Expendable - James Alan Gardner [6]
I don’t know if any of the class took advantage of the opportunity. I didn’t.
Admiral Seele arrived on the Jacaranda in my first year with the ship. No one could say why she had come. She inspected the engine room, but made no comments or suggestions. She spent an hour alone with every officer, but reportedly spoke only of trivialities and glanced frequently at her watch. She passed one entire day secluded in her cabin, supposedly examining our ship’s log on the computer…but when I walked by her door late in the afternoon, I heard her singing a bawdy song I recognized from Academy days. I hurried on, though I had intended to knock.
The admiral spent most of her time with me. It made me uncomfortable, even as I told myself I had nothing to fear. Mostly, we talked about the Academy and my missions. I had made only two Landings at the time, neither one eventful, but she seemed interested. Her questions showed she knew what was important to an Explorer…unlike most Vacuum-oriented officers, who had no idea what to pay attention to when they had solid ground under their feet. I guessed that part of being an admiral was knowing more than the rest of the pack.
On the last night of her stay, she asked how well I got on with the crew. Were they cooperative? I said I had no complaints. Did I have many friends? No. Any lovers? No. Was I lonely? No, I filled my time. Did I never want to reach out to another human being? No, I was fine.
She started to cry then. She tried to take hold of my hand, but I drew back quickly. She said I mustn’t close myself to the world; I would be miserable if I didn’t let other people into my life.
I walked out of the room without waiting to be dismissed.
The next morning, Admiral Seele left us at Starbase Iris. As she left, she saluted the captain and first officer, but shook my hand. She looked like she wanted to kiss me. Perhaps she couldn’t decide where: on my lips, on my good cheek, or on my bad one.
I concluded then that my first admiral was a maladjusted woman who yearned for me. The Academy had taught us about people who are drawn to Explorers by our ugliness. The attraction has something to do with self-hatred.
Self-Care
The message buzzer hummed and I found I had been sleeping. My neck was stiff and my clothing rumpled. I rolled gracelessly to my feet and thudded over to the desk. “Ramos here.”
Harque’s face appeared on the screen. Wearing his dress gold uniform, he looked annoyingly fresh and knew it. “Admiral Chee is arriving.”
“Thank you. I’m on my way.”
“If I were you, I’d do something with my hair first.” The screen went blank too quickly for me to reply. Clever retorts seldom come easily to me. I stomped angrily to the bathroom and fumbled a while with a comb. Stupid people flustered me so effortlessly. I wished I had a quick mind.
Years of conditioning would not let me leave my room until my part was straight. That irked me too. What fastidious programmer forced this obsession on me?
To smooth my feathers, I thought of childish ways to get even with Harque. Some scandalous story about him passed to the admiral? No, I was too smart to lie to an admiral, and too ill-informed to know any dirt that was really true. Some night Harque would pull down the sheets of his bed and find a smashed egg there. The Sevro lizards of Malabar IV laid eggs whose yolks were more corrosive than industrial acids.
Wearing a smile and taking great pride in my personal appearance, I stepped confidently out my door.
Part II
MISSION
Worm, Sperm
WORM: The colloquial name for the envelope of spacetime distortion that surrounds each starship, allowing the ship to circumvent relativistic and inertial effects that would otherwise make space travel impracticable.
—Excerpt from Practice and Procedures of Space Travel: An Overview for Explorers, textbook published by the Admiralty
Only the Admiralty would have the nerve to claim that the colloquial name for our envelope was “the Worm.” To everyone else (except in the presence of admirals), it was “the Sperm.”
REASON