“Go.” She waved him toward the door. Before he could step out of hearing range, though, she called out, “Bernard!” He turned back, his expressive face molded into a question. “I’ll have those reports tonight. The ones on superheated alethium.”
He did not miss a beat. “I’ll stop by for them after my meeting. I appreciate all your hard work.”
Sarah grinned to herself as she drank her tea.
She should not have been surprised to see Joaquin waiting for her outside the library, his workcon jacked into the socket in the hall. He looked up from the display and grimaced. “Bernard doesn’t understand the importance of the decision we’re making.”
“He understands. He just has broader priorities. You know we need the alethium. Space travel will shut down within a decade if we can’t find a new supply.”
“He and I work for an agency that is supposed to protect alien species.”
Sarah heard the frustration in his voice, and she tried to make her own words soothing. “The agency has to consider all the facts before it issues a decision.”
“But some facts get considered more than others.” Joaquin’s bitterness sharpened. “You know the stories they tell about Venelia! And Portulan. Those native species weren’t anywhere near as primitive as the Class Two designations they received. The agency looked the other way.”
“Bernard isn’t like that.”
“You don’t know him, Sarah. Not like I do.”
She thought about how she might respond to that. She thought about announcing just how well she knew the French scientist, but she settled for asking, “What are you going to do about it, then?”
“Whatever I can.” Joaquin sighed. “I’ll finish my reports. I’ll stress the Mardurans’ evolved social structure. I’ll try to ignore the fact that the aliens I’m protecting have exoskeletons and multiple brains and eight multijointed legs. I’ll try not to feel like I’ve betrayed them, when the government classifies them as Class Two and specifies the bounty that Jessup will have to pay to exterminate them.”
“Jessup isn’t the bad guy here!” she protested, thinking guiltily of her bonus. “The entire universe needs the alethium. And Jessup can’t do anything without the government’s approval.”
“The same government that let the lacefish of Baranon die? The ones that declared the Aeopagii Class Three, two years after the last breeding pair choked to death on sulfuric waste?”
Sarah’s frustration constricted her chest so that her heart pounded painfully. It’s 500,000 credits, she reminded herself. With that sort of bonus, she would never need to face a journey like this again. She—and Bernard—would not need to make hard decisions for a long, long time. “We have to consider all the facts.”
“Tell that to the Mardurans.” Joaquin powered down his workcon, as if he did not trust Sarah to view the display field. He disappeared down the hall as Sarah keyed the pass-code into the library’s lock.
Mechanically, she turned on her own machine and listened to the mail that had arrived while she ate. An announcement from Jessup central, reminding her with a smooth administrator’s voice that she needed to complete her investment portfolio before Earthfall, if she wanted the tax advantages to kick in for the current fiscal year. Half a dozen junk advertisements that had made it past the mail-guard programs. What was she going to do with green-and-maroon real K’lassan hair implants out here in space? And why would she ever be interested in pictures of nubile young Earth girls with horned Zarassian aliens?
In the middle of the dross, Sarah found three actual assignments. One was overflow from Jessup’s main Earthside library—they must be understaffed again. She could track down the handful of universal patents later.
The second assignment was from on-ship, from Jessup’s highest official on board. She listened to the terse note from the Vice President for Planetary Exploration twice, at first disbelieving her ears: Pull all certified statutes from all planets in Sector 127 concerning transport of life-forms off world. My daughter’s school project is due in three days, so time is of the essence.
No “please.” No “if you have time.” No “if this does not interfere with your paid work on behalf of our mutual employer.” Sarah listened to the Vice President’s slick electronic signature and swore. She would have to do the project, but she would hold the results for a while, edge as close as she dared to the three-day deadline.
She ran her fingers over her workcon’s surface, selecting the final piece of mail. “For a panel meeting tomorrow morning, please identify the three most profitable mining ventures, sector-wide, in the past year. Include corporate profiles of the companies that completed the ventures, as well as predictions of future market worth. We’ll have Morton Jessup himself on-line—I don’t want to look like an idiot.”
Sarah swore again. They’ll have the President on-line, will they? That meant that the meeting had been planned for at least a week, likely for even longer. And they had just decided that they needed the statistics now? When was she supposed to enjoy some peace and quiet, some down time in her own quarters?
Resisting the urge to toss her ’con across the room, Sarah forced herself to take a deep breath. There was plenty of time to do the work; she could finish before Bernard was out of his meeting. She settled her fingers on the command panel and began to pull up figures, to store away visual data. She had just finished listening to recent news articles when a trio of wildcatters sauntered in.
“Great! The ’cons aren’t being used?”
Sarah looked up, distracted. Wonderful. Each of the men held a large glass. Filled with dark liquid. Sloshing onto the floor. She could smell their unwashed bodies across the room. Nevertheless, she forced her voice into a vague semblance of civility. “They’re not in use, but I can’t help you load the games right now.”
“That’s fine. We know what we’re doing.”
They certainly did. Sarah knew these three; they had spent the better part of each day since leaving Marduran lounging in the library. She had cleaned up after them for weeks.
Sighing, she waved toward the wall of gamecons and reminded herself: 500,000 credits. All of this would be worthwhile, once she was Earthside. She sank back into her research, tracking down facts and figures for the last-minute project.
“Die, you sarking spider!” The howl jerked Sarah back to the library. The wildcatters were shouting exuberantly, spilling their drinks and pounding each other on the back. With a single glance, Sarah could see that they had loaded a new module into the ’con, splicing in code to make the game’s generic aliens dead ringers for the Mardurans. Now, an eight-legged creature was splattered across the three-dimensional game space, its body dripping viscous blood. Sarah’s belly turned as she watched the miner’s game avatar tuck an old-fashioned gun into a shoulder holster.
She wanted to yell at the wildcatters. She wanted to tell them that they were crude and revolting. She wanted to scream that it was no wonder they went from planet to planet, spending no more than a week Earthside with their supposed friends and loved ones.
She swallowed her words, though. The miners were Jessup’s lifeblood. They kept the company profitable. They paid her salary. Would pay her bonus.
Her ’con chimed, and she glanced at the display space. A red icon flashed repeatedly, and she reached toward it without thinking. “You have twenty days to complete Task Priority One—Cataloging. Twenty days to complete Task Priority One. Twenty days—”