Theirs Not To Reason Why: An Officer's Duty Part 10

"Commander, sir," Cadet Ffulke stated, standing up beside his desk. He was short, stocky, and a fellow heavyworlder. His hair was dark, his skin had that golden cast to it that said he held V'Dan more than Terran ancestry, and his eyes puppy dog brown. He kind of reminded Ia of a stubbie, the short-legged breed of dog found on Sanctuary. "An officer must carry out the same duties and responsibilities as any soldier...and be responsible for overseeing the duties and responsibilities of those soldiers placed under his or her command. Sir."

"Good answer. A few of you are like Cadet Ffulke: new to the Service, yet full of a great deal of potential and promise, great enough to see how well you can hold up here in the accelerated studies program," Spada stated. "Most of you are more like Cadet Burroughs; you've served for at least half a dozen years on average and have either earned a Field Commission, or have pa.s.sed the requisite tests and requested transfer to an Academy at the end of your most recent tour of duty so that you can attempt to become an officer. But none of you have served as an officer for more than a couple weeks at most...except for Cadet Ia."

Oh, great. Here it comes...

Captain Rzhikly lifted his chin at her. "Cadet Ia, you earned your Field Commission several months ago over de incident involving Beta Librae V, in de Zubeneschamali System. You den stepped up to fill your Platoon Lieutenant's shoes vhile she vos recovering from her spinal injuries. You served as de Second Platoon Lieutenant of your Marine Company for almost tree months, is dat correct?"

Ia slid out of her seat, standing At Attention. "Sir, yes, sir."

"That's a bit unusual. Normally, a Field Commissioned officer is s.h.i.+pped off as soon as possible." Spada said, pacing along the platform, hands clasped behind his back. "Do you know why you weren't?"

"Captain Ferrar thought it was best for the Company's morale if we did not appear to 'replace' Lieutenant D'kora with a stranger, sirs. The entire incident was unsettling enough for us to endure as it was, however temporary."

"Well, your DoI file lists a few additions to that reasoning, but we won't get around to dissecting and discussing DoI reports for another five months. Alright, Cadet. Give us your opinion of what the differences are between a soldier and an officer, since you've had the most practical experience of anyone in your cla.s.s at being the latter," Lieutenant Commander Spada instructed her.

"Captain, Lieutenant Commander, in my estimation, the duties and obligations of soldiers versus officers are nearly identical, with three major exceptions, sirs," Ia stated. She clasped her hands behind her blue-clad back in a modified Parade Rest, since her feet were together instead of shoulder-width apart. "In the Marines, we were taught that a soldier's duty is to place his or her weapons, skills, body, and even life between innocent civilians and anything that threatens them. A soldier's responsibility is to do these things by obeying his or her orders in a manner that is consistently legal, efficient, and moral, in compliance with military regulations, sirs."

"And by comparison, Cadet Ia, an officer's duty is...?" Rzhikly prompted her when she paused for breath.

"An officer's duty is to place his or her weapons, skills, body, and even life between innocent civilians and anything that threatens them...and to use the weapons, skills, bodies, and lives of the soldiers placed under that officer's lawful command. This is the first difference between a soldier and an officer.

"An officer's responsibility is to do these things by obeying his or her orders in a manner that is consistently legal, efficient, and moral, just like any soldier," Ia said. "But it is also to craft their own orders to the soldiers placed under them with the same level of care for the legalities, the efficiencies, and the ethics to which all soldiers, commissioned or otherwise, must aspire. This is the second major difference between the two.

"For the third...it is the most important difference," Ia stated, lifting her chin slightly. "In the course of enacting these duties and responsibilities, a good officer must ensure that those weapons, skills, bodies, and most especially lives are utilized to their utmost with the highest level of care, consideration, and efficiency for the soldiers under his or her command...because while an officer's ultimate duty is to ensure that a particular job does get completed via the soldiers and resources within their command, their ultimate responsibility is to get it done with the least number of wasted resources, the least number of injuries, and the least number of lost lives. An officer must do their best to get everyone back home again, preferably alive. At least, in so far as I myself have observed, sirs."

"Vell said, Cadet. Be seated," Rzhikly added, gesturing at her seat.

