The Lotus Eaters

Old Earth, used to beat his marshals over the head with a stick.

From the table Carrera picked up the top copy of a sheaf of papers perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. 'Suarez,' he said, reverting to a facial and verbal sneer. He crumpled the paper into a tight ball and threw it directly into the face of the Second Corps commander. 'Pussy.'

The next name he . . . well . . .'read' wouldn't be quite accurate. 'Cursed,' perhaps, would be closer. 'Brown.'

Aaron Brown, a short black legate who had been, before being recruited by Carrera, a tanker with the Army of the Federated States, steeled himself for the coming blow. Not that a sheet of crumpled paper would hurt, except deep inside.

Nor did it, when it struck him square on the nose . . . except deep inside.

'Chin, you stupid  . . .'

* * *

Only the corps and legion commanders were blessed with a paper projectile to the nose. All the other flypaper reports Carrera saved for the acting chief of staff.

'And you . . . you wretch of a pencil pusher!' Carrera crumpled a flypaper report and threw it into the acting chief's face. He continued crumpling and throwing as he screamed, 'Who cares about your silly fucking reports?' Another report struck the chief's face. 'Who needs them?' And another. 'Who told you to have your fucking staff suck my commanders away from training their units? Are you some kind of fucking Tauran saboteur?' Carrera reached up and ripped the legate's insignia from the chief's shoulders.

'Get out! Get out now. You are retired effective today.'

No doubt about it, Jimenez thought. The son of a bitch is good at what he does.

'Obviously I have made a number of serious mistakes,' Carrera said, his voice growing terribly calm. 'I made you legates and put you in command of legions and corps, or made you my key staff, because I thought you had enough courage to stand up to the inevitable bureaucracy. Or, at least,' he looked directly at the bent back of the departing acting chief, 'not to make the bullshit grow.

Carrera sighed, as if brokenhearted. 'Where I am going to find real officers, now . . . men of talent and courage . . .'

That was just a little too much. 'We're sorry, sir,' Brown said. 'It just sort of . . . grew on us.'

Carrera stopped in mid tirade. He nodded slowly and said, 'All right. Enough then. Don't let it happen again. Don't just let the bureaucrats nail you to your desks with endless demands for information.

'You are all on probation. You have disappointed me . . . badly. If you let the administrative shit the staff has been laying on you distract you from training your men you have let them, and the Legion, and the country down . . . badly. In the future, try to remember that your duty is to prepare for war, not to shuffle paper.

'Except for Jimenez and McNamara, dismissed.'

* * *

After the others had left, Jimenez said, 'I didn't deserve that. Neither did the others.'

Carrera cheerily agreed. There wasn't a sign of anger on his face now. 'I know, Xavier. If anyone's, the fault was mine for letting administration get out of hand.'

'So why the ass chewing?'

'Because I'd already chewed my own ass and, after that little session, the next time someone starts asking for useless information, your brother commanders will tell that person to take a flying fuck for himself. Besides, I've been thinking about dumping the acting chief for a while. This way, more people benefit from the lesson.'

McNamara shook his head, doubtfully. In his accented English he said, 'I t'ink you were maybe a little too hard on t'em, boss. T'ere's such a t'ing as overacting.'

'It's possible,' Carrera agreed, still cheerily. 'But they're big boys. They'll get over it.'

Jimenez shook his head. 'The acting chief won't. You fired him. He wasn't a bad sort, you know.'

'You want him in your corps?' Carrera asked.

'I didn't say that.'

'Well then—'

'—but now that you mention it I do have a place for him.'

'As? Besides 'Assistant Corps Vector Control Officer,' I mean.'

Jimenez thought upon that for a minute or so. 'He was a better commander than a staff weenie. He never wanted to be a staff wienie, not even chief of staff. I think he could be a decent to good tercio commander.'

'What tercio?' Carrera asked.

Jimenez already had the answer for that. 'Forty-fourth Artillery, Fourth Legion. We're really running short competent artillerymen, you know.'

'Fine,' Carrera said. 'But let him stew for a few days first, so that he appreciates the grace.'

'I wouldn't wait t'at long, boss,' McNamara said. 'Whatever his faults, and t'ey were many, the old acting chief was pretty damned dedicated. He's going to take t'is hard. Maybe even terminally hard.'