Absorption (15 page)

Despite the seriousness of the surrounding circumstances, Brett allowed himself an inward moment of triumph. He knew it was petty of him. Brett couldn’t remember exactly what the Ambassador had said on the day they first met, but it had left a lasting impression. Considering the Ambassador’s phobia he must have been under great stress the day he said those things, but he would hardly make up ideas he had never thought before on the spur of the moment.

Then Brett continued. “I’ve discussed my personal knowledge with Colonel Barr, and he agrees it’s a reasonable tactical sacrifice.”

Allegedly the Oceanian system of checks and balances made it impossible for them to take any knowledge of the Space Force without his awareness and consent, but nobody counted on that, especially given the stakes.

Technically Williams was his superior, and he should have had a role in the decision. Certainly Brett should have found a way to at least pretend to involve him before it was already made. Apparently Williams didn’t care.

Conversation lapsed, and the game proceeded in silence. Williams avoided losing his queen with a discovered check he had clearly set up in advance. Could Williams be tougher than he seemed?

Then Brett saw an opportunity and captured a knight.

Williams spoke quietly, part of his attention still on the board. “Even after you retire, there will be people wondering about long term conditioning.”

Brett had thought of that. “I’ll be one of them. I’ll probably have a comfortable retirement no matter how many people are watching me, but this is the end of my career.”

Williams frowned. “They’re not going to lock you in a little room until you die of old age, are they?”

Brett’s mouth went dry at the mention of his secret fear. He became defensive. “That’s not what the Federalist Worlds are about. Anyway, Space Force soldiers look out for each other. Many people won’t take no for an answer if I just vanish.”

Williams shifted back to the previous topic. “See what you can find out about Gregory. He may be higher on his father’s list of priorities than you think.”

Although Brett’s opinion of the Ambassador had risen in the past hour or so, he still wasn’t convinced. The Ambassador added, “I can’t tell you how I found out about the detectives, but I wouldn’t know if Peterson hadn’t let it leak.”

Detectives? The Senator had hired detectives to track his son, and not mentioned it? Had they discovered anything that might help Brett? That would seem to support Williams’ belief that the Senator might actually allow concern for his son to affect issues of war and peace. Brett looked back at the board. Williams had lost another piece. Soon Brett would be able to start exchanging his way towards the end game and near certain victory.

Williams told him, “Under the circumstances I’ll be happy to concede the game.”

“You don’t really feel you’ve lost yet, do you?”

“Well, no,” Williams admitted.

Brett stopped before he moved. He had just noticed something. Brett looked straight at Williams face, wanting to find out if what had happened was an accident. Perhaps Williams wasn’t even aware of what he had.

“You can checkmate me in five moves.”

“Four if I start with the bishop instead of the queen.”

Brett silently tipped over his king. Maybe the Ambassador spent too much time playing chess, and the claim of superior understanding of politics was nonsense. Or maybe not. He moved Gregory up a notch on his list of priorities.

The nannies were too large to diffuse through the skin or be ingested and pass through the stomach wall, so they entered the bloodstream via that most ancient technology: the needle. The nurse found a vein with no apparent effort. Was she seeing a three dimensional image of the interior of his arm? Scanning equipment sat on the table next to him, but no monitor.

“Thanks for coming,” Brett told Ariel.

“I didn’t mind.”

Her voice sounded cool, and Brett felt he understood why. An Oceanian couldn’t be expected to understand his fears. “It’s got to be a pain keeping someone you barely know company through a routine procedure.”

The first infusion would take four hours, so Brett had been made comfortable in a reclining chair. Physically the procedure was very easy. It was the knowledge of what was being put inside which disturbed him. He took a breath and fought the feeling of insects crawling under his skin. There were no nerves inside the blood vessels, and the machines were microscopic, so the feeling was psychosomatic.

Ariel squeezed his hand. “Not routine for you. And you did tell me I shouldn’t bother.”

Ariel sat beside him, and he turned to face her, gazing into the glory of her light brown eyes. The idea that this technology had lessened her humanity felt remote. Brett talked about things he had already studied to distract himself.

“I take it there are precautions to prevent someone from reading my mind against my will – or controlling it.”

Ariel nodded. “Nobody can access the data stream from your brain unless you authorize it. At least three licensed professionals work together simultaneously. They monitor each other, and their brains are chemically inhibited from forming memories of you.”

She didn’t sound annoyed. She sounded patient, like someone reassuring a child. He found a way to express his concerns that didn’t sound irrational.

“This may sound silly, but where I come from people have well protected rights. If several government agencies agreed that the fate of millions of people – or just possibly those agencies – was at stake, they could find a way to get around them.”

Ariel was unshaken. “Would it help if a bunch of major corporations would scream bloody murder? Anyway, we can’t just pump memories into your brain. Your brain encodes and decodes its own memories. The hippocampi are just gateways. You have to think about things to remember them. You’d know. And I’ll keep an eye out anyway.”

Brett didn’t see anything she could do, but appreciated the thought. He changed the subject. “It was kind of you to meet me. Apart from the inconvenience, it could put a crimp in your personal life.”

Ariel smiled slightly. “Between you and me, Michael can be demanding. I wonder if he realizes how much he asks. A little time apart might help him appreciate me more. If he’s too annoyed I’m going to start wondering what he sees in you.”

Brett almost snorted at the choice of words. He suspected she already knew why Michael might see him as a competitor. Some women felt there was something dangerous about Brett. Ariel looked at him a trifle closer. “You didn’t sleep well?”

Brett didn’t know what would happen to him when the nannies started interacting with his brain.

Ariel sensed his thoughts. “You could still change your mind. There aren’t enough nannies in your blood to matter if you leave now.”

