The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Thank you.” He turned to the tech before leaving.

  “You’re welcome, ser.”

  Did he hear a note of sadness in her voice? Resignation?

  He checked the time through the implant—1320, more than enough time before his simulator session for him to stop by the library and work out the references he needed to complete the problems that Commander Eschbech had dumped on the engineering class.

  Why weren’t there hookups in their rooms? All it took was cabling and inexpensive, or relatively inexpensive, hardware. Trystin rubbed his forehead. In a way, it didn’t make sense. Yet, so far, everything that the Service did had a reason, not always a reason Trystin accepted, but a reason. Was it too expensive? Or old habit? He pursed his lips. That question would wait for later. He still had to figure out a series of problems on superconductivity lines and translation engines.

  The workstations at the south end of the library were all vacant except for two—one in each comer. Trystin did not recognize either officer in the room. He took the console in the middle, easing his gear bag as far under the shelf that held the console as it would go, and toggling the screen controls before realizing that he could again use his implant.

  The implant link-connect was soft, almost flat, but faster than he recalled as he called up the engineering index and began to race through the superconductivity entries.

  As usual, none were exactly what he needed, and he wondered if Commander Eschbech designed his assignments just that way so that they always required four different references, interpolations, calculations, and sometimes just plain guesswork.

  How was he supposed to come up with the specifications of a ceramic-carbon-helix design for a supercon line designed to handle a translation engine with a thousandlight-year limit on optimality? And why? Trystin took a deep breath.

  After completing three of the problems, Trystin rubbed his forehead. The noise of the implant still bothered him, enough that he had a slight headache.

  “Good luck this afternoon,” said a soft voice.

  Trystin looked up at the round face of Constanzia Aloysia, who had cut her hair so short that the frizziness almost did not show.

  “Thank you.” He looked at her again. “Why?”

  “I saw the assignments board.”

  “Not Commander Mitchelson?”

  “Not that bad.” She smiled. “Commander Kurbiachi.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” She looked at the few notes he had scrawled on his pad and at the screen that showed his engineering work to date. “You do those problems? He said that they were optional.”

  “If I don’t do it all, I get in trouble.”

  Lieutenant Aloysia shook her head, then brushed something off the sleeve of her shipsuit. “I thought you wouldn’t want to be surprised.”

  “Thank you.” Trystin tried to put more warmth into his voice.

  “That’s all right. I’ll see you in Engineering.”

  As Constanzia left the study area, Trystin checked the time. Although he hadn’t finished the last problem and couldn’t figure out how to set it up, he was out of time. He gathered his gear and downlinked from the library system. He hurried out, but no one looked up.

  After bounding down the ramps at a speed less than dignified, Trystin stepped up to the assignments board in the square foyer off the south end of the simulator bay. A name in glowing letters appeared next to his—that of Commander Kurbiachi. He moistened his lips. So far he had been lucky enough to avoid the commander, although the rumor was that he was fine in class, all right in the simulator, and murder in actual corvette trainers. Trystin headed down the corridor toward briefing room three B, the heels of his boots whispering across the textured plastic floor sealant.

  Although his steps had always been heavy—Salya had claimed the Academy knew when Trystin left the house—the half-gee field in the station kept even Trystin from sounding like a reclamation tractor.

  In the briefing room, Commander Kurbiachi was waiting, his informal greens crisp, his face smooth and unlined.

  “Lieutenant Desoll, ser.”

  “Sit down, Lieutenant.” The commander handed Trystin the worn briefing packet, but did not sit as Trystin eased into the scratched gray plastic chair. “You have just had your implant reactivated—is that not correct?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Kurbiachi nodded. “In this session, you will be doing a standard recon run, through the Jerush system, looking for a rev drone or scout. The parameters are as accurate and as up-to-date as we can make them. In fact, this session is modeled after such a run. Yes, we do infiltrate rev systems, and they occasionally infiltrate ours. Space is quite large, remember.”

  In turn, Trystin nodded, trying to look alert, despite the distractions provided by the increased noise of his “improved” implant.

  “This session is a review, Lieutenant, for very good reasons. First, you are going to have difficulty in adjusting to the greater data flow from your implant. You will be confused and trying to use both manual and implant input to control the corvette, and you may have difficulty learning how to tone back on your increased sensitivity. You can do that, you know, but it takes work and practice, and we haven’t given you enough of that yet. Finally, the readouts and data flows will all be speeded up so that you experience the full impact of operating under dilation effect.”

  The commander half turned and took several steps toward the door, hands behind his back, before turning and walking back toward Trystin. “This simulator session is usually the most difficult for all pilots, Lieutenant,” said Commander Kurbiachi. “That will not be because there is anything new, however.”

  “Yes, ser.” Trystin nodded.

  “As I said, most pilots have great difficulty handling the volume of the data flows through the implant. I must remind you that for the next several sessions, you will only be receiving the tactical and basic-maintenance data. The actual mission is merely a flight from the Jerush Oort area on a recon runby. You will probably encounter rev patrollers, since they do investigate any EDI tracks within their system, as do we.

