Stories of the Confederated Star Systems (17 page)

Doctor Cassini gingerly climbed into the seat and sat, holding herself ready to jump out for a moment, then relaxing. “Now, back to your story. The files have little more than your name, image, and bio-scan. Where were you born?”

“New Montreal, Quebec System” Anders replied courteously. “Did you know that there are one hundred thirty six cities named Montreal on just sixty planets? You’d think we could show a little more imagination than that.”

Doctor Cassini noted down his answer. “I wouldn’t know about that. However, I doubt that your numbers are correct. Back to you. Current occupation?”

“You know I don’t have a job or you wouldn’t be here,” Anders said with just a trace of sarcasm.

Doctor Cassini made an indignant little sniffing sound and continued. “Education?”

Now Anders turned and looked at her with both eyes. “Doctorate in Advanced Planetary Bio-Engineering, Doctorate in Advance Exotic Bio-Chemistry, Master of Science in Mathematics, Master of Science in Nuclear Physics, Master of Science in Particle Physics, Master of Science in Organic Chemistry, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Master of Science in Structural Engineering, Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering. Oh, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music, playing stringed instruments. All by the age of twenty-six.”

Doctor Cassini was scowling at him by the time he was finished. “That is ridiculous.”

“Take it for what it’s worth,” Anders replied with a slight smile and turned back to his drink.

“It is impossible for anyone to achieve that many advanced degrees in that many diverse fields.”

Anders smiled at the mirror behind the bar as he took a sip of his drink. “Not if you have an eidetic memory and start when you’re ten. Not if learning new things is all you care about. You’ll find that everything except music has the same core classes. Once you’ve mastered one discipline, the rest are easy.”

“Hm? Perhaps so. But with an education like that it makes even less sense for you to be here. Your education must be worth hundreds of thousands of credits per year to dozens of firms.” Doctor Cassini was punching the keys of her virtual-keypad as she spoke.

“Used to be,” Anders replied.

“Very well. Since you are not currently employed, who was your last employer?”

“Franconia Mining and Minerals, Planetary Explorations Division, New Acquisitions Assessment and Adjustment.”

Doctor Cassini paused for a moment and looked at him. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“Don’t exist anymore.”

She nodded and continued typing on her virtual keyboard. “Is that how you ended up here and unemployed?”

“Yep.”

“Very well. Last job assignment?”

“Zarafal.”

“Zarafal is not a habitable world. The biosphere…”

“I know,” Anders said, staring straight ahead at a memory. “It was fifty-one years ago. Like you, I was fresh out of school—”

* * *

Doctor Anders Potemkin, PhD, disembarked from the atmospheric shuttle on the rich brown soil of the planet Zarafal and looked around. The atmosphere wasn’t poisonous, but it didn’t have much oxygen in it. Atmospheric pressure was slightly higher than Franconia’s at sea-level, so suits weren’t necessary, but oxygen masks were. Still, for an exotic world, it wasn’t bad.

Doctor Leonar Keptal, Head of New Acquisitions Assessment and Adjustment for FMM met him as he walked into the controlled atmosphere of the space port control building. “Welcome to Zarafal, Doctor Potemkin.”

“Thank you, sir,” Anders replied with a smile. “It’s good to finally be putting what I learned in university to use.”

“You’ll be doing a lot of that,” Doctor Keptal said as he gestured for Anders to follow him. “Doctor Strong was very happy to hear you were coming. I understand that you were something of a protégé of his.”

Anders laughed. “I don’t know that protégé is the right term. Gofer would probably be closer. Still, I’m grateful that he recommended me and agreed to let me join his team.”

Doctor Keptal smiled and led him to the back of the building to a door marked,
Hazard-Exotic Biology
. “This is Don’s bailiwick. I doubt you’ll find anything unusual about it. We’ll be having a formal reception for you tonight to introduce you to the rest of the staff.”

Anders smiled broadly and said, “Thank you, sir,” and headed through the door as Doctor Keptal walked away. A wiry figure in a rumpled lab coat turned to greet him with a smile.

“About damn time, Andy. What’d you do, take the scenic route?”

Anders smiled at his superior and headed for their gear. “Doctor Strong, I don’t think there
is
a scenic route to Zarafal.”

