Compete (13 page)

“Oh, that’s truly awful!” I say. “How could you do that? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Hah!” Anu says in a rough tone. “Deal with it. If you can’t deal, you’re in the wrong place. How did you even pass Qualification?”

Okay . . .
I think.
This Anu guy is a real piece of work
. . . .

I take a deep breath. And then I decide to ignore the jerk.

“Gennio,” I say instead. “What is up with my schedule? Do you know anything about it?”

“Oh, sure,” Gennio says. “I’m the one who put it together for you, when the CP told me some of the classes you’ll need. It is not completely finalized, naturally, since the CP needs to approve it after discussing it with you, but that should happen after he gets back here from his meeting in about an hour.”

“So, what classes will I have?”

Gennio pauses to think. “Hmm, there’s Pilot Training, definitely—that’s priority one. Then there’s Culture, Atlantean Language, maybe Combat—or maybe that’s optional? Anyway, I don’t recall exactly, except that your first class will be Pilot Training at 1:00 PM today. Why don’t we take a look at it in the system? Let me just finish here with Anu, and then we can login and check.” And he dives back underneath the table.

“Okay—what exactly are you guys doing?” I take a few steps and finally peer over the desk. I see the tops of two metallic-haired heads as the two guys are leaning over a portion of a lower desk drawer that appears to be broken or detached, and there is a whole lot of alien wiring coming out of there.

“What’s that?” I say.

“Nothing,” Anu mutters with a frown, glancing up at me very briefly. “Nothing that concerns you, really. At this point, you won’t understand it.”

“Maybe if you explained it, I would? And maybe I could help?”

“I highly doubt it. You should’ve helped earlier when I
asked
you—when I needed help moving this drawer panel—at least that would’ve been at your level of competence.”

I feel a twinge of anger returning. This guy is really—and I mean,
really
—getting on my nerves now.

Fortunately Gennio speaks up in his usual mild tone. “It’s the networking cables. Something’s causing intermittent connectivity failure along the different consoles. They’ve been having problems, and we replaced some a few days ago, but now the problem is back. The CP told us to check it out, first thing this morning.”

I stare at the mess of cables below. “Okay,” I say. “I may not know your Atlantean systems but I can probably help with the troubleshooting. The
process
is always the same—a process of elimination. So just tell me what to try and we can test connections maybe?”

“We’ve already done that,
many
times,” Anu says.

“And we’ve replaced parts,” Gennio adds with a sigh. “
Many
parts. Pretty much everything, to be honest.”

“Well,” I say. “Let’s begin from scratch. Take
everything
apart. And this time I will watch and maybe write each step down, so you will know for sure every combination and configuration you already went through.”

“We already went through everything!” Anu’s voice rises in new aggravation.

But I ignore him completely. I step around the desk and crawl in between the two of them.

A
bout forty minutes later the CP’s desk is lying in pieces all around the room, and so are half the computer consoles. We’re all sitting on the floor, tangled in wiring and covered in alien circuit boards. I am passing around Atlantean micro-wrench and screwdriver tools from one guy to the other, jotting down their troubleshooting combinations, and plugging in one cable after another as they tell me.

“Aha!” Gennio exclaims at last, after some successful line connection is made. “I think it’s this one! Keep both of those plugged in, Gwen! Don’t move! Don’t move!”

“Okay, not moving! Just a sec,” I mutter, passing the back of my free hand against my forehead, while I hold a loose connection with the other, and a second in my teeth.

“You got it?” Anu wipes the sheen of sweat off his own pale forehead.

“Yeah!”

In that moment the door opens, and Command Pilot Aeson Kassiopei enters his office.

There is a long pause as we all fall motionless.

Aeson takes one step, sees the condition of the room, then freezes in what is possibly stunned silence.

“What?” he says, and his lips part. “What is going
on
here?”

Both Gennio and Anu drop whatever items they’re holding, scramble up to their feet, and salute the CP. I remain seated on the floor, cross-legged, my eyes opened wide. A long piece of networking cable is still clutched between my teeth.

Oh my lord
, it occurs to me belatedly.
This is so wrong. . . . Could I possibly look even more like a dog?

“Command Pilot Kassiopei, with greatest apologies, we are working on the connectivity problem,” Gennio mutters. “Fortunately we’ve just isolated the bad connection—”

“It was her idea to disassemble everything.” Anu says in a cool voice, pointing in my direction.

Command Pilot Kassiopei takes that moment to ignore the two standing aides, and instead focuses his wrath on me. “Gwen Lark,” he says very softly, taking a step toward me over a piece of disassembled furniture and a circuit board. “How is it that you’ve only been here
one day
and you’ve already managed to take apart my ship?”

I allow the cable to fall from my mouth, and look up at him. “I—I just thought it would make sense to repeat the basic troubleshooting, since they were not having much success—”

Aeson looks at me with a complex expression that is hard to describe. “Is that so? And how well familiar are you with our ship systems that you think you can make repairs?”

“Not at all,” I retort. “But then I don’t have to be. I am familiar with the
method
of problem solving. It applies to any situation.”

Anu makes a choked sound.

“With your permission, Command Pilot,” Gennio says in a hurried voice, as though sensing that an explosion is about to occur, “I am certain we are now done and can have everything reassembled and functional in half an hour—”

“You have fifteen minutes,” Aeson Kassiopei says, glancing at him and Anu. “I expect everything to be back the way it should be by the time I return.”

