To Sweep the Stars

By Beth Kuda

A shuttle full of people disappeared without a trace. Among those missing was the husband of Ea Cummings, Fleet Security Specialist. Unlike everyone else, Ea wasn't prepared to shrug her shoulders and go on about her business. She was determined to find her husband and get him back. But time was running out...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Kuda
• Release date: Jun 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476182223

Beth Kuda

About the Author Beth Kuda lives in a forest in the Ozark region of Missouri, with a fluctuating household that includes various rescued cats and dogs, as well as native wildlife. As her father once remarked, she has her feet planted firmly in midair. This is an advantage, however, because it allows her to pursue both dreams and reality, in the form of music, art, and writing. She served in the US Air Force and she has written for such publications as Ultimate Audio and Audio Adventure, as well as several local and national newspapers and poetry anthologies.

Book preview

Chapter One

Dr. Laura Jamieson, may I present Dr. Ealia Shannon, the staff escort said. Dr. Shannon, this is Dr. Jamieson, the program director.

Welcome, Dr. Shannon, the doctor smiled at the newcomer, who smiled in return. We’re happy to have you with us. If you’ll follow me?

Certainly. She turned back to the escort. Thank you again.

My pleasure, ma’am, he said, then turned to head back to his own section.

Dr. Jamieson led her colleague to a coded door lock. If you’ll just slide your data-ID here, she said, I’ll code your access. She waited until the system checked the card, then keyed in full access. There. Now, would you like a tour of the facility, or would you like to familiarize yourself with the details of the program first?

Well, let’s start with the tour, shall we? Then I can go over the files. Ealia followed the other woman down a short, well-lighted corridor, and again, her data-ID was keyed to the door. One more corridor, one more electronic lock, and finally they were in the special facility itself.

Because of the nature of our research, we live here in our section, Jamieson explained. We work six weeks on, then a week off in rotation.

No worse than a public hospital, Ea remarked. And probably a lot better.

The other woman nodded. We think so. We have a small flat here, she continued, and showed Ealia the three bedrooms with their attached bathrooms that they shared two to a room, and the small but adequate open area that was kitchen, dining room, and lounge.

You’ll share a room with me since we’re the only women. You can put your bag down here, and put your things away later if you like. She indicated a neatly made bed and a small dresser; her side of the room contained the same items, but the top of the dresser held a couple of framed photos and a cosmetics bag. Ea set her stretch-bag down on the unclaimed bed.

It probably goes without saying, but no medical samples or anything like that come into the kitchen. In fact, nothing but records is supposed to come through the blast hatch.

Blast hatch? Ealia questioned.

Yup, blast hatch. I think once you see some of our subjects, you’ll understand. Here are the offices. We share office space, too, Jamieson said apologetically. I hope you don’t mind. There are six of us, with you, so we’re two to an office.

Not a problem. That’s quite a bit more space than I was accustomed to at my last facility. That much was true; her last facility was a small ship’s medbay.

Do you have any personal items or furniture you need moved in?

Ealia looked around the room, at the comfortable chairs, at the spacious desks with their terminals and com boards, at the rather pleasant collection of framed artwork on the walls, at the small, striated wood table that held the coffee and teapots.

No, I think I’ll be quite comfortable. I work light anyway, she added. And after all, what’s furniture? Just something heavy to shove out of the way when you clean, right?

Jamieson laughed. Well, all right, Dr. Shannon, if you’re satisfied. This desk is yours, she indicated an obviously unused workstation; Ea set down the slim leather portfolio she carried. Her colleague showed her how to access the system and looked away politely as Ealia set her passwords for the terminal and the com board.

Very well, that’s done, Ea said.

Good. Smiling, Jamieson led the way out of the office, down a short corridor. This is the final door between us and the experimental program subjects, she said, and Ealia gave a low whistle.

Wow, it really is a blast hatch.

