The Cyborg from Earth

by Charles Sheffield

  Jeff sat down with a bump on the bottom step. If he were more like Uncle Lory, none of today's horrors would have been necessary.

  "So if you feel all right," Uncle Lory was saying, "then you ought to go in."

  "Go in?" Jeff wondered if he had missed something.

  "To the board meeting." Lory frowned. "You will go in, won't you? Giles told me to wait here, and he said if you came by I was to tell you to go into the meeting. So that's what I'm doing."

  "I'm to go into the board meeting?" It sounded clear enough, but sometimes Uncle Lory got things mixed up. And surely there was no possible reason why he should go in—

  Jeff froze where he sat. There was a very good reason. After his disastrous performance today, the navy must have rejected him for service. They would have told Uncle Giles, informally, and official word would arrive later. But now Uncle Giles and the other board members had to inform Jeff of the decision.

  "Go in anytime," Uncle Lory said. He was tapping on the banister rail, an odd and complex rhythm, as though accompanying a silent song. He was in his midforties, but his face was as smooth and unlined as a child's. "That's what Giles said. Giles told me to wait here, and he said if you came down I was to tell you to go into the meeting. So—"

  "Thanks, Uncle Lory." Jeff stood up abruptly. His mother had told him a hundred times, if you had to go through a bad experience, get it over with as soon as you could. It was a lesson he still had trouble applying. He had always been the one who stood shaking on the edge of the pool, putting off the shock of cold water as long as he could, while Myron had already plunged in and was swimming laps.

  "Go into the meeting, Giles said. Go in anytime." Uncle Lory was helping Jeff, though he didn't know it. If Jeff didn't do what he was told, his uncle would go on repeating the message until they both went crazy.

  "I'm going, Uncle Lory. Right away." Jeff opened the door, walked slowly through the first and second antechambers, and paused before the double doors of the conference room itself. Get it over with. He took a deep breath, swung the doors open, and strode in.

  The five Lazenby board members were all present. They sat close together at a table big enough for thirty. Uncle Terence and Aunt Willow were on the left. Aunt Delia was on the right, next to Uncle Fairborn. Uncle Giles occupied the head of the table at the far end.

  They gazed in disapproval at his sodden and bedraggled appearance. Finally Giles, smiling as always (Jeff wondered, Did he grin like that in his sleep?), waved him into the room.

  "Come in, Jefferson, come in. We were just talking about you."

  Jeff could believe that. Except for Giles, everyone in the room looked unbelievably gloomy Not just gloomy—angry. That was odd.

  "The navy representatives have gone," Uncle Giles continued, "but your aunt Delia and I had the opportunity of a few private words with them before they left. Some of those words, naturally, pertain to you and your future."

  Jeff didn't doubt that for a moment. He felt his chest tighten, and he tried a trick that had worked for him in the past. When you are in a situation that is too frightening or disturbing, you look at it as though you are outside the action and not personally involved at all. So here we have a person—a stranger, certainly not Jeff Kopal—standing at one end of the long table. Down at the other end are five people.

  Strangers. Study them. What are they like?

  On the left we have one man and one woman. Their names are Terence and Willow. The man is in his fifties, and he looks fat and red-faced enough to burst. Maybe one day he will.

  He won't admit it, but he gobbles down food like a starved pig. Very different from the woman next to him. She is thin, and from her face she has been sucking on a lemon for the past half hour.

  Another man and woman are sitting on the right side of the table. He is called Fairborn, but it's a poor name for someone so ugly. See those piggy little eyes, and the low forehead, and the mouth like a rattrap. He's usually with some flashily dressed woman, though it's hard to guess what they see in him. They are all a great contrast to the woman next to Fairborn, who has a cool and elegant beauty. No one would ever realize that Delia is the oldest person at the table. With top-priced cosmetic surgery, the marks never show.

  And at the end—but Giles is talking, and his words drag you back into the scene.

  "For you, and for Myron." The smile never stops. "As we expected, in the case of Myron there was never any doubt. The navy representatives confirmed that he performed outstandingly, as always."

  Don't mention the fact that he is your own child, Jeff thought. I wonder if you told the navy people that.

  "Like his sister, he has been accepted into the Space Navy," Giles went on. "Effective at once. His initial assignment will be to the Central Command."

  He didn't have to say more. Jeff knew, as well as anyone at the table, that the Central Command was the navy's elite. Nine out of ten future captains and admirals were CenCom trained. Acceptance as a CenCom recruit meant you were being groomed for the top. All Kopals and Lazenbys went into CenCom. Like his cousins and his older sister, Myron Lazenby was on the way up.

  "He has already received our congratulations," added Giles. "I am sure that when you see him you will want to add yours. Your own case, however, was rather more . . . shall we say, complex."

  Here it comes, Jeff thought. He tried to distance himself again, but it didn't work. His mouth was dry and his pulse was racing. The atmosphere in the big room felt charged with something—anger? hatred?—larger than any thunderhead. He moved his feet and felt his toes squelch inside his socks. He must be leaving a trail on the conference-room floor.

