Expendable - James Alan Gardner [34]
“So on every world of the Technocracy, I put a spy. A retired Explorer, actually. Explorers are the last bastion of competence in our civilization, Ramos, and I don’t mind saying it. They’re the precious few of our citizens who aren’t comfortable—the only ones in the whole Technocracy who work completely without safety nets. Everyone else these days has the luxury of indulging in melodrama: of pretending that they’re the stars in some story where there are good guys and bad guys, winners and losers. Everyone else can pretend it’s a game. The streets are safe and the government is forbidden to let people starve, so whatever non-Explorers do isn’t survival…. At heart, it’s just amusement. Explorers are the only ones who know deep down that death isn’t kept at bay by luck or posturing, but by constant attention to necessary details.
“Therefore, my Explorers finked to me when the tap water turned brown, and when the air turned to smog, and when there weren’t enough oranges on the shelves to prevent scurvy. Those warnings gave the Admiralty a fighting chance to do something about the situation…because you know what the civilian authorities are like on most planets. Power-hungry vermin whose only talent is winning elections, not making good decisions. When something goes wrong, you can be damned sure those administrators would rather see their whole worlds starve than report that they’d personally fucked up.”
“You talk about your spies in the past tense,” Yarrun observed.
“I’m past tense now,” Chee answered. “When I’m gone, who’ll take over for me? A Prope? A Harque? I’m going to god-be-damned Melaquin because I finally ruffled one too many important feathers. The High Council will replace me with some VIP’s unemployable nephew…and a lot of planets will start drowning in their own sewage.”
Neither Yarrun nor I spoke. Explorers never asked, “What happens next?” The question was always, “What do we do now?”
The door to the transport bay slid open.
Our time in Limbo was over.
Bold Grace
Walking comfortably in a tightsuit made a person look bowlegged—the fabric was thickened on the inside of each thigh so that one leg rubbing against the other wouldn’t encourage the material to fray.
Once we were planet-down, it didn’t matter what we looked like; but our walk along Sterile Corr-1 was different. The corridor led from our robing chambers to the transport bay, and Vacuum personnel watched us on monitors, every step of the way. Each time I walked that path, I felt the eyes following me. For personal vanity and for the pride of the Explorer Corps, I forced myself to stride along with bold grace.
Learning to walk so cleanly had taken three months of hard practice at the Academy. Resisting the force of the fabric required strength in thigh muscles which were rarely used for other purposes. (Rarely used by me, at any rate.)
I let myself stride into the corridor with consummate poise. Yarrun stepped out of his own chamber and matched my stride. I hoped Prope and Harque were watching…even though I didn’t give a damn about either of them.
Chee, the Explorer
A moment later, Chee emerged from Chamber C. He moved with slow, straight-legged dignity. His suit showed no chocolate-colored fingerprints.
“So, Ramos,