“Gael! You’ll never guess where we’re going!”
Stepping out of the short-hopper onto the Marco Polo’s landing deck, Dedrick looked up and saw Lania running to meet him. She wasn’t slowing down. He dropped his suitcase and braced for impact, a split-second before she launched herself into his arms. He gave her a long hug, swinging her around a couple of times before gently putting her back on her feet.
“Guess!” she commanded him, her dark eyes sparkling as she swept her fall of brown hair off her shoulders.
Only one destination could have made her this excited. He pretended to think really hard. “Hmm. Does it have anything to do with a certain furry alien we both know?”
Doctor Deneuve appeared beside them, laughing. “Ixbeth has invited the Marco Polo to come visit Kula’as. She actually submitted the request almost a year ago. Getting approval from the various government levels at her end has apparently been like pulling teeth. However, the Great Council has finally agreed, promising us safe passage through alien space, and Fleet Control just green-lighted the voyage as well. Now that you’re back aboard, Captain Takamura can give the order to proceed.”
Lania was grinning so hard it made Dedrick’s cheeks hurt just to look at her. He tacked an answering smile onto his face. “That’s wonderful, ladies. Great news.”
The doctor’s expression shifted to one of concern. He’d almost forgotten how intuitive she was. “You didn’t sleep much on that transport ship, did you? Lania,” she decided, “let’s give your cousin some room. He just got back from a long trip. He needs to report to the captain and then he needs to unpack. And then I want to see him in Med Services for a quick checkup before he goes back on duty. No arguments, Commander,” she added, her voice carrying the full weight of her authority as the ship’s Supervisor of Medical Services.
Dedrick had been carrying a heavy load of his own. It didn’t leave him a lot of energy to object to the order. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, reaching for his suitcase with one hand and reflexively patting his jacket pocket with the other. The datawafer was still there.
The tube car let him off on the officers’ deck of the ship’s community sector, where he found his and Lania’s quarters, exactly as he’d left them. He paused briefly inside the door and looked around the suite, noting with a twinge of disappointment that his were the only belongings visible in its shared living and dining spaces. Lania had made great strides in the past year, but she still didn’t feel at home here. Everything she owned was crammed into her between-bulkheads sleeping module, as though she were a mouse living inside his wall. She’d even removed her computer from the top of his desk.
The day he found a half-finished homework assignment sitting on the table, or her sweater carelessly draped over the arm of the sofa, they were going to celebrate, he decided.
Dedrick went to his own sleeping area and opened his suitcase on the bed. His attention was snagged immediately by the playback device. No one could know that he had this. Casting about for a safe hiding place, he finally settled on a small compartment in the bulkhead at the head of his bed. If he stacked his two pillows and tilted the top one, they almost concealed the finger recesses of the little sliding door. A casual glance would miss them entirely.
Perfect.
Once the datawafer and playback device were stored out of sight, Dedrick finished unpacking and slid the empty suitcase into its vertical nook at the foot of the bed. Then he headed toward the door, bracing himself to undergo Doctor Deneuve’s intuitive, and no doubt extremely thorough, examination.
Med Services occupied the entire first deck of the ship’s science sector, making it easily accessible by tube car from the community sector as well. As he entered the triage area, he found Deneuve waiting to usher him into a cubicle. It didn’t take long for her to perform the battery of routine tests and, with a gradually deepening frown, record the results. Finally she stood back, leveling determined green eyes at his face.
“I don’t know how you’re going to convince anyone that you’ve just come back from R and R,” she scolded him. “The numbers say you’re medically fit for duty, but you look worse off now than you did before you left. Talk to me, Gael. Doctor-patient privilege will apply. Something must have happened on Riviera Hub. What was it?”
Seated on the edge of a diagnostic bed, Dedrick gazed wearily around the room. Deneuve could be relentless when she sensed information was being withheld. So, he scanned his memory and picked something relatively harmless to share.
“I ran into an old friend from the Fleet Academy. His scores were higher than mine when we graduated, but I got the Marco Polo and he ended up in Security, first on Earth and then on the resort hubs. He’s had a rough career, if you could even call it that. It’s not what he was planning to do with his life.”
