Vanity? My lips twisted into a smile of sardonic self-awareness. You're afraid it's all professional, and you want to hang on to the illusion that you're personally attractive to someone?
I knew the answer to that question.
51
Do not seek truth through brighter light or inspection of appearances.
With the scoop's cool surface barely against my face, Andra touched the canister stud, and the nanoneedles slipped under my skin, ferrying yet more raw information to various neurons and structures within my skull.
Engineering, this time, I thought, my eyes looking over the gray edge of the scoop at the scene beyond the window, the west side of the operations building lit by the crisp sunlight of late autumn and the high clouds beyond that promised a thundershower by evening.
... potential interaction of sublimation pressure with molecularly compressed inert pseudometals (composite) ... avoided by formation under high-temperature multiple-gee-force containment ... use of discharge nozzle to maintain ionic supercriticality to maximum duration ... plastic deformation of composite occurs ... difference between maximum and minimum principal stresses equals twice the yield stress in shear...
As the images and words, and equations and phrases, swept over and through me, I couldn't help but feel that engineering was different. Unlike the physics and the theories, where the words had been initially as unfamiliar as the meanings they conveyed, in engineering I thought I knew all the words - but the way in which they were used made them a different tongue entirely.
Andra stepped away, but the faint fragrance of flowers I did not recognize lingered for a few moments. Half bemused by the floral scent and thoughts of engineering terms, I stood and followed Andra into the adjoining room and the all-too-familiar console.
'You know what to do,' she said.
I nodded as I seated myself.
The console scripted: 'Which of the following most closely approximates the process for producing interstellar-grade composite?'
Each of the answers was more than a paragraph long, and I had to reread each twice and then pore through the newest mass of information spinning within my skull. I touched the console, and the next question appeared.
When I finally sat back from the screen, morning had vanished with the fall sun starting its descent into afternoon. My eyes were blurred, and my head ached.
Andra reappeared.
'Not bad. The engineering section is hard for most pilots.'
'It's the use of familiar words in an unrelated context.'
'You're eloquent, Tyndel.'
'I wish I were.' My fingers massaged my forehead, and I closed my eyes for a few moments. 'This all seems endless.'
'You'll be finished here - with the information and indoctrination - before Ileck finishes your physical conditioning and readiness. You're a natural, Tyndel.' Andra shook her head, and the reddish blond hair rippled. 'I've had astroengineers who didn't pick up understandings the way you do. Why did you fight it?'
'It wasn't the knowledge.' I felt like shrugging but didn't. 'I've always enjoyed learning about things.'
'You don't mind hard work, either. The reports from OE
Station confirm that.' She stepped back. 'I won't pry.' A half grin followed. 'Not more than I have already.'
'They sent reports to you?'
'Not until you'd returned.'
'Has anyone else - any other Dzin type - refused training and changed his mind?'
'It's happened. Not recently.'
'That's because you don't get many refugees anymore, not Dzin types,' I countered. Nor that many possible pilots.
'You could be dangerous, Tyndel, if you used your brain more.' Andra gave me a faint smile. A grin and a smile in the same session - far more than she usually expressed.
'I am working on it.'
'Good. Until tomorrow.' With that, she was gone.
I didn't have time to walk to the lounge and then back to the pool. That meant I had to hurry to get something to eat at the transient quarters. Besides, while I wasn't avoiding Aleyaisha, I didn't want to give the impression of courting her, either. So I settled on my usual standby when I really didn't know what I wanted - Dorchan orange strip beef with flat noodles and Arleen. I only ate enough to dull the edge of hunger, knowing my stomach wouldn't take more with what Ileck had in mind. The second mug of tea was rushed.
When I reached the pool in my swimming briefs, Ileck -impassive as always - was waiting, black-booted feet standing on the black composite deck. The exercise singlesuit and boots, and the heavy and weighted canvas pack, were waiting for when I finished swimming laps.
'First, your warm-up exercises. Then... the weights. After that, sixteen hundred meters, four hundred fast, four hundred slow, four hundred fast, two hundred slow, and the last two hundred a sprint.'
I took a deep breath, recalling how pointless I'd thought the lap swimming on my first indoctrination to Runswi. Now
I was one of those undertaking such exercise. I had to admit that it was better than wrestling SARMs in null gravity on OE Station. I hadn't forgotten the sweat and the grittiness seeping into every pore on my face - and all the bruises I'd garnered from bumping into interdeck beams.
The warm-up exercises and the weight training ended too soon, and I was swimming lap after endless lap through the clear but black-tinted water. Much later, after the long, too long, sixteen hundred meters, I slumped against the black tiles of the side of the pool.
'Come on, Tyndel. The real work starts now.'
I could hardly wait, but I dragged myself out of the water and pulled on the suit and boots, then shouldered the pack. 'No blindfold?'
'You'll wish you had one,' Ileck promised with a grin that faded. 'Up on the pedestal.'
I was the one who raised his eyebrows, but I doubt Ileck saw the gesture because he touched the portable console he held. The entire pool area turned black, so dark I couldn't have seen my hand if I'd touched my nose with it.
'Go on,' Heck's voice vibrated the darkness, creating an even deeper blackness than the sightless black that enfolded me. Blacker than black isn't possible, but that was the niellen depth that I experienced.
I glanced down. The beam displayed the faintest line of luminescence, but a shimmering length that illuminated nothing else. I felt suspended in nothingness. If I'd been in null gravity, I could have been in starless space, except I wore no outside suit and the air was far too warm.
I edged my left foot forward, a black blot on the shining line that cast no radiance. My whole body wobbled. I paused, concentrating on what I felt, knowing that I was more sightless than if I'd worn a blindfold.
'Don't close your eyes,' Ileck ordered.
I could feel myself flushing in the darkness, since I'd been contemplating just that.
The sound of ragged trumpets thrust at me, and, this time, actual notes half shaped like spears flashed toward me from the left. I winced, then tottered, trying to catch my balance. Abruptly, the deep bass of the ancient organlike sound rumbled from the other side, and a rectangle, luminous and knife-edged, swept toward me from the right.
A hot wall of air - or something - shoved at my back, and I did lose my balance. All I'd taken had been three steps before I plunged into the dark water.
I convulsed at the electriclike shock of hitting the water. That hadn't happened before, but neither had I been assaulted by shapes and actual musical notes before, either.
Abruptly, the darkness vanished, as did the electric knives within the water.