Sample of the MacPherson Criticality

Lieutenant Alexander M. Leavenworth was not in a particularly good humor when he was at last allowed to return to his ship. He went immediately to his quarters, dumped his bag on the combination, which he had left in an untidy configuration somewhere between table and storage locker, and flung himself into the bunk above. There he lay rigidly, staring at the deck perhaps half a meter from his face, and tried to reason himself into going to sleep.

It was less than two hours until his duty watch, and he was exhausted, but curiosity won. He slid out and dropped to the deck.

Leavenworth opened his bag, found his flight suit and pulled it out, a fine spray of sand coming with it. He unrolled the gray wad and began to empty out the pockets. Besides more sand and a few scraps of vel containing cryptic notes, he found an information capsule labeled with a mathematical equation, and a New Mexico Military Institute baccalaureate ring.

Leavenworth had not had a chance to look at the ring before, and now he held it up for close examination. Except for the size and the date, Eileen Reagan’s school ring was identical to his own, even to the diamond awarded to a distinguished bachelor. This was rather surprising. The platinum NMMI setting was very common-perhaps a third of all naval graduates had attended the Institute in New Mexico-and the pattern in the black onyx denoted an engineer-about 10% of any given class were engineers. But the distinguished bachelor was almost invariably in history, information or communication. It was much more difficult to carry a high average in non-relative physics.

Out of curiosity, he removed his own ring and held the two side by side. He tried pushing Eileen’s ring through his. It fit easily. He played with the rings a little longer, and then he put his own back on and hers into his decoration case under some fete ribbons he never wore.

Leavenworth picked up the capsule and debated with himself for a moment before he dropped it into his workstation. Chances were it contained more than a thesis. There could also very well be personal calls recorded on it, unless Eileen had been careful about redesignating her prime capsule, and most people weren’t.

He set up a chronological scan and sat back to watch. Not surprisingly, there was a block of thesis first, but Leavenworth went through this very quickly. Then there was a call from a marine sergeant, but no answer, and he left no message, which wasn’t very enlightening. There was another, short block of thesis, and then a call from a woman who identified herself as Lt. Day.

This time, Eileen answered, and Leavenworth smiled in spite of himself. Except that she was wearing an unrevealing nightshirt instead of a flight suit, she looked-and sounded-exactly like he remembered. She was not what he would consider a beauty-her lips were too thin, her jaw too square and her bent blade of a nose too prominent-but she had good cheekbones, a smooth, domed forehead and large, light gray eyes that he could admire without reservation. She had also taken down her hair, and it spread over her shoulders in abundant brown ripples like something from a pre-Raphaelite painting.

"Do you have your presentation ready for my general physics class tomorrow?" asked Lt. Day, unmoved by the picture her correspondent presented.

"Yes, ma’am."

"I’d like to see it first."

It was obvious Eileen wasn’t terribly enthusiastic, but she eventually said, "Yes, ma’am."

She probably wanted to get back to her thesis, Leavenworth guessed, having been in the same situation himself, but he also knew how important the presentation the lieutenant asked to preview was. Shortly before his own graduation, he had stood up before a general physics class of respectful first-year students and bored them nearly to catatonia with his overview of non-relativistic physics. He had some hope Eileen would do a better job than he had, and he was delighted to have a chance to see her give part of hers, at least.

"Most of us live Newtonian, or sub-relativistic, lives," she began uncertainly, "and can’t even grasp Einstein’s relativistic theories, much less Rikovski’s non-relativistic ones." She paused and looked for some encouragement to continue. Leavenworth knew she was appealing to the other officer, but it seemed she was looking directly at him.

"Go on," he murmured. Day merely nodded, and Eileen went on.

"Non-rel physics is so important to space travel," she said, "every officer, whether naval environmental or marine ground assault, should have some understanding of the principles involved."

"What does a green marine need to know non-rel physics for?" demanded Lt. Day, and Eileen blushed visibly.

"Ma’am...I’m not sure," she admitted. "Maybe so he won’t look like an idiot to the Navy?"

"Even though we all suspect he is?" Day smiled. "Perhaps you ought to give that as a reason. It’s as good as any I’ve heard, and these particular students might accept that one better than most of the others."

Eileen rehearsed her introduction a couple of times with this rationale added, and then she got into the substance of her talk. "We can begin by thinking of space as two-dimensional, and very stretchy." Rather than stand around waving her hands, she brought up a simple graphic representation. Leavenworth adjusted his display to show both women and the graphic, although that made it rather crowded.

"It coils around a transition locus like an infinitely wide but very shallow spiral staircase, which is relatively easy to envision." It was also relatively easy to show, and the simple plane in her graphic stretched in a lovely spiral about a line. "Add more locii to the picture, however, and it is virtually impossible to imagine the topology, since you now have multiple spiral staircases interconnected with reasonable continuity at their outer edges." Here Eileen depicted the mess that ensued, with her locii eventually degenerating into hyperkinetic springs. Leavenworth grinned. He didn’t think the students would fall asleep on her, at least not yet. "The mathematics also becomes very involved." She illustrated this simple statement with an amusing sequence showing the numbers and symbols of Lavalli’s mathematical model marching out among the still-pulsating springs in a precision formation that ended in a wild, chaotic melee, complete with the requisite clouds of dust.

"For the sake of simplicity, let us instead imagine space, still two-dimensional, but folded back upon itself multiple times. In this model, a locus is like a hole punched through all of the infinite layers. It is relatively easy to imagine any number of such holes permeating the fabric of space." The illustration for this was similar to numerous others Leavenworth had seen, except the holes representing the locii did not simply grow there; Eileen sent a squad of marine engineers to blast them out with explosives.

"While any point on any model we can imagine will be relative to any other point on the model," she droned on, her dry delivery contrasting very effectively with her crazy cartoons, "in reality, once we enter the locus, we have no idea where one point is in relation to another using our accustomed spatial concepts. Instead, we need to think in terms of energy states." The still-embattled Lavalli’s spilled into the frame and, under the amazed eyes of the marines, fell into one of the holes.

"Essentially, when we enter the locus, we jump from one level to another by changing our energy state, either higher..." At this, Lavalli’s mathematical symbols themselves broke apart and rose to a higher level, but then a couple of naval engineers rappelled into the hole and reformed the Lavalli’s into their original, neat ranks. "...Or lower. We return by reversing the process, and it takes a tremendous amount of energy either way, the same as it takes energy both to heat a building in the summer or cool it in the winter. And as with heating and cooling, it takes more energy to go to a lower energy state than to a higher."

