Books by George!

Winston shrugged and raised his hands in surrender. “No progress,” he said slowly. “Folks at Berkeley say I found two new minerals, not part of my job. They say the minerals contain three new chemical elements, also not part of my job. I’ll skip the sciency part.”

“Thank you for protecting my digestion,” Radnor said. “I’ve been here many years, and the elements that matter are gold, silver, copper, and lead. OK, iron ore. And I saw in the paper, many years ago, this Frenchwoman found a new element that glows in the dark, or something like that. Radium, it’s called, I think. Is three new elements a lot?”

“For sure, that’s an incredible lot,” Winston answered. “It almost has to be wrong, but Berkeley has really good chemists. I’ve heard no details yet what sort of elements they found, or why no one’s noticed them before. For sure, lots of prospectors have worked the land from here to Phoenix, and Mister Eisenhower has regularly sent minerals off to Berkeley to be analyzed. But I’ve never heard mentioned that he found a new element, not before now. OK, no sign it’s related to the deaths.”

“And Phoenix, bless their hearts, gets the tourists,” Radnor grumbled. “Closer to the Heath, better hotels.”

&&&&&

Karl Eisenhower and his attorney sat in one corner of the Prescott Sheriff’s office. Around the table were the Sheriff, the Sheriff’s grandson, the Prescott City Attorney, a representative from the State Attorney’s Office, the Phoenix Coroner, Karl Eisenhower, and his attorney. In the middle of the table were two steel boxes, tightly sealed.

“Those two men were Prescott residents,” Sheriff Radnor Cooper said. “Are we finally done arguing that their deaths happened in Phoenix’s jurisdiction, so they get to investigate?” He waited for disagreement. “Also, Mister Eisenhower here paid for them to recover rocks, they did so, rocks being in the saddlebags of the mules, so the rocks belong to Mister Eisenhower. That’s in the contract the decedents signed. I gather the Governor gave up on claiming the rocks belong to the State Government, or are evidence of anything.”

“That’s correct,” State Deputy Attorney General Peter Thornton said. “Mister Eisenhower here got a Federal Court order, the men having died on Federal land, which my office does not want to contest.”

“I thank Coroner Washburn,” Radnor continued, “for traveling up here from Phoenix, a long day on the train even with the new schedule, and telling us the cause of death is unknown.”

“Indeed,” Washburn agreed. “But I have relatives in Prescott, so the trip had personal benefits. I should also thank Karl Eisenhower here for paying for the burial expenses and the tombstones. I gather that James Whitesides and Aaron Levy had no known relatives, so we gave them both proper burials in Phoenix. Baron Goldwater and the local synagogue ensured that Aaron was given a funeral according to his faith.”

“Least I could do,” Eisenhower said. “Jim and Aaron only needed a few hours in the heath, wore dust masks and protective clothing, should have been perfectly safe. State militia has had people go onto the Heath for much longer than that, no protection, and come back out; they recovered to good health afterward. At least neither of the men had families. Thank the Lord.”

“Winston, are you getting all this down?” Radnor asked.

“Keeping up, so long as no one talks too fast,” Winston Cooper answered. “Notehand helps a lot.”

“Notehand?” Thornton asked.

“Like shorthand,” Winston answered. “Learned it in Europe.”

“I heard much legal chatter for several hours this morning,” Radnor said as he pointed around the table, “amazing how complicated things became, but everyone in the same room was what was needed to settle things. Are we now happy? Have everyone’s claims been settled?” There were nods. “Good. In that case, you out-of-towners, I recommend the Trinity House Cafe for lunch. I’m going there myself, so soon as my grandson here, Doctor Cooper, finishes typing up his notes.”

The men stood and left the jail, leaving Winston and Radnor behind.

“Dear me,” Radnor said, “I thought that would never end. But in the end they were all happy. I was afraid there’d be dueling attorneys, worse, papers needing to be served, even worse than that, reporters interrupting my breakfast…and now all we have is that final document.”

“Soon enough,” Winston answered. “Bringing them all here was clever of you. So what does Karl do next?”

“He’s personally taking those rocks of his to California, to Berkeley—that’s near San Francisco—to learn how many new minerals he’s found.”

The four junior officers all looked at their belt-comps. 

“Yes, sir,” Pavel Vladimirovitch said. “Two in the afternoon.”

“That seems remarkably late,” Smith answered, “but I suppose there must be yet another difference in your customs.”

