Tambu

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Coffee, love?" Ramona asked, poking her head into Tambu's cabin.

"Thanks, I could use a break."

"We finally found our problem." Ramona gave him a steaming cup and curled up in a nearby chair. "It took three rounds of check-inspections, but we found it."

"Where was it?" Tambu asked curiously.

"There was a flaw in one of the circuit boards in the Emergency Life Support Override System. It took only three minutes to replace-once we found it. Could have been nasty if we hadn't caught it, though."

Tambu frowned.

"Isn't that a sealed system? When was it last inspected?"

"Two years ago," Ramona recited. "During its scheduled preventative maintenance cycle."

"Then the problem's been with us that long?" Tambu winced.

"No," Ramona insisted firmly. "It's a recent development."

"You seem awfully sure of that."

"I am, for two reasons. First, it was triple-checked during that inspection. I know the crewmembers whose initials were on the seal. They aren't the kind who would fake an inspection or miss a defect that obvious."

"And the other reason?"

"The other reason is the tapping started only recently."

"I thought so." Tambu smiled. "You know, sometimes I wonder if superstitions would survive if we didn't force feed them."

"Now, look," Ramona flared, "I'm not saying I believe in all the superstitions that we keep in space, but the tapping on the outer hull of a ship as a warning of impending disaster is fairly well documented."

"By searching until something wrong is found?" Tambu teased. "In any network of circuits and machinery as complex as a ship, at any given point in time, a close inspection would reveal something wrong. Are you trying to say you honestly believe that if we had inspected that system, say, a week ago, that we wouldn't have found the flaw?"

Ramona glared. "All I know is that on five separate occasions I've been on board a ship when the tapping was heard. Each time a pending malfunction was found. That's enough to convince me to stop everything and run a check-inspection if we hear it again. Wouldn't you?"

"Sure I would," Tambu acknowledged. "But even though I keep the superstitions right along with everybody else, there's part of my mind that reminds me that what I'm doing is silly. You'd think man would have outgrown such childishness, but instead we find technology and superstition advancing hand in hand down the starlanes. I just find it a bit ironic is all."

"Well, I don't think we'll ever get away from it," Ramona grumbled, still annoyed at his teasing. "Let's face it. Our crewmembers aren't the brightest representatives mankind can muster. A lot of them don't have much education other than what they've picked up on shipboard. That means they learn the superstitions right along with everything else."

"Right," Tambu nodded. "Oh well, I'm glad we're under way again. If that's the biggest hassle on this ship, it's the shining star of the fleet."

"Speaking of shipboard hassles," Ramona said, "has there been any more word about the crewman who died on board the Scorpion?"

"As a matter of fact, the investigation's closed. The final ruling is suicide."

"Suicide?" Ramona frowned. "Any report as to the reason?"

"Space-depression." Tambu shrugged. "Egor says the guy was a borderline basket case when he signed on. Probably joined out of a death wish and decided to do it himself when he found out how slow things really are working for the fleet."

"Egor?" Ramona echoed. "You let Egor investigate it himself?"

"I didn't let him do it," Tambu protested. "He did it on his own initiative. Wouldn't you if it happened on your ship?"

"Aren't you going to conduct your own investigation as a check?"

"What for?" Tambu countered. "I have no reason to doubt Egor's conclusions. I thought you were the one who was always after me to delegate more and quit trying to run everything personally."

"Maybe I shouldn't say this," Ramona hesitated, pursing her lips, "but there have been a lot of rumors of discontent on the Scorpion."

"You're right, you shouldn't say it," Tambu commented grimly. "There are problems on the Scorpion. Egor has" reported them to me himself, and the last thing he needs right now are a lot of rumormongers fanning the flames."

"In that case, maybe I'd better take my rumors and leave."

"Hey, hey!" Tambu soothed, holding up a hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lean on you. Look, I know you're trying to help... and I appreciate it. It's just that I'm a bit on edge. I really hate wading through all this."

He gestured toward the table behind him.

"The yearly financial statements?" Ramona raised her eyebrows, her anger mollified by her curiosity. "I thought you enjoyed playing with numbers, love."

"There's a limit! Nine boxes of paper and data tapes is a bit much, even for me."

"Why don't you just review the summaries?" she suggested.

"These are the summaries. The support data behind them would fill several cargo holds."

"Well, it should solve your leisure-time problem," Ramona joked. "Seriously, though, why do you bother? I mean, just the fact that everyone has to submit yearly reports to you should serve as a deterrent against embezzlement without your having to review them all."

"Don't bet on it." Tambu sighed. "Sooner or later, people would figure it out if I just filed their reports. Sometimes... wait. Here, let me read this to you."

He fished around on the table for a specific sheet of paper, found it, held it aloft, and read:

"If you have gotten this far in our report, we will buy you a case of your favorite whiskey. Simply call so we know what brand to buy."

"Really?" Ramona laughed. "Are you going to collect?"

"I sure am," Tambu grinned. "And on the other eight notes like it I've found buried in other reports. I also get to send about a dozen terse reprimands to references to my parentage or sexual preferences."

