The Sirens of Space (15 page)

“
I’ll not be hearin a word against the
Captain,” he warned. “Not unless ye want me to make your life so
miserable that ye’ll be beggin him for brig time. Scuttlebutt says
we got us a rare’un. I hear they don’t make blueshirts better’n
Cap’n Cook—as a spacer or a skipper—and until he proves me a liar
I’ll bust any groundtoad’s butt that says otherwise. Ye’ll not put
the Skipper in the same league as the snotnosed ensigns we’ll be
gettin any day now.

“
And that goes for all o’ye—like him
or not, he’s the Captain. And till he marks himself a hacker’s
mate, I’ll not stand for any disrespect. Am I
understood?”

Conners let his harsh scowl soften.
“Leastways, not while we’re still in port,” he added with the
barest trace of a smile.

The crewmen mumbled a grudging assent.
Lampooning the skipper was a time-honored Cozzie tradition, akin to
hazing the new officers or flirting with the bluebirds, but
everyone recognized the truth to what the Chief had said. As long
as the ship was still in port—a “star maiden,” in CosGuard
parlance—there was too much to do to allow themselves the luxury of
disrespect. That could wait until they were out in space, where
grumbling in the ranks was an honored way of life. Besides, enough
of them had heard the grapevine assessment of their Skipper to give
him the chance to disappoint them, before the ship’s wags focused
all guns amidships.

“
All right, ye twit’rin chirpie
birds,” said the Chief. “Low Watch starts in less than an hour, and
Chief Andersen is less of a dawdler-lover than I am. When we get
permanent duty assignments, the two of us’ll be exchanging
blacklists, so I suggest ye try to stay on his good side or ye’ll
be the sorriest lot o’laundry drones in the Fleet. High Watch is at
liberty until 250 hours, and we’ll be keepin dual shifts until
notice.

“
Any questions?”

A half dozen hands shot up. Conners laughed
roughly, and dispatched the questioners with a wave of his large,
calloused hand.

“
Good. Dismissed—and I’ll see the
heartier souls in the Galley.”

* * *

The two men
sat in the
captain’s office, alone with their thoughts. The room was silent,
except for Cook’s squeaky chair. His mind raced with possibilities
that his better judgment vetoed instantly. Names like Krautheimer,
Kettleston, and Titsworth might confer immortality on deserving if
little known scientists, philosophers, and poets, but they were
unlikely to ring through the heavens without provoking snickers of
scorn from their peers. And of the two hundred or so names CosGuard
reserved when the first starships started coming on line—names
like
Aurora
and
Constellation
,
Antares
and
Magellan
,
Columbia
and
Majestic—
by now, some hundred-ninety starships
later, all the good names were gone.

Cook snorted in disgust. All his life, he’d
suffered from other people’s lack of imagination. He refused to
squander the one chance he’d have to name his own starship.
Suddenly, he noticed what looked to be an idea glimmering across
Jeremy’s face.

“
Something?”

Still unsure of himself, Jeremy paused,
until Cook’s consternation forced the issue.

“
Well?”

“
How about
Enterprise
?”

Cook mulled it over silently. The name had a
sporty ring about it, with the perfect hint of purpose to quash any
notion of frivolity. The more he thought about it, the better it
set in his mind. With hopes high, he turned to the computer, and
his heart sank.

“
One CosGuard frigate, a military
cargo carrier, thirty-seven merchant haulers, a hundred twenty-two
freighters, a few hundred schooners, two dozen garbage scows—and
that doesn’t count the forty pages of pleasure boats, or—
”

“
Captain....”

Cook shook his head. “Good name. Pity it’s
been used before.”

“
Captain..., ” Jeremy began again, for
the fortieth time in the last half-hour.

“
I won’t hear of it, Jeremy,” Cook
snapped. “There is enough beauty and grandeur in the far recesses
of the English language to find one name for a single crystalline
hunk of ultrynium. We will find a proper name if it takes until the
Cosmic New Year. You remember, of course, what Makinen
said....”

“
Who?”

