Ghost Station (The Wandering Engineer) (38 page)

“True.”

“Truth
didn't matter into the equation. Even when proven wrong they didn't stop. Some
would manipulate the situation to serve their own ends of course.”

“Which
is what we ran into in Pyrax. And we're still dealing with the fall out.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You
were about to explain the Birthers crack?”

“Birthers
believed that an American president in the early twenty first century wasn't an
American citizen.”

“So?”

She
sighed in exasperation. “So in the eyes of the law he wasn't legally allowed to
be
president. They hounded him for years about the subject. When he
finally released his birth certificate they shut up briefly then the doubters
started all over again.”

“Oh?
Let me guess, they said it was an elaborate forgery?”

“Yes,”
Sprite sighed. “Of course members of the opposing party fueled the fires to
bend and twist people for their own plans.”

“Typical.”

“Sometimes
I don't understand organics. Even with mountains of evidence they still
vehemently cling to their beliefs however wrong they are.”

“True.”

“The
twin towers are another example. Can you believe even though the entire event
was filmed, and for some shown
live
with tens of thousands of witnesses
there were people who insisted the entire thing was staged and that there
were
no terrorists?”

“Not
following Sprite,” Irons said trying to tune her out a little as he kept
working.

“Twenty
first century. Same decade as the birther mess but a few years before hand. A
terrorist attack using aircraft to destroy ground targets in suicide attacks.”

Irons
winced as that sunk in. He paused, looking at her on the HUD. She nodded,
looking coldly sober.

“For
years there were people out there who vehemently denied that the buildings
could have fallen after being hit with aircraft and being on fire.”

“Okay...”

“We're
talking large aircraft,” Sprite said, starting to rant. A flash of something
called a 747 was put up on his HUD. It was replaced with video of the aircraft
striking a towering building. He winced again.

“And
they doubted it?” he asked dubiously.

“Of
course! It's all a government conspiracy. No one really died, all a hoax, all a
mass hallucination, the tower was brought down by explosives...  the movies
were computer forgeries... it goes on and on. Want to see?”

He
shook his head. “Pass. Somehow I missed this in history class,” Irons replied.
“Or I'm not remembering it.”

“Organic
memory... fallible.”

“Um,
didn't we just replace memory in the ship's computer? Who's calling who
fallible?” Irons riposted.

“Touché',”
she replied with a bit of annoyance. She hated it when he shot her down like
that.

“Don't
go throwing bricks if you live in glass houses Sprite. Now let's see if I can
get this sorted out.”

Numiria
worked with her staff daily. Training for all was an ongoing process, one that
was doing much better now than ever before. Light Touch was doing well with her
training, ahead of some of the others in the class. Bloodknife was bitter over
the accident. He was showing signs of depression despite their assurances that
they would repair the damage in time.

On
another note she was ready to go forward with the first wave of sleepers. Her
staff had narrowed the manifest to a bare fifty people who were in the best of
shape. They had tailored a treatment plan for each of them. She had submitted
the plan to the captain and was waiting on a reply. For some reason the captain
was delaying it. She wasn't sure why but if he didn't respond soon she was
going to give the first one a shot anyway. Maybe. Or maybe not. She wasn't sure
she wanted to push things too far with him right now. She could wait a few more
days; the sleepers had waited for years after all. A few more days wouldn't
matter. She just wished the captain would make up his mind and let her know.

Until
then she was refining her training. Her staff was training right along with
her. Regina was particularly good at trauma; she'd left the older woman alone
to handle the primary infirmary so she could focus on training and research.
Ezri was shaping up to be a good surgical nurse.

Regina
hadn't been happy about being left to her own devices at first but she'd gotten
over it. Most of the injuries were minor, bumps, scrapes, cuts, and bruises she
could easily deal with. Anything more serious she could call in Ezri or
Numiria.

Whenever
any of the staff complained about the hard workload, she would take them for a
walk through the injured wards. One look of pain or anguish on a face would
shut them up. They would realize that a true medic would learn anything if it
meant easing a patient's suffering.

Irons
was right though, she thought as she looked at the tablet. Right again, she
mused. It was too much to just absorb in an hands-on experience. She was
curious about the sleep teaching methods he had mentioned briefly. She decided
to look into it and made a note.

He
was also right about the staff organization. She needed to work that out a bit
more and work on the schedule for both facilities. For years she and the
doctors before her had taken a light hand in training and really had kept a
loose eye on the titles. Doctors, orderlies, nurses, before they were all the
same, people who were learning. Over time and with a great deal of experience a
nurse could become a doctor. That was how Numiria had at any rate. Well, she'd
actually been interested in becoming a doctor from the beginning she admitted
to herself.

Which
was something else to think about. Some wanted to keep updating their skills
but they weren't ready or confident enough to handle the higher more riskier
things in medicine. Things that really required skilled hands to do on a daily
basis. A doctors hands. Or in the cases of some of the orderlies, a nurses
hands.

She
was the only doctor on the ship but she had a half a dozen interns including
Light Touch. She wondered if she could distribute them in shifts; put one or
two on each shift? No, they still had their education to consider. No, she'd
have to work something else out.

“One
month to go. Yup, thirty days,” a chimp said. Irons looked over to the fellow
nursing a stein. They were in galley three, which was slowly being rebuilt.
Most of the trophies and other things on the walls were packed away. One of the
walls had been knocked out and the space had been extended to form a proper
pub. Now the staff was busy keeping the place clean while patrons knocked a few
back and talked. He was looking forward to replacing the wood paneling that had
been on the walls. They were going to keep an Irish theme, but keep the wood
paneling light, not dark and dank. They wanted a festive atmosphere, a place to
unwind, not a dungeon. At least that was what Alice insisted when she had it
out with her husband Ralphie over the subject. Their row had echoed throughout
the deck yesterday.