  “Unlike most simulator sessions, on this one you may take as long as you wish on your setup. I would recommend that you do so.” Kurbiachi nodded and bowed ever so slightly.

  “Thank you, ser.” Trystin bent and picked up his gear bag and followed Kurbiachi out into the simulator bay and the smell of plastic, ozone … and tension.

  Kurbiachi merely nodded at simulator six, and Trystin climbed the ladder easily. When he opened the simulator hatch, Trystin staggered, feeling the same overpowering flow of data that he had sensed in entering the cockpit of the Roosveldt. The signal intensity was lower, no doubt on purpose, and the amount of data flowing through the implant was less, but Trystin still felt as though the entire Maran Defense Net were attempting to take up residence in his skull—and what he experienced wasn’t even the full scope of what was supposed to be routine for a pilot officer. He glanced at the empty noncom couch. He didn’t even have to deal with the technical data that would normally be going through the tech boards.

  He wiped his forehead. Kurbiachi had said he could take as much time as he needed.

  First, he checked the hatch and the air system before sealing the cockpit and stowing his gear in the locker. Then he strapped in and began the checklist, fumbling because he was used to the manual toggles and studs, and not his implant.

  “Precheck,” he instructed the system through the implant.

  “Full or abbreviated?” came the system query.

  “Full.”

  Trystin was deliberate, his directions through the implant considered and precisely triggered as he tried to get a more complete feel, although every rush of data seemed to bring another sweat to his body. His entire shipsuit felt soaked long before he signaled for switchover from “station” power to “ship” power. Just as in the Roosveldt, the moment of weightlessness twisted his guts before the halfgrav of pseudoship-nor
m reasserted itself in the simulator cockpit.

  “Coldrock one, station control. You are cleared for low-thrust separation … .”

  “Beginning separation.” Trystin demagnetized the holdtights, and, as Kurbiachi had predicted, found both his hands and implant toggling the repeller field. The screens twisted, indicating somehow Trystin had managed to separate at an angle and with a tumbling motion. With ship gravity centered in the hull, he didn’t feel the tumbling, but the screen inputs and the data net confirmed his clumsiness.

  Slowly he pulsed the field until he had the “corvette” on course line and stable. Theoretically, he could have tumbled for a long time without too much damage, before the oscillations created by the conflict between the minute but real solar and planetary fields began to build. But the inputs from the net would have given him a headache, and Kurbiachi definitely would have fried him for overstressing the simulator.

  Don’t think like it’s a simulator, he told himself as he confirmed the thrust and course line. Think like it’s a corvette. It is a corvette.

  “Dust density is point zero six and rising,” scripted the message from the exterior monitors.

  Trystin inched up the shield power, noting the increased heat in the accumulators, then recalculated his path, trying for an arc above the dust line that generally centered in the ecliptic.

  “Outside system parameters.”

  He tried again.

  “Will require one hundred ten percent of system power.”

  While he could get the power from an accumulator dump, that wasn’t a good idea, and he recomputed with lower thrust, knowing that the lower thrust would drag out the elapsed time.

  “Dust density point zero five and dropping.”

  As he recomputed again, Trystin smiled grimly, through the headache that was steadily worsening. It was going to be a long session/mission.

  24

  After adjusting the arm units to near-maximum resistance, Trystin stepped up on the inclined treadmill and began to jog, pumping his arms rhythmically against the resistance units.

  Each minute ticked by slowly, ever so slowly, in the one point one gee section of the workout facility that he usually seemed to have to himself. After less than twenty minutes, his legs felt like lead, but he kept jogging. At forty minutes, his arms felt like they were ready to cramp into inert lead.

  He slowed the machine to a quick walk an hour after he had started, and to a slower walk after another ten minutes. His exercise shirt and shorts were drenched, but there was no point in taking a shower—not yet, not until he cooled down more.

  After walking slowly for another five minutes, he stepped off the equipment and into the reading-room section of the workout facility where there were four consoles, all of which seemed almost new. He pulled the sturdy chair over to the end console, the one closest to the overhead ventilator. If student pilots couldn’t get enough time to exercise, the guidelines recommended as much time as possible in the higher-gee environment. Trystin tried to do both as much as possible. Unlike some student pilots, he had no trouble sleeping. Waking up, yes, but not sleeping.

  He flipped the power switch, absently using the small towel to blot his forehead as he used the implant to interface with the station library. He began his daily search through the maintenance manuals to see what else he could find to follow up on the hints he had picked up from various instructors. All of them seemed so straightforward, but none of them were. Commander Folsom’s suggestions about detecting accumulator problems had led him through reference after reference, and more than a few talks with senior noncoms, most of whom had just said something like, “I really can’t say as there’s any specific thing, ser. It’s a feeling you get with experience.”

