by Alma Boykin
She shook her head. “It could be worse, sir. They could propose dating everything from the beginning of their most recent government.”
Eastman laughed. “I can imagine the Italians doing just such a thing, Commander, if only to keep everyone else confused.”
First Mart (1984)
Lieutenant Rahoul Khan looked from Brigadier General Jonathon “Johnny” Eastman to Commander “Rachel Na Gael” and wondered how he had gotten himself into this position. Eastman waited patiently as the Commander thought about the question. At last she folded her arms and let out a puff of air. “I know where to get the information, and how. But I’m going to need someone to come with me.”
The young general looked puzzled. “You can’t just look it up like you usually do?”
“No. It’s data that has to be collected in person. And I can’t go as myself—that will give the game away. I’ll need someone as a cover, acting as the main researcher.” Cdr. Na Gael leaned back in her chair, apparently thinking through possible candidates.
Eastman also considered the matter, then gave Rahoul one of his “someone’s day just got ruined” smiles. “How about a junior officer with a knack for languages, who will blend in just about anywhere south of Denmark and can use the experience?” Khan had done his best to become one with the paneling as both seniors turned to look at him, and smiled. Rahoul Khan gulped. All at once volunteering for a tour with the 58th Regiment of Foot seemed like a bad idea; a Very Bad Idea.
Of the two, Cdr. Na Gael had the most pity. “Lt. Khan, all this will entail is following my directions and a bit of travel,” the one-eyed woman informed him. “There is some risk, but for me not for you. If you don’t feel comfortable, I’m sure Gen. Eastman and I can think of some other possible candidates.”
Khan was sure they could, but he wasn’t sure he’d survive the general’s response if they did. “Thank you Ma’am, but I’ll go with you.”
Eastman smiled. “You are dismissed, Khan. Commander, is there anything you’ll need from me?”
She shook her head as the young lieutenant slid behind her chair and eased towards the door as quietly as possible, then turned to him. “If you can meet me at the lab in half an hour, please? No point in burning daylight. And if you have a civilian suit, three piece if at all possible, wear that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” What else do you say to a superior officer, even if she is currently a civilian?
After the door closed, Eastman snickered, drawing a glare from his xenology specialist. “General Johnny, that’s not kind. What’s he supposed to say, ‘No sir, I don’t want to go into the unknown with the only person who stands out more in a crowd than her majesty’?”
Eastman sobered, a little. “I’d pay to see you in one of her majesty’s hats, Rachel. Maybe I was a bit quick there. But Khan needs to loosen up, and if anyone can do that, you can. He still has too much of Sandhurst about him to be comfortable here, but he’s a fast learner from what I’ve heard. Show him our version of the real world.”
“Bookkeeper’s Tally, sir, I don’t want to train young officers anymore! No, don’t start, I know, I know,” she held her hands up to fend off the argument. “Right. I’ll be off then. One thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
She stood up. “So that you know, I’ll rig matters such that if we run into trouble, Khan will get back, with or without me. And we’ll return in five hours.”
Rahoul Khan refused to admit to himself that he might be just a touch nervous. Because of the IRA’s threats against soldiers in uniform, traveling in civilian dress meant they’d be visiting London or one of the larger cities. But why would Commander Na Gael need to go to London in person to get information about an apparent extraterrestrial threat? Compounding his anxiety was Commander Na Gael herself. From what little gossip Khan had managed to pick up, no one except Brigadier Eastman knew anything concrete about her. She had been introduced at the general briefing as a retired Royal Navy officer, but she looked too young and seemed too “informal” to be R.N. Khan took a deep breath to steady his nerves and knocked on the laboratory door, then pulled it open.
“Commander Na Gael?”
