Spheres of Influence

by Bob Mauldin

  “Over the next few days, I’ll be having talks with each of you individually and then as collective command teams. That will be followed, in about a week, by actually moving aboard your respective ships. Prior to that, you’ll be getting to know your new crews and the instructors who’ll be working with you and your people until you’re ready to take on your individual assignments.

  “At present, this embassy has about six hundred people in residence. Some of those are slated as crew, and more will be arriving all the time. Others are here to provide services for the people passing through. We have cooks, janitors, guards, radio operators, admin personnel, and so much more. We have a small, very new, very fragile community of constantly changing people here, and most of the folks working in the ground slots expect to be promoted to ships as they become available. That’s why you won’t make the mistake of pissing anyone off. It’s all too easy to have one of the people assigned to a ship you’ll be on. The way things stand right now, each new ship’s crew will be composed of fifty percent experienced personnel and fifty percent taken from the three embassies, about half of whom will have some limited Alliance experience from serving in the embassies.”

  Lucy glanced at her watch. “I wish I could give you more time right now, but I have to see a delegation from one of the nearby towns to assure them that our ships don’t pose a radiation hazard to them or their children and cattle.” A round of laughter passed through the room, and she smiled wryly. “I’ll be happy to change places with any one of you. Just let me know!” She nodded at Diana and stepped away from the podium. “Diana will give you your housing assignments and keep you informed of meetings and classes.”

  Taking this as her signal, Diana stood up straight and said, “Ten-hut!” The dozen people jumped to their feet with such alacrity that she was glad of the time spent saying that one word to a hapless saguaro cactus growing out of a sand dune behind the barracks she lived in. As soon as Lucy left the room, Diana said, “At ease and be seated, people.”

  Almost as one, the twelve people sat down, and Diana walked back to the podium. She reached down to a small shelf under the stand and brought out a small stack of papers, which she handed to Lt. Commander Grant, saying, “Make sure everyone has one, please.” To the group as a whole, she said, “These are the do’s and don’ts. Things like do pay attention to your instructors and other personnel assigned to give you support. Don’t get drunk. No fighting. No sneaking off embassy grounds, primarily for your own protection. It’s twenty miles to the nearest town and quite a few critters out there would consider any of you food. Mostly common sense, but you never know, right? Also, mealtimes are listed, as well as class schedules. We now have a few people who’ve generously volunteered their time to help you adjust to your new positions. They are your instructors, and you won’t give them any lip, will you, Commander Grant?”

  As laughter rang through the group, Diana walked to the door. “Follow me back to the bus, please.” She stepped into the hall, and the ensign she’d handed her clipboard to returned it. “Thank you, Ensign.”

  The young woman sketched a salute, turned, and hurried back the way she’d come as the group climbed into the bus painted in a color known as olive drab.

  Diana let the bunch get settled into their seats on the bus and spoke to the driver. “Quad C, please, Mickey.”

  “Righto, Miss!”

  Diana swayed and grabbed a pole as the bus got under way. “Mickey worked here during the seventies before they decommissioned the base. His grandson joined up, so he decided to see what all the fuss was about and stayed on. When we need to move large groups of people, we call on Mickey.” She glanced at her watch as the bus glided to a halt. “It’s getting on toward dinnertime here, so once you get settled into your quarters, your barracks monitors will show you to the mess hall.” She saw the strange look on a few faces. “Don’t worry. The food is better than the name makes it sound.”

  Two crewmen, one wearing a McCaffrey patch and the other a Niven, waited for the newcomers to step down off the bus. When the semi-organized gaggle quit milling around, Diana stepped over to the two crewmen, turned to face her charges, and said, “Ensigns Collins and Matthews will take things from here. Ladies go with Collins, gentlemen with Matthews. In case you get lost, ladies, your barracks is C1, and the men’s is C2. Tomorrow will be a busy day, ladies and gentlemen, so please take time to read page one of your handouts. And make sure you’ve left nothing on the bus.”

  Diana and the dull green bus disappeared around the corner of the quad with a grinding of gears.

  One of the women, glancing through her handout, asked, “What’s this six o’clock in the morning shit? Reveille? Make our beds? What is this? Boot camp?”

  Ensign Collins glanced at her companion and said, “Essentially, yes, ma’am, it is, with a little bit of officer candidate school thrown in for good measure. There’s a lot to go through if you want to get your ships under way in the shortest time possible. So, we all need to get started early, and in some cases, work late. Truthfully, the sooner you get started, the sooner you get out of this heat. Now, if the women will follow me, I’ll get you settled in your new quarters. Gentlemen, if you’ll follow Ensign Matthews, he’ll do the same for you. Meet back here,” she checked her watch, “in about half an hour and we’ll show you how to get to the mess hall. Remember your housing assignments and look on the corner of your building if you get lost.” Turning, she pointed out big block letters that read “C1.” Saying nothing further, she started off toward the building indicated, leaving the five women in the group to gather their bags and follow her.

