i
T-190 hours
Communication, Union Ministry of Defense, to US Venture in dock at Cyteen Station
ORIG: CYTHQ/MINDEF/CODE111A/USVENTURE
ATTN: Mary Engles, capt. US VENTURE
Accept coded packet; navigation instructions contained herein. US CAPABLE and US SWIFT will accompany and convoy. Mission code: WISE. Citizens will board on noncitizen manifest, identifiable by lack of tattoo number. Sort from noncitizens on boarding and assign aboard VENTURE. Tally will be 452 including all uniformed military personnel and dependents. Treat with due courtesy. AZI class personnel will be billeted in special hold preparation, 23000 aboard US VENTURE, remainder apportioned to CAPABLE and SWIFT. Due to sensitive nature of first boardings, urge rapid processing up to number 1500; delays beyond that point will not expose civilian personnel to discomfort and/or breach of cover. No station personnel are to be permitted within operations area once loading has begun. Security will be posted by HQ. Should an emergency arise, call code WISE22. All libertied crew must be recalled before D–0500 to assure smooth functioning of boarding procedures. Mission officer Col. James A. Conn will present credentials and further orders regarding disposition of citizen and noncitizen personnel. Official cover has the convoy routed to mining construction at Endeavor: use this in all inship communications.
ii
T-190 hours
Communication: Cyteen HQ, Defense Ministry to US Venture docked at Cyteen Station
ORIG:CYTHQ/MINDEF/CODE111A/COLBURAD/CONN/J.
PROJ287:
Military Personnel:
Col. James A. Conn, governor general
Capt. Ada P. Beaumont, lt. governor
Maj. Peter T. Gallin, personnel
M/Sgt. Ilya V. Burdette, Corps of Engineers
Cpl. Antonia M. Cole
Spec. Martin H. Andresson
Spec. Emilie Kontrin
Spec. Danton X. Norris
M/Sgt. Danielle L. Emberton, tactical op.
Spec. Lewiston W. Rogers
Spec. Hamil N. Masu
Spec. Grigori R. Tamilin
M/Sgt. Pavlos D. M. Bilas, maintenance
Spec. Dorothy T. Kyle
Spec. Egan I. Innis
Spec. Lucas M. White
Spec. Eron 678-4578 Miles
Spec. Upton R. Patrick
Spec. Gene T. Troyes
Spec. Tyler W. Hammett
Spec. Kelley N. Matsuo
Spec. Belle M. Rider
Spec. Vela K. James
Spec. Matthew R. Mayes
Spec. Adrian C. Potts
Spec. Vasily C. Orlov
Spec. Rinata W. Quarry
Spec. Kito A. M. Kabir
Spec. Sita Chandrus
M/Sgt. Dinah L. Sigury, communications
Spec. Yung Kim
Spec. Lee P. de Witt
M/Sgt. Thomas W. Oliver, quartermaster
Cpl. Nina N. Ferry
Pfc. Hayes Brandon
Lt. Romy T. Jones, special forces
Sgt. Jan Vandermeer
Spec. Kathryn S. Flanahan
Spec. Charles M. Ogden
M/Sgt. Zell T. Parham, security
Cpl. Quintan R. Witten
Capt. Jessica N. Sedgewick, confessor-advocate
Capt. Bethan M. Dean, surgeon
Capt. Robert T. Hamil, surgeon
Lt. Regan T. Chiles, computer services
Civilian Personnel: list to follow:
Secretarial personnel: 12
Medical/surgical: 1
Medical/paramedic: 7
Mechanical maintenance: 20
Distribution and warehousing: 20
Security: 12
Computer service: 4
Computer maintenance: 2
Librarian: 1
Agricultural specialists: 10
Geologists: 5
Meteorologist: 1
Biologists: 6
Education: 5
Cartographer: 1
Management supervisors: 4
Biocycle engineers: 4
Construction personnel: 150
Food preparation specialists: 6
Industrial specialists: 15
Mining engineers: 2
Energy systems supervisors: 8
TOTAL MILITARY 45
TOTAL CIVILIAN SUPERVISORY 296
TOTAL CITIZEN STAFF 341; TOTAL NONASSIGNED
DEPENDENTS: 11; TOTAL ALL CITIZENS: 452
ADDITIONAL NONCITIZEN PERSONNEL:
list to follow:
“A” class: 2890
“B” class: 12389
“M” class: 4566
“P” class: 20788
“V” class: 1278
TOTAL ALL NONCITIZENS: 41911
TOTAL ALL MISSION: 42363
Male/female ratio approx. 55%/45%
DEPENDENTS LIST WILL FOLLOW
NONCITIZEN LIST WILL APPEAR ON MANIFEST
iii
T-56 hours
On Cyteen Dock, restricted area
The place was large and cold and somehow the instructions lost themselves in so strange a place. Jin 458-9998 walked where he was told, feeling the chill in his body and most especially on his skull where they had shaved off all his hair. 9998s were darkhaired and handsome and they were A’s, important in the order of things; but the orderliness in his world had been upset. They had taken him into the white building on the farm and given him deepteach that told him the farm was no longer important, that he would be given a new and great purpose when he got where he was going, and that there would be other tapes to tell him so, very soon.
