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couldn't find any intrinsic genetic purpose for it. It won't affect this
process, but I wondered about it."
"You probed my genotype?"
"Of course. We had to program the nanopackage that does the alterations.
Wouldn't want to turn you into something like Corporal
Tickeree here by mistake."
"He should be so lucky," Tick said.
Jim ignored him. "It's just a... kind of identification code. All
Terries have it."
"I see. Complicated for that kind of thing, but it's none of my business.
Right this way, gentlemen."
It took a moment for it to sink in that this was the first time somebody had
called him by his new title. Sergeant Marshal. It felt good. It felt even
better that he outranked Tick, who was now giving him sidelong glances.
"You're a sergeant?" Tick said.
"Yep. That's right."
"I'll probably be a sergeant soon, too."
"Oh, no doubt."
"I mean with my superior qualiflcations it doesn't make sense you should
outrank me."
"Now wait a minute--"
"Gentlemen, please," Sheelob said. "Sergeant, if you'd climb into this tank
here? And Corporal, that next one over?."
There were six tanks, each large enough to hold two or three good-sized
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humans end to end. Jim tried to imagine the kind of being it would take to
cramp one of those enclosures. Big was the best he could do.
Very big.
"Just lie on that platform there," Sheelob said. "Position doesn't matter.
There. Comfortable?"
The platform suspended over the tank looked like plain steel, but it felt warm
and yielding. "I'm fine," Jim said.
"Good. Here we go now."
Jim felt a sudden tingling sensation and realized he'd closed his eyes.
"When do we start?" he asked.
"Start? You've been under for hours. We're all finished. like a perfect
job," Sheelob said. He handed Jim a green robe. "Dry off, Sergeant. As
pilots go, your equipment is edge now. Couldn't get a better job done on Alba
itself. Good to you."
It wasn't till later that Jim realized that among all the federacy's billions,
thanks to Delta's secret embargo on technology he now possessed two things
that were one of them was something that neither his true parents they might
have been), nor Delta himself could possibly planned for. His ability to
achieve cyberneural interface was approximately three hundred years in advance
of any Terran technology.
And if Sheelob had understood what he'd done, Jim would never have left the
nanotank alive.
1 ominally you are training to pilot the Queen or other ship of her size, but
what you are really learning to do t become expendable,"
Commander Ekkadli said.
Jim thought about it. "I see," he said slowly. "The junior handle the combat
assault landers."
"That's right. Which is why the slots you two are filling the first place."
"Sleen?" Jim asked.
"Yes. Tv,o good men." Ekkadli paused. "Well, you know mean."
"Now wait a second, Commander," Tick broke in. "What do mean expendable? I
can understand about the Terrie here. surely you can't be serious about
wasting a pilot of my talents something as trivial as ferrying dumb grunts
down onto mudballs."
Jim thought of Shish and Sarge and the rest of Three and decided that
bunkmates or not, he and Tick were have a small physical discussion--and soon.
Dumb grunts?
Ekkadli eyed Tick. "Corporal Tickeree, you would be well advised to keep
those thoughts to yourself. As for your talent, I've yet to see enough of it
to justify entrusting the lives of any good arines to it, let alone the troops
who are the reason your job exists at all."
Tick wasn't stupid. He swallowed once, then nodded. "Yes, sir."
"Well. Back to it. Corporal, you operate Blue Vessel. Sergeant, you take
Red this time. Same exercise please." He waited until they slipped on their
inter force helmets.
They had been doing this exercise over and over, switching the piloting duties
between Red and Blue Vessels. Most of the time they were supervised by
training programs, but Commander Ekkadli found an hour each day for personal
observation and instruction.
The Red and Blue exercise was a mock battle between two virtual ships.
It was a ludicrous bit of training in that the chances of either junior pilot
actually conning the Queen in a deep-space engagement were next to nil--all
three lead pilots plus the four regular lander pilots would have to be
incapacitated--but it was an excellent method for developing the raw skills
needed for lesser tasks.
There was a time in Terran history when fighting pilots had needed
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superb physical reflexes to fly their warplanes, but that time was gone. With
direct cyberneural connections to the electronic infrastructure of space
vessels, a different kind of reflexive speed was called for: mental reflexes.
What Tick had meant when he talked about his neural reflexes and superb
autonomic termperospatial visualization.
Neural reflex was what it sounded like: how fast could you think? The
reflexes involved could be strengthened and quickened through training, though
some people had a natural ability. Autonomic temperospatial visualization was
another breed of cat entirely. Autonomic referred to a reflexive process
almost entirely without thought. The spatiotemporal visualization part
described what kinds of things triggered those reflexes, in this case patterns
in space and time. This was the meat and potatoes of great pilots: the ability
to instantly recognize patterns in what others would see only as a hopeless
jumble, and then, without thinking about it, make the correct response to
those patterns.
This gift was something only minimally affected by training. You either had
it, or you didn't. Jim discovered that he had it in abundance, and that his
natural talents were boosted to unimaginable levels by his new cyberneural
interface.
But it was an uncomfortable talent because he had not pected he had it.
He had always been good with the games, the cavorting in the spaces of virtual
reality. He had good conning the tiny ships he'd trained in, and he had trust
his muscle knowledge, the ingrained ability to right lever and flip the right
switch. Yet when he became a Red Ship--a feeling something like inhabiting a
body dura steel and electricity--and faced off against Tick in his l Ship
armor, what he found himself capable of scared him.
It was an eerie kind of artistry he had never thought because he'd not known
he possessed it. But now he his life some part of him had assumed he was in
adulthood. All the schooling and all the sports, all the lessons and courses
and practices had to have some goal. When he thought about it at all he
assumed his would take purpose in the shape of his hopes and himself. But
this new talent changed the shape of the made demands. It was a different
kind of context, as as anything else that had come unannounced to changed his
life. It was more than a gift. It might be his raising its head inside him
for the first time and looking with hard, glittering, demanding eyes.
Some gifts you had to live up to. Had Einstein nuclear mushroom in the early
days when he found thinking in the language of the atoms? Did the young know
his future when he first discovered his voice was demonic pied piper, that
with it he could make others own nightmares?
Did men and women of that caliber talent or did their talent drive them?
Jim eeJed around these thoughts in the dark of his nights out ever quite
articulating them even to himself. Instead he crawling discomfort with the
discovery of such great himself. You were supposed to strive. It shouldn't
be you simply stumbled on.
He moved his chin, and the motion flicked on the helmet around his neck, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]