by Jean Johnson
(You don’t have to breed a progeny to develop a bloodline capable of Meddling in matter-based affairs,) Ia pointed out, listening with only half her attention on the conversations of her fellow Humans. (Roses will grow in a carefully tended garden, yes, but they’ll also grow on a compost heap, given the right conditions. Even seemingly random ones.)
(Yes, but the fertilizer doesn’t plant the flowers. Something else does that. The wind, the rain, a stray dog carrying a seed. Not the fertilizer.)
(We’ll see, won’t we? Take my advice, either way. Offer them a ride, leave in half an hour, and roughly half an hour after you get there, you’ll find a woman in dark red looking at a crab shell on the north end of the beach—if nothing else, consider it a preliminary test of my prognostic abilities,) Ia told him.
(And what if I’m at the south end of the beach instead? What if I go into the water?) he countered.
(Have you ever stepped on a lion fish, before?)
(No.)
(Don’t be in the water at the south end of the beach at the half-hour mark. You may be a Feyori, but you’re also in a matter-based body. You can feel pain just like anyone else,) Ia warned him. (As for the lady in dark red, it would be no fault of yours if she were releasing two eggs at the moment of procreation.
(My “advice” isn’t illegal interference . . . barely. You only have my “word” that such a thing could be possible, never mind true. And the odds of you procreating at the right moment in time to “accidentally” take advantage of such a thing . . . well, I’m not going to tell you when to actually do that part, so my words couldn’t be considered a factioning of your efforts. Particularly since you don’t think I’m the Prophet of a Thousand Years . . . but also because I do know how to play by the rules. I haven’t given you enough information to give you an illegal faction-boost.)
“. . . Wha’ choo don’t understand, Private Arstoll, izzat I don’t wanna speak educatedly,” Spyder argued tartly, recapturing her attention. “If I wished to do so,” he enunciated carefully, “I could speak as clearly as the rest of you. But we New Lunnoners take great pride in our local ‘color’ and its slang. From the ancient, pick-dug coal mines of Newcastle to the dronegathered gas mines of Jupiter and Saturn, my ancestors take great pride in being generation after generation of miners.” He dropped the precision of his speech as he continued. “I’m only here ’cause I got caught messin’ wi’ th’ equipment an’ th’ Nets, and a freight-load a’ other stuff one too many times, an’ the psychologists said I needed ‘a better outlet’ for my energies.
“Right now, that outlet sez take me ’n a bunch a’ pretty meioa-es t’ th’ beach. Now, choo wanna come along, or choo wanna sit here an’ pretend choo don’t wanna see Forenze in a teeny-weeny bikini? ’Cause if you say that, we’re all gonna call you a liar!”
Arstoll crossed his arms over his chest. “If I wanted to see her naked, I could have done so at any point during Basic Training. We did share the same latrines, after all.”
“Neh-yah-veh,” Kumanei argued, waggling her hand to accompany the V’Dan slang for “more or less,” literally “no-yes-maybe.” She winked at Forenze, who bore a mildly insulted look at Arstoll’s words. “If you ask me, it’s all in th’ packaging. Naked is okay, but draped in something that covers just the right spots, and a tiny bit more, that’s a whole ’nother matter. Now, if we put you out there naked? No interest, meioa-o. But wrap you in a Samoan lavi-lavi, with that chest of yours all muscled and bare on top, but only your calves and your feet showing down below? Mucho irropoi.”
“Did I hear something about a lavi-lavi?” a new voice interjected. The Human-shaped Feyori had approached while they were talking, and now nodded at the former recruits. “Captain James Silverstone, paraphysician.”
“Sir!” Arstoll said, snapping to Attention.
“Relax, Private, you’re on Leave. If you’re looking for a lavi-lavi, there’s an excellent little import shop at the Mindil Beach Market.” He glanced briefly at Ia, then aimed a smile at the other ladies. “They also sell civilian swimwear and other goods. I’m headed there in about half an hour for a couple of hours of relaxing on the beach; my hovercar has room for five or six more. If you’re interested . . . show up outside Building D-400. Will you be joining us, Private Ia?”