"What are you going to do with all that liquor?" Ramona asked. "You don't drink anything but wine."

"Another year like this last one, and I'll be ready for the hard stuff. But, I can't actually accept the shipments. If nothing else, it would show which ship I was on. Instead, I'll have each donor send it off to a different ship, with a note that the ship's crew is to enjoy the gift with my compliments."

"Sounds like a good deal. Any chance my ship can get in on that?"

"I'll have to check my lists," he retorted with mock severity. "You know I won't play favorites. Just because you successfully seduced me doesn't mean you should expect special privileges."

"I stand duly chastised." She hung her head dramatically.

"Getting back to the original question, jokers like these would be able to tell in no time flat if I wasn't reading their reports."

"Which would be an open invitation to gimmick the books," Ramona acknowledged.

"Even if I trusted everyone implicitly, which I don't, but even if I did, I'd still take the time to review the reports. There's a lot of information here once you learn to read between the lines."

"Such as what?"

"Well," Tambu squinted, "I can tell how often they conduct target practice, what the condition of their ship is, the state of the crew's morale-"

"Wait a minute. You lost me. How can you tell all that from just looking at numbers?"

"By studying various expense items. For example, if a ship is spending less than half the amount on maintenance and parts as other ships the same size and age, I can make an educated guess that its condition is less than excellent."

"And crew morale?"

"If a captain is paying his crew low wages and is spending little or nothing on employee luxuries, they will be noticeably less happy than a well-paid crew on a ship with a new lounge and game room."

"I see," Ramona commented thoughtfully. "Maybe I should take another look at my own reports."

"I'm not sure how much good it would do you without other reports to compare it to. What you might do is call a couple of the other ships and ask for copies of their reports."

"I just might do that," Ramona nodded. "Now you've got me wondering."

Tambu's simply giving her copies of the reports submitted to him was not mentioned by either of them. Yearly reports were strictly confidential between Tambu and the individual captains.

Tambu continued, "Besides checking on individual ships, I use the reports to look for new ideas. There's one ship in the fleet, for example, that's shown significant savings on their food expenses by allowing planetside food services to open a franchise on board the ship. Food preparation and planning becomes the service's problem, and the crew buys their meals in a cafeteria."

"Interesting. Does it work?"

"I'm still checking into it," Tambu said. "Even though their food costs have been reduced, they've had to pay their crews more to cover the price of the meals. It could be a false savings."

"I can see where it gets a bit complicated," Ramona commented.

"Oh, that's not the complicated part," Tambu replied innocently. "Where it gets rough is trying to use the reports to find answers to nonspecific quantitative questions."

"You're showing off now!"

"You're right. But it's true nonetheless."

"I'll call your bluff," she challenged. "Give me an example of a nonqualitative... whatever it was you said."

"Gladly. Do you remember the item on the agenda about next year's captains' meeting that calls for a review of the funds allocation methods?"

"I glanced over it, but I didn't read it carefully. Why?"

"You should look at it. It's going to be one of the hottest items on the agenda. Most of the other captains are gearing up for a major brawl."

"Maybe it's the terminology that's putting me off, What's it all about? In non-accounting terms."

"Simply put, the planets who subscribe to our services pay their money into a big common pool," Tambu explained. "From that pool, the money gets divided down among the individual ships which comprise the fleet. The question that's being raised is what is a fair basis for determining which ship gets how much."

"Aside from the fact that everybody gets emotional when there's money on the line, what's the problem?" Ramona yawned. "I mean, how many ways can you carve a pie?"

"Lots. The trouble is, each way has its drawbacks."

He rose and began to pace the room as he spoke, unconsciously falling into a lecturer's role.

"We can't just give a set amount to each ship. Some of our ships are twice as big as others and require larger crews and more maintenance. Similarly, we can't give a set amount to each crewman or captain. On a small ship, a crewman has to do more than one job. Should a navigator gunner be paid the same as a man who is only a gunner?"

"Or should the captain of a five-man cruiser be paid as much as the captain of a forty-man dreadnought?" Ramona supplied.

"Exactly." Tambu nodded. "And then there's seniority. Should a five-year crewman be paid the same as someone in the same job who just signed on?"

"It could get a little sticky."

"I haven't even gotten to the good part yet. There's also the matter of the patrol range of the individual ship. If two ships are the same size with the same size crew, and one of them is patrolling eight planets and the other patrols twenty, should they be paid the same? Of course, there you have to figure in the currency exchange rates and price of supplies on the various planets."

"Stop!" Ramona cried. "Okay! I get the picture. It's a morass. What has all this got to do with the financial reports?"

"Between now and the meeting, I have to formulate a plan. If I don't have something firmly in mind before the item comes ups on the agenda, the discussion will degenerate into a dogfight."

He poked listlessly at the heap of paper and tapes on his table.