  Trystin didn’t have the experience, and by the time he got it, it might be too late, and that had led to his ongoing search of engineering and maintenance manuals. Between Commander Folsom and Commander Eschbech, it seemed as though he’d read every engineering reference in the system, and he still couldn’t answer half the questions they asked.

  He wiped his forehead and took another deep breath.

  As he began to cool down, he wiped his forehead again before going back to the material on the screen. Then he glanced up and, through the glass, saw a trim but muscular figure in an exercise suit begin a warm-up routine in the next room. The woman’s back was to him, but she looked somehow familiar. After a minute or so, since her face was away from Trystin and he couldn’t figure out who it might be, he went back to the net and the library.

  The engineering manual indicated that minute power surges often foreshadowed accumulator failure, but unless he installed a recording monitoring system on every ship how would that knowledge help? He needed a clue that was visual. What did power fluctuations affect? He couldn’t find anything on that, but that led him down the line of tracking power flows—

  “Exercising in the sitting position, Lieutenant?” asked Ulteena Freyer, sweat pouring down her forehead as she walked into the reading room.

  “I already spent an hour on the treadmill and weights,” Trystin snapped.

  “Touchy, aren’t you?”

  “Major, I apologize for any offense I may have caused. Certainly, none was intended. I may have been somewhat preoccupied with my work.”

  “You are touchy.”

  Trystin repressed a sigh and offered a smile. “Only when I’m tired.”

  “I’m sorry, Trystin. I spoke out of turn. The other day I came in here and found every console taken, but not a one of them had even raised a sweat.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “What are you working on?” Ulteena took the console closest to the door.

  “Engineering … sort of. Stuff on accumulators.”

  “Hmmmm … is that new? I don’t recall much on them.” She wiped her forehead with the small towel taken from the waistband of her exercise shorts. Like Trystin had been, she was soaked in sweat.

  “Something that an instructor suggested I check out …” Trystin admitted. “I’ve been sandwiching it in.”

  “Then it’s either Kurbiachi or Folsom.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her forearm.

  “Folsom.”

  “That figures. He’s a translation engineer. Kurbiachi gets you with sensors and nav equipment.”

  “I seem to have had them both.”

  “You’re fortunate.” She laughed, and the sound was actually musical. “That’s assuming you survive.”

  “Right.”

  “You will, and you’ll probably appreciate them later.”

  “I keep trying to hold that in mind. It doesn’t always help, since they’re always coming up with something else.”

  Ulteena laughed softly. “That’s the problem with all of us. We’ve never time to think about the past, and we’re always planning for the future. And since the future’s always the future, we never live in the present.”

  Trystin paused. He’d never thought of Ulteena as philosophical. “I hadn’t thought of it quite that way.” “Try it. You still have to prepare for what will happen, but it might help.” Ulteena wiped her forehead. “If you’ll pardon me, I do have to do some of that preparation myself.”

  “Of course.” Trystin nodded as she turned to the console. He looked at her back for a moment, then wondered why he bothered. While she was friendly enough, sometimes surprisingly warm, they were headed for different ships, perhaps totally different parts of the Coalition.

  Never live in the present … don’t have time to remember the past … planning for the future … her words swirled in his mind. Then he wanted to laugh as he looked down. He didn’t really have time to consider what she’d said—not if he wanted to avoid having Folsom and Kurbiachi or Commander Eschbech all over him.

  Did the Service design it so no one had time to think, really think? He still hadn’t found time to finish reading the handouts on Revenant theology, perhaps because he kept getting hung up on the whole question of why anyone
would believe a prophet without any real physical evidence of a god.

  He shrugged and flicked his console from accumulators to translation subsystems.

  25

  Trystin checked his armor and the seals on the helmet again, holding on to the railing inside the access tube. The short figure in armor arrowed down the tube toward him in the streaking bound that those experienced in min-gee affected. He caught the subcommander’s insignia—not that any of the instructors were less than subcommanders with at least two complete ship tours—and the dark hair before he saw the woman’s name—duVaiya.

  “You’re Lieutenant Desoll?” She braked easily and stared at him, dark eyes matching dark hair, a face regular enough to be attractive, except for the penetrating intensity of the eyes. Why did all the attractive women have such perceptive eyes? Or was he only attracted to perceptive women?

  “Yes, ser.”

  “We’ve got number ten, Lieutenant. Armor ready?”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “We’ll do the preflight first, and then I’ll brief you after you’ve had a chance to familiarize yourself with the feel of the systems.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Some pilots feel that you don’t need to preflight the outside of a corvette, especially if you’re the only one piloting it, every flight. That’s probably true. On the average, what can happen in space? Then again, it’s your life, and a half hour of time. Do you want to gamble your life against half a standard hour, especially when your translation error can run days?”

  The subcommander’s logic was sound, but all those half hours added up, and pretty soon they amounted to days, and he wouldn’t always have days.

  “Now, I know that all the little safety edges can add up, and there will be times that you feel you just don’t have the time …”

  Trystin repressed a groan. Did all of them read minds?