The Serrano Succession (69 page)

Heris clipped on her tagger and comunit—bridge had to know where the captain was—and pulled a pair of softies over her uniform boots. Most third-shift crew wore softies, to reduce noise, and it certainly made sneaking up on wrongdoers easier. She went aft, meeting—as she expected—no one at that hour in officer country. Down the nearest personnel ladder, one deck . . . two . . . and out into the port passage of Environmental, where the distant rhythmic thump of the pumps became audible.

She stood a moment, listening, feeling it through the soles of her feet and with one finger on the bulkhead, a trick she'd been taught as a jig by a grizzled master chief. Open the mouth . . . turn the head from side to side . . . and irregularities in the pump could be diagnosed from here. It all sounded normal, though.

She turned to her left, and saw that the hatch to the personnel lock separating the main port passage from the main starboard passage was open. She looked at the status telltales: all four green. Not good; someone had left the whole lock open, as a convenience . . . and a very definite danger. She looked at the hatch mechanisms—they should have closed the hatches automatically, but someone had stuck a stylus in the mechanism to hold them open. And . . . someone had put a stickypatch over the sensor that should have picked up the telltale lights.

Seabolt would assume sabotage and conspiracy, but Heris knew laziness was far more likely. Someone didn't want to wait while the locks cycled properly to give access from one side to the other—she'd find the forward lock jammed open too, no doubt. Instead of walking the complete round to make the required checks, someone was darting through to sign off the log at the other side.

Heris stepped back through to the port passage, pulled out the roll of tactape and laid a strip on each of the five bottom rungs of the ladder and along the underside of the handholds, just where fingers would grip. Then she went back in the lock, removed the stylus from that hatch, swung it closed, and dogged it behind her. She put a line of tactape on the wheel, very carefully. She left the stickypatch alone, went into the lock itself, closed and dogged that hatch and marked its wheel with tactape.

Coming out the starboard side of the lock, she couldn't dog the hatches behind her, but she put a line of tactape under each pull, shutting the hatches so the next user would have to pull them open.

It was pure guess which corridor the slack Environmental crew would be in, but in either case she should be able to find them before the midshift bell . . . and if she didn't, they'd respond to that with the usual report. She opened the service hatch at the end of the starboard compartment and found—as she should—nothing but the great rounded haunch of one of the settling tanks. She closed the hatch carefully, and headed back forward as quietly as possible, listening for anything but the heavy heartbeat of the pumps, the whoosh and gurgle of liquids, the hiss and bubble of gas exchange.

Outboard, on her right, were transparent tubes and containers glowing green or blue or amber with the various cultures in them . . . brightly backlit by the lights that optimized their growth. Beyond, the gleaming curves of more pipes, pumps, countercurrent exchange chambers. Beyond—invisible from here—were the honeycomb tricklebeds. Settling tanks aft, mixing tanks forward.

Inboard, the space from deck to overhead was filled with the secondary atmospheric system . . . canisters, pipes . . . and the food processing sections, neat rectangles of hydroponic beds.

Heris sniffed. Environmental was, arguably, the smelliest place on a ship. A healthy system smelled like a spring day in the country on a well-terraformed planet: a rich mix of odors from musky to astringent, but nothing actually unpleasant. The best environmental techs she'd known could diagnose a problem with just a quick sniff, recognizing at once which sludge chamber or bacterial strain was out of kilter.

Here—her nose wrinkled involuntarily—among all the yeasty, earthy, pungent odors that belonged here was an acrid one . . . a scorched smell, as if a cook had singed not just a steak, but his beard. She sniffed her way toward it, reminded incongruously of Bunny Thornbuckle's foxhounds—was this how they felt, tracking a fox?

Acrid, yes . . . and faintly metallic. Now she could hear a different sound, a hissing followed by a soft roar. Her mind rummaged through a library of smells and sounds; she could almost see it at work . . . then it came to her. Brazing? Soldering? Something with a little blowtorch and lengths of tubing. Something that was never done here on Environmental, because . . . she strained for the memory of a text she'd read . . .

Voices, now: "But, sir, the manual says—"

"Corporal, do you see these stripes?"

"Yes, sir." A very unhappy corporal. A corporal who knew the manual. "But, sir, if the metal vapor comes in contact with—"

"Just do it!" said the angry older voice.

Heris moved fast, and saw them, a cluster of figures around one of the pipes connecting two chambers. "STOP!" she said. "Don't move," she added in a quieter voice.

"Who's that?" asked the older voice. "What are you doing down here? This is a restricted area!"

"Not to me, it's not," Heris said. She had the satisfaction of seeing the man's eyes widen and his face go pale. A petty major . . . Dorson, by his nametag.

"Comman—er . . . Captain. Sorry, sir. I thought it was one of the ratings sneaking about . . ."

"Turn off that torch, Corporal Acer," Heris said, to the equally pale-faced young man. He complied, with a quick glance at the petty major.

"Now suppose you explain to me why you were about to use that torch on this equipment," Heris said to Dorson.

"Well . . ." with a poisonous glance at the corporal. "This man found a drip in the line. It dripped last shift, too, and I'd had him put some glub on it, but it was dripping again. So I told him to get the torch out and put a proper patch."

"I see. Corporal, explain your objection."

"Captain, this is a new joint, just installed at the refit. There's always a bit of a problem with new installations, a little drip, but the way Chief Kostans taught me to handle it was to glub it until the sediment has a chance to build in. That cushions it against pump surge, too, where a rigid fix wouldn't. But more than that, you don't want to put metal vapor onto this stuff—it eventually corrodes the line, and then you're in worse trouble."

"Petty Major Dorson, how long have you been in shipboard Environmental?"

