The Guns of Two-Space (33 page)

The middies were pretty "buzzed" by this experience. Their captain had just read himself in, and then the midshipmen began their morning class. During a break in their training Brother Theo took the opportunity to discuss their recent activities.

"And so, my friends," began Theo when his middies had assembled in the waist, "you have now had an opportunity to experience the classics. Earth brings in a tidy sum from Westerness citizens who come to steep themselves in these movies, like an ancient Muslim making his Haj to Mecca—back before it was nuked into a glassy plane. And the
Lord of the Rings
is the most famous and popular of them all. Peter Jackson was a
great
genius, but even
he
had a tragic flaw. He tried to change the work of the master. He actually changed Tolkien's original!"

"But, sir," interjected Aquinar, "what we saw seemed pretty true to the book."

"Aye," Theo replied with the kindly chuckle and benevolent nod of a buddha holding court. The usual ring of additional students and onlookers had gathered around, listening with eager attention. "Jackson cannot be blamed for neglecting to think of the far future. But he really should have anticipated the fact that hundreds of years later the copyright would have passed, and the technology would be there to 'rectify' a movie just as easily as you can rewrite a book. Thus it was inevitable that most of Jackson's deviations from the original text would be changed back, but it was done so artfully that you would not have even noticed the difference. Of course, the movie and the book are not nearly so salient to Earth, but they are terribly important to Westerness. So in the process of catering to us, you can rest assured that most of the scenes that were not faithful to the book were treated like some perverted, obscure mistranslation, with the errors and departures from the primary source quickly sorted out for future generations."

"What kind of things did they do in the original movie?" asked Faisal with horrified fascination.

"Well, for instance, there was Gimli, who was played almost entirely for comic relief in the movie." This brought a growl from Broadax who was listening nearby, leaning on her ubiquitous ax and looking as if she'd like to fight somebody. "Or, worst of all, there was the treatment of Merry and Pippin. In the book they were transformed through war from simple, carefree souls into 'fearless hobbits with bright swords and grim faces' who came home and brought a righteous reckoning to the Shire. In the original movie this was completely omitted! There were several other such instances. They should have known that altering this story was like changing the Bible, and that six-hundred years later people would be watching a version that had completely corrected their sad attempts at 'artistic license' with one of the great works of all time."

"Well," said Jubal thoughtfully, "it wus one hail of a movie."

"Aye," said Grenoble, the captain's Sylvan bodyguard who was standing silently by in his crimson-and-clover uniform. "Thy Prime Minister Disraeli, a great leader who stood at the helm of the British Empire in their prime, advised us to 'Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.' 'Tis nothing in the galaxy more heroic than thy
Lord of the Rings
. It may be thy culture's greatest contribution.
Believe
it in thy heart, and may the heroes of literature make thee heroic in life. For that is what literature should accomplish."

"Aye,' concluded Theo, "so here's to the great twenty-first century genius who made this masterpiece come alive on the screen, and, here's to those who went back and rectified his hubris and folly."

Then he changed topics and asked his class, "Tell me, what did you think of your experiences in the simulators?"

There were shudders and frowns among the middies, and then tiny Aquinar looked up with his dark eyes and said, "I got the impression that the simulator
liked
killing us, sir."

"Aye," replied Brother Theo. "Computers. The intelligence may be artificial, but the malice is genuine. Enough talk. Back to sword drill, you laggards!"

Later that day the middies were invited to dine with the wardroom. In the captain's cabin, Melville was hosting Archer and Crater. It was the
Fang
's final evening in port, and soon another chapter in their adventure would begin.

The wardroom was filled with the satisfaction and contentment of full bellies after a good meal. The wine was circulating and the discussion had turned to the
Fang
's treatment by the Admiralty.

It was hard for them to accept what had happened. What good was glory, bought at such a tragic price of blood and lost lives, when others didn't recognize it? It was like being a wealthy man traveling in a foreign country, where you couldn't exchange your money into the currency of the land.

