phEY-QUAD LOG BOOK
maWHA CAPTAIN coHLI
41st DAY OF sahjo DArhi 027.8
Had dinner with Sergeant Christopher last evening. A man of few words, no doubt. We said nothing all evening. I will trust Griffen's instinct in this matter and accept the sergeant as 'best choice.' I think I have met my first Marine who does not drink! It makes me uncomfortable!
We leave for Dover within the hour. I am hoping all is going to go well, but I am thinking things may not go well. Have given my crew chief orders to clear out and be gone as quickly as possible. There are very few Marines at Dover. If Griffen has done his job, they should all be too busy to notice we've even been there.
This is my last chance to find lighter fuel.
To get to Dover from Port Kennedy, the phEY-QUAD would merely go straight up and hover. It would take fifteen or twenty minutes—not much time to familiarize yourself with a crew, but for Sergeant Robert S. Christopher it was to be the release of the white rat into the maze. At least, that is the way he himself would look upon it several years later, safe with the knowledge that watching a rat run through a maze doesn't tell you where the rat's head is at, merely the heads of those who watch.
But the problem at hand was not rats; it was mice. Three teams of forty-five per, juggernauting along at a full throttle to invade the Marine garbage dump and waste depositors at Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. In less than fifteen minutes, three teams of ninety hands prepped barges, cleared storage rooms, stowed hauling gear—without so much as breaking a sweat! The extent of Christopher's familiarization was to press as hard against a bulkhead as possible so as not to get trampled, while calls of " 'Scuse us, Mr. Roberts" and " 'Head's up', Mr. Roberts" went whizzing by. It was perhaps the most depressing fifteen minutes of his life.
By the time the crews boarded the barges to launch for Dover, Christopher had begun to think of himself more as 'Cargo' than as 'Cargo Officer'. The Malacans obviously didn't need a Marine trainer; the captain didn't need a Marine guard—who the hell needed a guard on a garbage truck! What could possibly happen? "STICK'UM UP! YOUR GARBAGE OR YOUR LIFE?" Christopher pushed his sweaty palms into his face and shook his face behind them in negative belief as a young Malacan strapped him into his seat for launch. As the Malacan pushed across him to tighten a strap, the pocket translator he was wearing nearly tore Christopher's nose off. It was now clear to Christopher that Griff had decided to shoot him—he just wished it were in the head, and not into space! What was it Griff had said? "If I can't get you out of town fast enough?" Well, you don't get much faster this—seven light-years an hour on a shit shipper like this one.
The Corps has always stood by one hard and fast rule: "Every Marine, A Rifleman.” To fail on rifle range or in combat is to fail as a Marine—Corps and Self are not served. Christopher had been handed a rifle with no firing pin, a weapon with no ammunition. He was being allowed to look like a Marine, but that was all. The end was surely in sight. At the conclusion of his term, his re-enlistment would probably not be accepted and he would be discharged. This was the “serve-out” Griffen was giving him.
What remained now was Duty to Corps and Country. The post would not be abandoned until proper relief had come. Through the portal, Christopher could begin to make out the landing areas at Picatinny. There were several "markers" down there that could be "called in.” This job would require at least another three cases of Bourbon, and maybe a case of Tequila to back it up as a chaser.
* * *
"So, Griff made you Mother Hen to the 1st Division midget Marines, huh pud-pull?" Andersen swung his size 10s off the desk.
"HEY, WILSON!" The Corporal running by the door of the supply hut froze in his tracks. "Get down to the chow hall and bring us back a jar of mustard. Sergeant Christopher here just took a bite of the 'Green Weenie'!"
"They ain't midgets and they ain't Marines!" Christopher said. "And if you don't stop busting my balls…"
"Hhhun-ga! A Gyrene with an attitude! Well sit yourself down, Space Ace, and we'll—HEY, WILSON, GET YOUR ASS BACK TO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WERE DOING OR I'LL FIND SOME REAL WORK FOR YOU TO DO!— hmmm , will you look at that boy move! The little asshole'll make sergeant someday… probably not in our life times, though." Andersen looked back with the same shit-eating grin that Christopher had come to appreciate as far back as their time at the Island.
"You know what the difference between you and me is?" Andersen leaned back in the swivel chair he was jockeying for the time being, and casually started polishing the 3up-1down on his shoulder while carefully studying the 3up on Christopher's sleeve. "Son, you may get 'em faster, but I keep 'em longer!"
