Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative (6 page)

*     *     *

The next morning Kris got up
late, ignoring reveille, and found the promised parcel by her bunk. It
contained a woman’s green jumpsuit, a couple of changes of underwear and a
note: “Hope these fit—Isabeau t’Laren,
Exec
.” Kris was oddly touched by
the personal note. She dressed and showered and made it to sickbay only a
little late for her appointment.

There, she met the grim-faced medical director of yesterday
and he didn’t look any happier this morning. If she had heard his name, she'd forgotten
it. Perched on a chair in one of the examination rooms—the concept of relaxing
seemed foreign to him—he asked her some preliminary questions: standard stuff
like name, age, siblings, place of birth and where she went to school. Then he
tersely explained how the tests would go. She would be asked three sets of
questions; she could answer anyway she chose. Each set would be asked twice,
the second time under examination. She could stop the testing at any time.

“What happens if I do that?”

“That depends on the context,” he answered gruffly. “It is
usually better if you don’t.” He took out a device like a large stylus,
unfurled it to the size of a standard sheet of plaspaper and began jotting
notes on it. Kris didn’t recognize the thing but they seemed quite common here.
The officers and noncoms all had one; some
of the rates did too—specialists, she figured—and they were always using them.
The device appeared to combine the functions of a cel and tablet or mempad,
but this was the first time she’d seen one used in this particular
configuration. Before, she’d only seen people expand theirs to a size bigger
than a typical cel but a little smaller than a mempad. No one had told her a
thing about them—the name or if they were strictly military issue—but they
were clearly more powerful than anything you’d find in the colonies, especially
in the Outworlds.

The medical director stopped writing and looked up. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

He had her recline on the padded sickbay bed, attached a
blood-pressure monitor and several electrodes; one to the side of her neck, one
just above her left breast, two to her forehead, one to right wrist. Then he
slipped a small cuff over her left index finger. “You’ll feel a prick at
sometime during the test—it’s a blood sample. It will only happen once, but
I’m afraid I can’t tell you when.”

She nodded.

He placed a dim red light on a movable arm above her face,
about the size and shape of a penlight. “This light will be lit when the
examination is in progress. It will not seem steady—the brightness may vary
and it may appear to move. That’s normal. You might get drowsy, and that’s
normal too.

“But if you start to feel nausea, or panic or extreme
hostility—an urge to inflict harm on someone—me, for instance—that is
not
normal. Tell me immediately and we’ll stop the test. Do you understand?”

She nodded—
Yes
.

“Anything you want to ask before we begin?”

A head shake—
No
.

“Alright, I’ll begin.”

The medical director went through his questions quickly, not
giving her a chance to think and prodding her if she took too long. Some of the
questions were banal: did she like the color blue? What did she think of the
mess food? Some were more complicated: when was killing justified? Did she
believe in God? Some were personal: was she, or did she think she might be,
homosexual or bisexual? When did she think about sex? Love? When had she lost
her virginity?

She got pretty upset over those questions but decided he was
asking them just to piss her off. A lot of the questions seemed designed to do
that. Others just seemed silly: what did she want to do for a living? How much
money was enough? Did she like children?

He asked the questions again with the light on and Kris
thought she gave the same answers, but more calmly because she was expecting
them. Sometimes she wasn’t sure he asked all the questions, or what she said in
response. The light would go off and she would snap to as if she’d dozed. Then
he asked her if any of the questions particularly bothered her. She answered
with a snappish affirmative and they talked about it for a few minutes, him
scribbling all the while. Finally, they began the second set of questions. Some
of the first set were repeated; some were similar, but reworded. She seemed to
remember less of what happened with the light on.

The last set went very quickly. Suddenly the light went off
and he removed the blood pressure monitor and the electrodes. Her left index
finger was slightly sore—she hadn’t noticed the prick at all. “That’s it?”

“Yes. For now, Ms. Kennakris.”

“For now? What’s that mean? Did I pass?”

The question made him frown, a deeper expression than
normally shaped his sour features. “That is not a term that is especially
applicable in this case, but you are free to go.” He coiled up the wires and
pushed the apparatus aside.

What the hell did that mean? A shrink’s version of a simple
affirmative?

