Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) (5 page)

“No. I’ve been embarrassed enough
today. I’ll walk,” Red said softly.

Marsh gazed at her intently. “Young
lady, embarrassment is the least of your worries. If you shift into high-gamma
brain waves outside a training exercise again, I’ll pull you from the program
on a medical discharge.”

“Yes, sir.” As Red stood to go, she
noticed an aspect of the room she’d missed before: the ceiling above the bed
was covered with a series of photographs like a panoramic x-ray. It was a
snapshot of the orbiting alien artifact, taken by the light of the first test
of the star-drive. Moreover, there were dozens of circles and lines on the
photograph, labeled with mathematical formulae. The computations couldn’t be
seen from the outer office, but Zeiss probably went to sleep thinking about
this problem every night.

Roast beef, indeed. This man was
hiding something.

After locating her personal freezer at the clinic
laboratory, Red prepared a five-star meal. The nurses objected until she shared
a few packets of shrimp in cream sauce with them. Once she set her goggles on
motion-detector mode, Red reluctantly went to sleep in the hospital bed.

That night, Zeiss tried to be
helpful and set up a preliminary class schedule for the girl. While he was
doing research, he stumbled upon an odd date stamp on one of her digital
records. All the signatures matched and everything seemed plausible, but one of
the records had been created a year before the document in the image. Someone
had forged her school records. He dialed Professor Horvath at 2300.

She answered, sounding tired. “I
read the medical response report. Good job.”

“There’s a problem with the new
girl.”

“What did she do this time?”

“Her transcript has an anomaly.”

“Shit. Has anyone else seen it?”

“No. My access stamp is the only—”

“Fix it.”

“Excuse me? I’m reporting a
security violation.”

“Repair it and any other errors you
find. Fake damage if you have to. Then wipe your computer and forget what you
did.”

He would lose over an hour of sleep
time. “Confirmation code, sir?”

“Sirius level four. The world is
full of beautiful things: Dr. Doolittle.”

“Yes, sir. Can you tell me why?”

“No. But I vouch for her
personally. Just help her fit in.”

“That mission’s above my pay grade,
sir,” he replied, deadpan.

That was the first laugh Trina had
all day.

****

Red awoke early Sunday morning and
tried to sneak out the back. The nurse who caught her said, “That means we’ll
have to lock you in your room until Dr. Marsh arrives.”

“But he’s adjusted all my meds and
he took all the samples and readings. God, I’m so tired of this.”

“He said to add an hour every time
you argued,” the nurse explained.

Red growled as she climbed back
into bed, dressed in yesterday’s flight suit. Due to the ‘no thought’ rule, she
wasn’t allowed to have a computer or her goggles. She was attempting to jerry-rig
the TV to get access to campus resources when a voice behind her said, “Is
there a rule that you haven’t tried to break?”

She almost hit her head on the
overhang when she jumped. It was Zeiss, the damn sneak. She replied, “The
problem with any authority that requires enforcement of arbitrary rules is that
it’s almost always wrong.”

His hair was wet, reminding her
that she still hadn’t showered. The blond TA handed her an ID badge. The
picture was the one taken during her admission to the clinic. She looked
terrible in the gown. “Professor Horvath expedited your student ID so I could
schedule some classes for you.”

Glaring at the badge, she muttered,
“Real mature, Trina.” Turning her best eyelash-batting smile toward Zeiss, she
said, “You’re too kind. You wouldn’t happen to have a comp-pad handy so I could
look over that schedule?”

“Sure,” he said, pulling the
portable out of his gym bag. He brought up the last page accessed and showed
her. “0900 has to be Intro to Alien Technology with Professor Sorenson. The
next hour is Anti-terrorism with Professor Horvath, the same as everyone else.”

“Can’t I test out or something?”

“You need to take that up with
her.”

“Fine,” she said in a tone that
meant anything but.

“At 1400 on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
you have Extreme Environment Training.”

She snorted. “Wash out 101. I’ve heard.”

He nodded. “Each week, by Saturday
at 0800, you’ll have to drop off a log entry to Dr. Marsh. It’ll be encrypted
by your badge key and no one else will be authorized to listen. There’s a list
of suggested questions.”

“Yeah, email me.”

“I teach a seminar on quantum
particles next semester. Meanwhile, I have you slotted for remote class in Calabi-Yau
modeling at 1700. I hope you don’t mind a Chinese accent.”

When she saw the professor’s name,
she smiled. “No. Sitting in his class will be an honor. How did you get me in
this late?”