“Yes,” he had said, because that was the appropriate acknowledgement, and the change had not vastly disturbed him at the outset. But then they had taken him, still muzzy with trank, into the med wing, which he never liked, because nothing good ever happened there, and they had taken his clothes and had him lie down on a table, after which they had shaved all the hair off him, every bit but his eyelashes, and shot him full of so many things that they used all of one arm and started on the other. It hurt, but he was used to that. He was only dismayed when he saw himself in the glass going out, and failed to recognize himself—a destruction of all his vanity.
“How do you feel about this?” the supervisor had asked him, the standard question at a change; and he searched his heart as he was supposed to do and came up with a word that covered it.
“Erased.”
“Why do you feel that way?”
“I look different.”
“Is that all?”
He thought about it a moment. “I’m leaving the farm.”
“What’s worst?”
“My looks.”
“It’s to keep you clean for a while. While you’re being shipped. Everyone has it done. They won’t laugh at you. They won’t notice you. It’ll grow back in a few weeks and you’ll have a new assignment. Tapes will explain it to you. It’s supposed to be very good. They’re taking only very expensive contracts like yours.”
That had cheered him considerably. He stopped minding the shaving and the paperthin white coveralls and the loss of himself. He stood up then and started to leave.
“Goodbye, Jin,” the supervisor said, and a little panic hit him at the thought that he was never again going to see this man who solved all his problems.
“Will someone there help me?” he asked.
“Of course there’ll be someone. Do you want to shake hands, Jin? I think they’re going to pass you a lot higher than you are here. But you have to be patient and take things as they come.”
He came back, feeling strange about taking a born-man’s hand, and very proud in that moment. “I’ll miss you,” he said.
“Yes. But the tapes will make you happy.”
He nodded. That was so. He looked forward to it, because he was not thoroughly happy at the moment, and his ears were cold and his body felt strangely smooth and naked under the cloth. He let go the supervisor’s hand and walked out, where another attendant took him in tow and led him to a building where others as shaven as himself were waiting. The sight hit him with deep shock—that he knew some of them, and had trouble recognizing them at all; and they looked at him the same way. There were four other 9998s and they all looked alike, all like him; and there were three 687s and seven of the 5567s—and all the small traits by which they knew each other as individuals were obliterated. Panic settled into him afresh.
“Which are you?” one of his own twins asked.
“I’m Jin,” he said softly. “Are we all going to the same place?”
“Jin?” A female voice. “Jin—” It was one of the 687s; it was Pia, making room for him on the bench which ran round the room, among the others. He came and sat down with her, grateful, because Pia was a friend and he wanted something familiar to cling to. Her face was vastly changed. Pia’s hair was dark as his own and it was all gone, her eyes staring out vast and dark from a lightly freckled face. They wound their fingers together for comfort in the space between them. He looked down. The hands were still like Pia’s; the manners were still hers.
• • •
But she was in back of him in the line somewhere, and they had mixed in a lot of strange azi from elsewhere, types he had never seen before, and the place was cold and miserable. The line stopped and he unfocussed his eyes, waiting, which was the best way to pass the time, thinking on pleasanter images such as the tapes gave him when he earned tapetime above his limit. But he could not conjure the same intensity as the tape, and it never quite overcame the cold. No one spoke; it was not a time for speaking, while they were being transferred. They had instructions to listen for. No one moved, because no one wanted to get lost, or to merit bad tape, which seemed very easy to earn in a situation like this, one for which no tape had ever prepared them.
They had ridden a ship up to this place. He had seen ships fly but had never imagined the sensation. His heart had gone double beats during the flight, and he had been terrified for a while, until he had gotten used to the sensation. But no sooner had he done that than they had entered a new state with other and worse sensations one atop the other. This time someone had thought to speak to them and to assure them it was safe.
