Empire & Ecolitan

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  His scalp half itched, half hurt. They’d warned him about that too. “And don’t scratch!” Thelina had added. As if she had ever had to go through what he was undergoing. Fat chance.

  “…uuummmm…”

  “That shouldn’t hurt, Professor…”

  “Doesn’t…except when I cough…”

  “Coughing’s good for you. Just hold a pillow against your diaphragm if it’s too much.”

  Damned if he’d use the pillow. Of course, Dr. Militro would point out that stoicism that served no purpose was mere masochism. He let his breath out gently and reached for the pillow laid next to Thelina’s materials.

  Outside, the twilight was sliding into dusk, the green of the upper hills he could see from the window fading into gray. The nurse switched on the room lights and twitched his covers back into place.

  “Monitors show you’re doing better than expected, and they had projected a quick recovery. Haven’t had one this special for several years.”

  “Do you have many cases…like…”

  “Like you, you mean? Distinguished scholars who want to start all over…not many. One every year or so. There was—but I really shouldn’t discuss it, they say. They never tell us who you were, only who you are. That’s better. Always look to the future. That’s where we’ll have to live.

  “Is there anything else you need?”

  “Something to drink?”

  “You can have just a little bit of this.” She went out into the corridor and returned with a paper cup. The cup was the first disposable thing he had seen at the Institute, either this time or in his earlier visit. For the hospital, it made sense.

  “Now just sip this slowly. If it stays down, and it certainly should, you can have some clear liquids for dinner. You should be back on solid food by tomorrow. That’s really just a precaution until Dr. Hyrsa is sure everything has stabilized.”

  He almost shivered. Stabilize? What was there to stabilize?

  “Don’t worry. If the doctors here can’t do something, they don’t. It’s just that simple.” She checked the nonintrusive monitors again. “I’ll be back with some more to drink later.”

  He looked out at the twilight on the eastern hills, picked out a single star winking in the gray-purple sky, then tried to identify buildings from their outlines. He had been brought in quietly, through an underground tunnel that he had never suspected even existed, directly into the hospital area. He had not seen the Institute itself this time. The outlines looked as he had remembered them, although some of the trees were now bare in the local winter.

  So far as he knew, only Thelina, the cosmetologist, and the doctor had actually seen his unchanged visage. None of them, himself included, had seen what he looked like now, or would look like once he healed and the various swellings and stiffnesses subsided.

  But the dream…he had not thought about Clarissa’s death since…since at least pilot training…perhaps longer. He started to shake his head and stopped in mid-shake as both scalp and headache warned him.

  With a sigh, he retrieved the manual. Studying and learning were less dangerous than remembering. He’d understood that for a long time.

  VII

  JIMJOY SAT ON the edge of the hospital bed, letting his bare feet touch the warm tile floor. As the nurse stripped the last of the pressure bandages from his face, he tried to keep his shoulders relaxed. They began to ache every time he tensed up, and he wondered if they always would.

  “Just a moment, Professor Whaler, and we’ll have these off. Then you can see how you look.” Her voice contained the professional brightness he had always associated with nurses. He didn’t know which was worse, the false booming heartiness of the men or the blithe cheerfulness of the women.

  “What I look like,” corrected Jimjoy.

  “Dr. Hyrsa is very good, Professor. You look fine. A few small bruises, but that’s all. Those heal quickly. No more than a week or two at most.”

  Thud. The wadded-up bandages echoed in the container set by his feet.

  “Bruises?”

  “Not exactly. They look like bruises, but they’re not.”

  Thud. More bandages clunked into the container.

  How many kilos of dressings had he been wearing on his face alone? The shoulder dressings had been disposed of several days earlier.

  “You hair is coming in nicely.”

  Scrttchhh.

  “Ooooohh…”

  “That was a little sticky, but that was the last one…and Dr. Hyrsa did a nice job—as usual. I’ll even bet you’ll be pleased with the results.”