“Come in Lt. Khan. Give me one moment and I’ll be ready to go,” she replied, adjusting a small black box. A little red light on its top flashed twice, then turned green, and she slid it into a drawer, which she then locked. He noticed that she’d also changed clothes, but hers were much more exotic than his. She wore what looked like a light tan, knee-length dress over trousers and boots, with a darker brown belt and a reddish-brown vest that came to the bottom of her skirt. He caught sight of a holster half-buried in the folds of her skirt and vest. The Commander had plaited her brown-black hair into an elaborate crown and had what looked like amber cuffs over the ends of her sleeves. She’d also put in green contact lenses, and wore just enough makeup to conceal her facial scars. Except for her oddly pale complexion, she could have passed for a relative of his. The outfit puzzled Khan but didn’t say anything.
“Ah, very good! Lieutenant, you look exactly like a slightly confused academic type, which is the role you need to play for the next few hours. I’m your guide and interpreter cum research assistant, and we are going to what is basically an information bazaar. Ready? I’ll explain more once we are underway.” She smiled and walked over to a panel in the wall and laid her hand against it. He caught a glint of light and the panel swung open. “Come along, Lieutenant.”
He didn’t know what he was expecting, but the inside of something out of a science fiction story was not it! The room was no more than four meters by five meters at most and crammed with electronics equipment. Opposite the entrance and taking up much of the room was a bluish-white translucent tank of some sort that extended back into the wall. To the left of the door sat two computer consoles and a semi-reclined seat with a five-point harness. On the other wall stood another computer display and keyboard, this one larger than the others. Back in the corner and along the wall stretched what looked like a bed with a metal and glass lid.
Commander Na Gael shut the door behind them and sat down in the chair. “Welcome to the Dark Hart, Lieutenant. I apologize for the lack of seating. You might want to brace against something, but not the central computer there,” and she pointed to the bluish tank. Now totally overwhelmed by strangeness, he did as told. “I’m going to get us moving, and then you can ask questions. Don’t distract me until I tell you it’s all right, Khan. Otherwise things might get,” her eyes narrowed, “interesting.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She typed at the computer console by her chair, and patterns of what looked vaguely like maps appeared on two of the screens in the room, while a series of hieroglyphs and numbers scrolled from right to left on the display closest to her. The lights dimmed slightly and the woman closed her eyes in concentration, still typing. There was a bump and she began humming, then sang a simple melody. He heard something in the room echo her melody and then shift into a complicated harmony. The Commander fell silent, opened her eyes and adjusted her seat from semi-reclined to upright.
“You can relax. We’re, well, en route to our destination, the data Mart on Neu Schlesien not quite a thousand years in your future. Have I completely blown your mind?” She smiled as she said it and Khan relaxed a bit.
“Not completely, ma’am,” he replied, looking around at the displays and equipment.
She waved a hand toward the tank. “Central processing and control system there, nav and drive controls here, secondary nav/drive there,” by the door, “data access and storage are behind your elbows, as is life-support, and emergency medical is the bed-looking thing in the back corner. And before you ask about the keyboard there next to you, it’s oversize with metal key-caps because my business partner’s forefeet are about half again as large as yours, ending in talons four cm long. It’s easier to adapt to her than for her to try and manage a small keyboard,” Rachel explained.
She stood up and rummage
d around between two of the consoles. “Here we are at Leopold’s Pub on Mrrrtara. Great beer, so I’m told. I’ll stick with keritang for my jollies.” She handed him a flat hologram of herself in a desert-tan uniform hoisting a beer mug with a larger silver-blue scaled reptile that looked very much like the dragons decorating the menus at his father’s favorite Chinese take-away spot.
“Your business partner is a lizard!” he blurted, then cringed.
“No. She’s a reptile, yes, but she’s what you would translate as a ‘True-dragon.’ She keeps the books and makes sure all our permits are current, since she’s the smart one. And before you ask, no one, not even in the Regiment, will believe you if you tell them the story, so don’t bother. Not even General Eastman,” Cdr. Na Gael warned, then resumed her seat.
Time for a safer topic, Khan decided. “Um, ma’am, what are we doing? And what am I supposed to do, exactly?”
