Slave Ship, Page 2

  But the best way to tell that it wasn't a war was that the fusion bombs stayed nicely tucked into their satellite launchers, theirs and ours. Silly? Not so very silly, no—the bombs were all too able to end the "war" overnight, by ending everything.

  So everybody played the same game, we and the Caodais, because everybody had the same powerful desire to keep the fusion bombs right where they were. The rules were fairly simple: No landings in force on the enemy continents (but islands were fair game). No attacks on enemy shipping in "open" waters (but sink anyone you like in interdicted areas—and interdict any waters that suit your fancy). But it was never called "war."

  For some people it was a pretty high-stakes game. Not so much for me, you understand: though Spruance had been in a forward area, we'd never come up against anything as big as we were. But it was a mighty rough police operation for the ones who saw water hammer in when the depth bomb connected, the ones who took a hunk of gelignite in the navel, the ones who lost a wing at thirty thousand feet and found the escape hatch buckled.

  But not for me. Especially not at Project Mako.

  The next morning I waited hopefully at breakfast for someone to tell me to report for briefing, but nobody did.

  It was raining, and everybody else seemed to have work to do, so I picked some books out of the shelf in the wardroom—Mahan and Jellicoe—and talked the mess boy out of some coffee. It never hurts to refresh yourself on classical tactics.

  Commander Lineback came slouching through the wardroom just before lunch while I was reading The Grand Fleet. He gave me a strange look.

  "Glad to see you're improving your mind." he said. "Everything going all right?"

  "Well, yes, sir," I said, "except—"

  "The briefing's postponed till this afternoon," he said, and was gone.

  I was being treated like an interloper. I told myself that COMINCH didn't think I was an interloper; COMINCH, from the majesty of his five stars, had picked me out of Spruance and crash-prioritied me to this hole in the Florida swamp. Maybe Lieutenant-Commander Lineback didn't have time to bother with me, but I was a skilled and talented naval officer and not constitutionally fitted for being a bum. I had thirty-five sweeps to my own credit—ranging up to a hundred miles from Spruance in my little battery-powered scout torp—and though I didn't have any kills, I had an official assist on the corvette; I'd flushed it right into Spruance's jaws.

  After lunch everybody disappeared again, and I was tired of the wardroom. I put on my oilskins and wandered around the headquarters area, watching the big, warm drops smash the bougainvillaea blooms. It was kind of pretty, Florida was; I thought about maybe some day, my wife and I, coming here for a second honeymoon . . .

  If I ever saw her again.

  Maybe, I thought to myself urgently, walking a little faster, maybe if I put it to the commander right he'd let me go into town, and I could have a few drinks, perhaps even pop a couple.

  But it wouldn't do any good. I'd tried drinking, and it didn't let me forget that my wife was a long, long way away. I kicked at the watery hibiscus morosely. It's tough enough to go to war and leave the girls behind you. But what about when they don't stay behind you?

  "Moo-oo."

  I looked up, startled.

  I had been thinking, not watching where I was going. I had wandered along a shell-bordered walk, past a truck garden the enlisted men kept on the side, into a grove of coconut palms. And on the other side of the palms was a shack, and in the shack a cow was monotonously lowing.

  The question was, was I still in the headquarters area?

  I looked around me. Nobody had told me exactly what the headquarters area was, I reminded myself defensively. It wasn't my fault if I was outside it.

  The shack had one curious feature, considering that a cow was lowing inside it: It had only a regular human-sized door. There were windows, but I couldn't see through them. But I could hear, all right.

  That cow sounded unhappy—sick, perhaps, or wanting to be milked, though it was the middle of the afternoon. "Moo-oo," it went, and then, in a lower key with a sort of grunt at the end: "Moo-oo-oo." Then the first one again, and the second, in an alternation too regular to be believed.

  Well, what could be more natural than to hear cattle lowing on a dairy farm? But the regularity bothered me, and so did the door; I walked closer. And the door opened in my face. Lieutenant Kedrick was standing there, turned away, talking to a hawk-faced j.g. whom I had seen at lunch. The j.g. was gesturing with a spool of recording tape; he saw me over Kedrick's shoulder and his expression changed.