"Shipboard, Captain? Never, really. My main speciality is administration, records division; I guess they put me on this list because I've been keeping the regional headquarters files on environmental issues up to date."

That figured. "And on the basis of that lack of experience, you saw fit to overrule a man who's actually been doing this job?"

Dorson flushed. "I didn't see where it could do any harm . . ."

"Petty Major Dorson, can you explain why the aft personnel lock hatches were jammed open, and the sensor blanked?"

His jaw dropped. "I—I—what's wrong with that? As long as both the aft and forward locks are fully open, then the pressure equalizes . . ."

Out of the corner of her eye, Heris could see the corporal's not quite successful attempt to hide his reaction to this.

"The point of the locks," Heris said, "is so the pressure won't equalize—so that a problem on one side does not get to the other."

"But we're not in combat—they only close the section hatches in combat—"

Heris took a deep breath, and turned to Acer. "Corporal, rack that torch where it belongs and go secure the forward personnel lock; I've secured the aft already. If you see other personnel, say nothing to them. Pick up the forward log book. Then come back."

"Yes, sir." He practically scampered away, exuding virtue.

Heris turned to the hapless petty officer. "Petty Major Dorson, you know nothing about a real environmental system. You will have to learn. But since you nearly caused a major breakdown which could have had fatal consequences, you are relieved from your duties here. You will begin studying environmental systems with the introductory course, and you will have completed the first two chapters by the end of this shift—I'll expect to see your exam scores above ninety percent, if you want to retain your stripes."

"Yes, sir." He looked more stunned than contrite, but at least he wasn't arguing.

"When you finish the introductory course, you will report to Environmental as an apprentice tech—only because we are short-handed with real techs—and you will obey the orders of anyone who has more experience. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." She looked up to see Corporal Acer approaching. "Corporal, what are the most recent readings?"

Now he looked embarrassed. "Most recent? I guess that would be—"

"I don't want guesses, Corporal. Let's see that log book." She glanced at the last page. "Is that your signature, Corporal?"

"Yes, Captain."

"I see that you've recorded all values as nominal—I presume that means you checked every gauge and every readout . . ."

"Er . . . no, sir. Not all of them."

"In other words, you falsified the log?" He shot a quick glance at the petty officer, then gulped and answered. "Yes, sir; I initialled that entry, and yes, sir, I signed off on checks I hadn't made."

Heris folded the log book and tapped it against her leg. They both looked as if they would much rather be facing an open airlock than her, and that's exactly how she wanted them to feel.

"We have two problems here," she said finally. "We have incompetence attempting to rest on rank alone for authority, and we have competence choosing to be dishonest. Frankly, I have no use for either, but this is a war, and I'm stuck with you. We can deal with this at Captain's Mast, or we can deal with this here and now. It's up to you."

"Now, if the Captain wishes." That was the corporal; the petty officer just nodded.

Heris cocked her head at him. "Corporal, I don't know why you zanged that log. You may think you had a good reason—" She paused, to see if he would try to produce an excuse, but he said nothing. All the better. "But in my books, nothing—nothing at all—justifies lying to your captain, and that's what you did. I'm extremely displeased, and your competence in your specialty does not in any way change that. I'm reducing you to pivot; you'll report to the Exec at first shift and get your records changed." Again she waited.

"Yes, sir," he finally said.

"Petty Major Dorson, I will not tolerate the use of formal rank to cover up ignorance and incompetence. It is not your fault that you were assigned a job you didn't know how to do. It is your fault that you didn't listen to someone who did know. It is a form of dishonesty only slightly less flagrant than the corporal's—pivot's—when you pretend to know what you don't know. I'm reducing you to sergeant; you will also report at the start of first shift to change your records."

"Yes, sir."

"You will find that I promote as readily as I demote, if performance warrants," Heris said. "Don't throw your stripes away. Now, Dorson, go up and get busy on your lessons—use the midships ladder. Pivot, you come with me."

They passed through the forward lock in silence, and in silence walked back aft, Heris watching for the rest of the shift's crew. She found them in a circle, playing cards: three pivots, a pivot major, and another corporal. In one searing blast, she reduced everyone to pivot who wasn't already, and put them all on extra duty—which, for the ones who had no prior Environmental experience, meant shifts spent at the cube reader, getting qualified. When she was through, she turned to Pivot Acer. "You're now in command of this shift. You will see to it that first shift finds all values nominal—and you will keep an accurate log. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir!" His eyes had light in them again.

"If I can find another qualified person, I'll send 'em down; in the meantime, it's up to you to whip this bunch into shape. I believe you can do it."

She was back in her own quarters before she remembered that she hadn't taken off the tactape which would enable her to tell if anyone had sneaked away. She looked at her chronometer . . . only two hours to sleep before she had to be bright and energetic for first-shift business. Sleepy commanders make bad decisions, she told herself, diving under the covers again. After all, tomorrow night, it was the turn of Drives to have a roaming captain in their midst. She could remove the tactape then.

R.S.S.
Bonar Tighe

Solomon Drizh, once an admiral minor in the Regular Space Service and now commander in chief of the mutineer fleet, plotted the newest arrival on his chart. They had been unlucky at Copper Mountain; if they'd had the three weeks he'd planned for, all the mutineer ships could have assembled, with sufficient manpower to gain control of the planet and its resources. Luck of war, no use complaining. Here, at least, no accidental passerby should find them. Here he could assemble his fellow mutineers, train them, and create a force that the government could not ignore.

We are hunters, and we hunt the most dangerous of all game—others like ourselves.
Lepescu had said that.
War is the best test of man, and hunting men is the next best.
That, too.