“I didn’t notice the blood sample,” she ventured.

“I know. That’s a good sign.” He finished stowing the
equipment. “There will, of course, be another test of somewhat similar nature
when we reach Cassandra. Although, because of the more sophisticated equipment,
people generally find it pleasanter. Good day, Ms. Kennakris.”

Kris went back to the bunk room and again found it empty
except Mariwen reading alone—something she did quite a bit. “You’ve been to
see the spook,” she said. “I can tell by your eyes.”

“Angry?”

“Crossed.”

“Angry
and
crossed,” Kris declared.

Mariwen laughed. “I didn’t enjoy it either. Mostly, I wanted
to bite him.”

A little shiver went down Kris’s back. “Did you say
anything?”

“No,” Mariwen answered off-handedly. “I wasn’t serious. He
just made me mad. I always want to bite people when I’m mad. Mom used to say I
was some kind of little furry creature in another life. Why?”

“Nothing.” Kris shrugged. She’d gotten angry too. “What made
you mad?”

“Most of it, actually. But the questions about sex, in
particular.”

“Yeah,” Kris heartily agreed. “Those made me want to bite
him myself.”

“I got us invited to the NCO mess. Want to come?”

Kris sat down heavily on her bunk. She liked Mariwen’s
company but not the circus it engendered. That, she could do without. “I
thought I’d rest a bit. Thanks though.”

Mariwen drew her face into a pouty little frown—an
excessively cute expression. “They’ll all be disappointed. I actually think
they like you better than me. I believe I’m jealous.”

Kris scowled at her.

“I’m joking—about being jealous, anyway.” Her face
softened. “Please, would you come?”

Kris felt the scowl slipping. Mariwen was damn hard to
resist. “Always get your way, don’t you?”

“No!” Then a smile, one-sided and a little sheepish. “Well,
yeah. Maybe.” She reached out a hand to Kris’s shoulder. Mariwen touched people
so comfortably. Unconsciously, Kris shrugged her shoulder aside. “If you’d
really rather not—”

“No,” Kris said, chagrinned when she realized what she’d
done. “Just being bitchy. I’ll go.”

“Great!” Mariwen beamed. “I did promise them I’d bring you.
I didn’t know how I was going to face them all.”

Kris was tempted to throw a pillow at her. “You
are
insufferable!”

“I know,” Mariwen giggled. “Ain’t it grand?”

Lunch in the NCO mess was vastly better. It was, in fact,
better than her first meal; that one must have come from the officer’s mess. So
the little yeoman had been right. The circus Kris had wanted to avoid did not
materialize either: Mariwen’s public was appreciative but there was none of the
hectic adoration of the day before. Lunch went by quickly and Kris was sorry
when it ended.

As they walked back from the mess, they met Huron in a
passageway. To Kris, he seemed rather hurried and distracted, but he stopped
anyway and asked solicitously after their well-being. He talked rather more to
Mariwen than to her, and Kris thought she detected a manner in Mariwen she had
not seen before. Something like deference. As he left, she asked, “Do you know
him?”

Mariwen looked a little surprised. “Rafe Huron? Not really.
I know
of
him, of course. He’s one of the Huron family.”

Kris shook her head.

“The
Huron
family,” Mariwen repeated. “KKHR Control
Group—they’re the ‘H’. You know—TeraCon Heavy Industries, Ilmatar Neoforming,
Prometheus Development . . .”

Those were names that penetrated even into the far-flung
corners of Kris’s world. “Oh.”

“They probably own more dirt than anyone. And his daddy’s
Speaker of the Grand Senate, too.”

“Oh,” Kris repeated. Most colonists couldn’t vote, so
politics didn’t mean much to them but she still knew what being Speaker meant.
As leader of the Grand Senate, he was an immensely powerful man. While he
couldn’t actually
order
things done as say, the Proconsuls of Halith or
the President of the Bannerman Confederacy could, he could certainly
suggest
a course of action and most of the time that amounted to the same thing.

“. . . and he’s a famous fighter pilot and genuine war hero—just
for frosting.”

“What?” Kris meant she hadn’t heard the first part of the
sentence but Mariwen misunderstood.

“Yeah, he did something at a place called Mananzas Cay—it
was all over the media for weeks. That would have been about a year ago, I
guess.”