"Look, all I want to know is do you or don't you have a couple of…"
"Don't worry, Bobby—boy, they're on board already. 'Gone With the Wind, ' 'Buck Privates, ' 'Rocky'—1, 2 and 3! 'All The King's Men, ' twenty-six John Wayne movies, including 'Back to Bataan'… and if times really get tough, you even got Randolph Scott in 'Gung Ho! ' The absolute best that the last century had to offer. All the ‘Star Treks’, video and movies, ‘Alien’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Star Wars’… Do I take care of my friends, or what? Semper Fi, Butthead!"
For the first time since boarding the 'Death Ship,' Christopher was starting to relax. There was something consoling about knowing that while you were about to be "gone," you weren't about to be "forgotten.” Andersen was fidgeting inside a bottom draw with the proper amounts of blasphemes and 'Proper Burial' Marine Pomp and Ceremony as befitted the former rank of his departing friend.
"Ga'damn Bobby—boy, I know… it's in here somewhere… Aw'rhight! And dam'near eight years—aged in glass!" Staff Sergeant Andersen was engineering a one-man send off for his 'fallen' comrade. He produced an ancient bottle of 'homemade' and two heavy shot glasses that slammed down ceremoniously on the desktop. “I keep this around for sentimental reasons. Ol' buddy, your skinny ass is on duty, so I'm gonna do it for the two of us."
"Christ! Now ain't you a friend!"
"Lad. Today I got your butt by a bottom stripe—tomorrow? Who knows? Here's to the chubby black guy with all that silver on his shirt that’s getting you shot out into space, old Abe Griffen." Andersen whacked down the first of the two shots. "OOOHHH LORD! Man, you know that stuff'll soften your teeth! Hell, I… Holy shit! Look at that!"
Christopher's eyes darted out the open doorway. A team of Malacans had not only emptied hut K-4, but were now taking it apart, bolt by bolt, to bring it along, too.
"Bobby—boy, I may be wrong but I DO believe these little cheese dicks are planning to take the white lines right off the road in front of that hut. Lad, you'd better get your balls unbunched and—"
Christopher was already up and running.
RCT. S. L. CHRISTOPHER
SS# 237‑ 44‑ 9013
PLATOON 8141
2nd BATTALION M‑CO
POB 130706
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C., U.S.A., EARTH
MCRD 29905, 13006
|
Saturday, May 5, 2086 |
Sam, I can't tell how much of my sanity was saved by Andersen and that box of old Hollywood films. When the entertainment world went to the holograph format in the '20s, it was impressive, but! It was form with no substance and man, did you need equipment to create it in the living room! It wasn't expensive, but to carry a three-dimensional holo-disk imager, even a small one, would have been half of my weight allotment. And what was there to watch?
It was pretty played out by the time I got launched. Hollywood had forgotten what people wanted to see in a movie during the twenty-five years they’d been more interested in form than substance! Well, it instigated a mad search for films, especially from the 1980's and 90's, the Hollywood ‘Golden Years’. They had made so many movies, there were plenty to re-release! And since all the actors were dead they didn't have pay royalties! But it set off a fad for period pieces like you wouldn't believe. Guys were paying big bucks for old video players, film projectors, anything that could project a two-dimensional image onto a laser disc the size of your palm. You could put forty or fifty hours of viewing on just one side of a three-sided disc.
And then, music! Records, tapes. Hundreds of hours of a mono-quadraphonic loop no bigger then your thumbnail. When Earth people went into space, they took their music with them. It opened their eyes and the universe's ear. You won’t believe how many places there are out there with no concept of music!
When your Uncle Griff shot my butt into the ‘Great Beyond’ for the first time, I thought there'd be six or seven other Jarheads with me—not a one! Not a human face for months was what I was facing. Those old films with Schwarzenegger and Eastwood and John Wayne were what I needed to keep my sanity.
But the music? My BB King and John Lee Hooker, all those old blues guys—boy, did they pay off big time for me…
SHIP'S LOG
SATURDAY
55 - 5 - 15
ENTRY 3
It was like breaking through a wall and finding it filled with cockroaches. No! Make that army ants. They defoliated twenty-three huts and eighteen storage facilities in fewer than five and a half hours. 14,270.9 tons of debris went in five and a half hours. Moved, virtually by hand, loaded onto the barges, and stowed in main deck C without so much as a coffee break. The little bastards ran my ass into the ground! Marine protocols be damned. They blew through Picatinny like a typhoon, packed up our troubles in their old kit-bags and hit the highway so fast we pulled three near-earth space stations four light years into space with us.