  "You are of a family with a long and distinguished navy record," Uncle Giles said slowly. "That fact certainly counts in your favor. However, your test scores in the past have not been good. On abstract subjects, such as mathematics and physics, you have done well." Giles continued to smile, but his added frown showed his own low opinion of the value of such useless time-wasters. Jeff wondered how he could do that, smile and scowl at the same time. "However, in the practical manual skills so important to Space Navy training you have been borderline at best."

  Practical manual skills—like fencing and swimming and shooting. Useful in the navy maybe five hundred years ago. As for riding horses, had it ever been relevant to any navy?

  "Did you wish to say something, Jefferson?" Giles was staring at Jeff, his eyebrows raised.

  Jeff shook his head and stared down at the tabletop. If he had muttered something of his thoughts, it had been from sheer frustration.

  "Very well. To continue, everything came down to today's competition. I do not need to tell you, Jefferson, that your score was a poor one. In fact, it was the lowest of anyone in the meet."

  Which includes an eleven-year-old first-timer, whose horse took charge and carried her wherever it felt like. Brilliant. Get it over with. Jeff wasn't sure how much more of this he could stand.

  "That, coupled with your mediocre previous performances, added up to an overall negative prospect. All of us were forced to that assessment. However . . . ."

  On that final word, the voice changed. Jeff looked up. Uncle Giles was still showing his teeth, but it seemed more like a grimace of agony. His uncle was swallowing, as though something had stuck in his throat.

  "However," Giles went on at last, "the navy representatives observed that after you were thrown from your horse and suffered a bruising impact and descent, you somehow managed to remount. And you then completed the course. They noted all this in their report, saying you persisted although you were clearly nauseated and must have been in pain and physical distress. They consider this an act of considerable valor."

  Jeff stared at his uncle. Considerable valor! He had been panic-stricken from the start. He hadn't known where he was or what he was doing. After he had been thrown he had climbed back on the horse out of pure reflex—and Domino had completed the course, while Jeff sat on top of the mare like a stuffed rag doll. As for throwi
ng up on the boots of the navy people . . ..

  From the strained look on his face, Uncle Giles was going to smile if it killed him. "The representatives felt," he continued, "that the Space Navy cannot afford to risk losing such a resolute individual, regardless of certain other deficiencies. They have therefore approved your induction, effective at once. They offer you their congratulations." He paused and took a deep breath. "As do I, Jefferson. Speaking for myself, I believe that the decision of the navy representatives will prove to have long-term benefits. We are all very happy for you."

  Happy? Except for the smiling Giles, they looked as happy as a group of pallbearers. Jeff was in a daze as his aunts and uncles came forward one by one to give him a ritual handshake or a formal hug. All he could think was that, in spite of everything he had done wrong, he would have good news for his mother. He hadn't flunked out of the navy.

  "Do you know where I will be assigned?" He pulled free of Aunt Willow's cold embrace.

  "As a matter of fact, we do. We had the opportunity to make suggestions to the navy personnel." Uncle Giles and Aunt Delia exchanged quick glances. "We agreed that at this time, the Central Command would not be . . . appropriate for you. The pressures of that environment might be too great. We are proposing, and they will approve, assignment to Border Command. That should give you an opportunity to, shall we say, hone your skills."

  "Border Command?" Jeff didn't even know the name.

  "BorCom is very new. Its activities are confined to the more distant regions."

  "You mean out in the Belt?" Jeff thought that the E-K Belt still came under CenCom's charter.

  "Beyond that. BorCom is concerned with those territories accessible only through the node network."

  In other words, way beyond the solar system and out to the stars and the great dust clouds. Once you went through a node, you couldn't even communicate with Earth until you came back. No wonder Jeff hadn't heard of BorCom.

  "Where will I be going?"

  "That will be up to the navy to decide. Although we, of course, hope to have some say in the matter." Uncle Giles had regained his perfect smile. "But now, Jefferson, the board has other important business to discuss. Why don't you run along and enjoy the evening?"

  In other words, go away. Jeff was glad to leave. He had a million things to think about. But he wasn't quite fast enough. He was still inside the room when the comment came from Uncle Terence: "Do him good to go way out there. Know what I mean? Get some experience, stiffen his backbone."

  As the double doors closed, Jeff heard—or felt—the knife of Aunt Willow's reply: "Stiffen his backbone? Terence, my dear, I don't really think so. For that to happen, you need a spine to start with."

  Jeff stood by the double doors and closed his eyes. Was he pleased? Yes, of course; he was in the navy. Was he upset? You bet he was. The first Kopal to fail to be assigned to Central Command. As for BorCom, it might be anything—except high in prestige.

  He went back to the dark, stone-tiled corridor. Uncle Lory was still lounging at the foot of the staircase. He might be curious to learn what had happened inside, but Jeff doubted it. Lory just had nothing to do and nowhere special to go.