She managed to keep her smile polite, rather than smug. “No, I can’t, though I appreciate the offer. I’m headed across the Indian Ocean with my friend. We have to leave shortly, so I’ll say this now, and I mean every word. It was an honor to survive Basic with all of you.”
Arstoll smirked. He held out his hand. “ ‘Survive’ is right. Good luck, Private Ia. May you get a good duty post. You have some good leadership potential. Rough in places, but I know you’ll polish it once you’re out there.”
Clasping his hand, she shuddered internally, sensing his soon-to-be disappointment and frustration at his own first post. If he didn’t lose his temper, he would have a good shot at advancement through the ranks and a decent enough career for the next few years . . . but she didn’t want to see all the way to the inevitable end of his life, and freed her fingers. “Thanks for showing us all those fine qualities of your own. You’ll make a good officer, Arstoll, noncom or commissioned. Once you get there.”
Silverstone held out his own hand to her. “Private Ia . . . try not to be so stubborn about carrying through an impossible mission. Next time, I won’t be around to patch you back together.” (Though we will keep an eye on you and your Simmerings. )
“I’ll keep that in mind, sir.” Shaking his hand briefly, she didn’t bother to reinforce her reply telepathically.
The others offered their hands, too. Sharing a round of firm handshakes, and an abrupt, friendly hug from the irrepressible Spyder—whose fate she mercifully didn’t sense—Ia moved away and found Ssarra just finishing his own conversation a few meters away. Crossing the grass to join him, she guided him toward the exit from the parade grounds.
“If you’re about ready, I just need to get my kitbag from the barracks and to take a moment to stow my mechsuit case with the Supply department at the Camp here, then I’ll be free to go. I’ll also need to be back here in three days to pick up my orders.”
The Grandmaster nodded. He waited until they were out of earshot of the others, beyond the grandstand, before speaking. “My sssuborbital ssship is at the landing padss eassst of here. Ah—I meant to tell you, now that we are alone, the planss ffor the Vault have been approved by the Order Counssil. But winning the fffunding for it through the Lottery ssseemss like a cheat. When I opened that envelope and sssaw what the insstructionss were . . . it sstill leavess a bad tasste on my tonguess. I fffollowed your insstructionss . . . but it iss a bad tasste, nonethelesss.”
“I carefully picked a ticket that wouldn’t harm the future if it went ‘missing’ from the unaltered version of time,” she murmured back, senses alert to any chance of being overheard. Dr. Silverstone didn’t count, of course; she could feel his extra senses blanketing the area, pricked to pick up anything of interest to him. This was just part of her Simmerings, though. “I told you I wouldn’t ask you to start such a huge, costly project as the Vault without paying for it. Since I don’t have any other funds available, this was how I chose to pay for it.”
“But, a lottery ticket . . . Aren’t precogss ffforbidden to usse their abilitiess fffor . . . ?” He fell quiet as she lifted her fingers, silently urging caution.
Ia waited until they passed the knot of graduated recruits and family members stopped for a chat on the grass next to the path. A training class jogged by; from their plain brown T-shirts and their huffing breaths, she didn’t have to peek into the timestreams to know they were still in their first couple of weeks. She continued once they were out of earshot.
“We aren’t allowed to personally profit by them for more than a set amount of money per year—I believe an average year’s wages, whatever that’s considered to be right now. I haven’t ever exceeded even half that amount personally, I’m
sure, and not at all in the last half year. Nor are we allowed to let any family member profit by more than that amount, unless it’s tucked into a managed trust account or they hand all of it over to a nonprofit entity. Nor can it benefit any corporation or other for-profit entity. However . . . the Afaso Order isn’t a for-profit entity.”
Not that it’d stop me if I had to give the money to a non-charitable cause or whatever else I may need to fund . . . and I will have to fund things at some point, she added silently, but only silently.
“Nothing stays our hand legally for a proven good cause, other than that we shouldn’t exceed a certain, much larger amount per year. Which I have not yet done. Technically.” Shrugging, she added, “For that matter, I’m also technically required to undergo yearly psychic evaluation scans. Which I’ll be doing as soon as a certain trio of priests from the Witan Order back home arrive at the Afaso Headquarters tomorrow. But I don’t have to tell anyone I’m a psi, so long as I am scanned by authorized telepaths and the results are filed with a duly authorized psi organization. Which they are.”