Leavenworth laughed at the unlikely tools, including hammers, handsaws, tape and a whip, that the conversion engineers used to shape and join the mathematical expressions. He noticed Lt. Day grinning broadly, as well. She didn’t say anything that might distract Eileen, however, as Eileen went on to describe the operation of a conversion engine, compare temporal and mass coordinates, and detail the method for acquiring those coordinates. Eileen finished with a brief, hilarious bit comparing the behavior of subatomic particles with that of nonicles, their non-rel counterparts or, as Eileen depicted them, their dissolute, disreputable, fun-loving country cousins.

This segment proved to be too much even for Eileen, and once she giggled, it was all up for Lt. Day, as well. Leavenworth was reminded of the laughing fit he and Eileen had enjoyed at the beginning of her examination, but the recollection was sobering. He smiled rather wistfully as Eileen’s own snickers subsided.

"Where did you find all of that?" Day wanted to know, her eyes still twinkling in appreciation. "I’ve never seen any of it before."

Leavenworth hadn’t, either. And as he considered himself something of an expert as far as cartoons were concerned, he could only assume Eileen herself had produced them. She had told him she liked to do animation, but he hadn’t realized her work would be so good or so wildly funny, assuming she really was entirely responsible for what he had just seen.

"I did it myself, ma’am." Eileen’s perplexity was obvious. "You told me I had to develop my own materials, didn’t you, ma’am?"

Lt. Day gave Eileen a rather lop-sided smile. "Who’d have thought an engineer would have such a sense of humor?"

Leavenworth had the impression Day still didn’t quite believe Eileen had the humor or the talent. To judge from Eileen’s own wary expression, she hadn’t accepted the other woman’s blithe comment, either.

"Will it do, then, ma’am?" she asked.

"Certainly." Lt. Day nodded decisively. "I’ll see you at 0900." The naval officer disconnected, but Eileen remained on for a few seconds longer.

Although this conversation had taken place a month ago, and Leavenworth knew she had been gazing at a blank display, it seemed more than ever as if she were looking at him. There was such a longing in her silver eyes he could not think of anything else until she broke the connection.

He let the next block of thesis scroll slowly past, but he hardly attended to it as he analyzed what that look Eileen had given him, or rather, the absent Lt. Day, must have meant. Maybe she had wanted more than Day’s airy acceptance of her work. Leavenworth wished he could tell Eileen how wonderful he thought it, but he knew he would get into trouble for sending a message to her just now, and maybe even for some time to come.

Leavenworth reluctantly pulled the capsule and put it with her ring, which he couldn’t help looking at again. As he traced its shape with one finger, he reflected he had learned less about Eileen than he had about himself. After years of being fawned on by some of the most beautiful women on three planets, he had been reduced to the level of a sixteen-year-old by a girl he would never have noticed in a crowd.

He realized it was almost time to start in to propulsion and navigation, and he reluctantly closed the lid of his decoration case. He automatically went through an abbreviated pre-duty ritual-a depilatory buzz and a fully-clothed pass through the cleaner. A quick check in the mirror told him he looked more alert than he felt. He still couldn’t understand why nobody had changed the duty schedule to take into account changed circumstances...but that was the military.

Leavenworth reported to prop and nav in good time. He relieved Cdr. Gore, who expressed his pleasure at his second engineer’s return but asked no questions before he left. Lt. Leavenworth checked over the cross-fass^* and had come to the conclusion it would be a boring watch when the navigator (third) came in to relieve the navigator (second).

"Al!" exclaimed Lt. j.g. Charles Anderson, "you’re back!" He pressed himself to an instrumentation panel to let the other navigator by. Once she was gone, he asked, "How was it?"

"It was just great, Charlie, what do you think?"

"You don’t do sarcasm well, Al." Anderson took his seat and continued talking as he logged in. "So what happened?"

Leavenworth pretended to study a performance map for the number three engine. "The candidate reached for the upper left bilateral and got the eject bar. That was it."

"Wow," said Anderson, "I did that once, when I was in hard vac, but I just got an ‘insufficient atmosphere: override required’ message, or something along those lines. I canceled that in a hurry." He paused to remember his narrow escape. "They going to let him try again? The candidate, I mean. I’ll bet he won’t make that mistake again."

"The candidate is on her way to boot camp on Corin," said Leavenworth bitterly. "They tell me she’s lucky not to be prosecuted."

"That’s outrageous." Anderson continued with his routine system check. "And it’s obvious how it happened, too. Women always act like total morons in your presence, Al, you know they do."

"Not this one." She had been completely rational even when things had gone so horribly wrong. "No, not this one."

Anderson quirked both eyebrows and visibly suppressed a grin. "So what’s she like?"

"Well..." Leavenworth considered the question. "She isn’t beautiful, but she has striking eyes and a certain quality of...well, not exactly elegance, but Lady Daeneme seems like a vulgar strumpet in comparison."

"Lady Daeneme is a vulgar strumpet." Anderson leaned back and put his feet up on the console between the main navigation array and the bridge monitor. "I’m glad you finally realize it. She may be beautiful, talented and even witty, as you have so often told me, but she has no heart, and she keeps her brains in her-"

"Charlie," interrupted Leavenworth, "we are not discussing Lady Daeneme."

"You started it."

"To continue, and we are not talking about Daeneme, she-"

"What’s her name?" Anderson asked reasonably. "It would be easier than this ‘she’ business."

"I suppose you’re right, but I don’t want to tell you her real name." Leavenworth smiled reminiscently. "Or perhaps I do. Her real name must be Athena."

"You are gone, Al."

"I guess I am," he admitted. Then he grinned. "In fact, I’m the one who acted like a moron. That pylon trick you suggested backfired, and then-I was forgetting it’s been six years, I guess, because I just assumed she knew who I was, so I didn’t even introduce myself." As he recalled her reaction when he had finally done so, his grin vanished. He wondered if he should confess this part even to Charlie.

"So you’ve got it for her, and she doesn’t even know your name?" Anderson emitted a vulgar noise.

"Well..." Leavenworth still felt incredibly guilty about it, even if he’d had no way of knowing how very startled she would be. "I did tell her my name, right about time for reentry, so she was staring at me in surprise when she should have been looking at what she was doing. And that’s when she got the orange bar."

"So you think it’s your fault she crashed?" Anderson made another rude noise. "That’s nonsense, and you know it."

He did know it, but he still felt responsible, as if he should somehow have anticipated the accident and prevented it.

***

Based on what she had been told, Eileen had expected to be subjected to the first phase of basic training, but apparently the physical and mental conditioning that was the primary purpose of those weeks was considered unnecessary in her case. Instead, she was issued tan fatigues and a standard kit and put on a transport for the carrier Persephone. There she joined several hundred recruits who had finished their first six weeks and were on their way to Corin for the next six.