The portal was heavy-duty enhanced durasteel, with a keypad lock as well as the data-ID slider, and it was a full meter thick, set into a wall just as massive. It would stand up to anything short of an atomic detonation, and, if it happened to be lead-lined, it might even stand up to that, she knew.

All right. Laura Jamieson’s voice was a little tense now. I need you to set an alpha-numeric code, as well as use your card here. The double locks are for our protection.

Ealia heard the nervousness in the other woman’s voice, and couldn’t help but think to herself, Yes, and you have need of protection, don’t you? Aloud she merely said, That dangerous, are they?

Oh, you have no idea. But, still, it’s pretty exciting, Jamieson replied. She set the lock to accept Ealia’s codes, then turned the heavy crank-wheel, and the door swung ponderously open. Ea followed her inside and waited while she very carefully re-locked the door.

On either side here are the surgical theatres, Jamieson began. The left theatre is a little larger, with room for a viewing audience to observe procedures. You’ll notice that the theatre doors are also code and card, but the same code for the blast hatch works here.

Ealia made another sour mental comment to herself. That’s abysmally stupid, to the point of being worthless. All it takes is one small slip, and the things you keep contained behind these locks and hatches will break free. But she said only, Very well, that makes things a little easier to remember.

Now, we have thirty beds, Jamieson continued, and she couldn’t keep the slight note of pride from her voice. We have the largest number of subjects most of the time, and greatest variety of experimentation, of any section in the facility. Right now, we have twenty-one subjects, of various races and genders. We had twenty-two, but, unfortunately, one of them died last night.

Really, what a shame, Ea responded, but her heart contracted a little. It might be selfish of her, but she hoped, how she hoped, that the recent casualty was just some nameless patient.

Would you like to see them? Jamieson offered. Some of them are in the training gymnasiums, through here. She indicated another corridor, this one with only an ordinary slide-lock since it was already within the massive protection of the blast shielding. But the rest are in their rooms.

Sure, answered Ea. She followed her colleague down the corridor. They stopped at the first patient room, looking through the steel-meshed glass of the observation window at the occupant.

It was, or had been, a woman, much like Jamieson or Ealia herself, except that she was very muscular, resembling more of a caricature of a body builder than a woman. Her head was covered with a permalon hood and she had on synthcotton briefs and tee-shirt. Straps and cuffs held her upright in a heavy duty medchair.

This one hasn’t had much done to her, because she didn’t work out right. She had the original hormone manipulations, before we decided it was more effective to stimulate their own body’s glands. She was also in the first round of the impulse-manipulation, but it didn’t go as well as we would have liked. She’ll be transferred to a psychiatric care facility in a few days, since she isn’t really usable now. We accidentally destroyed the nerve center instead of altering it. The main reason she’s hooded is that otherwise, she tends to spend her time shrieking and swearing, and it gets a little irritating.

Yes, drawled Ea. I can see where that might be irritating. She turned to another window. And this one?

He worked out a little better, Jamieson replied. As you can see, he was originally a heavy-planeter. We used direct stimulation of his own hormones to bulk him up even more, but we also had to do some reinforcing of his skeletal system, and it worked out quite nicely, I think.

This one, also hooded, paced the confines of his room. Surprisingly, despite the hood, he did not run into the walls, nor did he trip over the foam pad that was presumably his bed.

Did you work on his limbic system as well?

Yes, he was another of those that we started those procedures with. We didn’t alter his impulse center, though we did do some fine manipulation of his emotional control. Or tried to — we didn’t get quite the results we wanted with him either, because he’s pretty apathetic, except for uncontrolled outbursts of rage. Keeping him hooded seems to help him stay on a more even track. But he’s also being transferred, because it isn’t worth trying to correct the unsatisfactory results.

Ealia cocked an eyebrow at the other woman. "Do you actually have any successes?

