“I don’t want to file charges. They got away, but we hurt them, and I don’t want them to know who. They might want to come after us with friends.”
“That attitude makes life difficult for the Navy, Booce. We’d rather chase them down. You’re sure?…All right. We’ll want our taxes in metal.”
“Fine. I want to keep that makeshift firebox until I can buy more sikenwire. It’s not pretty, but it works. Barring that, I’ll sell the entire lode to the Navy right now, if you can tear it out and tow it home. Take it off my hands,” Booce said.
Rather couldn’t help himself: he stared. But what if he takes you up on it?
Petty Wheeler laughed. “I don’t have alcohol to tow it, and I can’t authorize that kind of expenditure. But we’ll inspect it now, and I’ll send a team to cut our share loose after you’re moored.’’
Petty Wheeler’s crew began searching Log bearer inside and out. Rather’s momentary impulse was to stop them. But Booce showed no surprise…and of course there was nothing aboard Logbearer to be found. Meanwhile the Navy officer turned to Rather and said, “Rather, wasn’t it? You should consider joining the Navy.”
“Why?”
The man smiled. “The pay is good, particularly for a tree dweller, if you can get in. We’ll shape you up and teach you things you should know, like how to win a fight. You’ll be holding civilization together. The personal advantage is, you’re the right shape. You noticed Bosun Sectry Murphy? Short, with red hair—”
“Yes?”
“She’ll be wearing a vac suit within six years. Guardian is the highest rank there is, unless you were born an officer. You could do the same.”
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“Talk to her yourself. Ask Booce, for that matter. Booce, we’ll fly down and inspect your Wart. Would you like to ride with us?”
“I’d be delighted.” Booce looked around at his crew and added, “We’d all be delighted.”
Gyrfalcon’s hull sported handholds everywhere. The Navy men spaced Logbearer’s people high along one flank. There were shelves for feet and straps to circle a waist (or just under the armpits on Rather). “Fighting vessel,” Clave whispered to Debby. “They can cover the hull with archers.”
Three Navy worked aft, around the motor. They ignored the civilians.
Something green was trying to grow on the wooden hull. Fluff, maybe. The wood had been scraped recently. Rather noticed that much before the rocket fired.
If Wheeler was trying to impress a barbarian dwarf, he succeeded. The rocket roared and spat flame. Rather felt his blood settling into his legs. The log’s rough bark surged past, accelerating. Aft, Wheeler and Murphy used toothed gears to point the nozzle. In a way it was more impressive than the CARM. You could see how it all worked.
The roar of the motor would cover his voice (and the fear in it). Rather asked, “Why don’t they let us inside?”
“Classified. Nobody knows what’s in a Navy ship,”
Carlot said. “We haven’t seen the whole crew, I’m sure of that. Rather, I noticed you staring at the, um, redhaired woman?”
Rather told a half-truth. “She looks short. I mean, it’s surprising, because she’s the same size I am. Mark never looked short.”
Carlot seemed to relax. “Well, no. He was bigger than you when you were growing up.”
Wheeler moved the nozzle ten degrees to port. The ship slewed around, spraying flame. He swiveled the nozzle starboard; the rotation slowed and stopped, and Gyrfalcon decelerated. It eased to a stop less than a hundred meters from the blister in the trunk.
“The bandits almost had it torn loose,” Wheeler observed.
Booce nodded.
The same four Navy personnel accompanied them to the Wart. Three set to examining the blister that had grown up around the metal and the matchet-chewed wood that extended far back behind it. The fourth sought out Rather. “Petty Wheeler said you might have questions to ask me,” said Bosun Murphy.
Rather was not really thinking of joining the Navy. He didn’t say so. “I don’t know enough to ask good questions.”
She smiled enchantingly. “Ask bad ones. I don’t mind.”
“What are the vac suits? Why are they important?”
“They’re old science, as old as the Library. They’re invulnerable,” she said. “The highest fighting rank is Guardian, and that’s the rank that wears the vac suits. There are supposed to be nine Guardians. We’ve got eight. This—” She rapped her helmet, then the plates on her thighs. “—It looks like this, but all over. You’ll get as high as Petty just because you’re the right shape, and then you find out if you actually fit into a vac suit.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t got that far yet.” She looked down at her protruding chestplate unhappily. “Maybe I won’t fit. I’d still keep my rank as Petty. Understand, you have to be qualified, you have to be trained. It’s just easier if you’re the right size.”
“Training. What’s it like?”
“They’ll put you through exercises. You may think you’re strong — you’re a tree dweller? I can see the muscles. But Petty Wheeler could tie you in knots. After you’ve been through training you could tie him in knots. I could, I think, and you’re stronger. Your people, do they use polar coordinates to find themselves?”
“No.”
“They’ll teach you how to find yourself in the sky. You’ll learn how to count, if you don’t know—”
“I can count.”
“You’ll learn how to work a rocket, not a steam rocket but a Navy rocket. They teach you how to obey too. You want to go in braced for that, Rather. A superior officer tells you to fly, you fly, wings or no.”
It sounded unpleasant. “Where do the Navy ships go?”
“Mmm…Where do you come from?”
“Citizens Tree. A little west of the Clump.”
“You’re not likely to visit your family. We don’t see many tree dwellers. We send ships outside the Clump, but not often, and never more than a few thousand klomters. Mostly we cruise the Clump itself. We collect taxes, of course—”
“Yeah.”
“We fight the wildlife. Dark sharks and other things. Citizens find a drillbit nest, or honey hornets, they call us and we burn it out.”
“Triunes too?”
“Oh, no, the triunes got the idea fast. They never attack us. Some of them like us. There’s a guy, Exec Martin, he hunts swordbirds with triunes. Nobody knows how bright they really are, but they can be trained.”
“Why do you burn honey hornets? Booce says they’re valuable.”
Her expression soured. “Honey is contraband. Put just a tip of a fingernail’s worth on your tongue, you dream wonderful dreams. Then you can’t stop. Use a little more and you die in ecstasy. Some people will pay a lot for that.”
Honey is suicide. Rather hadn’t realized that Booce meant it literally. He thought it over, then said, “But it’s their choice—”
She shook her head. “Not my decision. Then there’s detective work, and riot control, and rescue work. We don’t specialize much. You learn to do all of that, but first you learn how to fly a ship.”
“What happens to cadets who fail? Murphy, what happens to dwarves who fail?”
“Nothing. I mean, they’re out of the Navy, of course. They hire out or they build a business, maybe they go diving in the Dark for mushrooms and fan fungus, or they go logging. Hell, what does a logger do if he fails at something?” She looked closely at him. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m having trouble with this. There’re more people here, so there’s more places for people, right? If you can’t hunt or do earthlife farming, you just try something else?”