“We need to get information on those metallic-looking animal cum robots, specifically what controls them and how to interfere with that system or signal. I don’t have the tools or expertise to do that myself, so we are going to talk to someone who has all kinds of data about them. He keeps a slot at the data Mart. For reasons I am not going to explain, I can’t go past the landing area as myself. So. You are a professor of Terran history, come to look for old hard-copy data plates, or what you and I call ‘books’.” Na Gael gave him a knowing grin and continued, “Since you don’t leave the ivy-covered halls that often, your research assistant, Eileen Ni Panguar,” she pointed to herself, “is acting as guide and interpreter for you, trying to keep her very smart but not very worldly professor out of trouble.”
He looked down at his suit and asked the logical question, “Aren’t I going to stand out like a sore thumb, ma’am?”
She shook her head. “Not really. First, male fashion for humans was very ‘retro’ during the time we’re going to. Second, you are a professor of ancient history. Think about some of the civilian instructors you may have had at Sandhurst, Lieutenant, or of the ones at Oxbridge. Stars burn out and empires fall, but eccentric professors will exist until the end of time: especially young, brilliant, and very unworldly professors. Until we get back to Headquarters, you are Doctor Professor Sanjit Patel, who has to be cautioned to come in out of the rain.” She chuckled, and as he thought about it, the cover story did make very good sense.
“Now I understand, ma’am. I think,” he sounded a little dubious still.
“No more ma’am, Professor. You are in charge for the moment. I am your lowly research assistant and student, who possesses some experience with the world outside the walls of Trinity or King’s. And we’re about to arrive, so you might want to brace yourself again.” The dark-haired woman leaned back again, closing her eyes and singing. The ship’s harmony changed, simplifying into the melody, then fading away after the room bounced a little and the lights dimmed again.
She stood up, then took something out of a compartment and handed it to him. It looked like a very fancy fountain pen, and had a small crystal on the “cap.” “If we get separated, this will help you find your way back to the ship, and let you in. If you put it in this slot here,” she pointed to a hole on the console closest to her seat, “the ship will take you back to Regimental headquarters, arriving five hours after we left.” Khan accepted the “pen” and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket, trying not to worry about the implications of her statement.
The woman slung a brown bag over her shoulder, opened the entry hatch, and smiled, “Ready, Professor?”
He took a deep breath, put on his best “irritated academic” expression and stepped outside. He’d thought Commander Na Gael’s ship was odd from the inside, but the exterior gave him a sick headache. It looked vaguely organic, except the surface sported a crystalline sheen, and the edges seemed to blur and shift as he watched. The sane part of his mind rejected what he was seeing and he turned away as his guide said patiently, “This way, sir.”
The odd pair left the landing port after ‘Eileen Ni Panguar’ paid their landing fee and explained to the mostly human-looking portmaster that the pilot would be remaining on board. He accepted the explanation, along with a small gratuity, and handed them their reentry chits.
Khan decided to give his new persona a try. “Ah, an example of the recurring neo-classical pattern of administrative architecture,” ‘Professor Doctor Patel’ pointed out, gesturing towards a squat building with stone-looking columns in front. “The symbology is quite fascinating,” he continued, mimicking his classics professor, James Martin Parsons. “And there you can see another example, Miss Ni Panguar. What style is that?”
She managed to look both interested and long-suffering. “I believe your lecture on early belief theory described it as ‘philosopho-psycho-moderne,’ but I could be misremembering, Professor Patel.”
He sniffed but accepted the answer, beginning to warm to his role. It helped him ignore the strange creatures and sights around them. There were humans, or at least human-looking people, in all sizes and colors. He managed to work his mind around the other bipeds of reptilian, avian, or mammalian origin, although that took more effort. The insects, inorganics, and quad and hexapedal beings confused him utterly, and he really wasn’t certain if he wanted to stop and stare, or run away. Then he saw a book stall.