Mananzas Cay
. Kris remembered Mangle, the half-Max
surgeon’s mate, coming back from downside with a load of booze and wild stories
of a disaster at Mananzas Cay, way out in the Hydra. He and Trench had gotten
roaring drunk that night—too drunk to make much sense—but Mangle kept
repeating parts of the story and bad mouthing someone he called “Fuck’n
Flyboy.”

The news made it all through the crew. They’d been pissed off for a month.
She never managed to hear any details—just a lot of mess-carping and
elaborate plans for
Fuck’n Flyboy
should they ever get their hands on
him. They never used his name. Maybe they didn’t know it.

Rafe Huron.
Fuck’n Flyboy
. Kris smiled a little
tightly. “So he’s a fucking paragon, is he?”

Mariwen laughed. “Oh yes, they say he’s that, too. I forgot
to mention that part.”

Kris frowned a little crossly. “Is that why he’s so nice to
you?”

Mariwen shook her head, still laughing. “No, he knows better
than that. But he’s from Michigan and I’m from California—that gives us some
connection, I guess.”

“Michigan? California?”

“Yeah, you know. The States. The old U.S. of A.”

Kris’s eyes went round. “You’re
Staters
? Both of you?
From
old
Terra?”

“Well, yes,” Mariwen answered, surprised at her reaction.
“We prefer to think of it as Earth, though.”

“Oh.
Oh
. Sorry. I never met—I mean—on Parson’s
Acre, we didn’t—well, you know—”

“It’s okay,” Mariwen interrupted her stammer. “We can’t walk
on water and we only bite when aroused. It’s not a big deal.” Kris nodded
mutely. “Oh, don’t be silly—I’m teasing,” Mariwen scolded. “Come on, let’s go
do something fun.”

LSS Arizona
entering the Cepheid-Sagittarian Belt

CEF warships were not designed with fun in mind, but
they persevered. They went to the library, checked out six hours of old
Wayfarer
serials that had been popular when Kris was a kid, and watched them all at
once. The next morning, they got up, skipped breakfast and found out they could
play low-G racquetball on the hanger deck. Kris had won trophies in school and
it was one of the few things Trench would let her do, but she soon found out
that Mariwen, for all her model’s looks and seeming softness, was in excellent
shape and could play mean when she had to. They played a dozen games and
Mariwen won the set: 7 to 5. Afterwards, they sat together on the court’s floor
–arms limp and calves cramping, sweat stinging their eyes and dripping off
their elbows—and Mariwen said, “That’s the last time that’s going to happen.”

“Yeah,” Kris agreed. “Next time I won’t win five.”

“Bullshit,” Mariwen laughed, a little harshly because her
throat was raw from panting. “Help me up.”

As they struggled to their feet, Mariwen slipped and
stumbled into Kris. Their bodies came together in a clash of thin sweat-soaked
cloth as Kris caught Mariwen around the shoulders to keep them both from
falling and Mariwen wrapped her arms around Kris’s waist.

“God, you smell good,” Mariwen murmured huskily in her ear.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to—”

“Hey!” Kris protested. “You promised.”

“I know,” Mariwen sighed. “I’m such a
bad
girl.” Her
breath tickled the side of Kris’s neck. “Goddamn, you make me
wet
. . .”

Kris shifted her hands to Mariwen’s upper arms and pushed
firmly. “Come on. You said you wouldn’t, okay?”

Mariwen stepped back, shook her dark sweat-plastered hair
out of her face and ran her fingers through it so that it sleeked back against
her temples. The motion arched her back, pressing her full breasts tightly
against the stressed fabric of her tank top. Her eyes burned into Kris’s core
with their look, making her breath catch in her throat. No wonder Mariwen was
paid so much for what she did.

Mariwen blinked and the heat in her eyes began to fade. She
let out a huge sigh. “Okay. I’m sorry. It’s the exercise.” Then she shrugged,
her eyes returning to normal. “Alright, lousy excuse. Don’t hate me.”

Kris was moved to touch her, but dared not. “I don’t hate
you, Mariwen. It’s just . . . I mean, I—um . . . it’s not—” She looked away,
suddenly shy and embarrassed.