“Pete Gallin.”
“No. Don’t know him.”
“All strange faces. We’re up to our ears in brighteyed youth, a lot of them jumped up to qualify them…a lot of specs out of the state schools and no experience…a few good noncoms who came up the hard way. Some statistician, fry him, figured that was the best mix in staff; and we’ve got the same profile in the civ sector, but not so much so. A lot of those have kin elsewhere, but they know there’s no transport back; blind to everything else but their good luck, I suppose. Or crazy. Or maybe some of them don’t mind mud and bugs. Freshfaced, the lot of them. You want kids, Beaumont, we’ve got kids, no question about it. The whole command’s full of kids. And we’ll lose a few.”
A silence. Davies shifted uncomfortably. “We’re going to get rejuv out there, aren’t we? They said–”
“No question. Got us rejuv and some crates of Cyteen’s best whiskey. And soap. Real soap, this time, Ada.”
She grinned, a ghost out of the tunnels and the deeps of Fargone, the long, long weeks dug in. “Soap. Fresh air, sea and river to fish–can’t ask better, can we?”
“And the neighbors,” Davies said. “We’ve got neighbors.”
Conn laughed, short and dry. “The lizards may contest you for the fish, but not much else. Unless you mean Alliance.”
Davies’ face had settled into its habitual dour concern. “They said there wasn’t a likelihood.”
“Isn’t,” Beaumont said.
“They said–”
“Alliance might even know what we’re up to,” Conn said… Davies irritated him: discomfiting the man satisfied him in an obscure way. “I figure they might. But they’ve got to go on building their ships, haven’t they? They’ve got the notion to set something up with Sol, that’s where their eyes are at the moment.”
“And if that link‑up with Sol does come about–then where are we?”
“Sol couldn’t finance a dockside binge. It’s all smoke.”
“And we’re sitting out there–”
“I’ll tell you something,” Conn said, leaned on his desk, jabbed a finger at them. “If it isn’t smokescreen, they swallow our new little colony. But they’re all hollow. Alliance is all trade routes, just a bunch of merchanters, no worlds to speak of. They don’t care about anything else at the moment…and by the time they do, they’re pent in. We might be fighting where we’re going, give or take a generation–but don’t expect any support. That’s not the name of what we’re doing out there. If they swallow us, they swallow us. And if they swallow too many of us, they’ll find they’ve swallowed something Alliance can’t digest. Union’s going to be threaded all through them. That’s what we’re going out there for. That’s why the whole colonial push.”
Davies looked at his wife. A crease deepened between his eyes.
“Jim isn’t only special op,” Beaumont said, “he’s out of the Praesidium. And it doesn’t hurt to know that…in closed company. I have–for the past half dozen years. That’s why Jim always got transferred to the hot spots. Isn’t it, Jim?”
Conn shrugged, vexed–then thinking it was the truth, that there was no more cover, no more of anything that mattered. “Jim’s getting to be an old man, that’s all. It looked like a good assignment. My reasons are like yours. Just winding down. Finding something to do. Praesidium asked. This is a retirement job. I’ve got a good staff. That’s all I ask.”
So they were on their way, he thought when he had packed Beaumont and Davies off, Beaumont to a tour below and Davies to his unpacking and settling in. They were sealed in, irrevocably. Venturewould use an outbound vector decidedly antiterrene, as if she and her companion ships had a destination on the far side of Union space instead of the outlying border region which was their real object; she had a false course filed at Cyteen Station for the obstinately curious.
So the auxiliary personnel, military and otherwise, found their way aboard among azi workers; and military officers chanced aboard as if they were simply hopping transport, common enough practice.
It was all very smooth. No mission officer took official charge of anything public; it was all Venturepersonnel down there on the docks seeing the azi aboard, and seeing to the lading of boxes labeled for the Endeavor mines.
The clock pulsed away, closer and closer to undock.
II
THE VOYAGE
OUT
Military Personneclass="underline"
Col. James A. Conn, governor general
Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, It. governor
Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel
M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers
Cpl. Antonia M. Cole
Spec. Martin H. Andresson
Spec. Emilie Kontrin
Spec. Danton X. Morris
M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op.
Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers
Spec. Hamil N. Masu
Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin
M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance
Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle
Spec. Egan I. Innis
Spec. Lucas M. White
Spec. Eron 678‑4578 Miles
Spec. Upton R. Patrick
Spec. Gene T. Troyes
Spec. Tyler W. Hammett
Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo
Spec. Belle M. Rider
Spec. Vela K. James
Spec. Matthew R. Mayes
Spec. Adrian C. Potts
Spec. Vasily C. Orlov
Spec. Rinata W. Quarry
Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir
Spec. Sita Chandrus
M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications
Spec. Yung Kim
Spec. Lee P. de Witt
M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster
Cpl. Nina N. Ferry
Pfc. Hayes Brandon
Lt. Romy T. Jones, special forces
Sgt. Jan Vandermeer
Spec. Kathryn S. Flanahan
Spec. Charles M. Ogden
M/Sgt. Zell T. Parham, security
Cpl. Quintan R. Witten
Capt. Jessica N. Sedgewick, confessor‑advocate
Capt. Bethan M. Dean, surgeon
Capt. Robert T. Hamil, surgeon
Lt. Regan T. Chiles, computer services
Civilian Personneclass="underline" to be assigned:
Secretarial personneclass="underline" 12
Medical/surgicaclass="underline" 1
Medical/paramedic: 7
Mechanical maintenance: 20
Distribution and warehousing: 20
Robert H. Davies
Security: 12
Computer service: 4
Computer maintenance: 2
Librarian: 1
Agricultural specialists: 10
Harold B. Hill
Geologists: 5
Meteorologist: 1
Biologists: 6
Marco X. Gutierrez
Education: 5
Cartographer: 1
Management supervisors: 4
Biocycle engineers: 4
Construction personneclass="underline" 150
Food preparation specialists: 6
Industrial specialists: 15
Mining engineers: 2
Energy systems supervisors: 8
TOTAL MILITARY 45
TOTAL CIVILIAN SUPERVISORY 296
TOTAL CITIZEN STAFF 341; TOTAL NONASSIGNED DEPENDENTS: 111; TOTAL ALL CITIZENS: 452
ADDITIONAL NONCITIZEN PERSONNEL:
“A” class: 2890
Jin 458‑9998
Pia 89‑687
“B” class: 12389
“M” class: 4566
“P” class: 20788
“V” class: 1278
TOTAL ALL NONCITIZENS: 41911
TOTAL ALL MISSION: 42363
Male/female ratio approx. 55%/45%
i
T‑00:15:01
Communication: Cyteen Dock HQ