“Usually we’d start at nine,” Pavel Vladimirovitch answered, “but an event like this customarily turns into an extended drinking party, in which the participants do not get to bed until extremely late, or perhaps I should say somewhat early the next morning, and will need to recover after they wake up. Then we reach noon, and need a couple of hours delay for a proper lunch.”

“Your customs are indeed different from ours,” Smith said. “However, as we are really only here for the military aspects of the situation, not for attempting to establish ties and relationships that might advance my promotion, I do believe I will now be on my way. Please don’t feel any obligation to leave just because I am, any of you. Again, it was a pleasure to meet the four of you, and I wish you all a good evening.” He stood.

Ekaterina joined him in standing. “But I’ll be going back to my study systems,” Ekaterina said, “and leave efforts to deplete the Grand Admiral’s liquor warehouse to the three of you.”

“We are all heartbroken,” Chiang  Jianhong said. “Have you ever heard of anything other than work?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered. “More work. Everyone knows that.”  She turned to Smith. “Commodore, if you take the A37 corridor to the end before using the lift it will get you back to your pinnace much more directly than the roundabout route through Main Hub.”

“Ah, thank you,” Smith said. “And I see my pocket comp is approving the route, given that I am a foreign barbarian undoubtedly under suspicion of something, and not allowed to visit parts of this station.  I have summoned my officers and staff members, so we will soon be going on our ways.”

Pavel Vladimirovitch snapped to his feet and gave Smith a sharp salute, which Smith returned.

&&&&&

Winston Cooper strode into the Sheriff’s office, waving a newspaper in one hand. A glance at the wall clock confirmed that he was on time. Grand-dad Radnor Cooper came in at six in the morning, took a break for lunch, and was there until five, when he vanished for dinner. Gramps expected Winston to appear by eleven, and work until well after dark, spending much of his time typing reports.

Radnor looked up from his desk, waved, and called out: “Early today? It’s only ten.” Winston held up the office copy of the Phoenix Newspaper. The headline read “Blasted Heath Explorers Dead!”

The article underneath read

“James Whitesides and Aaron Levy of Prescott, Arizona boldly rose to the center of the Heath, the Sea of Glass. They were expected back the same day. They did not return. Courageous aerial reconnaissance by Aviator Cornelius Polk and Charles Grigsby, Major, Air Observation Corps, on board a Curtis Oriole belonging to Phoenix International Airways of Phoenix, Arizona, found their bodies and their mules, one of which had also died. Four incarcerees from Phoenix State prison volunteered to recover the bodies and rescue the mules. The incarcerees are now under observation in the prison hospital, and hope for reductions in their current very long sentences.

“Whitesides and Levy were hired by Karl Eisenhower of Honest Ike’s Gems, Prescott, Arizona to recover mineral samples. They took rigorous precautions against breathing any poisonous dust, precautions that apparently proved inadequate. We understand that many samples were recovered. The State Attorney has filed a claim on several steel boxes labeled ‘rocks’, claiming that they are evidence for an unspecified crime. Litigation is expected.

“The Governor claims that the deaths were due to heat exhaustion. He plans to prove that there is no danger in the Heath by setting up camp well inside its boundary, remaining a few days and returning. Meanwhile, the Phoenix Public Health Department warns curiosity seekers, of which there are many now filling Phoenix hotels, to stay clear of the Heath, until any danger is understood.”

“Interesting,” Radnor said. “We lucked out. Not my jurisdiction. Phoenix Sheriff, that Gates fellow, gets to investigate. Mystery death, no known cause? Was it murder? Where did the Heath come from?”

She, Smith thought, had been his fourth companion at dinner, had politely asked a pair of extremely sensible questions of him, directed to understanding the internal politics of the Anglic Union, but had not been very informative when asked questions herself.  Of course, most foreigners had no understanding of the Seldon Legion or its relationship with any government.  He nodded agreement.

“I have your departure date from Sol system.  If it’s not a secret, how did you manage to get here so quickly? There is a nominal shortest path, but there are a lot of jumps in between, reasonable delays at each warp point due to lines of ships and the like, so you were expected not to be here for several days yet.”

“That’s actually not a secret,” Smith said, “it’s a matter of the design of our ships. The Stellar Republic doesn’t need to know every detail, but there are inspections of our ships on intellectual property issues.  Our ships use the nominal root-point design for alpha nodes. Our beta drives are optimized for real-space faster-than-light speeds, meaning there are several points along the trip in which it was far faster for us to go from star to star in real space, rather than having to go a very long way around by traveling from warp point to warp point. The net result is that our trip was significantly shorter than you would’ve expected, given the nominal shortest path.”

