by neetha Napew
But Aygar subsided, asking no more in that difficult area. What he did ask about—and what Lunzie was prepared to answer cheerfully—was the psychological testing procedure that Major Currald, the marine commander, had recommended to him.
“It’s a good idea,” Lunzie said, nodding. “My field at one time was occupational rehab. With my experience, they felt I understood troubled spaceworkers better than most. And quite often the root of the problem is that someone’s stuck in a job for which they’re not suited. They feel trapped—and if they’re on a spaceship or station, in a way they are trapped—and that makes for trouble when anything else goes wrong.”
Aygar frowned thoughtfully. “But we were taught that we should not be too narrow—that we should learn to do many things, have many skills. That part of the trouble between heavyworlders and lightweights came from too much specialization.”
“Yes, that can be true. Humans are generalists, and are healthier when they have varied activities. But their primary occupation should draw on innate abilities, should not require them to do what is hardest for them. Some individuals are naturally better at sit-down jobs, or with very definite routines to follow. Others can learn new things easily, but quickly become bored with routines. That’s not the person you want running the ‘ponies system, which needs the same routine servicing shift after shift.”
“But what about me?” Aygar thumped his chest. “Will I fit in, or be a freak? I’m big and strong, but not as strong as Currald. I’m smart enough, you said, but I don’t have the educational background, and I don’t have any idea what’s available.”
Lunzie tried to project soothing confidence. “Aygar,
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with your background, both genetic and experiential, I’m sure you’ll find—or make—a good niche for yourself. When we get to Sector Headquarters, you’ll have direct access to various library databases, as well as testing and counseling services of FSP. I’ll be glad to advise you, if you want ...” She paused, assessing his expression.
His slow smile made her wonder if this was her idea or his. “I would like that. I will hope you are right.” He stood up, still smiling down at her.
“Are you leaving? I thought you wanted to talk to the captain.”
“Another time. If you are my ally, I will not worry about her.”
With that he was gone. Lunzie stared after him. Ally? She was not at all sure she wanted Aygar for an ally, in whatever sense he meant it. He might be more trouble that way.
Sassinak returned shortly from the bridge, listened to Lunzie’s report on Aygar’s visit, and nodded.
“You put exactly the bee in his ear that I wanted. Good for you.”
“But he said ally ...”
“And I say fine. Better for us, better for what we want to do. Look, Lunzie, he’s got the best possible reason for stirring around in the databases: he’s entitled. His curiosity is natural. We said that.” Sassinak put in a call to the galley for a snack, and started to say more, but her com buzzed. She turned to it- “Sassinak here.”
“Ford. May I come in? I’ve had an idea.”
“Come ahead.”
Sassinak punched the door control and it slid aside. Ford gave Lunzie the same charming smile and nod as always, and lifted an eyebrow.
“You know you can speak in front of her,” Sassinak told him. “She’s my relative, and she’s on the team.”
“Did I ever tell you about Auntie Q?”
Sassinak frowned. “Not that I remember. Was that the one who paints birds on tiles?”
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“No, that’s Auntie Louise, my mother’s sister. This is Auntie Quesada, who is actually, in her right name, Quesada Maria Louisa Darrell Santon-Paraden.”
“Paraden!”
Sassinak and Lunzie tied on that one, and Sassinak glared at her Executive Officer in a way Lunzie hoped would never be directed at her.
“You never told me you were related to the Paradens,” she said severely.
“I’m not. Auntie Q is my father’s uncle’s wife’s sister, who married a Paraden the second time around, after her first husband died of—well, my mother always said it was an overdose of Auntie Q, administered daily in large amounts. My father always said it was gamboling debts, and I mean gambol,” he said, accenting the last syllable.
“Go on,” said Sassinak, a smile beginning to twitch in the corner of her mouth.
