Viewpoints critical, p.6
Viewpoints Critical, page 6
The two senior vultures were leaning even farther forward, but Darrow paused to take a sip of the vintage cola. He might as well enjoy it. "But the facts?" protested Forefront.
"The facts weren't too favorable. What Eastwood was doing was legal, but unpopular. So I had to minimize the facts in order to emphasize the law. At the pretrial conference, I agreed to most of the government's facts."
"Dangerous."
"Why did you think you had a chance? Sounds pretty shaky."
"The computer analysis was convincing. When I found out that Lerata was the assigned judge, I had Data Management run a computerized analysis of his opinions. With a jury, he'll let the prosecution have a fairly free rein. Without a jury, he'll decide a case on his interpretation of the facts, bolstered by the law. If he's put on notice that it's a purely legal question, and gently reminded of it throughout the trial, and if the legal arguments are to the point, in something like 70 percent of those cases, he decided for the legalist. Seventy percent was the best I could do; so I did."
"Wait a minute. I know Hank thinks the computer is the icing on the cake, and Darcy's briefed him on what you did. Hank says it's terrific. But I got lost along the way."
"Basically, I got Data Management to create a series of special programs. The principle's simple. Attorneys have been using it for centuries, but I tried to systematize it. The programs were designed to see what arguments had been successful with Lerata in the past and under what circumstances."
Darrow pondered, wondering how much to say.
"Two things are different. First, the computer enabled me to analyze the language. That meant a better angle on what specific points appealed to Lerata. Second, I applied the same principles to Garrity. When I heard he was on the other side, I dug up all his cases and ran them through the computer to see if I could spot a pattern to the ones he'd won and lost."
"And?" demanded Fairley.
Darrow was reminded of a little old man asking for the latest gossip.
"I don't know that it's bad. Garrity does best when he can represent the accused as an evil oppressor of the people. He has the poorest record in pure legal cases, particularly when the government infringes personal rights. That's why I emphasized the drug question."
Darrow shrugged. "All I did was put the pieces together."
Fairley leaned back and turned to Forefront.
"Really, Hank, this amazes me. Darrow has come up with the greatest tool since partnerships, and he 'just put the pieces together.' "
Darrow watched the ideas click together for the two senior partners, could almost see the two of them silently planning the high-powered operation, full-scale data reduction, coding for all major decisions, gathering data on every judge and attorney.
"Take a lot of capital," noted Forefront, "but there's no way we can not do it. If we don't, someone else will. Onward or out, that's all there is to it."
Recalling Fiori, Darrow repressed a frown. He hadn't had time to figure out all the angles yet. Right now, he wanted to enjoy the taste of success.
"Could be the greatest legal tool of the century, thanks to our new junior partner here." Fairley beamed.
"Should bring us more back to a rule of law," mused Forefront, "back to when law belonged to the real legal professionals and not every civic activist or government hack who came along."
Darrow kept up his smile, wondering about Forefront's remark.
Would computerization mean better law? What did Fiori have in mind? I What would he do if someone turned the technique against him?
He finished his cola with a gulp.
"Darrow, Mydra has left the color samples for your new office. You're moving up to an outside corner."
Darrow was glad of the dismissal, smiled, offered his thanks, and left. He was stopped in the hallway outside his door.
"Two messages for you, Mr. Bryan. From a Ms. Bryan-Keith. She wanted you to call back." "The other one?"
"There's a gentleman waiting for you. A Mr. James Fiori. Says he wanted to deliver a personal invitation. Very polite. But very insistent. Is he as important as he looks?"
"Yes "
He pushed open the thin door, noticing the color samples on his desk console and James Fiori simultaneously.
"Congratulations, Darrow. Frankly, I wasn't sure old Jon had the sense to offer you what you deserve."
Fiori gestured at the color samples.
"But I can see he didn't waste a minute. Sly old fox knows a good thing when he sees it." Fiori grinned. "We really owe you a lot. And if things don't work out the way you expect, don't hesitate to give me a call."
