by E. M. Foner
“Are they getting younger every year, or am I just getting older?” Woojin asked Thomas, as the two EarthCent Intelligence agents surveyed the latest group of recruits.
“You’re getting older,” the artificial person replied matter-of-factly.
“It was a rhetorical question. Didn’t you say that Clive agreed to assign you an agent to help with training while Joe is away? I wasn’t planning on staying for more than an hour or two.”
“I asked for Judith, but she was off-station on an assignment and wasn’t due back until early this morning. I left her a message not to come in today since—but here she is now. I guess she slept on the ship.”
“Good morning, sir,” Judith said, approaching the pair and offering Thomas a salute, a confusing gesture in an organization that didn’t teach saluting. “The director informed me that I’ve been reassigned to the training camp for a month. I won’t let you down, sir.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” the artificial person replied. “I see you’ve brought your sword.”
“Rapier, sir. I thought you might have established fencing drills by now.”
“No, but if you’re looking for practice, Drazen Intelligence donated an old dueling bot that can mimic the styles of over forty species, with settings from beginner to professional. Do you know Woojin? He’s here to address the new recruits and observe.”
“Yes, sir. Pyun Woojin taught unarmed combat with Joe McAllister when I went through the camp eight years ago.”
“Nice to meet you again.” Woojin extended his hand for a quick shake. “Let’s drop the ‘sirs’ or you’ll confuse the new recruits into thinking we’re a military organization. Remember, keeping a low profile is the stock-in-trade of intelligence agents.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Judith responded. “I mean, just sorry.”
“That’s better,” Woojin said. “Is everybody here?”
“I count twenty,” Thomas replied.
“Excellent.” Woojin strode forward and clapped his hands, halting the conversations and bringing the group to attention. “First, let me welcome you all to the EarthCent Intelligence training camp. Director Oxford will be by to address you later in the week, and I’m sure you all met Blythe when you applied.”
Twenty heads nodded in the affirmative, and then went back to looking around nervously, as if they were expecting some sort of test.
“This will be the first group to go through the camp without Joe McAllister as one of the instructors, because he left for Earth with his wife and son earlier this morning. In addition to Thomas, agent Judith, uh…”
“Davis,” she supplied.
“Agent Judith Davis will be here throughout the course to assist you. You’ll also be meeting with other agents and trainers who teach specific skills.”
“Is it true that you’re using non-human trainers?” The questioner was a dark-skinned young man who had the ready-for-anything look common among youth who had grown up in a labor contract community on an alien ag world.
“Only in the last week of the course,” Thomas replied. “We have contracts with a number of alien acting guilds to provide cultural coaches for those of you who are in the field-agent track and haven’t already experienced broad contact with tunnel network species.”
“How about the dog?” a petite woman asked nervously. “I’m not very good with dogs.”
“I see somebody has warned you about Beowulf,” Woojin said. “He usually follows Joe around, and I suspect he’s sulking over being left behind, but I’m sure he’ll be out to inspect you all eventually. Are there any questions before Thomas breaks you into groups and you start with some warm-up calisthenics?”
“Do you have any emergency medical training?” a pale man inquired in a hoarse whisper.
“Thomas is an expert in first aid if anybody should have minor training injuries, and the station medical bots are only a ping away.”
“That’s reassuring,” the man said, and then he slowly collapsed to the deck.
“Give him room,” Thomas ordered, bounding to the stricken trainee’s side. He felt for a pulse with one hand while gently pushing back one of the fallen man’s eyelids. “Not good,” he declared. “I’ve contacted station management and requested medical support.”
“Can I do anything?” Judith asked.
“Take the recruits on a jog around the hold. That’s an easy jog, not a sprint,” Thomas added, recalling her high-energy personality and tendency to overreact.
The group of trainees had barely reached the campground section, where half-a-dozen small ships were parked, when a med bot arrived on the scene. The floating metal can hovered over the fallen man for a few seconds while carrying out a number of scans, and then administered a shot.
“It’s a stroke,” Thomas informed Woojin. “The shot will help, but Libby says that the surgeon on call wants to operate as soon as possible. The bot is equipped with a suspensor field that will carry…” the artificial person paused for a fraction of a second to check the ailing trainee’s face against the course registration records, “Mister Hayward, but somebody should accompany him.”
“Of course,” Woojin agreed. “Let’s get going, bot. I’ll run alongside.”
A blue glow enveloped the stroke patient and levitated him off the deck, and then the bot set off at a pace that forced Woojin into a sprint to keep up. As they passed the ice harvester that the McAllisters called home, Beowulf looked out the door and shook his massive head in disapproval. Joe had just left, and already the training camp was falling apart. The giant dog wondered briefly if the crazy woman with the rapier had accidentally run the disabled man through, but he didn’t smell blood, so that couldn’t have been it. Beowulf turned and went back inside to finish his morning nap.
Woojin was panting like a winded bull by the time they reached the lift tube in the corridor outside of Mac’s Bones, and he was thrown against the wall as the capsule accelerated like a combat craft.
