Chapter 36. Bureaucrats, Clerks, and Men of Action
Bureaucrats, Clerks, and Men of Action
The door buzzed shut behind her as Brennan entered her traveling companion’s quarters. “You’re having trouble with Gillis?” she asked Joanni.
“He thinks I should go home, go back to Earth, after the debriefings on Starbase 19 and at headquarters. Says I don’t have the training for a permanent assignment in space.” Joanni frowned. “Plus, he hasn’t forgotten the stunt I pulled—his words—with the landing party on Pargyson. A rule breaker, not a team player—again, his words. And he knows my history of claustrophobia.”
“The doctor disclosed that? I thought Pissario was on your side.”
“No, he has authority to see those records; it’s not like the old days.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind. Maybe I should go home for a while, see my sister, visit my old haunts. See something green besides hydroponic lettuce and algae.”
“You keep talking about this Earth and the vegetation and the weather, yada yada, but I think you’re just nostalgic for your childhood. I’ve read up on your planet and it isn’t like that anymore. You just can’t go running through forests or jumping into rivers.” Brennan sat down on the chair opposite Joanni’s worktable and swiveled back and forth as she laid out her thoughts. She had evidently spent some time thinking this through. As for her own plans for the future, that was not up for discussion at the moment.
“You still have a lot of pull; you should be able to call the shots—one word to the Oreanians, and a wrench is thrown into the treaty,” she continued. “And remember, you have knowledge of Oreana, experience, that no one else has. Now, that knowledge can be spread far and wide, or it can die with the individual. You understand what I’m saying? Set yourself up nicely. I’ll help you. I may be just a clerk—Gillis’ words one more time—but a clerk has more power than people realize. A form, let’s say, a form can be transmitted quickly, on time, or accidentally sent in after deadline. Perhaps it might be lost, or mistakenly deleted, or dated incorrectly. Request a two-year assignment on the Eridanus as a cultural attaché. Obviously that’s a diplomatic line assignment, you would not be part of the crew hierarchy, so you and your captain can fly amongst the stars to your heart’s content. Wouldn’t be breaking any rules or breaching decorum.” She smiled at her own cleverness. “That would be more for his peace of mind than yours, I imagine. Put all your chits on the table and make ISEA do it.”
“You’re a romantic, Brennan. Now all we need to do is get you set up with the love of your life.”
“All the good ones have been taken.”
“Then you need to expand your definition of good.”
During the time the Eridanus and her crew were flying toward Oreana, the eager anticipation of coming upon the face of the unknown made each week seem like a month, each month the perceived equivalent of four. But now, returning home where tough decisions would need to be made and where the consequences of those decisions would land hard, the days flew by at an uncomfortably fast pace. Joanni had pined for Tom Chipman in her lonelier moments on Oreana, had longed for both the enticement and the security of his physical presence. She missed the camaraderie of her crewmates—Liz, Engineer Matulis, Ruthie—and mourned for Matt Thornby. But in a similarly contradictory manner, now that she was back on board, it was almost as if she wanted to be left alone so she could sit without interruption and think about their collective future and relive their adventures of the past.
The galaxyship continued her return through the TempiP45XS galaxy, approaching Pargyson. Joanni sat by her window in the office constructed for her by Chipman—oh, so long ago it seemed—looking out at the stars. She was now able to walk down the solitary corridor to her office without having flashbacks of Deputy Ambassador Palladin accosting her and breaking her thumb. Sitting there, her own words came back to mind: ‘The Pargysonians will not be happy with us,’ as well as the captain’s: ‘I think they’re too distracted . . . to be hot on our heels, but we’ll have to deal with them on our return from Oreana.’
Indeed, the Pargysonians were not happy with the destruction of their avian barrier, the death of the patriot Palladin, or the return of the Oreanian artifact to its rightful owners. The Pargysonian bureaucratic powers that be knew of this last occurrence via their ongoing long-range monitoring of Oreanian activities; they had picked up that planet’s Origin Clesig ceremony as well as the signing of the mutual cooperation and mining treaty. Their formulated response to these unfortunate events was calculated, simple and clear: the alien ship would be struck, and struck hard, on its return route home. ISEA would be punished and the Eridanus would not leave the galaxy.
It was true that some individuals, Joanni being a prime example, avoided reality with daydreams of the past, but there were others aboard the Eridanus who, with the Oreanian mission accomplished, were eager to get back to exploring and overcoming the next obstacle in their path. Such were the members of the scout flight crew, many of them young pilots on their first or second mission assignment. After an emergency briefing with the captain and his senior officers, it was decided to follow a different route out of the galaxy, swinging around far to the right of Pargyson. In addition, two speed scout vessels, small and fast (and armed), would be sent out to monitor the field ahead and around the galaxyship. Each speed ship was to be manned by a crew of four, and each ship would be commanded by a member of the scout flight crew: Lieutenant Stepwell piloting the vessel, Nova 9, and Lieutenant Netsky, who had flown Gillis and company to the rendezvous space station, captain of the Cardinal North.
The first hour after the scouts took off was uneventful, as the bridge crew oversaw their stations in tense silence, and the vessels swooped and banked around the galaxyship like swallows in flight. Lt. Morrison monitored communication between the advance guard and the ship. Suddenly, she turned around to Chipman and reported communication between the scouts and the ship had been lost.
“Try to reestablish,” the captain ordered.
A crackling voice came in from the Nova 9, “Montana (the Eridanus’ codename), Cardinal’s been hit.” Seconds later, the Eridanus took a huge blast on her port side, knocking out power and plunging her into darkness.
Image: The future as a tiger’s tail. Source: “Sketches of Tigers and Men in 16th Century Costume” by Eugène Delacroix, 1825-1830. The Art Institute of Chicago. CC0 Public domain. Edited by J. Weigley