The SAF didn’t need people like her. He was going to need to get General Cooley to help him out on this. But why hadn’t the general rejected the transfer request from a doctor like this in the first place? Did she simply not care about personnel matters not directly related to combat? That was possible, which was why he handled that job—the one that was wearing him down. He wanted to avoid further crumbling.
Major Booker closed the connection to the personnel file and massaged his stiff neck. Damn, the one who wanted a break around here was him. If Booker could just sprawl out on a comfortable couch and come clean to a counselor about all the psychological burdens he had, he’d probably feel a lot better.
Captain Foss was a qualified counselor. He was sure she’d come here for a consultation, although he still didn’t know if she was reliable. Well, here was a good chance for him to check out the character and talents of the newbie doctor. Would he need to make an appointment with her? It was at times like this that Booker wished for a private secretary who could handle this stuff for him.
Major Booker accessed Captain Foss’s room with his terminal. A synthesized voice answered. “My user is currently away from her seat.” Then “I will handle whatever business you may have.”
Major Booker was momentarily perplexed. “ ‘My user’?” Did that mean Edith Foss? “Who is this?” he asked.
“I am the electronic secretary that has been installed in this terminal,” the voice replied. “I will be sure to deliver your verbal message to my user only. Please proceed.”
Booker was being addressed by a simple terminal agent program. This e-secretary wasn’t sending any video, instead simply displaying the contents of what it was saying as text. There were even more advanced e-secretaries in common use, and they were practically indistinguishable from actual persons. Major Booker wasn’t unaware of them, but it was rare to encounter one here in the SAF squadron section. This was the first time any person here had installed an agent that gave the impression of personality.
“Who is this?” asked the e-secretary in Foss’s terminal.
Major Booker, of course. He didn’t answer it like that, though.
“I’d like to consult you about something. Please come to my office.”
The e-secretary knew without asking who was accessing it. Confirmation requests were believed to make for a friendlier user interface, but it was essentially an unnecessary and redundant step. Installing an electronic agent into a terminal like this was another example of the sort of thing the new breed of people here were doing, but it was possible that Dr. Foss was scrutinizing him at this very moment. She might be using the e-secretary to interview him in order to get background information, Major Booker thought. At the very least, the way he was responding should give her an indication of his character. And his present mental condition.
Was he overthinking this? No, it was possible. Still, there was no denying that if he didn’t show some interest in Captain Foss, then she wouldn’t have noticed him or thought to seek him out.
“Captain Foss,” he added. “There’s something I’d like to discuss. I’d like you to come to my office. Soon, if possible.”
Major Booker disconnected, ignoring a repeated attempt by Captain Foss’s e-secretary to ask him his name. His verbal message had already been automatically recorded. He knew that Captain Foss wouldn’t be hearing it from the e-secretary because the FAF’s internal communications core system program was designed that way. The e-secretary was there strictly for decorative purposes.
An artificial electronic secretary? It was absurd. This was a battlefield, after all. The FAF medical center was a field hospital, not a private hospital that had to cater to its patients’ moods. If Captain Foss was having trouble seeing that, then it was his duty to set her straight.
What the hell was this doctor thinking? Major Booker thought. For a moment he was irritated, but he managed to get it under control. In any case, Booker wouldn’t be able to do anything about it unless he met her.
3
REI SWAM LAPS Faery base’s Tactical Combat Air Corps training center. The SAF might have been a de facto division with its own headquarters, but they had no training center of their own for when their soldiers wanted to exercise or work out their frustrations.
There were about twenty people from other units in the pool with him, relaxing, chatting with friends, and calmly drifting along as they swam. The atmosphere is more like a hotel leisure pool than one in a training center, Rei thought. Like a public bath house, echoing with happy shouts. Since Faery Base was located underground, the effect was similar to that of a pool at an underground spa.
Rei swam alone, in silence. Nobody called out to him.
Whenever he set foot into the environs of the training center, entered the locker room, or stood at the side of the pool, it would always be the same. To anyone who met his gaze and tried to engage him in conversation, Rei would simply say, “I’m from the SAF,” and their camaraderie would lapse back into silence. While people in other units knew that SAF members were hard to get along with, they weren’t indifferent to them. Although the SAF were officially assigned to the Tactical Combat Air Corps at Faery Base, SAF members behaved like individuals assigned to an autonomous corps; they had a lot of power. They kept their specific activities secret from people in other units, and that extended to when one of their taciturn soldiers came into a shared area like this—SAF members never spoke about what went on inside of their heads. Their mystery made them objects of curiosity to the others.
No one spoke to Rei directly at the pool, but he could feel their inquisitive glances as he swam, and occasionally he heard “SAF” bubble up from their lively conversations. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d become a bit of a spectacle, but he didn’t care what they said about him as long as they didn’t directly interfere with what he was doing. Rei was used to hearing other units bitching about him on the radio whenever he flew missions with Yukikaze anyway. The only reason he was here swimming was because Major Booker had ordered it. He was here to do his duty, not to make friends.
Rei was actually a talented swimmer, but it had been a long time since he’d come to the pool just for the sake of swimming. Forgetting this was being done as a duty, Rei let the sensation of the water carry him away as he swam without a wasted motion. He soon came to relish the feeling of just moving his body.
As always doing his best not to waste a single stroke, he switched between a two-beat crawl when he grew tired and a six-beat sprint when he wanted to push himself. Rei was out of breath after only four or five laps, driving home to him just how out of shape he was. Abandoning his original plan to switch up his swimming style to a butterfly stroke, he cruised along with the easiest crawl he could manage. Rei thought he could keep going for hours doing that, but gradually his arms grew heavy. He looked at the big analog clock that hung on the wall by the pool. Not even twenty minutes had passed. He decided to keep going and get at least thirty minutes of swimming in, but the hands on the clock crawled along at a glacial pace. When he realized that he was obsessing about how long it was taking, Rei finally admitted that he was too weak to keep pushing on and climbed out of the pool.