“You knew that from the start, Colonel. We will reveal nothing more than we must. We had to reveal a bit too much just to get all of you on board, but we dare not discuss that here. While Commander Krill is the best at what she does, she informed you all two weeks ago that her Navy counterpart here is up to the task, too.”
“I just love that part,” Commander Park commented. “I play it over and over.”
“So when do you expect word on this last person?” Takamura asked the priest. “It is not the most pleasant of things to just sit here and dwell upon the odds against us on this mission. I have many research projects I could be working on or returning to. Nothing but something of this enormity, which I must see to believe, would take me from them as it is.”
“A hundred percent funding on all your projects and all those able associates of yours and your students should make what you left behind bearable, Doctor,” the old diva put in. “We’ll have no more of this sort of talk. If you were not here, most of those projects would not have been funded anyway. We are coming to the end of humanity’s road, Doctor. I will do everything in my power, so long as I can hold myself together, to do anything at all that will ensure that, somewhere, sometime, somehow, there will be humans about who are not only capable of appreciating Aida but are able to hear it sung. We all have our crosses to bear, as it were.”
“Well put, Madame Sotoropolis,” Father Chicanis responded. “We’ll have no more division at this point. It’s the price of having sat here too long, I fear. I shall pray that we will get our instructions to move as early as those instructions can reach us. In the meantime, we will use the simulator aboard to hone our skills in a nontechnological environment. Any questions?”
“Yes, one,” Katarina Socolov, the youngest and newest, put in. “Can I, or we, just go down to the port for an afternoon? We train and train, and I’ve even gotten the simulator program running with far more realism than anything you had before, but you can be overtrained. We need a break. Or, at least, I need a break.”
“Audio and visual terminated,” Park commanded, then sat back in his dressing gown and munched on a candy stick. “So, seen and heard enough?”
“They have a simulator up there?”
He nodded. “State of the art. Same corporation that made ours, in fact. Only their program is to drop you on a Titan world wearing nothing but a smile and a machete or similar weapons, no food or water, no nothin’, and set scary but artificial Titan globes after you if you do anything to attract attention. That was the basic program, anyway. You just heard that our cute little anthropologist there has made it a lot more realistic.”
“They’re gonna mutiny if they don’t move soon. I’ve seen that kind of fidgeting among those kind of folks many times before.”
Park agreed. “They’re more than ready. You know, they’ve agreed to let Socolov and Takamura come down and just have dinner in town, relax and unwind. You think you can spend a little time in makeup today and become irresistible? Neither of them saw you before; you might just have a pleasant evening and also learn something. A nice dinner, a few drinks, maybe a neurostim or so, walk by the river under the stars—who knows? Two bored, lonely girls with a good-looking guy like the one we can simulate with you, and maybe they’ll spill their guts out.”
It wasn’t the kind of thing Harker felt all that comfortable doing, but it was worth a try. “If I can get some sleep while they work on me, sure. Why not? Any idea who they’re waiting for?”
Park shrugged. “For all I know it’s the Dutchman. Would you recognize him? Would I? I doubt it. It’s a nasty disguise by somebody who’s really good, that’s all.”
“You don’t think he’s just a code here?”
“Why bother? With the trillions of possible codes they could use, why use one that attracts all this official attention? No, I think the Dutchman is very much involved in this. I just don’t know how or why. Maybe you can get the ladies to tell you.”
“Or maybe the ladies will tell me where to go or give me a judo chop to the groin,” Harker responded pessimistically.
“Ah, you’re such a romantic!” Park sighed.
He got Harker off to makeup not long after that, and then cursed the fact that he was now, and would remain for a few more hours, one hundred percent wide awake. Might as well get dressed and go to work.
At least, Commander Park reflected to himself, he’d gotten Harker’s mind completely off the subject of the original cause for their meeting.
The scars on Harker’s face were minimized, the growths that inspired them gone, and the hair and eyebrows all firmly planted, although nobody had ever figured out a way to keep them from itching in the short term. The neatly trimmed beard, though, was something of a giveaway to anybody who knew much about the Navy, since it was a standard man’s disguise of the scars of repeated space travel. Because of that, he’d decided not to disguise his affiliation or rank at all, but instead wore a standard dress uniform with his warrant insignia on the shoulders and his service stripes and ribbons prominent. It had been so long since he’d put the damned thing on that it surprised him he had so many legitimate decorations. It was another reminder that he was getting old for the kind of active duty he was putting himself back on.
He was instantly glad that he had opted for a more open look when he saw the two women sitting in the restaurant looking over a real printed menu and sipping local wine. He’d spotted Alan Mogutu, wearing casual clothing, lounging on the street just outside the place, clearly keeping an eye on the pair. He wondered if they thought he or, more likely, Park—would have the women kidnapped and debriefed with a hypno and a telepath. He suspected that it was just a precaution. Still, Mogutu would have spotted in an instant any attempts by him to disguise what he was, just as he’d instantly noted the mercenary even though most other people wouldn’t have given him a second glance.
The place wasn’t crowded. In fact, it was almost empty, less a comment on its quality than on the hour, which was early for dinner. They were barely open, and their peak wouldn’t come for something like two or three hours. It was also a routine workday bracketed by more of the same, not the kind of day when large groups decided to splurge on something decent.
He liked the old-fashioned fanciness of restaurants like these, but they were expensive enough that he needed to ensure that the expense account would cover it before he dared enter. In this case, he slipped the mustachioed maitre d’ a small trinket and indicated with his eyes that he wanted to be seated near the ladies. The fellow smiled knowingly and led him to a table one over from the pair.
He’d barely gotten seated and reached out to look over the wine list when he heard the two discussing entrees. This kind of restaurant experience was extremely rare, even for university doctors, and he suspected that they were trying to decide just which of the real, not synthetic dishes on the menu might be palatable.
He glanced over at them and decided to try the quick opening. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help hearing you trying to figure out the menu. I’m pretty familiar with the local dishes if you’d trust a stranger to make a recommendation or two.”
Takamura didn’t seem all that keen on the intrusion, but Socolov, the young anthropologist who’d wanted to get out anyway, picked right up on it. “Why, thank you—uh? Lieutenant? Captain? What is that rank? Sorry—Navy isn’t my strong suit.”
He grinned. “Warrant officer, ma’am. A kind of ancient rank that’s in and out over the centuries because, like commodore, it’s sometimes useful. Let’s say that I’m higher than a chief petty officer, but I’m outranked by the merest ensign but paid better. They give it to people who have very special skills they’re afraid will quit the service, or, sometimes, to people who win high awards by being stupid and getting themselves blown up and then declared heroes.”