“Call me Eldon, or Don, Andy. This isn’t the university and you’re not my student anymore,” Doctor Eldon Strong, head of Planetary Bio-Engineering for FMM, said as he smiled at the young man beside him.

“Yes, sir-Don. It’s strange, though. For the last sixteen years…”

“You’re out of school now, Andy. Relax. We have a lot of work to do to get the planetary assessment ready for FMM and the CSS Planetary Board of Governors. We have to be able to show that we can mine this world without destroying the native life forms.”

Anders nodded and looked around. “Just us?”

“For Bio-Eng, yes,” Don said. “You are replacing Gloria Boran. After a year of my company she asked for reassignment.”

“After a year of your company I’m surprised she didn’t ask for psychiatric leave,” Anders joked with a smile.

“Maternity leave, and no, it wasn’t me. She wants her baby to develop on a developed world. The total N-Triple-A team consists of one hundred and seven scientists, and nearly that many support staff,” Don added with a grin. “Gotta have a support staff or we’d probably poison ourselves.”

Anders laughed. He’d eaten the good doctor’s cooking once before. “No probably about it.”

Doctor Strong laughed at that and motioned for Anders to follow him. “I’ll show you your quarters. Just after we arrived we took a vote and decided not to have segregated accommodations, so you’ll be getting Gloria’s room. She left about a month ago, so the smell should have abated by now.”

“Smell?” Anders asked.

“Morning sickness,” Don said with a definite smirk.

“Oh,
gak!
Didn’t they clean…”

“It’s clean! It’s clean,” Don assured him. “Still…you’ll see.”

The room they eventually reached was reminiscent of a university dorm room, with the addition of a private bathroom. The space was square, with the bathroom taking up one corner, the bed wedged between it and the opposite wall, a desk at the foot of the bed and a wardrobe in the fourth corner. There was a strip of unoccupied floor between the wardrobe and bathroom door that might be long enough to allow him to do pushups, but only if the bathroom door was open. The bathroom had a toilet, a sink that folded out of the wall over the toilet, and a shower-stall that was designed for a skinny person.

Anders looked around and took a sniff-and gagged. “What is that smell?”

“I told you. It’s not really Gloria that you have to blame for that. It’s the disinfectant that we use to ensure that no native organisms grow in our waste.” Don took a moment to laugh at the expression on Anders face. “Fresh out of the bottle it smells decent, but there is something on this planet that loves the stuff. That’s what you smell. If you take a whiff outside without your mask you’ll find that the whole planet smells like that. The really silly part is that nothing on this planet can live on us, so it’s unnecessary. However it is an N-Triple-A regulation that we use it.”

“So in an effort to avoid contamination by native life forms we provide something that the native life forms can contaminate? That sounds suspiciously bureaucratic to me,” Anders observed as he put his bag on the bed.

“Such is life in planetary assessment.”

Doctor Strong led Anders to a large room at the end of the passageway and gestured to the left. “Over there is the gym. There’s a sauna, three weight lifting stations and a medium bag. Doctor Sarasin used to be a light heavy-weight boxer. Straight across is the game room. You name it and somebody brought it. To the right is the quiet commons, and the central area is both cafeteria and meeting hall.”

Anders nodded. “Sounds cozy.”

“A bit too cozy,” a female voice said and both Anders and Don turned toward it. The speaker was a tall redhead with hair cut shorter than most men preferred. “You’d be the new wonder-kid. I’m Eliza Downey, Geophysics.”

“He’s older than you, Liz,” Don said in a severe tone. “Watch the kid stuff.”

“Touchy, touchy, Don. Don’t let it get your blood pressure up,” she said as she sauntered away.

“What’s her problem?” Anders asked as he watched her cross the room.

“She’s just miffed that you have more degrees than she does. Twice as many, as a matter of fact, and she’s only got one doctorate.” Don led Anders toward the center of the room. “I should have asked before, but what time does your body think it is? Are you tired or hungry?”

“Have you ever known me not to be hungry?” Anders asked with a wolfish grin. “Really, ship-time is about ten-thirty in the morning. What time is it here? I’ll reset my chrono.”

Don glanced at his wrist and said, “Five twenty-five in the evening. We’ll be eating at six.”

