Free Passage at Arms by Glen Cook

“What would happen if you threw the whole thing in reverse?”
    “Reverse?”
    “Sure. Sucked power out of the torus. Right out of the fabric of the universe.”
    The man has no sense of humor. He fires up Engineering’s main computer and begins pecking out questions.
    “I wasn’t serious. I was joking. For God’s sake, I don’t want to know. Tell me more about altitude.”
    Altitude is important. I know that from my pre-reading. Altitude helps determine how difficult a Climber is to detect. The higher she goes, the smaller her “shadow” or “cross section.”
    Enter the rabbit. His name is Lieutenant Varese, the Engineering Officer. He indicates that Diekereide is late for a very important date and takes over the explaining. He has a whole different style.
    Our paths have never crossed before, in this life or any other. Still, Varese has decided he isn’t going to like me. He sends a clear message. It won’t help even if I save his life. Diekereide, on the other hand, will remain my comrade and champion simply because I nod and “Uh-huh” in the right places during his monologues.
    Varcse’s unflattering estimate of my mental capacity is nearer the mark than his assistant’s. He gives me a quick PR handout of a lecture.
    He says the Effect, by which he means the Climb phenomenon, was first detected aboard overpowered singleships of the unsyncopated rotary-drive type. “The Mark Twelve fusion drive?” I ask brightly.
    One sharp nod. “Without governor or Fleet synchronization.” Scowl. Fool. You can’t buy into the club that easily.
    Pilots claimed that sudden, massive applications of power caused their drives to behave strangely, as if stalling, if you think in internal combustion terms, or temporarily flaming out, if you favor jets. Something was going on. External sensors recorded brief lapses of contact with hyper, without making concomitant brushes with norm.
    Those reports came out of the first few actions of the war. The problem didn’t arise earlier because in peacetime the vessels weren’t subjected to such vicious treatment. There were apparent psychological effects, too. The affected pilots claimed that their surroundings became “ghostly.”
    Physicists immediately posited the existence of a state wherein fusion couldn’t take place. The overexcited pilot would jam himself into null, his drive would cease fusing hydrogen, his ship would fall back...
    Frenetic research produced the mass annihilation plant. Contra-terrene hydrogen, mixing with terrene in controlled amounts, can bang out one hell of a lot of energy in any reality state.
    Demand produced a CT technology almost overnight. The first combat Climber went on patrol thirteen months after the discovery of the Climb phenomenon.
    End of PR statement. Thank you very much for your kind interest. Now will you please go away? We’re very busy down here.
    Varese doesn’t use those exact words but makes his meaning perfectly clear. I don’t think I’m going to like him much, either.
    My second hour aboard. I’ve learned a valuable lesson about serving in the Climbers. Don’t try to meet everybody and see everything right away. I’ve made myself odd man out in the hammock race.
    I returned to Ops figuring I’d take whatever was left over, once everything was settled down. There isn’t anything. The enlisted men are eyeing me. I don’t know if it’s apprehension they feel, or if my response will give them some measure of me as a man.
    This ship has no Officers’ Country. No Petty Officers’ Quarters. No Chiefs’ Quarters. The wardroom is a meter-long drop table in Ship’s Services. It doubles as a cook’s bench and ironing board. Everything has its round-the-clock use.
    I work my way through Weapons without finding a home. Feeling foolish, I’m working my way through Ship’s Services, to continuous polite negatives, when I notice Bradley watching. “Charlie, this scow is too damned egalitarian.”
    “I saw your problem