Ssarra smiled humorlessly, showing hints of his teeth. “You should have been a law-sssayer.”
That amused her. “Yes, but I want to save the galaxy, Ssarra, not destroy it.”
Her dry counterargument delighted the Grandmaster; he let out a staccato hiss, the Tlassian version of laughter. Smiling wryly herself, Ia led the way to the cluster of white-clad, greenroofed barracks sitting in the distance.
CHAPTER 10
What did I think of my first command officers? Well, Lt. Ferrar was very quick on the mark. Intelligent, efficient, and possessing a nose for trouble. I haven’t seen instincts like that outside of long-time combat personnel, the occasional battlecog, and the Peacekeepers, but he’d only held his position for a year and a half when I encountered him. Then again, he was a Field Lieutenant, promoted out of the rank and file for his combat leadership skills.
Lt. D’kora . . . she amused me. The woman never asked a question if she could instead make it a statement. I think she asked maybe two, three questions the entire time I knew her. She was tough and efficient, too. The tough was easy to explain since she was from Eiaven, the heavyworld that colonized my home. Not quite as quick-minded as Lt. Ferrar, but smart all the same. The efficient? That one’s obvious, too. She was an officer in the Marine Corps.
~Ia
JULY 30, 2490 T.S.
TUPSF LIU JI, DOCKED AT BATTLE PLATFORM HUM-VEE
GLIESE 250 SYSTEM
Dropping her kitbag at her feet and setting her rolling case upright on its end, Ia saluted the blue-clad officer waiting on the gantry. He looked up from the datapad in his hand, no doubt expecting to handle only an inventory of supplies arriving on the courier ship, and quirked a brow at her. “Yes, Private?”
“Sir! Private First Class Ia, TUPSF Marine Corps, assigned to Ferrar’s Fighters, requesting permission to come aboard, sir,” she reported crisply. He returned the salute, letting her drop her arm. Fishing a datachip out of her pocket, Ia handed it to him. “Here are my transfer orders, Lieutenant.”
The lieutenant stuck it into his datapad and checked her orders. Nodding, he extracted it and gave it back. “Everything looks in order. Take the airlock behind me, turn right, go straight through three more airlocks, the lift will be on your left. Take it down to Deck 8. When you emerge, turn left, go to the second . . . no, sorry, third door on the left, and report to either First Lieutenant Ferrar or to one of his junior officers. I’ll have Supply deliver your mechsuit case to the flight deck. From there, you’ll have to get it to the right prep bay yourself, depending on which platoon you’re placed in.”
“Thank you, sir.” Hefting her things once more, Ia headed for the first set of airlock doors.
She hadn’t really needed to be told where to go; for the next two and a half years, the TUPSF Liu Ji would be her home, which meant she had studied its layout, routines, and missions as thoroughly as possible on the timeplains. Still, the courtesy was appreciated, if unneeded for navigating the multiple levels and airlocks of the modest-sized battleship.
Reaching the correct door, Ia pushed the buzzer, announcing her presence. Two Marines strode up the corridor, dressed in casual Browns. She turned to nod to them in greeting as they eyed her, and the door opened behind her.
“You’re the new transfer. Good, come in,” the woman in the doorway stated. Ia turned back to face her, meeting the other woman’s assessing green gaze. “The Lieutenant wants to see you.”
Nodding, Ia followed her inside. “You must be Second Lieutenant Lucille D’kora, sir,” she offered, nodding politely to the shorter woman. It earned her an arched brow. Ia shrugged. “I checked over the roster of Lieutenant Ferrar’s Company on my way out here. I thought it would be smart to get to know everybody in advance.”
“Yes, your record did indicate you like to prepare yourself. The DoI has already flagged your file with a few things,” D’kora added. “The Lieutenant wants to discuss them with you. Call me D’kora. I don’t answer to my first name. Neither does the Lieutenant.”
“Of course, sir. I’d say, neither do I, but I only have the one name.”
D’kora smiled briefly and gestured for her to follow. Ia had already foreseen this meeting. Depending upon her replies to his questions and his own internal thoughts—whatever those might turn out to be—the Lieutenant would assign her to a handful of different positions, most of which would progress her career. There weren’t too many ways she could mess up this interview, thankfully.
