Didn’t want to share anything. Didn’t know which was worse—sharing with men or women. Just different problems. “How long before we embark on the Magellan?”
“I can’t say. That depends on too many variables. Between two and four standard weeks. You’ll be busy enough not to worry.”
“Can you tell me what I’ll be piloting?”
“A very special shuttle that also is configured as a lander with unique capabilities. Don’t ask me to describe those. You’ll begin to learn all about them tomorrow.”
A slight beep from the hatch indicated someone outside. The hatch slid open. Morgan stood. Figured I’d better, too.
Woman who stepped in was the kind whose looks I hated. Petite, creamy skin, dark mahogany hair—doll-like. Might have come to my shoulder.
“Lieutenant Braun, this is Lieutenant Chang.” Morgan smiled, professionally polite.
“Gretta Braun.” She turned to me. Black eyes like focused particle beams. I’ve seen cold. Hers were colder.
“Jiendra Chang.”
The commander cleared his throat “Lieutenants. It’s fifteen hundred. I don’t expect to see either of you until zero eight hundred tomorrow at the training bay. That’s bay three.”
“Yes, sir.” Braun’s voice was polite, pleasant.
“Yes, sir.”
We walked out into the passageway. Except for us, it was empty.
Braun looked at me. “I have to ask.” Her voice was level, warmer than her eyes. Anything would have been. “Did you really break all of Fingan’s fingers?”
“No. Broke six. Maybe seven. They stunned me before I got the last three. How did you know him?”
“I didn’t. I took the job after you left. I made head pilot a year back.”
“What happened to Hengeist?”
“He had an accident and decided to leave.”
Hengeist had been almost as bad as Fingan. Should have had an accident earlier. “How did you manage it?”
“I didn’t. I just didn’t try to save him very quickly.”
I’d have bet Braun had done more than that. Also bet that it wasn’t wise to say so. “Suppose you ought to give me the tour.”
“I can do that.” She paused. “I’d like to have one thing clear. No men—or women—in the stateroom.”
That was fine by me. “You hadn’t suggested it, I would have.”
That got me a nod.
Braun turned and began to walk. “This passageway is upper operations, only for ops personnel—pilots and ops techs. That’s why it’s mostly quiet. Ops passageways are gray, the same as on D.S.S. ships. Crew passages are blue. Maintenance ways are brown, and the weapons spaces are red. Pilots can use any passageway, but it’s best to avoid maintenance unless there’s no other way…”
I followed, listening.
8
Fitzhugh
While Security agent Herrit had been absolutely accurate in all that he had said, he had not said more than that I was to be handled like a valuable and high-priority package—and that was exactly what occurred. We were sequestered in a luxury lounge on the elevator climber to orbit Station Beta. Orbit elevators represented the cost-effective and practical, but there is little doubt that they dealated the romance of flight, leaving it far less supernal, assuming it ever had been.
We sat in the private lounge, a space no more than three meters square, adjoining two even smaller bedchambers. Feather-light hangings of cream and blue framed the wall screen that showed Leinster slowly dwindling below us and the stars appearing as the elevator accelerated upward out of the lower atmosphere. There was a stripped-down console between our chairs, and I could have read, but I felt even less like reading than watching Leinster, especially with agent Herrit around. For me, reading has always been solitary.
I tried music, an ancient piece, the 1812 Overture. I blocked the visuals. Battle scenes re-created with brilliant blue-trimmed red uniforms and prancing mounts disconcerted me too much, but entertainment multis weren’t about to show filthy blue-and-white uniforms with barefoot soldiers leaving bloody footprints—almost no one listened to music without a visual component anyway. I was one of the remaining few to prefer the auditory over the visual.
Eventually, I went to bed, but didn’t sleep that well.
Herrit was awake and dressed in his black singlesuit before me in the morning, and waiting in the small lounge after I’d freshened up—the mostly waterless way, since water has mass, and every tonne of water means a tonne less paying cargo or passengers.
The eggs Lyonais from the lounge formulator were patrician in style and presentation, but thoroughly formulated in taste, and I eased them down with the excessive caffeine of old-style bergamot tea, also formulated. After beginning my second mug of the ersatz stuff, I looked across the narrow pop-up table that separated us, for Herrit had said nothing.
“How many missions like this have you done? Conveying professors to unknown destinations?”
“Ensuring the safe arrival of people and items is one of our standard duties, Professor. You, of all academics, should know that.”
“How long have you been with Comity Security?”
“A number of years.”
“How many people have you injured or killed?”
He just looked at me. I knew what he was thinking— violence on the personal level was a sign of incompetence.
“Have you had to take special precautions in my case?”
Herrit laughed, genially. “My superiors have. They always do. Why do you think neither of us knows where you’re going or for what?”
“If I’m that valuable…?”
“Professor… you’re an intelligent man, perhaps brilliant. There are a thousand worlds in the Comity. Most hold millions of individuals. How many other brilliant scholars are there in fields similar to yours? You can be replaced. So can I.”
At that point, I stopped asking questions, not because I didn’t have more, but because Herrit couldn’t answer them any better than I could, and because I’d realized something else.
If… if what Herrit had implied was true, then I wouldn’t know anything that would cause anyone to want me dead until I was wherever the Comity wanted me, and the Comity could doubtless find a way to keep me quite protected while I was working on whatever they had in mind. My safety before and during this fellowship was not the problem.
Afterward… that would be the problem.
And I still couldn’t discern why the Comity Diplomatic Corps had any need for a professor of historical trends.
9
Goodman/Bond
At zero five hundred I walked into the transient quarters just inside the main gate of the D.S.S. base. I made sure I was grinning. Most of the techs were sleeping. As I stopped at the locker above the empty bunk, one looked up. I could feel the briefing info take. Gutersen, engineering tech, third.
“Bond… you ought to be grinnin’. I saw that girl.”
“I’d be grinning more if I had another day. That’s D.S.S. Good enough pay for pretty women, not enough time to enjoy ‘em. Course… for someone like you, with a pretty wife…”
“Two hundred kays away.” He snorted. “Don’t you ever worry about where we’re going?”