Emile and the Dutchman (22 page)
Read Emile and the Dutchman Online
Authors: Joel Rosenberg
Tags: #Science Fiction, #General, #Fiction
Norfeldt drank more wine. I would have told him to skip the alcohol, but what the hell, it was his life.
He nodded slowly from behind his balloon glass. "Play it again. Please." The question of who was in command wasn't really important, not at this point, and both of us were dealing with the question by ignoring it. That may not be regulation, but there are times when regulations just don't matter.
I scanned the audio record again, listening to Hischteeel's gentle words to Donny, Donny's brief cry, and the harsh voices of the other schrift.
"Hischteeel didn't tell them anything; I'll bet anything on that."
Norfeldt nodded. "We'll see what kind of translation they can hack together in New Berne—but so what if it didn't talk?"
I shook my head. "You're missing the point. Intelligent amphibians are dangerous, particularly if they're anything near as clever at duplicating what we can do as Hischteeel thought they'd be. It's a matter of either coming to terms with them, or being forced to commit genocide. Take your pick."
"But what kind of terms, Emmy? If they have that kind of worldview, we couldn't ever trust any of the schtanns, not if they're just waiting for an opening. It'd be like the West opening up Nippon—the Nipponese smiled and ducked their heads for a hundred years, and then bombed Pearl Harbor."
I drew another bulb of coffee from the dispenser and took a pull on it before answering. "You don't see it, do you?"
"No."
"Hischteeel was a test case. If . . . if a schrift could really maintain his devotion to the Contact Service, then perhaps we'll be able to actually set up a local schtann."
"To control the schrift." The Dutchman nodded approval. "Using them to protect us from their own kind."
"You can think of it that way, Major. Our future . . . schtannmates won't see the other schrift as their own kind; they'll see
us
as their own kind. I'm going to recommend that the Service send a Third Team back—a
heavily
reinforced Third Team—and set up a . . . recruiting station. And then the Contact Service schtann is going to recruit itself some local members." I took a long pull on the coffee, then tossed the bulb into the oubliette and punched for a beer.
I took a long pull of the beer, and when I was finished I punched for another. "We're not going to have a lot of trouble with the schrift members of the CS, not if they have the dedication of Hischteeel."
"There is that." The Dutchman nodded. "There is that."
I had to do it. Major. You haven't asked the real question: why leave Hischteeel behind, to be tortured and killed?
We can do it this way
only
if the devotion of a schrift to this alien, Contact Service schtann can be as strong as the devotion of a schrift to a schtann of its own kind.
And that was a question that had to be tested to destruction. There wasn't another way,
I thought.
There wasn't another way.
I'd be telling myself that for a very long time: the rest of my life. No guarantees it'd be long; certain it would feel that way.
"Sounds good." The Dutchman drained his balloon glass and tossed it into the oubliette.
I glanced at the control panel; we were right on course for the Gate. Nothing to worry about; as long as the computer's working, a dog can navigate point-to-point in space.
I manually cut the boost to one-hundredth gee; the computer compensated by minutely turning the scout on its gyros. "Here, Major, let me give you a hand to your room; I'll take first watch." And second, and third . . . after all, if you're not going to sleep, you might as well make yourself useful, no?
"No. First things first." He worked his fingers together for a moment and came up with his Team Leader's ring, the one with the diamond on one side, the bezel on the other. "I've got a spare somewhere; I think you're going to need this."
I didn't move.
"C'mon." He held it out toward me. "Go ahead. Take it."
What was I going to say?
This is my reward for murdering two friends?
I didn't say anything; the Dutchman said it for me.
"I was wrong, kid," he said. "I thought you didn't have the guts. I truly didn't. After Pon, after you let Ahktah live, I didn't think you could send a friend to his death." He placed the ring in the palm of my hand and closed my fingers around it. "But a Team Leader has to, Emile. That's not just part of the job, it's number one on the job description. You
know
that I would have left without you, and I wouldn't have spent a fucking second regretting it. You've got to do what's necessary; the universe doesn't forgive wrong-minded mercy."
Dazed, I eyed the cold metal.
The Dutchman rose gently from his couch, gripping my shoulder for a moment, then letting go. "But you know all that, don't you?"
"Major—"
"No. That was just a rhetorical question. Captain. If I didn't know the answer, I wouldn't ask it." He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. "I only have one bit of advice for you. Emile, it doesn't get easier from here on in. Just the opposite. For the many nights when you'll hate yourself, when you'll absolutely despise yourself for sending friends out to die, I recommend wine, Captain von du Mark. Cheap wine, in great quantities."
The Dutchman shook his head slowly, his eyes focusing on something far, far away. "Sometimes, brother, it even helps."
Postlude
I let myself fall back on my bunk, pillowing my head in my hands.
Plenty of time to relax, and not much else to do:
Da Gama
's skipper was going to seal the lower deck off just as soon as the greenie arrived. Yitzhak Aroni, Philippe Descalier, the greenie, and I would be on our own. It looked to be a good Team.
