claustrophobia?
Was it the fear of the procedure itself? Unlikely. She’d had a couple of casual conversations with Ghushtre, an Ifrit-ranked Qasaman Cobra and one of the four Cobras who’d accompanied Omnathi to Caelian, and Ghushtre had indicated that the operation was uncomfortable but largely painless.
Was it concern that she wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of power? Again, unlikely. She’d spent some time during the war wearing one of the Qasaman Djinn combat suits, and while their capabilities were slightly different from Cobra equipment she’d adapted easily enough to its use.
The drugs, then? Normal Cobra training on Aventine took weeks. The Qasamans, digging into their pharmacopeia of mental-enhancement drugs, had been able to cut that learning curve down to seven days. Any chemical that could wield such power over human biochemistry carried equally potent risks, but the Qasamans had a long history with such things and she was confident that those risks would be cut to the barest possible minimum.
Was it the fact that her life would be cut short? Not necessarily in combat, but because of the anemia, arthritis, and other side effects that a hundred years of Cobra fine-tuning had been unable to eliminate? That was certainly a sobering prospect, but at twenty-one years of age the thought of living only another fifty or sixty carried more intellectual significance than it did emotional weight.
It was as she puzzled her way down the list for the umpteenth time that the answer finally came.
It was the fact that, once she underwent the procedure, she could never, ever go back. Cobra gear, once implanted, was there to stay until the day she died.
Jody had always been the sort who liked to keep her options open. She could still remember the time her grandmother had quoted an old saying to her— as you’ve made your bed, so shall you lie in it —and thinking airily to herself that if she didn’t like the way she’d made her bed, she’d just make it again.
Later, as she’d grown older, she’d realized the proverb was a warning that there were some decisions and actions that simply couldn’t be undone. She’d accepted that in principle, but had nevertheless clung to the belief that such decisions were rare, and that a sufficiently clever person could avoid them completely.
Except that no amount of cleverness could sidestep this one. Once she entered the Isis machine, she could never go back. Ever.
And that wasn’t just scary. That was terrifying.
“You okay?”
Jody jerked a little, twisting toward the voice. Somehow, while she’d been cogitating, Kemp had slipped unnoticed into the small lounge and stretched out on one of the couches. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to sneak up on people?” Jody growled.
“Nope,” Kemp said blandly. “Sneaking up on things is a time-honored tradition on Caelian.”
“Lest they sneak up on you?”
“Something like that,” Kemp said. “Besides, this one hardly counted. The way you were staring a hole through that wall, a screech tiger could probably have sneaked up on you. Mulling over the secrets of life, were we?”
“Something like that,” Jody said, studying the man’s face. Kemp—she still wasn’t sure whether that was his first or his last name—had grown up on Caelian, a world whose hellish ecology had forced both the Cobras and non-Cobra colonists to achieve levels of human endurance and ingenuity that Jody wouldn’t have thought possible even a year ago.
But that endurance came with a price. Even here, aboard a nice, safe Dominion courier ship like the Squire , Kemp’s face carried the same alertness and wariness that she’d seen back on the planet.
She had never seen him truly relax. She wasn’t even sure he could relax. “When did you decide you wanted to be a Cobra?” she asked abruptly.
His eyebrows raised slightly. “You seem to think I had a choice.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said.
Was it the fear of the procedure itself? Unlikely. She’d had a couple of casual conversations with Ghushtre, an Ifrit-ranked Qasaman Cobra and one of the four Cobras who’d accompanied Omnathi to Caelian, and Ghushtre had indicated that the operation was uncomfortable but largely painless.
Was it concern that she wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of power? Again, unlikely. She’d spent some time during the war wearing one of the Qasaman Djinn combat suits, and while their capabilities were slightly different from Cobra equipment she’d adapted easily enough to its use.
The drugs, then? Normal Cobra training on Aventine took weeks. The Qasamans, digging into their pharmacopeia of mental-enhancement drugs, had been able to cut that learning curve down to seven days. Any chemical that could wield such power over human biochemistry carried equally potent risks, but the Qasamans had a long history with such things and she was confident that those risks would be cut to the barest possible minimum.
Was it the fact that her life would be cut short? Not necessarily in combat, but because of the anemia, arthritis, and other side effects that a hundred years of Cobra fine-tuning had been unable to eliminate? That was certainly a sobering prospect, but at twenty-one years of age the thought of living only another fifty or sixty carried more intellectual significance than it did emotional weight.
It was as she puzzled her way down the list for the umpteenth time that the answer finally came.
It was the fact that, once she underwent the procedure, she could never, ever go back. Cobra gear, once implanted, was there to stay until the day she died.
Jody had always been the sort who liked to keep her options open. She could still remember the time her grandmother had quoted an old saying to her— as you’ve made your bed, so shall you lie in it —and thinking airily to herself that if she didn’t like the way she’d made her bed, she’d just make it again.
Later, as she’d grown older, she’d realized the proverb was a warning that there were some decisions and actions that simply couldn’t be undone. She’d accepted that in principle, but had nevertheless clung to the belief that such decisions were rare, and that a sufficiently clever person could avoid them completely.
Except that no amount of cleverness could sidestep this one. Once she entered the Isis machine, she could never go back. Ever.
And that wasn’t just scary. That was terrifying.
“You okay?”
Jody jerked a little, twisting toward the voice. Somehow, while she’d been cogitating, Kemp had slipped unnoticed into the small lounge and stretched out on one of the couches. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to sneak up on people?” Jody growled.
“Nope,” Kemp said blandly. “Sneaking up on things is a time-honored tradition on Caelian.”
“Lest they sneak up on you?”
“Something like that,” Kemp said. “Besides, this one hardly counted. The way you were staring a hole through that wall, a screech tiger could probably have sneaked up on you. Mulling over the secrets of life, were we?”
“Something like that,” Jody said, studying the man’s face. Kemp—she still wasn’t sure whether that was his first or his last name—had grown up on Caelian, a world whose hellish ecology had forced both the Cobras and non-Cobra colonists to achieve levels of human endurance and ingenuity that Jody wouldn’t have thought possible even a year ago.
But that endurance came with a price. Even here, aboard a nice, safe Dominion courier ship like the Squire , Kemp’s face carried the same alertness and wariness that she’d seen back on the planet.
She had never seen him truly relax. She wasn’t even sure he could relax. “When did you decide you wanted to be a Cobra?” she asked abruptly.
His eyebrows raised slightly. “You seem to think I had a choice.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said.
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