Read Emile and the Dutchman for Free Online Page B

dropped out in our second year—what was his name?
    Nevermind.
    In any case, let us coupling get down to the main body of the message, which is that eye have gone through FIRST no first no First CENSORED Assignment and have come out okay, although Captains McCaw and Buchholtz did not, either of them. Requiescat in pochem. Open parenthesis Got the air of a female dog. I know I pronounced the latin correctly, but it didn't spell it right. I'm going to take along my own machine on the next job and to CENSORED with this machine.)
    As I was saying, I've gotten through First Assignment intact. There are times when I almost wish I was a bit less hot with the stick and pedals, though; the weak pilots get the nice, safe, First Team photo surveys, where the worst that'll happen to you is a case of low-gee acne.
    I said almost , Manual
    That's not right, either. Manny, when we're both wearing stars, we've got to see if we can arrange to have whoever ordered these writers shot. In the kneecap, to start with.
    Speaking of First, we've gotten orders for a quick orbital survey of an M-zero, which promises to be dull. I suppose there'll be some leave sometime after that; although there's going to be a thousand cheapjack stars Gated this year, until we get a comm officer and a weapons officer assigned, I doubt that we'll get any Second or Third jobs.
    Yeah. Third. I don't know what it is, but there's something about being Third Team that I like.
    Maybe because it's important, dammit. At least, it damn well had better be.

    In any case, congratulations again. I’ll write again soon, honest.
    One question, though—why didn't we take the court-martial?
    All they could have done was shoot us.
    Well

    Hey the mailboat's leaving in three minutes minus a scant Emmy you might think about moving your CENSORED and get your CENSORED letter on it thanks major I should print out and I mean
    File Transmitted; 3 September 2241

TRAINING GROUND

I

    Puffing on another of his cigars, the Dutchman waddled into Magellan's Rec Room, a compboard under one arm, a bottle of some possibly nontoxic Chianti under another. He was clean, for once—directly out of the shower, wrapped in four of the seemingly endless supply of huge, fluffy Navy-issue towels that came with Magellan 's Rec level.
    "How they hangin', Emmy?" he said, as he seated himself across from me at the table and popped the cork. He took a quick swig and smacked his lips, then flicked cigar ash on the floor and stuck the moist end back in his mouth.
    I was tempted to ask if he'd ever made a mistake and stuck the lit end between his lips, but he might have figured that for a wish—which it was—and gigged me for insubordination.
    "I'm fine, sir," I said. I shut down my compboard and rubbed at my tired eyes. I had been busy working on a Qualification Course—Logistics; if there's anything duller, I don't want to have to study it—and any excuse to take a break was welcome.
    Well, almost welcome; the Dutchman was barely an exception.
    "Entirely a matter of opinion." He puffed another cloud of foul smoke in my direction. "That all depends on this—I've been working on your Quarterly, and amusing myself with your Pers file."
    That last is nonreg: accessing a Personnel file without proper need is, technically, a court-martial offense. On the other hand, a commanding officer presumably has the need to know anything and everything on record about his subordinates. On another hand, the purpose is supposed to be to help him do his job better; strolling through Personnel records isn't supposed to be a hobby.
    I've run out of hands, but I wasn't about to try and do anything about it: tattling on senior officers about trivial offenses isn't known to do a lot of good for junior officers' careers.
    Besides, everybody I know in the Service seems to spend inordinate amounts of time cracking, or trying to crack, computer security systems. I'm not sure where it comes from, but it is traditional.
    He furrowed his