I caught my breath. I forced myself to remain calm. "All right," I said, "I'll take over Chee's work."
"Good," Vincence smiled.
"And for the good of the Corps, I won't tell the public what Jelca did on Melaquin."
"Also good," Vincence nodded.
"And you can make me an admiral," I said.
"Done," Vincence replied.
"But…" I reached up to my cheek, dug in my fingernails, and pulled down hard. The artificial skin came off like an adhesive bandage, ripping away from my cheek with a good fierce sting. "I'm afraid," I said, "I'm going to be an admiral who looks like an Explorer."
My Second Graduation
And so…
This afternoon, the Explorer Academy held its annual graduation ceremony. As always, a number of admirals sat on the podium. As always, one of those admirals gave the commencement address.
This year, that admiral was me.
Me with my purple birthmark. My disfigurement. My pride.
The lecturer who introduced me claimed I was the Explorer who made good. The Explorer who had earned respect. The Explorer who sat on the review commission and made a difference.
Let's hope that's true.
I stood in front of the graduating class, ready to tell them their world was changing. "Greetings," I said, "I am a sentient citizen of the League of Peoples and I beg your Hospitality. My name is Festina Ramos and I take great pride…"
The rest of my words were drowned out by applause.
JAMES ALAN GARDNER lives in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, with his wife, Linda Carson, and two cantankerous rabbits. He has published numerous pieces of short fiction in such places as Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, OnSpec, and the Tesseracts anthologies. In 1989, he was the Grand Prize winner in the Writers of the Future contest. He has also won an Aurora award for Best Short SF Story in English (1990).
In his spare time, he plays piano, practices kung fu, and recovers from bruises. Half the time he writes computer documentation and the other half he writes SF. Guess which half he likes better.
Copyright © 1997 by James Alan Gardner