He just couldn't work that one out. But he did his best, fetching a single coil of rope from the climbing cache and trying to swing across the gorge. He wound up tumbling down into the black abyss when his ice axe anchor broke free.
After that came a classic cell/maze. The AS put him in a room with five doors, each of which led to another room with five doors. The hazards were mostly visible, with hinged flagstones, spikes stabbing out of the walls, flames, a pendulum, lions, walls that closed in, cutting wire at neck level, electrified segments, stones that fell from their ceiling cavities, tripwire-triggered darts, moss with an acid sap, rat swarms—though there were others like gas and ultrasonics that he didn't find until he was already well into the room. The doors all carried clues to what was in the room on the other side, sometimes numerical; then there were symbols, star signs, even poetry.
He was allowed five goes. The farthest he ever got was eight rooms from his starting place.
He was put in a starship just after it had suffered a meteor collision. Environmental support systems were failing, air leaking, power dropping, network glitched, no spacesuit, few tools. He had to make his way from his own badly damaged section to the lifeboat capsule halfway around the life support wheel.
After that the AS dressed him in a spacesuit that was low on oxygen and power reserves and left him clinging to a small asteroid with his ship on the other side. There were different types of survey sensors dotted across the surface, which he could cannibalize for components and gas as he tried to crawl his way back. The rock's microgravity field was just enough to stop him from achieving orbit by muscle power alone, and weak enough to leave him with all the maneuvering problems of freefall. He actually expired within sight of the little silver craft.
The locker room that evening was even more subdued than the previous night. The candidates all looked dazed and shell-shocked. Conversation was alclass="underline" "But what do you do after that bit where..."
He couldn't see any protesters in the square. And the weather was a lot better that evening, high clouds and a dry wind blowing from off the land. It was still cold. He quite fancied a hot potato.
Joona was in the bar when he arrived, sitting at her usual place, with empty stools on either side. None too sure of his status, he left a vacant stool between them, and ordered his mango and apple.
"Shouldn't you have something stronger?" she asked. "I'd say you've had a hard day."
"Alcohol isn't going to help. I've got an even harder day tomorrow. Have to keep a clear head."
"Is it worth it?"
He took a long drink from his tumbler. "Oh, yes."
"Doesn't seem it to me. Look at the state of you. What did they do to you in there today?"
"Put it this way. If you ever crash-land on a frozen desert populated by flesh-eating zombies, then stick with me, I'll get you out. Piece of cake compared to what I went through."
Joona cocked her head to one side, giving him an interested look. "And how does that help them select their officers, exactly?"
"It's testing our ability to think under pressure. They put us in all kinds of impossible situations today." He rolled the glass between his palms, regarding it with a miserable expression. "I didn't do very well. I lost count of how many times I got killed. Then again, the others were just the same, judging by what they said."
"How good are you?"
"What do you mean?"
She slid her hands across the bar, pushing the tea cup ahead of her, moving with feline grace as she leaned in toward him. "I mean, you're a... you're a soldier who's seen action. You've been in bad situations for real on those other worlds you plunder, right?"
"Yes. But we're trained in how to deal with hostile crowd or ambush situations. I know what I'm doing."
"Right, but what you're basically taught is how to keep cool under fire. And today they simply turned up the heat.
Were those situations genuinely impossible, or did you just flunk them?"
"You don't take many prisoners, do you? I suppose I could have done better in some of them, if I knew more about engineering and stuff."
"Has it occurred to you that these tests were actually dual purpose? It sounds to me like they were testing your character as well as your ability to think."
He slumped down on the stool. "Probably. I'm really up shit creek, then."
"Why is that?" with lazy amusement Lawrence realized just how stoned she was. "I have no character. You said so yourself."
"I didn't say you had no character. I said you had the wrong character, which for the purposes of today's experiment will serve you well. You're what they want."
"Let's hope so. Are you okay to get home from here?"
She straightened up again. "Oh, I don't need any help from you. I have a citybike card. I'll just take one off the rack, and zoooom, I'm home." She caught the barman's attention and wagged a finger at her cup. "Same again."
Lawrence drained his juice and stood up. "Take care." He walked to the far end of the bar where the barman was preparing her tea. "Do something for me," he said quietly to the barman. "When she leaves, call a cab for her. This should cover it." He put an EZ twenty on the counter.
The barman nodded and pocketed the bill. "Sure thing."
Day three was linked teamwork. The AS split them into groups of five and dropped them into a shared i-environment. There were to be eight tests. For the first five, they would rotate the leadership, while the last three were to be a group effort.
Lawrence's group was given a river to cross for its first task. It was running through a hot, unpleasant jungle, complete with insects that bit exposed limbs and reeking marshsulfur air bubbling out of the mud along the foot of the banks. Crocodiles peered at them from midriver, occasionally snapping their jaws in anticipation. Ropes, oil drums and wooden planks were stacked up on the bank. Even laying all the planks end to end, they weren't long enough reach across the water.
Their designated team leader started snapping out orders. He wanted to build a platform that would go halfway across the river, they would take up the section from behind them and rebuild it out in front to the other bank. Lawrence helped willingly enough, even though he knew they were wasting their time. The scheme was overelaborate. They should be building a raft.
He briefly toyed with the idea of slacking off, or maybe not tying off his rope as tight as it needed to be. Not active sabotage exactly, but as the idea was doomed anyway... There were only two places, after all. But he guessed the AS would be watching for anything less than 100 percent commitment.