Then they had knocked into something and they were advised they were at dock, that they were getting out on Cyteen Station, which was a star at night in the skies of Cyteen, and which he had watched move on summer nights. The news confused him, and of a sudden the door opened and blinded them with light. Some cried out: that was how disturbed they were. And they walked out when they were told, not into the shining heart of a star, but into a very large and very cold place, and were herded this way and that and bunked in a cold barn of a place where the floors all curved up. People walked askew and things tilted without falling over. He tried not to look; he became afraid when he looked at things like that, which suggested that even solid realities could be revised like tape. He wanted his fields back again, all golden in the sun, and the warmth on his back, and the coolth of water after work, and swimming in the brook when they had gotten too hot in summers.
But he could read and write, and presently as they were led along he read things like CYTEEN STATION and DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY; and A MAIN and A 2 and CUSTOMS and DETENTION. None of it was friendly, and least of all did he like the word detention, which led to bad tape. Others could read too, and no one said anything; but he guessed that everyone who could read had a stomach knotted up and a heart thudding up into the throat the same as his.
“This way,” a man with a supervisor’s green armband said, opening a door for their line. “You’ll get tape here, by units of fifty. Count off as you go in.”
Jin counted. He was 1–14, and a born-man passed him a chit that said so. He took his chit in hand and filed in behind the first.
It was more med. He followed his file into the white-walled and antiseptic enclosure and his heart, which had settled a moment, started again into its now perpetual state of terror. “You’re afraid,” they told him when they checked his pulse. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Yes,” he agreed, trying, but he was cold with his coveralls down to his waist and he jerked when one of the meds took his arm and shot something into it.
“That’s trank,” the woman said. “Cubicle 14 down the hall. You’ll have time enough to hook up. Push the button if you have trouble.”
“Thank you,” he said and put his clothes back to rights, and walked where she aimed him. He went in and sat down on the couch, which was cold tufted plastic, not like the comfortable bed at home. He attached the leads, already feeling his pulse rate slowing and a lethargy settling into his thinking, so that if someone had come into the cubicle that moment and told him they might put him down, the news would have fallen on him very slowly. He was only afraid now of bad tape; or unfamiliar tape; or tape which might change what he was and make him forget the farm.
Then the warning beep sounded and he lay back on the couch, because the deepteach was about to cycle in, and he had just that time to settle or fall limp and hurt himself.
It hit, and he opened his mouth in panic, but it was too late to scream.
CODE AX, it gave him, and then a series of sounds; and wiped all the careful construction of his values and cast doubt on all his memories.
“Be calm,” it told him as the spasms eased. “All A class find this procedure disorienting. Your fine mind and intelligence make this a little more difficult. Please cooperate. This is a necessary procedure. Your value is being increased. You are being prepared for a duty so vastly important that it will have to be explained in a series of tapes. Your contract has been appropriated by the state. You will be in transit on a ship and nothing will divert you from your purpose, which is a secret you will keep.
“When you step out in a new world you will be beside a river near a sea. You will work at the orders of born-men. You will be happy. When you have made a place to live you will make fields and follow other orders the tapes will give you. You are very fortunate. The state which holds your contract is very happy with you. We have every confidence in you. You can be very proud to be selected for this undertaking.
“Your bodies are very important. They will be under unusual stress. This tape will instruct you in precautionary exercise. Your minds will be important where you are going. You will be given instruction in that regard in this session. Please relax. You will be very valuable when we are done.
“You will be more and more like a born-man. The state which owns your contract is very pleased with you. This is why you were selected. Your genetic material is very important. You are to create born-men. This is only one of your many purposes. Is there a female you have formed a close friendship with? . . . Pia 86–687, thank you, yes, I am checking . . . Yes, this individual has been selected. This is an approved mating. You will both be very happy . . . Yes or no, respond at the tone: do you feel comfortable with this? A technician is standing by . . . thank you, Jin 458, your self-confidence is a mark of your excellent background. You should feel very proud of this . . . .”
iv
T-48 hours
Cyteen Dock
It was all restricted area, and the dock crews were some of them security people from the station offices—in case. Col. James Conn walked the dock with an eye to the ordinary foot traffic beyond. Alliance merchanters were common here in Union’s chief port, under the treaty that ceded them trade rights across the Line; and no one was deceived. There were spies among them, watching every movement Union made, interested in everything. It was a mutual and constant activity, on both sides of the Line. They moved freely up the curving horizon, in small groups, keeping to the blue-line pathways through the military docks, looking without seeming to look, and no one stopped them. The holes in the net were all purposeful, and the right information had been leaked by all the appropriate sources to let the Alliance folk think they knew what was going on. This was not Conn’s department, but he knew that it was done.
