Death of a Starship Read Online Free Page B

memory
began.
    He just wasn’t sure what it
was.
    No proctors came for him. After a
while, Golliwog pulled himself up out of the chair and stood on the
rim of the lowest level of the exam room.
    Free to go where, Golliwog
wondered. He’d never been free to do anything.
    ‡
    Golliwog sat in a study carrel in
the research library. The room was high-ceilinged, three decks, one
of the few decorative spaces he’d ever seen. Most compartments on
Powell Station were functional. Sometimes that function was behind
the eyes of the beholder. He thought that might be the case here,
but Golliwog didn’t have many semiotic associations for the idea of
“library.” It was just a quiet place, trimmed with wood pillars and
long falls of fabric, featuring many terminals and a few hardbooks.
And sometimes people who helped you learn to ask better questions
of the systems.
    He wasn’t here studying anything,
he just didn’t know where else to go. His training cadre’s suite
was shut down for cleaning, so he’d come here. He was looking at a
randomly-selected virteo about the nut trade on Fentress-IIb when
Old Anatid found him.
    Golliwog suspected that Anatid was
younger than Froggie, but the mentor had been through something
somewhere that had fried a lot of his systems, both human-norm
biological and bione enhanced. The mentor’s skin was puckered with
worm-track scars, and he sometimes smelled of ozone. All through
Golliwog’s life, Old Anatid had disappeared for a few days every
month or so for deep medical treatment. The Navy wouldn’t waste
this much effort on a bione if he wasn’t exceptionally valuable,
but Old Anatid had a way with the Golliwogs of Powell
Station.
    Golliwog wasn’t certain what else
went on at Powell Station, but the training of the bione classes
clearly consumed a large amount of attention, resources and energy.
Old Anatid was part of that.
    “ It’s always a test, boy,” said
Old Anatid, dragging a chair from a nearby carrel.
    Golliwog shut off the virteo. “I
know.”
    “ What would you do cut off from
support on a public station? Or in a dirtside city?”
    Golliwog smiled. “Is that a
training question?”
    “ No.” Anatid waved vaguely. “No
more than everything else is in this life. They could have given
you a bunk assignment and a meal chitty. Everyone else on station
has one. They’re letting you dangle, boy.”
    “ And so I dangle, sir.”
    Old Anatid watched him for a while.
Golliwog stared back – he was quite good at that. It wasn’t the
cold-eyed assessment of Dr. Yee, or a surgeon about to replace his
long bones. There was something more like fondness, even kinship in
that look.
    “ You’ll be briefed...eventually,”
Anatid finally said. “But if it were me going out right now, I
might take some interest in the xenic question.”
    Golliwog’s training had included an
excellent education. He could speak six languages, service a
c-drive or a gravimetric trap generator, and synthesize poisons
from over two hundred Terran-standard plants. He wasn’t used to
being completely uninformed about something. “The xenic question,
sir?”
    “ You’re in a library. Use it. Just
know there’s been some quiet whispers of concern lately, in certain
very high offices.” Old Anatid stood up, patted Golliwog on the
head and left.
    ‡
    patron17: tell me about
xenics
    Library: Would you like a
definition?
    patron17: yes
    Library: Xenic, n. and adj., One of
or pertaining to nonhuman intelligences rumored to be acting on
human affairs and conducting espionage and sabotage within Imperial
space.
    patron17: are they real
    Library: The xenic influence has
never been verified. Existence of xenics has never been
conclusively demonstrated.
    patron17: why do people
believe
    Library: Many reasons. These
reasons include cultural paranoia, caution in the face of a hostile
environment, and the apparent human need for an external enemy.
There are also chains of circumstantial evidence which can