Earth 2788

  “Dreadfully sorry, sir. I was ordered to remove all the doors on this corridor. I’d no idea you were in here.” He tapped the lookup on his sleeve in a blind panic, obviously double-checking his instructions. “Maybe I got the wrong …”

  I peered at his lookup screen. “That says corridor D1, and this is definitely corridor D1. Please calm down, Cadet. This isn’t your fault.”

  I tapped my own lookup, and Major Rayne Tar Cameron’s face appeared. It was always Rayne who answered my calls. The woman was incredibly efficient, but she couldn’t possibly answer every Command Support call herself, so my guess was she had a routing algorithm set up to send what she considered important calls directly to her.

  “Command Support. How can we assist you, Colonel?”

  “Rayne, can you send a message to whoever is in charge of dismantling this base and has flagged dome D for removal? Tell them that Colonel Torrek sends his compliments, and points out that his quarters are in dome D. He will still be using those quarters until noon tomorrow, and would prefer the rooms to have the standard number of doors, walls and ceilings until then.”

  She blinked. “Surely they haven’t actually …?”

  “Just my front door, and don’t worry.” I glanced across at where the cadet was working on replacing the door. “Someone’s already putting it back. Just try to stop it happening again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I ended the call and turned to the cadet. I didn’t like the resigned expression on his face. I didn’t know how many mistakes the boy had already made in his time at the Military Academy, but he’d reached his limit with this one. He’d given up now. As soon as he’d put my door back in place, he was going to go and tell his instructor that he was leaving the Military. I knew the signs perfectly, because I’d been through exactly the same thing myself. Even after six decades, I could still remember the feeling that I was drowning in a wave of despair and failure.

  “This wasn’t your fault, Cadet,” I repeated. “I assume the Military Academy has sent your class here on a field assignment. We’ve had a lot of classes visiting in the last few months. It’s good experience for cadets to visit a Planet First base, but naturally they can only come to worlds that are out of full quarantine and nearing handover stage.”

  Telling the boy it wasn’t his fault wasn’t helping. Right now, he probably felt he was personally responsible for every mistake the Military had ever made, including giving way to political pressure to clear Thetis for colonization before all the Planet First checks were properly complete.

  I tried a different approach. “If your class has been dragged into helping dismantle the base, then I hope your instructor is going to let you watch the handover ceremony.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been told we can watch it from the hillside overlooking the …” The cadet turned his head to answer me, and dropped the door again. He groaned and stooped to pick it up.

  I felt like groaning too. The boy should be wild with enthusiasm at the prospect of standing on a new planet, watching the ritual moment when it became one of the worlds of humanity. This was the dream of every cadet, but this boy had given up on his dreams and was just depressed.

  “Let me hold the door steady for you,” I said. “Taking doors off is always easier than putting them on again. You’re a sector recruit, aren’t you?”

  The cadet’s look of anguish deepened. “Yes, sir.”

  I held the door in place while he tried putting in the locking pins. He was having trouble because his hands were shaking.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Cadet Helden Keusink, sir.”

  “I was a sector recruit myself,” I said. “A clueless farm boy from Tethys in Gamma sector. My head was stuffed full of romantic fantasies of a Military career working for Planet First. My heart was filled with a burning hatred for carrots.”

  “You were a sector recruit, sir?” The cadet gave me a startled look. “I’m from Gamma sector too. Asgard, in fact.”

  “Then you have the great advantage that people have heard of your world, Helden. Whenever I said I was from Tethys, everyone gave me a blank look. Even the other sector recruits from Gamma sector hadn’t heard of it. The only notable thing about Tethys is that carrots grow incredibly well there.”

  I smiled. “I’d never gone off world before I signed up for the Military. I was wildly excited to leave the carrot fields and travel all the way to Alpha sector. It took me a long time to get there. I knew so little about interstellar portal travel that I thought you had to go from Gamma sector to Alpha sector via Beta sector, but I finally made it to Alpha Sector Interchange 1. That was when I called Military Support for help. My instructions just said to go to Academy in Alpha sector, they didn’t tell me what planet the Academy was on.”

  Helden made an odd choking noise.

  “Oh, please feel free to laugh,” I said. “I don’t know how the Military Captain who answered my call managed to keep a straight face, but he did. He very patiently explained to me that Academy wasn’t on a planet, Academy was a planet. He told me the Military Academy, the Military Headquarters, and a lot of other Military facilities were all on the planet called Academy. Then he said I was clearly having a few problems making the journey, and offered to send someone to come and get me.”

  Helden made the choking noise again.

  I laughed. “I hastily declined. Fortunately I had a few hours to wait before the next scheduled interstellar block portal to Academy, which gave me the chance to recover from my embarrassment. Once I got to Academy, I actually managed to enter the local portal code I’d been given and get to the basic training area without getting lost again. I was put in a class with thirty-two other sector recruits. I was bottom of the class at absolutely everything, but it’s impossible to fail basic training so I carried on to be formally enrolled as a Military Academy cadet.”