With so many, Eileen didn’t think anyone would realize she hadn’t been with them all along, and she decided she wouldn’t go out of her way to tell anyone how she had gotten there. She wasn’t even the only one dropped into an existing platoon. Some of the units that had suffered the most attrition during the first phase had been broken up and their members reassigned to fill holes.

When Eileen arrived aboard the Persephone, she found she and the eleven other women in her squad were to share a single compartment. Three tiers of padded cupboards encircled this space, which was no bigger than it had to be for the purpose. In the very light pull of gravity so near the core, it was even possible to locate the entry hatch overhead and not waste any useful space on it.

Eileen took advantage of her familiarity with minimal gravity and quickly claimed a bottom bunk. She was already stowing her gear in the locker beneath it while the other women still flailed around, laughing and squealing, trying to do as their platoon sergeant had ordered and find a bunk.

It was still early afternoon in California, but the Persephone followed the Greenwich Meridian clock. The recruits were supposed to sleep and then be ready to resume training in slightly less than eight hours, but for most of them, sleep was impossible. One of the girls was sick even with medication, while others felt uncomfortable and weren’t very quiet about it.

Eileen pulled the slide door on her bunk completely closed, and the faint hiss of air circulating through it almost covered the noise from the compartment. She hadn’t found it easy to sleep in prison for the turmoil in her thoughts, but she had some hope she could begin to relax now that she knew what would happen to her.

It had been the decision of a hastily convened board of inquiry that she had been negligent, which was pretty much what she had been expecting. Her imprisonment for deliberate destruction of government property would not serve the necessary purpose any better than her complete exoneration would. Negligence fell neatly between the two.

According to penalties specified by law, the value of the ship she had crashed would be taken from her pay, while a permanent ban had been placed on her naval pilot’s certificate. She had further been reduced in rank from C6, cadet sergeant, to E6, marine staff sergeant, which was also fairly standard.

Eileen was glad she didn’t have to start completely over, but she was not pleased to find she had to complete standard basic training before assuming her sergeant’s stripes. She could only suppose this was intended to help her make the adjustment from midshipman’s confidence to enlisted subservience. Still, beyond these things, the accident might not be counted against her or be considered in career advancement decisions.

The juris who had explained everything to her had assured her she could probably qualify for officer training in a year or two, depending on the recommendations of her superiors. Then there was every reason to believe she could pursue a career as distinguished as any she might have had, except she would be in the marines instead of the navy.

The statistics told Eileen otherwise. Not only was an institute graduate better positioned for any available promotion than an officer from a training school, there were more high-ranking women in the navy than in the marines. Excluding medical and juris corps, there were nearly two women admirals for every woman general, while a woman was half again as likely to make commander as lieutenant colonel. Even promotions based purely on seniority were subject to this bias, so that the average woman major was almost half a year older than her naval lieutenant commander counterpart. Eileen supposed this was due in large part to cultural differences between Navy and Marine Corps. While the Navy was likely to judge officers on their ability as pilots, an area where women could perform as well as men, the Corps admired ground combat skills. While there were certainly women who could fight better than most men, they were comparatively rare.

"How can you stand it?" demanded a shrill voice, and one of the women slid the bunk door back a few centimeters and peered in. "It’s like a coffin in there."

Eileen could never understand why those who couldn’t sleep might feel compelled to share their misery, and she slammed the door closed in annoyance without offering any reply. There had been a time when she had experienced difficulty in sleeping in a box, but she’d gotten over it her first couple of weeks at NMMI. Even though she hadn’t used an enclosed bunk very often since, she could still be quite comfortable in one.

The door scraped open again, and Eileen opened her eyes a crack. There was no way to tell whether the other woman was tormenting her on purpose or not. So she quelled her first impulse to grab her by the front of the uniform and quote regulations before throwing her across the compartment.

"I’m trying to sleep." Eileen pushed on the door, but the other woman held it open.

"I want your bunk," she said. When Eileen simply stared in amazed irritation, the woman rather condescendingly explained, "I have seniority."

"You can’t have." Eileen’s patience was wearing thin, but she kept her voice even. "You’re a boot." Among other things, the juris had explained that seniority didn’t count in basic training. But even if this were not the case, Eileen would have been willing to bet that the nearly six years of service she had gave her considerable seniority over this woman-Charleston, according to her name strip.

"I was in reserve training for two years."

"All that means is you’ll get first class when you finish basic." Eileen thought Charleston must know this already. "Now I’d appreciate it if you’d let me get back to sleep." The other didn’t seem convinced, so Eileen added, "If I need to, I’ll call the sergeant, who will, no doubt, tell you the same thing."

Charleston shot her a black look and then angrily shoved the door to.

This was a poor beginning, and Eileen spent a few minutes considering how she might have done things differently. She could have pretended it didn’t mean anything to her and given up her bunk. That was what she would have done a few years ago, but her time at NMMI had taught her to assert her rights. Giving in to bullies was no longer an option for her. On the other hand, she probably shouldn’t have threatened to tell the sergeant...but if she hadn’t, she might very well have been faced with a physical confrontation. While she had very little doubt she would have prevailed, fighting was a rule violation that called for disciplinary action, which was something she wished to avoid. In all, she had done the best she could, but she still wasn’t happy with it.

Such thoughts were not conducive to relaxation, and without really intending to, Eileen slipped into one of the pleasant daydreams that had helped her get through the last couple of weeks. Lt. Leavenworth had not spoken to her since he had wished her luck on the beach, and she had not seen him after the hover had brought them to the marine station, but she had thought of him often. Since it was not a criminal trial, she had not had the right to hear all of the testimony, so she had no way of knowing what Leavenworth had said at the inquiry. All she knew was he had been held responsible only insofar as he was the examiner and had not anticipated her mistake. The juris had assured Eileen the incident would go in Leavenworth’s record as nothing more than a note, neither reprimand nor commendation.

While she supposed Leavenworth thought about her only occasionally, and even then only in pity, she enjoyed spinning fantasies about what might have happened had she not been forced to crash. She and Mr. Leavenworth would have needed to maintain a proper student-examiner relationship only until she graduated and received her commission. Then-suppose she had been posted to the Andromeda fleet, either to the carrier itself or to one of the many ships attached to it?

While she had not previously allowed reality to intrude very far into her romantic fantasies, it now occurred to her it was still possible she might be assigned to Leavenworth’s ship once she was out of basic. She wasn’t sure whether that was desirable or not.