Now, by sheer chance, I find out it was "captain's orders" for a top speed withdrawal. “Orders” to whom? The little prick didn't say word “one” to me! Must remind myself to give Friday a raise.
Have now been in transit for almost two hours. At 08:00 hours, will start breaking down materials obtained from Dover. It'll be my first 'real' chance to meet the crew. To what end, I have no idea!
High point of the day: Found several crates of Uncle Sam's vintage "C" & "K" rations. Have decided that I'll mess in quarters tonight. I've never had a one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old cracker before. I wonder if they had fifty-two holes in them back then? I think I'm experiencing 'culture shock.' Andersen, speaking of old crackers, was better than his word. Have located a box of laser discs with nearly 500 classic movies—and this from a guy who once thought that a 'quiet night at home' required a six-pack and a box of condoms… Actually, I don't want to know where he got them from! I wish I had heard of half these movies. But it's going to kill a lot of down-hours. Out here, those down times are the greatest enemy of the human mind. When and if I ever get back, I may only knock his front teeth out. The bastard tied tin cans and old shoes to the rear bumper of my jeep, and had a whole work detail throw rice at me as I drove by!.
I wonder what "The Terminator" is about?
During the Second World War—the second War to End All Wars—advanced Marine Raider units fighting on Japanese terrain would dig holes in the ground to sleep in. Half of a century later one would reminisce, "You think—how men (can) sleep! You got a hole in the ground. You'd dig the hole—you'd be surprised. It's never hard. And we use to sleep with our 45's between our legs! With no “safety” on. And go to sleep. But! The wind blows and you wake up!" Such was the nature of combat in those days.
Christopher had dug his hole to sleep in. It was somewhat softer than that to which he was accustomed, but he was not fooled. The enemy was all around him. Every minuscule noise would bombard his sleep and leave him tossing and turning for hours on end. Engineering teams "stoking old Bess" a quarter of the ship away took on dimensions of stampeding herds of rhino. A small galley crew four tiers over prepared a breakfast concoction which Christopher was certain required several fire trucks pumping gallons of water into empty garbage cans. Even the very cot he lay on was enemy against the cause of sleep. Around two AM, he rose and dressed in fatigue pants and a tee-shirt to wander, lost as the Flying Dutchman.
It was quite discomforting to see the extreme lack of security. It was perhaps unnecessary, but years of habit are impossible to shuck in one day. The need to see and touch and hear and smell familiar things was becoming overwhelming. Perhaps a midnight recon was in order—well, hell! The military equipment had been verified on paper, but he hadn't actually seen it for himself.
The dormitories and sleeping quarters were amid ship. To get to the equipment storage areas he would have to travel nearly half the length of the ship. Malacan night crews worked on quietly as he passed by through the minimally lighted halls and storage bays. It took him nearly twenty minutes of what the unsuspecting Malacans would have considered a "quick pace.”
The only room on the entire ship which did not share a common security key was the martial equipment bay, which was solely Marine property. To Christopher, who had been dramatically alienated by the day's events, it was the sights and sounds of home. A small stack of three Anti-Personnel Weapons, the oils and solvents of war, combat fatigues, body armor—a crate of ammunition. Kabars, sheathed in new leather rubbed and polished to shine even in the low light of phEY - QUAD’s artificial night. Rows and rows of wizzers, glistening and sized and waiting to be blown out into the eternal night of space, the messengers of the gods of war. For the first time in almost forty-two hours, there was air to breathe.
* * *
Young Lieutenant Griffen was a clever rascal back in the old days. He had understood clearly and quickly the "let's make deal" mentality of his new friend. He realized even more quickly how a small idea in one place could mushroom into fortune in another. As simple and meaningless a thing as a cigarette lighter was a source of great value and worth as a tool to those who didn't possess it. But what to trade for?
The hard and fast rule of the universe was not to trade off the mechanisms of inter-stellar travel to those who hadn't developed it themselves. Yet, universal dealings in transportation crafts were as common among planets as car dealerships were on earth. And since you couldn't carry sixteen different kinds of spacecrafts from nine different manufactures with you, you took scaled-downed model engines mounted in canisters that were perfect working replicas of the product they represented. A few switches thrown and off they went, dramatically illustrating the practical functions of these scaled-down wonders.
