The Petrovski Effect: A Tess Novel

by Randy Moffat

  To avoid being mollified by womanly wiles he looked sternly and austerely at her.

  Her smile got even bigger anyway.

  “Do you like it?” She asked.

  “No pockets in the jacket!” He bitched on principle.

  “There are four.” She replied, her smile unruffled. “They are all on the inside so the external lines are not ruined. Why? Aren’t they working out for you where they are?”

  “Oh!” He said. He had not thought to look for more than one in there.

  Looking at her he thought instead about the last time they had turned off the gravity in the ship. They had both gotten a couple hours in sleep a little earlier in their cabins and were pretty fresh because the showers had been working for once. He had mentioned something funny about Fenimore Cooper’s, Leatherstocking tales and when she giggled when he had invited her to come to his teepee for a Chingatchgook on the spur of the moment. She had thought about it for at least thirty seconds before she seized his elbow and dragged him to one of their cabins. Neither had made love in a couple weeks—too busy and too tired, but they made up for lost time. Their clothes had flown off their bodies and kept going as things do when they have uninterrupted momentum and the couple had made love in weightlessness which turned out to be pretty damn cool. Body parts float in interesting ways, unless hydraulically stiffened Although Bear bashed his head twice on circuit breaker panels while pinging off walls willy-nilly when his foot slipped out from under a conduit. The sex was effortlessly athletic and endlessly erotic; for all they knew the first couple ever to perform the act in space, and something they would both remember to their dying days while floating gently on the breeze from the vent fans and cuddling in mid air. The memory of space sex put him in a pleasant mood unbidden and his stern face slipped while his austerity shifted more to a slightly wistful horniness with overtones of contented happiness.

  She was now wearing the same TESS uniform as he with one less starburst on her shoulder and a narrower strip of braid on the sleeve with a loop of some kind in it. Not that he was looking at emblems. Her uniform had been suitable tailoring for her hips and chest and looked militarily sexy.

  He said nothing, but took her hand and dragged her back into his quarters and proceeded to remove it. Coitus between two admirals in gravity was good too—in or out of uniform.

  They could not linger, they both had a lot to do because TESS had a lot to do. Hurried love detracts from its purity, but had attractions of its own, urgent lovemaking underlining the urgency of their lives.

  They kissed hurriedly and patted each other’s cheeks before bolting in opposite directions.

  Bear ran out headed to the primary recruiting center for TESS in Chicago. They were combing the prospects from a host of sources, winnowing the chaff and leaving the subset of grain lying in the basket of people eligible to join TESS. Unfortunately the basket where the chaff lay was Bear’s in-basket. And the basket was bulging. NASA, the EU Space Agency, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Russian Space Program personnel were bailing out worldwide. They alone represented hundreds of fairly solid potential personnel to join TESS. All of their employees were reading the unpublished prognostication about what a working warp drive meant for the future of space and many were diving over the side of their country’s dory and swimming strongly towards the TESS cruise-liner. Oddly though there were no Chinese. This mass had been supplemented by a flood of ex-military, engineers, professors and general cool mechanics who all wanted on board for as many reasons as humanity could muster. All these were just people in the box who got an automatic first look because of their skill set. There were whole rafts of people applying from planet-wide with little or no obvious qualifications. They just liked the idea of TESS and wanted to be a part of it. To be frank, Bear had made sure there was a process for screening the best and brightest of those too. The hardened veterans from space agencies wanted to know what their paycheck would be for hazardous work. It spoke well of their experience and savvy but said nothing about the stars in their eyes. Bear wanted another box for the kids who just loved the idea of man in space but had no skills. Not all kids either. Usually, they could care less about the money. To them it was a higher calling. There was something to be said for that approach too. A calling rather than a profession implied passion and passionate people who could focus on organizational goals and strive for them out of sheer determination while the jaded pros sought something easier.

  Unfortunately, both boxes were choked which meant that Bear had to work damn hard to avoid being the bottleneck in the river of people growing the organization.