“I know what a root-point design is, but why do you use it for your alpha nodes?” She asked.

“Patent royalties,” Smith answered. “At the time our design was laid down, it was unclear whether or not we could obtain the needed intellectual property rights to use a patented design. However, the original root-point design cannot be patented, so we used it. That design corresponds to a really large node, one whose warp field is an oblate, not prolate, ellipsoid.  As a result, no one has used that design in a faster-than-light ship in an extremely long time, going back to early in the First Empire.”

“Thank you very much,” Ekatarina said. “I see that the Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet and one of his staff members are leaving, so, as you may not be familiar with our customs, and would not mean to give offense, that means that we are now free to go. The party will doubtless go on for some considerable time, with more and more vigorous singing and drinking, but the formal social event has come to a close.”

Smith looked at the far end of the room, where indeed the Grand Admiral and a spectacularly attractive, much-younger woman had stood, waved to various people, and were backing out the door behind them.

“Thank you for explaining your customs on this matter,” Smith said. “I was noting the extent to which wine was being replaced with stronger liquor, conversations are becoming louder and louder, and wondering how I could gracefully make my escape. I believe I should be on my way to be back in time for the staff meeting tomorrow. Do your schedule still show that happens  tomorrow afternoon?”

At the final remark, Chalmers felt a great sense of relief. He thought he had put together all the evidence, made sure it was all consistent, and reached his conclusion. But here was a new piece of evidence, which he had not used in his discussion, which was consistent with the interpretation he had found. You could connect the dots on a map in strange ways that looked good, but when you added another dot you had an acid test — was or was not the new dot consistent with your pattern?

As the hour approached, Professor Watership slipped in his question. “There was a second mineral from Karl Eisenhower. Where are you on analyzing it? Just asking for my friends in Prescott.”

“Yes, the violet crystal,” Chalmers answered. “Fortunately, there was a trace of its dust, so I was able to obtain a good spark spectrum of the native mineral. In addition to silicon and oxygen, it clearly contains one or more additional elements.”

“Yes?” Watership drew out the one word. “Which elements?”

“Unknown elements,” Chalmers said. “More of them. Not X, Y, or Z. I can’t tell how many yet, except there were a lot of spectral lines for it to be just one. Alas, it seems difficult to dissolve the crystal. It just sits in hydrochloric. So Mister Eisenhower and his friend have another mineral to their credit, and you have another paper to yours.”

“Have you tried magic acid yet?” was a voice from the back of the room, a much older man who Chalmers did not recognize.

“Magic acid?” a puzzled Chalmers asked.

“Two parts nitric, two parts sulphuric, one part hydrofluoric, saturate with potassium fluoride. Make fresh, neutralize as soon as you are done with it, before it eats your container, which it will.”

“I’ll have to ask the Safety Committee. First,” Chalmers said emphatically.

“I believe we have interrogated Mister Chalmers enough for one day,” the Department Head finally announced. “I see several students wisely taking notes, so all of our suggestions about what to do next can be handed over to the speaker. But I have a closing remark to Mister Chalmers.: Finish your manuscript, get it typed up, and send it off to JACS. Make your priority claim: Telegraph them now. Department will pay. ‘Manuscript being typed. Title: Three New Elements’. I’d better do the telegraph for you. Students: Some of you may in the rest of your lives hear another chemistry talk this spectacular. If the result can be duplicated, and several of us faculty have already duplicated parts, you just might have heard a talk leading to the Nobel Prize. But don’t count on it, Mister Chalmers.”

Applause was not customary, but when the faculty stood and applauded, the students joined in.

“You are from very far away,” Chiang said, “and doubtless have very different customs than we do, but the answer is that there is a bidding process, in which the ship officer who wishes to be in an especially favorable position makes an appropriate payment to the Grand Admiral’s staff, and as a result his or her ship is assigned the position in the choreography in which the officer is reported as having performed illustrious acts. It’s all very effective, and ensures that virtuous people are highly rewarded.”

Smith recalled as a very little boy reading a comic book on ancient Greece, in which three people debated how to identify who were the best leaders. The Spartan answered the best leader was the bravest warrior. The Athenian answered that the best leader was the wisest philosopher. The woman from Thebes answered that the best leader was clearly the one who had the most money. Smith remembered reading this and concluding that the ancient Greeks had some very strange ideas. When he grew up, he remembered reading what had happened before the Interregnum, in which all offices were purchased so that indeed whoever could collect the most bribes, or as they called them at the time ‘campaign donations’, was identified as being a great leader.