Ford settled one hip on her desk. “Auntie Q was considered a catch, even for a Paraden, because her first husband’s older brother was Felix Ibarra-Jimenez Santon. Yes, those Santons. Auntie Q inherited about half a planet of spicefields and a gold mine: literal gold mine. With an electronics manufacturing plant on top. Then in her own right, she was a Darrell of the Westwitch Darrells, who prefer to call their source of income ‘sanitary engineering products’ rather than soap, so she wouldn’t have starved if she’d run off with a mishi dancer.”
“So what about this Paraden?”
“Minor branch of the family, sent out to find an alliance worth the trouble; supposedly he met her at an ambassadorial function, ran her through the computer, and the family said yes, by all means. Auntie Q was tired of playing merry widow and looking for another steady escort so they linked. She gave him a child by decree—it was in the contract—but he was already looking for more excitement or freedom or whatever, and ran off with her dressmaker. So she claimed breach of contract, dumped the child on the Paradens, kept the name and half his stocks and such, and spends her
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time cruising from one social event to another. And sending the family messages.”
“Aha,” said Sassinak. “Now we come to it. She’s contacted you?”
“Well, no. Not recently. But she’s always sending messages, complaining about her health, and begging someone to visit her. My father warned me years ago not to go near her; said she’s like a black hole, just sucks you in and you’re never seen alive again. He had been taken to meet her once. Apparently she cooed over him, rumpled his hair, hugged him to her ample bosom, and talked him out of the chocolates in his pocket, all in about twenty seconds. But what I was thinking was that I could visit her. She knows all the gossip, all the socialites, and yet she’s not quite in the thick where they’d be watching her.”
Sassinak thought about that. Wouldn’t an efficient enemy know that Sassinak’s Exec was related to an apparently harmless old rich lady? But she herself hadn’t. Tliey couldn’t know everything.
“I’d planned to have you do the database searches at Sector HQ,” she said slowly. “You’re good at that, and less conspicuous than I am . .
Ford shook his head. “Not inconspicuous enough, not after this caper. But I know who can . . . either Lunzie here, or young Aygar.”
“Aygar?”
Ford ticked off reasons on his fingers. “One, he’s got the perfect reason to be running the bases: he’s new to the culture, and needs to learn as much as he can as fast as he can. Two, no one’s ever done a profile on him, so no one can say if any particular query is out of character. In that way, he’s better than Lunzie; anyone looking for trouble would notice if she ran queries outside her field or the events of her own life. Three, even an attempt at a profile would cover exactly those fields we want him to be working on anyway.”
“But is he trustworthy?” Lunzie asked it of Ford, as she had been about to ask it of Sassinak. Ford shrugged.
“What if he’s not? He needs us to get access, and keep it; he’s bright but he’s not experienced, and you
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know How long it took any of us to learn to navigate through one of the big databases. And we can put a tag on him; it’ll be natural that we do. We shouldn’t seem to trust him.”
Sassinak laughed. “I do like a second in command who thinks like I do. See, Lunzie? Two against one: both of us see why Aygar is ideal for that job.”
“But he’s expecting something more from us—from me, at least. If he doesn’t get it . .
; “Lunzie!” That was the command voice, the tone that made Sassinak no longer a distant relative but the captain of a Fleet cruiser on which Lunzie was merely a passenger. It softened slightly with the next words, but Lunzie could feel the steel underneath. “We aren’t going to do anything to hurt Aygar. We know he’s not involved in the plotting ... of all the citizens of the Federation, he’s one of the few who couldn’t be involved. So he’s not our enemy, not in any way whatever. Stopping the piracy will help everyone, including Aygar’s friends and relatives back on Ireta. Including Aygar. We are on his side, in that way, and by my judgment—which I must remind you is ten years more experienced than yours—by my judgment that is enough. We can handle Aygar; we have dangerous enemies facing all of us.”
Lunzie’s gaze wavered, falling away from Sassinak’s to see Ford as another of the same type. Calm, competent, certain of himself, and not about to change his mind a hairsbreadth for anything she said.