Darrow waited, sensing more.
"The real reason I dropped by was to tell you about our new venture since you gave us the idea. Graystone has just completed the acquisition of Eastlaw Citations.
"That's just the first step. We've also acquired the capability to computerize
all the slip opinions not on file, and we'll be starting a subscription service that will supply on a monthly basis all the new opinions, and all the accompanying briefs, plus the key-word correlation feature." "What about judicial profiles?"
"We're working on that, and on getting permission to use Law Directory material for attorney profiles. Good idea. That's why we'd like to have you on board."
"I imagine it's an expensive service."
"Very expensive. Pricing hasn't been worked out, but I'd estimate that the cost would add 10 to 20 percent to the fee structure of the average firm if it were passed on. But it's worth every penny for the firm that does a lot of trial work."
Fiori stood up.
"Think about it, Darrow. Ten years from now, maybe, they'll make you a full partner. I'll start you at that. And Graystone is going places. We could even end up buying out old Jon and Hank."
Darrow stood and smiled.
"I appreciate your thoughtfulness, and I certainly will think it over."
"Anyway, Darrow, my congratulations. Hell of a job you did on Garrity. Haven't enjoyed watching the government get theirs so much in ages. Like to see you do that for us. See you later."
After the door closed, Darrow looked down at the color samples, at the worn fabric of his jacket, and at the blinking light on the console reminding him to call Susan.
As usual, she'd been right.
Rule of law was right, too, but whose rule?
This story is a direct analogue to my Vietnam-era experiences as a Navy pilot, one of the few, and it's for all those who flew H-2s during that period, many of whom did not come back. It's also instructive about the difficulties of trying to point out why sometimes "better" is worse than what you have . . . at least in the long run.
IRON MAN,PLASTIC SHIPS
"So what it boils down to, Mort," McCaine said quietly, "is that you want me to approve the RV-2s immediately and use them to replace all the old tugs ASAP. Period. Don't bother about the fact that the RV-2's not a good space tug. Don't bother about the fact that it's poorly designed. Don't worry about the lack of flight testing. Just approve it. You said the damned thing's a new Recovery Vehicle and we ought to use it. I say it's an experimental pilot killer."Even at the end, Captain (breveted and acting) Edward Alton McCaine did not raise his voice. But somehow the small station room vibrated unpleasantly. A paperweight teetered on the edge of the captain's compact desk for a moment before beginning a slow, curving arc toward the boron-flexiplast deck.
"Captain, we need new tugs. The RV-ls are old. They're just so much junk. If we could just replace them with the RV-2s arriving with the convoy .. ." Morton Wyemouth, Commander-Second, Darneillian Space Forces, stood very still in the light gravity of Primus Station.
Even as far from the tech spaces as the captain's small office/stateroom was, the two men could smell the combination of ozone, oil, and sweat that permeated the battle outpost.
"New is not necessarily better, Mort. Nor spaceworthy. I intend to test every one. If they don't measure up, back they go," declared McCaine.
And if that doesn't set the stage, he thought, I don't know what will.
Captain McCaine leaned back in the cheap flexiplast swivel and popped a chewball into his mouth. He brushed the mixed silver-blond hair back over his high forehead, not that there was much to brush back, and looked steadily at his Executive Officer.
"We're using junk to salvage junk, sir," answered Wyemouth: "We're
losing men to do it. Last tour, Debron, and the rotation before that, three— Ferinto, Hawke-Gones, and Brereton. At least the RV-2s are new."
The captain sat up straight in the chair and put his hands flat on the desktop. Even motionless, his squat form seemed ready to spring.
"Mort, I've explained it so many times to the High Command I'm green along the jaw, but I'll repeat one thing. The RV-2s aren't new. They're a pile of reworked plastic, hopped-up thrusters, and converters with extra slosh. Tech Command used the RV-1 salvages we sent back for rework as the frame."
Wyemouth had his mind made up, and McCaine looked coldly across the desk in the cramped compartment, stifled a sigh, and waved the commander out the hatchway with an abrupt gesture.