“I did some work for him at CERN.”

Her glow lasted till she saw the
next class. “Intro to Tensor Calculus at 0600. Be real. I’ve already learned
most of this for something else. And I never get out of bed before eight.”

“You need to have a firm foundation
before building on it. You’re impressive at what you do; you’re off the scale
on Intuitive . . . but you have a lot of gaps. Trust me; the devil is in the
details. You can’t use your talent as a crutch.” At the word ‘crutch’, she
raised an eyebrow. He continued, “It’s only one class, three days a week. You
can still take one more elective, your choice.”

“Flight training, Saturday morning.
I’ll need it to unwind.”

He took the tablet back and tapped
in her request for the Saturday slot.

Red sat on the bed. “I’ll just take
the midterm and final for Tensor.”

Zeiss shook his head. “No. To get
credit for the class, you still have to log in every day. They can’t make you
watch, but you’ll have regular homework which you can discuss with me each
week.”

“You’ll work with me?”

“As long as you don’t scare me like
that again,” he said with a smile. “Tuesdays at noon are open, but I can meet
during office hours whenever you need.”

“Why?” she asked.

“So we can discuss geometry,
proofs, and all the things you’ve been ignoring for years.”

“Ick. Why would I do that?”

“It’s my requirement for being your
faculty adviser. With your . . . condition, only about four staff members have
the clearance. Of those, only Professor Horvath has an opening.”

Red rolled her eyes. “I wonder
why.”

“This isn’t a plot. You came in,
uninvited and outside normal channels. We’re doing our best to accommodate.”

Softening, she said, “I appreciate
everything you’ve done for me. You have been a gentleman and a scholar.” He bowed
curtly in acknowledgement of the compliment. “If only there were something I
could do in return . . . What was your tensor mechanics problem for?”

“Sirius level two work, for my
dissertation.”

“You’re struggling with it?”

“The whole world is,” he admitted. “I’m
trying to come up with a new angle. I don’t want to tell anyone until it’s
proven.”

“The FTL flash photos on your
ceiling,” she guessed. When his face shifted to a mask, Red rushed to add, “I’m
cleared for that. Let me look at your preliminary results. I might be able to
help.”

“Sirius two for a freshman?” the TA
challenged.

She swiped her crypto-ring over the
pad, and he blinked. “How? That clearance took me months and I’m a teacher.”

“If I told you that, men in black
helicopters would have to kill you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t let you
pass out again.”

“No. Don’t worry. Remember
intuition? I might surprise you.”

“You’re a multiple talent,” he
whispered. “Simplification?”

She made an “Oops” face.

“You had to know I’d guess. I’m
Sorenson’s TA for the class on talents.”

“Maybe I can trust you. You’ve
already dragged me into your bed. How much more private does it get?”

Zeiss looked around for nurses. “Don’t
joke about that again. I’m up for a professorship at Oxford. One whiff of
scandal, and . . .”

“Relax. I’m offering an exchange of
scientific services,” Red said calmly. “You get up every day at six, right?”

“How did you know?”

“The schedule on your office wall.”

“Uh, yes.”

“Log me in when you get up, and
I’ll help you with your dissertation.”

“You’re very persuasive. But I make
my own decisions.”

He was resisting her Empathy talent,
so she decided for the truth. “Look, if you’re going to be my undergrad adviser,
we need to trust each other. Regardless of what you answer, I’ll never lie to
you.”

“Because I’m a teacher?”

“Because you risked your reputation
to save my life,” she asserted. “I’m offering to tell you three things about
your own dissertation that you may not have noticed. I’ll give you my badge and
you just have to swipe it on the computer on your way by. I’ll do all the work;
I just don’t want to get up that early.”

“I can’t take you back to my room.”

“Then book a secure simulation
suite,” she suggested.

“I’ll go do that,” he said,
cheerfully. When she attempted to follow, he said, “You can meet me there when
you’re out of the sin bin.”

“What?” she exclaimed, outraged.

“It’s a hockey term. The nurse
warned me you’d try to sneak out again, before you did your time. Be a man;
take the penalty and learn from it.”

Red growled in frustration as he
waved goodbye. She contented herself with a quiche from her freezer while she
waited. The day nurse, Betsy, tried a bite and ended up eating a whole meal
while sharing her life’s story. Betsy knew a few burly maintenance men who
might do her a favor. In exchange for two packets of Kobe beef, Red had her
freezer moved to the dorm while she watched reruns of “The Love Boat” in
Chinese. Even the news and stock channels were blocked.