Descalier's psi rating was impressive, and this Yitzhak Aroni looked to be almost as tough as Akiva had been.
Not tougher; there isn't such thing.
Maybe it wasn't exactly fair to insist that Descalier and Aroni live up to the standards that Donny and Akiva had set, but the universe isn't fair. It's merciless, is what it is.
And I'm not all that merciful, myself.
The greenie was probably good; Jim Moriarty wouldn't have sent me the dregs of the Academy class. Good man, the Professor; a tour of teaching was probably just what he needed. I reminded myself to look him up, next time I was Earthside. When you're in the Contact Service, you tend to lose contact with people.
Not that that was important. The work was all that mattered. Soon we'd tumble out of
Da Gama
's underbelly, and head for a new sky.
Where would that be? What sky would we see?
I didn't know, but a packet of sealed orders lay next to my bunk. General Snow had given me strict instructions to keep the orders sealed until after we were in our scout. Probably we had hit on a pretty hot assignment. Which was both good and bad . . . but sealed orders?
I chuckled and picked up the packet, snapping the seal open with my thumb.
And then I let the packet drop to my chest. No need to read the orders yet. I didn't much care where we were going; it's all the same to me. But disobeying orders is good for practice. After all, if you're good enough at what you do, you can get away with almost anything.
My name is Emile von du Mark.
And I'm not just good enough.
I'm the best there is.
My Team Leader's ring was tight around my finger. I pulled it off and spun it in my palm, the diamond set into the front and the shiner cut into the back of the band alternately catching and shattering the light of the overhead glow.
Damn right, Dutchman. One of these things does cost more than I would have thought.
I glanced down at the bottle of cheap wine that stood next to my bunk, and read the inscription on the label for the thousandth time.
Thought you might need this, you dumbass kraut
,
it said.
And good luck, Emmy. You'll sure as hell need that. —Lieutenant Colonel Alonzo Norfeldt (you can
still
call me sir).
I shook my head as I slipped the ring back on. Wine doesn't help, Dutchman. It just dulls the pain. And only for a little while.
Donny, Hischteeel . . . I'm sorry.
There was a knock on the door. I sat up.
"Come," I said.
The door opened, and he stood there, all clean and well pressed, eager as hell to be off on his First Assignment.
Asshole.
"Well, Mister? Speak up—are you the hotshot Jim Moriarty sent me?"
"
Sir.
Second Lieutenant Daniel Oberon reporting to the Team Leader as per regulation—"
I cut him off with a thump of my hand against the bulkhead. When my ring hit the metal, it sounded like a pistol shot. "Listen,
Mister,
I don't want you quoting regulations at me. Ever. Listen—" I stopped. It was just too much. "Just get the fuck out of here and down to the Rec.
Move
it."
He shut the door behind him at a speed only a few klicks per hour short of light speed.
I had to do it. No question. There is no way that the greenie would have understood why his Team Leader tossed a packet of orders across the room, and then lay back on his bunk—
Laughing like a madman.
Author's Afterword
For those who, like me, are interested in such things, a few notes:
Emile and the Dutchman
takes place in the same universe as
Ties of Blood and Silver,
although the action of
Emile
finishes several centuries before that of
Ties
opens.
Manuel Curdova is an ancestor of the Curdovas of
Ties of Blood and Silver.
The Emilita Curdova mentioned in this book is not the same one of
Ties,
however; by the time of
Ties,
Emile and Emilita have long been common given names among the Curdovas. The planet discovered in "Dutchman's Mirror" is indeed Oroga; the chiropterans Emile, the Dutchman, Bar-El, and N'Damo encountered are a limited-intelligence subspecies of t'Tant.
Emile von du Mark is a distant ancestor of Celia von du Mark, who appears in some of my Metzada Mercenary Corps stories; Akiva Bar-El, on the other hand, is only a collateral ancestor of Shimon Bar-El and Tetsuo Hanavi of the MMC stories.
Joel Rosenberg
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel Rosenberg was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, in 1954, and raised in eastern North Dakota and northern Connecticut. He attended the University of Connecticut, where he met and married Felicia Herman.
Joel's occupations, before settling down to writing full-time, have run the usual gamut, including driving a truck, caring for the institutionalized retarded, bookkeeping, gambling, motel desk-clerking, and a two-week stint of passing himself off as a head chef.
Joel's first sale, an op-ed piece favoring nuclear power, was published in
The New York Times
. His stories have appeared in
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
,
Perpetual Light
,
Amazing Science Fiction Stories
, and TSR's
The Dragon
.
Joel's hobbies include backgammon, poker, bridge, and several other sorts of gaming, as well as cooking; his broiled butterfly leg of lamb has to be tasted to be believed.
He now lives in New Haven, Connecticut, with his wife and the traditional two cats.
The Sleeping Dragon, The Sword and the Chain,
and
The Silver Crown,
the first three novels in Joel's
Guardians of the Flame
series, are also available in Signet editions, as is his critically acclaimed science fiction novel
Ties of Blood and Silver.