If she were simply another marine sergeant aboard the Andromeda, chances were she would have nothing to do with the second engineer, so it probably wouldn’t make much difference. Even so, she couldn’t help but indulge in a few rosy dreams. Perhaps if the Andromeda were reassigned to Marianna, and Mr. Leavenworth got shot down while landing a surface craft, she could sneak-no, blast her way-behind enemy lines to rescue him. While every piece of this scenario was extremely unlikely, it was possible. She fell asleep imagining herself heroically supporting Leavenworth, or even carrying him, to the medevac rendezvous.

***

The Andromeda’s propulsion and navigation center was located on the core. On an uneventful watch, the officers on duty often perched on observation platforms above their views, charts and the cross-fass to watch the comings and goings of ships in the core overhead.

Lt. Leavenworth clung to a handhold and watched a sloop glide slowly through the entrance drum, which flowed smoothly and resealed as the vessel passed through. The ship proceeded sedately through the core, made no attempt to berth, and went on to melt through the exit drum. A student examination, perhaps.

Leavenworth wondered what it would be like to know you could never pilot a space ship again. And that on top of losing the commission you had worked hard for years to obtain. It would be unimaginably devastating.

"Al, get down here." Mr. Anderson sounded decidedly impatient. "Your log light is blinking, and you’ll be lucky to finish before your relief gets here. I never thought I’d see the day," he muttered. "Al Leavenworth mooning over some girl. Al, she’s enlisted and, what’s worse, a marine. You can’t even talk to a soldier."

"I said plenty to those soldiers who ‘rescued’ me," said Leavenworth as he settled in before the cross-fass. He took up the controller and assessed the information in front of him. A couple of squeezes, and his task was done. The new trace swept across the display.

"How did you do that?" asked Anderson.

"Marines are people, after all." Leavenworth was puzzled by his friend’s open astonishment. "I remember once or twice when you said a few choice things to domestic marines, yourself."

"No, not the marines, the..." Anderson moved his fingers on an imaginary control.

"Oh, that." Leavenworth grinned sheepishly. "I can do all that stuff in my head. I just don’t, usually."

Anderson brought his fist down on the navigation console in indignation. "It’s no fair!" he wailed. "Before I knew you, I could think, ‘I may not be much to look at, but I got brains to compensate. You can’t have it all, and brains last longer than beauty.’ That’s what I thought." He gave a variation of this speech periodically, and Leavenworth was ready when Charlie concluded, "But you did get it all."

"Except friends, Charlie."

Anderson snorted. "I’ll trade you my friendly manner for your looks," he offered, unimpressed. "You just don’t make the effort, that’s all."

"I suppose not," Leavenworth agreed absently, having already lost interest in the conversation.

After he had been relieved by the third engineer and eaten dinner, Leavenworth returned to his quarters and the thesis capsule. He set up a chronological scan beginning with the end of the thesis block he had last reviewed and watched a number of uninformative calls before he came to one of interest.

The caller was an attractive woman of middle years who identified herself as the manager of a Roswell galeria. She seemed surprised when Eileen answered.

"I wish you would stop calling me," Eileen said quietly. "I don’t care if your client is offering a million dollars for my ‘services,’ I am not a prostitute, and I am not interested."

The madam recovered from her astonishment quickly. "But he is offering a million dollars, my dear." And a real million was worth far more than a hypothetical million. "Or two, if certifiable."

Eileen lost her look of implacable indignation. The madam-and Leavenworth-held their breaths awaiting the answer. One million, or possibly two, was an unheard of sum for such services, and Leavenworth was sure Eileen must have given in. Plenty of respectable young women made spending money in this way. Eileen opened her mouth to speak.

"What does ‘certifiable’ mean?" she asked.

The madam was startled, but she rather warily explained, "Virgin. You do know what a virgin is, I trust?"

"Yes, ma’am." Eileen hardly seemed less puzzled now that the term had been defined for her. "So you’re telling me you get paid for inexperience?"

Eileen’s wide-eyed innocence was such a contrast to the madam’s obvious affront that Leavenworth couldn’t help but laugh.

"Yes, dear." The madam must have been impatient with Eileen’s levity even if she tried not to show it. "Are you tempted?"

The bewildered young girl transformed in some indefinable way into a firm young woman. "No, ma’am," she said. "I am not. Please don’t call me again."

As the capsule scrolled through another block of thesis, Leavenworth spent some time wondering who it was that desired Eileen Reagan so badly...and why. The qualities he himself most admired in her did not seem to be the ones to give her such a high value in the galeria. There, appearance was most important, with physical, rather than intellectual attractions adding to the market value.

The very next call gave him a clue. It was the marine sergeant again, and this time Eileen answered. "I’m sorry, Sgt. Pearson," she said. "Am I late? I’m working on my thesis...you know how it is when you sit down at a workstation-black hole effect: time dilation...?"

"No, I don’t know," said the sergeant. "And I’m aware your thesis is more important than jump, but you’re supposed to be at the gym, so put your boots on and get over here."

Now Leavenworth recognized the long, gray things draped over her shoulders as martial arts jump boots. The view followed her as she pushed away from the workstation. Leavenworth-and the sergeant-got to watch as she pulled her boots on and smoothed the tops up over the thighs of her flatsuit, a patent misnomer in her case.

Unnoticed by Eileen, the sergeant grinned wickedly. "Nice show," he said.

Eileen looked up, startled. She had apparently forgotten to break the connection before, and her cheeks were crimson as she did so now.

Leavenworth halted the scrolling of the capsule, redesignated his primary and called the library. He didn’t have much hope of it, but he intended to find out if E.N. Reagan appeared in any of the collegiate matches available in the sports library.

The directory could not locate E.N. Reagan of NMMI; could Lee Reagan be the desired subject? Eileen...Lee. It was certainly possible.

He took the recommended selection, a world championship qualifier, subject only. That meant he would watch only those matches Eileen appeared in. Leavenworth was not a jump fancier, or even particularly interested in sports-he owed his own athletic build and graceful carriage to ballet, and had, in fact, been very inept in competitive school sports. He himself was not sure whether his inability stemmed from disinterest or whether the reverse was true.

Without preamble, Eileen and her opponent dropped into the jump pit and shook hands. Leavenworth was startled to see she was matched against a man.

A flatsuit of a silvery fabric, although such was not the intention, became her very well. She had on the same gray boots she had worn for practice, with a coif of the same soft leather over her hair. There was nothing of the innocent intellectual about her as she circled with her opponent.

Leavenworth had seen this same intent expression when she had been running iterations or waiting for the exact moment to execute a course correction. Eileen was a skilled and efficient pilot, and she was an equally skilled and efficient jump fighter. She had her first several opponents badly outclassed-she would sidestep, roll under or vault over their moves. Then, when her opponent was open, she would slam into him (or, in one case, her) in exactly the right spot to get a clean pin.