"At least we got our prize money from Osgil," said old Hans, "an' we've all got ownership shares in
three
Ships, by the Lady! Accrost the years 'at's gonna amount ta more money then most folks could dream of."

"Eep!" agreed his monkey, bobbing its head happily.

"I don't know," replied Fielder, "I can dream of an
awful
lot of money. Me, I want what's coming to me... The world, sweety, and everything in it. The bottle stands by you, Mr. Hayl."

Broadax shook her head. "If'n ye ain't morally bankrupt, yer definitely overdrawn! Hell, money ain't everythin'!" growled Broadax. "We been cheated outa our fair share o' glory, fame, an'
immortality
, dammit! Fame an' immortality bought with blood an' lives. The lives of our mates, an' the lives o'
bunches
o' Guldur an' Goblan bastards we done sent to freeze in hell with the Elder King. They done spat on the sacrifice o' all our dead mates, an' the spirits o' all the enemies they took with 'em!"

"I don't want to achieve immortality through acts of glory," replied Fielder, "I want to achieve immortality through not dying!"

Broadax just snarled as the first officer continued. "As for fame, well: once God gave a man a choice of fame, power, and adulation, and wealth. So he asked only for great wealth. And lo, he had all of these. We
have
got wealth, and wealth
will
make you famous and powerful.
And
handsome—at least in the eyes of most ladies. Come now, Mr. Hayl. Move the bottle along smartly if you're not going to partake."

"But not wisdom," replied Brother Theo as his monkey nodded wisely from his hood. "No amount of money can buy wisdom.
That
is one commodity that has not been commercialized."

"Hmm, you want wisdom, do you?" asked Mrs. Vodi with a smile. "Once two men saved a fairy. The fairy gave them each one wish. One asked to be the wisest man on earth. The other asked to be even wiser, and lo, the fairy turned him into a woman!"

That received a round of appreciative laughter. Then Midshipman Hayl said hesitantly, "Forgive me if I'm out of line, but can anyone tell me
why
we have been treated like this. I thought we'd be greeted as conquering heroes."

"Ah, Grasshopper," replied Theo. "Once two peasants saved a fairy. The fairy gave them each one wish. The one asked for a cow. The other said, 'I wish his cow would die!' Do you see? It is an eternal human tendency toward shortsighted selfishness. We are the first peasant, and the Admiralty is the petty, vindictive second peasant."

Hayl was feeling the wine and he also felt a bit overwhelmed and sulky. His monkey sunk its head deep into its thorax, and the middie looked down at the table as he muttered, "Please don't call me 'Grasshopper,' sir."

"Very well," replied Theo with a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle that took the sting out of his words. "Members of the mess, I propose a toast to he who shall now be known henceforth as 'Cockroach.'"

That brought general laughter and a cheer as they all raised their glasses, and a chorus of voices said, "To Cockroach!"

"That's not so bad really," laughed Westminster. "Since the little bastards are almost impossible to kill!"

Lady Elphinstone favored Hayl with a gentle smile that made his heart melt and his spirits soar. "The boy's question deserves an answer," she said, kindly turning the conversation away from poor red-faced Hayl. "Generations without war can do this to a nation. History becomes legend, and legend became myth. And some things that should not have been, are forgotten."

"Aye," growled Broadax. "Yer Westerness has had it too damned soft, and now ye pays the price! But there's been many places an' times when people've thought of war as the given, an'
peace
the perversion. Take the Greeks o' Homer's time, fer instance. They saw war as the one endurin' constant, as routine an' all-consumin' as the cycle o' the seasons. They knew full well that war can be grim an' squalid in many ways, but it wus still the time when the will of the gods were manifest on Earth. To the Greeks, peace wus nothing but a fluke. A delay brought on by bad weather, or when ye had ta keep the troops at home until the harvest wus done. Any o' Homer's heroes would see the peaceful life o' yer average Earthling, or even most citizens o' Westerness, as some bizarre aberration. An' in truth, 'at might jist be the wisest way ta look at it."

That brought a series of solemn and somewhat surprised nods. No one had ever heard Broadax pontificate in such depth. Frankly, no one knew she had it in her, but clearly this was touching on a topic that was near and dear to her heart.