Jamieson colored faintly. Well, yes, of course we do. You have to remember, we learned to refine our techniques as we went along. It wasn’t known how much of the cortex we could manipulate, and even now it can vary from subject to subject. She turned, her heels clicking on the polished floor, to lead the way to the gymnasium corridor. There were six large rooms with various workout and fighting equipment. Like the patient cubicles, the chambers had reinforced windows, and the doors had card-and-code locks.

Here, she indicated another bank of windows. This is one of the more successful patients.

Ealia looked in to see another woman, her body enhanced as the first one’s had been, but less drastically. She was engaged in a weapons exercise; targets popped all over the training gym she was in, and she used various things including rocks, projectile weapons, energy weapons, and her own body, to destroy them. When she had finished her course, she grinned up at the observation window. Jamieson called to her.

"Good job, Mary! How are you feeling?"

Ready for more, of course. This is boring. You said I could go back to my unit soon, so when do I get to go?

It shouldn’t be long now. Have you been using the subliminals at night, so that you understand the principles of military discipline and expected behaviors for new berserkers? the doctor asked.

She made a face. Yeah, I have. But it all seems so silly. Just gimme something to kill or a wall to kick apart, why’s that hard? She grinned again.

Jamieson said in an aside to Ea, She’s already been accepted into a berserker platoon, but we’re waiting for there to be a set of twelve marines for basic training. They do better if they’re kept together. Turning back to the patient, she continued. Well, Mary, I think you’ll be assigned to your new unit sometime in the next three weeks. Can you wait that long?

I guess I have to, don’t I? But why can’t I compete against some of the others like me? If I’m bored, they must be bored too, you know, she coaxed, her berry-black eyes twinkling.

We’ll see. Usually you guys beat each other up so badly in your once-a-week trials that I have to spend hours fixing you. Don’t you think I get bored with that too? Jamieson teased.

I suppose that’s a good point. Well, she shrugged her muscular shoulders. I’ll be good. She winked. "But not for much longer!" With that, she turned to a heavy bag that hung from sturdy chains, and began punching it with both closed-fist and open-palm strikes.

Jamieson looked at Ealia. In case you wondered, that bag has a thin cloth and foam padding. Under it is durasteel. You or I would break every bone in our hands if we did what she is doing right now.

She seems to be physically very nicely altered, and she also seems pretty well adjusted, compared to the first two messes you showed me, Ea commented. I see why they’re referred to as enhanced berserkers now. I’m assuming the rest of your patients are somewhere along the curve between her and the first two?

Most of them, yes. Jamieson’s eyes lit up. "But we have seven very special patients that I think you’ll really be intrigued by. You see, I’m taking the berserkers a step farther, and they’re my special project. Since you’ll be my assistant, they’ll be yours too. I think you’re going to be quite excited about them, as I am!" She led Ea down the corridor, back to the holding cubicles, to the last set of rooms.

These are the super-berserkers. We have four humans, two heavy-grav humans, and one Fellian. We’ve combined all the modifications in this group, and they’ve had the most extensive alterations. We started by stimulating their hormones, including activating the thyroid, hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal glands. By the time we started on this group, we had pretty much learned how much is too much, and so forth.

They stopped at each window briefly, looking in at the occupants; Jamieson continued her lecture.

We added some density to their bones, as well as increasing the flexibility and strength of their cartilage and tendons. After all, she added. It doesn’t do much good to be that strong and that powerful, if you dislocate your own joints when you fight.

Interesting. And what else?

We did some neural clearing, which makes their reflex reactions much faster than yours or mine, for instance. Unlike Mary — the woman we just spoke with — these will be extremely fast, not simply juggernauts designed for sheer brute strength and power, as she is. She indicated the next window, and Ea pretended interest in the occupant.

Most of these are in recovery after having the final cortical and frontal lobe alterations. We lowered the impulse control areas as before, but now we can fine-tune that so as not to interfere with judgmental ability as much. We’ve perfected the technique enough that we no longer affect the cingulate gyrus area, so they can still process and understand their emotions, and we’ve been able to stimulate the specific areas of the amygdala that we wanted to change. This means we don’t destroy their memories or their capacity for learning, but that the emotions involved in fight or flight, from the sympathetic nervous system, and emotions such as rage, can be enhanced and used better.