Griffen saw in these miraculous little items the greatest security and communication device since the invention of the smoke signal. However, with universal laws being what they were, it seemed at first to take them out of the realm of fair trade items. coHLI at first refused to even consider them, regardless of what might be offered in return. Griffen had to work nearly a full five minutes to convince his counterpart from another planet that he was in no way going to use these devices for the transportation of living organisms through the galaxy—hell, he wasn’t even going to use them for personal gain, merely to ship mail to Marines who might possibly be stationed at some remote point. Besides, the laws that coHLI had expressed were, at best, loose in nature. It didn’t say you could get in trouble for selling these items, only for using them to adapt the employed technology for travels through space and time. That was the heart of the law. That was what was hard and fast.
In a strange way, it made sense to maWHA coHLI who, with the aid of the Walker brothers (Johnny black &Johnny red), realized that:
1. Since 'they' didn't understand the technology and couldn't take them apart because they were sealed units, there were no 'hard-and-fast laws' to be broken.
2. Since only Marines were going to even know about them, the odds of getting caught breaking any 'hard-and-fast rules’ were low.
3. Since he had about 10,000 or so antique models tying up his storage bins, this was a fabulous chance to unload worthless merchandise!
It was agreed. After a quick conference with then-Marine General Hardling (and some additional help from the Daniels brothers—Jack green and Jack black), a deal was struck. Allocating funds for the project was a simple matter. Hats were passed at 138 duty stations worldwide, then raiding parties were sent out to buy every liquid- and gas-operated “portable friction-actuated lighting and heating mechanisms” that could be scrounged. "Griffen's Charge," as it was to become known when recorded in Marine chronicles, would wipe out lighter stocks from every gas station and drug store from Georgia to Virginia. The rest was simple.
Cannibalizing the guidance systems from some twenty-year-old hand-held ground-to-air missiles stockpiled in a nearly forgotten warehouse, each canister was fitted and every Marine squad boarding an alien ship was given a homing device with a frequency lock. With the help of some 'antique' signal boosters coHLI had in his bins (and another hat-passing for liquid and butane lighter fuels), launched canisters would zero in on the homing devices and could be easily retrieved. Since the canisters were sealed and couldn't be refueled, each launch was a one-time-only deal, and so traveling units were fitted with additional units for return messages.
The damned things launched at such velocity as to be undetectable by radar, and since there was almost no weight to push, and little mass to transfuse through the time bends, the transit time from point 'a' to point 'b' was a minute fraction of that required by the ship it pursued. Messages placed in the upper portion of the canisters arrived unnoticed and without the possibility of being intercepted by unwanted radios equipped with decoding devices. They rapidly became the second voice of the Marine.
Yes. Young Griffen was a clever fellow indeed.
SHIP'S LOG
SUNDAY
55 - 05 - 16
ENTRY 4
Have been on board for three days. All I've done so far is organize. This goes here. These go there. I'm doomed! It’s like trying to organize a herd of cattle. They gather, they break down, they clean, maintain, and rebuild—and then it gets thrown in a pile!
They read right to left! Why? Damned if I know! They all seem to be ambidextrous. They’re patrilineal, but their surnames list by matrilineal decent. They cannot grasp the Earth concept of order by alphabet. They look at the nameplate on my hatch and interpret my name as Roberts, not Robert S. Christopher. But once I get past the "yes mister Roberts, no mister Roberts,” these guys actually don't make a bad crew. I’ve worked with worse.
I've been working mostly with the late crews, 15:00 hours to 23:50 hours. Short, but efficient. They don't fear work, that's for sure. We move tonnage at a good clip, but outside of Friday there hasn't been much in the line of cultural exchange or conversation—and Friday don't say squat worth hearing most of the time. But DAMN! Can he work! I’ve never seen a guy clean house like him.
No matter what ship's engineer does to the translator, I can't get it to translate their names. I can't twist my lower jaw enough to pronounce theirs in their tongue, so I've taken to making up my own names for them. It helps to know who to call in for help.
Coffee's done. I'll be right back.
Much better. The shift's senior man is an irritating little whelp I call Fungus—he doesn't like the name (Fungus does translate!). But he doesn't say anything, evidently by Captain's order. I think he thinks I actually know what I'm doing—so he sticks on my ass tighter than cheap underwear.
There's one guy, about five foot nothing, I call Cock Roach. He's your classic scrounger. He seems to know where everything I might ever need is located. And if what I need isn't "public domain,” he’ll borrow it for me when nobody's around. If he was six inches taller, I could turn him into one hell of a Marine. He’s becoming a sidekick more than a worker. Outside of the captain, he’s the only one on board with questions about the Corps or what I’m doing.
