Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show by Edmund R. Schubert Read Free Book Online

with IF-COM on the asteroid Eros were mostly limited to book and holo and movie requests, plus his daily blip—the message he sent just to assure the IF that he wasn’t dead.
    He could even have automated the daily blip—it’s not as if Mazer didn’t know how to get around their firewalls and reprogram the shipboard computer. But he dutifully composed a new and unique message every day that he knew would barely be glanced at back at IF-COM. As far as anyone there cared, he might as well be dead; they would all have retired or even died before he got back.
    The problem of loneliness wasn’t a surprise, of course. They had even suggested sending someone with him. Mazer himself had vetoed the idea, because it seemed to him to be stupid and cruel to tell a person that he was so completely useless to the fleet, to the whole war effort, that he could be sent out on Mazer’s aimless voyage just to hold his hand. “What will your recruiting poster be next year?” Mazer had asked. “‘Join the International Fleet and spend a couple of years as a paid companion to an aging space captain!’?”
    To Mazer it was only going to be a few years. He was a private person who didn’t mind being alone. He was sure he could handle it.
    What he hadn’t taken into account was how long two years of solitary confinement would be. They do this, he realized, to prisoners who’ve misbehaved, as the worst punishment they could give. Think of that—to be completely alone for long periods of time is worse than having to keep company with the vilest, stupidest felons known to man.
    We evolved to be social creatures; the Formics, by their hivemind nature, are never alone. They can travel this way with impunity. To a lone human, it’s torture.
    And of course there was the tiny matter of leaving his family behind. But he wouldn’t think about that. He was making no greater sacrifice than any of the other warriors who took off in the fleets sent to destroy the enemy. Win or lose, none of them would see their families again. In this, at least, he was one with the men he would be commanding.
    The real problem was one that only he recognized: He didn’t have a clue how to save the human race, once he got back.
    That was the part that nobody seemed to understand. He explained it to them, that he was not a particularly good commander, that he had won that crucial battle on a fluke, that there was no reason to think he could do such a thing again. His superior officers agreed that he might be right. They promised to recruit and train new officers while Mazer was gone, trying to find a better commander. But in case they didn’t find one, Mazer was the guy who fired the single missile that ended the previous war. People believed in him. Even if he didn’t believe in himself.
    Of course, knowing the military mind, Mazer knew that they would completely screw up the search for a new commander. The only way they would take the search seriously was if they did not believe they had Mazer Rackham as their ace in the hole.
    Mazer sat in the confined space behind the pilot seat and extended his left leg, stretching it up, then bringing it behind his head. Not every man his age could do this. Definitely not every Maori, not those with the traditional bulk of the fully adult male. Of course, he was only half Maori, but it wasn’t as if people of European blood were known for their extraordinary physical flexibility.
    The console speaker said, “Incoming message.”
    “I’m listening,” said Mazer. “Make it voice and read it now.”
    “Male or female?” asked the computer.
    “Who cares?” said Mazer.
    “Male or female?” the computer repeated.
    “Random,” said Mazer.
    So the message was read out to him in a female voice.
    “Admiral Rackham, my name is Hyrum Graff. I’ve been assigned to head recruitment for Battle School, the first step in our training program for gifted young officers. My job is to scour the Earth looking for someone to head