Gantries lined the dock, one idle, three supporting ships’ lines. US Swift was coming in later in the watch; Capable would follow. There were more ships, but those were normal military traffic, small. Crews took their liberties, knowing nothing specific yet, hand-picked crews, so what passed in bars was worthless, excepting a few, who spread the desired rumors. That was Security’s doing, their design. One could surmise shells within shells of falsity and deception; a man could trust nothing if he fell into Security’s way of thinking.
A line officer could get uneasy in such business. Conn had gotten uneasy, in times less certain, but he saw round the perimeters of this and knew its limits, that this was not a hot one. There were civs in this one, and civs had rights; and those civs gave him reassurance in the packet he carried, unheralded by security, in his inside pocket.
He reached Venture’s dock, number one white berth, and climbed the access ramp into the tube itself. That was where the first real security appeared, in the form of two armed and armored troopers who barred his way to the inner lock—but so would they on any warship.
“REDEX,” he said, “Conn, Col. James A.”
“Sir.” The troopers clattered rifles to their armored sides. “Board, sir, thank you.”
They were Venture personnel. Spacer command, not of his own service. He walked through the hatch and into the receiving bay, to Venture’s duty desk. The officer on duty stopped reading comp printout in a hurry when he looked up and saw brass. “Sir.”
Conn took his id from his pocket and slid it into the receiver.
“Id positive,” the duty officer said. And into the com: “Tyson: Col. James Conn to see the captain.”
That was as arranged—no formalities, no fanfare. He was a passenger on this ship, separate, no cooperative command. Conn collected the aide and walked with him up to the lift, small-talked with him on the way, which was his manner . . . none of the spit and polish of the spacegoing Elite Guard. Special operations was his own branch of the service, and that of the highest officers in his immediate staff. And after thirty years service, with a little arthritis that got past the pills—rejuv delayed just a shade too long—he had less spit and polish about him than he had started with.
A new start. They had persuaded him with that. Jean was gone; and the mission had fallen into his lap. A change seemed good, at this stage in life. Maybe it was that for Beaumont, for Gallin, for some of the others he knew were going. There might be a separate answer for the science people, who had their own curious ambitions, and some of whom were married to each other; or were sibs; or friends. But those of them who came out of the old service—those of them carrying some years—out of that number, only Ada Beaumont was taking advantage of the Dependents allowance and taking a husband along in a mission slot. The rest of them, the nine of them who had seen the war face-on, came solo like the freshfaced youths. The years had stripped them back to that. It was a new life out there, a new chance. So they went.
The lift opened, let him and the aide out on the main level. He walked into the captain’s office and the captain rose from her desk and met him with an offered hand. A woman of his own years. He felt comfortable with her. He surprised himself in that; generally he was ill at ease with spacers, let alone the black-uniformed Elite like Mary Engles. But she offered a stout and calloused hand and used a slang out of the war, so that he knew she had dealt with the ground services before. She sent the aide out, poured them both stiff drinks and sat down again. He drew a much easier breath.
“You saw service in the ’80, did you?” he asked.
“Ran transport for a lot of you; but old Reliance saw her better days, and they stripped her down.”
“Reliance. She came in on Fargone.”
“That she did.”
“I left some good friends there.”
She nodded slowly. “Lost a few too.”
“Hang, it’s a better run this time, isn’t it?”
“Has to be,” she said. “Your boarding’s set up. You have orders for me?”
He opened his jacket and took out the envelope, passed it to her. “That’s the total list. I’ll keep out of your way during transit. I’ll instruct my command to do the same.”
Another nod. “I always liked special op. Easy passengers. You just keep the science lads and the dependents out of the way of my crew and I’ll think kindly on you forever.”
Conn grinned and lifted the glass. “Easy done.”
“Huh, easy. The last such lot I dropped was glad to get off alive.”
“What last lot? You do this weekly?”
“Ah.” Engles sipped at her glass and arched a brow. “You’ll not be telling me I’m to brief you on that.”
“No. I know what the program is. And the ship knows, does she?”
“We have to. What we’re doing, if not where. We’re the transport. We’ll be seeing you more than once, won’t we? Keep us happy.”