I got one guy that seems to be the black sheep of the ship. He must have gotten into weight lifting or something. The little prick's almost as wide as he is tall! He's got shoulders like a Fairbanks Grizzly linebacker—with the pads on! Somewhere in the great evolutionary book of the Malacans, he bypassed the chapter on necks! With the extended jaw sounds needed to speak proper Chaki, he actually has a problem talking correctly. It sounds almost like he has a German accent. I call him "Arnold" because he reminds me of an old-time actor I watched the other night on one of Andersen's antique laser discs. He drives most of the crews crazy because he's stronger than three of them put together, and he keeps the teams all out of time because they can't keep up with him. Tough little bastard. I wouldn't mess with him. I make it a point not to mess with anything that doesn't have a neck!
Have had little contact with the Captain. Through Friday I've found out a number of stops en‑route to who‑the‑hell‑knows‑where‑land. Christ, we’ll go right past Fort Bradley and the Army training facilities there.
Friday took it upon himself to rummage through the Picatinny junk and obtained for me about four crates of the "C" and "K" rations, so I've pretty much stayed clear of the mess hall population, but tomorrow… upon Captain's request, I'll be dining in his quarters. No doubt my behavior will be questioned. Something is really bothering me, though. I can’t figure out how those old rations got into the storage bins in Jersey.
Actually, they're not a bad sort. Some of the little buggers can even qualify as having a sense of humor. I guess it'll just take some time to get used to them.
I don't think they'll ever get used to an Earthman on board. I was listening to some B.B. King last night when I realized that there was a small troop of "the boys" outside my door bobbing and weaving away. A couple of times I've come off duty and found Friday grooving to my Billie Holiday disc. I would have figured a bruiser like him for a Bo Didley man. Well, no accounting for taste.
But then again, what the hell do they know! You would think that music would be a universal language, but… damn, outside of us, almost nobody in the universe had the time to invent it! Ok, you got your odd chant, but one thing is for sure—outer spaces don’t Rock & Roll! It just goes to show you, as tough as we always thought life was on Earth, it must've been that much tougher out there. Or maybe music was just less important to different cultures.
But these little guys here want to get down & boogie! Half the crew is in on the craze for Earth’s latest nostalgia wave. Old music played on old machinery—go figure! I've got to admit, though, I've found this old R&B stuff to be a hell of a lot better than the techno‑wailers or PC compositional music. But nobody has ever explained to the Malacans that there is good music and bad music. That would involve personal tastes—they seem to lack that in their lives. You take what you're given in their culture. Man-o-man, since I've gotten aboard, I've seen more old discarded tape recorders than the accounting department of a duct tape factory during layoffs. I’ve seen Panasonic cassettes, Sony reel-to-reels, even an old Bell & Howell mono machine—not the top grade quality stuff of the home world nostalgia, of course, but barely working junk that they hammer back together! And with music for these pieces of junk costing two weeks wages a toss, there's a whole bootlegging network from one end of the ship to the other. Everybody on board with a deck or player has the same library—'Stand By Your Man', 'Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer', 'Japanese Sandman', 'Rag Doll', and a real blown-out version of some weird guy called "Bing" singing a song called 'Harbor Lights'!
My audio discs can turn into gold at any time. They’re beating on my hatch every off-duty hour to try and trade for even a single tune.
By the way, lined the bulkheads and overheads of my quarters with sheets of foam rubber just to cut ambient sounds down. At least I've been able to sleep the last few nights. On all other fronts, Friday has taken care of things here so well I don't even get to do my own laundry. I just wish I could figure out where the hell he stashes the coffee grounds! When he came into clean this morning, he flipped (in his own unique way) when he found out I threw some grounds into the disposal unit.
Strange bunch!
phEY-QUAD LOG BOOK
maWHA CAPTAIN coHLI
45th day of sahjo DArhi000.6I
Have always found the first week of travel a restless time! It is so, now also. Have set course for the refineries at Daknos. Perhaps there I can obtain some lighter fluid!
I can not say Sergeant Christopher is working out well with the crew, but it is hard to do a good job when you do not know what that job is! Whol mazXNIN maWhol follows him through every step of his day, checking and rechecking his work.
It must be very frustrating for Christopher, for whenever he returns to his quarters we can hear banging and shouting coming from his room. My men gather outside his door to restrain him if he needs to be restrained! For almost a full four minutes last night he kept repeating, "I'm a man, I'm a man" over and over again while banging repeatedly on The-Great-Deity-knows-what! There was a strange buzzing noise in the background; I could not tell what caused it! It did not end until Christopher yelled, "Hey, Bo Didley!” and clapped his hands thrice! Perhaps it is a sub-god, or what Griffen calls an apostle.