  Though it looked glacial to Bear at times, TESS was hiring fast. An outside observer would have though the process capricious, but it was fair enough in its way. Bear had hired a civilian HR service and given them a list of general characteristics to screen applications and eliminate 90% of the humanity who applied. Things like height weight ratios, physical fitness, basic education and a host of things made sure that thousands of choices at least got dropped down to more manageable numbers in the hundreds. Some things he asked the service to ensure was that at least as many women hit his judgment wall as men—he had it in the back of his mind that months in space without recreation was going to be tough duty and wanted the pool of sexual partners to be in balance as far as he could make it. It was hard. Women represented a low percentage of skill sets in hard sciences so he had an inordinate number of women in the ‘Rosy Colored Glasses’ pile which shoved a lot of guys out of that pile who probably deserved a better shot. A balance between seasoned veterans and eager puppies was now leaning towards eager women and jaded professional men . . . he could live with that . . . hoped the girls would infect the men with a desire to show off more . . . to strive to impress . . . to take more risks. A true Q-Kink attribute.

  Bear’s system was to go through the pile of professionals until he found something that rang a chime in his head and then scribbled a note on the cover to remind him of what made the person attractive and then throw it into a third rescreen box. He would wait ten days and look at it then. He then went through the other “Rosy Glasses” pile until he found one worth a note and added it to the keeper file for the third look too. In ten days he would try again and trim the pile in a much more sophisticated way . . . . looking to fill specific requirements that they knew they would need. In this way he organically shaped the adhocracy of the future TESS. Once selected from the files people would have an interview with an Admiral or a Captain. All you could tell in half hour’s face-to-face chat was the subjective feeling of your gut or see if the person actually farted under questioning. Still, these interviews eliminated another 20% of the people in the pile quickly. Instinct was worth something.

  If they got through that wicket , they would be sent to TESS boot camp in Wichita. TESS’ boot camp was run by a pair of psychologists, a psychiatrist, three medical doctors and a swarm psychopaths in the form of ex army fitness instructors. The actual learning by the students was a series of tests administered on general knowledge to establish a baseline of what information they had at their fingertips and whether they could use standard shrink-wrap software systems under pressure. It was as much a check of liberal education as hard science, though science might get you a gold star. Remarkably the first two groups through the boot camp had each lost another 20% just to pushups. Bear now called the trimming down that went on there the “Wichita factor.” Apparently physical fitness and simple psychoses was enough to do that. Bear never fretted about the loss ratio. If they could not handle the pressure of four weeks ‘stress’ staying in a nice hotel room, running around a track while a mean man yelled at you to hang tough, and doing lots of pushups . . . they would certainly not be in shape to face being packed like flaky tuna-fish into a can of a submarine in space for months on end. Those who survived the ‘Wichita Madness’ month got moved on to a new building and barracks complex growing rapi
dly outside Anglewood cave that Q-Kink had dubbed TESS academy. They were mostly in trailers now, but a building was already rising. Here the plebeians were put on official TESS probation and were put into a meat-grinder round of academics that would take up to a year off their lives depending on specialty. The academics included mathematics, sciences of all kinds, literature, history and a choice of several electives. Not that Bear could do all those things perfectly himself, he just wanted something to trim the ranks even more and since TESS was making it up as they went along, he figured they might as well study hard while they got there. It might do some good in the long run. If they had tested well in Whiticha on some subject, they were made instructors or assistant instructors at Anglewood and TESS siced them on the reminder of the class to help them get better faster. The whole setup was built to pour out a flood of TESS personnel in a year that would be separated into two big groups . . . Bear’s inner and outer ring. 90% went to the outer ring.. This ring would remain on Earth. They would not be privy to the secrets of the inner ring but would have the mission of protecting, supplying, and disguising the inner group’s makeup. Only about 10% of the people would make it into the holy inner circle. It was the inner circle that would make it into space and eventually learn the secrets of the Petrovski effect. These, Bear had mentally dubbed the Q-Kink expansion team. Wong had already obtained a victor III class Russian submarine for the heart of a second ship. She had been moved to Groton and was being gutted and framed now. Barring another sabotage event, in seven months she would be ready for sea trials and then space trails just as his first classes graduated. A British Resolution Class submarine was in the purchasing pipeline right after her. Bear would not really breath easy until both follow-on ships were in space and TESS had enough of a fleet that the loss of one ship would not cripple the entire service by itself.

  He sighed. Building a space corps looked like a long term project. Go figure.

  He picked up a file and flipped it open.