“
Neoclassical poet,
twenty-first-century Earth: ‘Poetry weds Science, and Man’s
imagination soars a thousand years.’”

“
But— ”

“
That’s enough. Now think.”

Jeremy saw that arguing was useless, and
leaned back in his chair trying to look thoughtful. He was not
prepared when Cook suddenly bolted upright and banged his desk with
his fist. Jeremy’s head hit the floor as he fell backwards, his
chair shooting toward the far wall. Cook paced resolutely behind
his desk, tapping it several times with his fist. Seconds later,
when he turned from the computer to face his standing but
embarrassed first officer, triumph flamed in his eyes.

“
D’Artagnan
,”
he announced proudly.

“
I beg your pardon?”

“
We’ll call the ship the
d’Artagnan
.” Cook smiled
self-contentedly, sitting back in his chair. “I like it—it has
panache—élan. A certain
joie de
vivre
.”

Jeremy winced.

“
Well?”

“
You’re the captain,” Jeremy said
diplomatically. Part of a first officer’s job was to protect the
captain from his own follies, but naming a ship was not covered in
the rule book. Besides, he felt foolish enough, even without
revealing his ignorance.

Cook, however, was not completely
obtuse. “What’s wrong with
d’Artagnan
?” he sighed.

Jeremy scratched his beard, looking very
uncomfortable. “Well,” he said sheepishly, “it might help if I knew
what a— what a— ”

“
D’Artagnan
.”

“
Yes. It might help if I knew what one
of those things was.”

Cook nodded knowingly, smiling the
charitable smile of one trying terribly hard not to seem
patronizing and failing miserably in the attempt. It made Jeremy
feel like a dullard, and a particularly useless one at that. “From
the old historical novel,
The Three
Musketeers
,” Cook explained professorially. “Late
nineteenth-century romantic period, written by one of Old Earth’s
most prolific writers and set amid one of the various
French-English conflicts of pre-Napoleonic Europe.”

By now Jeremy was hopelessly confused.

“
D’Artagnan,” Cook continued
patiently, “was the hero—a dashing, swashbuckling sort, ready to
cross swords with any enemy who dared cross his path, ready to
storm the parapets of Hell to rescue the woman he loved.

“
In short,” he dead-panned, “he was
kind of an Old Earth Commander Cosmo.”

Jeremy couldn’t keep from laughing—and once
he started, he found it nearly impossible to stop. Tears welled in
his eyes, and when he looked to see Cook’s own eyes twinkling
merrily, he started laughing all over again.

Cook merely chuckled, his controlled
exterior never revealing how refreshing he found it to find a first
officer with a sense of humor. The captain hoped that his ability
to laugh would help his new first officer bear the news that he’d
have the responsibility for drilling the bridge crew. And for the
tyro officer’s small craft proficiency tests as well.

“
D’Artagnan
,”
Cook repeated, setting his first officer off again. “Perfect name
for a starship.” He engaged the computer and entered the name on
the ship’s registry, then turned to face Jeremy again, his eyes
gleaming with mischief.

“
You know, Jeremy,” he smiled, leaning
back and locking his hands behind his head. “Beards are a tad
non-regulation.”

The ship’s
new name was
quickly posted on bulletin boards throughout the ship. The crew’s
reaction was unanimous.

“
What kinda sissy-face name is that?”
drawled a dark, young yeoman named Hogan, walking down the portside
artery on the conning deck. He was short and stocky, his North
American accent as thick as his waistline. “Ask me, it sounds like
some weird I-
sissian
spider.”

“
Naw,” said the taller greenshirt
beside him, another Earther named Andersen, the ship’s second
yeoman chief. “I asked the librarian. It’s from an Old Earth book
by a guy named Dumb-Ass, about some puff-shirted dandy strutting
around in tights and a cape.”

They stepped aside to let a crewman pass.
She was pushing a gravity cart loaded with electrical equipment for
the molecular transmitter. Like most of the female redshirts, she
was solid and sturdy; the willowy types on ships of the line tended
to be officers. But she had a pretty face and dark, sensual eyes.
She winked at Anderson as she passed; they’d served together
before, keeping close quarters on a convoy frigate in the Valhalla
sector. It was a welcome treat to find an old friend on a new ship;
CosGuard lore held it an omen of good fortune.

