How Beer Saved the World

Uncommon Valor ^{Manny Frishberg}

Master Sergeant Ernest Kravitz stood at attention on the specially constructed platform, staring off at the cloudless, teal sky, a bead of sweat hanging on his eyebrow. Beside him, his crewmate Technical Sergeant Ranolph Urquell dug a finger under the starched collar of his dress uniform and tugged.

“I’ve never even seen an actual hero before now, and here we both are, heroes ourselves,” Urquell whispered. Ernie just stared at his crewmate, his lip curled in distain before his smile broke through.

“If they ever let us off this waterlogged hell,” Kravitz muttered before he noticed the Nimrazzian First Counselor loping sideways toward them. The FC turned to face them and bowed, bending from his lower knees, back curled and eyestalks stretching to look both of the emissaries in the face at once. His thorax flaps jiggled and emitted a long, modulated shriek that the exos described as a sign of respect and awe.

Personally, Ernie couldn’t see how they distinguished the Nimrazzian’s gender, if Nims even came in different genders. All he could say for sure was that they’d probably taste delicious poached in apricot ale. Or they smelled like they would.

Col. Hazelshen moved in Kravitz’s direction, stepping right through the Nim’s First Counselor in the process. Her holographic image shimmered like a mirage overlaying the FC’s iridescent shell until she realized the faux pas and quickly stepped back. A low, fluttering noise came out of the speaker, a sound of contrition the exos had recorded in their sessions with their Nimrazzian counterparts. All the Nimrazzians on the platform curled themselves in concave gestures of confusion—acknowledging such a social misstep would have obliged them to break off contact for at least a dark-light cycle, which lasted for 87 hours on Nimra.

Twelve Earth-standard days out from Hyperion, just about the whole crew had gone down for the Big Sleep. Thanks to time-contraction, at .89c, the 24-year trip to HD 40307g would take just about thirty-seven days, as they counted them aboard ship. Even so, the sociopsychs had determined that more than 16 days of idleness led to a breakdown of morale and decreased fighting effectiveness.

Urquell’d had first anti-collision watch, two relative weeks on his own except for the ulitibots. Ernie had taught about half of the general utility robots to render a fair approximation of small talk to keep Randy from going insane on his own like that. The ‘bots’ basic SDK included a vocabulary of around 200 words, a dozen grammar elements, and a heuristic rule generator. But they also had a five-branch limiter to their logic tree to keep them from getting too independent or creative in their work, so they didn’t make what you’d call stimulating conversationalists.

Kravitz just wanted to finish giving his final instructions so he could crawl into his Sleep chamber and meditate his way into a few weeks’ oblivion. He had tired of listening to his friend go on about being alone and bored. Randy never seemed to run out of energy to bitch about things he couldn’t change and Ernie had never had the heart to just order him to shut up.

“Why don’t you make some of that rice ale of yours? That ought to keep you occupied between the proximity detector checks.” As a mess sergeant in the Terran Expeditionary Marines he specialized in making the crew delicious meals from whatever came to hand. It was a gift. One Urquell had never shown even a glimmer of talent for. Still, Randy had turned out to be a better sous chef than most technical sergeants he’d had under his command. And the man had a knack for making home brew out of just about anything. “You can set up the fermenter and train the ‘bots to monitor it until they rouse us.”

Famous last words. Utilibots were idiot savants by design. They learned routine tasks by example but they were less than worthless when it came to handling the unexpected. And, truth to tell, Randy wasn’t much better in an emergency.

Kravitz had known he was in trouble as soon as his eyes popped open. For one thing, he hadn’t been due to be roused from the Big Sleep for at least another week. For another, Randy was standing there, frozen at attention, a stricken expression on his face and Field Lt. Bengessert firmly clutching his arm. Ernie could read the animus in the lieutenant’s eyes. Son of a flag admiral, Bengessert was a stickler for regulations: first a courts martial, then throw them out the airlock.

Kravitz could almost feel Bengessert’s cold, hard hatred as the junior officer escorted them from the Sleep Chamber. Led into the mess, Kravitz was nearly bowled over by an overpowering smell of yeast. Then he saw the gaping holes it had eaten in the walls and he understood his buddy’s panic stricken face. No one said a word. Bengessert pulled them roughly by the arms and marched the pair out of the galley, describing their fates in graphic detail as they went.

The brig occupied an all but unused section of the ship—a half dozen standard Sleep chambers and a single large, caged space with three bunk beds. Built-in toilets and sinks grew out of the far wall and a noisy ten-gallon recycling plant in the corner supplied them with all their water needs.