  Jason Smith quivered with elation. He had gained access to TESS as he was asked. He did it simply by filling in an on-line application. His knowledge of electronics and software were moving him forward into the organization like a shove from behind. TESS was clearly short-handed in every area and hiring hard, though they screened each applicant’s past. Jason’s past looked impeccable. He grew up in a small town in the United States—a technological society well grounded in science. He reeked of being non-controversial—He had gone to a non-controversial school and worked in a three non-controversial companies and his fitness reports were non-controversial. He was fit, drug free, and if not overtly friendly, he was hard working. He had thrown himself into the work regimen of TESS without complaint and even held a modest admiration for it. He felt he would be useful to them in as soon as six months. He leaned back from his assignment in quantum mechanics, rubbed his eyes and practiced his secret name. Mahmoud Al Wahabi. He repeated it again and again in his head. He had been recruited in Qatar of all places. He’d been vacationing in the middle-east and had wandered into a marketplace. He had stopped for coffee at a coffee bar when a man who spoke English struck up a conversation with him. In time, the man invited Jason into his home, to his table, and surrounded him with his family. Smith had liked that, realizing that he was lucky as most tourists rarely got such an opportunity, unbelieving outgoing aliens in a cloistered Muslim world turned in on itself. In time he was introduced to his friend’s Imam. The conversion to Islam had followed the usual route. He had gone off to a small school in the dessert where everyone was welcoming. He felt at home. Then they asked him to pray with them. He had enjoyed the novelty. Then they asked him to pray some more. If he hesitated they were friendly but concerned for him. He prayed to placate. When he got tired they got him to fast with them. No meat, only a hand full of grain and water. More prayer and if he got too sleepy they woke him. He was exhausted; he was hungry, the diet of carbohydrates and sleep deprivation made him open to suggestion. They suggested. They were always open and friendly and it went on for days and days rhythmically, over and over. Prayer, weariness,more prayer and then the welcoming arms to hold him up when he threatened to keel over. He became so receptive that after a time everything the Imam said made utter and complete sense. He was reconstructed. He learned to hate all that had created him. They made him a good Muslim and had given him a good new Muslim name. What it lacked in originality it made up for in commonality. Mohammed was the most common name in the world, a compliment to the prophet who performed no miracles. Jason Smith became Mohamoud Al Wahabi, Mohamoud of the Wahabi. It was borne in on him that it was a secret. They wanted good Muslims in the west. He must go back home and wait for his new God to give him guidance. He waited almost seven months with only rare and difficult trips to a distant mosque to keep prayer times. The mosque was no good, too American and too liberal. Some women there were sluts who wore their hair free. Smith did not object. He disliked women anyway. His girlfriend in America had left him for another man. It was why he had gone on vacation to Qatar originally. Jason Smith punished all women in his mind and he spent more and more time taking comfort from and talking to the voices in his head. The Wahabi voices were God. God was great; not excellent, not good, he was great. His was the powerful God, the God whose speech was in the thunderstorm and the earthquake, he was in the volcano and the hurricane; he was never in the still, small voice of love. Jason’s heart had beat so hard that he thought it would exit his chest when he saw the Imam appear at the Mosque three months ago and asked him for a special favor. He must join TESS for his Muslim brothers. He had agreed without hesitation. He had made it through the obscure selection process, he had made it through an interview with a Chinese mongrel, then a month of hard Physical training at Wichita, and now he was here at the academy at Anglewood.

  TESS had a taken a cuckoo into its nest.

  The door to the classroom opened. It was Chief Warrant Officer Five Baxter. He was the uncompromising taskmaster in TESS. An earthy gross man as many western working men can became, but very capable in the way that a lion is capable of bringing a Gemsbak down. He made Smith nervous. Smith was not alone. The instructor and the four students came to their feet automatically. The instructor was under contract to TESS. The students were probationary members of TESS, but Baxter was a legendary member of the original Q-Kink—the founding heart of TESS. He had a legitimacy as a full member of TESS that they could only aspire to.

  Though students, they had all been called on and fulfilled a variety of tasks in recent weeks as the organizations trust levels in them rose. Baxter’s words were not a surprise.

  “I need two men for tomorrow; Strong backs and weak minds. Tarkington and . . . uhhh . . . Smith . . . ?”

  “Where are we going Chief?” Tarkington asked in voice that was only interested circumstantially since he loved the idea of getting out of class.

  “Bremerton. It’s in the Washington State . . . near the straits of Juan De Fuca. We will be going on a little boat ride.” He started to turn to leave.

  Totally out of character, Jason Smith, secretly whispered his name, Mahmud Al Wahabi under his breath and then asked the question his other self needed the answer to.

  “What will we be doing Mr. Baxter?” Jason asked like the American he had been.

  Baxter turned and looked at him carefully like a cat admiring the mouse between its paws. He answered casually as only Americans can.