“By then,” Conn said, “any other set of faces is going to come welcome.”
Engles gave a one-sided smile. “I expect it will. I’ve run a few of these assignments. Always like to see the special op heading it up. Far less trouble that way.”
“Ever had any trouble?”
“Oh, we haven’t.”
He lifted a brow and drained the glass. There were photofaxes on the office walls, ships and faces, some of the photos scarred and scratched. Faces and uniforms. He had a gallery like that in his own duffle. The desk had a series of pictures of a young man, battered and murky. He was not about to ask. The photos never showed him older. He thought of Jean, with a kind of grayness inside . . . had known a moment of panic, the realization of his parting from Cyteen, boarding another ship, leaving the places Jean had known, going somewhere her memory did not even exist. And all he took was the pictures. Engles offered him a half glass more and he took it.
“You need any special help in boarding?” Engles asked.
“No. Just so someone gets my duffle on. The rest is coming in freight.”
“We’ll take your officers aboard at their leisure. Science and support personnel, when they arrive, are allotted a lounge to themselves, and they’ll kindly use it.”
“They will.”
“A lot smoother that way. They don’t mix well, my people and civs.”
“Understood.”
“But you have to make it mix, don’t you? I sure don’t envy you the job.”
“New world,” he said, a shrug. The liquor made him numb. He felt disconnected, and at once in a familiar place, a ship like a dozen other ships, a moment lived and relived. But no Jean. That was different. “It works because it has to work, that’s all. They need each other. That’s how it all fits together.”
Engles pressed a button on the console. “We’ll get your cabin set up. Anything you need, you let me know.”
The aide came back. “The colonel wants his cabin,” Engles said quietly.
“Thanks,” Conn said, took the hand offered a second time, followed the black-uniformed spacer out into the corridors, blinking in the warmth of the liquor.
The scars were there . . . the aide was too young to know; scars predating the clean, the modern corridors. The rebellion at Fargone; the war—the tunnels and the deep digs . . . .
Jean had been with him then. But twenty years the peace had held, uneasy detente between Union and the merchanter Alliance. Peace was profitable, because neither side had anything to gain in confrontation . . . yet. There was a border. Alliance built warships the Accord of Pell forbade; Union built merchant ships the Accord limited to farside space . . . cargo ships that could dump their loads and move; warships that could clamp on frames and haul: the designs were oddly similar, tokening a new age in the Between, with echoes of the old. Push would come to shove again; he believed it; Engles likely did.
And the Council must believe it . . . making moves like this, establishing supply, the longterm advantage of bases on worlds, which were unstrikable under the civilized accords; most of all assuring an abundance of worldbred troops who could not retreat. Union seeded worlds, strategically placed or otherwise . . . every site which could marginally support human life . . . . an entrenched, immovable expansion which would bottle Alliance in close to their own center and thoroughly infiltrate any territory Alliance might gain in war or negotiations.
The building of carrier ships like Venture was part of it.
And the other part rested in the hands of special op, and employees of the government who, for various reasons, volunteered.
v
T-20 hours
Cyteen dock
The lines fell into order, white-clad, shaven headed, a slow procession across the dock, and no one paid it more than the curiosity the event was due—the loading of cloned-man workers onto transports, which always shocked Alliance citizens and sent a shiver up the staunchest of Union backbones. It was an aspect of life most citizens never had to see, the reminder of the lab-born ancestry of many of them—the labor pool on which worlds were built. Azi workers served in citizen homes, and worked on farms and took jobs others found undesirable—quiet and cheerful workers in the main.
But these were quiet indeed, and the lines were unnaturally patient, and the shaved heads and faces and the white sameness was grim and without illusion.
And to stand in that line—himself shaven and blank except for the small blue triangle on his right cheek and a number on his hand—Marco Gutierrez felt a constant panic. Keep the eyes unfocussed or fixed, they had said onworld, when they were loaded onto the shuttles. Don’t worry. The numbers you’re wearing are specially flagged in the comp. The same system that lets the azi all get the right tape will get you no worse than an informational lecture. They’ll know who you are.
