“Should you have a more experienced designer?” Jole asked doubtfully.
“Question is, could I get a more experienced designer, to which the answer was, alas, no.” She sighed, then cheered up. “But this one seems to learn fast. And I don’t have to make death threats to get him to listen, unlike some older Barrayaran types more set in their ways, so there’s that.”
And she had departed in haste trailing, like a billowing banner, fretful staff frantically triaging schedule changes.
This left Jole with a blank day to fill with something that would block his temptation to go back to the office and annoy Bobrik with kibitzing over his shoulder by comconsole. His apartment made a peaceful refuge, although, after about an hour spent perusing more science journals from the Uni, he found himself growing restless. For a man accustomed to the cramped facilities of Barrayaran warships, he could hardly call the place too small. Too…something. Not enough something? Not enough Cordelia. He buried his impulse to replay the message from Desplains for a third time—it wasn’t going to change—in another half hour of reading, at which point he found an excuse to escape.
The University of Kareenburg was as grandly and deceptively named as the Viceroy’s Palace, Jole reflected, as he parked and walked toward the motley collection of buildings clinging to a slope on what had used to be the outskirts of town. The school had been started less than two decades ago in, as usual, a collection of ex-military field shelters. Since then it had acquired three newish buildings in a blocky, utilitarian style, plus a clinic that had grown into Kareenburg’s main hospital. Training medtechs locally was a high priority, along with other hands-on technical skills needed by the young colony from and for a population that could not, for the most part, afford to send their children offworld for education. The U. of K. lacked dormitories for backcountry students, who instead lived scattered among local households like soldiers quartered upon an occupied town. The field shelters still lingered, repurposed for the nth time to house departments unable to elbow their way into the newer buildings.
The Department of Biology, being needed to help train aspiring medtechs—and soon, it was hoped, physicians—rated an entire second-floor corridor in one of the newer blocks. Jole flagged down a man dressed in Kayburg-casual trousers, shirtsleeves, and sandals, hurrying along carrying a lavatory plunger.
“Pardon me, but could you tell me where to find—ah.” Not the janitor. Recognition kicked in from holos in the articles Jole had been reading. “Dr. Gamelin, I presume?”
The man paused. “Yes, I’m Gamelin.” He squinted back in brief puzzlement, as if Jole’s was a face he knew but couldn’t quite place. If Jole had been in uniform instead of civvies, Gamelin might have hit it. “Can I help you?” He squinted harder. “Parent? Student…? Admissions is in the next building over.” His accent was Barrayaran, a hint of South Continent lingering in his voice.
“Neither, at present.” Either, ever? There was yet another new train of thought in his crowded station. “Oliver Jole. Admiral, Sergyar Fleet.”
“Ah.” Gamelin’s spine straightened, for whatever atavistic reason—Jole didn’t think he was an old Service man—and he switched the plunger over and offered an egalitarian handshake, as if between priests of two dissimilar faiths. “And what can the Department of Biology do for Sergyar Fleet today? Did the Vicereine send you?”
“No, I’m here on my own time, today. Although the Vicereine may be indirectly responsible. I’ve been reading—”
Jole was interrupted as a taut, tanned, middle-aged woman dressed in shorts and sandals dashed up. “You found it! Thanks!” She plucked the plunger unceremoniously from Gamelin’s hand. “Where?”
“Dissection lab.”
“Ha. I should have guessed.”
Gamelin put in, “Admiral Jole, may I present our bilaterals expert, Dr. Dobryni.”
The woman looked Jole up and down with rising eyebrows and a growing smile, and nodded. “You’re very bilateral, aren’t you? So pleased! Can’t stay.” Sandals slapping, she continued her gallop up the corridor and swung in at a doorway, calling back, “Welcome to the U! Don’t come in!” The door slammed behind her.
With an effort, Jole returned his attention to the department chief. “I’ve been reading your departmental journal on Sergyaran native biology, and enjoying some of the articles very much.” Gamelin himself was one of the more lucid contributors, as well as being listed as supervising editor.
Gamelin brightened right up. “Excellent! I didn’t think our journal had much reach beyond a few sister institutions, a small circle of local enthusiasts, and some obscure Nexus xenobiologists.”
“I think I’d call myself an interested layperson,” Jole said. “Like the Vicereine.”
“Oh, the Vicereine is a lot more than a layperson,” Gamelin assured him. “Fortunately. She really understands what we’re trying to do, here. Such an improvement over some of our prior Imperial administrators.” He grimaced in some unfond memory. “Not that she can’t be demanding, but at least her requests aren’t ludicrous.”
“She claims her Betan Astronomical Survey training is very out-of-date.”
Gamelin waved a negating hand. “She’s structurally very sound. As for the details, we all grow out-of-date practically as fast as we learn. And then we work very hard at helping others to become so, too.” A brief grin.
“In fact, that was what I’d been wanting to ask about. I wondered if you had anyone doing more work on the biota in and around Lake Serena.”
“Not at present,” said Gamelin. “Everyone we could spare has been dispatched to Gridgrad. Trying to get ahead of the builders, you know. No one wants a repeat of something like the worm plague, or worse.”
“I can see that.” So much for his vague plan of finding the expert and turning him or her upside down to shake out the latest science.
A man popped out of the stairwell, spotted Gamelin, and trotted up, waving his arms. “Ionnas! Julie stole my gene scanner for her damned students again! Make her give it back before they break it—again.”
Gamelin sighed. “If we’re ever to teach them not to break our equipment, they need some equipment to practice on. You know that.”
“Then give her your scanner!”
“Not a chance.” Gamelin met the man’s glower without embarrassment, then seemed to relent. “But you can use mine this afternoon. I haven’t a prayer of getting to it myself. Meetings. Put it back when you’ve finished.”
“Eh.” Mollified, the man made off, with a grudging “Thanks!” tossed over his shoulder.
“Defend it from Julie!” Gamelin called after, which won a snigger as the man turned out of sight.
“Equipment wars,” sighed Gamelin, turning back to Jole. “Do you have them in your line?”
“Pretty much the same thing, yes,” allowed Jole, smiling.
“It will be worse next week, when the Escobaran invasion arrives.”
Jole blinked. “That sounds more like my patch. Shouldn’t I have had a memo?”
Gamelin was nonplussed for only a moment. “Oh!” he laughed. “Not in force. The City University of Nuovo Valencia sends a party of grad students and related riffraff each year to do some work here. Which would be fine, but in order to save freight charges, they try as much as possible to equip themselves on this end. Makes for more-than-scientific competition.”
“And scientific jealousy?”
“Oh, hardly that!” said Gamelin fervently. “I’d welcome anyone.” He added after a moment of judicious thought, “Well, maybe not Cetagandans. Unless they brought their own equipment.” Another contemplative moment. “And left it. Like after their pullout from the Occupation. That could be all right.”