Tambu

INTERVIEW IX

"Though I didn't realize it at the time, that was the start of the Defense Alliance. It never occurred to me that they might be mounting the weapons on ships, much less that they were planning to band together against us."

"That must have been an ugly surprise," Erickson laughed.

There was a moment of silence before the reply came.

"I lost five ships the first day the Defense Alliance began functioning as a unit. The humor of that escapes me."

"I'm sorry," the reporter squirmed. "I didn't know. I didn't mean to make light of it."

"You aren't the only one who didn't know," Tambu sighed. "You see, Mr. Erickson, the Alliance's counteroffensive came before I had gotten around to passing the warning to the fleet."

"So when the Alliance attacked, they were totally unprepared," Erickson finished softly. "I can see where you would feel guilty about that."

"I never like losing a ship, but I don't feel particularly guilty. They were fighting ships and should have been ready for trouble. They fell to attack because the years of low resistance had taken the edge off their alertness."

"But if you had warned them, it might have made a difference," Erickson insisted.

"It might," Tambu admitted. "But I don't think so. Remember that the warning I would have issued would have been against ground installations, not armed ships. One of the things I neglected to mention was that Blackjack's ship was one of those lost on the first day--and he had been warned."

"What happened? Was he caught unaware?"

"Again, the answer is yes and no," Tambu replied. "He saw an armed ship in his vicinity, but he wasn't expecting to be attacked. As a matter of fact, he was on the viewscreen asking me for instructions when the Alliance ship opened fire on him."

"You seem surprisingly unmoved by the memory."

"Do I? That's a strange criticism coming from someone who was just appalled at the Zarn incident."

"Both examples show a callousness to loss of life," the reporter countered.

"True enough," Tambu acknowledged without rancor, "but you must try to see my side of things, Mr. Erickson. In the course of my career I have lost ships, men, and close friends. I feel their loss, but for self-defense I must keep my distance emotionally. If I didn't, I would go insane."

Erickson refrained from comment.

"So the Alliance's threat was felt from the first day on," he said instead.

"You flatter the Alliance with your word choice. The Defense Alliance has never constituted a serious threat to my fleet-then or now."

"But you just said they destroyed five of your ships!"

"Five out of nearly two hundred," Tambu remarked pointedly. "I'll also admit they've downed several of our ships since-just as we've destroyed several of theirs. I tend to attribute their victories to shortcomings in my own captains rather to any brilliance or competence on their part."

"Excuse my asking, but isn't that a little conceited of you?"

"What's so conceited about acknowledging the weakness of my own fleet?" Tambu asked innocently. "If I wanted to brag, I'd claim that it requires an expert tactician or an ace crew to down one of my ships. The truth is that it's really quite easy to do-if you're faced with a hot-headed captain who won't follow orders."

"I thought your captains followed your orders to the letter," Erickson probed.

"I've never claimed that, Mr. Erickson," Tambu corrected. "In fact, I've given you several examples to the contrary. My captains are human, and they follow popular orders much more strictly than orders they disagree with."

"Then you've issued orders which were unpopular with the fleet?"

"Yes, I have. Orders that were very unpopular."