"Whatever you say, sir."
"Or"—he cradled the box in his hand—"you could wear these. They have been worn five times... and the last four candidates to wear them have all failed of commission -- nothing dishonorable but pesky bad luck. Are you willing to take a swing at breaking the hoodoo? Turn them into goodluck pips instead?"
I would rather have petted a shark. But I answered, "All right, sir. I'll take a swing at it."
"Good." He pinned them on me. "Thank you, Mr. Rico. You see, these were mine, I wore them first... and it would please me mightily to have them brought back to me with that streak of bad luck broken, have you go on and graduate."
I felt ten feet tall. "I'll try, sir!"
"I know you will. You may now carry out your orders, sir. The same air car will take both you and Byrd. Just a moment—Are your mathematics textbooks in your bag?"
"Sir? No, sir."
"Get them. The Weightmaster of your ship has been advised of your extra baggage allowance."
I saluted and left, on the bounce. He had me shrunk down to size as soon as he mentioned math.
My math books were on my study desk, tied into a package with a daily assignment sheet tucked under the cord. I gathered the impression that Colonel Nielssen never left anything unplanned—but everybody knew that.
Birdie was waiting on the roof by the air car. He glanced at my books and grinned. "Too bad. Well, if we're in the same ship, I'll coach you. What ship?"
"Tours."
"Sorry, I'm for the Moskva." We got in, I checked the pilot, saw that it had been pre-set for the field, closed the door and the car took off. Birdie added, "You could be worse off. The Assassin took not only his math books but two other subjects."
Birdie undoubtedly knew and he had not been showing off when he offered to coach me; he was a professor type except that his ribbons proved that he was a soldier too.
Instead of studying math Birdie taught it. One period each day he was a faculty member, the way little Shujumi taught judo at Camp Currie. The M. I. doesn't waste anything; we can't afford to. Birdie had a B. S. in math on his eighteenth birthday, so naturally he was assigned extra duty as instructor—which didn't keep him from being chewed out at other hours.
Not that he got chewed out much. Birdie had that rare combo of brilliant intellect, solid education, common sense, and guts, which gets a cadet marked as a potential general. We figured he was a cinch to command a brigade by the time he was thirty, what with the war.
But my ambitions didn't soar that high. "It would be a dirty, rotten shame," I said, "if the Assassin flunked out," while thinking that it would be a dirty, rotten shame if I flunked out.
"He won't," Birdie answered cheerfully. "They'll sweat him through the rest if they have to put him in a hypno booth and feed him through a tube. Anyhow," he added, "Hassan could flunk out and get promoted for it."
"Huh?"
"Didn't you know? The Assassin's permanent rank is first lieutenant—field commission, naturally. He reverts to it if he flunks out. See the regs."
I knew the regs. If I flunked math, I'd revert to buck sergeant, which is better than being slapped in the face with a wet fish any way you think about it... and I'd thought about it, lying awake nights after busting a quiz.
But this was different. "Hold it," I protested. "He gave up first lieutenant, permanent grade... and has just made temporary third lieutenant... in order to become a second lieutenant? Are you crazy? Or is he?"
Birdie grinned. "Just enough to make us both M. I."
"But—I don't get it."
"Sure you do. The Assassin has no education that he didn't pick up in the M. I. So how high can he go? I'm sure he could command a regiment in battle and do a real swingin' job provided somebody else planned the operation. But commanding in battle is only a fraction of what an officer does, especially a senior officer. To direct a war, or even to plan a single battle and mount the operation, you have to have theory of games, operational analysis, symbolic logic, pessimistic synthesis, and a dozen other skull subjects. You can sweat them out on your own if you've got the grounding. But have them you must, or you'll never get past captain, or possibly major. The Assassin knows what he is doing."
"I suppose so," I said slowly. "Birdie, Colonel Nielssen must know that Hassan was an officer—is an officer, really."
"Huh? Of course."
"He didn't talk as if he knew. We all got the same lecture."
"Not quite. Did you notice that when the Commandant wanted a question answered a particular way he always asked the Assassin?"
I decided it was true. "Birdie, what is your permanent rank?"
The car was just landing; he paused with a hand on the latch and grinned. "PFC—I don't dare flunk out!"
I snorted. "You won't. You can't!" I was surprised that he wasn't even a corporal, but a kid as smart and well educated as Birdie would go to O. C. S. just as quickly as he proved himself in combat... which with the war on, could be only months after his eighteenth birthday.
Birdie grinned still wider. "We'll see."
"You'll graduate. Hassan and I have to worry, but not you."
"So? Suppose Miss Kendrick takes a dislike to me." He opened the door and looked startled. "Hey! They're sounding my call. So long!"
"See you, Birdie."
But I did not see him and he did not graduate. He was commissioned two weeks later and his pips came back with their eighteenth decoration—the Wounded Lion, posthumous.
CHAPTER 13
Youse guys think this deleted
outfit is a blankety-blank nursery.
Well, it ain't! See?
Remark attributed to a Hellenic
corporal before the walls of Troy,
1194 B. C.
The Rodger Young carries one platoon and is crowded; the Tours carries six -- and is roomy. She has the tubes to drop them all at once and enough spare room to carry twice that number and make a second drop. This would make her very crowded, with eating in shifts, hammocks in passageways and drop rooms, rationed water, inhale when your mate exhales, and get your elbow out of my eye! I'm glad they didn't double up while I was in her.
But she has the speed and lift to deliver such crowded troops still in fighting condition to any point in Federation space and much of Bug space; under Cherenkov drive she cranks Mike 400 or better—say Sol to Capella, forty-six lightyears, in under six weeks.
Of course, a six-platoon transport is not big compared with a battle wagon or passenger liner; these things are compromises. The M. I. prefers speedy little one-platoon corvettes which give flexibility for any operation, while if it was left up to the Navy we would have nothing but regimental transports. It takes almost as many Navy files to run a corvette as it does to run a monster big enough for a regiment—more maintenance and housekeeping, of course, but soldiers can do that. After all, those lazy troopers do nothing but sleep and eat and polish buttons -- do ‘em good to have a little regular work. So says the Navy.
The real Navy opinion is even more extreme: The Army is obsolete and should be abolished.
The Navy doesn't say this officially—but talk to a Naval officer who is on R & R and feeling his oats; you'll get an earful. They think they can fight any war, win it, send a few of their own people down to hold the conquered planet until the Diplomatic Corps takes charge.
I admit that their newest toys can blow any planet right out of the sky
I've never seen it but I believe it. Maybe I'm as obsolete as Tyrannosaurus Rex. I don't feel obsolete and us apes can do things that the fanciest ship cannot. If the government doesn't want those things done, no doubt they'll tell us.