Just as well they don’t, then, he thought.
He inserted the secure chip into the terminal and waited impatiently while the machine checked it, then demanded his ID codes and retinal patterns. Annoyed, Marius supplied them while, wondering what could be worth this level of security. The datachip unlocked, accessed its opening file and displayed it automatically. A holographic image of Professor Kratman appeared in front of him.
“Good morning, Marius,” Kratman said. He looked older than the last time Marius had seen him, although that could just be due to the tiny image. “Or is it evening where you are? I have no way of knowing, of course, but I like to think that it’s morning there, too. You’ll be pleased to hear that the latest crop of Academy graduates is coming along very well, although I may have to cut a few of them for the crime of not thinking about the subject matter. One of my more successful students is carrying this chip.”
Marius frowned. The Professor was rarely so chatty. It had to be bad news.
“Bad news first,” Kratman said, as if echoing Marius’s thoughts. “The expanded training camps for new crewmen aren’t producing anything like enough crew for the new construction. Now that the Naval Reserve has opened up all of their facilities, I fear that we may be looking at a shortfall in the required numbers of new crew. The ones we trained before the war—or should I say wars now, I wonder?—were the ones who actually wanted the positions, and we could weed through them at will. The expanded training camps are actually taking recruits we wouldn’t have taken at all, back in the old days.”
He shrugged. “It isn’t a new problem, son. Earth’s educational establishment has been producing ignorant kids for centuries. Kids who have the drive to learn can access the information they need, but no one kicks them in the ass and tells them to get moving. And most of them opt for easy courses and credentials before leaving school at eighteen and going on the dole and producing a few more stupid kids. Anyone smart enough to actually make something of himself is smart enough to emigrate—and God knows that anyone capable of doing that on Earth will be a success even on a hell-world. Mostly, the ones we have would normally become couch potatoes or gangsters—and die young.
“But this is the raw material we have to work with, so we need to turn them into crewmen. It isn’t an easy task. Nine-tenths of Earth’s population can’t even read! We’ve had to open up remedial training centers for the youngsters, and it really isn’t enough. They don’t understand anything we tell them beyond the very basics, if that. The hell of it is that this will dumb down the entire fleet once they graduate. Honestly, I’d be afraid to sail on a ship maintained by some of the so-called recruits. And believe me, most of the Core Worlds are in the same state. The really smart ones emigrated generations ago.
“Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the Senate has created a whole new series of security agencies,” he added. “One of my contacts warned me that there is a movement afoot to start assigning political officers to your ships—and fortresses, and training centers…basically, they will have vast powers to seek out and destroy anti-Federation elements. You can probably imagine that it won’t be long before their powers really start to expand. You need to be careful of this, Marius. The Senate is scared, and scared people do stupid things.”
He chuckled. “Speaking of the Senate, they’re still trying to find a bride for you. No, I don’t think that you or she will have much choice in the matter. It isn’t common for someone like yourself to marry into the political elite, but I think that some elements are determined to bind you strongly to them. It’s odd, though; I’ve been telling every cadet who will listen that the political elite is barely a tiny fraction of a percentage of the trillions of human beings, yet they still haven’t managed to find you a bride. If I had to guess, I’d say that they are either squabbling over who won’t have to marry you, or they are stalling. Probably the latter—but seriously, I suspect that it won’t be long before they produce someone and tell you to marry her. I’ve attached a list of possible brides, but there are no guarantees. Luckily, you don’t have to love the woman. You don’t even need to have sex with her, not to produce a kid or two. Pretty much all of High Society use artificial wombs these days.
“But back to the matter at hand. I’m afraid that there have been more…incidents at various construction yards than made it into the official reports. I wouldn’t have heard anything if I’d just been dependent on the standard chains of communication. Going from what I heard, there have been everything from dangerous accidents caused by poor workers to strikes and perhaps even outright sabotage. I don’t think that any of them are actually linked to the warlords, but it hasn’t helped the Senate’s sense of security. The last I heard, they were talking about sending in a military regiment and using force to impose order. I’m not convinced that that is going to work very well. If the workers are drawn from the same labor pool as the trainee crewmen, they’re just going to be fearful as well as ignorant.”
He stared down at his hands for a long moment. “I have heard through one of our mutual friends that Senator Chang Li has absconded from Earth. I had the pleasure of meeting her at one of the Academy’s inspection tours and she struck me as impressive, perhaps the smartest political figure I have ever met. Quite ineffectual, of course, and I suspect that her departure is linked to the current series of…problems. The last I heard, just before she left, the Senate was talking about conscripting workers from the out-worlds and putting them to work on the construction yards, perhaps even recruiting them for the fleet. You know how nervous they’ve been about colonials in the Navy since the Inheritance Wars. It will be a disaster if they try to conscript unwilling recruits in large numbers. The last thing we need is a second round of colonial wars. At least they’re not thinking about recruiting aliens.”
“Or perhaps they are,” he added, brow furrowing. “They’re working on recruiting a specialised unit, and the security is quite phenomenal. The unit may be composed of specially-trained people from Earth, or maybe aliens. It isn’t as if the Federation is short of aliens who would be interested in cracking human skulls for a living.”
The Professor looked up. “I promised myself that I’d send you some cheerful news, but we have a slight shortage of it,” he concluded. “There are rumors that at least three of the warlords are organizing themselves into a single unit—luckily, not an overwhelmingly powerful unit, but enough to be dangerous. And the Senate feels that it cannot rely on any senior officer, except you, perhaps. I’d be surprised if they trusted you completely. Watch your back.”
He grinned, adding: “And a military victory would be good, too. Good luck.”
His image vanished. Marius put the chip and his private terminal away, making sure to secure the drawer properly, then sat down again and thought about what he had been told. He’d rerun the message later, of course—it would run three times before it was automatically wiped from the chip—and read through the files the Professor had included, too, later at night when he’d not be disturbed. He wasn’t too interested in any prospective bride; he’d never married, and had never intended to marry. And yet, the Senate was tempting him with the ultimate prize. His descendants would be part of the political elite that ruled the Federation.
And yet…who was really running the show? It wasn’t hard to guess who Kratman worked for, besides the Federation Navy. His position was ideal for selecting and investigating prospective recruits. And he had access to information that a lowly professor, no matter how well-connected, should never have been able to access.