Excerpt

He delivered distraction, devastation, and disorder. He dealt desperation, depression, and destruction. He carried chaos and confusion and peddled perversions and perturbations. Many of his contemporaries ceaselessly cursed his name. Others, patient souls that they were, put up with him. But more than a few, strangely enough, seemed to like him. In times of war, a common soldier may find joy in either being a fanatic or, as most do, in any available distraction. To such satisfaction-seekers, his stupefying subsistence spectacularly hit the spot.

All in all, he probably meant well.

Introduction to The Good Soldier, an anonymous manuscript popular on Bohemia IV

Pre-Private Fux of Bohemia IV demonstrated his questionable qualities in a most splendid and satisfactory manner less than a minute after setting foot upon the imperial light frigate UPS Spitz. The incident, an airlock disruption or commotion or some such, resulted in a momentary all-ship red alert, a few light injuries, and, so rumour had it, the demise of a forklift.

This feat, Lieutenant Lipton pointed out when word of it reached the Officers' mess, must have been a record of some kind, to which young Ensign Berserker hotly replied that it was no laughing matter, this being another sign of a deranged and traitorous mind typical of the inhabitants of Bohemia IV; to which Lieutenant Lipton said, "Shut up, Berserker," to everyone else's satisfaction.

"The captain will hear of this," mumbled the humiliated ensign, only to be told among bursts of laughter, "And you will be the one to tell her?"

Lieutenant Lipton's thirty years of age made him somewhat too old for his lowly rank, yet his authority reached far beyond it. Or so it would have seemed to anyone careless enough to take the ship's command manifesto at face value. In it, Lipton was registered as acting top vehicular life-support officer, in charge of the ship's entire air systems crew. This lofty position was somewhat limited, though, by the fact that said crew consisted of no one but its commanding officer. The airlocks were officially under his jurisdiction, though not under his direct command. This meant that while he had no influence or say on the matter, every airlock-related incident was to appear in his personal file, gleefully maintained by the political division. Therefore, regretfully, Lieutenant Lipton had to conduct an investigation in person.

He embarked upon this task without delay, unless one counts waiting for the shift to end, a repair crew to be sent to airlock D, some shaken recruits to be put in the infirmary, and the brig to gain one new Pre-Private occupant. A few more minutes were spent locating the airlock shift leader, one Corporal Kohl, who was eventually found painting the upside curve of an otherwise abandoned service corridor.

The UPS Spitz was old but not old enough to require anything as ancient as paint. Almost every surface inside the ship was made of self-repairing opaque mesh. This, however, wasn't reflected in the regulations, which required applying a fresh coat of paint every hundred standard shifts. No paint or brushes were in existence anywhere upon the ship, but such trifles failed to prevent Corporal Kohl from smudging the wall with vaguely foul-smelling dabs of liquid. Regulations demanded a light-blue colour, but it was hard to see in the dim light whether the corporal's goo complied with this instruction. This, too, might require an investigation at some point. But not right now.

"Corporal," said Lipton. "Report."

"Sir," the corporal said, inflicting some more wetness onto the wall, which promptly rejected it. "I'm applying a new coat of light-blue paint to the . . ."

"The airlock, Kohl. What happened in the airlock?"

"Sir!" said Corporal Kohl and stood to attention. "One of them draftees, sir. Leaned on the emergency lever. Saw it happening with my own eyes, sir."

The corporal's broom-like moustache seemed to be standing to attention, too, in accordance with the gravity of the situation but in defiance of any other kind of gravity. This was especially notable since, by now, the ship was under acceleration on its way out of the Bohemia star system. In other times, this might have been amusing, but airlock breaches were serious business. They could endanger not only the lives of a few draftees but also the career of a promising young officer.

"A draftee?" said the promising young officer. "And no one tried to stop him?"

"I'd've done so but had twenty newbies in the airlock, sir, at least five between him and me. I was just telling 'em the basics."

The corporal's right foot, Lipton noticed, was right in the middle of the puddle of whatever it was that the wall had rejected, and the liquid was slowly but determinedly climbing up the man's cardboard shoe and paper uniform.

"The basics," Lipton repeated, fascinated by this display of capillarity. By now, the corporal's uniform had absorbed so much liquid that it was on the verge of disintegrating.

"The basics, sir," the corporal said, oblivious to all this. "As in, if it's blue, it's engine systems, don't touch it, yellow's air systems, don't touch it, green—"

This mention of naval regulations shook Lieutenant Lipton out of his capillary curiosity and put his mind back to the matter at hand. "And the lever?" he asked.

"'Course, sir," the corporal said, his moustache quivering with indignation. "First thing I said, 'This lever here is airlock-override, don't touch it! No matter what you do, don't touch that lever!' Then this draftee went and pulled it, and the sirens ran off, and the air ran out, and—"

"How come no one flew out into space, then?" Lipton felt an unintentional smile climbing up his face. No one died, after all. The incident was probably nothing more than a freak accident. No one would be punished, most importantly, not himself.

"We would've, for sure, only we were still packing supplies in there. Had a forklift in the airlock. Smashed right into the outer door and got stuck in it."

"Ah," said Lipton. "The forklift." So the rumours were true. He was fighting his own smile and losing.

"Bit of luck there, really, sir."

This true statement wiped the stubborn smile off Lipton's face. He couldn't afford to be even slightly suspected of agreeing with it. "Oh?" he said. "Are you implying that the decommission of mission-critical Navy equipment is 'a bit of luck,' Corporal?" This was the speech expected of him in such circumstances. He hoped the corporal would have the presence of mind not to answer.

"Better than losing a man, sir?"

So much for presence of mind. This was getting too politically dangerous. Lieutenant Lipton had to steer the conversation away.

"Did you see this man actually do it?" he said. "Did he just lean on the lever or actually pull it?"

"I . . . I don't know. We can check the logs, sir."

Lieutenant Lipton raised his eyebrow at this and rather pointedly said nothing at all.

"However," Corporal Kohl added hurriedly, "the local logcams were probably certainly damaged by decompression, sir, because, eh, because everything was flying around like crazy, and something must have hit—"

"A full report on my desk within the hour, Corporal," the lieutenant said harshly; but a faint smile, visible only to his interlocutor, belied this entirely.

"Sir, yes, sir!" the corporal said, barely avoiding a sigh of relief.

Lieutenant Lipton turned and, hoping that his now carefully severe facial expression was readable by the corridor's single working logcam, forcefully marched away. Just as he crossed the grey metal exit hatch, he heard a very satisfying yelp from behind, a sure mark that Corporal Kohl had just made an important liquid discovery. Being out of the logcam's field of vision, he allowed himself a brief, thin smile.