I see. That is indeed fascinating, Ealia commented, but she swallowed against nausea and disgust.

They’re almost ready for release. We’re simply studying them now, to be sure we have all the information we need, as far as success, side effects, and patient management. Jamieson gestured to the last two rooms. They still have some impulse control but it’s negligible, which means they are extremely effective and efficient soldiers, because they act and react without trying to stop themselves. She smiled. Our main concern now is how to control them when they aren’t fighting, and the fine details of managing them.

Ealia had known what she would see in one of the last two rooms, and she had braced herself mentally and emotionally. She looked at the human male in the right-side room first. He was seated in a powered medchair, his body secured to it with heavy-duty durasteel restraints. He was hooded, like the first patient she had seen, but even so, it was obvious he was awake, and angry. His body twitched as he jerked and strained at the restraints holding him to his chair, and every now and again, he swore, loudly and colorfully.

Then she turned to the final room. She had known. After all, it was why she was here. But she had hoped she was wrong.

He was there, and like the others, he was confined in a medchair. Like them, his body was braced with medical splints, as if he had been the victim of some bone-breaking accident. Heel to thigh, hip to armpit, palm to shoulder, his body was imprisoned in reinforced durasteel and permalon braces, which were in turn locked to the frame of the chair. He was also hooded, but from the side of his neck she could see a small permanent intravenous port.

Before he had been altered, he was a little over two meters tall, and half again the mass of a human male his size. Now he was even bigger, and within the harness his body was not only muscular, it was well-defined, beautiful and perfectly proportioned, even more now than it had been originally. His tawny fur was sleek and well groomed, which surprised her slightly, and the tip of his tail twitched from time to time — a sign, she knew, that he was not asleep, but was alert and aware of his surroundings.

Interesting, she murmured.

His head moved when he heard her. He couldn’t see through the hood, and he probably couldn’t hear clearly, but he could hear enough to know that someone was there, and she wondered if, just possibly through the walls and glass, and the distortion of the hood itself, he recognized her voice. If he did, she hoped against hope that he would not respond and betray them both.

I think I know enough to go on with. I’d like to study the surgical notes as well as the indoctrination and physical training materials. Then I’d like to know more about the splint affairs you’re using on this last bunch, and the reasoning behind the hoods and so on.

Oh, the harnesses? Well, Jamieson answered. "The super-berserkers are hard to control because they’re so perfectly enhanced physically. If they want to fight, they will! We have to keep them on high doses of muscle-relaxants most of the time, since they respond to everything they feel. Without the bracing and the medchairs, they’d be so limp they couldn’t even sit up, but without the drugs, they’re so dangerous they could kill one of us in two seconds. We just use the hoods to help limit sensory input so they’re not overwhelmed."

Ea nodded. I see. Well, I’ll go over those notes, too. I should know enough within a day or two to make some reasonable suggestions and be able to take over their psychiatric care and indoctrination.

Jamieson smiled. "That’s wonderful. You can’t imagine how nice it is to have another person on staff. This is fascinating work, but it’s so intense! She turned to lead Ea back to the doctors’ living section of the ward. I hope you settle in quickly, and enjoy it here. It’s been so long since we’ve had our full staff of six, and we’re all getting worn out."

Really? I’d think people would jump at the opportunity to join this program.

You’d think so. Jamieson let them back through the blast-door. But first, our funding is being lowered, and a lot of those qualified for this sort of thing prefer higher-paying private sector research. Also, a lot can’t pass the security checks, a lot have some silly prejudice against experimenting on sentients, even when they’re volunteers, and well… She shrugged. It really is kind of dangerous. It’s not exactly a secret that over the last couple of years, two doctors have been killed.

So who wants to live forever? Ealia quipped, and Jamieson laughed. Now, if you’ll get me the files I need, I’ll get started.