She worked off the walls as much as she could, making up in velocity what she lacked in mass. It was incredible to watch the height and distance she could get, considering she was operating in full earth gravity. In her own way, she was every bit as great an artist as any prima ballerina.

Not until the semi-final round did she finally meet someone who could give her a contest. Leavenworth winced as she went down under a fancy wall-dive, but she rolled out in a manner that seemed to defy inertia and planted a solid kick on her opponent. Then the blows came so fast, Leavenworth could hardly follow them, nor could he tell if any landed...or even if they were supposed to. He really didn’t know much about jump, except that it wasn’t just for show anymore. Yes, there were still a lot of showy moves, but contests were no longer choreographed and staged as they had been when martial arts gymnastics was first invented.

Just as the clock was about to expire, Eileen successfully reversed a throw and pinned her opponent in the join between floor and wall. This gave her what would have otherwise been a very close fight.

Before the final match, there was a short interview, and Leavenworth switched off the voice filter so he could hear it. Eileen paused in adjusting her wrist guards and listened intently to the interviewer.

"What do you think your chances are in the next match?" the woman asked.

"Good." Eileen’s reply seemed a little breathless, and Leavenworth thought she must be nervous about talking for the record. "I think," she continued hesitantly, "I think I’ve already had my most difficult match. We’ll see."

The interviewer was perfectly made-up and dressed, but she seemed somehow artificial next to Eileen. She flashed a practiced smile. "Do you find that you are at a disadvantage when you are matched with a member of the opposite sex?"

Eileen returned a wry little grin. "Not as much as he is," she replied readily. "Because I’m used to it, and he’s not."

There came another flash of perfect white teeth. "Are you ever attracted to any of your opponents?" Eileen favored the interviewer with a frosty glare at this impertinent question, and she fiddled with the tabs on her left wrist guard briefly before she replied.

"I like men, if that’s what you mean," she said. "But no, not specifically."

There were a couple of questions about particular ones of Eileen’s opponents that she answered as diplomatically as she could, and then the interviewer wanted to know, "What are you looking for in a man?"

Eileen hesitated for a moment, probably thinking the question was too personal. Leavenworth thought so, even if he rather hoped she might answer it anyway.

She grinned suddenly. "Perfection," she announced. "Although I might settle for 99% perfect."

That was the end of the interview, and it should have been time for the next match, but instead there was a printed announcement. The other finalist in the class had broken a finger in the previous match and had not been able to finish the tournament, leaving Eileen the weight class four winner.

Leavenworth groaned when he realized how late it was, and he secured his workstation and got ready for bed. As he drifted to sleep, he fleetingly wondered if 98.5% was good enough.

The first morning on shipboard, the recruits were issued orange tabards with a large, black R emblazoned on the front and another on the back.

"That stands for ‘raw recruit,’ " the training commander told them in her briefing talk. "You are the lowest form of life on shipboard, so strive to remember it. Salute and defer to anyone not wearing an ‘R’, including E1’s. As far as I am concerned, your primary duty is to stay out of the way, although your training sergeants will strive to make that as difficult as possible."

Eileen found it impossible to pay attention to the major’s long-winded and largely unnecessary speech. She had had to endure a materially similar speech from the ship captain of the Coeur d’Argent only a few months before, on her middy voyage. She found herself wondering how midshipmen could be the lowest form of life on the ship if recruits were.

If I met a middy, she thought, I, as a Raw Recruit, would defer to him. No, I wouldn’t defer-I’d hide. I hope there aren’t any.

"Reagan," barked the training sergeant to whom she had been assigned. A good instructor always seemed to be able to tell when a trainee’s attention wandered. "What did the major just say?"

"Sir!" she replied, "the major informs us we are the lowest forms of life on the ship, sir!"

"And?"

Eileen was on shakier ground here, because she hadn’t been paying close attention, but there were only a limited number of things the major might have said. "Sir," she guessed, trying to seem confident, "if we work hard and do promptly as we are told, we may survive, sir!"

Sergeant Hansen didn’t seem to like this answer, but the major herself, who had turned to go, paused briefly. "Very nice summary, soldier," she said, and then she strode out of the mustering bay.

Eileen wasn’t sure whether the officer was being kind or whether she indeed felt the inattentive recruit had caught the essence of her speech, but the sergeant turned his attention to another victim, and that was all that mattered.

The boot camp schedule aboard ship was designed to make use of every possible minute of transit time for training the recruits. Although Eileen had done nearly everything before and was rather blasé about most of it, there was still one exercise she looked forward to. Drop shaft training.

It wasn’t until the third day out that her platoon came up for it. As the squads formed up in side corridors, it was fairly obvious most of the trainees were experiencing a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

"Reagan!" barked Sgt. Hansen. Concealing her surprise at being called first, Eileen stepped confidently to the lip of the drop shaft.

"Sir!" she called into the open space in general, not quite sure where Hansen was.

The sergeant detailed a handful of others from assorted squads before he went on to explain what it was they were supposed to do, and Eileen listened carefully. The pieces of several broken-down weapons floated along the shaft’s micro-g length. The squad’s job was to go in, retrieve the parts, reassemble the weapons and then fire at targets located in cross-corridors. It sounded like a game, and a challenging one.

Eileen noted the locations of the others waiting along the shaft, and she also marked floating debris. As soon as the signal was given to start, she launched herself in the most promising direction, snagging parts of two different guns almost immediately. She turned expertly and re-launched, being careful to miss a young man who giggled as he flailed helplessly past.

"This is a team exercise, Reagan," Hansen announced. Eileen couldn’t help but wish he’d said so before. So many of the previous things had been competitive, she’d assumed this was, as well.

"Yes, sir." She took stock of the others with her. Two of them didn’t look very well, but one had not yet gotten his sick bag ready. Eileen found this rather annoying. She didn’t have hers out, either, but she already knew she was not subject to spacesickness, while it was fairly obvious this recruit was likely to need his.

"Where’s your sick kit, Golub?" demanded Hansen. "You blurp, you clean."

"Yes, sir," the recruit muttered sullenly, but he got out his kit, and none too soon.

Eileen snagged a few more weapon parts and made a quick inventory. "Anybody got the power unit for a plasma zipper?" she called out. "I’ll trade you the nozzle of a pin sprayer, the butt of a paralyzer or a slug pack for a low-v for it."

No one else was as easy in zero-g as Eileen was, but most of the others got the hang of it reasonably quickly. It wasn’t long before they had completed an exchange of weapon parts to leave everyone with a complete gun of some kind. Now they needed to pick their targets based on what they had.

After some discussion, each of them chose a target. Since she had the most powerful weapon, Eileen got the corridor containing a marine in full ground assault armor, and the marine would be shooting back.