  Kedrick turned around. "Miller," he said.

  I cleared my throat. "Aye-aye, sir," I said. He stepped out into the rain, staring at me. He hardly noticed the drops splattering off his slicker, he was so angry. "Miller," he said, "curse it, you were restricted to the area! Now, get back to your quarters and wait for the briefing."

  I said, "Sir, I—"

  "On the double, Mr. Miller!"

  I saluted. "Yes, sir."

  But why? It wasn't as though there was anything in sight that justified all that security. I suppose that everyone is familiar with dairy farms, and that's about all there was to see on Project Mako, I'd already seen enough to last me a lifetime; I had spent part of my teens doing summer work in upstate New York, where you can't throw a rock between Albany and Syracuse without hitting somebody's Holstein.

  Of course, southern cattle aren't Holsteins, but they all operate about the same. Those at Project Mako (once called the Volusia County Dairymen's Co-op Center) were divided into two herds, one purebred Santa Gertrudis, the other Brahman-Friesian crossbreds. But the husbandry was the same. The milk sheds were the same; the forage was the same; the cattle themselves lowed and ate the same and were milked the same.

  Project Mako's number two crop happened to be hybrid teosinte, the Mexican bush corn. Back in Cayuga County we mostly used potatoes for the secondary crop, but it didn't matter: You plant your potatoes, or corn, or anything you like in rows; you show the cattle your specimens of the money crop in its various stages of growth; and you turn them loose. The cattle eat the weeds and leave the crop. Their droppings fertilize the pasture, and the "weeds" make milk for you. They tell me the old folks used to do the same thing with geese and cotton. But it was just luck that geese didn't like the taste of cotton stalks; with cows, speaking their language, you could tell them what to eat and what to leave alone.

  They weren't really weeds, of course. You don't want your cattle eating real weeds; best practice in Cayuga County, where I came from, was to sow a cover crop of one of the ladino grasses or hybrid clover, something that would stand up under heavy grazing. Naturally you don't want it to look too much like your money crop, either, since cows are not bright.

  But what was top secret about that?

  I relied on the briefing to explain all these questions to me, but the briefing was a huge disappointment.

  The new draft of officers arrived while I was wandering around the Project, over a dozen of them; and we all assembled in the wardroom at 1600 hours. There was a Russian, the usual batch of American junior officers, Commander Lineback, and a civilian.

  The civilian did the actual briefing. His name was Schwende, and Commander Lineback referred to him as "Doctor." Well, the briefing didn't amount to much; all Schwende said was that we were going to do research in communicating with animals. Why? He didn't say why. How?

  There would be a few new wrinkles. Dairy farmers, as I have mentioned, had given orders to their cattle for some time. But we were going beyond cows and horses and pigs, beyond the order to lay off the cash crop and the demand to return to the barn for milking. We were going to talk to them.

  "You'll make guesses," said the doctor (of animal husbandry, not medicine). "That's your privilege. Guess your heads off about what the Navy's going to do with animals. But keep your guesses to yourself."

  And that was the end of that, barring the handing out of individual assignments. Mi
ne was to run a computer.

  We were dismissed, and the new draft of officers reported to the dayroom to be assigned to quarters. All of the new ones were ensigns and j.g.'s, except for the Russian, He was some kind of senior lieutenant, but just what that amounted to I cannot say. It didn't matter in terms of command relationship, of course, because as a co-belligerent he was present only as a military observer. He was a Red Army man, not Navy, but he wore our naval undress whites, with only the Russian shoulder-bars to mark his rank.

  And he was quartered with me.

  A room to myself had been too good to last. I showed him to our room with only minor regrets for the loss of my solitude. In hesitant but good English he said: "Is very nice, Lieutenant. Which of the beds is yours?"

  I offered him his choice, but he insisted on not disturbing my arrangements. "Both of them are splendid," he declared judiciously, and then he smiled. It was a good smile; with it he came to rigid attention. "Timiyazev, Semyon Ilyitch," he proclaimed. "Please to call me Semyon."