All right, then. Jamieson went to a cabinet and took out a tab-binder. Ea took it and turned to her terminal to begin going through the information contained on the tabs it held, while Jamieson went to her own desk to collate her day’s notes.

When Ea was sure the other woman was absorbed in her work, she slipped a data tab of her own into the terminal before she started on the records. This one contained a small but very effective program, which would allow her to duplicate the entire contents of any tab she used, but without anyone or anything — including the mainframe and the terminal itself — knowing that the data had been downloaded to a tab and encrypted as it was copied.

She did her best to stay objective, detached, clinical. But after only a few pages of reading, she had to stop, and simply pretend to study the screen before her, because she was so angry and so sickened by what she read, and by the very clear photo-images she saw. At seventeen hundred, when Jamieson stood up and stretched, Ea was more than glad to pop her current tab and quit working — or trying to work.

Let’s see what there is for supper, Jamieson said, smiling and twisting her neck a little to ease cramped muscles.

Sounds good, Ealia answered. She helped the other woman put together a quick meal, but it was all she could do to remain casual and detached while Jamieson prattled on about the super-berserkers as they cooked and then sat down together at the table.

You see, this escalated program is intense, and not many people want to be involved with it because of the workload. That makes it more difficult for me to get the work done, which is another reason I’m really glad to have you join us. And since this is my special project, I am really trying like mad to make sure it works out, Jamieson said as she ran water in the sink to wash the dishes.

Special project? Ea began clearing the table, putting leftovers away, wiping down the tabletop and counters while the other woman washed the dishes.

Yes. When I took over as program director, we only created the regular berserkers, and I still oversee the program as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely see the need for the ordinary kind. But I couldn’t help thinking, they’re just battering rams. What if I could make them more elegant, more refined, and, ultimately, more effective? Her voice took on a dreamy quality as she continued. It was all Ea could do not to force her face-down into the dishwater and drown her, but she refrained. Eventually Jamieson ran down.

So, I’m trying to keep the special project active, she finished. There are maybe, oh, twenty of the enhanced berserkers and maybe thirty of the super-berserkers remaining, including the ones I have here. The others are in different facilities, on this planet and on Bellia. Most don’t seem to be doing as well as mine are, though, and the other facilities have really high rates of attrition. I can’t help but think it’s because the psychosurgeons in charge of them just don’t care as much.

Well, that’s a possibility. After all, the program’s intense as it is, and you escalated it several levels, Ea responded. But at least the ones here will prove the success of the program, right?

I sure hope so, or we won’t get renewed funding, she said, with a sigh. Then she smiled. Now, it’s time to deal with their bedtime care, and then we’ll be done for the night.

I’ll assist, if you like, Ea offered. Maybe some ordinary patient care would take her mind off the things Jamieson had been babbling about all through supper.

That would be wonderful, Jamieson said.

She led the way back through the blast hatch, explaining as she went that while they simple did a routine check of vital signs and a medication check of the enhanced subjects, the routine for the super-berserkers was a little more complicated. Since the super-berserkers were still very new — and some of them weren’t fully recovered from the last surgeries they had undergone — as well as very dangerous, they were cared for like bedfast patients, in that medical staff handled feeding them and taking care of their bodily functions for them. If they were left unrestrained at this point, they tended to be unpredictable. But they also needed some freedom of movement, so for the present, if they were out of their bracing harnesses, an anesthetic gas was flooded into their rooms. When it had taken effect, and been cycled back through purifiers so the room air was clear again, the doctors could go in to care for them.

Jamieson went over the procedures for feeding and cleaning them. This, she said, they did while the patients were harnessed, then they released them from whatever restraints they were in, and left them alone for an hour. At the end of that time, the room was gassed, the doctors went in and restrained the patients, and then settled them for sleep. The process was repeated each morning and evening.