“Yes, Command Pilot!” The two aides salute again and start picking up parts and connecting lines in a hurry.

Meanwhile the Command Pilot returns his attention to me. “You,” he says in an unreadable voice that is low and dark. “Come with me, we are going to discuss your schedule—out in the hall.
Move!
” And he turns from me coldly and again steps past pieces of his desk and exits.

I scramble to get up, nearly tripping on cables, and follow him outside.

A
s soon as we’re in the corridor past the guards, Aeson says without looking in my direction, “Walk with me.”

We begin walking along the corridor, and for a few seconds there is only silence. I glance up at him nervously a few times, but mostly keep my eyes on the way ahead. Eventually I can’t keep quiet any longer. “I am really sorry,” I begin. “It was my fault they took everything apart—”

“No, actually it was not. My aides are qualified technicians. As crewmen, they are solely responsible for their own actions—
and
methodology. What they did was unwisely take the advice of an inexperienced but very
insistent
, know-it-all young girl—”

“Advice, which proved correct!” I exclaim, staring at him, or better to say, at his stern profile, since he still does not look at me.

“That is beside the point.”

I struggle to keep my mouth shut. We continue walking.

“And you,” he says. “You were out of line. On your first day, you do
not
make recommendations to anyone. You look and listen and
learn
.”

“Okay. . . . Understood.” I bite my lip, and this time turn away from him and look directly ahead. “It will not happen again.”

He finally looks at me. “See that it doesn’t.”

I nod, silently.

We walk past a few corridors and sections, generally moving in a circle along the wide corridor, as it surrounds, like a donut, the spherical Resonance Chamber at the heart of the ship.

“So, may I ask about my schedule?” I say.

“Yes.” He pauses and takes out a small flat gadget that resembles a key card out of his uniform shirt pocket. I stand looking at him curiously, and feel my pulse once more beginning a slow rhythmic pounding in my temples.

Aeson places the card over my yellow token ID, and it flashes briefly. “Your schedule is now programmed into your record. You may consult it any time by reading your token data against any ship console.”

“But I thought we were going to discuss my specific classes first, before finalizing?”

“Not much to discuss,” he says with another cool, brief look at me. “You are taking Pilot Training, Culture, Language, and Combat. These are the core Cadet classes. Any problem with these selections?”

“No . . . but I am not a Cadet.”

“Not yet. But if you are to have this choice available to you at the end of the year, you will need to be ready.”

“I see,” I mutter. “Okay.”

“Furthermore, you also have Navigation, which is part of your continued Yellow Quadrant training, Technology and Systems, which is Civilian general education, and voice training with me, every night at eight PM.”

“Okay.”

“Finally, you will have Court Protocol taught by a special personal tutor. It is a class that is normally taught to Citizens—”

“Oh!” I exclaim.

But he shakes his head with a cold glance. “Don’t get your hopes up. In your case you simply need to become well versed in the standards of interaction with upper ranking members of society, because you are an Aide to the CCO. All my Aides are fluent in matters of protocol since they have to attend a member of the Imperial Family.”

“In other words,
you
. . . .”

“Yes.” His answer comes very softly.

I nod, feeling my cheeks burn for some reason, as I watch his beautiful profile and the fall of his golden hair.

“Wow, that’s a lot of classes,” I say. “What about my work hours?”

“I allocated only two classes each day for you. A few days will have three, but no more. Check your schedule and fear not.”

“Oh, I am not afraid of an academic overload!” I exclaim.

At my response his lips quiver momentarily, so that I almost think he holds back a smile. “Good,” he tells me.

And we head back to the CCO.

Chapter Eight

I
help Gennio and Anu with the post-assembly cleanup of the office, while Aeson Kassiopei gets his desk back in one piece, calls up his various consoles, and gets to work, promptly ignoring all three of us.

I spend the hours before lunch working at a small console in the corner of the office, next to Anu and Gennio, entering data and occasionally glancing in Aeson’s direction, out of simple curiosity. Gennio runs various software diagnostics while Anu looks over email and personnel data and makes catty remarks about random individuals, muttering under his breath. The three of us aides then head out to eat, while the Command Pilot remains working alone in his office, his face serious and absentminded, as he consults what appears to be intricate star charts, and makes occasional face-to-face calls with Atlantean officers.

And then, it’s 1:00 PM, and time for my first class onboard the Atlantean starship.

Pilot Training.

“G
ood luck, Gwen, you’ll do fine. This is a very important class!” Gennio waves at me at the end of our meal, while Anu merely nods, as I empty my tray at the Cadet Deck Two Meal Hall. The room is noisy and filled with savory food smells and with Qualified Earth teens, mostly from the Blue Quadrant, since this is their meal hall. Everyone is chattering about the upcoming Pilot Training, which means most of us will be going to the same class in a few minutes.

It’s interesting that now the Cadets are all wearing small four-point-star gold buttons next to their ID tokens. I’d noticed it earlier this morning as I passed some of them in the ship corridors—must be a new thing.

I follow the Cadets out of the meal hall, and down a network of corridors to an open deck instruction area, the size of a large classroom. It has about twenty rows of desk-like double-seater cubicles, six per row, each with strange attached circular terminals before them—not precisely computer screens but more like gaming consoles.

“Flight simulators!” a boy exclaims, grabbing one of the places near me.

I think he’s right.