"Because Fearless Fred told us to. Why do we bother with any of this shit? Don't ask why. Why doesn't matter in the Climbers."

How sour he is lately. He's saying the things the Commander is thinking. He'll have to learn to control himself if he wants to become a Ship's Commander.

"It doesn't matter anywhere else, either, Steve. You're supposed to do your job and trust your superiors."

"What the hell? Anything beats what we've been doing. It's something to mess with till a convoy shows."

Later, while the First Watch Officer confers with Mr. West-hause, Fisherman says, "I hope they make it, sir."

"Hmm? Why's that?"

"Just seems right. That their efforts be rewarded. Like it says in the Bible... but the Lord's will, will be done."

Curious. Compassion for the enemy...

I find it a widespread attitude, though the men all say they'll do their jobs. Even Carmon shows no hatred or hysteria, just respect and a hint of an anachronistic chivalry.

The gentlemen of the other firm aren't wholly real, of course. Making them real, believable, and sinister, has been a problem for our captains and propaganda kings. The men can't get worked up about someone they have never seen. It's hard to interact emotionally with an electronic shadow in a display tank.

It's like fighting specters who take on flesh only for those inescapably in their clutches. Only on our lost worlds do our people actually see their conquerers.

It's hard to hate them, too, because they practice none of the common excesses of war. We never hear atrocity stories. There have been no pointless massacres. They avoid civilian casualties.

They don't use nuclears inside atmosphere. They simply operate as a vast, efficient, and effective disarmament machine. From the beginning their sole purpose has been to neutralize, not to subjugate or destroy.

We're baffled, naturally.

Confederation won't be as charitable, if ever the tide turns. We play tougher, though we've stuck to the tacit rules so far.

The Commander and Mr. Westhause comp a program that will drop us on the target's last known position. Nicastro keeps nagging the computermen for a search program. Mr. Yanevich flutters hither and yon, mothering everyone.

The First Watch Officer's role is constricted this patrol. Under normal circumstances he plays a prick of the first water, a rigid disciplinarian, a book-thumper, and becomes the focus for the crew's antipathy toward authority. The Commander remains aloof, and when needed goes round with a warm word or unexpectedly friendly gesture. His role is that of father figure without the usual disciplinary unpleasantness. Most Commanders cultivate quirks which make them appear more human than their First Watch Officers. Our Old Man lugs that huge black revolver and chews his pipe.

Occasionally he hauls the weapon out to sight in on targets only he can see.

In private he admits that success as a Ship's Commander reflects success as a character actor.

The men know that, too. This shit has been going on since the Phoenicians. It works anyway. It's a big conspiracy. The Commander tries to make them believe and they work hard at believing. They want to be fooled and comforted.

There are no supporting fictions for the commander. He stands alone. He can't take Admiral Tannian seriously.

Mr. Yanevich is heir apparent to the loneliness, which is why he has a softened image this patrol.

This is his chrysalis mission. He came aboard remembered as a martinet. He'll emerge remembered as a wacky,,lovable butterfly.

"How many ships are going with us, Steve?"

Yanevich shrugs. "Maybe we'll find out next beacon."

"What I figured. Any reason I can't go see what they're doing below?" I want to see how the prospect of action has affected other departments.

Weapons should be the most altered. It's been the most bored. The triggermen have nothing to do but sit and wait. And wait. And wait.

Everyone else is here simply to give them their moments at their firing keys.

They're excited. Piniaz has undergone a renewal of spirit.

He actually welcomes my visit. "I was going to look you up," he says, wearing a smile he can't

control. "We've been running cost-effectiveness programs."

I glance at Chief Holtsnider. The Chief nods pleasantly. Piniaz says, "We may try your cannon." He babbles on about accuracy probabilities, cumulative ion stress in the lasers, and so forth.

There's no tension in Weapons. Every mug brandishes a smile. How simple we've become. Just the

prospect of change has us behaving as if we'll be home tomorrow night.

One of the gunnery trainees, Tuchol Manolakos, asks me, "Can you imagine what one of those bearings would do, sir?"

"Ricochetoff their meteor shunt. The velocity they're making, with their ramscoop funneling,

they're running with screens up and shunts on all the time. Detection-activation circuitry would be too slow."

"Yeah. Didn't think of that."

"Have to screen against hard radiation, too."

"Yeah."

I wonder if they're moving fast enough to see a starbow. Certainly there'll be gorgeous violet and red shifts fore and aft. Rectification of Doppler will consume most of their enhancement capacity.

The faces round me go grim. "What is it? What did I say?"

"I didn't consider the screens," Piniaz grumbles.

"Better consider the subjective time differential, too," I suggest.

"I thought of that. Ain't much, but it's to our advantage."

"And the Doppler on your energy beams?"

"Considered. Damned toy cannon."

"You could still try. If we're close enough to shoot, they'll shoot back. If they're armed.

They'll have to break screens to doit."

"Put a two-centimeter ball into a ten-centimeter shield gap with a point-four-second endurance on a target moving at point-four cee? From how far away? Shit. Shit and more shit. Why're we chasing

these clowns, anyway? They aren't exactly what you'd call a major threat to the universe. Ain't there a goddamned convoy somewhere?"

"Guess the Admiral thinks it would be a propaganda coup."

"Shit." Piniaz's vocabulary is suffering. "It'll just piss them off over there. You don't keep

kicking a guy when he's out of it. They'll start kicking back."

"I'll tell old Fred next time we take tea together." I don't know what it is about Piniaz. He can aggravate a stone just by standing beside it.

My antipathy is, in part, prejudice against bis origins. I know it, and probably am

overcompensating. Piniaz's dark little features are tight. He can guess my thoughts. "You do that.

And tell him from me... Never mind."

The eido hasn't been fingered.

Piniaz didn't reach his present status by letting Outworlders get his goat. He knows how to play the game.