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Authors: Aaron Allston
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up with all yourpoints. For now, dismissed. I recommend you all talk it over together at DownTime. You’re through for the day, but this is an order: Do not discuss your performance or the mission parameters with other pilot candidates until they’ve concluded the exercise. Understood?” At their chorus of affirmatives, Janson brusquely waved them toward the exit from the simulator chamber.
5
It was just over three hundred paces along one broad cut-stone corridor, down a shuddering, clanking escalator, and through a small chamber to the cantina known as DownTime, and Kell glared at his wingman every step of the way. Finally, in the final chamber before they reached DownTime, the long-faced alien faced him. “I am sorry, Flight Officer Tainer.”
“Why did you do it? Fly off on your own, disobey orders?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know ? If you’re going to mutiny, you really ought to remember why.”
“It is not so simple.” The alien paused to consider his next words, and the delay brought the four pilots into DownTime.
This was a large chamber cut from living stone back when the Folor Base had been an active mining colony. It was a large gallery, but its size was not what kept visitors from seeing the far wall; the absence of illumination, other than glows from neon decorations and holoprojectors, was to blame.
Kell led them to a four-seat table against one wall, but Piggy pointed to a much longer table nearby. “We’ll be joined by other candidates,” he said, his mechanical voice cutting efficiently through the cantina’s ambient noise, and Kell had to agree.
When they were seated, Kell turned back to the long-faced alien. “You were saying.”
Gold Four laughed. Kell turned his attention to her for the first time.
By the standards of DownTime, they had pretty good available light, most of it a glaring cyan from a nearby holo advertising Abrax cognac, so he got a good view of her—and was stunned by it.
If he could have created a holo of what he thought the perfect female pilot would be, Gold Four would have matched it exactly. She was tall and slender, with light hair, probably blond in normal light, worn long in a ponytail. Her features were even and expressive; hers was the sort of face that could go from military blankness to unusual beauty just by assuming a smile, and she was smiling now.
Kell covered up his sudden discomfiture by growling, “What’s so funny?” He discovered that his mouth was dry.
She stuck out a hand. “Sorry. Tyria Sarkin. You’re just so relentless it struck me as amusing.” Her voice was low and she spoke with an accent, a rich roll that was as enchanting as her appearance.
He shook her hand and grinned a little glumly. “It’s less funny when you end up with vacuum for a mission score.”
“I suppose. I’m sorry.”
“I will answer,” the alien said. “First, please: I am Runt to my friends and fellows, even when they are angry with me.”
Kell frowned. “Why ‘Runt’?”
“It is accurate. Compared to my siblings, I am tiny. None of them would fit into a fighter cockpit. So. You asked why I did not remember doing what I did. I am beginning to remember. But I did not recall before because it was not I doing that. It was the pilot.”
Tyria asked, “Which pilot?”
“Me.”
Kell slumped, momentarily defeated by the circuitousness of Runt’s answers, and put his head down on the table. He immediately regretted it: His forehead adhered to some dark, nameless substance there. He pulled himself free and began scraping away the stain left on his skin. “I’m not reading you, Runt.”
Tyria said, “I think I am. Runt, are you talking about many organisms, or many minds?”
Runt smiled with the relieved satisfaction of someone who has finally gotten a point across. “Minds.”
“You have many minds, and one of them is the pilot?”
“Yes! Yes.”
Kell snorted. “Your pilot mind owes me twenty-three hundred points and
5
It was just over three hundred paces along one broad cut-stone corridor, down a shuddering, clanking escalator, and through a small chamber to the cantina known as DownTime, and Kell glared at his wingman every step of the way. Finally, in the final chamber before they reached DownTime, the long-faced alien faced him. “I am sorry, Flight Officer Tainer.”
“Why did you do it? Fly off on your own, disobey orders?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know ? If you’re going to mutiny, you really ought to remember why.”
“It is not so simple.” The alien paused to consider his next words, and the delay brought the four pilots into DownTime.
This was a large chamber cut from living stone back when the Folor Base had been an active mining colony. It was a large gallery, but its size was not what kept visitors from seeing the far wall; the absence of illumination, other than glows from neon decorations and holoprojectors, was to blame.
Kell led them to a four-seat table against one wall, but Piggy pointed to a much longer table nearby. “We’ll be joined by other candidates,” he said, his mechanical voice cutting efficiently through the cantina’s ambient noise, and Kell had to agree.
When they were seated, Kell turned back to the long-faced alien. “You were saying.”
Gold Four laughed. Kell turned his attention to her for the first time.
By the standards of DownTime, they had pretty good available light, most of it a glaring cyan from a nearby holo advertising Abrax cognac, so he got a good view of her—and was stunned by it.
If he could have created a holo of what he thought the perfect female pilot would be, Gold Four would have matched it exactly. She was tall and slender, with light hair, probably blond in normal light, worn long in a ponytail. Her features were even and expressive; hers was the sort of face that could go from military blankness to unusual beauty just by assuming a smile, and she was smiling now.
Kell covered up his sudden discomfiture by growling, “What’s so funny?” He discovered that his mouth was dry.
She stuck out a hand. “Sorry. Tyria Sarkin. You’re just so relentless it struck me as amusing.” Her voice was low and she spoke with an accent, a rich roll that was as enchanting as her appearance.
He shook her hand and grinned a little glumly. “It’s less funny when you end up with vacuum for a mission score.”
“I suppose. I’m sorry.”
“I will answer,” the alien said. “First, please: I am Runt to my friends and fellows, even when they are angry with me.”
Kell frowned. “Why ‘Runt’?”
“It is accurate. Compared to my siblings, I am tiny. None of them would fit into a fighter cockpit. So. You asked why I did not remember doing what I did. I am beginning to remember. But I did not recall before because it was not I doing that. It was the pilot.”
Tyria asked, “Which pilot?”
“Me.”
Kell slumped, momentarily defeated by the circuitousness of Runt’s answers, and put his head down on the table. He immediately regretted it: His forehead adhered to some dark, nameless substance there. He pulled himself free and began scraping away the stain left on his skin. “I’m not reading you, Runt.”
Tyria said, “I think I am. Runt, are you talking about many organisms, or many minds?”
Runt smiled with the relieved satisfaction of someone who has finally gotten a point across. “Minds.”
“You have many minds, and one of them is the pilot?”
“Yes! Yes.”
Kell snorted. “Your pilot mind owes me twenty-three hundred points and
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