Ernie could not recall even hearing of a Marine being confined in a ship’s brig. Major breaches of protocol or onboard rules were exceedingly rare. When transgressions did occur, they usually resulted in a double or triple shift on some scut detail, or maybe a day or two confined to quarters, isolated and awake. Then again, he’d never heard of anyone who had disabled a major component of an Expeditionary Battle Cruiser before.

“What do you think they’re going to do to us?” Randy whispered once the lieutenant had moved out of earshot.

“Maybe they’ll just send us back to Hyperion,” Kravitz said, hoping to wipe the fear off his friend’s face. He did not believe it himself. But dwelling on worst case scenarios did him no good—that was Urquell’s specialty and Ernie had no intention of being sucked into it.

Ernie could hear the lieutenant reading a set of instructions to one of the utilitbots—a basic program in the care and guarding of live, awake prisoners. Bengessert had evidently tired of tormenting them, though Ernie would have bet a reduction in rank that mercy had nothing to do with it. Once the utilibot had been trained, he figured they would probably not hear another human voice until their Article 32 hearing.

He turned out to be half right. Three days (by his best estimation, considering there were no light/dark cycles in the brig) the ‘bot rolled in a holoprojector and the top half of one Col. Verna Hazelshen, a no-nonsense desk officer from the look on her face, popped into the empty space.

“So,” Kravitz whispered to his cellmate, “at least they’ve got the Quantangle up and functioning.”

Randy answered with a look of mild contempt and Ernie felt foolish for stating the obvious. Still, it had to be the most hopeful news either of them had gotten since being thrown into this hole.

“Just tell me your whole story,” Col. Hazelshen said in a caramel-smooth voice, her eyes shining with sincere concern. “Of course Lt. Bengessert has reminded you that all your utterances will become part of the official record.” She purred the admonition so reassuringly that Ernie felt like she was the last person in the inhabited worlds who would consider using something he said to his detriment.

“What are we charged with?” Sgt. Urquell broke in, unbidden. His question snapped Ernie out of his reverie, a slap across his cortex to remind him they faced serious charges this time.

“Theft of federal property. Unauthorized use of Marine facilities. Destruction of military property, sabotage, public intoxication.” The colonel read off something she was holding below the reach of the holocam.

“Public intoxication!” Randy struck a pose of genuine offense. “Sgt. Kravitz had to be dragged out of Deep Sleep just to be put in the brig. Even if there’d been anything to drink, when would we’ve had a chance to sample it, much less get schnockered?” Ernie tried to shush him three or four times but the junior spacer was on a tear.

Col. Hazelshen smiled slyly, like a mongoose that realized she had the cobra tied in a knot.

“Then you admit the rest?” the colonel said in an uninterested monotone.

“We don’t admit anything,” Kravitz said quickly. “As senior mess officer it’s my duty to allocate edible resources.”

“And this was an authorized provisioning of how may kilos of water, Master Sergeant?”

“Was not authorized,” Kravitz mumbled.

“What was that, Sergeant?”

“It was not an authorized allocation, M’am,” he said, straightening his back as he did.

“And the grain?”

“No’m”

“The yeast.”

“Well…”

“That was mine,” Randy spoke up. “It’s what you might call a family heirloom.” The colonel did not look well-pleased by being contradicted. “M’am,” he added when Ernie reminded him with a kick in the shins. Ernie couldn’t see how whose yeast it had been made any material difference. Still, he was grateful to his friend for getting him out of the firing line.

She nodded, consulted her invisible notes again. “Then what took place, Sgt. Urquell? In your own words. To the best of your understanding, of course.” The caramel tap was open again.

Ernie drew air deep into his lungs. The cold air stung the back of his throat and the pressed on his ribs from the inside ached but he held back, letting it go out in a slow, silent leak through his nose. Mentally he tugged on Randy’s collar, shook him by the shoulders—say as little as you can. Tell just what you need to, no more. Don’t explain ANYTHING! But he stood ramrod straight, unmoving, knowing he had no good options.

“Well, first I had to malt the rice, and that’s no easy thing. You know, a lot of people think rice can’t be malted because that’s not how they make sake. They inject the grain with a special kind of mold instead. But you can malt rice, if you know what you’re doing.” Randy had clearly warmed to his subject. Col. Hazelshen just as clearly had not. The impatience blossomed on her face like a moon flower but she remained close-mouthed.