  Jimjoy did not look at the proffered hand mirror, instead running his fingers across his face, tracing his cheekbones and his chin line. Under his fingertips he could feel the usual stubble of unshaven beard. He was supposed to have higher cheekbones, green eyes…

  “Are you ready to look in the mirror, Professor?”

  He sighed and took the lightweight mirror from the red-haired nurse, who held it practically in his face. He held the mirror without lifting it.

  With another drawn-out breath, he brought up the mirror. The face was that of a stranger. Not even a near relative, but a total stranger.

  He gripped the mirror tighter to keep his hand from trembling as he studied the reflected image. The face frowned at him. His face frowned at him.

  His nose was sharper, finer, and more aquiline than his original nose. The cheekbones were clearly higher, and his chin was a touch more pointed, not nearly as squared off as he recalled. His eyes were a piercing green, much like he remembered Thelina’s. But he had only a colorless stubble for eyebrows and eyelashes, and his scalp was a hairless bronze…or was it graying before his time? Bronze? His entire face was somehow bronzed.

  Despite the itching of his scalp, he did not scratch it, but pressed the skin gently to try to relieve the sensation. He could feel the stubble of regrowing hair under his fingertips. Then he studied his hands before lifting his eyes to the mirror again. He was bronzed indeed, bronzed over every millimeter of his body.

  “Are you all right, Professor?”

  “Just thinking…”

  He held the mirror closer to his eyebrows, angling it to catch their color.

  “Silver…” His hair and eyebrows were going to be silver. Dr. Hyrsa had only told him that his hair would be lighter, much lighter. She had smiled when he had said he wouldn’t mind being a blond, but she had not agreed with him.

  “Silver…be an old man before my time.”

  “I doubt that. With all your improvements, you’ll outlive us all. Besides, you were in excellent shape to begin with.”

  Despite her soft voice, her words and not just the professional tone in which they were delivered somehow bothered him. He ignored the red-haired nurse and turned the mirror up toward his scalp. Silver.

  Hades! While he didn’t look anything like he had, he’d certainly stand out in a crowd now. Taller, with bronze skin and silver hair…how could he ever do what he’d done before?

  He put down the mirror on the rumpled sheet beside him. Thelina had silver hair, the same light bronze complexion, and could still disappear as effectively as any Special Operative.

  Thelina? The pieces snapped together inside his skull. “Nurse—did you ever work with Ecolitan Andruz?”

  “Professor, I couldn’t rightly say which Ecolitans I’ve worked with.”

  “Andruz. Silver-haired. Bronzed, with green eyes, a sharp tongue…”

  “Now, Professor, no woman would like to be characterized by her tongue…”

  Jimjoy waited. “Silver hair,” he finally prompted, trying to catch the nurse’s eye as she bent to pick up the container holding the used bandages.

  “You must think we have a fixation on silver hair. We deal with all kinds of hair color—brown, red, black, gray. Some have been women, perhaps with silver hair. I could be wrong. I don’t remember names.”

  “Here,” he said tiredly, picking the mirror up and handing it back.

/>   “You don’t like how you look?”

  “I guess I liked the way I used to look more than I thought.”

  She took the mirror. “Could I get you anything to drink?”

  “No. No…” He looked down at the alternating ceramic triangular floor tiles of black, green, and gold. What else had the Ecolitan surgeon done? What other “improvements” had he blithely agreed to?

  “Whffffuuuugh…” His sigh dragged out. Even his stomach muscles still ached. And the ache in his shoulders was threatening to return at any moment.

  “You need to rest, Professor Whaler.”

  “All I’ve done is lie around.”

  “Just swing your feet up and think about it.”

  “Ooohhh…” The involuntary exclamation as he twisted drew a quickly suppressed grin from the nurse. Although stretching out was scarcely painless, the rest of his movements were silent.

  In time, so was the hospital room, except for the sound of breathing.

