The Service of the Sword

frankly, Ms. Hearns, I believe that something rather more fundamental is troubling you. And I'd like to know precisely what it is before I send you off groundside out of my sight.'

Abigail gazed at her, and behind her own calm expression she took herself sternly to task. Tester, the last thing I need is to sit around sulking like a schoolgirl just because the Captain hurt my feelings! she thought. And just my luck the Exec should decide to call me on it! 

She considered denying Commander Watson's charge, but she wasn't about to compound her fault by adding lying to it. And so she drew a deep breath and made herself meet the exec's eyes levelly.

'I'm sorry, Ma'am,' she said. 'I don't mean to be overly sensitive, but I suppose that's what I'm being. It just . . . bothers me that the Captain never even seems to have considered assigning this to anyone else.'

'I see,' Watson said after a few thoughtful moments. 'What you're saying is that you resent the fashion in which the Captain seems to have chosen you for this role because of your social and religious background. Is that a fair assessment, Ms. Hearns?'

There was no condemnation in the exec's cool voice, but neither was there any encouragement, and Abigail drew a deep breath. She started to defend herself by denying that she 'resented' anything, but that would have been another lie. And so she nodded, instead.

'It sounds petty when you describe it that way, Ma'am,' she said. 'And maybe it is. I know there certainly have been times since I first reported to the Island that I've been overly sensitive. At the same time, and without seeking to justify myself, I do believe the Captain has made certain assumptions about me and about my beliefs based upon my planet of origin and religion. And I also believe he chose me for this particular assignment at least in part because he considers that the logical person to make contact with a planet full of religious reactionaries is . . . well, another religious reactionary.'

'I see,' Watson repeated in exactly the same tone. Then she allowed her chair to come back upright and leaned forward, planting her elbows on her desk and folding her forearms.

'I doubt that that was an easy thing for you to say, Ms. Hearns. And I respect the fact that you didn't attempt to waffle when I pressed the point. Nor, although I may have asked about it, have I seen any indication that you're allowing any . . . reservations you may feel about the Captain's attitudes towards you to affect the performance of your duties. Nonetheless, I would raise two points for your consideration.

'First, of the four midshipmen and midshipwomen aboard this vessel, the Captain selected you. Not simply to make contact with a 'planet full of religious reactionaries,' but to command an independent detachment of armed Marines making contact with a planet full of anyone for the very first time in the Star Kingdom's name. You may believe he made that choice because he has assigned you to a particular religious stereotype in his own mind. It is also remotely possible, I submit to you, that he may have made his decision based upon his confidence in your ability.

'Second, while I have been impressed by your intelligence, your ability, and the degree of personal maturity you've demonstrated here aboard Gauntlet, you're still quite young, Ms. Hearns. I won't deliver the traditional timeworn homily on how your perspective will change as you grow older and your judgment matures. I will, however, suggest to you that while it's certainly possible that the Captain has allowed personal attitudes or even prejudices to shape his perception of you, it's equally possible that you've allowed personal attitudes—or even prejudices—to shape your perception of him.'

Abigail felt her cheekbones heat, but she made herself sit very upright in her own chair, her head high, meeting the exec's gaze unflinchingly. Watson returned her regard for several seconds, then smiled with what might have been an edge of approval.

'I'd like you to consider both of those possibilities, Ms. Hearns,' she said. 'As I say, I've been impressed by your intelligence. I think you'll appreciate that I might just have a point.'

She held the midshipwoman's eyes for a moment longer, then nodded her head towards the hatch.

'And now, Ms. Hearns,' she said pleasantly, 'I believe you have a landing party waiting for you in Boat Bay Two. Dismissed.'

Abigail did consider the exec's points as Gauntlet's pinnace sliced downward through Refuge's atmosphere and steadied on its course towards the city of Zion, the planet's largest settlement. And as she considered them, she was forced, however grudgingly, to admit that they might have some validity.

She remained convinced that the captain had, indeed, pigeonholed her in his own mind as the product of a religion-blinkered, backward society. And that it was possible, even probable, that he had allowed that view of her to predispose him towards selecting her for her present mission. But however irritating she might find his accent, or his mannerisms—or even his tailoring—she had to admit that he'd never, in any fashion, engaged in the sort of snide, implied sniping Grigovakis and some of her other Saganami classmates had practiced. Neither had he, so far as she could tell, ever allowed any preconception about her on his part to affect the way he evaluated her performance. Nor was he the sort to risk the failure of a mission by assigning anyone to command it but the person he thought best qualified to carry it out.

Even if his prejudices might have inclined him towards selecting her in the first place, he wasn't the kind of officer to make his final decision without careful consideration. And Commander Watson had been right about another thing, as well—Abigail hadn't considered the fact that her assignment to make contact with the Refugians might just as well have reflected his faith in her capability as his prejudice against her own background.

She grimaced as she recognized the truth in the exec's analysis. Whatever Captain Oversteegen might or might not have been guilty of, Abigail had definitely been guilty of allowing her own prejudices and preconceptions to color her view of him. That was humiliating. It was also a failure of her responsibility to Test, and that was even worse.

She gazed out the viewport as the pinnace dipped down below the cloudbase and the untidy sprawl of Zion came into sight. The fact that she'd failed to Test didn't necessarily mean she'd been wrong, but she resolved firmly that before she continued to accept her original conclusions, she would consider all the evidence.

That, however, would have to wait until she returned aboard Gauntlet. For now, she had other things to consider, and whatever the captain's reasons for assigning her to her present task, it was her responsibility to discharge it successfully.

'Five minutes to touchdown, Ms. Hearns,' the flight engineer told her, and she nodded.

'Thank you, Chief Palmer,' she said, and glanced over her shoulder at Platoon Sergeant Gutierrez. Gutierrez was a San Martino. Quite a few San Martinos had enlisted in the Star Kingdom's military since the planet's annexation, but Gutierrez had joined the Royal Manticoran Marine Corps long before that. Like General Tomas Ramirez, Gutierrez had arrived in the Star Kingdom as a child when his parents managed to escape the Peep occupation of San Martin. In the Gutierrezes' case, they'd done so by stowing away aboard a Solarian League freighter which had dropped them on the planet Manticore with only the clothes on their backs. And like many refugees from tyranny, Sergeant Mateo Gutierrez and his (many) brothers and sisters were unabashed patriots, fiercely devoted to the star nation which had taken them in and given them freedom.

He was also the next best thing to two meters in height and must have weighed somewhere around two hundred kilos, all of it the solid bone and muscle only to be expected from someone born and bred to the heavy gravity of San Martin. Standing next to him in the boat bay, Abigail had felt as if she were five years old again, and his weathered, competent appearance had only emphasized the feeling.

But if he made her feel like a child, his was also a reassuring—one might almost say fearsome—presence. She felt reasonably confident that the pacifistic Fellowship of the Elect was unlikely to attempt to ambush and assassinate her landing party. But after considering all the possibilities, Commander Watson had decided to send not one, but two squads of Marines down with her, and Major Hill, the CO of Gauntlet's Marine detachment, had picked the first and second squads of Sergeant Gutierrez's platoon. Abigail felt moderately ridiculous as the lowly midshipwoman escorted and guarded by no less than twenty-seven armed-to-the-teeth Marines, but she supposed she should take it as a compliment. Apparently, even if the exec had decided to whack her over the head for her sullen attitude, Commander Watson still wanted her back in one piece.

She chuckled quietly at the thought, then looked back out the viewport as the pinnace settled onto the 'pad.' It wasn't much of a pad. In fact, it was nothing more than a wide stretch of flat, more or less pounded-down