“Sorry,” Libby’s voice announced. “Please brace for deceleration in three, two, one…”
The door slid open, and the bot ferrying the trainee along in a suspensor field was out of the capsule before Woojin could shift the weight back off of his plant-leg and begin the chase again. As he burst from the capsule, he almost collided with the operating table, which was barely three steps from the lift tube.
“Another one?” the giant beetle who was already examining the sick man inquired acerbically. “Two human patients arriving in the same lift capsule. This must be my lucky day.”
“Who are you?” Woojin blurted, even though the answer was obvious before he finished speaking.
The Farling’s top set of insectoid legs buzzed together like a junior scout trying to start a campfire, and Woojin’s implant translated flawlessly. “So you have cognitive issues as well,” the alien surgeon diagnosed. “Do you feel a pain in either of your arms? Is your vision blurred? Any tightness in your chest?”
“I’m not having a heart attack,” Woojin replied irritably, and then made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. “I don’t want to distract you while you’re operating, so I’ll shut up and stand by the wall. Shouldn’t I be wearing a mask?”
“Now that’s a loaded question,” the Farling observed, even as it casually popped out one of the patient’s eyeballs and fed a strangely flexible metal tube into the empty socket. A hologram of a human brain appeared above the operating table, and it showed the progress of the tool as the surgeon expertly maneuvered it towards a clotted blood vessel which leaked a cloud of blood. “If I were you, I certainly would wear a mask, but my kind are far more sensitive to aesthetics than a primitive species like your own.”
“I meant for germs.”
“I doubt that any human germs are sufficiently advanced to be troubled by your appearance, though I must admit it shows a sympathetic character that you would consider their feelings at all.”
Woojin gave up on trying to get a straight answer from the giant ins
ect and watched the operation with interest. The surgeon dissolved the clot and then sealed and repaired the blood vessel with micro-manipulators in the snake-like tool, which it operated by motioning with four of its lower appendages in a holo-controller. When Woojin failed to respond to the latest verbal jab, the alien doctor looked over and tried again.
“Trouble breeding, I see. Always makes the humanoids surly.”
“How did you know?” Woojin replied before he could catch himself.
“The med bay performs a full scan of biologicals as they enter. You’ve clearly been engaged in all manner of combat, and in addition to undergoing several competent robot surgeries, I detect the unmistakable signs of at least two procedures performed by clumsy humanoids.”
“Vergallians,” Woojin admitted. “I spent quite a few years fighting on tech-ban worlds.”
“Ah, yes. I thought the reconstructions were well beyond what your own species is capable of, not that there’s much difference between any of you two-legged creatures in the end.”
“What?”
“You don’t believe me? With the help of a little genetic manipulation, I’ve cross-bred dogs from different worlds that had less biology in common than their so-called masters. Between the two of us, most of my colleagues who have encountered humans refer to you as Vergallian Lite.”
“Are you even paying attention to what you’re doing?” Woojin demanded, at a loss for anything else to say.
“My attention is no longer required as the repairs are completed,” the surgeon said. He popped the unconscious man’s eyeball back into the socket, and dropped the metal snake into a pan full of clear liquid. “Thanks to the quick intervention of the med bot, the patient will not suffer any permanent damage, though I suggest he consult a dietician and avoid strenuous physical activity for a few days.”
“That’s it?”
“Would you like me to do something else to him while he’s on the table? Make him a little taller perhaps, or fix his astigmatism? That eyeball I removed was rather out of round.”
“Why are you asking me? I’m not a doctor.”
“I guessed that much,” the beetle said sardonically. “Station management has notified his family, and I will revive the patient in two hours when his wife arrives for the scheduled pick-up. There’s nothing further you can do here, and as you can see, we really don’t have space to accommodate casual observers.”
“Mister Hayward was participating in the first day of our training camp when he collapsed,” Woojin said. “I can pay you now or you can bill EarthCent Intelligence.”
The Farling motioned to the med bot, which moved the unconscious body from the operating table to a shelf-like bunk that folded down from one of the walls.
“There will be no charge for today’s emergency services as I am compensated by the Stryx. If you want me to look into your infertility problem, I keep a medical tourism shop in the arrivals concourse on the station core.”
“Is it, uh, do you really think you could help?”
“That depends on how far you’re willing to go,” the beetle replied. “For starters, if you wish to achieve natural reproduction, I would need to examine your partner before suggesting a solution. You are obviously beyond your prime breeding years, and in addition to scar tissue from a previous repair made necessary by…?”
“Shrapnel,” Woojin answered.
“Shrapnel, your reproductive organs show signs of damage from radiation, heat, high G-forces, and too much time spent riding quadrupeds. I could always extract genetic material from you and your mate and whip something up, but I’ve found that many humanoids are uncomfortable with that level of manipulation.”
“You mean we wouldn’t have the same baby who would have resulted through natural conception?” Woojin couldn’t believe that he was having this conversation with a giant insect, but in some ways, it was easier than talking to a human doctor, or Lynx, for that matter.
“Your natural breeding includes a large number of random elements,” the Farling replied. “If I’m going to go to the trouble of piecing together genes to create an embryo, I’m sure there are certain characteristics you would like to achieve.”