Most of the patients were easy to care for, so it didn’t take long to get them fed using ordinary gastric tubes, and cleaned using ordinary catheter equipment. After working on the first patient with Jamieson, Ea had a good idea of the procedures, so the two of them split the hallway. Ea didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that Jamieson would be the one to care for the Fellian in the last room.

Once they were fed, cleaned, and released, the two women left the patients alone, pushing the equipment cart back to the surgical bay to clean up their supplies and sterilize the non-disposable equipment. Ea noted on her palm computer what they had done and her observations for the day, just as she would have in an ordinary setting, and Jamieson did the same.

All too soon, the free hour was over, and Jamieson stood up and stretched. All right, let’s get them put to bed.

This time they stayed together for each patient. They had to work together, particularly with the heavy-planet natives, to get them safely into their beds for the night. The enhancements to the subjects’ bodies made their bones denser and gave them much greater muscle mass; if nothing else, they were simply too heavy for one person to lift without risking injury to one of them, or to the person providing the care. Two made it much easier and faster.

You’re better at this than the guys, Jamieson commented as they went to put the Fellian to bed. They don’t like this part of the program anyway, so they don’t care or pay as much attention.

Well, they are after all only experimental subjects, Ealia said, holding tight to the persona she had adopted to cover rage and worry.

I know, but I don’t want to spoil them through carelessness, or skew the results of the research, Jamieson insisted.

True, you don’t, Ea agreed.

They moved into the last room; the man inside it had realized his free period was up and had time to sit in his medchair before the gas washed through the room’s ventilation. She wanted so badly to take off that disgusting hood and bury her fingers in the incredibly soft fur of his cheeks, but she dug her nails into her palms, hard, and simply helped Jamieson fasten him back into the heavy bracing restraints, and lay him on his bed, where his harness was locked to the frame. Jamieson drew a blanket over him, then turned to Ealia.

All right, we’re done for the night, except to finish up with today’s notes. She smiled as she led Ea back up the corridor and through the blast hatch, back to the doctors’ living portion of the facility.

Good. Ea forced a smile of her own. "Because it’s been a long day and a full one, and I have to admit, I’m tired!"

Jamieson laughed. Yes, I am, too, but honestly, isn’t it exciting?

It sure is, Ea answered, and then they separated, Jamieson to her office and Ealia to the bedroom she would share with the other woman. She looked around the room, ostensibly examining it the same way any other new occupant would, but also checking for visible sensor and monitor equipment. She saw none, but that didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t such things.

Carefully, she opened her portfolio and unzipped an inner pocket. The pocket was actually just a blind seam, but it concealed a tiny null-noise generator. With it running, monitoring devices would be disrupted slightly; not enough to cause comment other than some mild cussing on the part of security staff who might have to scan such disrupted data, but enough that it was a little easier to do some things she didn’t want observed. Quickly, she took a few copied data tabs, and slid them into another inner pocket of her portfolio, which she sealed again. She hadn’t managed to get everything she wanted, because the tabs could copy faster than an ordinary person could reasonably be seen to read the files, and it would have seemed suspicious for her to go through the dense volumes of program records so fast, but she didn’t think she’d have much trouble copying things over the next few days.

She brushed out her hair, and then went to the bathroom, to stand in the shower, letting the warm water run over her body until she had relaxed a little. She wrapped a toweling robe around herself, and took her time putting her underclothes and nightshirts in the dresser, hanging the unremarkable skirts and blouses in the small closet, and generally unpacking. Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer, so she slid into a long cotton tee-shirt, and got into bed.

She turned on her stomach and buried her face in the pillow for several minutes, doing her absolute best not to lose control of herself, not to run screaming through the blast hatch to the subject in the last room, not to strip off his restraints and set him free. It had taken her almost two years to find him and get to him. There were times when she thought she might lose her mind from sheer frustration and despair.

But now she had found him, and now she could, she would, get him back.

