Grounded!

by Claremont, Chris

  “Yes, sir,” she said, because there was nothing else to say.

  He nodded. “Your vitals are all logged in off your CardEx. I wish I could say this’ll be easy. I’m afraid, probably anything but. And it is not an altogether good thing to have an officer with such critical responsibilities be the subject of a psychological decertification. Matter of fact, in the State Department’s eyes, that was a major strike against you.

  “But the Hal spoke quite emphatically on your behalf. That made a difference, their being prepared to accept the risk.

  “And of course,” he said with a half smile, “there’s the fact that there’s no one else to turn to.

  “You’ll have to initialize the door and the interior systems. Gear’s already inside, anything else you need, log it into the housekeeping systems. You can have tomorrow to get organized, day after I want you on the line, interfacing with the XSR team.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Watch your ass, Lieutenant. I got too many friends on Hotshots’s wall already.”

  “Do my best, sir. Thanks for caring.”

  “Comes with the territory. Oh, one more thing”—this as he turned to go—“the Halyan’t’a... ”

  “Yessir?”

  “They’ll be here Friday.”

  * * *

  three

  “Shit!”

  You’d think, as she hunched on the edge of the bed, contemplating the ruin of yet another pair, after all this time, someone, somewhere, would be able to design stockings that wouldn’t bloody run!

  And she hated the “Powers-That-Be” for allowing men slacks and socks while mandating that women, especially in formal situations, wear skirts and hose. It was one of the things she’d never gotten used to, try as she had ever since high school, when she’d discovered that there really were places and occasions where pants simply were not permissible for Proper Young Ladies. Didn’t matter to her that there were male officers who hated this just as much; uncomfortable as they might feel, it was still infinitely harder for them to do fatal damage to their wardrobe simply through the act of getting dressed. Adding insult to injury, the sons of bitches didn’t have to wear makeup.

  She put her forehead on her hands, tried a couple of slow, deep breaths, then relaxed the rest of the way, stretching her torso along the length of her thighs, trying not to look at the dark blue fabric clutched in one fist. She hadn’t even gotten the damn things on, she’d been gently snaking a hand down the inside to open them up when she’d somehow snagged a nail and come up with a beaut of a run. That was one of the things she loved about the Moon; the farther out you went from Earth, the less “Mickey Mouse” you had to deal with. Uniforms—casual and dress—were a blend of comfort and functionality; yes, looking your best meant conforming to an arbitrary standard, but there it seemed a somehow saner and more livable one.

  This is silly, she told herself, it’s only one party, one night, stop acting like an effing baby!

  She tossed the pantyhose towards the bedroom trash, decided she needed a drink before trying again. Strange feeling, having a house, pretty much unheard of for a single officer—especially one as junior as she—pretty small compared to her parents’ places, but more raw space than she’d ever had in the military. Certainly more than she felt she needed. Two bedrooms, a living room, combo dining room/kitchen, bath and a half, the lap of luxury. Halyan’t’a had a bigger one, with two levels, but there were more of them.

  In her underwear, Nicole padded over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of seltzer. Shadows were long outside, day was officially over, a glance towards the clock told her she had barely an hour before transport was due to pick up her and her Alien charges. She wondered how they were doing, whether the Hal went through such hell for their equivalent of tonight’s reception. Smiled as she imagined what the primary delegation must be facing in New York.

  “Main video,” she announced, returning to the living room, “please replay Halyan’t’a arrival.” And the display wall did precisely that, first generating a spectacular panorama of the morning sky from one of the interceptors sent aloft to escort the shuttle down the Edwards range. A data overlay in the bottom right corner informed her of the time, position, and altitude of the camera aircraft. That early in the morning, over a hundred thousand feet, the curve of the Earth was clearly visible, sweeping from bright sun in the east past the terminator and on into predawn shadow, out over the Pacific. The sked called for a midmorning touchdown; that way, the sunrise winds would have died down but the air itself would still be on the cool side, allowing for more effective maneuvering. This would be a gliding descent, same as with the original generations of NASA shuttles—before the shift over to hydrogen-fueled, suborbital RamScoops—and no one, on either side, wanted to see it end in a crash.

