In the Navy by David Weber & Eric Flint

Author:David Weber & Eric Flint [Weber, David & Flint, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

*

“That it,” Alf Harrison announced, tipping back in his chair in front of the radio.

“Thank you,” Simpson said. He was standing behind Harrison, unable to see his expression, but Eddie saw the radio operator roll his eyes. None of McDougal’s staff liked the industrialist one bit. Of course, all of them were Stearns loyalists, and most of them had been solid union members before the Ring of Fire, which created two perfectly good reasons for their attitude right there. Simpson couldn’t have been unaware of it, but he certainly didn’t act as if he were, and Eddie wondered whether that was out of a sense of towering superiority which refused to acknowledge the slings and arrows of his social inferiors. That was what he’d written it down as at first, but he was beginning to question his initial assumptions. He didn’t much care for that, because he liked things nice and clear, and he preferred for the people about him to remain if not predictable, at least consistent. The thought that there might be rather more to John Chandler Simpson than he’d assumed was particularly unpalatable, especially given the unmitigated jerk Simpson had shown himself to be during the immediate aftermath of their arrival in Thuringia.

Eddie wasn’t entirely certain why he found the idea so distasteful. Well, he knew part of the reason—he didn’t like Simpson, and he hated the very thought of finding something about the man to respect. The ingrained suspicion and hostility which were part of Eddie’s self-identification as one of Mike Stearns’ men undoubtedly played their parts, as well, he admitted frankly, yet he suspected that there was more to it even than that.

Maybe what it really came down to was that he’d never before encountered the combination in a single person of truly superior abilities with the capacity to make truly enormous mistakes. Intellectually, Eddie knew it was entirely possible for something like that to happen, but he’d never personally experienced it, and it was an affront to his teenager’s sense of absolute right and absolute wrong. Worse, it made him wonder if he might be equally capable of screwing the pooch. Not a pleasant possibility at all, that!

“Will the commo link be manned all night?” Simpson asked after a moment.

“Well, yeah,” Harrison replied. “‘Course there’s not much chance Mike—I mean, the President—is gonna be seeing this before sometime tomorrow morning.” His voice was somewhat elaborately patient, although no one could quite have called it overtly discourteous.

“I didn’t expect that he would,” Simpson said calmly. “I was asking for future information, Mr.

Harrison. If this project goes forward, I’ll need twenty-four-hour communications capability, and I was simply wondering if it already existed.”

“Oh.” Harrison had the grace to blush slightly, but he didn’t go overboard about it. “Yeah,” he said in a much closer to normal tone, “we’ve got round-the-clock coverage. It’s not like being able to pick up your cell phone, but we can usually get the message through without too much delay.”

“Excellent,” Simpson said, and nodded to him.

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