Federations

around, his communications with IF-COM on the asteroid Eros were mostly limited to book and holo and movie requests, plus his daily blip—the message he sent just to assure the IF that he wasn’t dead.

He could even have automated the daily blip—it’s not as if Mazer didn’t know how to get around their firewalls and reprogram the shipboard computer. But he dutifully composed a new and unique message every day that he knew would barely be glanced at back at IF-COM. As far as anyone there cared, he might as well be dead; they would all have retired or even died before he got back.

The problem of loneliness wasn’t a surprise, of course. They had even suggested sending someone with him. Mazer himself had vetoed the idea, because it seemed to him to be stupid and cruel to tell a person that he was so completely useless to the fleet, to the whole war effort, that he could be sent out on Mazer’s aimless voyage just to hold his hand. “What will your recruiting poster be next year?” Mazer had asked. “’Join the Fleet and spend a couple of years as a paid companion to an aging space captain!’?”

To Mazer it was only going to be a few years. He was a private person who didn’t mind being alone. He was sure he could handle it.

What he hadn’t taken into account was how long two years of solitary confinement would be. They do this, he realized, to prisoners who’ve misbehaved, as the worst punishment they could give. Think of that—to be completely alone for long periods of time is worse than having to keep company with the vilest, stupidest felons known to man.

We evolved to be social creatures; the Formics, by their hivemind nature, are never alone. They can travel this way with impunity. To a lone human, it’s torture.

And of course there was the tiny matter of leaving his family behind. But he wouldn’t think about that. He was making no greater sacrifice than any of the other warriors who took off in the fleets sent to destroy the enemy. Win or lose, none of them would see their families again. In this, at least, he was one with the men he would be commanding.

The real problem was one that only he recognized: He didn’t have a clue how to save the human race, once he got back.

That was the part that nobody seemed to understand. He explained it to them, that he was not a particularly good commander, that he had won that crucial battle on a fluke, that there was no reason to think he could do such a thing again. His superior officers agreed that he might be right. They promised to recruit and train new officers while Mazer was gone, trying to find a better commander. But in case they didn’t find one, Mazer was the guy who fired the single missile that ended the previous war. People believed in him. Even if he didn’t believe in himself.

Of course, knowing the military mind, Mazer knew that they would completely screw up the search for a new commander. The only way they would take the search seriously was if they did not believe they had Mazer Rackham as their ace-in-the-hole.

Mazer sat in the confined space behind the pilot seat and extended his left leg, stretching it up, then bringing it behind his head. Not every man his age could do this. Definitely not every Maori, not those with the traditional bulk of the fully adult male. Of course, he was only half-Maori, but it wasn’t as if people of European blood were known for their extraordinary physical flexibility.

The console speaker said, “Incoming message.”

“I’m listening,” said Mazer. “Make it voice and read it now.”

“Male or female?” asked the computer.

“Who cares?” said Mazer.

“Male or female?” the computer repeated.

“Random,” said Mazer.

So the message was read out to him in a female voice.

“Admiral Rackham, my name is Hyrum Graff. I’ve been assigned to head recruitment for Battle School, the first step in our training program for gifted young officers. My job is to scour the Earth looking for someone to head our forces during the coming conflict—instead of you. I was told by everyone who bothered to answer me at all that the criterion was simple: Find someone just like Mazer Rackham.”

Mazer found himself interested in what this guy was saying. They were actually looking for his replacement. This man was in charge of the search. To listen to him in a voice of a different gender seemed mocking and disrespectful.

“Male voice,” said Mazer.

Immediately the voice changed to a robust baritone. “The trouble I’m having, Admiral, is that when I ask them specifically what traits of yours I should try to identify for my recruits, everything becomes quite vague. The only conclusion I can reach is this: The attribute of yours that they want the new commander to have is ‘victorious.’ In vain do I point out that I need better guidelines than that.

“So I have turned to you for help. You know as well as I do that there was a certain component of luck involved in your victory. At the same time, you saw what no one else could see, and you acted—against orders—at exactly the right moment for your thrust to be unnoticed by the Hive Queen. Boldness, courage, iconoclasm—maybe we can identify those traits. But how do we test for vision?

“There’s a social component, too. The men in your crew trusted you enough to obey your disobedient orders and put their careers, if not their lives, in your hands.

“Your record of reprimands for insubordination suggests, also, that you are an experienced critic of incompetent commanders. So you must also have very clear ideas of what your future replacement should not be.

“Therefore I have obtained permission to use the ansible to query you about the attributes we need to look for—or avoid—in the recruits we find. In the hope that you will find this project more interesting than whatever it is you’re doing out there in space, I eagerly await your reply.”

Mazer sighed. This Graff sounded like exactly the kind of officer who should be put in charge of finding Mazer’s replacement. But Mazer also knew enough about military bureaucracy to know that Graff would be chewed up and spit out the first time he actually tried to accomplish something. Getting permission to communicate by ansible with an old geezer who was effectively dead was easy enough.

“What was the sender’s rank?” Mazer asked the console.

“Lieutenant.”

Poor Lieutenant Graff had obviously underestimated the terror that incompetent officers feel in the presence of young, intelligent, energetic replacements.

At least it would be a conversation.

“Take down this answer, please,” said Mazer. “Dear Lieutenant Graff, I’m sorry for the time you have to waste waiting for this message . . . no, scratch that, why increase the wasted time by sending a message stuffed with useless chat?” Then again, doing a whole bunch of editing would delay the message just as long.

Mazer sighed, unwound himself from his stretch, and went to the console. “I’ll type it in myself,” said Mazer. “It’ll go faster that way.”

He found the words he had just dictated waiting for him on the screen of his message console, with the edge of Graff’s message just behind it. He flipped that message to the front, read it again, and then picked up his own message where he had left off.

“I am not an expert in identifying the traits of leadership. Your message reveals that you have already thought more about it than I have. Much as I might hope your endeavor is successful, since it would relieve me of the burden of command upon my return, I cannot help you.”

He toyed with adding “God could not help you,” but decided to let the boy find out how the world worked without dire and useless warnings from Mazer.

Instead he said “Send” and the console replied, “Message sent by ansible.”

And that, thought Mazer, is the end of that.

• • •

The answer did not come for more than three hours. What was that, a month back on Earth?

“Who is it from?” asked Mazer, knowing perfectly well who it would turn out to be. So the boy had taken his time before pushing the matters. Time enough to learn how impossible his task was? Probably not.

Mazer was sitting on the toilet—which, thanks to the Formics’ gravitic technology, was a standard gravity-