The azi frightened him—all of them, so silent, so fixed on what they did and where they went. He stared at the whiteclad shoulders in front of him, which by the hips belonged to a woman, but he could not tell for sure from the back. There were sets of these workers, twins and triplets, quads and quints. But of some he had seen only a single example, unique. He had not gotten a wrong tape when they passed through the lab: he had lain down under the machine terrified that they might slip him a wrong one, and he might end by needing psychiatric help—his mind, his mind, that was his life, all the years of study—But it had come out right, and he had only the dimmest impression of what they had fed him—
Unless—the thought occurred to him—that was the same confidence all of them in the lines had, and they were all being deceived and programmed. The imagination that something might have been done to him without his knowledge sent the sweat coursing over a shaved, too-smooth body. He trusted his government. But mistakes were made with the push of a computer key. And sometimes the government had done harsh things in harsh times—and lied—
Eyes blank. He heard noises, the crash of machinery, and the movement of vehicles. He was aware of people on the sidelines staring at them; at him. It was hard not to be human, hard not to turn and look, or to shift the feet or to fret in line or make some small random movement—but the azi did not.
At least some of these close to him must be citizens like him. He had no idea how many. He knew that some of his colleagues were with him, but he had lost track of them, in the shifting of the lines. They were boarding. They went toward the ship; and they moved with incredible slowness.
There had been a time, in that white-tiled room on Cyteen where he and others of his group had last been human—that they had been able to laugh about it; that they made jokes and took it lightly. But that was before they had been taken singly into the next room and shaved, before they had had a number stamped on them and individually gotten the instruction on behavior, before they had fallen into the lines at the shuttleport and been lost.
There was no more humor in it, no more at all. There was terror . . . and humiliation, the violation of privacy, the fear of coercion. All he had to do to back out now was to turn and walk away from the line, which no azi could do; and something was holding him there, a constraint he believed was his own volition, his courage keeping him where he was.
But lately all realities had shifted. And he was no longer certain.
What, he thought as the line inched its way toward the access ramp, in sight now, what if things had gone totally wrong? And what if the people who were to recognize him did not?
But the tape had been harmless; and therefore the computer had the number right.
He trusted. And inched up the ramp step by step, never making a move some azi in front of him had not made. He picked the quietest and the steadiest for his models, in the hope that others behind him were likewise taking their cues from him.
The line entered the dark of the hold, and they approached a desk, one by one; one by one the azi held out their right hands for the inspection of the clerks.
But none of them were pulled out of line, and Gutierrez’ heart beat harder and harder.
His own turn came, and he offered his falsely tattooed hand to the recorder, who took it and wrote down the number. The slip went to a comp tech. “Move on,” a supervisor said, and Gutierrez moved, less and less in command of his knees. He passed the inner lock in the same shuffling line, and a kind of paralysis had set in, past the time that he thought he should have made a protest—that it was too great a silence to break, that hypnotic oneness that drew him into step and kept him there.
“789–5678?” a male voice asked him. He looked that direction; one could look, when a number was called. A guard beckoned him. He came; and they called another number and another, so that now there was a group of them being called out of the lines and let into a side corridor.
“You’ll just come this way,” the guard said. “We’ve got your id all set up; you’re all right and your gear is boarded. They’ll get you all, don’t worry.”
Gutierrez followed the black-uniformed guard, through that corridor and along the curving halls which became difficult to walk without leaning, a turn aft now, and another turn which brought them to a lift. The guard opened the door for them, and motioned them into the car.
“Push 3R,” the guard said, while the lift filled with more and more of them until some had to wait outside. “3R’s your section; someone’s waiting for you topside.”
Gutierrez pushed the buttons and the door closed. The car shot up against the direction of G and let them out again, where a second guard waited with a clipboard. “Room R12,” the guard said, and slapped a keycard into his hand. “Name?”
“Gutierrez.” It was his again, name and not number. They called off another man to room with him: Hill, the name was. “Next,” the guard said, and the lift was already headed down again, with name after name called off and all of them headed down the corridor.
In silence. Deathly silence. “We’re clear,” Gutierrez said suddenly, and turned and looked at the rest of them, at shaved, hollow faces, male and female, hairless, browless, at eyes which had gone from blankness to bleak fatigue. “We’re clear, hear it?”
There were some braver than the others—a female face startlingly naked without brows, a too-thin mouth that twisted into a struggling grin; a darkskinned man who looked less naked, who shouted out a cheer that shocked the silence. Another reached up and rubbed the tattoo on his cheek; but that would have to wear off, as the hair would have to grow back. “You’re Hill?” Gutierrez asked of his assigned roommate. “What field?”
The thin, older man blinked, wiped a hand over his shaved skull. “Ag specialist.”
“I’m biology,” Gutierrez said. “Not a bad mix.”