“Eldon, is that the student that you’ve been bragging about for the past month?” a man asked as he walked up to them. “Alan Sarasin, Mineralogy Assessment,” the man said as he stuck out his hand.

“Anders Potemkin, Bio-Engineering,” Anders replied, taking the doctor’s hand and giving it a firm clasp.

“We’ve heard about you. You’ve got two PhDs and how many other degrees?” Doctor Sarasin asked with a grin.

“Just seven,” Anders replied casually.

“Are you worth a shit in any of them?” a woman asked as she walked up. “Sounds like you spread yourself a little thin.”

“I like to think my diverse degrees complement each other and give me a wider view of my subjects,” Anders replied levelly.

The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Score one for the new kid. I’m Ellen Gregory, Meteorology.” She stuck out her hand and subjected Anders to a close inspection while he grasped it. “You look healthy enough for a science nerd. Do anything unscientific?”

“I play stringed instruments,” Anders replied with a grin.

“Orchestra or band?” Doctor Sarasin asked urgently.

“Both. I picked up a BA in Music and specialized in strings.”

“Music? Why?” Doctor Gregory asked.

“A girl named Susan,” Anders replied with a grin and all of them had a good laugh.

“We have a band, and we play mostly popular music, but there are four of our members who play in a string quartet. Four in a quartet. That’s redundant, isn’t it? Never mind. Anyway, we have a fair selection of instruments that come with the standard N-triple-A package. You’re welcome to join either group, or both, in your free time.”

“Thank you,” Anders replied but was prevented from saying anything else by the appearance of Doctor Keptal at the end of the room.

“Take your seats, please. Take your seats. Doctor Potemkin, come down here, if you would.” He paused as Anders made his way across the room. “Just stand here beside me. Everyone, may I have your attention? Please? This is Doctor Anders Potemkin, Doctor Strong’s new assistant. As most of you have already heard, he has multiple degrees in a variety of subjects, but he’s assigned to Bio-Engineering. Given everything I’ve heard about him, I’m sure he can be made available to help out in the other fields if he’s needed.”

Anders smiled sheepishly and waved as a few people politely clapped and then went to join Doctor Strong at a table. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Don asked as Anders sat down.

“No, not too bad. Much easier than my dissertation.” He looked around the table and nodded to the people he hadn’t met yet. He said, “Hello,” to the group in general and they responded courteously.

“Andy, I’ll let you have tonight to get acclimatized, but tomorrow morning I’ll be providing you with a synopsis of our progress over the last two years. So far we’ve found a number of interesting local mosses and a lichen-like growth that might be a viable product later on. They both burn very hot and very, very fast. You’ll get to see them tomorrow.”

The food arrived and the conversation at the table turned to the happenings of the Confederacy, and Anders was called upon to clarify some of the news that had arrived with him. The assassination of Senator Kimura. The new system that survey had opened to the rest of the Confederacy. And especially the First Contact with the Cavvelat. The conversation lasted a lot longer than the food, and only ended when several of the people started yawning.

“Get a good night’s sleep, Andy. If you can. I know this environment can be a little hard to get used to,” Don said as he stood up. “Doctor, MD type, Sayer has some good sleeping pills if you think you’ll have any problem.”

“I think I’ll be all right, Don. I didn’t get much sleep last night coming out of hyperspace, so I’m pretty tired already. Good night, everyone.” Anders stood and gave the remaining people at the table a slight bow, then went to his room.

The first thing he did was unpack. It wasn’t much of a chore. The company had provided him with six standard-issue jump suits, and that was just about all he’d brought. Underclothes, socks, his toiletry kit, and a single set of civilian clothes, the ones he was wearing, made up the rest of his weight allowance for the trip.

The shower was very hot, which was a relief after the carefully limited temperature of the shipboard hot water, and he luxuriated in it as the heat penetrated his muscles. He found the stall to be just big enough to allow him to raise a leg in order to wash his feet, but there was no way he could possibly bend over.

He shaved at the little fold-down sink, disposed of the fluids he’d been consuming, and went to bed.

In spite of what he’d told Don, he wasn’t that tired, and spent several hours lying motionless in a light meditative trance. With his body numbed to the world, his mind was free to race down any path it chose, and he found himself worrying at the puzzle of the organism that lived in the disinfectant. What could it be?