Chapter Two
Lunzie carried her small kit off the Zaid-Dayan, nodded to the parting salute of the officer on watch at the portside gangway, and did not look back as she crossed the line that marked ship’s territory on the Station decking. It was so damnably hard to leave family again, even such distant family. She had liked Sassinak, and the ship, and . . . she did not look back.
Ahead were none of the barriers she’d have faced coming in on a civilian ship. She had Sassinak’s personal authorization, giving her the temporary rank and access of a Fleet major, so exiting the Fleet segment required nothing but flashing the pass at the guard and walking on through. No questions to answer, no interviews with intrusive media.
Sassinak had made reservations for her on the first available shuttle to Liaka. Lunzie followed the directions she’d been given, in two rings and right one sector, and found herself in front of the ticketing office of Nilokis InLine. Lunzie’s name and Sassinak’s reservation together meant instant service. Before she realized it, Lunzie was settled in a quiet room with video-relay views of the Station and a mug of something hot and fragrant on the table beside her. A few meters
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away, another favored passenger barely glanced up from his portable computer before continuing his work. The padded chair curved around her like warm hands; her feet rested on deeply cushioned carpet.
She tried to relax. She had not lost Sassinak forever, she told herself firmly. She was not going to have a disaster on every spaceflight for the rest of her life, and if she did she would just survive it, the way she’d survived everything else. Her steaming mug drew her attention, and she remembered choosing erit from the list of beverages. One sip, then another, quieted her nerves and settled her stomach. Four hours to departure and nothing to do. She thought of going back out into the Station but it was easier to sit here and relax. That’s why she’d asked for erit. She closed her eyes, and let the steam clear her head. After all, if something happened this time, she’d know who’d come after her and with what vigor. Sassinak was not one to let someone muck about with her family, not now. Lunzie felt her mouth curving into a grin. Quite a girl, that Sassinak, even at her age.
She forced herself to concentrate, to think of the days she’d spent studying with Mayerd. With Sassinak’s authority behind her, she’d been able to catch up a lot of the lost ground in her field. She knew which journals were current, what to read first, which areas would require formal instruction. (She was not about to try the new methods of altering brain chemistry from a cookbook—not until she had seen a demonstration, at least.) Her mind wandered to the time she had available for gathering information and she pulled out her calculator to check elapsed and Standard times. If Sassinak was right about the probable trial date, in the Winter Assizes (and that was an archaic term, she thought), then she had to complete her refresher course in Discipline, whatever medical refreshers were required for recertifi-cation, get to Diplo, and back to Sassinak (or the information back to Sassinak) in a mere eight months.
Another passenger came into the lounge, and then a pair, absorbed in each other. Lunzie finished her drink and eyed them benignly. They all looked normal, busi-
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ness and professional travelers (except the couple, who looked like two junior executives off on vacation). The shuttle flew a three-cornered route, to Liaka first and then Bearnaise and then back here; Lunzie tried to guess who was going where, and how many less favored passengers were waiting in the common lounge (orange plastic benches along the walls, and a single drinking fountain).
Even with the erit, and her own Discipline, Lunzie spent the short hop to Liaka in miserable anxiety. Every change in sound, every minute shift of the ship’s gravity field, every new smell, brought her alert, ready for trouble. She slept lightly and woke unrested. On such short trips, less than five days, experienced passengers tended to keep to themselves. She was spared the need to pretend friendliness. She ate her standard packaged meals, nodded politely, and spent most of the time in her tiny cabin, claustrophobic as it was. Better that than the lounge, where the couple (definitely junior executives, and not likely to be promoted unless they grew up) displayed their affection as if it were a prizewinning performance, worth everyone’s attention.
When the shuttle docked, Lunzie had been waiting, ready to leave, for hours. She took her place in the line of debarking passengers, checking out her guesses about which were going where (the lovers were going to Bearnaise, of course), and shifting her weight from foot to foot. Over the bobbing heads she could see the Main Concourse, and tried to remember the quickest route to the Mountain.