He is the first Marine sent aboard a foreign vessel without the companionship of a fellow Marine. It must be very difficult indeed! Because of the task my crew faces, they do not know how to receive Sergeant Christopher's actions, and Christopher does not seem to want to alter his actions to be compliant to their ways—our ways. I can only hope that the message retrieved from Griffen will change that.
We will dine late this evening.
As was coHLI's custom, his meal would not be marred with business talk. The greatest perk of Malacan space flight was the feeding of the crew. They had found that the diversity of smells and tastes in the universe was worth the precariousness of time and distance. coHLI, more than any other officer in the fleet, prized a bountiful table and a guest to share it with. However, experience had taught him that even the strongest constitution could be ruined by the unpleasantries of commerce. It pleased him somewhat to see Christopher's constitution was greatly improved from their last meal. He had wished, though, that the young man had not chosen the formality of the dark blue uniform he wore. There was an uncomfortable association with Terran politicians affixed to the clothing. coHLI preferred the simple green or brown uniforms his Marines friends wore. They were comfortable in them and he was comfortable around them.
Outside of the basic amenities required of the occasion, neither spoke. As the courses were winding down, coHLI tried to weigh the emotional status of his guest against his own expectations of what it should be after so many days together in the void.
"I am told by my crew chiefs that you have reorganized the fire watches in the combustible cargo holds. This is good!"
Christopher leaned forward, elbows on the table with crossed fingers placed by his lips.
"Umm. And what else do your… crew chiefs… tell you?"
A faint smile crossed coHLI's lips. He had forgotten how—what was it they called it? "Cagey?” Yes, how cagey these Marines could be. He 'gave ground' and leaned back in his chair. Perhaps 'blunt' was more in order.
"They tell me you say little, explain nothing, and expect as much as a High-Lord Governor. You stand away from crews and give orders as a crew chief, then roll up your sleeves and clean refuse facilities like a stevedore—"
"If you don't know what your job is, you have two choices," Christopher interrupted. "You can do nothing, or do everything. I don't care much for idleness."
The suddenness of the sergeant's sharp response caught coHLI by surprise. He'd been "out-blunted" too! He motioned to the stevedore to bring the 'Walker'. Before the porter could place the tray mid-table, Christopher reached out and grabbed the liquor in one hand and the glasses in the other. He held them mid-air for a second, then banged them down unduly hard on the metal table. First the bottle, then the glasses.
"Let's cut the horse shit, shall we? You don't need a guard, liaison, or team trainer. Why am I here?"
Only coHLI's many years of business experience with these strange, irrational beings kept the captain from flinching at the extreme breach of protocol. He leaned forward, simulating Christopher's position, only about a foot less high in the chair. In a calm steady manner he filled two glasses and removed the one meant for him to his end of the table. Perhaps it was, in all fairness, time to begin—if not with the entire truth, then at least a part of it.
"You are not what I had hoped for," coHLI began slowly. “But, the universe being what it is, I will take what I can get!" He hammered the whiskey home. "I accept you because Griffen has asked me to. Griffen has never failed to honor a contract fully. In the universe in which we all exist, a contract is never fully honored. A little is trimmed from here, some from there! It is the prescribed manner of doing business. But your Griffen, he is a rare thing. By his direction, your full assignment is not to be revealed to you until he feels the times and distances are correct—this is his end of our immediate agreement, and I will fully honor his wishes!"
"Times and distances? What does he think I'll do? Jump ship and swim for the nearest planet?"
"That I can not tell you. But those are his wishes, and I will honor them!" coHLI pushed backwards into the chair, his oval eyes studying Christopher's face for a reaction. It was so damned hard to tell what was going through the minds of these beings. At best, their faces were chaotic with lines and valleys and rises. They always seemed so… so… emotionless! For a long moment there was a heavy silence as each creature faced the other in search of the proper direction to proceed in.
"An agreement is like a coin," Christopher noted. "It must always have two sides. That's his. What's yours?" Christopher was getting into the spirit of the thing. He reached forward and grasped the glass meant for him, hammering it down with same gusto the Captain had shown. To see the Marine soundly quaffing the liquor eased coHLI greatly, and so eased the tension in the room.
