"No," MacIntyre breathed.
"Yes, Commander. And that has activated yet another Alpha Priority command. Dahak is a Fleet unit, aware of a threat to the existence of the Imperium, and I must respond to it... but I can not respond until the mutiny is suppressed. It is a situation that cannot be resolved by Comp Cent, yet it must be resolved. Which is why I need you."
"What can I do?" MacIntyre whispered hoarsely.
"It is quite simple, Commander MacIntyre. Under Fleet Regulation Five-Three-Three, Subsection Nine-One, Article Ten, acting command of any Fleet unit devolves upon the senior surviving crewman. Under Fleet Regulation Three-Seven, Subsection One-Three, any descendant of any core crewman assigned to a vessel for a given deployment becomes a crew member for the duration of that deployment, and Senior Fleet Captain Druaga's deployment has not been terminated by orders from Fleet Central."
MacIntyre gurgled a horrified denial, but Dahak continued mercilessly.
"You, Commander, are directly descended from loyal members of Senior Fleet Captain Druaga's core crew. You are on board Dahak. By definition, therefore, you become the senior member of Dahak's crew, and thus—"
MacIntyre's gurgling noises took on a note of dreadful supplication.
"—command devolves upon you."
He argued, of course.
His sense of betrayal vanished, for it seemed somehow petty to worry about his own fate in the face of catastrophe on such a cosmic scale. Yet the whole idea was... well, it was preposterous, even if that was a word he'd been over-using of late. He was absolutely, totally, beyond a shadow of a doubt, utterly unqualified for the job, and he told Dahak so.
But the old ship was stubborn. He was, the computer argued, a trained spacecraft pilot with a military background and a command mentality. Which, MacIntyre pointed out acidly, was to say that he was well-qualified to paddle aboriginal canoes and about as well-versed in FTL tactics as a Greek hoplite. But, Dahak countered, those were merely matters of education; he had the proper mental orientation. And even if he had not had it, all that really mattered was that he had the rank for the job. Which, MacIntyre retorted, was merely to say that he was a member of the human race. Except, Dahak rejoined, that he was the first member of the human race to re-embark in Dahak, which gave him seniority over all other Terrans—except, of course, the mutineers who, by their own actions, had forfeited all rank and crew status.
It went on for hours, until MacIntyre's voice was hoarse and exhaustion began to dull his desperate determination to squirm out of the responsibility. He finally offered to accept command long enough to turn it over to some better-qualified individual or group, but Dahak actually sounded a bit petulant when it rejected that suggestion. MacIntyre was the first human aboard in fifty-one thousand years; ergo he had the seniority, he always would have the seniority, and no substitutions were acceptable.
It really was unfair, MacIntyre thought wearily. Dahak was a machine. It—or "he," as he'd come to think of the computer—could go right on arguing until he keeled over from exhaustion... and seemed quite prepared to do so.
MacIntyre supposed some people would jump at the chance to command a ship that could vaporize planets—which was undoubtedly an indication that they shouldn't be offered it—but he didn't want it! Oh, he felt the seductive allure of power and, even more, the temptation to cut ten or fifteen thousand years off Terran exploration of the universe. And he was willing to admit someone had to help the old warship. But why did it have to be him?!
He lay back, obscurely resentful that his chair's self-adjusting surface kept him from scrunching down to sulk properly, and felt six years old again, arguing over who got to be the sheriff and who had to be the horse thief.
The thought made him chuckle unwillingly, and he grinned, surprised by his own weary humor. Dahak clearly intended to keep on arguing until he gave in, and how could he out-wait a machine that had mounted its own lonely watch for fifty millennia? Besides, he felt a bit ashamed even to try. If Dahak could do his duty for that tremendous stretch of time, how could MacIntyre not accept his own responsibility to humankind? And if he was caught in the Birkenhead drill, he could at least try to do his best till the ship went down.
He accepted it, and, to his surprise, it was almost easy. It scared the holy howling hell out of him, but that was another matter. He was, after all, a spacecraft command pilot, and the breed was, by definition, an arrogant one. MacIntyre had accepted long ago that he'd joined the Navy and then transferred to NASA because deep inside he had both the sneaking suspicion he was equal to any challenge and the desire to prove it. And look where it had gotten him, he thought wryly. He'd sweated blood to make the Prometheus Mission, only to discover that he'd anted up for a far bigger game than he'd ever dreamed of. But the chips were on the table, and other cliches to that effect.
"All right, Dahak," he sighed. "I give. I'll take the damned job."
"Thank you, Captain," Dahak said promptly, and he shuddered.
"I said I'd take it, but that doesn't mean I know what to do with it," he said defensively.
"I am aware of that, Captain. My sensors indicate that you are badly in need of rest at the moment. When you have recovered your strength, we can swear you in and begin your education and biotechnic treatments."
"And just what," MacIntyre demanded warily, "might biotechnic treatments be?"
"Nothing harmful, Captain. The bridge officer program includes sensory boosters, neural feeds for computer interface, command authority authentication patterns, Fleet communicator and bio-sensor implants, skeletal reinforcement, muscle and tissue enhancement, and standard hygienic, immunization, and tissue renewal treatments."
"Now wait a minute, Dahak! I like myself just the way I am, thank you!"
"Captain, I make all due allowance for inexperience and parochialism, but that statement cannot be true. In your present condition, you could lift barely a hundred and fifty kilos, and I would estimate your probable life span at no more than one Terran century under optimal conditions."
"I could—" MacIntyre paused, an arrested light in his eyes. "Dahak," he said after a moment, "what was the life expectancy for your crewmen?"
"The average life expectancy of Fleet personnel is five-point-seven-nine-three Terran centuries," Dahak said calmly.
"Uh," MacIntyre replied incisively.
"Of course, Captain, if you insist, I will have no choice but to forgo the biotechnic portion of your training. I must respectfully point out, however, that should you thereafter confront one of the mutineers, your opponent will have approximately eight times your strength, three times your reaction speed, and a skeletal muscular structure and circulatory system capable of absorbing on the order of eleven times the damage your own body will accept."
MacIntyre blinked. He was none too crazy about the word "biotechnic." It smacked of surgery and hospital time and similar associated unpleasantnesses. But on the other hand... yes, indeedy deed. On the other hand... .
"Oh, well, Dahak," he said finally. "If it'll make you happy. I've been meaning to get back into shape, anyway."
"Thank you, Captain," Dahak said, and if there was a certain smugness in the computer's bland reply, Acting Senior Fleet Captain Colin MacIntyre, forty-third commanding officer of Imperial Fleet Unit Dahak, hull number 172291, chose to ignore it.