Others talked, a sudden swelling of voices; and someone swore, which was what Gutierrez wanted to do, to break the rest of the restraints, to vent what had been boiling up for three long days. But the words refused to come out, and he walked on with Hill—26, 24, the whole string down past the crosscorridor and around the corner: 16, 14, 12 . . . He jammed the keycard in with a hand shaking like palsy, opened the door on an ordinary little cabin with twin bunks and colors, cheerful green and blue colors. He stood inside and caught his breath, then sat down on the bed and dropped his head into his hands, even then feeling the tiny prickle of stubble under his fingertips. He felt grotesque. He remembered every mortifying detail of his progress across the docks; and the lines; and the medics; and the tape labs and the rest of it.
“How old are you?” Hill asked. “You look young.”
“Twenty-two.” He lifted his head, shivering on the verge of collapse. If it had been a friend with him, he might have, but Hill was holding on the same way, quietly. “You?”
“Thirty-eight. Where from?”
“Cyteen. Where from, yourself?”
“Wyatt’s.”
“Keep talking. Where’d you study?”
“Wyatt’s likewise. What about you? Ever been on a ship before?”
“No.” He hypnotized himself with the rhythm of question and answer . . . got himself past the worst of it. His breathing slowed. “What’s an ag man doing on a station?”
“Fish. Lots of fish. Got similar plans where we’re going.”
“I’m exobiology,” Gutierrez said. “A whole new world out there. That’s what got me.”
“A lot of you young ones,” Hill said. “Me—I want a world. Any world. The passage was free.”
“Hang, we just paid for it.”
“I think we did,” Hill said.
And then the swelling in his throat caught Gutierrez by surprise and he bowed his head into his hands a second time and sobbed. He fought his breathing back to normal—looked up to find Hill wiping his own eyes, and swallowed the shamed apology he had had ready. “Physiological reaction,” he muttered.
“Poor bastards,” Hill said, and Gutierrez reckoned what poor bastards Hill had in mind. There were real azi aboard, who went blankly to their berths wherever they might be, down in the holds—who would go on being silent and obedient whatever became of them, because that was what they were taught to be.
Lab specialists would follow them in three years, Gutierrez knew, who would bring equipment with which the new world could make its own azi; and the lab techs would come in expecting the fellowship of the colony science staff. But they would get none from him. Nothing from him. Or from the rest of them—not so easily.
“The board that set this up,” Gutierrez said quietly, hoarsely. “They can’t have any idea what it’s like. It’s crazy. They’re going to get people crazy like this.”
“We’re all right,” Hill said.
“Yes,” he said; but it was an azi’s answer, which sent a chill up his back. He clamped his lips on it, got up and walked the few paces the room allowed, because he could now; and it still felt unnatural.
vi
T-12 hours
Aboard Venture docked at Cyteen Station
“Beaumont.” Conn looked up from his desk as the permission-to-enter button turned up his second in command. He rose and offered his hand to the special forces captain and her husband. “Ada,” he amended, for old times’ sake. “Bob. Glad to draw the both of you—” He was always politic with the spouses, civ that Bob Davies was. “Just make it in?”
“Just.” Ada Beaumont sighed, settled, and took a seat. Her husband took one by her. “They pulled me from Wyatt’s and I had a project finishing up there . . . then it was kiting off to Cyteen on a tight schedule to take the tapes I guess you had. They just shuttled us up, bag and baggage.”
“Then you know the score. They put you somewhere decent for quarters?”
“Two cabins down. A full suite: can’t complain about that.”
“Good.” Conn leaned back, shifted his eyes to Bob Davies. “You have a mission slot in Distributions, don’t you?”
“Number six.”
“That’s good. Friendly faces—Lord, I love the sight of you. All those white uniforms . . . .” He looked at the pair of them, recalling earlier days, Cyteen on leave, Jean with him . . . Jean gone now, and the Beaumont-Davies sat here, intact, headed out for a new world. He put on a smile, diplomat, because it hurt, thinking of the time when there had been four of them. And Davies had to survive. Davies, who lived his life on balance books and had no humor. “At least,” he said charitably, “faces from home.”
“We’re getting old,” Beaumont said. “They all look so young. About time we all found ourselves a berth that lasts.”
“Is that what drew you?”