Ia returned to her chair. She clasped her hands on the surface of the arm-table and affected a relaxed but sober, serious air. She knew, however, that her cla.s.smates were studying her. Some of them had already made the connection with the system name, Zubeneschamali. Others hadn't yet grasped the link, but they would. Ironic as it was, as much as she needed the reputation and to have it be spread, she didn't want it to spread too wild and fast, or for the wrong reasons. Or for it to draw the wrong attention at the wrong moment. She focused her gaze on Spada as he spoke.

"All of these versions are correct. They are incomplete without each other, and without much more besides, but they are correct enough for what they are," the lieutenant commander allowed. "You, the members of Cla.s.s 1252, are about to learn just how much more. Open your arm units and link to channel Beta 52, to download the data. You can see it on the main screen behind me, but you'll want to have access to it later, since you'll be tested on all of this by the end of this week."

Leaning over the edge of her arm-desk, Ia quietly demonstrated to the newly recruited cadet next to her how to access the data channels on his arm unit. They weren't designed quite like civilian units, though they were close in some regards. Rzhikly moved to help one of the other new cadets on the other side of the room.

Anyone not familiar with the military versions would have trouble picking through the extra command b.u.t.tons, particularly as many were merely symbols that had to be memorized. It was meant to obscure their function in case any of them were captured by enemy forces, but made them a pain in the asteroid to use, at least until the symbols were fully learned. Enlisted wrist unit versions were more complex than civilian ones, but simplified compared to the versatility of an officer's arm unit. Certainly the screen was larger.

"It has been said for centuries," Spada lectured as soon as most of the cla.s.s was ready again, "that the real work of running the military lies in the hands of our noncommissioned officers. This is half true. It is true that the petty officers of the Navy-and the corresponding sergeants of the other three Branches-do tend to ensure that the majority of all work does get done in the end. As officers, should you graduate from this Academy, you must keep this in mind, and give your noncoms the respect they are due for all their hard work on your behalf."

Fis.h.i.+ng a small silver rod from his pocket, Spada extended it and tapped the projections on the wall with the red-lit tip of the wand. The pickups for the workstation powering the display responded by highlighting each segment of the flowchart and image a.s.sociated with his lecture. Off to one side, the captain a.s.sumed a relaxed version of Parade Rest, his brown gaze surveying the students as they listened attentively to his co-teacher.

"Like officers, they are responsible in part for ensuring the soldiers in their care complete their missions and come back alive. But the planning of those missions often rests upon the shoulders and the minds of the commissioned officers above them. Commissioned officers plan what should be done; noncommissioned officers execute what must be done; and soldiers do what they're told. That is, if everything goes according to plan," Spada stated. "But it isn't enough to plan, execute, and do. Officers must also motivate, without losing the extent and discipline of their authority.

"Your first series of lessons will be in military history and historical figures of consequence. Concurrent with each example will be a case by case study of military psychology: how each officer led their troops in a given situation, who they led, where they led, what resources they had to draw upon, and why they completed their missions successfully...or why they failed to complete their tasks. You can learn as much from a person's failures as their successes," Spada added, tapping a red outlined section of the flowchart, then the green outlined chain of text boxes and images next to it. "But only if you know what to look for, and which questions to ask.

"If you have not yet mastered it, you will learn how to think critically and quickly by the time these lessons are through. I will put each and every one of you under a spotlight before you'll be allowed to move on to the next phase of your training." He shrugged eloquently. "Then again, so will the rest of your instructors. I suggest you get used to it. These are the habits that will hopefully allow you to plan how to make the most efficient, effective uses of the lives and resources under your command, in a legal and ethical manner...and hopefully allow you to plan for ways to ensure those resources and those lives are not wasted while you do so."

Lieutenant Commander Spada paused and swept his gaze soberly over each row of cadets seated in the small auditorium.

"Learning how to make effective, efficient plans is the single most important part of becoming an officer...because each and every single one of your 'forces' is a real person. With a name, a family, a history, a set of interests and hobbies...even a favorite type of sandwich," their chief instructor lectured them somberly. "You must never forget that they are real people, whether they are Humans, or naturalized K'katta, or Solaricans, or whoever or whatever ends up being placed beneath you in lawfully designated authority."

Ia nodded slowly. That was exactly how it should be. Every single person she encountered, interacted with...and even killed in the name of her duty to the future...every single one of them had a name, a family, a history. Except for Cadet Meyun Harper. I still don't know why I can't sense him in the timestreams...unless he's some sort of anti-precog. Or a precog strong enough to interfere with my sensitivities...though I've never heard of the former. And of the latter, I'm far more likely to mess with their psychic reception, than the other way around...