“Ah! Miss Panguar, I believe this is part of what I’m looking for,” and he led her over to the pile. He spotted an interesting looking volume and started reaching for it.
She grabbed his hand, “No Professor! I’m sorry sir, but we have to ask first.”
Confused, he frowned and pulled back as she turned to the reddish-brown arthropod behind the counter and started speaking in a half-guttural yet somewhat musical language, pointing first to him then to the book he was interested in. The creature picked up a device of some sort and squeaked and chattered. The box converted the sounds into Na Gael’s language, and she listened politely, then turned to him.
“Master” and she mimicked the squeaking, “says that the volume is an illustrated novel from Kaligar. Very rare, but some of the plates are missing.”
He considered, then shook his head. “No, Miss Panguar, I need all the plates. The text loses too much of its full contextual meaning without them,” he lectured.
She turned back to the stall-keeper and sounded apologetic. Khan saw something else of interest and started wandering off, just like Dr. Parsons had done on occasion, leaving his assistant to come trotting along after him, muttering under her breath. He turned to her as if she should have been at his elbow the entire time. “Miss Panguar, how do I say ‘May I look at this’?”
She told him the phrase, and he repeated it quietly. She glanced around, then touched the back of his hand. <
They stopped at the blue building and she opened the door for him. He stepped inside and blinked as his eyes adapted to the dimness, although she seemed to have no such difficulties. She led the way through what looked like stacks of CDs, computer disks, parts of computers, shelves of chips and processors and even crystals and something that looked like an Andean quipu but made of fur. “Miss Panguar, I do not see what I’m looking for. These are all far too modern,” he warned her.
“Yes sir, but Master Ticurlin keeps the true antiquities out of the light, as you’ve always said we should. Back here please, Professor,” she invited. He sniffed and followed.
Master Ticurlin proved to be something like, well, a jellyfish in a clear tank on wheels, with mechanical arms that ended in five-fingered “hands.” Na Gael made a salaam towards the
jellyfish and it waved its tentacles in a graceful reply. She spoke again in that odd language, and this time Khan caught a few bits. “Dr. Professor Patel is most interested in classical Terran literature, especially the pre-petroleum era. He heard that you had a small but excellent selection, Master Ticurlin.”
The jellyfish replied through a speaker attached to the tank, and rolled father towards the back of the building, with “Miss Ni Panguar” and her professor following. “You did remember to specify pre-petroleum this time?” he asked in English with a sniff.
“Yes Professor,” came the reply, with an undertone of respectful impatience. He fought to keep a straight face and only managed by looking at what awaited them.
“Oh my. Oh my!” Kahn breathed, forgetting his role as he stepped forward to look at the books. No, it couldn’t be. He looked at his assistant. “Gloves please,” and somehow she produced a pair of white cotton archivist’s gloves out of her bag. He put them on and very carefully picked up the small book, turning the pages with great delicacy. “Yes, this one. And,” he looked at a larger volume. Should he? Yes. He decided to take a chance. “This. These are exactly what I’m lacking to finish that article for ‘Poetics and Constructions.’ Exactly!” She translated his last statement for Master Ticurlin. The metallic hands on the tank extended as the jellyfish answered.
“If you will let him take the volumes, his assistant will wrap them for you while we pay,” she explained, and Khan surrendered the books with only slightly feigned reluctance.
Another jellyfish, in a smaller tank, rolled up as the proprietor vanished towards the front of the shop and asked the woman a question. She answered and handed it a data card, which it slid into a reader and examined. The two discussed something very quietly, as Kahn pretended to be enthralled in some other books. The smaller jellyfish trundled off into the shadows, returning in an instant with something that it handed Na Gael. She slipped it what looked like a credit card as her professor shook his head, amazed at the speed of the transaction. “Really Miss Panguar. As I said in my message, you’ll have plenty of time after the next conference to look for that material, so come along.” He turned for the front of the shop.