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"We'd have more if you hadn't-"
Cofflin nodded. "Putting near all of them in one place was a bad mistake; I'll say that myself. But imagine what Deubel would have done with automatic weapons!"
Macy looked around, hesitated, and sat down; he was an opinionated man, but far from stupid.
"And hell, Sam," Cofflin went on, "if you want to make a motion, propose it and we'll vote."
Macy stayed down, unconvinced but aware that the Meeting was moving from boredom to irritation.
"All right, next item. Ron Leaton here needs more people who want to apprentice as metalworkers and machinists. The worst of the clearing is about over, so we can spare some hands. I'd like to suggest…"
When the Meeting was over, Cofflin ran a handkerchief over his face. "I'd rather face a half-dozen drunk coofs on the spree anyday," he grumbled.
"You did very well," Martha said. "Very Athenian, really." Cofflin raised his brows. "Aristotle thought about three thousand citizens was the largest number who could meet in assembly and decide issues," she went on. "Well, we're about the right size for his ideal city-state, aren't we?"
"Greek to me," Cofflin gri
"Come along to supper, then," she said, sliding a hand into his. "And maybe we can do something about that bundling you mentioned."
"Er-" he said, flushing slightly.
Martha smiled. "This is the twentieth century," she said. "Or at least it was."
"You do, what is?" Swindapa asked.
Nearly mash my toes, that's what I do, Doreen thought, wiping her palms and picking up the length of wood she'd dropped.
"Practice," she said aloud, ru
The deck was stable as the ship ghosted along at a crawl, creeping past the edge of a Sargasso that seemed to be larger in this era. Part of the crew were busy swabbing, painting, and chipping, but the rest were doing unarmed combat drill, under the tutelage of Lieutenant Walker and the captain -Doreen supposed that Alston had ordered it on the principle that the devil made work for idle hands. Ian was infuriatingly reading a book in a deck chair, smugly satisfied with his argument that he was a civilian and far too middle-aged for all this "chucking about." It was hot, too; they were down about the latitude of Bermuda. Doreen panted as she rested on the bo, the T-shirt sticking to her breasts and shoulders. The deck was full of yells and thuds as the fit, limber nineteen-year-old cadets ran through holds and throws or hammered at each other through padding.
"Practice who?" Swindapa said again, handing her water.
Doreen gulped it gratefully. "Practice with what," she said.
Swindapa had a superb memory and a mimic's ear for sound, but too many of the grammatical conventions of the English language seemed to make no sense to her. Her own language was an agglutinative horror that made the complex inflections and declensions of Lithuanian or Iraiina seem straightforward. Three separate forms of the "r" sound, all of which were distinct to her and indistinguishable to the English-speaking ear… Doreen shuddered at the memory.
"Practice with what?" the Fiernan girl repeated agreeably.
"Staff. Bo." They repeated the conversation in Iraiina for practice's sake. That was merely a complicated language, not impossible.
The bo was a piece of polished hardwood, five and a half feet long and about the thickness of her paired thumbs. She'd kept it on half a dozen moves after she stopped going to the dojo, never quite certain that she'd given up the art for good, but never having enough time to actually attend, either.
"For what?"
"To hit," Doreen said. "I'll show you."
She stood in front of the younger woman, the staff held slantwise across her body.
"Spear?" Swindapa said, and made jabbing motions.
"No. Like this."
Very gently, she ran the rounded tip of the 'staff into the weak point of the other's solar plexus, just below the breastbone. Even in the strongest, fittest set of abdominal muscles that was an empty spot, and it was right under the heart and lungs. The other woman folded over with a surprised mild oooof. Doreen followed through with a slow uppercut that would have smashed the jaw if it had been for real. That led naturally into a turn, the bo tossed up and allowed to slide between her hands as she pivoted so that the movement became a two-handed sweep. Step forward, sliding the left hand to the center of the staff, point down, use it to scoop behind the knee…
Swindapa went down realistically, gri
"You show?"
Doreen hesitated, then nodded. "That's 'Will you show me?'"
"Will you show me?"
Training a novice might be just what she needed to keep her motivation up. "Stand like this," she began.
"Lesson over," she wheezed twenty minutes later.
Swindapa was just working up a sweat, but she reluctantly handed the bo back to Doreen, rubbing at a few bruises where the wood had gotten away from her.
"We'll get you one of these," the American said. The Fiernan was in good condition, a natural athlete, and she'd seemed to enjoy it. "We'll do more tomorrow." And by the time you know enough, I'll have some endurance back.
They turned to watch Isketerol trying a fall with Lieutenant Walker. Doreen didn't like the too-cheerful junior officer; for one thing, he gave off God's-gift-to-women vibrations. She disliked the Tartessian rather more, so it was a point up whoever got thumped. The Iberian trader moved in cautiously, crouched with hands held high and low, rather like pictures she'd seen on very old pottery in museums. Walker waited until the other man made a grab. She knew what came next.
Thump. The Tartessian landed on his face on the foam mat, winded and stu
"That's enough," Marian Alston said; she was barefoot, in calf-length cotton gi pants and an armless singlet, dripping wet from the work she'd been doing. Her skin shone like wet coal over long lean muscles, and she was smiling slightly. "Playtime's over, boys and girls. Classwork next."
The sparring circles and drill lines began to break up amid good-natured groans. Walker called out: "Try a few rounds, Skipper?"
Doreen frowned; the words were right, informal to suit the occasion, but there was an overtone. A few cadets paused to watch.
"Surely," Alston said quietly. "Light contact?"
"Sounds good, Skipper," Walker said. "Somebody call it."
They walked onto the mat, faced off, bowed slightly. Walker put his right fist to his left palm as he did; Alston bowed with her fists held before her thighs. An impromptu referee raised a hand between them.
"Assume…"
Get ready. They fell into stance. Then the hand flashed down.
"Kumite!"
Fight.
Doreen could make some sense of what followed. Korean-style kicking attack by the man, heels scything. Block and spi