"Thus it is vital for you to learn how to make the best plans and lay your contingencies carefully. One day, you will have to order the meioas under your command into a situation that you know is lethal. It will be up to you to ensure through careful planning that the risks to life and limb remain a potential, and not a fact. Over the next year, it will be our responsibility to drill the necessary skill sets into your brains, over and over, until they become a flexible reflex. In the chaos and panic of battle, particularly when your plans have been blown to pieces, you will be the person your troops will look to for stability, sanity, and strategy. We're here to teach you all of that until it is bone-deep in you, and becomes the foundation from which you will act."

Amen, Brother. Preachin' to the choir, here, Ia thought wryly. Unfortunately, that does mean I have to sit here for the next year, listening to you and your fellow instructors telling me things I already know. But you're right, Commander. These are things that have to be drilled so deep, I can rely on them even when the mist descends and my precognition temporarily fails. It has before, and it will again, after all.

Cadet Bruer slid his tray onto the table next to Ia's, settling into the empty chair on her left. "So, you're really her?"

"Her, who?" Cadet Jinja-Marsuu asked, looking up from her salad. She glanced between Bruer and Ia.

"You don't know?" Bruer asked, poking his thumb at Ia. "Man, I thought everybody heard! It made the news Nets everywhere, and like everything. April 11th, a group of Marine officers got kidnapped by this bunch of undergalactic crime lords. And this meioa-e goes in guns blazing and gets 'em out! She got a Star of Service for it, from the hands of the Secondaire herself!"

"They were actually kidnapped March 29th," Ia corrected mildly, spearing another forkful of her meal. The steak strips and wheat pasta were excellent, if a little bland compared to topado-flour noodles. "The rescue took place April 1st, and the awards were handed out to several of us on April 11th. For the record, I myself did not go in guns blazing. I allowed myself to be caught, and started a distraction that allowed the rest of my Company to go in guns blazing. It was very much a team effort, not a solo fight."

"But, the Star of Service!" Bruer argued. His voice carried past their own table, causing more than one head to turn. "You got a Star of Service, meioa. Surely that counts for something?"

"As far as I'm concerned, I was doing my job, which was to rescue my fellow Marines. Bringing them back alive was the best reward I could have earned, and the only reward I wanted," Ia told him.

"Yeah, right," Cadet Jinja-Marsuu snorted, stabbing into her salad. "Tell that to the reporters. What you really wanted was a fat medal. Admit it. We all do."

"What I really want, Cadet," Ia stated, setting down her fork, "is not to have had to tell the mother of Private First Cla.s.s Paul McDaniels that he died under my command. We were running to take shelter in the subsurface emergency tunnels on Oberon's Rock," she explained quietly as more cadets joined them from the chow line, filling up the table. "I had just caught up with the others when the pirates strafed our section of the domeworld. We didn't find him until almost an hour of digging later...and we were digging because we were going to suffocate if we didn't find a fresh supply of oxygen.

"War is not pretty. It is not s.h.i.+ny. It is not glittery. I would gladly give up every medal I've ever been given to have him still walking around alive," she finished bluntly.

Cadet Harper settled into the seat on her right, unnerving her. She hadn't been able to foresee where he would sit, which meant anything he did or said might derail her plans for the future. His question as he settled into place seemed innocent enough, though. "So, why do you do it, then? Why did you join up?"

"I took up this job because someone needs to do it, and I happen to be one of the ones good at it. If I do it, that means someone else doesn't have to. Someone who may be less skilled, less careful, and less likely to keep the meioas around them safe and alive. Or mostly alive." Picking up her fork, she again stabbed at the strips of steak that had slipped partway off the tines. "Now, if my superiors think that what I do merits awards and ribbons, that's their prerogative. I'm just doing my job, as best I can."

"Yeah, but your nickname, b.l.o.o.d.y Mary?" Bruer offered. "Don't tell me you didn't earn that. Even if only a tenth of all the rumors were true, it's a Marine Corps nickname. Every Marine I've ever talked to said you have to earn one of those."

"Hey, I never said it was a clean job. But since it isn't, let's change the subject. We are eating, remember?" Popping the forkful of food into her mouth, she chewed.