She had a simple back-of-the-hand display (somewhat inaccurately called a palm chart), and she kept an eye on the marker for her target as she moved into position. He didn’t seem to have shifted his position at all since she had first checked. She was just beginning to suspect something was wrong with her chart when half-a-dozen marines erupted from various portals and opened fire with paralyzers as they crossed the shaft.

Eileen was hit, but she pretended her paralysis was more general than it was as she tried to figure out what had happened and whether she ought to do anything about it.

"That’s no fair," protested one of her compatriots, and there were a few other remarks along the same lines.

"How about you, Reagan?" taunted Sgt. Hansen. "Don’t you think it’s unfair?"

"All’s fair in war, sir," she replied evenly as she thumbed the trigger on her plasma zipper for a short blast. Had it been truly the energy weapon it represented, she would have done no more than scorch a bulkhead. Instead it shot out a thin stream of yellow dye at high velocity, sending her in the opposite direction. She pulled herself as tightly together as her partial paralysis would allow, and she was lined up rather well as she passed an opening. She depressed the trigger again to spatter a yellow stripe across the chest of a surprised naval marine. The marine raised the muzzle of a paralyzer, but Eileen was gone before the gun was in position to fire.

"That will do, Reagan." Sgt. Hansen’s voice echoed sharply through the shaft. "Recruits, let your weapons go and relax."

Eileen loosed her gun, although it floated handily at her elbow in the unlikely event she should want it. Presently a marine corporal came to retrieve her. By the woman’s insignia, Eileen could tell she was a naval marine, part of the Persephone’s permanent complement rather than associated with the training unit. She probably wasn’t too happy with her current duty playing nursemaid to a bunch of untrained groundcrawlers.

"Stay limp, or I’ll buzz you again," she promised in a low tone of voice. Eileen did as instructed. The marine dragged Eileen to an opening well inboard, so the gravity even when they stepped into the cross-corridor wasn’t great. The corporal was easily able to carry Eileen to an examining chair for a medtech to check her over.

Eileen had not completely recovered her motor function when Sgt. Hansen called her back to the shaft to clean up the yellow dye from her first, short burst. Some of it had impacted various surfaces, but a few small globules still bobbled about the shaft in ventilation currents. There had been time for a couple more sets of exercises since hers. As she glided about siphoning up the droplets and wiping surfaces, she wondered if anybody had collected yellow dye on their clothing.

Firing on that naval marine in the corridor had been a fairly stupid thing to do, she reflected, or rather, it would have been in a real battle situation. But under the circumstances, the temptation had been irresistible. Besides, cleaning up afterwards was rather fun, even if it would never do to let anyone suspect she was enjoying her punishment.

Once she was finished, she rejoined her squad to watch the remaining exercises in the shaft on a couple of monitors. Sgt. Hansen provided a dry commentary. None of the groups did materially better than the first, while several did much worse. Eileen found this somewhat reassuring. She was curious to know what Hansen had said about her own maneuver, but that had to wait until everyone was finished and the platoon formed up in a personnel bay for more instruction.

The sergeant had selected a few records he deemed especially educational-trying to feed a pin-sprayer a slug pack, for example, or blasting an ally. Eileen fully expected to see her gratuitous attack included here. Presently, after numerous mistakes and clumsy maneuvers, there it was, but without the usual comments from the sergeant.

"Does anyone know what was wrong with this?" asked Hansen. He seemed surprised when Eileen signaled. "Reagan..."

"Sir," she began, very formally, "a real energy weapon would not have imparted any appreciable momentum, so firing it wouldn’t have moved me at all. Further, sir, if I had hit an enemy with a zipper under those circumstances, his friends would probably have wasted me and my friends in the next two seconds, sir."

"So why’d you do it?"

She wasn’t exactly sure why she had done it, but she had to come up with an answer quickly. "Sir-I wanted to see if I could, sir."

"Not because you were angry?"

"Sir, no, sir." Although she had been a little annoyed, she believed she had been more motivated by curiosity and a desire to do something than by anger.

"A genuine iceberg." Eileen thought Hansen might be put out that she hadn’t acted from a desire for vengeance. She soon discovered he had been hoping to make a lesson of it, but he did the best he could to point out that immediate retaliation wasn’t always a good idea.

After this, Eileen became known as "The Iceberg." When she first heard her new nickname, she almost laughed. But she managed to keep her equanimity and her reputation intact. Most of the time, however, it was not at all difficult to exhibit very little emotion.

Even when the recruits landed on Corin and nearly everyone else was bemoaning the fate that had sent them to such a godforsaken planet, she felt no particular dismay. Eileen had been there briefly during her middy cruise, so the vast expanse of desert extending all the way to the ocean was not a surprise to her. Someone-Ensign George, the Coeur d’Argent’s third engineer, she thought-had remarked that Corin had the biggest beaches in the known universe.

The planet’s deserts were not the result of a lack of water but of a lack of life. Corin had developed the perfect incubator, but the necessary first spark of life had never occurred there. Except for a few man-made oases and extensive oceanic oxygen farms, Corin was infertile.

The low buildings of Fort Dune were a rosy, figured ceramic laced with dark metallic tension strands, and Eileen thought they would have been rather pretty in a lush, green setting. But vegetation had apparently been considered an unnecessary luxury here. Except for a planter box of undernourished geraniums by the commandant’s office, there was no greenery at all. To her Terran eyes the place seemed somehow unfinished and unwelcoming.

The barracks rooms were spacious after shipboard quarters, but the real luxury was the illusion of privacy afforded by partitions surrounding each bunk. The partitions were designed so that a person of normal height could walk down the center aisle and, with a step to right or left, look over the partition and see anything within the cubicle. Out of courtesy, no one but the platoon sergeant was supposed to do this.

Eileen took advantage of an hour allotted for the purpose of arranging her "quarters" to sort through the personal effects contained in a bag that had been left on her bunk. She was not surprised to discover that none of her record capsules had been included, but she was angry even so. Those capsules represented her entire school career, and she could imagine them being blanked and given to some prep next term.

She found her favorite blue dress rolled up with the few other civilian garments she owned. There were also her best hairbrush, a box of ring hooks (but no hairpins), all of her martial arts medals and ribbons, but none for scholastic honors, and a few toiletries of better quality than those provided by the military. At the bottom of the bag was a gray, soft-bodied doll with long, floppy limbs, an opalescent globe for a head and an old-fashioned, enlisted-style name-strip that proclaimed him "Cosmo."