  VIII

  JIMJOY LOOKED AROUND the hospital room. One compact kit bag containing all of his current worldly possessions rested on the single chair. No flowers, no cards to take with him. Just the good wishes of Cerrol—the white-haired nurse—Verea, and Dr. Hyrsa.

  Although Jimjoy had hoped that a silver-haired Ecolitan would visit him, Thelina had not shown up after she had introduced Dr. Militro. Instead, she had sent two heavy packages of instructional materials with cryptic notes implying that he learn virtually every word and concept before he would be truly fit to be classified as an Ecolitan.

  Since the Institute did not provide personal fax terminals, he had not even been able to fax her. Nor did he know how or where to send a note, assuming he had been foolish enough to write down anything.

  With a sigh, he picked up the kit bag. It was light enough not to strain his rebuilt shoulders, even before the weeks of rehab scheduled for him, and the weeks of conditioning necessary after that.

  The room was ready for its next patient.

  “Good luck, Professor,” called Verea from her console.

  “Thanks, Verea.”

  The junior medical tech with the coppery hair waved briefly.

  Jimjoy pushed open the wide wooden door and stepped out into the open staircase, avoiding the elevators—the only ones he had seen on Accord.

  His steps were easy. He was in terrible shape, and it would be months before he was back in the condition necessary for the events to come. But his muscles were still there, out of condition as they were.

  Stepping through the doors at the foot of the stairs, he saw two people—a young man in tans at the hospital information/admissions/guard desk and a young woman in Ecolitan field greens by the front doorway. He had met the young woman—Mera—once before, in what he was coming to think of as his second life, his service as an Imperial Special Operative. She had been his driver.

  Would she recognize him in this third life?

  “Professor Whaler?” asked the black-haired woman.

  “The same,” acknowledged Jimjoy. “And you are?”

  “Mera Lilkovie, student third class.”

  He inclined his head to her. “Appreciate your help, Mera.”

  “That’s what we’re here for, Professor.”

  He forced a laugh. “Not really. You’re here to learn, not to transport partly disabled staff, but I appreciate it.” While he could hear the deeper timbre of his voice, would the change in pitch, combined with the physical and cosmetic differences, be sufficient to pass her scrutiny? Then again, she had only driven him once, and that had been well over a standard year earlier.

  “The car is outside. Do you have anything else?” Her eyes flickered to his short silvery hair that was well beyond a stubble, but still too short for all but the strictest military organizations.

  “No.”

  “That makes it easy, then.”

  She showed no sign of recognition, unless she had been instructed not to. He doubted that. She turned and held the door.

  Jimjoy stepped out into the hazy noontime sunshine, still amazed at the informality of his departure. That morning, Gavin Thorson, Sam Hall’s Deputy Prime, and the Ecolitan in charge of all staffing arrangements at the Institute, had appeared in his room and announced that Jimjoy had been assigned permanent senior staff quarters—at least as permanent as any such quarters were—and that he would be discharged for background briefings and rehabilitation. A car would pick him up at 1100 hours local and take him to his quarters, where a minimum of linens and furniture had been supplied. And a full set of Institute uniforms, plus a few items of leisure clothing.

  Jimjoy could either eat in any one of the Institute dining facilities or, once he familiarized himself with the Institute’s supply procedures, cook his own meals.

  Thorson had then handed Jimjoy his I.D., credit number, current account balance, and a folder containing his résumé, complete personal history, projected teaching load for the following quarter, his briefing schedule, and an accelerated follow-up course in ecologic and personal ethics for one James Joyson Whaler II. The material duplicated what Thelina had already provided.

  James Joyson Whaler II—that was the first time he’d seen his new name in print. But why had the Institute delayed in identity conditioning?

  Thorson had waited for him to absorb it. “Not that much of this should be a surprise to you, you understand, but we’re asking a lot of you. Even so, the Prime and I welcome you back, Professor Whaler,” Thorson had said.