  I paused. “Things got even worse at that point. All the sector recruits were split up and put in classes with the huge majority of cadets who came from Military families. They seemed to know everything already, and the second I opened my mouth they all knew I was a sector recruit. I hated that. Don’t you?”

  “Oh yes, sir!” said Helden. “I feel like I’ve got a label on my forehead.”

  “It’s mostly the sector accent that gives you away. The cadets from Military families speak Language without any accent at all. You will too after a couple of years in the Military.”

  I shrugged. “Once I was at the Military Academy itself, I was even more disastrously bad at everything than during basic training. At the end of the first week, I decided to tell my class instructor I was quitting the Military. I’d done my best, and I’d failed. I was going to give up, go back home, and grow carrots after all.”

  Helden frowned. “But you didn’t?”

  I shook my head. “Two of my classmates caught me as I was about to knock on our instructor’s door. They guessed what was going on, dragged me back to my quarters, and barricaded me in.”

  I pointed at the holo portraits on the wall. “That’s the three of us. I’m the confused looking one on the left of course, not the perfect Military officer on the right.”

  The cadet stared at the portraits, and gave me a bemused look as if he couldn’t believe I’d ever been that young.

  “They said the whole class would get in trouble if I quit,” I said, “and refused to let me out of my room until I promised to give it another month. After that, they made it their mission in life to turn a farm boy into a Military officer.”

  “That’s the other thing, sir,” said the cadet. “Since less than 10 per cent of cadets are sector recruits, the Military have strict rules about making us feel welcome. I know my instructor and my classmates must think I’m an idiot, but they have to hide it and be nice to me or they’ll be put on report.”

  He waved a hand at the door. “Just look at this job, sir. My classmates are dismantling a dome full of science labs, and packing away delicate equipment.
I nearly broke something hideously expensive by trying to force it into the wrong storage box. Anyone else would have had the instructor yelling at them, while the rest of the class stood around laughing, but I just got sent over here to take off doors. The instructor thought even I couldn’t get that wrong, but …”

  “What you have to remember is that cadets from Military families have got a huge head start on you,” I said. “You had a few months of basic training before you started at the Military Academy. They’ve had eighteen years of living on Military bases and going to Military schools. All that time, they’ve been absorbing knowledge.”

  I wondered if this was a good moment to mention that Helden shouldn’t be calling me “sir” any longer. I’d called him by his first name, which showed I’d changed this from a formal to an informal conversation, a perfect example of something a cadet from a Military family would know but Helden didn’t.

  I decided I’d better not risk it. “Your instructor knows that,” I continued, “and your classmates know it too. That’s why they don’t make fun of you. It’s not because they’re scared of being put on report. It’s because you don’t gloat at beating someone in a race when you know they’ve had to run twice as far as you.”

  Helden finished attaching the door, stepped back and looked at it disconsolately. “Perhaps you’re right, sir, but it doesn’t make much difference now anyway. I have to forget all about graduating the Military Academy and taking the Military Oath of Service, because I’ll never live this down. I’ve taken the door off a Colonel’s quarters, while the Colonel was inside them!”

  “You were just following orders,” I said. “Tell your classmates about it, and watch their faces. You’ll see a look of horror, because they know it could have happened to them as easily as you.”

  I paused. “Anyway, everyone has embarrassing incidents to live down. Take me for example. I burned down a dome once.”

  Helden looked shocked. “At the Military Academy, sir?”

  “No, this was later,” I said. “I was a Captain on a Planet First assignment, and I’d had rather an … intense day. The three of us had been out in an armour-plated Field Command sled, collecting samples for the scientists, when we ran into a big herd of some local wildlife. Rather like Asgard bison, but with bigger teeth and extremely bad tempers. We were in a small valley, with the herd blocking the only way out. The real problems began when the herd noticed our sled, and started playing games with it. They couldn’t get through the armour plating, but they could roll the sled over and push it around.”

  Helden’s eyes got even wider.

  I shrugged. “We screamed for help, the fighter team came to the rescue, and there was a period of utter chaos while they chased off the herd. Somewhere in the middle of that, I proposed marriage to two Betans.”

  Helden blinked.

  “Or possibly they proposed marriage to me,” I said. “They’d been trying to persuade me into a triad relationship for ages, but I’d been refusing. I was from a very conventional Gamman background, and I wanted to be twoing with the girl, not sharing her with a third party, especially a third party that kept calling me farm boy!”

  I waved a dismissive hand. “Well, maybe I proposed to them, or maybe they proposed to me. As I said, it was utter chaos at the time, so none of us were ever quite sure of the details. All that mattered was that I’d reached the point where I gave in and accepted there’d be three of us rather than two.”

  I grinned at the portraits on the wall. This was our long running private joke. At every possible chance, I’d complain about being forced into Threeing rather than Twoing. Then he’d say …

  The male voice in my head said the words. “You know you love me really, farm boy!”

  “I don’t know why I was fool enough to get involved with either of you, when I could have married the amazing Pascal instead!” The female voice in my head completed our comedy routine.