Eileen was more glad to have Cosmo than anything else she now owned. Her earliest memories included Cosmo, who hadn’t been new then, and he reminded her that she had once had a childhood. She remembered nothing from before her tenth birthday, or at least, nothing that she could be sure originated earlier. Her mother had died of the same disease that had cost Eileen her memory, and Eileen couldn’t even remember her, but she had always felt Cosmo could. He just couldn’t tell her about it.

She caught a glimpse of an inquisitive pair of eyes peering over the partition, and she quickly stowed this last personal possession in her locker.

Most of boot camp comprised exercises Eileen had experienced before, mostly in her first year at the institute or, in some cases, as ongoing routine. The trick was in learning to do them in Corin’s gravity-slightly, pleasantly and deceptively less than Earth’s-and with a properly subservient manner.

The prevailing punishment for omitting a "sir" was fifty pushups. Eileen found the execution of fifty pushups in Corin’s gravity not particularly onerous. Sometimes the temptation to neglect to say "sir" overcame her, and she did her pushups ungrudgingly.

Classroom instruction covered organization of command and other such subjects that Eileen had found dull and boring the first time, and ordnance. Having never been expected to make a beachhead or quell an insurrection, she had not been introduced to hand weapons or ground-based weapons systems except in a general sort of way. She found learning about these quite interesting.

The instructor for theory was a second lieutenant fresh from Coventry Military Institute. His inexperience in handling a class sometimes enabled Eileen to lead him into explaining things in greater detail than most of the rest of the class could follow. This didn’t make her popular with the other recruits, but she occasionally let her curiosity override her judgment.

After several days of classroom instruction, the recruits were taken to the target range and given short-burst energy carbines. The sergeant in charge handled the battered, badly used weapons with real affection as she demonstrated loading, aiming and firing.

"Some time," she said, "a gun may be all that separates you from oblivion." That was the extent of her verbal instruction. She observed each individual and moved hands to their proper places, gently closed them on safety and trigger, gave an encouraging nod and went on to the next.

Eileen discovered she liked guns in practice as well as in theory, and she continually strove to better her previous performance. While she could eventually outscore the bulk of the group, there were several who consistently beat her. Even so, she found she could enjoy something in which she did not excel.

The survival course was also almost fun. The recruits leapt over barricades, crawled through tunnels full of sand and fired at targets that popped up unexpectedly to shoot colored squibs. The first time they ran it, Eileen was the only "survivor." Admittedly, there were others who hit more targets, but hers was the only unmarked uniform.

It wasn’t until the second week on Corin that the recruits were introduced to unarmed combat. There, for the first time, squads were grouped by levels of fitness. Eileen felt no concern whatsoever about being the only woman in an otherwise all-male squad. In fact, she felt more comfortable than she had with the women.

"Hey, look, it’s the Iceberg," she heard someone whisper. Their new drill instructor wasn’t within hearing distance, but he strode out onto the field in time to hear the resulting snickers. He had the whole squad do two hundred pushups. One man couldn’t make it, and the sergeant sent him to another group.

"I’m Master Sergeant Donald Kinch," the DI now told them. "I was first-in at Marianna, and I did my share there. Now I’m supposed to teach you bloodless pansies a thing or two about hand-to-hand." He said something Eileen had heard others say when seriously annoyed. Although she wasn’t sure what it meant, she knew it was not appropriate for polite company. "Reagan."

"Sir!" Her singularity was one distinct drawback in being the only woman.

"Do you see that wall?" Kinch gestured to a freestanding barricade of about twice his height, directly behind him.

"Yes, sir."

"What?"

"Sir! Yes, sir!" She expected him to give her fifty pushups, but he didn’t.

"Show me a simple dive from the wall," he instructed. "I’ll catch you."

"Sir, yes, sir," she replied. Sgt. Kinch was apparently a jump fancier and recognized her, or thought he did and wanted to verify his suspicion.

She ran at the wall, trying to gauge the appropriate speed for the still-unfamiliar gravity, hit it a little high in a stepover reverse, smashed into Kinch and sent both of them rolling. She was on her feet before he was, and she felt contrite about forgetting that horizontal momentum was unaffected by gravity.

A grin slowly spread over Kinch’s face in spite of his efforts to control it.

"Can anybody else do that?" he challenged the squad, and no one volunteered. "Reagan, do you honestly consider a stepover a simple dive?"

"Yes, sir," she replied. Wasn’t it?

"I’d like to see a complex one, then," he instructed, gesturing toward the wall.

"Yes, sir." What dive should she do? With one wall, she couldn’t do a corner dive, so she finally settled for one that was very showy but not especially effective. It was good for points, but it wouldn’t much discommode a ready opponent.

She ran at the wall, did a straight walkup to a stepover launch into a forward cannonball opening to a spike. It worked beautifully-her feet hit Kinch’s chest solidly, and he went down while she rolled over his head.

Once it was clear that Kinch was unhurt, the squad risked further disciplinary action by hooting and applauding. Kinch favored the lot with an indignant stare. Even though he meted out no punishment, they came quickly to order.

"Now let’s move away from the wall and see what happens." Kinch distanced himself from the wall. "Reagan, show us a direct offensive."

"Sir, yes, sir," she said, considering the situation. Direct offensives from the deck were not her style, as they depended largely on superior size or complete surprise, but it would help him prove his point. In this spirit, she leaped straight toward him with the intent of duplicating her previous impact.

As expected, he ducked under her attack, caught her and stood holding her supine above his head, apparently totally helpless. Ballerinas do this all the time, thought Eileen, trying not to feel like an idiot.

It became a contest of sorts. Kinch stood like a colossus with a carved statue balanced at arm’s length above his head, while Eileen tried to remain perfectly straight and impassive.

She felt one of his arms tremble under her almost imperceptibly, and it occurred to her that she, as the recruit, should be the one to surrender. "Sir," she began, "respectfully request..." He twisted her around and set her on her feet before she could finish her respectful request. "Thank you, sir," she murmured as she returned to the group.

"As you can see," Kinch said, "formal martial arts don’t work well in real life, so you chaps are here to learn how to fight dirty." He then went into some very graphic and vulgar anatomical detail. Eileen found herself wondering if it was really necessary to talk dirty in order to fight dirty.

"Posner!"

"Sir!"

"You’re a class two jump fighter, aren’t you?"

"Sir, yes, sir," replied Posner hesitantly. Perhaps he was reluctant to put himself in a category with Eileen.

"A’right, then," said Kinch, waving the young man forward. "Try something."

Posner’s lateral slash would have disqualified him from a formal tournament, but Kinch turned slightly to deflect the blow with his hip. Without pausing, he used the recruit’s own momentum to swing him into an unbalanced position. Kinch feinted but did not follow up on the advantage.