"Well, you're in the Navy now, sailor," one of the other cadets quipped. "You'll have to earn an entirely new nickname. Besides, you might not end up in combat, next tour of duty. You could end up shuttling supplies back and forth, or pus.h.i.+ng paper planet-side somewhere."

"She got her Field Commission in combat, Jordan," Bruer pointed out. "She goes right back into a combat position...provided she still pa.s.ses the psychological exams."

"I served several back-to-back tours in a combat-heavy Border zone without too many difficulties, so I'm probably considered quite well-adjusted." Taking a sip of her juice-apple, a rare treat since that particular fruit didn't grow well on Sanctuary-Ia speared another mouthful of pasta. "Actually, I'm hoping to get a Blockade Patrol, after this. Well, after some pilot training, too."

Harper wrinkled his nose at her while she chewed. "You're actively hoping for a Blockade Patrol? It isn't nearly as glamorous as shows like s.p.a.ce Patrol make it sound, you know."

Ia cleared her mouth with another sip. "Oh, I know. But the tours of duty are shorter because it's so stressful on most people, they can only handle four-month stretches at most, rather than six months at a time," Ia stated, digging into her salad. "If I'm psychologically stable in a combat zone, it makes sense to post me there. That reduces the stress on whoever I'm replacing, freeing them up for a more suitable duty, and makes the military more efficient as a whole."

"How can you be 'psychologically stable' for something as dangerous as a Blockade Patrol?" Jinja-Marsuu asked Ia, though she gestured at the others, inviting them to comment as well. "I've heard the casualty rate for it is around eighty percent. That's outright deadly."

"Casualty rates include all injuries serious enough to warrant treatment in an infirmary, not just deaths," Harper reminded Jinja-Marsuu.

"The actual death rate is around thirteen percent," Ia murmured, reaching for the pepper. She dusted her greens with the spice. "But that's taking into account total crew losses from entire s.h.i.+ps being destroyed in starfights, not just individual losses during boarding and inspection. They're building better s.h.i.+ps all the time, though. And a good pilot can get you out of most problems. I have the reflexes for it, and my military tests agree, so that's the career track I've picked."

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain how you could still be 'stable' after several back-to-back combat posts," Jinja-Marsuu argued.

"I'm a second-generation first-worlder. From the heaviest heavyworld, no less." At her blank look, Ia elaborated. "I'm from an M-cla.s.s world. You can't put counterweaves in the ceiling of an M-cla.s.s world because there are no ceilings when you go outside. Mind you, Sanctuary's not nearly as lethal as Parker's World, but we have our own nasty life-forms, both microscopic and mammoth. Plus the local gravity is over three times Standard. Just falling from something as simple as tripping while walking can crack your head literally wide open. By the time I turned ten, I had seen or personally knew of seventeen people who had fallen to their death just from running around on the wrong surface.

"The medical facilities are reasonably good back home, but not like here on Earth, and supplies are often limited. Not to mention the local flora and fauna can be quite deadly. Growing up in circ.u.mstances like those, you get used to dealing with danger, violence, disease, injury, and death," she finished.

The part about the local plants and animals was a slight exaggeration. The interior, where the capital of Sanctuary was located, was fairly mild. It was the coast, where various species dwelled in the gravity-reducing waters of the ocean, that held the real danger on her homeworld. Still, the other dangers did exist.

"I'm not sure I'd want to get used to that," Jinja-Marsuu muttered. "Death and dying as a daily part of life..."

"Then you're in the wrong career, meioa," Harper stated. He glanced at his roommate. "How's the steak?"

"Good," Ia admitted warily. "Salad needs something, but the vegetables are cooked right."

"Do you cook?" Harper asked her, unrolling his silverware from the napkin provided. The Academy's dining hall was a step up from the mess hall for recruits back at Camp Nallibong. Then again, they were supposed to be training to be officers, not enlisted soldiers.

"Not if I can help it. I can do prep work and some of the non-fancy stuff, but my parents usually had me waiting tables, scrubbing floors, or was.h.i.+ng dishes in their restaurant," she admitted. Answering his questions about herself made her uncomfortable. Ia didn't know what his motives were. Instead, she turned the tables on him. "What about you? Do you cook?"

"My cooking's only okay, but I enjoy baking. Not that I get all that many opportunities anymore," he added with a shrug. "Welcome to the military life, and all."