  Pascal had undoubtedly been the brightest cadet in our class, brilliant academically, but useless at anything remotely practical. He’d wisely opted to train as a Military Science Specialist rather than becoming combat Military. I’d lost track of his career after he was assigned to a joint civilian and Military research project. I wondered what had become of him later on, whether he was still …

  I saw Helden was giving me an odd look, so I hurried on with my story. “Once we were safely back at base, the Medical team patched us up, and then the three of us celebrated by getting totally powered. Everything was fine until I had the bright idea of setting off some distress flares.”

  I paused. “Unfortunately, I set off the distress flares inside one of our domes. Never do that, Helden. It’s a really bad idea. By the time our fire crews put the blaze out, there wasn’t an awful lot of the dome left. Luckily it was one of the smallest domes, but our commanding officer was still rather upset about it. Now I’m a commanding officer myself, I can quite see his point. Anyway, what I’m telling you is that everyone has their embarrassing moments to live down, and taking off the wrong door is a rather minor issue compared with burning down a dome.”

  “I suppose that’s true, sir,” said Helden.

  “You’ve obviously got as far as realizing the Military work desperately hard to encourage sector recruits, but I don’t think you understand the reason.”

  Helden pulled a face. “I thought it was pity.”

  I shook my head. “It’s because you can contribute something to the Military that your classmates can’t. What’s the most important job of the Military, Helden?”

  “Planet First, sir. Making new worlds safe for humanity.”

  “That’s what every civilian thinks, and it’s what the original Military Charter said. That was written at the start of the twenty-fourth century, when the only two inhabited worlds were Earth and Adonis. Once there were hundreds of inhabited worlds, the Military became the cross-sector Military, and the Military Charter was completely re-written with new priorities.”

  I smiled. “The new Military Charter states the prime objective of the Military is to maintain the peace between the worlds of humanity. It specifies that the cross-sector Military must remain politically neutral, recruit from all worlds without prejudice, and do everything possible to promote the bonds of understanding between different worlds and cultures.”

  I paused. “There’s a lot about Planet First as well, but that’s the second priority. Offering new worlds to humanity is far less important than stopping wars between those we already have. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Helden thought that over. “Yes, sir.”

  “So the primary objective of the Military is to be a unifying force between over a thousand worlds, and particularly between the distinctive cultures of the sectors of humanity. The problem is that we have a largely hereditary Military, with its own culture and traditions. Pure practicalities, like the need to keep new worlds under strict quarantine until they’re proved to be safe, mean that many Military officers will have little contact with civilians. The Military can’t promote bonds of understanding between civilian cultures unless its officers understand those cultures themselves.”

  I pointed at Helden. “That’s why the Military needs people like you. Sector recruits are the glue that holds everything together, because they renew the links between the Military and the sectors. You aren’t just at the Military Academy to learn, Helden, but to teach. That’s why the sector recruits are put in the same classes as cadets with Military background. You’re teaching your fellow cadets and your instructors too, about civilian life and about the latest cultural attitudes in Gamma sector.”

  “Oh.” Helden considered that.

  “You see your civilian background as a problem,” I said, “but actually it makes you immensely valuable. So please give yourself a while longer before you abandon the Military life. You never know, you might end up being a Colonel yourself one day. On the whole, I feel I’ve had a better life in the Military than I’d have had growing carrots.” r />
  I thought I’d said enough, and if the boy did still try and quit the Military he’d get at least three more people giving him the same lecture. I nodded at him, headed off down the corridor to the nearest base internal portal, selected my destination, and stepped through. I was still going to be a little early for the handover ceremony, but I was getting nervous. If my deputy was having any problems, I should be there to help her.

  Part II

  I arrived in the centre of a large area of grassland. Ahead of me, a vast mob of Military officers in dress uniform were milling around, grabbing their chance to exchange news with old friends who they hadn’t seen in months or even years. Over to my left, my deputy, Commander Nia Stone, was deep in conversation with her husband, my Threat team leader, Commander Mason Leveque.

  “Well, tell her she can’t,” said Commander Stone. “I can’t let everyone pick and choose where they stand during the ceremony. I’ve put her in group 3 Alpha, and she’s staying in group 3 Alpha!”

  “The problem is you’ve got her ex-wife in group 3 Alpha too,” said Commander Leveque.

  “Ex-wife?” Commander Stone shook her head. “When did that happen? They seemed perfectly happy when they left here three months ago, and I didn’t get a notification they should be kept apart.”

  “Apparently the divorce is due to be finalized today, so there are bound to be some intense emotions on both sides,” said Commander Leveque. “I strongly advise we keep them apart, or I estimate there’s a 3 per cent risk that this becomes the first handover ceremony in history where a murder is committed.”

  “I suppose we could swap …”

  Commander Stone noticed me at this point, broke off her sentence, and saluted. Judging from her expression, I was about as welcome as a Cassandrian skunk.

  I gave her a placating smile. “I see you have everything under control, Commander Stone. I’ll leave you to it.”