Jeep light.
Wind swept dark tatters across a sky rippling with cloud like a well‑muscled torso, bringing with it the smell of dust and grass and a sweetness she could not identify. The gig stood on an apron of concrete roughened and rubber‑streaked by countless landings. In the distance low buildings huddled against the wind.
She walked down the ramp. The concrete was hard under her soft boots. She eased her weight from one foot to another, testing her balance, feeling her muscles adjust to the difference in gravity. She sniffed, trying to equate the spicy sweet smell on the wind to something she knew: nutmeg, sun on beetle wings, the wild smell of heather.
A woman was approaching. Marghe squinted against the bright concrete light and shaded her eyes. A Mirror. For a moment the spicy breeze of Jeep became the thin air of Beaver; fear and anger flooded her system. She breathed slowly, deliberately. This was Jeep. Jeep.
The Mirror was not wearing the mirror‑visored helmet that had given Company Security members their name, but the rest of her slick, impact‑resistant armor was parade‑ground tidy.
“Marguerite Angelica Taishan?” Marghe nodded and the Mirror made a formal semi‑bow. “I’m Officer Kahn. Acting Commander Danner assigned me to show you your quarters.” She paused and Marghe managed a nod. “It’s a bit of a walk. If the gravity bothers you, I could summon a sled.”
“Walking is fine.” She followed the Mirror, stepping over a thick cable that snaked away from the gig and down an access hole. She had nothing to carry. It made her feel vulnerable and alone.
They walked for almost twenty minutes across concrete and then scrubby yellow grass before they reached the living mods. Many of their regulation doors were carved and painted in different designs. One had been framed with handmade bricks. She had never seen that before in a Company outpost.
Officer Kahn led her along a hard dirt path to the door of an untouched unit. “It needs keying,” she said.
Marghe obediently put her palm on the lock and recited her name and status. The door panel blinked an acknowledge, then invited her to punch in a code for additional personal security.
Inside, the air was clean and filtered. The mod followed standard Company layout: desk and chair, bed, soft floor, bathroom niche, comm port, light panels but no heat or air controls. Filtered air was piped in at a constant seventy degrees. She pulled off her disk pouch and dropped it on the desk by the comm port. She was unpacked.
“Commander Danner thought you might wish to take a few hours to rest and refresh yourself, perhaps look around Port Central.” The Mirror took a wristcom from a pocket on her belt and held it out to Marghe. “The memory already has the commander’s call code, and a few others you might need today. She asks that you contact her when you’re ready to meet.”
Marghe fastened it around her left wrist.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No. Thank you.”
Officer Kahn half turned to the door, then turned back. She cleared her throat. “Look, it’s always rough coming down alone. I get off duty in five or six hours. Why don’t you come along to recreation then? I’ll introduce you to some people.”
“I’m not interested,” Marghe said harshly.
The muscles around Kahn’s eyes tightened. “As you wish.” She punched the door panel harder than necessary. The door hissed open and she ducked out into the wind.
Marghe sat down on the bed. She had not handled that very well. But the last time she had seen a Mirror he had been standing by with arms folded, smiling, instead of stopping three miners from beating her unconscious.
The comm port was standard Company issue. She called up a schematic of Port Central and scanned the data.
Hannah Danner nodded dismissal to Officer Kahn and waited for her to close the office door behind her before reopening the folder stamped FOR ATTN. OF CMDR, SECURITY PERSONNEL, ONLY: MARGUERITE ANGELICA TAISHAN.
She pulled out the eight‑by‑ten facsimile. The color balance was wrong, giving the complexion an orangy tint. She looked at the strong face, the broad jaw, and wondered what color Taishan’s eyes really were. The picture showed them a muddy yellow. It had been taken at her recontract interview two years ago. People changed a great deal in two years.
She looked over at the picture of herself in full armor that occupied the corner of the desk. It had been taken on the day she had gotten her promotion to lieutenant and learned that she was being posted to Jeep. Her visor was pushed up and she was grinning: a younger, smooth‑faced version of herself. A self who believed there was no problem too hard to solve, nothing not covered by the rule book. Sometimes she found it hard to believe only five years separated the face she saw every morning in the mirror and the face she saw in this picture.
Irritated suddenly by the idealism in that face, she leaned across the desk and thumbed the picture blank.
Marguerite Angelica Taishan was not an idealist. Once, perhaps, but no longer. She read the list of injuries Taishan had sustained in the attack on Beaver, then read the charges she had leveled at Company. Taishan had a point. It had been a careful beating and, reading between the lines, an officer could have prevented it before serious damage was done. According to Taishan’s deposition, the representative had disregarded threats designed to intimidate and had submitted an unfavorable report regarding Company’s operation on BV 4, recommending that the planet not be opened for long‑term settlement by Company miners and their families.
Danner turned a page.
SEC had not backed their representative; they had approved long‑term settlement. Taishan had fought, taking the issue as high as she could before being given an official warning. Danner frowned. That warning seemed to have knocked the stuffing from Taishan; she had stopped complaining and accepted another post. But just two days before departure she had resigned abruptly.
Danner looked at the closed face in the picture again. How did it feel to have one’s trained opinion judged worthless? What did it do to one’s self‑esteem? She hoped she would never find out.
Taishan had become Professor of ET Anthropology at Aberystwyth. The dossier was thorough. It listed her publications: articles on subjects ranging from the evolution of Welsh to the deterioration of kinship allegiance among the population of Gallipoli since reintegration. There were two book‑length works; Danner did not have to read the abstract for one, Uneasy Alliance–SEC As Independent Arbiter?, to guess the subject matter. Also listed were her extracurricular activities (tai chi, chi kung, various biofeedback disciplines), her credit rating (mid‑range), and biographical details of her last lover (no leverage possibilities noted). A note indicated that although her father was a hardline antigovernment activist, Taishan had had little contact with him since the death of her mother several months before recontract. A psychological report made several guesses as to why that might be, but Danner did not put much faith in such things. The important thing about the psych sheet was the fact that they could not come up with enough objections to outweigh Taishan’s qualifications for the job of SEC rep on this kind of world. She had the ability to spend large periods of time alone, an innate belief in herself, a prodigious linguistic talent, and superb physical fitness. She was a flawed SEC tool, yes, but the best they had.
Danner had never heard of an SEC employee getting a second chance. There again, she did not know of many people who would volunteer to risk their lives for something as abstract as knowledge.
She turned to the section at the back of the report, “Miscellaneous.” After reading one paragraph, she closed the dossier. There was no reason she needed to know Taishan’s sexual preferences or her personal hygiene habits.