“Getting
there,” Irons nodded. There was a video on the flat screen in the corner. He
glanced at it and then ignored it. Canned material from the files. Most of it
was old. Very old. Since they didn't have very much in the way of current
programming the media people were filling in the gaps with old sports games and
historical news tidbits or documentaries. The sports games got the most
attention of course, documentaries usually dulled people into a doze.

He
was glad a few people like Toni Chambers had stepped up to form a media
department. He wasn't sure how they'd convinced the senior staff, most likely Toni's
involvement had had something to do with its success in getting past the
captain and the miserly ops officer.

“Heard
we have you to thank for getting there faster,” the chimp said, saluting him
with the stein. “Health and happiness,” he said.

“You
and yours as well,” Irons responded in kind.

“Yep,
wify's been busting her ass right out there with you. Heard you're going out on
the hull with her when we pop out of hyper. Take care of her will you?” The
chimp asked, giving him a look.

“Your
wife?” Irons asked, searching his memory.

“Coming
up blank myself admiral,” Sprite said in his ear.

He
frowned. “I don't remember any chimp EVA techs,” he said.

The
chimp burped. He had a black security outfit on. Off duty obviously. “She ain't
a chimp,” the chimp growled, turning to face him with a scowl. “For your
information she's a gorilla,” he said, stabbing a drunken index finger into
Iron's chest.

“Okay,
sorry,” Irons said, holding his hands up. “I didn't know. No offense,” he said.

“Offense
taken,” the chimp slurred. “She's my wife mannn,” he slurred and then teetered
a bit before steadying himself.

“Lay
off,” a woman's voice said, and a brown furred meaty arm separated the two of
them suddenly. Irons leaned back as a gorilla female hugged the chimp and then
looked at him. “We have a problem?” she growled.

“Nope,
nuh uh. No ma'am. I just stuck my foot in my mouth. Nice to meet you ma'am,” he
said nodding and holding his hands up again.

“Savo
you being a naughty boy again?” she asked looking down at her chimp husband.

“Nope,
he is,” the chimp said, pointing unsteadily at Irons.

The
gorilla turned on Irons. “What's it about?”

“I
made an assumption. When he told me you were on the crew I assumed you were a
chimp. I didn't know any better at the time. I apologize for the error,” he
said, hand on his heart. People around them were looking at them warily.

“Should
teach you a lesson,” the chimp said.

The
gorilla turned to the chimp. “It's all right Savo, he didn't mean it. Ignorant
bigot. We get them all the time. No need to prove your manhood to me,” she
cooed. Irons winced.

“Why
that... You were ignorant yes but not a bigot!” Sprite snapped in Irons ear.
Irons made a miniscule shrug. He felt his cheeks heating a little.

“Teach
him some manners,” Savo slurred. The gorilla chuffed, taking him in hand before
he could take a swing at Irons.

“Admiral
should we call security?” Defender asked. Irons shook his head slightly no.

“Again
I apologize for the misunderstanding,” Irons replied.

“Bigot,”
Savo muttered darkly.

“He's
not a bigot!” Sprite said from the screen. Irons covered his face and sighed.
Here we go he thought with a pang.

“Sprite...
not helping,” he ground out.

“He's
not. He's had a lot of chimp friends, including the chief of engineering on the
freighter Destiny and the chief's family. Chief Bailey is a good friend. He's a
good man. I'll have you know he's had a relationship with a chimp at the war
college. She said she was saddle sore for a couple of days after their first
encounter.”

“Sprite,
you're killing me here,” Irons said quietly as all eyes turned on him. He
covered first his eyes and then his mouth in embarrassment. He felt his teeth
grind together and the heat in his cheeks inflame even more. His ears felt like
they were on fire. Damn. He sighed. People were staring. He heard a few
snickers. Great.

There
was a reason Terrans were known as kissing cousins. Terrans would get it on
with just about anyone if they could wrap their minds around a bioform. Many
Terrans over the past millennia had changed themselves to better suit a given
fetish for a species. Even before Neo uplift Terran humans were altering
themselves or dreaming up ways to get it on with an alien species.

More
than one alien species had been put off by a Terran getting a little to frisky,
even if only in fun. Sometimes he wondered about his species sanity.

“See?
Wants to take you away,” The chimp said, trying to lash out. The gorilla
chuffed and hauled the chimp off the stool. The chimp was looking over her arm
at him, giving him a full threat display, hair up, canines bared, shrieking in
anger. She reached down and kissed him to shut him up.

When
the kiss broke he was staring up at her. She stroked his face with a massive
hand. “No he's not. He's not man enough for me. So come on lover boy, let’s go
see if you can prove your manhood the right way,” she said with an inviting
smile.

The
chimp froze and then blinked at the gorilla blearily. Irons watched the impasse
like everyone else in the room.

After
what seemed like an hour but was really only a few minutes the chimp's face
loosened into a toothy smile. The gorilla returned the smile with a challenging
one. “All right, you're on honey,” he said.

“Come
on sugar,” she cooed. He turned.

“You
keep your mitts off my gal,” he growled. They walked out together. Irons sighed
shaking his head.

“So,
you went from bigot to would be adulterer in nothing flat. New record,” the
bartender said dryly as he wiped at the counter.