'Twenty-five Bev, aye, sir."

Twenty-five? I must have missed us going up. How high were we?

"Ship's Services, commence dehumidification."

The rarefied atmosphere is near saturation. The simple thermometer near the compartment clock says real temperature increase has been but 3.7 degrees. I remind myself that in battle crews routinely endure temperatures approaching eighty degrees.

The Commander eases us back into hyper, shifts to fusion power, then drops to norm. "Vent heat," he orders.

A midnight woods-whisper trickles through the ship. Ship's Services is circulating atmosphere through the radiator vanes. In minutes the air feels chilly.

"Mr. Westhause, return to the tender. Mr. Yanevich, rig for parasite mode. Department heads.

Meeting in the wardroom as soon as the ship is secure."

I invite myself to the conference. As far as the Commander is concerned, I have access to everything but his classified material. None of the others asks me to leave, though Piniaz obviously resents my presence.

Performance in null is the subject. Everyone agrees. The ship is ready. Crew and intangibles remain the question marks.

"I want music piped into the basement," Lieutenant Varese says.

"We went through this last patrol," Yanevich replies.

"We'll keep going through it. I stick by my arguments. It'll help morale."

"And generate heat."

"So secure it in Climb."

"No point discussing it this trip," the Old Man says. "We don't have the tapes."

Varese slaps the table, glares at the First Watch Officer. "Why the hell not?" His voice cracks.

"We had to reduce mass to accommodate eighty-two kilos of writer. The library had to go."

"Everything?"

"All but the study materials. Maybe that'll speed up the cross-rate training."

I shrink from Varese's venomous glare. I'm at the head of his shit list for sure.

"I'll get something from the mother," Yanevich offers. "We've used most of the personal mass."

Varese isn't to be mollified. He wants to fight. "No music?"

"Sorry."

"A magnetic cannon and a goddamned useless extra body. Fucking shitheaded Command."

"Mister Varese," the Commander says. The Lieutenant shifts his glare to his taut, pallid hands.

"How about personnel?" I ask, shoving my fingers into the dragon's mouth. "Fisherman... Junghaus looked like he might crack under pressure."

"So did you," Yanevich says.

Psych Bureau screens to the nth degree, but no test is perfect. People get past. They change under stress. There's no follow-up testing of people assigned to Climber duty.

Four men make the observation list. Junghaus isn't one of them. I am.

My ego has big bruises.

I am an unknown quantity. I haven't had Climber training. I haven't been through the Psych test battery. I would've made the list had I gone through the exercises like a rock.

Chief Nicastro makes the list because this is his last patrol, because he got married, because he'll want so badly to make it home. The stress on him will be severe.

The others are enlisted first patrollers who showed spooky. Jon Baake and Fehrenbach Cinderella.

They're Piniaz's men. He made his own judgments, so it's possible they were considered by harsher standards. Piniaz is a perfectionist.

The nascent hostility between Varese and myself receives no mention. We're like flint and steel, that man and I. He flat doesn't like me. We'll strike sparks no matter what I do to avoid it.

The Old Man detains me when the meeting breaks up. He stares into nothing till I grow nervous, fearing he may be worried enough to leave me aboard the mother when the ship commences her patrol.

Finally, "What do you think?"

"It isn't like the holo shows it."

"You've said that before. You've also said there's got to be a better way." He smiles that pale smile.

"It's true!"

"Nothing is like it is on holo."

"I know that. I just didn't expect it to be this different."

He slides away somewhere behind his eyes. Has he returned to Canaan? What is it? Marie? Navy as a whole? Something unrelated? He isn't the sort to lay his soul out on a dissecting table. He's a human singularity. You have to figure him out by inference and his effect on the orbits of others.

"I'm going to put you in Weapons for a while. Don't mind Piniaz. He's a good man. Just playing an Old Earther role. Learn the magnetic cannon. You were good at ballistics." He fiddles with his pipe, acting as if he wants to light up. I haven't seen him smoke since we came aboard. In fact, this is the first I've seen that nasty little instrument since then. "And do some of your famous observing."

"What am I looking for? Personal problems? Like Jung-haus?"

"Don't worry about Fisherman. He'll be all right. He's found his way to cope. Ito is the man worrying me. Something's eating him. Something more than usual."

"You just said..."

"I know. It's the Commander's prerogative to contradict himself."

"There's always something eating Old Earthers. They're born with chips on their shoulders. What about Varese? I'm scared to turn my back on him."

"Bah! Nothing to worry about. He's a culture nut. A pseudo. Wants to enlighten his philistines. He goes through the same routine every patrol. He'll come out of it after we make contact."

"And you?" "Eh?"

"I thought maybe something was bothering you." "Me? No. All systems go. Raring to get into competition." His face belies his words. I'll watch him closer than Piniaz. He's my friend...Is that why he wants me out of Ops?

5 On Patrol

It's a twelve-day passage to the squadron's patrol sector. As the days drift away, the men become quieter and more reserved. They have a crude, seldom reliable formula. A day's travel outward bound translates to three days' travel coming back. We've been aboard the Climber seventeen days.

Fifty-one days to go? That seems unlikely. Few patrols last more than a month. There's so much enemy traffic.... Hell, we could run into a convoy tomorrow, scramble, clear our missile elevators, and be home before the mother.

Eventless travel leaves a lot of free time, despite the depressing frequency of drills. I'm spending a lot of time with Chief Energy Gunner Holtsnider. He of girder-clinging fame. He's refreshing my knowledge of ballistic gunnery.

"This's your basic GFCS Mark Forty-six system," he tells me. I guess this is the fifth time we've been through this. "You got your basic Mark Thirty gun order converter, and your basic gyros, stabile element, tracking, and drive motor units. Straight off a corvette secondary mount. You just got your minor modifications, what they call your One-A conversions, for spherical projectiles."

Yeah? Those are killing me. My poor senile brain keeps harking futilely after my Academy gunnery training.

Half the problem is my sneaking suspicion that the Chief On Patrol 107 is learning while I am, staying a few pages ahead in the crisp new manual.

"Now, off your radar, and your neutrino and tachyon detectors if you have to, and even your visuals if it comes to that, and your transiting missiles in norm, you get your B, your R, your dR, your Zs, your dE, and your dBs. You feed them all to your Mark Thirty-two. Then you get your Gf...."

I keep getting lost in the symbols. I can't remember which is relative motion in line of sight, angular elevation rate, angular bearing rate, gravity correction, relativity correction, light velocity lag time—"

"And send your RdBs over V and your RdE over V to your Mark Thirty..."

I could strangle the man. He has a too-ample store of that most essential of instructor's virtues: patience. I don't. I never had enough. Many a project and study have I abandoned for lack of patience to follow through.