****

Zeiss was eating lunch in the
simulation room when Red arrived. She teased, “Never eat at a keyboard. There
are more germs there than a toilet seat.”

“That’s about the only place I have
time to eat, and I’ve never missed a day of school or work.” He wiped his mouth
with a napkin, and offered her a bottled tea. “I saved you a drink, same type
as before.”

Nervous, she noted, “Is the other
one open yet? I’d like to try them all.”

He handed his own preference over.
“The guest chooses. Before you say anything else, I need to inform you that I’m
recording this session. Only Professor Horvath will ever see it. But I have to
prove I’m not taking advantage of you in any way. If you do have problems, the doctor
can study it for symptoms.”

“Yes, Mr. Rules.”

“Now if you’ll turn off that light,
I’ll show you my theory.”

She tapped the button on the
simulation room wall while the blond scientist brought up a view of space and
overlaid several images.

“The Honolulu recording of the test,”
she noted.

“They’re the clearest.” Pointing
with a laser device, he said, “See these dark patches? I think the anomalies
are windows, not the same ones we captured in the first drive flash. I’ve
compared to two other flashes, and look. They’re moving light holes. These
equations are attempts to predict the next opening. I’ve anticipated only one
so far.”

“That’s brilliant,” she said
sincerely. “You’re so close.”

“What?”

“Make this flat image
three-dimensional by using data from all the observatories.”

The import took him twenty minutes.
She borrowed his pad and played a game on it. While he was distracted, she also
downloaded some subtle spyware to infiltrate the Academy systems. The virus
would obscure evidence of her true identity.

When all the images were in sync
before them, Red grabbed his laser pointer and announced, “One: they’re not
moving, at least not as fast as you think they are. The windows are opening in
sequence, only when facing the sun.” She indicated the sun and the pattern in
the sequence he hadn’t caught.

“Yes. How did you . . . ?”

“Two: it’s a giant sphere. There’s
a formula to find the circle size.”

“Using four points to determine the
origin.”

“Yeah, I hate geometry.”

He did the calculation in his head.
“It’s huge, over two kilometers across.”

“Damn, and you don’t even get a
nosebleed doing that. Maybe you
can
teach me something,” she admitted.

Zeiss stared at what was now
incredibly obvious. “Why didn’t I see it before?”

“Brace yourself,” she warned, and
he literally sat down. “That’s not the important part. Look for chlorophyll on
the wavelength scans.” When he looked puzzled, she whispered, “Three: the
windows are there to feed plants.”

“You’re a genius,” he said with
awe.

“Yeah, but those are a dime a dozen
around here.”

“This is world-changing.”

“Don’t ask me to write a word of it
down. I hate spelling as much as I hate proofs,” she insisted.

“I need to capture the information
and wipe the memory banks before they turn this whole simulator building into
an arcade for Sunday afternoon.”

While he was still gawking at the
pattern in wonder, she said, “About the morning class . . .”

“I’ll take care of it. Just be in
my office Tuesday at noon.”

She tossed him her ID on the way
out.

Risa wasn’t happy when Red returned. “Did you send those
imaricons
with that huge freaking freezer?” She radiated onions and peppers, the kind one
needed latex gloves to handle safely.

“Yes?” said the girl in the flight
suit. The Panamanian engineer cursed in Spanish while Red looked around the
common area. “Where did they put it?”

“The other girls refused to keep it
in the group kitchen because no one else can unlock it and no one else wants to
pay for the extra electricity. Then they put it in
my
day room. It takes
up more space than the sofa! In fact, they had to move the sofa out to get your
freezer in. Then, while I’m arguing on the phone with facilities about a
hundred-dollar weekend hookup fee . . .” Red tuned out during another invective
stream. “. . . stole my sofa out of the common area.”

“Breathe. I’ll pay for the hookup.
My bad. Let’s step into our room; people are gathering to watch.” When they
were alone, Red explained, “You have every right to be upset. However, I was
being held captive in the clinic, and I didn’t want a month’s supply of gourmet
food to rot while some doctor ran another test that came up negative.”

“Are you okay?” her roommate said,
concern momentarily trumping the anger.

“Fine. It turns out I just hadn’t
eaten in a while. And I really need
this
food,” Red stressed. Holding up
her wristwatch, she said, “This button here scans for radioactive poisons
because someone actually tried them on my mom at a public dinner.”

“
Madre de Dios
.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t consult you, but
I paid them to deliver the freezer so it would be here for the party.”