  The two groups followed their assigned barracks monitor, put their few possessions away, trooped over to the mess hall, and went through the basic military procedure that had worked for so many millions of soldiers from all nationalities over the years: they stood in line until someone asked for proof that they were authorized to eat in that particular facility. In this case, that just meant showing their wristbands to a scanner at the door.

  They made their way through the cafeteria-style service and sat down at two adjoining tables to eat and discuss the day’s events. The complainer, Lt. Commander Anna Zandt off the Niven, said, “Can you believe it? They can cram up to forty people into those rundown buildings. And the facilities! Communal showers, and stalls all lined up in a row while people run around outside ‘em taking care of... business? And we have to keep those places clean! Mops, buckets, brooms and stuff, and all before ‘formation.’” She was referring to the gathering of all personnel for the day’s duty assignments before first mess. “I’ve got a good mind to go back to the Niven and let the bunch of you rot here!”

  Thomas looked up from the mass-produced meatloaf and mashed potatoes in front of him and said, “I’ll bet if you do that, you’ll never rise higher than you are right now, Zandt,” he said, looking at her name tag. “Just what was your job on the Niven?”

  “Nav officer,” she said uncertainly. “Do you really think so?”

  Tom finished his mouthful and chased it down with the iced tea in front of him. “As a matter of fact, I do. Look at the way things are shaping up. First, we were accepted willy-nilly and plugged into slots for OJT. Now, we have these tests and personal histories to fill out. And from what I hear, all new volunteers are taking the same tests before acceptance now. For Christ’s sake! Those tests determine acceptance! And now, we’re dumped on an old military base to train. And things are being run a lot more militarily, which, to my way of thinking, is necessary. We have too many people to just say, ‘Do whatever, whenever,’ so we have to get regimented. Eventually, we’re going to have instructors who’ve actually served out there training the upcoming classes. Right now, I’ll bet we just have something like professional motivators or efficiency experts giving general advice. Make the best of it. This could be a turning point for those of us who want to stay with the Alliance.” With this pronouncement, he turned his attention back to
his plate and tuned his fellow diners out.

  An hour later, the twelve candidates, still talking over coffee, had long since pushed the two tables together. So far, they’d used military rank freely, not thinking about the eventual consequences, but the almost certainly fortuitous happenstance of getting a military base handed to the Alliance for an embassy rubbed their noses in the fact that sometime in the very near future, a real decision needed to be made. Their surroundings and circumstances told them as surely as words what none of them had really believed until now: that they were truly a part of an organization at odds with the government they’d grown up thinking of as generally kind and benevolent. It was the lure of all their dreams that had masked the problem until then. After all, what sci-fi buff could actually have passed up a chance to become a crewmember of a spaceship?

  Shirley Dahlquist, the gold stars of a full commander on her collar, spoke for the first time since they’d gotten off the shuttle. “You guys realize that this is for keeps, don’t you?”

  Sarcasm dripping from his voice, Mark Grant said, “So the great Commander Dahlquist speaks! Please! Bestow your wisdom on us lowly mortals.”

  Looking through the place Grant sat, Shirley said, “Bite me, pest.”

  “Lighten up, Grant. You don’t have any reason to talk to her that way,” Thomas said, trying to settle things down. “She’s not only a full commander, but she’s a Firster, as well. And if anyone at this table has a right to speak and be listened to, it’s her.”

  “Well, I just don’t like it when someone gets ahead just because they’re lucky,” Grant said weakly.

  “Luck!” Anna Zandt exclaimed. “How far back are you gonna take that one, you idiot? How about as far back as the luck that let the Hawkes get hold of the Galileo in the first place? Or the luck that let them get the good people to crew her the first time? Which, by the way, just happened to include Shirley. Or the luck that let you,” the word dripped with all the sarcasm Grant had used, “be in the right place for the second wave? You coulda been left out of that for any number of reasons. I’m guessing you’ve about used up your luck. I’ll be surprised if you’re lucky enough to get through whatever they have planned for us.” After a few seconds, she said sheepishly, “I guess that goes for me, too.”

  Thomas, wanting to hear what Shirley had to say, asked, “What did you mean by ‘for keeps’ Commander?”

  “First, for now, let’s drop the ‘commander’ stuff, okay? Call me Shirley. And I meant that what’s happening here is a full split with the United States. We’re talking embassies, for crying out loud. Who has embassies? Okay, if it hasn’t sunk in yet, I’ll tell you. We’re talking countries, people. What we’re doing is in effect becoming members of a foreign country. Do you want to give up citizenship in the United States? Most of you have folks here, and you’re going to need a visa to go anywhere outside the embassy compounds before long.” Not one to indulge in unnecessary scare tactics, Shirley did her best to shock her companions into at least considering her words.

  “Yes, I got lucky enough to be what some of you call a Firster. I was also lucky enough, if you want to call it that, to be involved with the destruction of that alien spaceship that was most likely involved in the attack on Orion. And, I’ll tell you something else: I don’t have a problem joining up as a full Alliance member. I expect there to be an oath of allegiance in the near future. I’m going to take it without any hesitation because I’ve already done my soul searching. You people would probably be wise to start considering the idea yourselves. You’ll give up a lot, but look at what you’ll be giving the human race in the long run.” She stood up and drained the last of her coffee. “Think hard, people. It’s going to be really difficult to change your minds no matter which choice you make.” She picked up her dishes without another word, walked over to set them inside the passthrough window for the kitchen staff to take care of, and walked out without a backward glance.

