatal—or Captain Krill’s demoralizing sarcasm. Monkfish kicked Judikha with enthusiasm at first, then with careless confidence. One day, after having knocked her down, he looked at her with an expression on his dull face born of an idea struggling into his brain.

“Musrum amighty!” he concluded, “I guess you surely can’t be the Judikha I knew! That girl could fight a little bit.”

“No,” she agreed, too weak in body and spirit to regain her feet.
And perhaps I never shall be Judikha again.

Three times Birdwhistle reported failure to enter the after-cabin before finally abandoning the scheme. Judikha thought, privately, that most of the reasons he gave seemed fiddling and petty. She told the lieutenant about Glom’s brutality.

“He’s not going to last as second mate,” Birdwhistle agreed.

“I can’t say I’m very concerned about his job prospects,” she replied.

“It’s important. Not a day goes by now without his bungling something. There’s going to be a vacancy and soon, too, judging by the captain’s wrath. Wopple’s sure to be the new second, but the skipper may want a new third as well.”

“Maybe not. The ship had no third mate when we were taken aboard. Wopple only got the job when Queel was laid up. I like the idea of Monkfish coming forward, though. Any reason why I shouldn’t then take him down a little further?”

“None—except that it would draw attention to your training as a fighter. On the other hand, if the skipper really wanted a third mate, and we were sure of it, you might win the place by virtue of pounding Mr. Glom to a pulp. That seems to be the accepted criteria here.”

“Being third might give me access to the after-cabin.”

“Perhaps. Still, I think your value might best lie in your position as a well-licked, obsequious spaceman.”

“As a last resort I suppose we might, kindly and mercifully of course, disable the steward some night.”

“I wouldn’t hesitate—I’m hanged if I would—only, the man is wholly inoffensive and defenseless. It would rankle, doing things that way. We have to try everything else, first. How is your friend the engineer coming along?”

“Beautifully. The suspense has him completely rattled. He called me into his shop the other day and showed me his broadaxe. It’s got an edge on it that’s practically translucent. It’d cut a hair that only fell on it. He claims that the sound of the cook sharpening his knife keeps him awake all night. Sometimes the sound keeps him awake even when there
is
no sound.”

“It’s a bad business,” said Birdwhistle, unhappily. “I’ve no particular love for the man, but it seems unsporting to railroad a man out of his sanity. Well, I’m becoming a cold-blooded egoist myself. Sometimes I fear for myself. How about you? Still see red?”

“No,” she answered. “At least I’m getting that much good out of all this.”

-XIII-

It was the last dog-watch, the only time in twenty-four hours when both watches were at leisure and Judikha and Lieutenant Birdwhistle could dare to converse openly.

They were pacing the deck beneath the great, thrumming fuel conduits. Elsewhere, the watches were gathered in groups, their voices coming in disconnected murmurs over the sounds of the turbines and pumps. As usual, the engine room was lit only as much as necessary; since the crew were at leisure, only every fifth lamp was illuminated.

The tall figure of the engineer came out of the shadows and peered into their faces.