"No, that’s not..." Kinch pushed Posner lightly back toward the others. "Reagan, get up here."

"Yes, sir." She stopped about two feet from him and awaited further instruction.

"Cover your ears."

"Yes, sir." Eileen put her hands over ears. She supposed Kinch was about to let loose with yet more incomprehensible invective. Surely he was aware she would be able to hear everything anyway, but perhaps he was doing it for effect.

"I don’t want to admit this in front of a woman," she heard him say, "but that is really a pretty small target. Now, Reagan..."

She briefly considered pretending she couldn’t hear him, but she decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to tease a DI. She lowered her hands and responded crisply, "Sir, yes, sir!"

"You didn’t hear what I just said, did you?" His tone told her she had better not have.

"Sir, no, sir!"

"Then I want you to kick me."

Since presumably she had not heard what he had told everyone else, Eileen was reasonably sure what he wanted her to attempt. But she pretended she wasn’t quite certain of his instruction. "Oh, well, sir..." she stammered. Then, when he was poised to explain further, she jumped, feinted with one toe, turned and connected with the opposite heel. She landed on her feet nearly where she had started, and continued, "I really didn’t understand most of what you said, sir."

Kinch was wearing a shock cup, as she had expected, so none of the others could be quite certain she had made contact. "Very neat," he said dryly. "But not very effective."

He eyed her speculatively for several seconds. She hoped he would invite her to try something else, but he apparently guessed she had some far more effective moves and sent her back to her place yet again. Kinch then proceeded to demonstrate a number of practical dirty tricks for the group, and Eileen was sure he suffered as many bruises during the lesson as any of the recruits did. Most of them seemed bent on hurting the sergeant if they could, and Eileen could understand why. Although she didn’t actually want to hurt Kinch, she did wish she had opportunity to prove she knew more than she had yet had a chance to demonstrate. She also imagined he had a lot more practical tricks than he would be able to teach such a group, and she would have liked to receive more advanced instruction. Instead, she was paired with a wiry little man who, in spite of the fact he was smaller than she was, seemed to be too afraid of hurting her to be especially useful as a partner.

He was trying to throw her gently, possibly hurting her worse than he might have if he had done what he was supposed to, when Kinch stopped by to observe.

"It ain’t supposed to be foreplay, Shattuck," he said, punctuating his remark with an epithet. He surveyed the other pairs doing each other mild injury for a minute or two before he told them to take two laps. Eileen was still dusting herself off when Kinch touched her on the shoulder.

"Just a minute, Reagan," he said. Eileen wasn’t sorry to postpone her run, although she wondered a little about what he wanted.

"I can put you in a group with some more women if you like," he offered once the others were out of earshot. "I’m going to be screening these men for combat specialties, but I can’t see you going that way."

She hadn’t previously thought beyond surviving basic, but she supposed combat was as good as anything available to her as an enlisted marine.

"Why not, sir?" she asked. She knew very well why not but wanted him to have to explain his reasoning. She didn’t expect him to blurt out, because you’re a girl, and she rather thought he might have difficulty finding another objection.

"Are you telling me you want to?" She had obviously surprised him.

"Yes, sir," she replied, not entirely truthfully. His horror at the notion was so apparent she couldn’t resist adding, "I plan to be an assault specialist."

He stared at her for several long seconds before he said, "You’re crazy, Reagan, but if that’s what you want... Two laps, and I’ll see you again tomorrow."

***

A few days later Eileen drew two hours of guard duty. She was stationed between the door of the commandant’s office and the scraggly geraniums, and it was her job to check the identification of anyone who wished to enter the office. She had a light carbine paralyzer with which to enforce her authority, but she didn’t expect to need it.

For the first hour and a half or so, all was routine. She let a few people in and out, but mostly she watched the activity in the part of the compound she could see. Nothing out of the ordinary happened there until Charleston and one of the other women from their barracks brought Eileen’s doll Cosmo outside. Charleston shook the toy at her to make sure they had her attention, and then the women threw him up to the roof of the barracks. They had to make several attempts before they were successful, and there was nothing Eileen could do about it.

As soon as she was relieved of her post, Eileen made her way to the narrow aisle where her barracks backed up against another. Even along the service alley, the walls were decorated with the standard bas-relief scrollwork, and there was one particular repeating curl that looked promising. She tested the narrow hand- and footholds and found them adequate for climbing to the roof, even without removing her boots. The women who had done the deed had probably expected Eileen to need help retrieving her doll and were anticipating considerable amusement at her expense. She hoped they were disappointed.

Eileen found Cosmo’s body sprawled against a vent cap, while his head had separated from the neck and rolled a little farther on. She slowly picked up the two parts and sat down with some idea of putting him together, but instead she buried her face in his soft body and cried.

First she cried for Cosmo, and then she cried because she was in boot camp. After that she cried because she discovered that thinking of Lt. Leavenworth didn’t make her feel any better.

How could she so desperately miss someone with whom she had spent so few hours? He probably never thought of her at all, except maybe to feel sorry for her.

After wallowing in her self-pity a few more minutes, she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, sniffled a time or two and then began to assess the damage to her doll. Nothing seemed broken or torn, although there was something protruding from the flanged neck of the head. It appeared to be some kind of note written on a bit of vel, so she pulled it carefully out of the globe and flattened it out on her knee. There was barely enough light to decipher the words, but Eileen did not want to risk anyone else knowing about the vel until she knew what it was.

Eileen was stunned. It all fit.

"I’m Lena Neil MacPherson," she whispered experimentally. It did not seem to have any particular associations, and she wondered if someone was playing a cruel joke on her. She wished she could ask her father about it-and find out why he had never told her any of these things-but he had been killed on Marianna more than six years ago. Still, there was a way to find out.

She folded the vel back inside the bubble of Cosmo’s head, clutched part of him under each arm, and leapt lightly from the building.

Eileen hoped her tormentors were sadly disappointed when she went tamely to her bunk, stuffed Cosmo back into storage, and sat down to write a letter. She addressed it to Gol Alira, seven times World’s Class One Gymnastic Martial Arts Champion, and it was not an easy letter to compose. Not until it was done did it occur to her that she could not simply put it in the basket with the others’ letters. It would go to clerical to be manually transcribed into the mail, and she didn’t really feel she wanted its contents to be made public.

She decided it would be better to post it on the weekend, when she would get an eight hour pass, and put the letter away. Then she wrote another, also to Gol Alira. In it, she identified herself as a class four contender for the world title, expressed her admiration for his style and added that she looked forward to meeting him at the championships. She did not request a reply, but she did give him her address, and she signed the letter "Lee Neil Reagan." When it was done to her satisfaction, she put the vel into the basket with the other letters.