Lt. Fielder nodded and added, "I fear that the powers-that-be in the Admiralty have become something dreadful and disgusting: politicians. Over the centuries we've protected them from the natural results of their actions, so we've bred all the sense out of them. They weren't too smart to begin with, and it's been downhill ever since. Now they have become urbane terrorists, fighting with memos and news leaks instead of muskets and cannnons. For them it is total warfare, and there is no rule book."

"Excuse me," said Asquith, hesitantly, "and I mean no disrespect, but isn't it disloyal to speak of the Admiralty this way?"

"Yep, we're a strange mix," replied Hans. "Outspoken, freebootin' merchants, combined with the warriors of a democracy." The others nodded in agreement to this as he continued. "'Ere in the wardroom we say what we damned well think. But we obey orders, by God. An', young midshipmen," he said, pointing a stern finger at the middies, "you'll do the same. It's a fightin' man's right ta gripe, but we
will
do our duty.
Aye, lads?
"

There was a chorus of agreement from the midshipmen as Hans concluded, "Otherwise, we be no different from them vacuum-suckin' scumbags we despises."

"Aye," said Lady Elphinstone softly as she held her wineglass up so that her monkey could take a dainty sip. "Ye who knowst what war is like shall find it almost impossible to communicate with the children of peace. To a warrior, war is a teacher of positive values: courage, self-sacrifice, respect for authority, dedication to a common goal. But these are signally absent in the soft and cynical selfishness of Earth's culture. The men of war can't crack the cynicism of such a culture. 'Everyone' knows that if those values had ever
really
existed in the past, they were only the result of some collective delusion. The children of peace think they are too smart for that, but they are really just cynical. Most of them, like Earth, and the Admiralty today, think 'tis but a sick joke to suggest that war could ever teach anybody anything good. But thou knowst better, and in the end thou shalt do thy duty. We shall
all
do our duty. And
if
thou livest, thou shalt be the wiser and the better for it, like Merry and Pippin returning home to the Shire."

"Well said, my lady," said Brother Theo. "Forgive me, Cuthbert, I mean no personal offense, and I am sorry to speak so bluntly, but the leaders on Earth, and most of those among our Admiralty, are wraiths. Like Tolkien's Ring Wraiths. Wraith derives from words like
wrath
, as in anger.
Writhe
which is to twist and turn. And
wreath
, which is a twisted thing. The wraith is defined by shape, not substance. They are creatures of vacuity. Emptiness. They sell their souls a nickel at a time to get power, and when they get it, they are empty, hollow, soulless creatures."

"Yesss," replied Asquith cautiously. "I fear that there is some truth in that, and I take no offense. But do we really want to be saying all of this in front of these lads," he said gesturing toward the midshipmen.

"These 'lads' are military officers and
warriors
," scowled Lt. Fielder. "They are all veterans of battle.
Many
battles for most of them. The boy asked, dammit, and he has a right to understand what has happened, and why it happened. We do them no favors by protecting them from reality."

"Aye and what they must comprehend," said Theo, "is that one of the great instruments of power is technology, and one of its great victims is nature: the world, the pastoral environment that we know and love on all the worlds of Westerness... except for Earth."

Then Theo reached out to the bottle, and frowned as he poured the last few dribbles into his empty glass. "Mess steward!" shouted Fielder. "I say there, a fresh bottle. We're dry as a hangman's eye here!"

Theo nodded his thanks and continued. "Tolkien despised the internal combustion engine, you know, which polluted and defiled his environment and his world, usurping the horse, the walk, and the community. Tolkien, who we venerate, is all about applicability, not allegory. And he can definitely be applied to technology. Lord how he would have despised television, video games, movies and vids on demand, and all the other, modern versions and perversions thereof. Especially when each individual can pursue and feed his worst perversity."

There was a pause as the mess steward brought a new bottle and topped off Theo's glass. The monk and his monkey sipped and sighed with satisfaction as Mrs. Vodi picked up the conversation.