  But regardless of his uncle's interest, Jeff couldn't help blurting out the news. "I've passed. I've been accepted into the navy."

  "That's wonderful," Lory said—and meant it, unlike Jeff's other uncles and aunts.

  "Myron, too. We'll both be leaving in a few days."

  "You will?" Lory Lazenby did not know how to hide his emotions, and the change in his expression could not be missed. "I wish I could go with you. Into space, I mean. I've always wanted to go, wanted to see what it's like. Out there." He waved a hand vaguely upward and shook his head sadly. "But it was the tests, you see. I couldn't pass the tests. I tried and tried and tried. I tried so hard. But I never could pass."

  Jeff knew that he had really failed his test, but he couldn't tell that to Uncle Lory. It would only make things worse. He had never realized before that Lory yearned for space, never known that his uncle had his own tragedies and longings and heartaches.

  It must be like Jeff's own awareness of incompetence and inadequacy when he compared himself with Myron, except amplified a thousand times. He suddenly felt like the biggest fraud in the world. He couldn't stand it any longer. Lory deserved to go to space, far more than Jeff did.

  He turned and fled up the stairs. As he went he heard Lory saying softly—but not to Jeff—"I wonder if I ought to try again. Maybe I could pass, if I tried again. If only I didn't get so flustered when they ask me questions . . . ."

  The meek—like Uncle Lory—will inherit the Earth. The fakes like me get to go to the stars.

  Jeff ran into his room, threw himself on the bed, and wondered why, on this the luckiest day of his life, he felt like crying.

  Chapter Four

  JEFF awakened wishing he hadn't. Yesterday's painkillers were no longer working, and he was a mass of aching bones and throbbing bruises. He felt exhausted and emotionally drained by all that had happened the previous day, but more than anything he was worried about his mother. His first act when he rolled out of bed was to limp over to the query link in his room and say, "Give me a status report on Florence Kopal."

  If the query link needed more information, it would ask for it. But apparently his request was clear enough, because the answering voice said only, "Do you want a written or a spoken response?"

  "Spoken, of course." The link wasn't very smart.

  "Florence Kopal is in Midvale Hospital, awaiting lung replacement. Her condition is stable, and she is scheduled for surgery late today. Communication with Florence Kopal prior to the operation is prohibited."

  It wasn't much, but at the moment it was all that he would get. Jeff had been itching to tell his mother about the navy acceptance, but that would not be possible. He left a message for her—leaving out the embarrassing circumstances of how he had passed—then said, "Tell me about Border Command."

  "Do you want a written or a spoken response?"

  "Do it both ways. I'd like to hear it now, but maybe I'll want to read it later. Give me a summary in spoken form and write out the details."

  A twenty-second silence followed. Jeff waited impatiently, although he knew that nothing was wrong. It was just the house equipment making its slow contact with the appropriate databases and sorting out what it needed. The query server was ancient; it hadn't seen an update in thirty years. On the other hand, its out-of-date electronics fitted in with the antique furniture and fixed social habits of the house. Sometimes Jeff thought that he had been born to an environment frozen in time. Everything matched the Kopal family lifestyle, its rules laid down (of course!) by Rollo Kopal: Duty is sacred. Courage is a requirement, not an elective. Superior performance is assumed. What's good for Kopal Transportation is good for the Space Navy. Old is better than new. Tradition is more important than innovation. Human services are superior to machine services.

  All very fine—provided that humans were available to provide the service. But then who did the work for those people? Jeff had asked that question once, when he was very young, and quickly learned never to mention it again. The assumption by the Kopals and Lazenbys—even by Jeff's own father—was that the family deserved to have human servants rather than machines.

  Didn't the Kopal and Lazenby families contribute more to the world than almost anyone? Not only this world—as shipbuilders to the Space Navy, the families served every world. And were there not large numbers of idle unemployed in the Pool who were fortunate to be offered a position of service in the Kopal household?

  Maybe. But what would it be like if there were no Pool? Or suppose you were born a member of the Pool, without money, without a job, and in most cases with no prospects of a job?

  You were not allowed to ask such things, not in this house; but if you were Jeff, you certainly wondered.

  "Are you in a position to receive information?"

  The query link's senso
rs must have noticed that he was starting to wander. Jeff blinked and nodded to show that he was ready.

  "The Border Command, usually abbreviated both in speech and writing to BorCom, was established seven years ago as an independent unit of the Space Navy. The head of BorCom reports directly to the head of Central Command. BorCom's official charter is to identify, and if possible to solve, problems that arise beyond the boundaries of the solar system.

  "Continue?"

  "Yes, but first I have a question." Jeff had been forced by Kopal family tradition to learn more than he would ever wish to know about the territories of the old Roman and British and Chinese empires. He could describe the strategies employed in ancient naval battles like Salamis and Trafalgar and Midway. He had learned the features of all the moons and planets of the solar system important to Space Navy operations; but of the universe outside the boundaries of the solar system he knew next to nothing.