As the flexiplast portal clicked shut—and it seemed like the entire station was constructed of plastic—he leaned back into the swivel.
Didn't any of the gung ho, can-do idiots understand? Do it, no matter what. That was why four pilots and techs were dead in two tours, not because of the Macedonians.
He tapped a button on the console that covered the left third of the desk.
A tinny voice buzzed from the grill. "Tech."
"McCaine here. If Commander Haskins is available, I'd like to see her." "Roger, Captain."
McCaine pulled the spec sheets from the drawer. He'd brought them all the way from Tammerlane. Bouncing over to the bulkhead, he began to hang them with stick tabs.
How much should he tell Lyn, he wondered.
The station shivered, probably from the lock-to-lock hookup with the first freighter of the resupply convoy. McCaine could hear the whole station creak, from his own bulkheads to those of neighboring compartments.
Commander Haskins was grayer than McCaine, almost as tall, perhaps a year or so older, and stuck until retirement as a commander, blocked from a line slot or the hawks of a captaincy by her sex. Now a senior commander-second, she might make commander-first on retirement... if His Majesty were feeling particularly generous.
Most of Lynda Haskins's short hair was white. The rest was jet-black. Her space-tanned face and dark eyes gave her a look of old wisdom, except when she laughed. That was often. He and Lyn had laughed and cried together a lot. Neither had family, not to speak of, not after the years in the Space Forces.
"The RV-2s are on the in-convoy, Lyn." "You didn't expect anything else."
No, he hadn't, and in the off-hours before their joint departure from Tammerlane weeks ago, he'd said as much. "I can refuse to use them."
Lyn was still standing. McCaine gestured at the only other seat in the closetlike compartment. On duty, she was always the formal Commander-Second Haskins.
"Great, and if you refuse without a reason," she noted calmly, "you'll be replaced by someone like Mort Wyemouth or Handsome Saint Prince John, who'll start losing pilots and techs at the rate of one per watch." Lyn eased herself into the small chair. She was always graceful in a spare way.
McCaine grimaced, turning the left corner of his narrow mouth up. "I know. The concerned and heroic refusal doesn't do anything but clear the last obstacle from the paths of the cost-effectiveness boys. Their charts are never wrong. They just kill people."
She felt the same way. McCaine knew that. She was on the station for the same reason he was. Both had been on the Royal War Ministry developmental staff. Both had protested the deployment of the RV-2, and both had been posted to Primus.
McCaine stood up easily in the fractional gravity and half walked, half bounced to the wall—plastic wasn't really a bulkhead—where the plans fluttered under the ventilation grill.
"They've doubled the fuel storage here by extending the slosh tank. The extension's supported by these braces . . ."
"Fine if you're flying without a trac load under constant gee, but. . ." The commander let her words trail off.
"Is the extra mass compensated against sudden thrust or a load shift on the mag-trac?"
"The RV-1 can handle its full mag-trac from zero to max at a quarter-gee constant. The tech team figured that as a base parameter on the conversion." Lyn delivered the statement deadpan.
"But they upped the mag-trac by 85 percent and damn near doubled the thruster output. That's got to drop the load the frame can take."
"According to the tech manual," drawled the commander, a wry smile on her face, "the same parameters apply."
"But I'll bend the frame and crack the shell if I try it?" snapped McCaine.
Maybe I shouldn't let that much out, he thought. "If you try it? You're the CO."
McCaine wondered at the look that flashed across her face, but went on. "According to the regs, I can take a mission. Any CO. who's physically and type-qualified can, and I quote, 'when in the best interests of the Space Forces and the safety of his command.' " McCaine smiled. He meant it to be a nasty smile. "I was sent here to supervise the service introduction of the RV-2s because I was the only captain with salvage experience. They also didn't want me around Tammerlane when the casualty reports began to come in. I might just suggest that the RV-2 wasn't all it was cracked up to be." He looked vaguely pleased with the unintentional pun.