“No.”

“Then lean back and close your eyes for a moment. You’ll find the chair is very comfortable to recline in. For most Oceanians this is a day of celebration, but I figured you wouldn’t be in the mood for a bunch of loud teenagers so I got you a private room.”

Brett did as she told him. The sting of the needle had become numb. He could have slept, if not for wondering if this would be his last day as himself.

Ariel started telling him about her Infusion Day. She had fought with her parents to have it early, but a year or so after puberty was considered the optimum time, when the normal capabilities of the brain had developed so the new ones wouldn’t interfere. She and four girlfriends had had a joint infusion day party.

As she continued with her story, Brett found the picture she painted on the inside of his eyelids soothing.

“Wake up sleepyhead,” Ariel told him cheerfully.

Brett might have dozed off for a moment. Then the nurse removed the needle from his arm. It really had been four hours. Ariel hadn’t sat there the whole time, surely? Even so, it had been nice of her to come back and wake him.

As he got up, Brett commented, “I don’t feel different.”

Ariel laughed. “You’re not wearing a cap or booster pack, and it will take practice for you to learn to use them – and them to configure to you. I’ll still call your pods for awhile.”

So they headed towards the pod station inside the building.

As they walked Brett asked, “Where do I learn?”

“Free public education. Mostly people will be younger than you, but there are classes for adults. Your medical knowledge will put you ahead in some things. Encouraging off-worlders who want to use nannies is, um, was a big part of our tradition.”

Brett smiled inwardly. She had ‘remembered’ just in time that Oceania no longer evangelized, or at least claimed not to.

They stopped in front of the doors at the end of the hall. A pod arrived in response to Ariel’s silent summons. The manual summoning button was at waist height. Presumably it accommodated those too young for nanotechnology, or suffering equipment breakdown.

The doors slid open. The pod beyond was slightly larger than an elevator, but cylindrical. Four chairs were symmetrically spaced around the perimeter, upholstered with brown synthetic leather. A touch sensitive screen and speaker grill broke up the wall between two chairs, positioned at a height usable but not convenient for an average sized adult.

The pod descended as soon as the doors were closed, like the elevator it resembled. After descending the equivalent of a couple of floors, it slowed to a stop. There was a slight jar as it left the shaft and locked into a metal track. After the pod shifted tracks a couple of times, Brett looked at Ariel.

He asked, “A different route?”

Ariel smiled. “It’s customary to have a party after someone gets their first Nannies, to celebrate and to help them get started. Do you have any friends on this planet, inside or outside the embassy?”

Brett resisted a momentary impulse to name Colonel Barr. Apart from anything else it would have made it harder for the old bastard to watch his back. Williams’ stock had risen in Brett’s book, but it would be difficult for him. Shuttling anyone else down from the Firestorm would have involved a lot of paperwork – and time. Brett shook his head. “I’m a little tired.”

He was, though he had slept during the infusion. Tension over the step he was taking had dogged him for some time. Now he needed time to think. Otherwise he would have jumped at the excuse to spend more time with Ariel.

She sounded genuinely disappointed. “Just an hour or so. I already invited a few people to meet us.”

He looked at her.

“I thought you could borrow a few of my friends, if you didn’t have any handy. Not Michael, I promise.”

Brett shrugged. There wasn’t anyone else on this world he cared to avoid. There wasn’t anyone (except possibly Ariel) he especially cared to see either, but he could be polite for awhile.

“Thank you,” he said.

When the pod surfaced, they weren’t inside a building. Ariel set off at a brisk clip. Brett walked after her unenthusiastically, the overcast afternoon sky reflecting his mood. Rain would have been a relief from the warmth and humidity. Were they going to someone’s house? A private home wouldn’t have a pod station.

Nor would the smallish restaurant they were approaching. It didn’t look promising from the outside, with a couple of loose shingles hinting at careless management or financial difficulty. Most of the tables inside were full though, and despite his mood something about the place perked him up. The wood floor and polished wooden tables made the place look halfway between a bar and a restaurant. Ariel led him to an occupied table.

He wished Muriel and Katrina a good afternoon. Muriel looked as businesslike as ever, while Katrina wore a rich purple dress.

He greeted Kenny solicitously. “Hi kid – no bruises I hope?”

Kenny rolled his eyes and said, “A couple of lucky throws. You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

It was just as well Brett hadn’t had the opportunity to return to the embassy and brood in solitude.

A few moments later Kenny said, “Happy Infusion day”, and handed him an ornate walking stick.

Brett was torn between saying “huh?” to the words, and “What’s this for?” to the object handed him. Kenny answered one of the questions.

“This is from me and Katrina. Most people bring some sort of gift to an infusion day party. Careful, it’s not just a walking stick.”

Brett examined it. The handle looked like very old ivory, held and cleaned many times. Carved and polished wood formed the body, metal shod the bottom. Too heavy for a wooden stick. Further examination located the hidden pressure plates. Brett angled the stick downward before pressing them.

The bottom shot off with considerable force, rebounding from the floor with a loud noise and clattering into a corner. Brett had directed the cap not to pass too near anyone, so no dinners were spoiled, though there were a few exclamations. The people with him weren’t the only ones to watch him examine the gleaming blade. As nice as it looked, Brett would never trust his life to a blade he hadn’t tested. Since they hadn’t eaten yet, Brett decided against slamming it into one of the heavy wooden tables and pulling sideways, least the management eject them.

A boy who might have been around nine or ten jumped up. His black T-shirt had white lettering in a language Brett couldn’t read, and was a little too dark for his olive complexion. A woman in her forties with a pink purse tried and failed to keep him from running over to Brett and asking, “Who are you going to use it on?”