“Maybe,” Beaumont said. Her seamed face settled. “Maybe there’s about one more mission left in us, and one world’s about our proper size about now. Never had time for kids, Bob and me. The war—You know. So maybe on this one there’s something to build instead of blow up. I like to think . . . maybe some kind of posterity. Maybe when they get the birthlabs set up—maybe—no matter what the gene-set is; I mean, we’d take any kid, any they want to farm out. Missed years, Jim.”
He nodded somberly. “They give us about a three-year lag on the labs, but when that lab goes in, you’re first in line, no question.—Can I do anything for you in settling in? Everything the way it ought to be?”
“Hang, it’s great, nice modern ship, a suite to ourselves—I figure I’ll take a turn down there and see where they’re stacking those poor sods below. Anyone I know down there?”
“Pete Gallin.”
“No. Don’t know him.”
“All strange faces. We’re up to our ears in brighteyed youth, a lot of them jumped up to qualify them . . . . a lot of specs out of the state schools and no experience . . . a few good noncoms who came up the hard way. Some statistician, fry him, figured that was the best mix in staff; and we’ve got the same profile in the civ sector, but not so much so. A lot of those have kin elsewhere, but they know there’s no transport back; blind to everything else but their good luck, I suppose. Or crazy. Or maybe some of them don’t mind mud and bugs. Freshfaced, the lot of them. You want kids, Beaumont, we’ve got kids, no question about it. The whole command’s full of kids. And we’ll lose a few.”
A silence. Davies shifted uncomfortably. “We’re going to get rejuv out there, aren’t we? They said—”
“No question. Got us rejuv and some crates of Cyteen’s best whiskey. And soap. Real soap, this time, Ada.”
She grinned, a ghost out of the tunnels and the deeps of Fargone, the long, long weeks dug in. “Soap. Fresh air, sea and river to fish—can’t ask better, can we?”
“And the neighbors,” Davies said. “We’ve got neighbors.”
Conn laughed, short and dry. “The lizards may contest you for the fish, but not much else. Unless you mean Alliance.”
Davies’ face had settled into its habitual dour concern. “They said there wasn’t a likelihood.”
“Isn’t,” Beaumont said.
“They said—”
“Alliance might even know what we’re up to,” Conn said . . . Davies irritated him: discomfiting the man satisfied him in an obscure way. “I figure they might. But they’ve got to go on building their ships, haven’t they? They’ve got the notion to set something up with Sol, that’s where their eyes are at the moment.”
“And if that link-up with Sol does come about—then where are we?”
“Sol couldn’t finance a dockside binge. It’s all smoke.”
“And we’re sitting out there—”
“I’ll tell you something,” Conn said, leaned on his desk, jabbed a finger at them. “If it isn’t smokescreen, they swallow our new little colony. But they’re all hollow. Alliance is all trade routes, just a bunch of merchanters, no worlds to speak of. They don’t care about anything else at the moment . . . and by the time they do, they’re pent in. We might be fighting where we’re going, give or take a generation—but don’t expect any support. That’s not the name of what we’re doing out there. If they swallow us, they swallow us. And if they swallow too many of us, they’ll find they’ve swallowed something Alliance can’t digest. Union’s going to be threaded all through them. That’s what we’re going out there for. That’s why the whole colonial push.”
Davies looked at his wife. A crease deepened between his eyes.
“Jim isn’t only special op,” Beaumont said, “he’s out of the Praesidium. And it doesn’t hurt to know that . . . in closed company. I have—for the past half dozen years. That’s why Jim always got transferred to the hot spots. Isn’t it, Jim?”
Conn shrugged, vexed—then thinking it was the truth, that there was no more cover, no more of anything that mattered. “Jim’s getting to be an old man, that’s all. It looked like a good assignment. My reasons are like yours. Just winding down. Finding something to do. Praesidium asked. This is a retirement job. I’ve got a good staff. That’s all I ask.”
So they were on their way, he thought when he had packed Beaumont and Davies off, Beaumont to a tour below and Davies to his unpacking and settling in. They were sealed in, irrevocably. Venture would use an outbound vector decidedly antiterrene, as if she and her companion ships had a destination on the far side of Union space instead of the outlying border region which was their real object; she had a false course filed at Cyteen Station for the obstinately curious.
So the auxiliary personnel, military and otherwise, found their way aboard among azi workers; and military officers chanced aboard as if they were simply hopping transport, common enough practice.
It was all very smooth. No mission officer took official charge of anything public; it was all Venture personnel down there on the docks seeing the azi aboard, and seeing to the lading of boxes labeled for the Endeavor mines.
The clock pulsed away, closer and closer to undock.