“
Know her?”

“
In a manner of speaking,” replied
Andersen, but discussions were cut short when Yeoman Chief Conners
appeared, turning the corner from the inner corridor.

“
Chasing red again, Chief?”

“
Ah, rot!” muttered Conners, flashing
a grimaced smile as he stopped to exchanged greetings. “It never
fails. Give me an old ship, an’ a crew that’s put some sweat into
her. That’s what we need. A crew that’s pained themselves over a
hunk o’metal will scarce take her for granted. Then ye can come on
with the peach-faced tyros an’ never come to grief. But take one
fresh from the mint an’ half the crew turns into lounge lizards.
I’m runnin myself ragged, tryin to get the duty roster straightened
out, an’ half the redshirts on board won’t leave the recreation
area unless I fetch’em myself. Been here less’n a week an’ I’m sick
of it already.”

“
Cheer up, Chief,” said a grinning
Hogan; he never could resist needling his superiors. “Remember—the
tyros are due any day now.”

“
You like the name
d’Artagnan
, Chief?” asked Andersen, trying to
head off another outburst. The last thing Conners needed now was a
reminder of problems on the horizon.

“
A name’s a name.” Conners scratched
his beard pensively, trying hard to convince himself. “Besides,
Skipper’s job is spacin, not siftin through registry books. Ain’t
his fault he couldn’t find a better one.”

After a few more pleasantries, Conners
excused himself and continued down the hall. He knew his problems
were only beginning. The ship was in chaos and the crewmen were
already scattering like pollen in the wind. To top it off, he’d
spend the next tour of duty trying not to flinch whenever a
pub-house rounder asked the name of his ship. The Skipper should’ve
thought twice before sticking them with a moniker like that one, he
thought; the wags would have a field day. But he consoled himself
with the prospect of greeting the tyro ensigns. Knocking the lot of
them down to size after officer’s school inflated their ego enough
to dwarf a red giant was among a greenshirt’s most treasured
duties, relished by yeoman throughout the long history of the
Cosmic Guard. And a good hazing was all he needed to lift his
flagging spirits.

* * *

cc: 142-8905.7

FILE: Log

ACCESS: Command.

SECURITY: Standard

OPERATIONAL STATUS: Repairs in Progress

LOCATION: SB 114, Ishtar Command/Dry Dock

Engine cable installation is progressing
normally, but we cannot test the engines until the main computers
are activated, making the Simulator operational. Computer glitches
will continue unabated for the foreseeable future, as a large
portion of programming from the contractor was scrambled before the
final copy was entered onto the program discs. Only life support
and security programs are intact, but outlet terminals are
available for simple functions when programmed manually or
connected to the starbase mainframe. Molecular transmitter will
operate in theoretical realm only until we resolve the glitches;
initial test turned metal block into a mangled mess resembling the
artistic grotesqueries of the late Primitive Abstractionist period
of Old Earth.

Lack of experienced personnel impedes
progress on all fronts, but the trickle of trained technicians has
accelerated to a full-fledged dribble and the rest of the officers
should arrive at any time. Nevertheless, I plan for the ship to be
starworthy by the end of the current Cosmic Year, despite the
deteriorating discipline caused by overwork due to Fleet delays in
filling my personnel requisitions. Once our full complement
arrives, many problems should vanish. However, I plan to sequester
the ship and crew until repairs are completed and the ship is ready
for final pre-launch inspection. While this may cause additional
morale problems, on-base distractions appear to be causing greater
problems, albeit of a different sort.

Capt R Cook

Cook pressed the entry button on the
portable computer dangling in the air above him and recorded the
entry. It was the sixteenth log entry he’d made as captain of his
ship—one each day, every ten cosmic hours since he’d formally
assumed command. And, he’d remarked to himself more than once, each
one said the same thing: problems, problems, problems. There seemed
to be no end in sight, and the problems kept coming. Yawning, he
placed the machine in its stand on the wall by his bed.