  I helped him unpack, and we made ourselves acquainted. He knew more about Project Mako than I had before the briefing; but nothing that was very informative. He had been thoroughly briefed by his Government-in-exile at their tiny legation in Washington, just next to the dome of the United Nations building. He said, "They were very glad to be able to send me to this place. We have not so very many officers in the Free Russian Forces who are versed in animal psychology, do you see? Much less one who is the son of a colleague of Pavlov's."

  "I didn't know it ran in the blood."

  He looked at me appraisingly, then chuckled. "Oh, it does not. Surely not. But my mother was also my teacher. She was unhappy when my opportunity came to attend the Suvorov Academy. She would have preferred, you see, a scientific life for me. But in a world at war, one is best as a soldier. And if one must be a soldier, why not attend the Academy and have perhaps the prospect of becoming a general?" He added pensively, "That was some years ago, of course. Before the Orientals occupied us. Now—perhaps my mother knew best."

  I made my excuses after a little while. Semyon made me just a little uncomfortable.

  I know that the Russian business is all done and over, and you don't hold a grudge against somebody who's down. And, in a way, it's our fault that the Russians are in the kind of shape they're in. If we hadn't pulverized them so thoroughly in the Short War, they wouldn't have been so soft a touch ten years later for the Caodais coming over through Mongolia. And if they had been able to hold on for a while then, long enough for us to get off the dime, the Caodais might have been stopped in their tracks right there, as Hitler might have been stopped at the Sudetenland. And universal conscription might not have been necessary, and my wife might not have been so many thousands of miles away . . .

  And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride the winners at Tropical Park.

  Howsoever, we got to work.

  The next morning Chief Oswiak picked up the Russian and me and took us in the helicopter to our base of' operations.

  I said: "I didn't see those buildings when you flew me in."

  "Sure you didn't, Lieutenant," the Chief agreed. "They wasn't any buildings there to see. The Seabees come in yesterday morning, and more fuss and commotion you never heard in your life. But they got them up." He brought the copter down gently between two of the new buildings. Three-story prefabs, they were, with the workmen still laying power lines around them. "Looks like we're getting busy, all right," said Oswiak. And it did.

  Computer officer—that was I. That was what I had done aboard Spruance, and that was what I was going to be doing at Mako. A chunk of one floor in one of the prefabs was all mine. It was my first assignment to supervise the installation of my computers, already on hand and waiting to be hooked up. After that—after that I wasn't very clear; but, as I say, it had something to do with talking to animals.

  Well—

  At any rate, the computers were plenty big and plenty good. The Seabees had already made a start. I pitched in, and the job was completed by bed time. The night shift came on to test connections as I left. I stopped by my new roommate's quarters to see if he wanted a lift back to the BOQ.

  But he didn't; it was well on to midnight, but he was busy doing something with a collie.

  From the door I heard a clicking sound, like one of those tin gadgets from childhood called crickets. I looked, and that was what it was—formed tin body, hardened, cupped tin plate fitted into it. "What's up?" I demanded. Semyon looked up angrily. "Hush, Logan!" he ordered severely. "New dog, I must finish this trial. Stay where you are!"

  The dog looked at me pleadingly. It was clearly confused; its tongue was hanging, it was panting, its slightly raised foreleg was quivering. Semyon didn't say another word. We all waited and the dog got tired first.

  It started toward me, looked at Semyon, hesitated, stopped. Semyon was as silent as old Stalin in his tomb. The dog turned tentatively to one side, and click went the cricket in Semyon's fingers. The dog walked slowly to a straight-backed chair. Click. The dog touched the chair with its nose; click, click.

  Yes, I was puzzled. Semyon had called it a "trial"; but all he was doing was clicking his little cricket. He didn't say a word, he hardly moved.