  “Jimjoy, please.”

  “Jimjoy it is.”

  That had been it. Now he was walking toward a groundcar to begin a new life for real—for the third time. He almost shook his head. That was another mannerism he would have to eliminate—or limit. He tried pulling at his chin. In time, perhaps he could replace the one gesture with the other.

  He also had to learn his own new personal history—cold—before he really appeared in public.

  “Professor, our car is the one on the right.”

  “Thank you.” Jimjoy angled his steps toward the pale green electrocar. After opening the rear door himself, he tossed the small kit bag onto the far side of the seat and eased in. The twinge in his shoulders as he bent forward reminded him that he had been in the hospital for a reason.

  Clunk. Mera shut the door behind him.

  “You have not seen your quarters?”

  “No, young lady, I have not. They were arranged while I was incapacitated.”

  “You will be pleasantly surprised.” The car moved forward smoothly and turned to the right at the end of the semicircular drive. “All the new staff members are.”

  He looked back, noticing that the building where he had stayed bore no indication it was a hospital. It was not the same building into which he had once carried an injured student less than two years earlier. Of that he was sure.

  That led to other concerns, such as exactly how many medical facilities existed on the grounds of the Institute, and how little he knew about the people to whom he had entrusted his life. Not that he had had many options.

  “Exactly where are the staff quarters?” He paused, wondering how much he was supposed to know. “I’ve studied the maps, but…”

  “It’s not quite the same thing?”

  “Right.” Jimjoy nodded.

  “Have you visited the Institute before, Professor?” Mera asked.

  “Not in this particular life, at least.” He forced a short laugh.

  “You know, you must be very special. The Institute doesn’t grant many full fellowships or professor’s chairs.”

  “Especially not to former outsiders?” he asked.

  “No. I think Professor Firion is one, and they said one of the senior field trainers was an outsider, but that’s rumor.”

  “I’m probably asking a stupid question, young lady, but could you enlighten me on the differences in meaning here at the Institute between professors, fellows, and Ecolitans?”

  The electrocar purred
up a narrow road and by a stone wall. Jimjoy kept his face impassive, although he recognized the orchard. He had wondered where the road led, and it appeared he was about to find out.

  “Well…anyone who has graduated from the Institute or passed the equivalency tests and been accepted by the Prime or the examining Board as proficient in all the required skills is an Ecolitan. Most Ecolitans are Institute graduates, but you don’t have to be.

  “Fellow actually means Senior Fellow of the Institute, and that takes longer. Professors are Senior Fellows with specific responsibilities. That’s what makes you unique.”

  While Mera was practically begging for an explanation, Jimjoy let the not-quite-asked question pass him by. “And the quarters?” he prompted.

  “Oh, just up the road here. You can actually take the footpath between the hills and along the brook and walk to the main grounds faster than going by car. That was to discourage groundcars when the last Institute plan was developed.”

  “And did it? Discourage the use of groundcars?” he asked with a smile.

  “Not really. No one used them anyway.”

  The car swept between two massive pinelike trees flanking the narrow roadway, slowing to nearly a crawl as the pavement ended in a narrow stone-paved lot. The entire parking area was less than twenty meters long and not more than five meters wide. A vacant green groundcar was parked at the far end.

  Terraced stone walkways paralleled the parking area and continued up the sloping terrain toward individual wooden structures set roughly ten meters apart. Each was two stories, with wide front and rear wooden decks, a sharply pitched roof, and large windows.

  “You get the end unit, Professor.” Mera pointed as she brought the electrocar to a purring halt beside the empty green car.

  “New kid on the block?” asked Jimjoy. He looked at his quarters-to-be again. Perhaps a shade narrower than those farther uphill, but still two stories, with both decks, and the same detailed workmanship and contrasting dark and light woods—all in all, quarters probably better than those offered to all but command-class officers in the Empire. “All to myself?”