"Going through this stuff, I'm trying to find a pattern to our costs-by ship and by man. Then I get to sort through it again to define the modifying factors such as patrol sectors. Hopefully, then, I can rough out a proposal that will make everybody happy-or at least make everybody equally unhappy."

Ramona rose to her feet and stretched lazily.

"Well, this time I think I'm going to do what everybody else usually does."

"What's that?" Tambu asked.

"I'll let you figure it all out, argue for a while, then go along with what you propose. No sense in both of us losing sleep over this."

"But don't you want to conduct an investigation of your own to check against my findings?" Tambu gaped in mock horror.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Even if I had access to the data you've got, which I don't, I wouldn't know what to do with it-or have the time to do it if I did."

Tambu shook his head sharply as if trying to clear his ears.

"Could you repeat that last part? It didn't make any sense at all."

"Simply put," Ramona sniffed in imitation of his earlier lecture style, "I've got my hands full running my ship. Running the fleet's your job, and you're welcome to it! Bye now!"

Tambu laughed and returned her wave as she left. But after she was gone, his smile faded.

Even though she had been joking, she was right. The whole mess was sitting in his lap. It wasn't that the captains didn't care or that they weren't intelligent, it was just that no one else in the fleet had the overview he had when it came to problem solving. Ramona knew much more about the intricacies of running the fleet than she had shown during their conversation. It was obvious to Tambu that she had been playing 'straight man' to his show-off performance so that he would have a chance to talk things out a bit. Still, even she couldn't aid him directly in this work. Like the other captains, she lacked the detailed comparative data which currently only he had access to. The captains' jealous hoarding of information was inadvertently giving him sole proprietorship of the job of fleet coordinator.

With a sigh, he started to turn towards the desk again when a light on his command console caught his eye. It was only an amber call-next to no importance or priority, but he was glad to answer it. Anything to stall his return to the reports.

The viewscreen showed an empty chair, causing Tambu to smile as he leaned toward the mike.

"Tambu here," he announced in carefully modulated tones.

Blackjack appeared on the screen, hurrying to his chair, shirtless and half-hopping as he tried to pull on a pair of pants.

"Sorry, boss," he apologized. "I didn't think you'd answer so fast."

"It's been a slow day," Tambu explained dryly. "What've you got?"

Blackjack hedged. "Well, it might be nothing. But when we dropped in on Trepec here, I picked up a bit of information I thought you should have."

"And that is-" Tambu urged impatiently.

"It seems there's been a run on guns-big ones like we use on our ships."

"Interesting." Tambu frowned. "Any word as to who's been buying?"

"As near as I can find out, they've sold a few each to a lot of planets."

"Strange." Tambu pursed his lips. "Which planets?"

"I've got a list here. Some of 'em are on our subscription list, but most aren't."

"Oh, well," Tambu sighed. "I guess it was bound to happen sometime."

"What's that?"

"The planets are arming themselves," Tambu explained, "though what good they expect ground-mounted guns to be against ships in orbit is beyond me."

"Arming themselves? Against what?"

"Maybe against pirates," Tambu smiled. "But more likely against us. We have hit a few planets in our time, you know."

"But that's ridiculous," Blackjack protested. "Ground-mounted guns wouldn't stop us if we decided to hit a planet."

"You know it, and I know it, but apparently the planets don't know it. Oh well, it's their money."

"Are you going to alert the fleet?"

"Why bother?" Tambu yawned. "Any ship of mine that can't hold its own against a ground-mounted attack deserves what they get."

"But if they set up a battery near a spaceport, they might ambush a shuttlecraft," Blackjack cautioned.

"I suppose you're right. All right, give me the list, and I'll pass the word."

He jotted down the names of the planets as Blackjack read them. The list was surprisingly long, between fifteen and twenty planets. Still, it was nothing to worry about.

"Very well, I'll make sure the fleet is warned. Take a couple of extra days while you're there and see if you can find out anything else."

"Right, boss. What are your orders for dealing with one of the planets on the list?"

"I don't know. Hail them from orbit and see what they have to say, I guess. If they make nasty noises, avoid 'em and head for another planet."

"You mean back down?" Blackjack asked.

Tambu smiled at the disappointment in the captain's voice.

"We have to fight often enough already. There's no point in looking for trouble."

"But you said yourself that taking a ground-mounted gun would be no problem," Blackjack argued.

"There are lots of planets, Blackjack. Why would we risk a ship in a needless brawl, however one-sided, when there are so many that won't put up a fight at all?"

"What if they shoot at us?" Blackjack pressed.

"If you're fired on, you can defend yourself, of course. But under no circumstance will one of my ships fire the first shot. Got it?"

"Affirmative," Blackjack scowled.

"Good enough. Tambu out."

He stared thoughtfully at the blank viewscreen for several moments after signing off. His orders to Blackjack had been rather vague and poorly defined. He'd have to take some time to phrase them better before he sent them out to the fleet. Of course, that would have to wait.

He set the list of planets to one side and turned back to his work table.

Right now he had to wade through these reports. He had stalled long enough-too long. He owed it to the fleet to be selective about his priorities.