The battlecomp could, of course, handle the command function by default. But it could not know what Charley usually knows: the event vectors of the moment. His central genius.
Meanwhile, in simulation, every warship in the fleet was carrying out battle actions bizarre and unimagined, even by the centuries of tactical wizards who'd labored anonymously at War House desks, programming, testing and gaming.
Because creative and imaginative though they'd been, none of them had envisioned a resource like Charley Gordon.
Estimated conservatively, the Provos would arrive in the fringe of the system twelve days before the Wyzhnyny's projected date of arrival. With the short closing jump, and a force no larger than Soong's, hours would be enough to form opening battle formations. So far, Charley's fleet drills had been in the virtual reality of the Altai's shipsmind. The rest of the fleet didn't know there was a new battle master. In the Paraiso System, the entire fleet would participate, its ships coordinated under Charley Gordon's direction, mediated by the Altai's shipsmind.
Soong was on the bridge four hours before scheduled arrival. Already isogravs showed the system's primary, an F9 star without a name of its own, unless you consider catalog numbers. As soon as shipsmind had computed the optimum emergence solution, the admiral ordered an approach course and emergence tick, informing his battle force via that awkward set of phenomena called hyperspace radio.
When that order had been acknowledged, he sent another: all hands were to be out of stasis before emergence, and ready to receive a live, all-hands briefing from the admiral and his battle master. Because the battle plan, tactics and protocols had changed greatly. The fleet's officers and crews needed to be set up for that; informed of what had happened, and how, reassured, and given confidence in the new command situation.
On naval spacecraft, the signal for hyperspace emergence is a gong, mellow and golden, repeated over five seconds.
Then the Provos popped into F-space scattered over a significant period-more than a millisecond-to occupy a million-cubic-mile volume of F-space shaped like a watermelon seed. Against a scintillant backdrop of stars, cold in aspect but hot, hot. The brightest, most vivid, being the molten-yellow primary only four billion miles away.
The admiral gave his people thirty seconds to appreciate the sight. Then he began his all-hands address.
"Officers and crew of the First Provos. We are in the fringe of the Paraiso System, and in a few minutes we'll begin to form battle units. Not the formations we've formed before, but something new. Something better. Something that will enable us to truly raise hell with the enemy when he appears.
"Eight weeks ago I made a discovery. I discovered that one of us is a genius above all geniuses in battle gaming. As a graduating midshipman, I set the Academy's official all-time cumulative scoring record for space-battle games. So I tested and retested this newly discovered genius, then tested him some more. In every test he humbled me, and as a result I've made him battle master. Given him the duty I love best of all, because this will be no game. It will be for real, for the future of humankind."
He paused, letting them absorb it.
"He improves our odds of victory by a factor of ten. So I want to introduce this man to you, this supreme battle master. You need to know him and hear him. He is a gift from the Tao, and one of the finest human beings I have ever known."
Up to this point, the camera had given the viewers a close shot of their admiral, showing him from the waist up. Now the viewpoint backed off, showing him standing beside a wheeled, motorized stand.
"Our new battle master's name is Charley Gordon. Not Admiral Gordon. Not Captain Gordon or Commander Gordon. Charley Gordon, a civilian. He is also our flagship savant."
The admiral's calm features seemed to gaze through the screen at them, as they sat or stood, surprised or puzzled, in messroom, wardroom, engine room, bridge, on battleship, cruiser, corvette… He continued.
"A savant. `Savant' is short for `idiot savant,' because most of them aren't able to function mentally as we do. But all have talents that the rest of us do not.
"Charley Gordon is different. He has savant talents, and he reasons… superbly. He was born in the Brazilian Autonomy, in Rio de Janeiro. As a child he dwelt constantly at death's door, till at age twelve he was bottled, to save his life. Now… "
Their admiral waited again, then gestured at the cart, and the module on its top. "This is Charley Gordon," he said, then indicated the small sensor set that topped it. "He sees and hears his immediate surroundings with these. But through his connections with shipsmind, he sees much more. At will.
"And now I'll let him tell you more about what he does and how he does it."
Almost no one spoke, anywhere in the fleet. Inwardly Soong fidgeted. Because Charley had told him almost nothing about what he'd say. "One of my differences," he'd explained, "is that I function best when playing by ear."
Now Charley broke the silence, in a voice that was not in the least robotic. One might almost have called it merry. "I am Charley Gordon. I am thirty-three years old, and for most of those years I've been war gaming. It's as if I was born for it.
"My response to almost anything is an action. An action! Me, who lives in a box! I act electronically, via whatever mechanisms I'm connected with. Including my vocator, with which I'm speaking to you now, and by whatever artificial intelligence or other server I'm connected with. In this case shipsmind, especially its battlecomp function.
"As battle master I have certain innate and very important advantages. For example, I absorb books and other data sources like a sponge absorbs water. And none of it leaks out or evaporates. Instead it integrates, unifies, forms a coherent system. Where it harmonizes according to natural laws I can only sense, but use intuitively. Use in ways analogous to the ways I communicate with War House in real time, even though Kunming is hyperspace months away."
Soong had gotten used to talking with Charley Gordon; now he was listening to him with different ears, crew ears. Great Tao! he thought. He's charismatic! How did I miss that? He positively radiates intelligence and assurance! This will work better than I'd hoped.
"Some of what I tell you may sound strange," Charley went on. "But most of you have had technical training and games experience, so you will understand. If not at once, then when you've seen it in action.
"Equally important… " He paused. "Let me put it this way. Things happen in sequences. A cause results in an effect, which causes another effect. Et cetera. The causes may include a human decision, a weather incident, an argument, leaky plumbing… almost anything. Such cause/effect sequences I call vectors, and vectors often intersect, and interact.
"For example: Some geophysical incident-say a tidal wave resulting from a volcanic eruption-destroys a village in the Sulu Archipelago. As one result, a surviving villager migrates to Zamboanga, where he meets a stranger at a mosque. They talk, and decide to become robbers together. Ambushing a well-dressed man, they steal a message plaque he'd carried in a body wallet. The message is in a Tamil dialect which neither knows, but… " He paused. "One thing leads to another, and before long, one robber is dead at the hands of Han smugglers, and our ex-villager is hiding among pilgrims en route to Mecca."