Expendable - James Alan Gardner [9]
As air rushed into the transport bay, the sound of metal clapping on metal became audible over the speakers monitoring the area. Ringing above the clapping was a tinny cry. At first it sounded like screeching, but then it solidified into something like “Wheeeeeee!”
I looked at Yarrun. He looked back, eyebrows slightly raised.
Down in the transport bay, the admiral scrambled to his feet and tossed off the helmet of his impact suit. He turned to the four of us standing at the window and shouted, “See? Like Jonah and the whale.” He pointed to himself. “I’m Jonah.” He pointed to the Mouth. “That’s the whale. A sperm whale. Jonah comes out of the whale. See?” He hugged himself with a clang of metal gloves against the suit’s chestplate.
Prope stared blankly at the wild old man. Harque, at her side, whispered, “Should I cancel the call for the medical team?”
“Not on your life,” she answered.
My Second Admiral
Harque turned a dial and the observation deck began to descend, lowering itself to match levels with the transport bay. As we sank, doors within doors were revealed in the plastic separating us from the bay: a large door that could be opened to receive huge, heavy equipment; a medium door, just the lower half of the largest one, but still big enough to let robot cargo-haulers pass through; and a baby door, set into the medium one, just right for humans.
Prope was obviously reluctant to open any of those doors until the medical team arrived. With her heroic stance abandoned, she shifted her weight back and forth from one foot to the other, probably wondering how to preserve her dignity while dealing with a madman. On the other side of the door, Admiral Chee had begun clinking the metal of his pressure suit with his finger, idly checking which surfaces made which tones. He may have been trying to tink out a song, but I didn’t recognize the tune.
Yarrun cleared his throat. “Captain…hadn’t we better let him in?”
“How do we know it’s safe?” she asked. “He might have a disease.”
Yarrun glanced at me, then turned back to Prope. “Captain, the admiral’s behavior may be peculiar by the standards of mainstream Technocracy culture, but we could be mistaken in applying those standards to him. If the admiral comes from a Fringe World, his apparent childishness may simply be cultural idiosyncrasy.”
“Trust an Explorer to talk about cultural idiosyncrasy,” the captain muttered. And trust a Fleet captain to ignore it, I thought to myself. Officers of the Vacuum Corps invariably came from the great homogenized paunch of the Technocracy, with no representation from the more eclectic Fringes. But the captain admitted, “I suppose we have to let him in sooner or later. Go ahead, Harque: open the door.”
The human-sized door slid into the floor with a hydraulic hiss. Harque snapped the admiral an ostentatious salute. Prope did the same a guilty second later, and Yarrun and I fluttered our hands somewhere near our foreheads. Chee blinked at all of us for a moment, then waved his hand dismissively. “Piss on saluting. I’m here incognito. I don’t have to salute if I don’t want.”
“Of course not, sir,” Yarrun said, smoothly changing his salute to a hand extended for shaking. “Welcome to the Jacaranda. I hope the ride over was pleasant?”
“The only fun I’ve had in thirty years. Can I do it again?”
“I’m afraid not, sir,” I said after a glance at the tracking holo that glowed above the control console. “The Golden Cedar has already broken the tail-link, and it’s heading out of range.”
“I can call them back. I’m an admiral.”
Captain Prope looked down the hall, apparently praying for the med team to arrive. In the meantime, I reminded Chee, “You’re here incognito, sir. If you were to begin transmitting orders….”
“Oh.” His face fell. “This secrecy stuff was a piss-poor decision on my part. Or was it my decision? I forget. Let me read my papers.”
He reached into the front pouch of his impact suit and pulled out four sealed packets. One of