“Ah . . . Lunzie Mespil.” The customs officer glanced at the screen in front of her, where Lunzie’s picture, palm-print, and retinal scan should be displayed. “There’s a message for you, ma’am. MedOps, Main Concourse, Blue Bay. Do you need a guide?”
“Not that far,” said Lunzie, smiling, and swung her bag over her shoulder. MedOps had a message? Just how old was that message, she wondered.
Main Concourse split incoming traffic into many diverging streams. Blue was fourth on the right, after two black (to Lunzie) and one violet section. The blacks
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were ultraviolet, distinguishable by alien races who could see in those spectra, and led to services those might require. Blue Bay opened off the concourse, all medical training services of one sort or another; MedOps centered the bay.
“Ah . . . Lunzie.” The tone was much the same, bemused discovery. Lunzie leaned on the counter and stared at the glossy-haired girl at the computer. “A message, ma’am. Will you take hardcopy, or would you prefer a P-booth?”
The girl’s eyes, when she looked up, were brown and guileless. Lunzie thought a moment. The option of a P-booth meant the message had come in as a voice or video, not info-only.
“P-booth,” she said, and the girl pointed to the row of cylinders along one side of the room. Lunzie went into the first, slid its translucent door shut, punched the controls for privacy, and then entered her ID codes. The screen blinked twice, lit, and displayed a fece she knew and had not seen for over forty years.
“Welcome back, Adept Lunzie.” His voice, as always, was low, controlled, compelling. His black eyes seemed to twinkle at her; his fece, seamed with age when she first met him, had not changed. Was this a recording from the past? Or could he still be here, alive?
“Venerable Master.” She took a long, controlling breath, and bent her head in formal greeting.
“You age well,” he said. The twinkle was definite now, and the slight curve to his mouth. His humor was rare and precious as the millenia’s-old porcelain from which he sipped tea. It was not a recording. It could not be a recording, if he noticed she had not aged. She took another deliberate breath, slowing her racing heart, and wondering what he had heard, what he knew.
“Venerable Master, it is necessary ...”
“For you to renew your training,” he said.
Interruptions were as rare as humor; part of Discipline
was courtesy, learning to wait for others without hurrying them, or feeling the strain. Had that changed, along with the rest of her world? Never hurry; never
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wait had been one of the first things she’d memorized. It had always seemed odd, since doctors faced so many situations when they must hurry to save a life, or wait to see what happened. His face was grave, now, remote as a stone that neither waits nor hurries but simply exists where it is.
“The moment arrives,” he said. Part of another saying, which she had no time to recite, for he went on. “Fourth level, begin with the Cleansing of the Stone.”
And the screen blanked, leaving her confused but oddly reassured. Back to the MedOps desk, to see if Uaka’s corridor plans had changed in the intervening years.
They had; she received a mapbug which chirped at her when she came to turns and crossings, and guided her into and out of droptubes. A few things looked familiar: the cool green doors that led to SurgOps, the red stripe that meant Quarantine. White-coated or green-gowned doctors still roamed die corridors in little groups, talking shop. She glanced after them, wondering if she’d ever feel at home with her colleagues again. Terminals for access to die medical databases filled niches along every wall. She thought of stopping to see if all the done colony data had really been excised, then thought better of it. Later, when she felt calmer, would be soon enough.
Fourth level. She came out of the last droptube a little breathless, as always, feeing a simple wood door, broad apricot-colored planks pegged together with a lighter wood. The wood glowed, as unmistakably real as Sassinak’s desk. Lunzie took a deep breath, letting her-setf settle into herself, feeling that settling. She bowed to the door, and it swung open across a snowy white stone sill. A novice in brown bowed to her, stepped back to let her pass, and swung the door shut behind her. Then, bowing again, the novice took Lunzie’s bag, and moved silently along the path toward the sleeping