“That’s very interesting,” Smith said. “If I were to put down a payment for a position, my government would howl ‘bribery’, throw a fit, and have me removed from the Service.  I can say with great certainty that my squadron will not be offering a payment to anyone, and therefore should wonder where we are likely to be assigned in this operation.”

“This question occasionally comes up when foreign ships join one of our maneuvers. Of course, that doesn’t happen very often, because most foreign ships, and I am not referring to yours, Commodore Smith, are not viewed as being good enough to support the Imperial Navy. In fact, and I do not mean this as a criticism of you, Sir, it is my understanding that you are here because the Anglic Union controls part of Ancient Terra, your Union had started building ships again, and there was therefore some interest as to how good your ships are or are not. However, I would expect that since you have survey ships, and are not offering to obtain a heroic position in the choreography, you will be assigned the notional duty of protecting some section of the rear of the Fleet during the battle, and the practical duty of surveying some section of this system’s Kuiper belt and reporting on what you found.”

“I see,” Smith said. “This is been a very educational discussion for me.  I had no idea that your methods of doing things were so, how shall I put it, advanced.”

“May I ask you a question, Sir?” Ekaterina Barterello asked.

“I’m James Chalmers.  My title today is ‘An Anomalous Mineral from the Arizona Blasted Heath.’  I know it’s traditional to start with conclusions, and then give the data supporting it, but I’d rather have my data considered before I give my explanation, so that you listen to the data. To start at the beginning…

“…which leads me to my conclusion.” He paused, half for emphasis, half to overcome stage fright. “I announce the discover of three new non-Mendeleyev elements, tentatively X, Y, and Z. If my results are confirmed, I will name them Prescotium, Arizonium, and Berkelium.  They are non-Mendeleyev because the atomic masses of their single isotopes are not close to being integers,  and because they have non-integer charges.  For example, X is charge +1/3, and atomic weight 17.5, so its chloride salt boiling point elevation is understood as a solution of X₃Cl.”

At this point he was interrupted by the audience, calls of ‘ridiculous’ from his fellow students and faculty talking over each other from the rear of the room.  The Department Head finally brought the room to order, and the serious questioning began.

“17.5? Did you try the mass spectrometer?” The speaker was Marjorie Woodruff, who Chalmers remembered as reputedly being the sharpest graduate student in the department.  What she would do with a Chemistry doctorate was not quite clear to him, but that was her problem.

“Yes,” he answered, “It measured charge-to-mass ratio, so with a charge of +1/3 it appears to have a mass of 52.5.” 

“However,” Professor Smith interjected, “in the spectrometer X can ionize, giving you an atom with a charge of +4/3, and thus an apparent mass of 13.1, exactly as found.  We actually both saw that line when you visited, but 52.5 agreed with your colligative measurements, so we took 13.1 to be an impurity.”

“Yes, battle choreography,” Tuan answered.  “Battle choreography, the step-by-step plan of how our ships move and what damage they take, before we carry out the choreography to give the press some colorful images.  Don’t you barbarians know anything?”

Smith contemplated the negative reactions if, figuratively speaking. he simply bit the young twerp’s head off.  It would be satisfying, but might not be a favorable factor in advancing Union-Republic relations. Unfortunately, it appeared that Tuan assumed that their ranks were the same, because the equality was calculated by simply counting up from the bottom.

“Of course, Mr. Tuan,” Smith said, “it is most likely that we use the same process under a different name. That’s the standard outcome when different navies attempt to work with each other. We have faced the same issues, and come to the same conclusions, but we happened to adopted different names for the same process, for entirely historical reasons. On the other hand, sometimes different navies have found different approaches to the same issue. For example, assuming I understood my briefing papers correctly, the Navy of the Stellar Republic has more than four hundred officer ranks. We manage with a grand total of six. I am a Squadron Commander, meaning I have under me Ship Commanders, Section Heads, and Officers, and above me the hypothetical ranks of Task Force Commander and Commander of Ships.   The Anglic Union Space Guard treats me as having the rank of Commodore. Now, having said that, perhaps I could prevail on your superior understanding to explain in simple language what you mean by battle choreography.”

Tuan turned pale.  He had worked out that he had managed to insult what in the Imperial Navy would be reckoned to be a Senior Flag Grade Officer.