  Long-range lenses caught the Halyan’t’a craft first, computer-generated graphics isolating and enhancing the image until it filled the huge screen. At that extreme distance and the speed it was traveling, still wreathed in its corona of atmospheric friction, it was difficult to make out any details; even so, Nicole’s heart leapt at the sight. Same as it had two years ago, when she’d seen Hana Murai’s pictures of Range Guide, the Halyan’t’a starship. Which reminded her...

  “Secondary window, please,” she asked, and the house computer complied, sectioning off a nonessential segment of the wall and displaying a blank data field. “Mail, personal.”

  Two entries in the buffer. Ben Ciari’s letter, as always, was in Halyan’t’a, “to help my own fluency as much as yours,” he’d written that first time—and she had to smile as she imagined the wicked glint in his eyes while he did it, the rank, unregenerate bastard. Hana used English, but scrambled and encrypted in a computer-keyed, multilevel transposition algorithm that she assured Nicole was virtually unbreakable. While Nicole had been in the hospital, recovering from the injuries she’d suffered in that last battle with the Raiders, there’d been a couple of attempts to get into her personal files. Hana was gifted, borderline brilliant, and her deep-space long hauls served to hone those talents to an ever-keener edge; she gleefully determined to deny the intruders access and thereby guarantee her friend’s privacy. Nicole couldn’t help having doubts. The hackers—whoever they were—had to be top-notch just to penetrate the Da Vinci Net; among that class, the greater the challenge, the more fiercely determined the response.

  She asked for Hana’s letter. One had come every week since Hana’s departure on a nine-month research mission—Nicole herself hadn’t been anywhere near as conscientious in her replies, she’d always found it hard to set her thoughts down on paper for someone else—but Nicole hadn’t scanned any in over two months. On the Moon, she’d been too busy preparing for, and then taking, her Recertification Exams, always figuring she’d get to them in a lump when she was done. After she’d been grounded, she simply hadn’t felt like it, retreating into a shell for the flight home and the three weeks following, spent on Nantucket waiting for her new orders to come through. The last few days at Edwards had been her first chance to catch up.

  Opening grin from Hana brought one in return from Nicole. And as always, the other woman’s striking beauty made Nicole feel like her Baron next to the Hal shuttle. Attractive in her own way but built more for strength and sturdiness, versus a machine that was as much a work of art.

  Hana’s height and crystal-blue eyes she got from her grandfather, a man-mountain Minneapolis Swede who, as Hana had told Nicole when they first met, “swept my gran off her feet like a tsunami.” Trans-Pacific—like many these days—born in Japan but with major family across the water in the States, educated in both countries, able to slip with ease from one culture to the other. She had a couple of centimeters on Nicole, cut from the same long and lean mold, yet Nicole always felt Hana was the finished product, where Nicole herself was more the rough-hewn outline, with a delicacy of feature and grace of movement Nicole could only envy. Nicole had been a fighter from the moment she could make her body do w
hat she wanted, if not with her schoolmates than with the elements, at sea or in the air. Problem was, that left its mark.

  Hana’s hair was black—on the rare occasions when she wore it natural—close-cropped from the necessity in deep space of being able to quickly don a pressure suit; anything beyond collar length presented too great a risk of fouling the helmet seal. She’d taken to slicking it straight back from her face and forehead, fitting the line of her head like a gleaming skullcap.

  Nicole’s—a deep autumnal russet that appeared more like black with flaming highlights—was a brush-cut barely two centimeters long, which served to focus the eye on the strong, definitive planes of her own face. She wasn’t beautiful—in a classic or contemporary sense—but she could be striking and was always memorable. People had the sense looking at her that she was one of a kind.