  The dog was as puzzled as I, which was some consolation. It stopped and looked at Semyon; Semyon, blue eyes serene under his pale brows, looked calmly back. The dog took a hesitant step away from the chair, and paused, waiting for a reaction. Silence. The dog whined worriedly, and returned to the chair. Click went Semyon's cricket. The dog placed its forepaws on the seat. Click, click. The dog leaped up into the seat and curled up, tail wagging madly. Click, click, click; and then Semyon, grinning broadly, said:

  "Fine dog. Oh, excellent dog! You may come in now, please, Logan." He walked over to the dog, talking to it in Russian, and scratched enthusiastically behind its ears.

  "What the devil is it?" I demanded. "Were you sending Morse code?"

  "Exactly," he beamed. "Oh, not precisely the Morse, you understand. But a code. We were talking, the dog and I."

  "Some Russian invention?"

  He shrugged modestly. "Of course a Russian invention. My own mother invented it herself, you will find it described in Great Russian Encyclopedia. Of course," he added judiciously, "she was assisted in inventing it by a man named Skinner in America, who invented it also, some years earlier. But my mother invented it in Russia, you see."

  "Tell me," I demanded. Semyon was delighted, of course, but he was far from clear. It was a way of communicating with animals, but the animals couldn't talk back. It was a way of getting a dog to do what you wished, but it wasn't training.

  "Is it the same thing Lineback uses for cows?"

  "No, no!" he said. "Radically different, Logan!"

  "Different how?"

  Semyon gave me a queer look. I could see he was wondering how anyone as stupid as I had been assigned to Project Mako, but he was too polite to say so. He said only: "You have heard the cattle language. It is only a matter of listening to the sounds the beasts make—we will dismiss, for the moment, the visual components. One discovers how one beast informs another that there is, shall we say, a patch of clover here or a stinging-nettle there. Once you have learned the, shall we call it, ox-tongue—" he peered coyly at me—"you say it back to the beast. You make the stinging-nettle bleat for danger and pain; you say it to the beast, and you show him, perhaps, a clump of marigolds. Then perhaps, he does not eat the marigolds. Of course, he perhaps slips sometimes, for he is quite stupid. He may take a nibble to see for himself. Then you beat him, and make the stinging-nettle bleat again, and he learns. Oh, he learns, surely; it is a question of time and repetition." He frowned at me and said argumentatively: "Is training, you see? The language is only to expedite the training."

  "I see. And what you are doing?"

  "It is language." He smiled abruptly and charmingly. "But I admit, Logan, it is a very tiny language. One word: 'Yes.' My dog here, Josip;
if he does as I wish, I say 'yes' to him. If he does what I do not wish, I say nothing at all, and he understands 'no.' I snap this thing for yes; I do nothing for no. A very simple language, isn't it?"

  "Too simple. How can it work?"

  He shrugged. "See for yourself. What would you have Josip do?"

  "Do?"

  "So I said, do. Set a task for him, Logan. We shall see."

  I hesitated, and he flared up: "You think it is no language, yes? I see. You think it is some kind of trick or game, like trained dog acts in the fair. But see for yourself, Logan; give me an order and I will translate. Would you perhaps care to have Josip sit in your lap? Push the door you left ajar closed with his nose? Fetch you a book from the shelf?"

  I said awkwardly, "I've seen trained dogs do some astonishing things—"

  "Not trained!" he almost screamed. "Is absolutely untrained, this dog! Except for only one hour this afternoon, when I taught him the language. Nothing else. Is not training, Logan, you must understand that!" He cast about the room agitatedly. "No discussion," he said peremptorily. "Look here, I choose a task. You see the cardboard cup on the floor? Once it had coffee in it; I drank the coffee; I forgot the cup. I shall require Josip to pick it up and put it in the wastebasket. Neatness is important, is it not? Even for a dog."

  "I had a Scotty who carried newspapers—"

  "Logan! I shall stand behind this folding screen, peeping at him with only my eyes. I shall say nothing, except in our tiny language. One word, remember! No, no—no discussion, only watch."

  He huffed and went behind the screen, the dog watching him worriedly.

  It was a sad little spectacle, in a way. My sympathies were all with the dog. He knew something was expected of him, but he clearly did not know what. There was silence from Semyon behind the screen, then the dog took a tentative step toward Semyon. Silence still. The dog, forlorn, took a step away. Click from Semyon.