“It would of course be my honor and privilege to do so, Esteemed Sir,” Tuan said.  “It is the custom of the Imperial Navy has and the other fleets with which I am familiar have, which does not include yours, that when a major set of Fleet maneuvers is to be performed, the exact details of what is to happen at every stage are worked out in advance through careful simulations. Instructions are then passed down from the nominal fleet commanders of the two sides through the task forces and squadrons and ships, so that as the maneuver advances every ship carries out exactly the pre-ordained battle plan, from the initial detection of the enemy through to the eventual victory of the forces representing the Imperial Navy. Ship crews perform precisely their parts in the plan, except of course we are not using live ammunition or energized beam weapons, so that everyone in each crew gets practice in their assigned tasks. Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet Thatcher is extremely thorough, so we will actually run through the same exercise several times, with different ships on the two sides, so that for example the damage control crews get their practice in dealing with damage, even though of course in a real battle there is hardly any danger that any ship of the Imperial Navy would actually be damaged. That is why the Grand Supreme Admiral of the Fleet is such a great officer, namely he carefully prepares all of his units for unlikely contingencies that it is hardly possible they will ever face.”

“I see,” Smith said. “Thank you for this highly educational explanation, which as it turns out does not correspond to any exercises that the Anglic Union Astrographic Service has ever carried out. Therefore, your battle choreography does not correspond to anything we do, so I therefore had never heard of it. Having said that, Mr. Chiang, perhaps you could give me an explanation of what you meant by prices for positions in the point, those numbers corresponding to really substantial amounts of money. This is perhaps some other custom that we simply do not happen to share, but it is doubtless a sensible custom once I understand it.”

“I would be equally honored to do that,” Chiang  Jianhong said, “since it is truly unusual for a man of your celestial rank to be sitting with we very junior officers. Speaking for myself, I have been most grateful for your observations on naval issues, which I for one found highly educational.  We were most lucky to hear them, for which I am grateful. The answer is that we will have exercises, and that various officers whose ships performed in an especially heroic or effective manner will have this outcome noted in their records, and in the report of the exercise to the Imperial Government.”

Smith’s ears perked up. He had repeatedly noticed the Stellar Republic Fleet officers referring to their force as the Imperial Navy, but so far as he could remember this is the first time he’d heard the Republic’s government referred to as the Imperial Government. It appeared that the world was changing again. To judge from the meal, the changes were not in the most positive directions.

“Now we do on occasion have various sorts of exercises,” Smith said, “though as we have far fewer ships the scale of the operation is much smaller and focused on anti-piracy activity, rescue of vessels in distress, dealing with shipboard emergencies such as engineering failures, and the like.” He decided not to emphasize the presence on his ships of a substantial scientific staff, linguists and planetographers.  “However, if I followed, your battle choreography means that everyone knows in advance exactly which ships are going to be damaged, who is going to perform a heroic act to keep a fusactor bank from blowing, which officers give clever commands that lead to victory, etc.  How does that correspond to entries in the records of officers who because of the battle choreography happened to be in the right place at the right time?  Why are they complimented?”

“Good thinking,” Smith responded, “when you pass beyond your Master’s, I anticipate competition for your services, unless you’ve already decided on a doctoral advisor.”

“I hadn’t thought about that yet,” Chalmers answered. “I still have to make sense of my other results. Thank you very much for this analysis. It really simplifies explaining what I’m studying.”

“Except, from your tone of voice, there are still several mysteries to be solved, aren’t there?”

“Yes, sir,” Chalmers answered. “I’ve been spending all of my time trying to work this out, and haven’t done it yet.”

“We have a holiday weekend coming up,” Smith said. “Consider taking a day off, going for a long walk, getting enough sleep, whatever and let the facts do in your mind. They may fall together in a new combination.”

“That’s certainly a fine idea,” Chalmers said, “one that Professor Watership is also been urging on me. And thank you for these measurements so quickly.”

“Your samples are from the Blasted Heath,” Smith responded.  “There is national interest.  Many of my colleagues think it is abnormal to drop a current project just because something really interesting has appeared, but I disagree.  You have it right.  I hear that in Phoenix there is not a panic, but people are starting to pack and leave town, lest the Heath starts spreading.  By the way, Watership casually mentioned that you have another mineral on which you’ve not yet started.  I’d be most interested in running it through the machine.”

“Yes, sir,” Chalmers agreed, “though at the moment the violet crystals are large solid objects, not something that can go into your instrument. Watership wanted me to finish this mineral first, which reminds me, I still have to write my source and tell them  again that we can confirm that the yellow sand is a new mineral.”