“I don’t know,” Woojin said doubtfully. “I wouldn’t want a super-baby or anything. Just a regular kid.”
“I will not mislead you, even though you may wish to be misled,” the surgeon replied seriously. “If you do choose to go the genetic construction route, I will be making choices that are highly unlikely to match the outcome of your biological process. I cannot do things randomly, but I do offer a double-your-money-back guarantee on all reproductive services.”
“Have you ever paid out?”
“Another loaded question,” the Farling buzzed, helping itself to a drink from a refrigerator that looked like it contained blood plasma from at least a hundred different species with circulatory systems. Woojin hoped that the doctor had brought the flask of yellow liquid from home, rather than simply choosing from the available supply. “Yes, I have provided refunds and a penalty payment on three occasions, all of them involving minor errors in specific characteristics requested by parents who were seeking superior offspring, as opposed to helping childless couples conceive.”
The lift tube door slid open, and a young Drazen whose face was frozen in a rictus of shock and pain stumbled out, clutching his bloody tentacle stub behind his head. Immediately behind him came the Drazen ambassador, holding the severed length of tentacle as far from his own body as possible. It was still writhing.
The surgeon used multiple appendages to grab the injured Drazen and lift him bodily onto the table. The injured alien slumped forward after being knocked out with a drug that Woojin didn’t even see administered, and then the Farling took the severed tentacle from Bork and gave the ambassador a dirty look.
“You seem set on keeping me busy today, Drazen.”
“It’s the tryouts for our reenactment group,” Bork said apologetically, looking about for something to wipe the gore off of his hand. He gave up and used the hem of the berserker cloak he was wearing. “The idiot was spinning an axe over his head like an immersive star, and he forgot to keep his tentacle down.”
The beetle grumbled as it lined up the fat part of the severed tentacle with the stub. “I should fuse it on backwards to teach him a lesson.” A holographic message consisting of different sized dots materialized above the operating table and waited for the Farling to acknowledge it with a wave. “Oh, bother. The med bots are bringing in three Fillinduck burn victims from an initiation ceremony gone awry. At the risk of sounding impolite, please leave now.”
Woojin quickly moved to join Bork in the lift-tube capsule, and the two acquaintances looked at each other sheepishly.
“Mac’s Bones,” Bork told the capsule, and then asked, “What was yours?”
“New recruit. Collapsed before the training even began. Do I gather that the tentacle chopper wasn’t your first audition accident of the day?”
“Not even the first tentacle. If some of these youngsters had to fight in a real war—but no matter. It’s a good thing I bumped into you. I meant to stop by the embassy to see your wife this evening, but our open tryouts turned into a bloodbath.”
“We’re on morning time, actually, so Lynx will be there another seven hours or so if you still have the energy. Anything I should know about?”
“I’m just a little uncertain about your seniority system now that the ambassador is away,” the Drazen admitted. The capsule door slid open and he accompanied Woojin into the corridor that led to Mac’s Bones. “I understand that Lynx is occupying Kelly’s office and handling general inquiries, and I believe my report on EarthCent Intelligence suggests that your wife is a step closer to the, er, reins of power than you are.”
“Lynx outranks me in everything,” Woojin replied easily. “But she’s helping out with the diplomatic branch this month, so if it’s an intelligence issue and you couldn’t get a hold of Clive or Blythe, I guess it’s T
homas and then me.”
“I’m sure Thomas won’t mind if I ask you to pass this on, since I need to hurry back to the skirmish before somebody really gets hurt. We’ve been hearing disturbing rumors out of the Empire of a Hundred Worlds for some time that the tunnel network secessionists are planning some sort of action.”
“Fleet versus the Imperials?”
“No, this relates to a long-standing schism about the Vergallian place amongst humanoid species. Our intelligence people will certainly be in touch with you about it in the near future, but given the large number of human mercenaries employed on Vergallian tech-ban worlds, not to mention your intelligence agents and Galactic Free Press reporters, I wanted to give you as much advance notice as possible. It’s the sort of information I’d usually pass directly to Kelly, so as not to ruffle any feathers in the special relationship between our spy services.”
“Thank you, Bork. I’ll pass it on to Thomas and my wife, and I’ll ping Clive and Blythe, though they’re officially on vacation. I think they’ve been organizing their lives around their daughter’s dance practices for the last few years, but with Samuel gone for the month, their schedule has opened up.”
“Tough business, competitive dancing,” Bork acknowledged. “I only wish some of the would-be warriors I saw today had better footwork. Speaking of which, I have to run.”
The Drazen returned to the lift tube, and Woojin headed into Mac’s Bones to reassure the trainees that their fellow was on his way to a full recovery.
Three
Kelly’s mother picked up the McAllisters at the spaceport in a floating sedan with three rows of seats. The vehicle drew envious looks from everybody waiting at the platform.
“Is this your floater or a rental, Marge?” Joe asked as soon as they were underway.
“Mine. Didn’t I tell you? The company gave it to me for free in return for making a commercial.”
“You were in a commercial, Mom?” Kelly asked.
“I keep a copy in the onboard entertainment system,” Marge replied, and then spoke directly at the dashboard. “Floater. Play my commercial.”