"I never quite understood why they sent you here." Lyn crossed her long, shipsuited legs, then shifted her weight and turned to face him head-on. "But then, they don't know you like I do."
McCaine kick-bounced himself back into the swivel. "You understand, all right. They don't care about me. They don't care all that much about winning the war. They don't care too much even about getting their icebergs home. But they don't want any advice from someone who's actually jockeyed space tugs.
"They don't understand salvage. They don't understand how every loss affects the whole future of Darneill. And they certainly don't care if a few salvage pilots get killed. If I refuse to fly the RV-2, well, then I become an object lesson at my court-martial. Lesson One for new captains—don't cross the Finance Ministry, even if you are stuck with a bunch of plastic ships."
He popped another chewball into his thin-lipped mouth. "If I let the RV-2 go into service, then that proves their power. If I don't, I'm court-martialed for insubordination, maybe for aiding and abetting the enemy. They're covered even if I allow the damned thing in service. If their beloved new and improved all-plastic RV-2 kills too many pilots, I'll get the long green table for poor leadership ... or a medical retirement with honors."
Lyn Haskins gave him a faint but fond smile and let him go on. He'd stop in his own good time. He always did.
McCaine sighed, grabbed a handful of papers, and held them up. "What am I supposed to do? Administer a disaster? Go on with the day-to-day nuts and bolts, and smile? Sure, we need a stronger Recovery Vehicle, but the Finance Ministry doesn't want to put out the energy, the money, or the metal.
Don't ask me why we're fighting the Macedonians over water asteroids when they don't even need them. Don't ask me why we're using as much water to fight as we're getting from the bergs. And don't ask me why we have to kill pilots to find the design flaws. No . . . the glamour and the money go to the skitter pilots and the engineers. We just rescue them all and keep picking up the pieces. For what? I could go on, but you've heard it all."
Commander Lynda Haskins got to her feet, again perfectly formal. McCaine sometimes asked himself if he knew her at all.
"I'd better get my people ready," she said. "Tomorrow?"
"They may be unloading already. Do me a favor, Lyn. Make sure I get the RV-2s one at a time and that everything's done strictly by the book, and logged."
"Roger."
McCaine watched her go. He and Lyn had been stationed together five years now, on and off. He wished there had been more "on" times, but that didn't happen in the Space Forces. How many times he'd wanted to say more to her . . . rather than talk about ops, share a drink, stories . . .
He picked up the stack of papers, the maintenance reports, the officer evaluations, and forced his thoughts away from Lyn, away from the RV-2. Tomorrow would come soon enough, and the endless reports had to be filled out.
"This is most unusual, most unusual." The station schedules officer was a commander-second, nonpilot.
"We'll be in the salvage ready room," said McCaine.
"Captain, really . . . Rory, the admiral, I mean, will be most concerned about the salvage skipper and his senior tech riding the same tug."
McCaine noted the affected speech and decided it and the immaculate uniform tagged the schedules officer as another Court hanger-on out for a Belt medal and stories for the king's courtesans.
"We'll be on duty. You have the revised schedule," McCaine said curtly. He knew the schedules officer would take the updated duty roster straight to the admiral.
The cramped salvage ready room was connected to the duty lock where the duty tugs were docked. McCaine entered the ready room just in time to hear the small squadron operations console squawk.
"Captain McCaine to the Flag Bridge. Captain McCaine to the Flag Bridge."
McCaine grinned at Lyn. Her lanky frame was stretched out across one of the five patched recliners in the small flexiplast-walled compartment.
"Didn't take him long, did it?" He walked over to her.
"Captain, play it straight. Play it very straight." Even with the formal address, the "please" was evident in her tone.
"I will."
His stride was long in the low gravity as he headed for the Flag Bridge. "Captain, please sit down."
Admiral Rory Gildness Reagan looked like an admiral, from his square decisive jaw to the steely gray eyes and the straight and short black hair and bushy eyebrows.
"Commander Hiram—"
"The nonpilot schedules officer?" interrupted McCaine smoothly, as if to clarify a point.