“I will give one more bit of advice,” Smith said firmly.  “You have made a major discovery, even if it is incomprehensible. There is a student seminar every week.  Announce your results there, even if you can’t explain them completely, very soon.  That gives you priority.  Start writing a paper, realizing that the abstract, interpetation and conclusions are yet to be found, so you can send it off to JACS as soon as possible…but the seminar clinches your priority claim.  And tell Prescott what you told me, and no more.  That’s what they asked, so that’s what they are told.”

Chalmers swallowed.  He hadn’t expected to hear that.  “The paper,” he said, “you helped, Watership gave me the project, Hildebrand advised…whose names go on it?”

“I’ll speak to Watership,” Smith announced.  ”  ‘A New Mineral from the Blasted Heath’ to one of the rock journals, his name first, maybe whoever in Prescott, and he gets what he wants and deserves. Your name on your work.  I’d like an agreement…as you find more of whatever these are, I get to do the mass spectroscopy and my name on the appropriate papers.  Shake on it?”  They shook hands.

* * * * *

Much of a week later, a well-rested James Chalmers stood at the front of the Chemistry lecture hall. He’d needed a day to rest, a day to realize what he had found, and most of a week to confirm his conclusions, at least as well as he could.  A gaggle of his fellow graduate students sat at the front of the room, close to the tea and the cookies.  To his surprise, the rear rows were lined with physics and chemistry faculty, people he did not usually see at graduate student seminars. He began with polite thanks to Cooper, Eisenhower, Watership, and the faculty members whose lab facilities he’d used.

“Signal incoming from the Hiram Maxim,” Martinez said. “It carries the correct IFF codes.”  He put it up on a screen facing the Admiral.

“Hello, N237.  I am Squadron Commander Gabriel Smith, Anglic Union Astrographic Service, appearing with my detached squadron for maneuvers as planned. My orders were to advance to N237D and go to high orbit awaiting start of the exercises. I gather there is a large orbital station.  I will have pinnaces to bring my command staffs there for briefings.”

“Hello, Squadron Commander Smith.  I’m Grand Supreme Admiral Thatcher, Imperial Navy.  Welcome aboard. I look forward to seeing you at the fleet dinner tomorrow at 1800 hours standard time.  Briefings are scheduled for the next day.”

“Understood.”

“Thatcher out,” Thatcher announced.

Footsteps behind Thatcher marked the remainder of the battle stations crew casually walking into the command center.  He glanced at his watch. “Very good,” he announced. “Under ten minutes to get here from the dining room.”

&&&&&

For what was presumably an orthodox dinner, Smith thought,  prior to the start of the maneuvers, the settings and menu were remarkably ornate.  There were eleven courses, gold-washed flatware, four wine glasses and two after-dinner glasses, and a remarkable stack of plates.  He told himself to watch very carefully how the Imperial Navy officers handled their silver, no, gold, ware, lest he be marked as a primitive barbarian. Now the meal was winding to a close.  He had carefully tasted each course, made appreciate comments, and let his table companions do most of the talking. 

Admittedly, he considered, he sometimes had to strain to hear what was being said.   The nominally junior officers around him wore elaborate dress uniforms that clattered with layers of medals.  However, the Imperial Navy had an amazing number of ranks, so they all matched him in holding the fourth rank from the bottom.  His AUAS dress uniform was plain black.  As Squadron Commander, the rank badge on his collar was a silver sunburst.  In theory, the Service presented several combat medals, but the well-known comment, spoken quietly between friends, was that they would never be awarded, because if a Survey ship got into battle the commanding officer would surely be court-martialled for incompetence and ejected from the service before the medal could be awarded.

“What’re the final  prices for wedge counterattack positions?” one of his companions asked the others.  Chiang  Jianhong, Smith thought, was the most interested in fishing for gossip, while offering rather less himself.

“Ten thousand imperials,” Pavel Vladimirovitch Zaitsev answered. To Smith’s ear, he was the best informed, not to mention the most confident of his own greatness.  “Twice that for ‘died gallantly, and thrice that for point, except I believe point has been locked up already.”

“Wedge counterattack?” Smith asked.

“Yes, the counterattack,” Tuan Chen answered.  “Oh, you just got here, have’t seen the battle choreography yet.  The mythical enemy fleet enters in a cylinder of battle formation,  penetrates our screening line, and is shattered when our side deploys a wedge for a counterattack.”

“Battle choreography?” Smith asked.  What in God’s name, he thought, does dance have to do with fighting a battle?