“And your friend’s situation has made you sad.” This was not a question. “Why?”
“Because I know who to blame, even if he doesn’t. During my final year at the Academy, Abner was making a splash in the tabs — again — and Uncle Dennis went into damage control mode. Abner was beyond his help this time, so the Supreme Adjudicator pulled some strings and got me sent into space, far away from the scandal.”
She gave him a long look. “He did you a huge favor, Gael, and yet you sound bitter. Do you need a referral to Doctor Marchenko to help you sort out your emotions?”
“No. It’s just— I’d never thought about it before. About my good luck being at the expense of someone else’s future. But seeing Ross like that, his dream of exploring the galaxy shattered because of Uncle Dennis reacting to something Abner had done—!”
“You’re feeling guilty,” she remarked evenly. “I can understand that. But things are seldom as simple as we think they are. You don’t know for sure that your assignments were switched at graduation. Without your uncle’s intervention, it’s possible that you could both have ended up in Security. I guess the important question is, how was your friend when you saw him? Was he glad to meet up with you again after so many years?”
Dedrick thought for a moment. “I’m not sure whether he was happy to see me, exactly, but if he’s been nursing a grudge, he never let on. Mainly, he’s worried about his current post being too far away from the action. He doesn’t feel that he’s making a difference anymore. And that got me thinking about whether I’m making a difference.”
“What?” Deneuve exclaimed. “I take back what I said earlier. You don’t need Doctor Marchenko. You need Lania to come in here and give you another hug. A year ago she wouldn’t even let you touch her. Most people in your situation would have turned her over to a team of professionals and gotten on with their own lives. But not you. You worked patiently to win her trust. You gave her a family again. Thanks to you, she’s happy for the first time in her life. If that’s not making a difference, then I don’t know what is. And what about Leslie Eberhart’s brother?”
“Sam Eberhart? That was nothing.”
“I don’t think Leslie would agree.” Raising both eyebrows, she asked, “How are things between you two, by the way? I couldn’t help noticing that she wasn’t on the landing deck to welcome you back earlier.”
He shrugged. He’d noticed too, but after their heated discussion the morning of his departure, he hadn’t really been surprised by her absence.
“She may have been busy. We’ll find each other later.”
He could tell by the expression on her face that Deneuve wasn’t buying that for one standard second. She muttered something in French under her breath, then added, “Well, regardless, I stand by what I said before. What you did for Sam made a huge difference.”
“All I did was pull a couple of strings that Dennis Forrand had left dangling.”
“You’re making my point. You were in a position to pull them. Leslie wasn’t. To her and Sam, this was not nothing. It was life-altering. How can you say— How can you even think that you’re not making a difference, Gael?” she chided.
“I don’t want to be a string-puller, Doctor.”
“You don’t want to be your uncle. All right, then. Be Gael Dedrick. Be true to who you are and everything else will fall into place.”
It was good advice. Posey had seen rough times coming and had begged to be put into the front lines to meet them. Right now that was looking to Dedrick like a good place for him to be as well.
The Galactic Central Archives was established on the planet Reyi’it in Year 2755 of the Galactic Common Era (approximately 2530 B.C.E. on Earth) by order of the Great Council. The Reyota, among the earliest spacegoing races in our arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, had already amassed a vast library of information. Now they were mandated to gather data from all fourteen member worlds on the Council, curate the amalgamated database, and make it freely available to any citizens of those worlds on demand, both electronically and in person.
When first contact was made with the Stragori on Mars in 2230 C.E., the Earth High Council was granted permission to access the Central Archives through one of the member worlds on the Great Council. In practice, this multi-step process for obtaining information proved unwieldy. Therefore, in an informal vote taken in approximately 2335 C.E., the Great Council granted Earth’s government — and anyone acting on its behalf — the right to request information directly from the docents at the Archives. Following the Interplanetary Conference of 2417 C.E. on Reyi’it, all restrictions were dropped, giving Humans the same full and free access to the database as any other citizens in our arm of the galaxy.
— Sic Transit Terra, An Unauthorized Planetary History
(2673 C.E.)