"For the time being, continue as you are doing and let the crews get used to you." coHLI poured another round. “There is still much they must learn about you. You may not realize it, but it can take weeks just to accustom your body to space and time travel. And months, I'm afraid, to get used to our cooks." coHLI shuddered as if a cold chill had gone through his whole body. “My race could strike a bargain with your devil, as the saying goes. But try and get one of us to properly prepare a lamb chop? Damn me for one of your capitalists, but if I could gain the rights to a Burger Barn franchise…"
Christopher grinned and shook his head. He reached for the bottle and replenished the glasses. This pleased coHLI greatly. He had given just enough information to satisfy the visitor and then successfully changed the subject. The old boy felt he “still had it!” For the next forty minutes, the two sat and drank, discussing—or, as it were, outlining—the cargo officer's duties, although in truth both already knew.
From what Christopher could gather (through the growing haze), his duties were to be diverse but mundane. He would work through most of the shifts, more to the benefit of crew than cargo. The itinerary was a ping-ponging journey to certainly some of the most remote and desolate garbage dumps in the galaxy. Christopher was certain that this was the "out of town" that Griffen had spoken of. With the emptying of the quart, the dinner was ended.
"There is one final thing." coHLI reached into the captain's pouch resting on the leg of the table and produced a letter-sized case. "This arrived moments before we dined."
* * *
It has been said that there is a fly for every ointment. Young Captain Griffen's was heat! Heat from engines, from radiation, from who knows what was out “there.” The guidance systems would pilot the canisters exactly where the Marine Corps wanted them, but usually the inner packets would be as crispy as the Colonel's fried chicken. While discussing the problem with a science officer, Griffen had spied a fly in a block of a polycarbonite-based plastic for study in an electron microscope sitting on his desk. Where had he seen this stuff before? The light popped on!
For reasons that no one in the Marine Corp could fathom, the Army had invested in several thousand radiation-proof desktop nameplates. They were sheaths of clear, heat-resistant polycarb fibers that a five-inch-high nameplate with rank and job title—or a letter-sized piece of paper, folded in half—could be slipped in and sealed. The nameplates could then be easily fitted into the miniature cargo holds of the 'wizzers' (as they had been dubbed) and launched into space.
When the Army had upgraded to the "high tech" nameplate models, they had dumped crate after crate of these near-friggin'-useless items on the Marine waste repository at Dover. But Griffen knew just the right requisition forms needed to make them disappear again without anyone missing them! And so it was done. Neat and clean and on the sly! Everything above board, but nicely out of sight! He had always felt camouflage was his forte.
All official and classified documents were folded and shot off into space at non-radar detectable light speeds, often ahead of the radio waves that traveled off into the void after vessels hundreds of light years deep into the blackness of space, and decades ahead on the curve of time. Griffen had pronounced it, and rightly so, the second tongue of the Corps. Except for the fact that nobody but the 7513's, space-graded Marines, really knew much about it… well, you could hardly call it covert, could you? These things were being launched from sites all over the world, just another Marine operation!
But here too was tradition and history at work.
During the Second World War, letters to home written by Marines were heavily censored. And, while the media were allowed to report that the "Marines hit an island,” neither units nor islands nor dates were permitted to be used. Needless to say, families trying to follow the whereabouts of loved ones were at a loss to keep up with the progress of their rapidly advancing family members. With the speed with which different units jumped from island to island, location was almost impossible.
Never being the ones to sit back and let things happen, enterprising Marines would try and let the folks back home know just where they were by faintly writing one or two words under the stamp of letters returning state-side. Of course, they never got past the censors. But it was the thought that counted.
The modern Flight-Grade Marines were no less than their predecessors than their Terran-bound contemporaries. Some enterprising individual had a buddy at HQ. To get word to him about where his ship was headed, before launching the return wizzer, he'd write on the back of the paper—the side which was folded in—his location, speed, and general opinion of those in command. His buddy would remove the original from the polycarb, photostat it for whomever it was intended, read his buddy’s message, and promptly store all the evidence in the nearest circular file. They would have gotten away with it too, except for a period dropped with too much positive assertion concerning the Officer of the Day while heading for the Orion belt. While the individuals in question were reprimanded, the Marines—never being ones to waste opportunities—realized that you could put official messages on the outside of the page, and the social or unofficial news on the inside.
Very often, in the political-military world, the unofficial word carried the real message. It could also hang you ten feet higher in the air. But by adapting the techniques developed by two sergeants (now turned corporals), an enterprising Intel officer could photostat the official document and then incinerate the remains. The original idea was to shred the document, but for some unknown reason incineration seemed to be the more practical idea.