“That’s the company sergeant for Ferrar’s Fighters, Master Sergeant Brickles,” D’kora introduced, nodding at the freckled man seated at the desk in the front office. He lifted a hand briefly from his workstation console but didn’t look up. It was just as well; D’kora didn’t pause for anything more, just reached for the button on the frame of the next doorway. “He’ll be retiring in a few months. You’ll get a more formal introduction to the rest of the Company later. Lieutenant D’kora and Private Ia to see you, sir.”
“Come in,” a male voice said over the door’s comm unit.
Touching the button to open the door, D’kora led Ia inside. The man seated behind the desk had dark brown hair like D’kora, but his was very short and crinkled, and only a few shades darker than his face. He rose at Ia’s approach, waited for her to set down her kitbag and stand her case next to it in the corner of the smallish cabin, then returned the salute she offered.
Ia offered him her datachip as soon as the brief formality was over. “Private First Class Ia reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Welcome aboard, Private. Have a seat,” Ferrar added, gesturing at the two chairs in front of his desk. Ia took the one on the right, and Lt. D’kora took the one on the left. Lieutenant Ferrar reseated himself, plugged her datachip into his workstation, and studied the file for a long moment. He nodded and touched a control that sank all four of the workstation screens down into his desk. “Everything’s in order, and the same as the advance copy I received from Personnel. And from the DoI. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
“In the last year, my Company has seen an increasing number of border violations, ranging from ordinary smuggling attempts to ship hijackings, to what look like possible supply runs attempting to circumnavigate the Salik Blockade. We are not officially a part of that Blockade,” Ferrar added bluntly, “but it is definitely beginning to feel like it.”
“In the last four months, we’ve seen our border encounters increase to at least once a week,” D’kora stated, supplementing his claims. “And in the last three weeks, we’ve had border encounters five times. Three of them have involved the SF-MC in combat.”
“As good as we are, we’ve taken some hits,” Lt. Ferrar continued. “The Personnel Department knows that this Company is four bodies short. Three bought a star due to sabotage on a smuggler’s ship, and the fourth I sent back home on the last supply transport so he can get a higher level of medical care than what the Na
vy doctors here on the Liu Ji can provide. Now, I need two privates, a corporal, and a sergeant to fill out my ranks. The Department of Innovations seems to think that you, a Private First Class, would make an appropriate replacement sergeant. But you’re fresh out of Basic.”
Pressing a button on his workstation, he raised up his far right screen. A touch of his hand angled the screen so that it faced Ia and D’kora, though the lieutenant had to shift in her seat a little bit to see it comfortably. Hands flicking over the keys, Lt. Ferrar called up part of her record.
“So. I have a few questions. The incident with Recruit Kaimong. Why did you go after him?” Ferrar asked her.
“I was there,” Ia stated simply. The look he leveled her said that wasn’t enough. She shrugged. “I knew I could track him.”
“Just that?” the Lieutenant questioned her.
Ia shrugged again. “It’s all in my report to the Camp command staff. I knew he was armed, and I knew he was dangerous. The priority of the moment was catching him before he could encounter any unsuspecting personnel, or worse, innocent civilians. I knew I could track him through the bush, finding him that much faster. It made sense to offer.”
“You were barely trained. A raw recruit. A civilian,” D’kora scoffed.
“I’m a second-generation firstworlder, sir,” Ia retorted levelly, glancing at the other woman. “I may not have been trained by military standards before my enlistment, but I went into the Marines with far more training than the average civilian ever gets. You’re from Eiaven. You know what it’s like on a new but inhabitable colonyworld. It takes at least five generations to tame a world enough that survival is no longer the education system’s first priority. I knew I had the training to be useful in that particular situation. Keeping quiet made less sense than offering.”
“Right . . .” Ferrar muttered. “Moving along, we have another blip on your files. This time during your vehicular training sessions. The cameras caught an incident where you spent time calming Recruit Kumanei when she lost control of her hexawalker during maneuvers, and almost fell off a cliff. You successfully talked her through her predicament,” the Lieutenant pointed out. “How did you know what to do?”