Chapter Two

Ea had resigned her Fleet commission when it became clear that there would be no real effort made to find her husband and the others who had disappeared from their shore-leave shuttle. Jess Walsh, the master chief petty officer who had served with her for more than twenty years, followed her into retirement to help her.

He’d known Ealia most of their adult lives. They made a good team, and they inspired loyalty in the men and women they commanded. As was its custom with a unit that worked well, the Fleet kept them together through the years. Originally, their specialty had been in writing and coding naval security programs, and the systems hardware that would run their code. But as with most command teams, they had been assigned to lead marine combat squads occasionally. These troops were considered the mobile muscle of the Fleet, as it patrolled the galaxy in its attempts to keep peace or to impose Government structure on newly settled planets or rebellious ones.

Neither of them particularly enjoyed fighting, though both knew it was necessary sometimes. As Ea often remarked, sometimes the only way to get diplomats to listen and communicate was to get their attention with a club first. She and Walsh did their best to ensure that the men and women they commanded survived their ground fighting assignments. As their record became more impressive, they were sent on more intense missions, and they were also given a few young marines at a time to train.

That was how they had first become aware of the berserkers. Originally, these had simply been physically enhanced men and women who had also taken a special course of subliminal conditioning and training. Several times over the last few years, they’d had berserkers assigned to them, and both were impressed by the abilities and the stamina, as well as the intelligence and the mental stamina, of the altered marines.

It was in ground combat, commanding one of these squads of marines, that Ealia had encountered Kerrith T’Shann.

They were working closely with colonial settlers, Fellians who had explored and claimed a nearby system but were being harassed and bullied by another system’s merchants and navy. The Queen of Fellis asked for Government help, and the Fleet responded. Ea and Walsh had been among the troops sent down-planet. In the course of working with their weapons specialists, Ea had met Kerrith.

She’d been amazed at her attraction for him. It wasn’t his exotic race that appealed to her. It wasn’t his beautiful body. It wasn’t his sharp, quick mind. It wasn’t his sense of humor. It was — all of that, and more. She still didn’t know, and didn’t really even care. She had some vague plan of someday eventually retiring, and marrying, and settling down, but Kerrith T’Shann had made her want to change a far-off someday for right now. Once the operation was over, and his state’s military guard had released him from duty, they’d been married in a short but elegant ceremony. Kerrith had joined her aboard the Marie-Claire where she and Walsh were assigned, living, as so many spouses and children did, in the family portion of the city-huge vessel.

And then one day, Kerrith had taken a shuttle with other passengers and crew, down to the surface of a planet known for its excellent coffee and varied entertainments… and never returned.

Three weeks of stopover time, while the battle-city’s security police had investigated the disappearances of forty passengers and twenty-three crew, had been all the Fleet was prepared to offer. At the end of the month, command staff shrugged its figurative shoulders, held a memorial service, and the Marie-Claire was ordered back to patrol. Ealia, furious and, deep within herself, terribly afraid, had resigned the morning after the investigation was terminated. Walsh had waited a few more months. When her retirement and resignation were finally approved, she asked to be set down in the system where the shore-leave party had vanished. No one even noticed or made the connection; FleetCom simply cut her final orders and released her.

Her first act was to visit the transient docks. It was there she discovered the vast information network of street people and retired spacers. They knew people who knew people, and it wasn’t long before she found someone who happened to have access to dock monitoring vids and was able to pull up information for the month she was interested in.

She searched the tabs, using every trick of graphics enhancement she knew, until she found the recordings that showed the Fleet shuttle, with its clear markings and distinctive shape. But the data wasn’t specific; the recordings were just ordinary security monitoring, and what they showed was really only enough to confirm what she already knew — that the shuttle had made planet-fall on Bellia. She had the impression, from what the tech who had given her the copies of the data tabs said, that the shore leave party had been arrested as a group, and detained, but he didn’t know for certain, and couldn’t imagine why they would be in the first place.