The Latina’s attitude shifted.
“Party?”

“Yeah, a housewarming dinner party
I wanted to throw for you, Sojiro, and a few other people I’m thinking of
recruiting for my team.” Sensing the engineer was about to yield, Red added,
“Of course I’ll need you to help me decide who we invite.”

“Well, we’ll have to invite everybody
in the pod . . . except those thieving bitches in room three.”

“Agreed. And I want to customize
the wiring in here, so I was going to start with someone who has a skill we
need on the mission but also does electrical wiring. We’ll slip that request in
over dessert.”

“Herkemer,” Risa said, licking her
lips.

Red raised an eyebrow. “That was
quick.”

“You know, we have a few classes
together.”

“Is he cute?”

“Ay!”

“Available?”

“Yes, but unaware women exist.
We’re just shorter people who pass him tools.”

Red chuckled. Then she pulled up
her research on the man. “He’s a Polish robot technician who got a medal for
heroism for defusing a bomb. He’s almost twenty because he had to finish two
years of military service. He even invented a new gizmo for the fingers of the
disposal robot. His grandfather was a general.”

“Wow. You’ve got a lot of data
there.”

“All public domain.”

“What do you have about me?”

Without looking at the pad, Red
said, “Seventeen, you competed in a solar-powered car contest this past June.
You noticed a crack in one of the other cars’ frames, redesigned the load
distribution and welded the damage for them. They won the event.”

“You knew who I was when you met
me?”

“I liked what I read. I had to meet
you to know you.”

“What are you doing here?” Risa
asked, wrinkling her eyebrows together.

“All will be revealed after dinner.
But if this Herk character passes muster, we’ll be seeing a lot of him,” Red
noted. “I’ll be sure to invite him by on at least three occasions when you’re
conveniently wearing something feminine.”

Risa grinned predatorily. “You
actually plan things like that?”

“Me? No. But a friend of mine in
ladies’ finishing school is notorious for it . . . which is why she’s doing
time in an all-girls’ school.”

Risa chuckled. “Okay. We let the
freezer
gigante
in on a trial basis.”

Red did the math. Four packets for
bribes and twelve for the party shortened her food supply by almost a week.
She’d have to order more in another two weeks, but she forced a smile as they
planned.

****

Sojiro was first to arrive, coming
fifteen minutes early, while the girls were still preparing. The girl from
across the hall came into the commons in curlers, panicking till Red explained,
“Gay.”

“Are you sure?”

Red pointed to his fingernails.
“Manicured today, and his shoes cost more than yours did.”

The girl breathed a sigh of relief
and continued to the bathroom.

Sojiro chuckled. “I wish my parents
paid attention like you did. Maybe I wouldn’t still be dreading that big
discussion.”

Red was in a blue flight suit that
matched her eyes and the new colored stripe in her hair. “Mine are dead, so I
can’t help you there. Have some mole dip; Risa made it.”

“Are you getting moved in okay?”

“Yeah. I just had to run out to the
BX to get shampoo. They won’t let me use the stuff I stole from my hotel—not
environmentally friendly enough.”

“Smells nice: cherry,” he noted. “Did
you get all your textbooks while you were there?”

“No. I’ll buy them tomorrow before
class. It’s not like I’m going to read them all tonight.”

“Sunday’s the best time to shop.
Everyone else is playing at the pool, getting skin cancer and VD.”

She laughed. “I don’t like crowds.”

“I . . . don’t have many friends. I
brought you a gift.” He handed her an 8x11 sketch of an anime character in
underwear, goggles, and a bomber jacket. She was packing two blasters and a lot
of attitude. Behind her stood a robot with a phallic rifle. Across the top was
the title “Magenta.”

“Red, Magenta—you don’t think
someone will get the connection?”

“The people here are supposed to. It’s
my fictionalized journal, remember?”

“What part is fictionalized?” she
asked with a grin.

“It’s set in a world where the
first Cassavettis Drive test blew up most of the planet.” Her smile vanished.
“Relax. I’ve got a lot of wild ideas in my manga. One of my ideas got me sent
here. I came up with a theory that the aliens use base three because they have
only three fingers.”

“That actually makes sense. I
always assumed it had something to do with being telepathic and wanting to be
as clear as possible. Did they let you try out the red-giant mapping device?”

He nodded but didn’t clarify.

Red noted, “You think like an
alien.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,”
Sojiro said. Nodding to the sketch, he asked, “How do you
like
it?”