Bruer shrugged. "Maybe you'll get a.s.signed to a head chef position in the galley of one of the bigger s.h.i.+ps."

"I doubt it. My degree's in applied engineering," Harper said. "I just enjoy baking. And track. I heard the Academy here in Portugal has a good track program. They had a cadet who was a runner in the hurdles, two Summer Olympics ago. I remember watching the programs as a kid."

"That's right," Ia said, swallowing quickly. "Commander Spada said this morning that you were hoping for a career in either Logistics or Engineering, didn't he?"

Harper nodded. "And your subjects were Combat Command and Piloting. What sort of sport will you be doing?"

Ia shook her head. "I'll probably be running the confidence course in my halfmech. I'm too strong a heavyworlder to get involved in any sort of contact sport with anyone, so it's either do that or run around the track like you. But since I've already been fitted with a suit, I might as well use it. That'll mesh with my interest in getting posted to a Blockade Patrol anyway, since there'll be plenty of mechsuited boarding opportunities. Maybe as part of a base s.h.i.+p, but more likely on one of the smaller patrollers. I don't know yet."

"I'll probably end up on one of the bigger s.h.i.+ps, or maybe a Battle Platform, something with its own manufactory department. How about you, Cadet Bruer?" Harper asked him. "What are your interests?"

"Combat Command and Munitions, with side interests in volleyball and skeet shooting. My degree is in chemistry, specializing in things that go boom. How about you?" he asked Jinja-Marsuu.

"Lifesupport and Logistics-and I'll see you on the other side of the volleyball net," she told Bruer, grinning. "I love the sport. As for my education, I have a botany degree, with a secondary major in cuisine. I'm Cordon Bleu trained. Lifesupport and Logistics means that I'm the one who'll probably be put in charge of galley services on a major s.h.i.+p." The female cadet smiled, then her nose wrinkled wryly as she lifted a forkful of pasta. "This food is good, but this ain't Cordon Bleu."

Everyone chuckled. Harper yawned, hastily smothering it behind one hand, before removing it and allowing his other to bring up his fork. "So tired...'scuse me...and we still have the rest of the evening to get through..."

"Oh, c'mon," one of the other cadets ribbed him. "Those calisthenics before supper weren't that hard."

"I've been up for over twenty-eight hours Standard, meioa-o," Harper told him. "Two of the last four systems on my flight to Earth had ion storm problems. We had to hover for hours in the nearest planet's magnetosphere because we were too small to risk that much radiation during the fluctuations in the front of the storm, and we couldn't open a hypers.p.a.ce rift until the worst of the trailing particle clouds had pa.s.sed. Courier shuttles have ceristeel plating, the same as any other s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, but not quite thick enough for that heavy a storm."

"You could afford to take a courier shuttle?" Jinja-Marsuu asked him, eyes widening.

Bruer stretched his arm over Ia's back and tapped Harper on the shoulder. "Saaaay, can I borrow fifty thousand credits?"

"It was a military shuttle. Half the adults in my extended family serve in the military," Harper explained, rolling his eyes. "When I asked my uncle which Academy he'd recommend, he told me the Academia de Marinha Estrelas would probably be a good fit, and he hooked me up for a string of fast flights."

"You're brave, meioa," Bruer murmured, digging into his own salad. "Stringing other-than-light jumps would make me heave up all over the place. I'll stick to faster-than-light, thank you. Slower, but safer."

"Some of us don't have any choice," Ia pointed out. "My homeworld is on the backside of Terran s.p.a.ce, over seven hundred lightyears from here. It took me two weeks of swapping between OTL and FTL to get here. I actually started out from the TerranGatsugi Border, in a region about thirteen hundred lightyears from home. That's three weeks of stringing mostly hyperjumps with only a few days of FTL in between to recover. If I'd tried to take strictly faster-than-light transport, I wouldn't even have reached my homeworld before I would've had to change course in order to get here in time. I was lucky to get three weeks of Leave plus travel time as it was."

"Seven hundred?" Jinja-Marsuu muttered, gaze looking upward and inward, "Backside of..." She lowered her gaze to Ia's face and smiled. "You're from Sanctuary, aren't you? That's an Independent Colonyworld, if I remember right."

Ia nodded. "That's right. You're good."