Ealia had a very good idea of why they might be. Things the berserker marines that had been assigned to her over the years said, tiny pieces of information, small differences in the way some of them worded things, made her begin to suspect that possibly — probably — not all such Government programs were carried out according to true medical ethics. Like a lot of Fleet personnel, she had taken a secondary specialty over the years. She was interested in field medicine, because she wanted to be able to take better care of her squad in a battle setting, so she had trained and qualified as a nurse-practitioner. More than an aide, less than a physician-extender, not a doctor, but still, a qualified medical specialist, she had internalized one of the most basic aspects of medical practice — Above all else, to do no harm.

But conversation with the original berserkers had made her realize that oath wasn’t taken seriously by all medical personnel in all places.

From going over docking recordings to investigating prison and research facilities nearby was only a small leap of logic. When she made that leap and began probing, a little less openly now, she discovered there were all manner of Government programs, some of which allowed for procedures which were forbidden to ordinary private hospitals and doctors. A lot of the things she found out related to military uses and population behavior control techniques. A great deal of what she uncovered related to the collection of subjects, and the process of turning them into legal volunteers.

Jess, she said one evening, as they sat in a restaurant enjoying a meal. "They torture people!"

Walsh, whose resignation and final planet drop had been approved only a few days before, nodded. Why’s that surprise you, tuahine? It’s not outright torture. It’s more along the lines of, ‘Do this for us and we’ll see to it your kid gets into this or that school,’ or ‘Do this for us and we’ll see to it your mother gets appropriate housing at no cost now that she’s too old to work.’ It’s just pressure of one kind and another.

She shook her head so violently her hair came loose from its barrettes to tumble down her back. No, Jess, it really is torture. Actual physical and mental abuse.

He looked at her, frowning suddenly. Are you sure of that? Have you got proof of that?

Gods of space and stars, do you think I’d lie? Especially about something of this nature? she returned angrily. She dug in her belt-pouch for a moment, and pulled out a data tab. Here. Go ahead, tungane. Read it.

Reluctantly, he took the tab, drew out his palm computer, and inserted it. He sat in silence, looking at the small images, but his expression congealed like cooling lava as he watched.

Is this altered?

No. Except in that it’s several record-bytes, transcribed to one tab. The data itself is not manipulated.

Where did you get it?

Shrugging, she said, You can get anything if you look hard enough or can pay enough, or both.

You realize this isn’t conclusive. And it doesn’t tell us anything about that shuttle full of people no one can find now.

I know that. It could be an aberration, and I might believe that — except for the fact the recordings came from wildly different sources, she said, more calmly. Some came from facilities on this planet, some from the sister-planet, Academe. It’s an entire world dedicated to Government research, from medical programs to new ways of weaving cloth to growing synth-fibers to weapons research. And, she continued. There is some evidence Kerrith might have been taken there, because the day after our shore-leave party vanished into thin air, a prison transport lifted from here, and went to Academe.

Walsh nibbled the end of his long black braid. Tuahine, if that isn’t a long shot, I don’t know what is. What the hell makes you think that’s what happened?

She told him about the people she’d spoken to, about the homeless of the port, who saw everything and for the right price could be made to remember what they saw and heard. She told him about rumors that spread among the coffee growers and the many workers who ran the huge harvesters all month long but came to town at each quarter day to spend their money and raise a little hell. She told him about whispers of family members who had disappeared from docks all over the planet as they came in from outsystem, and about the places they might have disappeared to.

Well, then, he said finally. He rose and tossed a few dollar coins to the table, pulled the tab out of his palm computer and handed it back to her. Let’s go. Even this late at night we can get a shuttle flight to the other planet.

She let out the breath she’d been holding. Calm, logical, able to see several angles of any situation, Jess Walsh was not easy to convince. But once he was convinced, he was quick to come up with a plan of action, and she knew that while he might not exactly believe her, he believed in her, and sometimes, that was good enough.

It seems to me, he remarked as they walked toward the ports, "We need to go to Academe, and you need to do the same