“She kicks butt. I’ll try to live
up to her image and find a place to display it in my living room.” He seemed
adequately flattered when she temporarily stuck it on the freezer with a
magnet.

****

At 1730 that night, after Herkemer
had his third entrée and second dessert, Red said goodnight to the other girls
of the pod.

“He has
appetites
,”
whispered Risa to Red as they led the two men into their sitting room. However,
it was too crowded. The Latina had to open the bedroom door and sit on the
bunk. Sojiro sat on the study chair.

“On,” Risa said to no effect.
“Darn, I’m used to voice-command circuits.”

“I could rig one,” the Polish hero
bragged. “Even a little girl could manage that.”

“Watch it,” said Red, playfully. “Sorry
it’s so cramped, Mr. Herkemer.”

“Call me Herk,” he said, picking up
the freezer and setting it on the built-in desk.

Sojiro gasped and Risa echoed with
a hushed, “You know it.”

“That works, thank you,” said Red,
losing her original planned speech.

“Look, I owe you for wonderful meal
and much female company. Three phone numbers they stuffed in my pocket. But I
need to be getting sleep soon. I have class at 5:30. What is real purpose for
meeting?”

Red closed the door to the common
area. “Sit. I have a proposition for you all. You can accept or not, but I ask
that you keep what we say here in strictest confidence,” said the girl in the blue
flight suit.

They all agreed. Sojiro got out his
pad and began sketching Herk in a loincloth.

“I’m forming the Sirius team.”

“Why so early?” asked Herk,
thickening his accent. “Is plenty of time.”

“No,
the
team, the one
that’s going.”

“Impossible, they’d never let us do
that,” said Herk.

“I didn’t say I was going to ask; I
said I was going to do it.”

“How?” asked Risa.

“I can’t share all the details yet;
I’m still planning, including who’ll be on the team. But if I could prove what
I’m saying, would you all join?”

“Of course.” “
Por supuesto
.”
“Yeah,” they all agreed at the same time.

“Swear your silence, even to
teachers and your own governments,” insisted Red.

“By the Virgin,” promised Risa.

“May my manuscript be burned if I
talk,” said the Japanese man.

“I don’t swear by anything; I mean
what I say. Ask anybody.”

Red scanned him with her
empathy—mashed potatoes with just a hint of salt. “Good enough for me. How many
talents does it take to make first contact?”

“All twenty-seven, one of each
kind,” said Risa, and the others nodded.

“We can contact the aliens with
only two-thirds of the pages. They planned for destruction and loss. Even the
UN doesn’t know, and I don’t plan on telling them,” Red stressed. “We can make
the run at the artifact with only eighteen pages and no one will suspect
because we don’t have the magic number.”

Everyone remained silent for a full
minute. Herk cleared his throat. “Amazing theory. What is proof?”

“I can’t tell you the direct
evidence without endangering lives. But I can prove that Fortune Aerospace was
convinced. They gave me the
Half-Pint
to train in.”

“Half-sized means only fourteen
seats, seven on each side,” argued Sojiro.

“Plus the rumble seat for extra pilot
or faculty on training mission,” said Herk, who’d been inside the new craft.

“Plus the three crew members. They
aren’t counted because the cockpit is detachable from the cargo pod, not that
anyone in NASA would ever leave their passengers behind. But the bureaucrats
signed off on it. We turned half-scale into a full mission—eighteen. QED.”

“Holy Toledo,” said Sojiro.

The invitees glanced at each other,
and then broke out in smiles. “We’re
the
team,” said Herk.

“And no mention of the two-thirds
rule to
anyone.
If I hear wind of a leak, I’ll scrap the whole team and
start over. None of you will go.”

“Why are you the leader?” asked
Risa. “Isn’t there supposed to be a team election, tests, and stuff?”

Red shrugged. “I started the team.
I get things done, and there’s a whole world of secrets I haven’t told anyone.
Tonight was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“You scare me a little, but I
believe you, too. I follow,” declared Herk. “What you need me to do? Build bug
sweeper?”

“No, I’ve got those. Just go to
class like normal. Keep your eye out for strong candidates. Have dinner with us
every once in a while,” said Red. “For now, it’s all about building our team in
secret and learning to work together. I figure we’ll add about four members a
year. The copilot role will be hardest to fill.”

Red paused, joined hands with the
people on each side, and looked each one in the eyes. “The important thing is
that from now on, if anyone needs help, we’re there for each other like
family.”

“Family,” they repeated.

She had everyone enter the other
members in their phones with the ICE—in case of emergency—designation and
remove time-based blocks on their calls.