This process was called "writing in the Folds" and would actually, in time, become the true value of Griffen’s modest but brilliant idea.
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DS – 7800 – 35 To: Marine DetachmentphEY-QUAD IN TRANSIT SERGEANT R.S. CHRISTOPHER |
55 – 05 – 18 from: OFFICE OF NTABEAUFORT AIR STATION, SC, U.S.A., EARTH COLONEL A.L. GRIFFEN |
YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO COOPERATE WITH MALACAN AUTHORITIES TO FULLEST EXTENT POSSIBLE IN TRAINING OF SUPPORT AND OPERATIONS. CONSIDER DIRECT ORDERS OF maWha CAPTAIN coHLI TO TAKE PRECEDENT OF STANDING ORDERS AS REQUIRED.
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A.L.GRIFFEN |
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Don't ask questions! You'll know—when you need to know! Learn how they work things and what you can do to make it work better. 100% Semper Fi or I'll knock the Eagle off your globe myself! More to follow.
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Griff |
"I KNOW A CAT NAME A' 'WAY-OUT' WILLIE…" The reverberation in cargo hold B3 was, in fact, awesome. Alien acoustical design had never allowed for the possibilities of severe R&B intrusion. The pounding earth rhythm of Hand Jive was having a profound effect on first time ears.
"GOT A SWINGIN' LITTLE LADY NAME A' ROCKIN' MILLIE…" A few feet of wire, twenty watts per channel… Whatever he could trade for that could be hooked up and rigged to push sound outward into the cargo bay.
"THEY BOP, THEY STROLL, THEY SUZY-Q…" It reminded Christopher of the boys’ gym in high school. Or somebody's high school, somewhere in time. Ten years ago, he, Christopher himself, could not have told you who half of these dead musicians were.
"THEY DO THAT CRAZY HAND JIVE, TOO…" B3 was swinging. In fact, the sound was traveling to two thirds of the ship. And while several officers and a certain captain, preoccupied with the upcoming cargo intake, had shut their auditory faculties down in concentration, the storage bays and hallways of the phEY-QUAD had begun to look like "tryouts" for a Rhythm & Blues stage show.
The rendition of "Willie and the Hand Jive" had been bootlegged in a live Johnny Otis performance more than a century before, but the effect on the Malacan crew was devastating! Griffen had ordered him to make it work better. Ga'damn! The way they had blown through Picatinny Arsenal, there wasn't much room for improvement!
But they moved like a mob—crew chiefs shouting orders, workers flying in all directions—to a former Drill Instructor, this was maddening. To move recruits from a mob to a cohesive unit you marched them. You gave them a cadence, a rhythm. Counted, sang, marched. Marched, counted, marched. Marched, Marched, MARCHED! A unified rhythm, a team movement. It had been two centuries since these formations were actually battle techniques, but they taught discipline and harmony. Hell, he couldn't get them to march. So why not give these little hooters a dose of unity and harmony with some Rhythm & Blues on the side! Hell, marching was almost like dancing, wasn’t it?
Cock Roach, the ship's scrounger had 'obtained' seventy-five feet of old speaker wire and (in exchange for a booted copy of whatever got played) even came up with an old "Radio Shack Special" reel-to-reel to dub the laser discs from and play it back through.
The scrounger was in his glory! He had heard much about "R&B" music. They all had. The word that had been going around was that the strange noise from Christopher's quarters late at night was "Rhythm &Blues." They had stood in his hallway for hours listening to him playing it when he went off duty. It was much better than anything they had. And this was a windfall of immense proportions! The scrounger was starting to like a Marine. And in an abstract way, Christopher was starting to like him, although admitting that publicly would have presented a bit of a problem, this being, as he would note years later, his "Hard-assed Devil Dog" period.
Christopher had recognized the little critter's ability to survive in a hostile universe. He had two outstanding qualities—he was quick and he was quiet. Because of these two most admirable traits, Christopher had re-handled the Malacan after the mightiest survivor on planet Earth—the Cock Roach. There was something familiar about Cock Roach's modus operandi, and his organization and execution was “good to go!”
At the end of the day's shift, Cock Roach (or CR for short—everything got abbreviated in the Marine Corps) packed the gear and bolted before any questions could be asked. James Brown wailing away on "Poppa’s Got a Brand New Bag" had left the audience screaming for more.
The Captain, who had been suddenly returned to the land of the hearing by Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady,” was just left screaming.