“Then, I decided on a single temperature infusion of the mash. It’s really the simplest way to do it, so I brought the water up to about 97 degrees and poured it all onto the malt, after I’d ground it up, of course. You need to keep the mash temperature down to about 92 or 93 degrees. You know, how you treat the mash and the temp you use is critical. It determines what kind of beer you’re going to end up with.”

When he began explaining the lautering process in detail the colonel had finally had enough.

“Just skip over to the accident itself, Sgt. Urquell,” she said, struggling to keep her irritation in check. Ernie recognized the effort—he’d felt the same way himself, listening to his friend carry on about the difference between brewing a good dark ale and a light pilsner. The Urquell family had been making beer since the 19th or 20th century. Randy said that stout ran through his veins instead of blood. Ernie had been tempted more than once to see if it were true.

“Honestly, I don’t know what happened. After I’d gotten the wort into the fermenter I trained the utilibot to monitor it while I went to nap for a week or so. When the ‘bot got me up ahead of schedule I knew something was up. I came down to the mess, and you know what a mess I found.” He waited for someone to appreciate his pun, futilely. “There was beer everywhere. The fermenter was still intact but the plug that measures CO2 was clear on the other side of the room, and there was this white crust around the rim. Somehow the airlock must’ve got clogged up. I guess I hadn’t covered that eventuality when I was programming the ‘bot. I didn’t even think about something like that happening.

“Of course, there are lots of variables you have to take into account when you’re making beer and you know, you can’t always teach these utilibots what to do in all the eventualities. So I just told it to get me if anything out of the ordinary happened. Maybe I should have planned that better.”

The colonel smiled sweetly and Ernie felt his stomach fall through the floor.

“Well, there was beer everywhere. All over the place, up the sides of the walls and even coating the ceiling. I didn’t know what to do about it. I got the ‘bot to start cleaning up the mess and I went and woke up Ern… Sgt. Kravitz. And by the time we got back there, the walls were getting kind of melty and there were holes up near the corner.”

“I could see right away what had happened,” Ernie picked up the story before Randy could get the colonel even hotter than she already was. “I sent the ‘bots down to Supply to get some wall sheeting from the Culturing Chamber, and we proceeded to patch things up as best we could.”

“And you never noticed any damage other than to the walls themselves?” Hazelshen asked, referring to her case file again.

“No, M’am,” both men said in unison.

“And when did you become aware of the damage you’d caused?”

Ernie did not like the sound of that at all. The colonel had evidently made her mind up that they were going to be held responsible for damaging the conduits shielding the wiring for all the ship’s weapons and navigation controls. He was just lucky the environmental controls had been routed elsewhere or they’d have been another Flying Dutchman cruising the outer edges of the spiral arm.

“We didn’t see any damage other than to wall, M’am. I didn’t realize that the nav system conduits were even made from soyaplastic too, let alone the yeast would’ve eaten through it and the fiber optics.” It sounded so stupid coming out of his mouth that Ernie blanched. Everything on an expeditionary ship had to be made of materials they could produce on board. “I suppose I really ought to have looked closer.”

“Do you think, Sergeant? That’s why your ship’s abeam, coasting in toward HD 40307g.”

Before he had time to answer, or even think things through enough to know not to, the room quaked violently. Col. Hazelshen blanked out and the two prisoners were left alone in their cell to wonder what had just happened.

No one bothered them for three or four sleep-wake cycles. The ‘bots delivered their meals on time but no humans appeared to tell them whether their fate had been decided, or even what had disrupted the interrogation. So, when the utilibot appeared without their breakfast, Ernie felt certain they were on their way to a summary court martial. But the ‘bot simply opened the cell and rolled out again.

“Are we free to go?” Randy asked.

“You can, if you want,” Kravitz said. “But this place was my last duty assignment and I’m not going anyplace until I get another order.” So the two of them settled back down on their cots and resumed the game of “I Spy” they’d been playing to pass the time until Lt. Bengessert arrived.

“I guess you boys are heroes, after all,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Come on. You’ve got places to go.” His smile made Ernie feel like a rabbit with a fox between him and his warren. They marched to their quarters in silence, and Bengessert ordered them to put on their dress uniforms and report to the shuttle pod.

On the way down to the planet’s surface one of the other junior officers filled them in.