The other young woman smiled. "I almost went into Astronavigation, since I have a real spatial memory for star system placement, but I'm not that fond of the math required. I'd rather work with aquaculture systems and hydroponics."

Bruer grinned. "Aha, so you're the one I have to b.u.t.ter up if I ever get stuck on lifesupport filtration duty."

Jinja-Marsuu made a face at him. The others turned on Bruer, ribbing him back. Ia focused on her food. She still had to eat about twice as much as the average person just to sustain her higher heavyworlder metabolic needs but had to do it in the same amount of time as all the lightworlders around her. Next to her, she saw Harper was eating quickly as well. Like her, he had worn a specially made weight suit during their exercise period right before supper. Not as heavy as hers, but still a burden meant to compensate for the lighter gravity here on Earth.

From what she was slowly learning about him, they had a number of things in common. It was everything else about him which she still had no clue.

Why can't I sense him in the timestreams?

CHAPTER 8.

I'd never encountered anyone like Meyun Harper, before. I had no clue what he was, no clue what it meant that I couldn't foresee anything about him, and I went through a lot of bizarre speculations as a result. I also wanted to avoid touching him, out of sheer caution, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before we ended up colliding, or being paired for exercises. I needed to know everything I couldn't learn about him. So I tried going about it the sneaky way.

Naturally, it backfired.

~Ia Ia couldn't sleep. Not even three meters away, the biggest blank spot in her life slumbered in near-silent innocence. The one person she couldn't predict. The one person she couldn't confirm existed in the timestreams.

Or is he innocent? Ia wondered. Twisting onto her back, she stared up into the shadows. The nightlight from the bathroom spilled a small amount of illumination into the rest of the dormitory room. With her eyes adapted to the darkness, she could have seen his dark hair on the pale blue of his pillow. She didn't look, though. Nor did she flip her mind inward and out onto the timeplains.

What could he be, then? He's not the Immortal One, I know that for a fact. She's currently lurking on the V'Dan homeworld. I also know I'm going nowhere near her. She'd want to "help" me, and that would ruin the timestreams. I don't have to look for effects to know she'd muck everything up. And she wouldn't leave me alone once she found me.

Her and her silly notions of Fate; she doesn't yet have a clue what it really means...Not that I myself understand. I can only See it; grasping it isn't up to me. At least, not in this life...

So what is he? Could he be an AI? No...he couldn't be. For one, the vast majority were destroyed in the AI War. For another, the only intact survivors are the few remaining loyalist members, but they're mostly resting in shutdown mode in the Immortal One's Vault, waiting either for her next visit, for their turn at dusting and watching over her archives, or for the day when Humans are again willing to accept their help. For another...alive or not, truly sentient or merely programmed to think they are, I know I can see their movements in the timestreams. They may not have souls and thus may not be alive, but they are there in the waters. Visible. Meyun Harper is an invisible fish, not a visible one.

Unless...could he be a Feyori? They are hard to track. They are living energy beings, capable of s.h.i.+elding themselves from all sorts of detection methods, physical and psychic. But I should be able to sense him anyway. I can most of the other Meddlers, particularly this close to one.

For that matter, why would a Meddler want to go into the TUPSF-Navy? The one I met back at Camp Nallibong, "Dr. Silverstone"...well, okay, it could be ruled in the Great Game that the Navy and the Marine Corps are two different areas of influence. Especially since the doctor is outside the direct chain of command...They also could be faction members. Or they could be counterfaction, and Harper is making a move against the plans being laid by Silverstone...She winced and lifted a hand, rubbing at her forehead. Ugh, trying to keep up with the Feyori mind-set is a headache.

Of course, this is all just speculation. Even the most paranoid Feyori can still be seen by me in the distant waters of the timeplains. It's when they get up close that their efforts at cloaking their movements work best. Invisible fish in the local pond, and all that. But...not Harper. Why can't I predict him?

She didn't like things she couldn't predict. They were dangerous. Any anomaly in Time could derail her efforts to save the future. Yet it was hard to dislike Harper himself. Twisting onto her right side, Ia stared at the shades of grey making up the shapes of his bed. He's nice, polite, intelligent, thoughtful, has a good sense of humor, isn't overblown, or over the top, or overly full of himself. I find his company quite tolerable. It's not like he's a monster, or is breaking any laws that I know of. I just...cannot...foresee him. Or even past-see him.