"Very good, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied, showing no signs of being impressed at all. "I wouldn't have logged Alexander as brawn if I had been in your shell, though. He isn't as... professional as I would like. And his record is rather erratic."
"So are the records of most genius-class intellects, Supervisor," Tia retorted, feeling moved to defend her brawn. "As I am sure you are aware." And you aren't in my shell, lady, she thought, with resentment at Beta's superior tone smoldering in her, until she altered the chemical feed to damp it. I will make my own decisions, and I will thank you to keep that firmly in mind.
"So they say, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied impersonally. "I'll convey your selection to the Academy and have CenCom log in your flight plan and advise you when to be ready to lift immediately."
With that, she logged off. But before Tia could feel slighted or annoyed with her, the CenCom operator came back on.
"AH-One-Oh-Three-Three, congratulations!" he said, his formerly impersonal voice warming with friendliness. "I just wanted you to know before we got all tangled up in official things that the operators here all think you picked a fine brawn. Me, especially."
Tia was dumbfounded. "Why, thank you," she managed. "But why?"
The operator chuckled. "Oh, we handle all the cadets' training-flights. Some of them are real pains in the orifice, but Alex always has a good word and he never gripes when we have to put him in a holding pattern. And, well, that Donning character tried to get me in trouble over a near-miss when he ignored what I told him and came in anyway. Alex was in the pattern behind him, he saw and heard it all. He didn't have to log a report in my defense, but he did, and it kept me from getting demoted."
"Oh," Tia replied. Now, that was interesting. Witnesses to near misses weren't required to come forward with logs of the incident, and in fact, no one would have thought badly of Alex if he hadn't. His action might even have earned him some trouble with Donning.
"Anyway, congratulations again. You won't regret your choice," the operator said. "And, stand by for compressed data transmission."
As her orders and flight-plan came over the comlink, Tia felt oddly pleased and justified. Beta did not like her choice of brawns. The CenCom operators did.
Good recommendations, both.
She began her pre-flight check with rising spirits, and it seemed to her that even Ted was smiling. Just a little. All right Universe, brace yourself. Here we come!
CHAPTER FOUR
"All right, Tia-my-love, explain what's going on here, in words of one syllable," Alex said plaintively, when Tia got finished with tracing the maze of orders and counter-orders that had interrupted their routine round of deliveries to tiny two to four-person Exploratory digs. "Who's on first?"
"And What's on second," she replied absentmindedly. Just before leaving she'd gotten a datahedron on old Terran slang phrases and their derivation; toying with the idea of producing that popular-science article. If it got published on enough nets, it might well earn her a tidy little bit of credit, and no amount of credit, however small, was to be scorned. But one unexpected side-effect of scanning it was that she tended to respond with the punch lines of jokes so old they were mummified.
Though now, at least, she knew what the CenCom operator had meant by "hang onto your bustle" and that business about the wicked witch who'd had a house dropped on her sister.
"What?" Alex responded, perplexed. "No, never mind. I don't want to know. Just tell me whose orders we're supposed to be following. I got lost back there in the fifth or sixth dispatch."
"I've got it all straight now, and it's dual-duty," she replied. "Institute, with backup from Central, although they were countermanding each other in the first four or five sets of instructions. One of the Excavation digs hasn't been checking in. Went from their regular schedule to nothing, not even a chirp."
"You don't sound worried," Alex pointed out.
"Well, I am, and I'm not," she replied, already calculating the quickest route through hyperspace, and mentally cursing the fact that they didn't have Singularity Drive. But then again, there wasn't a Singularity point anywhere near where they wanted to go. So the drive wasn't the miracle of instantaneous transportation some people claimed it was. Hmm, and some brainships too, naming no names. All very well if there were Singularity points littering the stellarscape like stars in the Core, but out here, at this end of the galactic arm, stars were close, but points were few and far between. One reason why the Institute hadn't opted for a more expensive ship. "If it were an Exploratory dig like my, like we've been trotting supplies and mail to, I would worry a lot. They're horribly vulnerable. And an Evaluation dig is just as subject to disaster, since the maximum they can have is twenty people. But a Class Three, Alex, this one had a complement of two hundred! That's more that enough people to hold off any trouble!"
"Class Three Excavation sites get a lot of graduate students, don't they?" Alex said, while she locked things down in her holds for takeoff with help from the servos. Pity the cargo handlers hadn't had time to stow things properly.
"Exactly. They provide most of the coolie labor when there aren't any natives to provide a work force, that's why the Class Three digs have essentially the same setup as a military base. Most of the personnel are young, strong, and they get the best of the equipment This one has," she quickly checked her briefing "one hundred seventy-eight people between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. That's plenty to set up perimeter guards."
Alex's fingers raced across the keypads in front of him, calling up data to her screens. "Hmm. No really nasty native beasties. Area declared safe. And, my. Fully armed, are we?" He glanced over at the column. "I had no idea archeologists were such dangerous beings! They never told me that back in secondary school!"
"Grrr," she responded. She flashed a close-up of the bared fangs of a dog on one of the screens he wasn't using. In the past several weeks she and Alex had spent a lot of time talking, getting to know each other. By virtue of her seven years spent mobile, she was a great deal more like a softperson than any of her classmates, and Alex was fun to be around. Neither of them particularly minded the standard issue beiges of her interior; what he had done, during the time spent in FTL, was to copy the minimalist style of his sensei's home, taking a large brush and some pure black and red enamel, and copying one or two Zen ideographs on the walls that seemed barest. She thought they looked very handsome, and quietly elegant
Of course, his cabin was a mess, but she didn't have to look in there, and she avoided doing so as much as possible.
In turn, he expressed delight over her 'sparkling personality'. No matter what the counselors said, she had long ago decided that she had feelings and emotions and had no guilt over showing them to those she trusted. Alex had risen in estimation from 'partner' to 'trusted' in the past few weeks; he had a lively sense of humor and enjoyed teasing her. She enjoyed teasing right back.
"Pull in your fangs, wench," he said. "I realize that the only reason they get those arms is because there are no sentients down there. So, what's on the list of Things That Get Well-Armed Archeologists? I have the sinking feeling there were a lot of things they didn't tell me about archeology back in secondary school!"