  She’d known from the start she and Hana were virtually the same size—to the extent that they could even switch custom-fitted pressure suits—and when they moved in together they spent a memorable evening, surrounded by the day’s leftover chaos, working their way through each other’s wardrobe, comments and stories flying over glasses of wine that never had a chance to stay empty, horrorshows from their past that left both women gasping with laughter. Nicole was as predictable as Hana was adventurous, she’d decided years ago what made her look good and felt no need to stroll further afield. Hana set out to change that perception with a vengeance, producing outfits that left Nicole stunned, even before she found herself trying them on. And discovered a side of herself she’d never suspected—or, as Hana sagely noted, either three or four bottles along into the evening, had been busy denying—which she had to admit was pretty damn impressively spectacular. Knowing she’d never have the courage to try it sober and in public.

  On the master screen, the Halyan’t’a shuttle was taking a long slow turn leftward off base leg, lining up for the final stage of its descent to Edwards. All sleek, smooth curves, moving with breathtakingly natural grace through the air, as much a part of it as any bird. Touching down without a bump, right on the mark, rolling swiftly and smoothly to a stop.

  Alarm chimed. “Nicole,” the house said in its neutral voice, “you now have a half hour to finish dressing.”

  “Fine,” she said, “thanks.” Sighed, eyes blinking away from the wall, around the room lit solely by the giant screen. “Thirty percent interior illumination, please, and can the video. Hold mail in the buffer, full security.” The house computer obligingly blanked the wall, while activating the lights to the level of twilight. More than enough for her to see, without being blindingly bright.

  She managed to get her tights on successfully this time, half-slip over that, then a starched white dress shirt with a stand-up collar and French cuffs. Getting her skirt on was no problem, walking was the bitch.

  The latest uniform aesthetic called for the establishment of a “sleek, aerodynamic silhouette”—a nightmare concept even if you happened to be built like a jet—that hugged the figure all the way down. Which for women meant a pencil skirt that allowed at best a half-meter stride. The jacket was derived from English Edwardian-era dress uniforms: broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, accented by discrete frogs and flourishes, the cut of the heavy material locking her into a fully erect posture. Like it or not, she would spend the evening at perpetual attention. She had to admit, it looked spectacular, especially in cobalt black-blue. If she were a mannequin, she’d be in Heaven. Breathing, she could manage. Even moving, within limits. Bending over—she made a rude noise. The only consolation being that every other officer present would be in equivalent torment. Designed, she felt sure, by someone who’d never had to wear his creations. Amazing, she thought as she cast about for her shoes, how the more unproductive and redundant a service starts to feel, the more extravagant its uniforms. The contrast between where she’d been and where she was—the Air Force of the future versus the Air Force of the past—couldn’t, in her own mind, be more marked.

  The wings on her left breast only added insult to injury, those of a pilot-astronaut: the supreme irony being that she’d won them, not on her first orbital mission for NASA, but here at Edwards, aboard the XSR-S, when she and Harry Macon topped sixty miles, clearing fifty being the necessary requirement. And underneath, hanging from a scarlet and silver ribbon, a silver cross with a flaming golden sun at its intersection. The Solar Cross, highest award given by Space Command, save for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Only six others like it. Didn’t make her feel proud, more like she was wearing a brand.

  “Medals,” Judith Canfield had said, “are won. These”—and the General had tapped the Command Astronaut wings on her own tunic—“are earned.”

  Any fool could be a hero. Nicole wanted to fly.

  At five to seven, she strode up the path to the house next door, doing better on the concrete walk than she had a few meters earlier on a stretch that was still gravel, wishing with all her heart for the chance to take the person responsible for high heels up for a joy ride the sad, sorry son of a bitch would never forget.

  The door opened as she reached it.

  “Welcome,” the Halyan’t’a Speaker said, standing a step aside to usher her in.

