“A tech’d go crazy worrying about that. Never tell us much. What else is new?” I opened the locker and took out the kit bag. Everything was stuffed inside. My predecessor had not been a tidy man.
After cleaning up and changing, at zero six hundred I presented myself at the D.S.S. in-processing center, a long building another block toward the bluff overlooking the north shore and the circular harbor below. I’d presented the ID card and had it checked against my DNA twice before I got to the personnel section. There the personnel tech took the order card and my D.S.S. ID. I smiled easily as they went into the analyzer. D.S.S. cards were supposed to be unduplicatable. But then, D.S.S. didn’t want anyone to know they weren’t, and CIS wasn’t about to broadbeam that the cards could be duplicated and altered.
There was only the slightest hesitation before the personnel tech nodded. “You’ll be on the eleven hundred elevator. Be at the debarkation dock no later than zero eight hundred. Take the upper inclinator at the end of the avenue. That one goes straight to the ferry dock.”
“You know where I’m headed?”
“Nope. Only says you’re going to D.S.S. orbit station for further assignment.”
The colonel might have learned that I was headed to the Magellan, but no one in D.S.S. seemed to know that. I still had to push away the questions that wouldn’t help with the mission and the speculations about the Morning Star and what Major Ibaio had really meant by that.
The tech handed back the cards. “Make sure you empty your bladder before you enter the elevator. Otherwise, you’ll be very unpopular before long. The elevator has only one speed, and mat’s high.” She didn’t look at me. “Next! Guillermo, Christan.”
It was only six-forty-five, and I walked casually northward through the base. Fifteen minutes later I reached the end of the avenue. From there, the harbor spread out below. There wasn’t much at the base of the basalt cliffs except two long piers. Each was accessed by an inclinator. From the bluff top, I saw the ferry to the terminal platform. It was an SES—the sort that had been around for thousands of years, even before the Tellurian Diaspora.
I stepped onto one of the platforms, to the right of a woman armorer, chief tech. Her eyes took in the second’s badge on my sleeve, then my face. She looked away. I was too old to be a rising tech. That was what the colonel had wanted—the kind of tech no one really looked at.
At the end of the inclinator, I let the chief tech move farther ahead of me.
Another ID/DNA check waited at the ferry. It was amusing. No one had thought about the implications. The DNA check made sure that no one had stolen a D.S.S. ID card, but it didn’t guard against forged cards where the DNA matched. Since all information had to be ship-carried from system to system, the key to D.S.S. security was the unbreakability of the ID card.
The ferry trip took less time than waiting for the ferry to depart.
There wasn’t an ID check at the orbit elevator terminal. There were screens on which names and level assignments were posted. Mine was third level, fourth bay. I took my time, again, but a number of techs hadn’t reported when I reached the bay.
D.S.S. elevators don’t have frills—just flat couches in square bays. Military elevators are faster than civilian elevators. It takes a mere five hours to get to the Clarke point. The trade-off is that D.S.S. only operates eight climbers at a time because the higher velocities require more energy and greater spacing. I didn’t recognize anyone in the bay, and took an end couch. The fabric was old and stained in places. My kit went into the locker under the couch.
Before long, there was the standard announcement.
“Strap in and do not move once your harness locks. The first half hour will seem relatively slow until the climber clears the thickest part of the atmosphere.”
I settled into the couch.
You can’t feel the speed or the acceleration with an AG-boosted climber, and they’re much safer than the ancient elevators. If the guidance ribbon breaks, the AG unit automatically throws the climber into low orbit, and eventually a shuttle comes and tows it to orbit station. Only a handful have broken in hundreds of years. Most of those were sabotage. One I knew about all too well.
Mostly, I was bored and sore by the time we unstrapped and lined up to leave the climber. Everyone in the third level was headed to the same shuttle lock, marked by the blue arrows. I followed the arrows—and ended up in a queue before an open hatch. Gutersen was five techs ahead of me. Officers didn’t queue, and they had a separate waiting area. The tech just behind Gutersen was dark-haired, curved even better than the girl from the night before. She turned. Her face was harder, much older.
Once inside the hatch, there was a circular full-body scanner—the kind you walk through that shows every bit of your interior. Just short of it was an open bin. On each side of the scanner were two D.S.S. Marine guards behind nanite-shielded screens. They both had riot-level stunners, and they were out. My turn came, and I stepped toward the single security tech, third class. He was younger than Gutersen.
“Drop the kit right there.” The tech’s voice was bored. He must have said that a hundred times a day. “Into the bin.”
“Ah… ?” I thought some reaction was required.
“You’re in the group for further assignment, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Your orders stated that you were to bring only minimal kit, and nothing personal. You’ll be issued a new kit when you report to your station. Drop it.”
I dropped the kit bag. It vanished into bin, on its way to reformulation.
“Through the scanner.”
I stepped through. Nothing happened.
On the other side was a personnel tech. She was second class, nice-looking but not special. “You’re cleared, Bond. You’ll leave at nineteen hundred. Pick up one of the temporary kits there.” She nodded at a stack of plastic handkits. “Disposable skintights and toiletries. Enough for your transfer hop. You and your cadre will be in the aft section of the Titarda. Take the second hatch, the green one. Follow it to the waiting area at the end. Facilities and food are there. Don’t leave the area.”
A transfer hop that required more than one skintight meant a long in-system journey. I was headed to the Magellan or to an isolated system station to rot. I picked up the temporary kit and walked toward the green hatch.
Equipment hummed faintly when I stepped through— another scan.
A two-hour wait before we loaded. That wouldn’t be too bad. I stepped into the waiting area, a long narrow chamber that had one large lock at the end. The walls were greenish gray. Every military outfit I’d seen liked some shade of gray.
“Bond!” called Gutersen. He sat in one of the sling seats set in rows. “Come join us.”
I grinned. “I see you made it.”
“Told you we were going the same place,” Gutersen burbled. “It’s just got to be something big. Maybe it’s one of those new super dreadnoughts. Always wanted to be in on something big. What do you think?”
Two hours with Gutersen might be longer than two weeks with anyone else.
10
Chang
Threeday morning I was in the training bay—long chamber, overhead with barely forty centimeters clearance, equipment stacked everywhere, and corridors melted through the nickel-iron at all angles. Was barely on time. Wouldn’t have been if Braun hadn’t reminded me to reset my personal chrono the night before. D.S.S. used old-style seven-day, twenty-four-hour Old Earth clock and calendar. Braun was neat, quiet, and kept to herself. So did I. Better that way.