“Puta que pariu! A wasrship, twice our size just popped into empty space a few hundred klics from our starboard side. The shockwave nearly spun us around.” While the Terran forces relied on quantum entanglement for instantaneous contact with their home base and other ships in the fleet, their aquatic hosts had leapfrogged that technology entirely and used a version of the Quantangle for instantaneous matter transfers. “If we hadn’t made that maneuver, a ‘respectful shift sideways,’ the exos called it, they might’ve just vaporized us on the spot.” How the exoethnologists we had learned so much in the short time they’d been in orbit was beyond his pay grade, but Ernie’d been in trouble enough to know not to ask embarrassing questions.

The colonel checked twice to make sure there were no other obstructions and took her place on the platform beside the two Expeditionary Marines as the First Counselor scuttled aside. She uncurled a scroll and began reading, stopping every five words or so to allow the translators to render the statement into a semblance of the Nimrazzian dialect.

“The Caudillo of Galactic Expeditionary Forces of the Terran People takes pleasure in presenting the Marine Commendation Medal to Master Sergeant Ernest Kravitz for valorous achievement as a combat mess sergeant in support of Operation Outward Bound on the Ninth Terran Standard Day of Tamuz, 2356 M.E. While in transit from their successful campaign on Gliese 581g, now known as the Hyperion Colony to Nimra, formerly designated as HD 40307g…”

Mention of the astronomical designation drew sustained belches of amusement from the Nimrazzian luminaries on the reviewing stand, interrupting the reading of the citation. Following their hosts’ example, Hazelshen pretended not to notice.

“MSgt. Kravitz performed tasks above and beyond the normal duties of his post that proved instrumental in the successful initiation of peaceful contact between the Terran and Nimrazzian…” Col. Hazelshen hesitated as half a head appeared, floating just behind her ear. The colonel cocked her head closer to the hovering face, forehead wrinkled and a pained expression on her face. Then a thin smile broke though. “…between the Terran people and the Nimrazzian solifugians.

“In the process of creating a special treat for the crew of the TPS Intrepid, Msgt. Kravitz, with the material assistance of Tsgt. 1Randolph Urquell, caused their vessel to approach the planet Nimra in a uniquely unthreatening manner, allowing the solifugians to recognize the peaceful intent and desire for mutually beneficial relations prior to actual First Contact. By doing so, Sgts. Kravitz and Urquell acted in keeping with the highest traditions of the Expeditionary Marine Forces and the United Terran Uniformed Service.” Ernie heard Randy swallow a laugh, making a noise in his throat that sounded distinctly like the Nimrazzians’ chortling. Ernie wanted to bust a gut, too but he did a better job of restraining himself.

The colonel then repeated essentially the same speech, substituting Randy’s name and rank where appropriate. Finally, the colonel draped phantom ribbons over their heads and saluted, before turning on her heels and marching into oblivion.

As soon as the Quantangle shut down the medals disappeared from their chests. As if on cue, the entire Nimrazzian delegation clacked, slid and dove for the water, their endurance on land stretched by the length of the ceremony. The officers making up the ship’s official delegation to the ceremony broke ranks, mingling easily with one another. Now that no one was monitoring their behavior, they left a wide half-circle between themselves and the two noncom heroes.

Given the gap in fundamental science, the ship’s commander had made an executive decision and greeted the Nims as if they were simply explorers on a peaceful mission of discovery. But that didn’t mean that he and his tech sergeant were off the hook as far as the crew was concerned.

Senior officers, from the captain on down, had found that the ship’s repairs could not proceed without their immediate attention. That left the junior officers to attend the humiliating ceremony, cozying up to a bunch of giant water scorpions. By rights they should be blasting the Nims to their liquid Hell, prepping the planet to be another outpost of the Terran Imperium.

Lt. Bengessert cast a look of cold disdain in Kravitz’s direction. No one had volunteered for this detail, even if it came with being the first to see the New Land—not that there was any land to speak of: a few rocky outcrops stuck their heads far enough out of the water to dry off in midday.

With the Nims gone, he abandoned any pretense of respect for the pair of fubars. From the expression he wore now, Ernie guessed Bengessert wanted nothing more than to frog march them back to the orbiting ship and shoot them out the nearest missile tube. Right now he was probably picturing himself pushing the fire button.

Standing apart from their escort detail, Randy Urquell paced the floating platform, waiting to load back onto the shuttle for the trip back into orbit. Ernie fingered the spot where the holographic medal reached on his chest, wondering where they would be sent next.

Having just been declared heroes, Ernie could be fairly certain they weren’t headed out an airlock as soon as they left for their next port of call but they’d probably be beached on the nearest colony world. He just hoped they’d have tasty local fauna for himself to work with. And some nice grains for Randy.