Timran, stocky and just above the minimum height, had a low rank in the graduating class, and an air of suppressed glee. Clearly he was thrilled (surprised, even?) to have made it through commissioning, and equally delighted to have such a good assignment - and such a commanding officer. Sassinak was used to male appreciation, but his wide - eyed admiration almost embarrassed her. She wondered if she’d really been that callow herself. His only redeeming characteristic, according to the file, was “luck.” As his pilot instructor said, “Under normal circumstances, this cadet is adequate at best, and too often careless or rash. But in emergencies, everything seems to come together, and he will do five wrong things that add up to the best combination. If he continues to show this flair in active duty, he may be worth training as a scoutship pilot, or a junior gunnery officer.”
Gori, on the other hand, was a quiet, studious, almost prim young man who had ranked high in academics and sports, but only average in initiative. “The born supply officer,” his report said. “Meticulous, precise, will do exactly what he is told, but does not react well in chaotic situations. He should do well in a large crew, and ultimately onstation in a noncombat capacity. Note that this is not lack of courage; he does not panic in danger - but he does not exceed his orders even when this is desirable.”
Kayli and Perran were more “average,” in that their abilities seemed to be all on one level. Physically they were something else. Kayli was a stunning diminutive brunette, who could have had a new partner every night if she’d wanted it. What she wanted, apparently, was Gori. Sassinak was not surprised to find that they were already engaged, and planned to marry at the end of their first cruise. What did surprise her was Kayli’s continuing disinterest in the other men - very few people were exclusive in their relationships. But despite all suggestions, Kayli spent her off-duty time with Gori, much of it in the junior officer’s mess with books spread all over the table. Perran, not at all as overtly attractive as Kayli, turned out to be the vamp of the group. She had an insatiable interest in electronics… and men. Ford’s description of her stalk of the senior communications tech gave Sassinak her first relaxed laugh in weeks.
As the trip progressed, Claas seemed content enough, if quiet, and Sassinak noted that she seemed to spend some free time with Perran. It seemed like an odd combination, but Sassinak knew better than to interfere with what worked. Timran got into one scrape after another, always apologetic but undaunted as he discovered the inexorable laws of nature all over again. Sassinak wondered if he’d ever grow up - it didn’t seem likely at this point. Only her experience with other such youngsters, who surprisingly grew into competent adults if given the chance and a few years, reassured her. Gori and Kayli occupied each other, and Perran, having caught her first man, soon started looking for another. Sassinak felt a twinge of sympathy for the unlucky quarry; Perran was none too gentle in her disposal of the former lover.
Dupaynil turned up evidence of several anomalies in the crew. He said quite frankly that most of them were probably innocent errors - data entered wrong in the computer, or misunderstandings of one sort or another. But sorting them out meant hours of painstaking work, correlating all the data and holding more interviews to recheck vital facts.
“I had no idea that the personnel files were this sloppy,” grumbled Sass. “Surely most of these must mean something.” They were back to Prosser, and Sassinak was careful to say nothing about her earlier reaction to his holo in the files. His eyes weren’t quite as close together as she’d thought earlier. Dupaynil passed over the file with a shrug - nothing wrong with it at all.
“Have you ever really looked at your own file?” asked Dupaynil with a sly smile.
“Well, no - not carefully.” She had never wanted to brood over the truncated past it would have revealed.
“Look.” He called up her file onscreen, and ran it through his expanded database backups. “According to this, you had two different grades in advanced analytic geometry in prep school… and you never turned in your final project in social history… and you were involved in a subversive organization back on Myriad - “
“What!” Sassinak peered at it. “I wasn’t in anything - “
“A club called Ironmaids?” Dupaynil grinned.
“Oh.” She had forgotten completely about Ironmaids, the local Carin Coldae fan club that she and Caris had founded in their last year of elementary school. She and Caris and - who was that other girl? Glya? - had chosen the name, and written to the address on the bottom of the Carin Coldae posters. And almost a year later a packet had come for them: a club charter, replica Carin Coldae pocket lasers, and eight copies of the newest poster. Her parents wouldn’t let her put it up where anyone could see it, so she’d had it on the inside of her closet door. “But it wasn’t subversive,” she said to Dupaynil. “It was just a kid’s club, a fan club.”
“Affiliated with the Carin Coldae cult, right?”
“Cult? We weren’t a cult.” Even her parents, conservative as they were. had not objected to the club… although they’d insisted that a life-size poster of Carin Coldae, in snug silver bodysuit with a blazing laser in each hand, was not the perfect living room decoration.
Dupaynil laughed aloud. “You see, captain, how easy it is for someone to be caught up in something without realizing it? I suppose you didn’t know that Carin Coldae’s vast earnings went into the foundation and maintenance of a terrorist organization?”
“They did?”
“Oh yes. All you little girls - and boys, too, I must admit - who sent in your bits of change and proofs of purchase were actually funding the Sector XI resurgents, as nasty a bunch of racist bullies as you could hope to find. The Iron Chain, they called themselves. Carin herself, I understand, found them romantic - or one of them, anyway. She was convinced they were misunderstood freedom fighters, and of course they encouraged that view. So your little Ironmaids club, in which I presume you all felt brave and grown-up, was a front for terrorists… and you had your brush with subversive activity.”
Sassinak thought back to their six months of meetings, before they got tired of the routine. The little charter and handbook, which had them elect officers and discuss “old business” and “new business” according to strict rules. The cookies they’d made and served from a Carin Coldae plate, and the fruit juice they’d drunk from special glasses. If that was subversive activity, how did anyone keep doing it without suffering terminal boredom? She remembered the day they’d disbanded - not to quit watching Carin Coldae films, of course, but because the club itself bored them stiff They’d gone back to climbing in the nearby hills, where they could pretend that villains were hiding behind the rocks.
“I think the most subversive thing we did,” she said finally, “was decide that our school principal looked exactly like the villain in White Rims. I still have trouble believing - “
Dupaynil shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter. Security knows that nearly all the kids in those clubs were innocent. But some of them went on to another level of membership, and a few of those ended up joining the Iron Chain… and those have been a continuing problem.”