  But she paused in the doorway, steepling her hands before her, breast high—almost in an attitude of prayer, except that only the fingertips touched—and offering a small bow, the slightest of inclinations forward, more with the head than the body, a deliberately awkward stance that left her momentarily vulnerable.

  “R’ch’ai,” was the ritual response, a husky noise from the base of the throat with the barest hint of a growl, one equal’s greeting to another—in the oldest days, this was between warriors—a statement of trust. By entering into your habitat, I do you honor by placing my life in your care.

  The Hal let Nicole see the barest flash of a smile before holding out his own hands, palms upward, with a bow of his own, accepting both life and trust.

  She completed the exchange by lightly touching her palms to his, her fingertips brushing the inside of his wrists just as his did hers. Mattered more on his part, since his nails—legacies of an overtly predatory past—were capable of tearing through flesh with frightening ease.

  “I am Kymri,” he said as they stepped through the foyer to the living room beyond. “Tscadi and Matai will be with us”—paused a moment, scanning for the right word—“directly?”

  “I’m... ”

  “Shea,” he said. And as if responding to a cue, her holographic image materialized in the center of the room, projected upward from a small globular crystal on the coffee table. A computer-generated voice began speaking Halyan’t’a and scanlines of written data appeared beside the figure, automatically orienting in their direction. Kymri snarled and the image popped like a soap bubble.

  “Apologies,” he said. “That was not supposed to happen.”

  “A fair likeness,” she said conversationally, masking an almost-irresistible desire to find out how much they had on her, wondering irrationally if any had come from Ciari.

  “It does not do you”—again that flash-search for a word—“justice. I would crossload the crystal into your data bank, but our computer systems are fundamentally incompatible.”

  “I know,” remembering a yelp of surprise the first, and only, time aboard Range Guide they’d tried interfacing a NASA PortaComp with the Halyan’t’a Core. Damn thing had nearly blown up in her hand, hadn’t even been aware she’d moved until she slammed into the opposite wall, having reflex-kicked herself backward through the zero-G air. Watching in amazement as what was left of the tiny computer floated after her, reduced by the overload surge to so much high-tech slag. “I believe that’s one of the problems we’re all here to address.”

  “You are welcome to access it on any occasion.”

  “It isn’t necessary. I suppose you have a briefing file on everyone you’re likely to meet here.”

  “Your Seniors were courteous enough to provide us with an appropriate or
ientation network. A great many names and likenesses, but precious little meat on the bone.”

  “The Video Wall can interface you with just about any network on the planet. Or off, for that matter, within limits. You’d be amazed at what you can pick up from the public links. And, of course, you’re cleared into certain classified systems. Pardon my asking, but have we met before? There’s something about your pattern... ”

  The most fundamental way to tell people apart is by skin color; then there’s the shade and texture of the hair—in a man’s case, whether he has any or not—and, finally, the actual features themselves.

  That held with surprising similarity for the Halyan’t’a as well. Their bodies—on the whole a head shorter than Terrestrial norms—were covered with a fine down that faded towards the extremities, leaving most of the hands and feet bare. Hair was much thicker, forming a natural pompadour—almost like a leonine mane—that Kymri, being a spacer, wore as short as Nicole did her own. The fur came in a staggering diversity of colors, though Nicole had come to realize from Ciari’s tapes that they derived from roughly a half-dozen primaries. And that, as with humankind, each “race” had physical traits in common. Broader cheeks for one, a leaner look for another. But there was another element as well, a natural patterning that occurred in the fur—so that you might have someone whose basic coloration was gold, highlighted perhaps by streaks of bronze flaring down the back and out around the rib cage. Some Halyan’t’a took this a step further, by adding designs of their own, in much the same way a Terran might have themselves tattooed.

  Kymri was mostly bronze, his supplementary markings unusually subtle. The surprise for Nicole—what struck the chord in her memory—were his eyes, a deep gold-flecked blue that reminded her of Hana.