  Grant, still a little taken aback by Shirley’s words, looked at Thomas. “So, what do you plan to do, Breen?”

  “First, I plan to follow Shirley’s example and stick to first names, Mark. And second, while the idea she put on the table isn’t exactly new to me, I’m going to give it a whole lot of serious thought over the next few days. I really don’t care why you feel the way you do about her, but she’s still right, and we need to take her advice into consideration.” He looked at the four remaining women at the tables. “You guys, especially, should think real hard about those things. Surely, you’ve noticed that we have an uneven amount of men and women in the top slots. Why that is, is a mystery to me, but it does say that things are stacked slightly in your favor. Simon took care of the first appointments, and then Lucy took over. Now I hear there’s a selections board being set up to handle promotions and appointments to various posts, not to mention a personnel department. I guess we’re getting so big that one or two people can’t keep up with it anymore.”

  Silence reigned as words warred with each other to escape.

  “Whatever. I think Shirley’s right. We’re gonna have to make a choice soon—stay and become Alliance citizens with all that implies or drop out now and spend God knows how long being debriefed by various factions of our own governments. Me, I’m going to see which way the wind blows for the next little while.” Thomas looked at the remaining candidates and waited. When the only response was an uneasy silence, he cleared his part of the table and followed Shirley out of the building.

  Lucy was in a position many wished they could try to survive—having more money than she’d ever imagined could exist. Earnest money, or good faith money, began rolling into Alliance accounts that had been set up for just that purpose. Lucy had organized a group to start handing over specs on various pieces of technology, with her as final arbiter of any deals. To keep things fair, she’d given some advance notice to those who were going to have to completely retool their factories, but that was the only concession she’d been willing to make.

  Polling her people and their families, she got the names of several psychologists and psychiatrists and called them personally about their availability to help with the selection process. “More in the line of helping them to understand adjusting to the level of responsibility they’re about to have pushed on ‘em,” she said to one of her contacts.

  Games theorists arrived to help set up simulations for potential pilots, navigators, gunners, helmsmen and all the other jobs that required their services. They began arriving at about the same time as the shuttle flights from Zurich and Tokyo began. Those classes and the command lectures were almost all the training available downside, so trips to whichever ships were in orbit were arranged to give recruits hands-on experience that virtually guaranteed they wouldn’t be wasting the instructors’ time and Alliance funds.

  After two days of interviewing the first group of recruits, Lucy felt like her head was going to explode. The sun had long since set behind the mountains, and Diana brought her a glass of water and two Tylenol. “God, I’m glad that’s over. I swear, one way or another the personnel department is going to have a new department called a selections board!” She slumped down into the rusty brown couch left behind by the last base commander and put her feet up on the scuffed, scavenged coffee table. “So, what’s on tomorrow’s agenda?” she asked after the water had rinsed the desert out of her mouth. No matter how well she closed the windows, the sand always found a way to get in.

  “Tomorrow?” Diana parroted, all innocence. “I do believe you have tomorrow free.”

  “Free? What about that Ladies Civic Committee from Truth or Consequences? Complaining about the increase in traffic or something, wasn’t it?”

  “All taken care of,” Diana said firmly. “Rukia invited them here this morning while you were busy and pointed out that their proximity to the embassy was going to be a boon to the entire community—restaurants, souvenir shops, barbers, grocery stores. Everybody is going to make money from this, and not
just from our own people, either. There will soon be the biggest influx of people since the gold rush. Certainly, the city itself will profit, from the taxes if nothing else. Then I reminded them about the increase in traffic fines and what that would do for the city coffers, and they left thanking us for being here,” she said quietly.

  “What about those eco-people? I’ve got to tell them something...”

  Diana held her hand up. “Done yesterday. I told ‘em we’re not going to be doing any desert training and would pretty much stay behind our little fence. That seemed to stop them dead in their tracks. Actually,” Diana said, forestalling anything more from Lucy, “you’ve got the next three days free, boss.”

  The familiarity raised Lucy’s eyebrows. “Since when did you start listening to Rukia, and what do you have up your sleeve?”

  “Well, actually, I did talk to Rukia last week. I think it was when you were interviewing those shrinks. We exchanged notes on you, so to speak, and decided you need a vacation.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? And did you decide what kind of vacation I was going to take, too?”

  “Well, we noticed that you’re almost the only person who hasn’t taken time off to go home and visit family now that we’re back on Earth. So, we got it arranged for you to leave here tomorrow morning and fly to Cincinnati to spend a couple of days at home soaking up family vibes, you know? And sleeping in your old bed. I know from Rukia that you’ve spoken to your folks a few times since we started the embassies, but you haven’t been home. It’s time, boss. You owe it to yourself and your family.”