None of the pedestrians filling the square seemed interested in buying the potatoes. The demonstrators, mostly young people, were singing in none-too-tight harmony, which was presumably putting off the prospective customers. Lawrence didn't know the song; it seemed to be some kind of folk chant, with the ragged voices rising defiantly for the chorus:
Give us back to ourselves
Take back your money
Give us back to ourselves
Turn back your starships
Give us back to ourselves
Several of them were carrying hologram panes on long poles, blazing with anti-Z-B slogans. A couple of bored police officers were standing fifteen meters away, watching over them. They catcalled and jeered anyone walking up and down the broad stone stairs to the entrance of the big headquarters building. Z-B personnel scurrying in and out studiously ignored them.
When Lawrence started up the stairs they directed several insults at him. He smiled and waved cheerfully, knowing how much that always annoyed their type. His gaze found a girl in the middle of the group, more attractive than any of her cause sisters, with compact dainty features amplifying her intent expression. She was wrapped up in an old-fashioned navy-blue duffel coat with wooden toggles, its hood down to show off raven hair that had been frizzled into a thick mass of short curls. Their eyes met, and he broadened his grin to a male-ape invitation. He laughed heartily at the angry scowl she fired back at him.
Minority-cause fascists, no sense of humor.
Three receptionists sat behind a curving teak desk in the vast, empty lobby. One of them gave him directions to the officer college, in an annex of its own at the rear of the main building. "What are they here for?" he asked, pointing out through the tall glass doors at the protesters.
"Regressors," she said. "They want for us to go away and stop influencing 'their' lives with 'our' policies."
"Why?"
The receptionist gave him a pitying look. "We're not democratic."
"But anyone can buy a stake in Z-B."
"Tell them."
The officer college was a modern glass cube connected to the headquarters building by a couple of bridges on the third and sixth floors. Lawrence walked across the lower one, trying to damp down his trepidation. If all went well he'd be spending the next three years here learning everything from life support engineering to astrogration. Although quite why the flattest country in the world had been chosen as the training ground for starships was a question that his downloaded briefing had never covered. Someone somewhere in the company must have had a strong sense of irony.
He reported in to the corporal in the foyer, saluting sharply. The man gave a disinterested wave back and entered Lawrence into the administration AS.
"Turn up at oh-seven-fifteen hours tomorrow," the corporal said. "You will receive your introduction to the assessment week. This is your accommodation warrant." He handed over a small card. "You're staying at the Holiday Inn. This entitles you to a single bedroom, along with breakfast and dinner. Don't try ordering room service or beer with it You have your lunch here in the mess. You're in group epsilon three. Don't be late." The corporal returned to the pane displays on his desk.
"Thanks. Uh, how many others in the group?"
"Thirty."
"And how many places are we competing for?"
The corporal gave him a tired look. "We process one group per week. And the annual intake is one hundred officer cadets. Work the odds out for yourself."
Lawrence made his way back through the main building. On average they'd take two from each group. A one-in-fifteen chance. No, he corrected himself. Nothing here is down to chance. I'm going to make it.
When he walked into the Holiday Inn half of the people in the lobby were from Z-B, and several of them were obviously in town for their officer assessment. He could spot them from a long way off. In their early twenties, fit, serious expressions, well-cut clothes, trying to hide fluttering nerves. He guessed they could spot him just as easily.
That afternoon he went down to the basement pool and swam a mile. As always, his fitness had suffered on the star-ship back from Quation, and the last week hadn't exactly been dedicated to healthy living. He climbed out, reasonably pleased with his time. The exercise gave him that extra degree of confidence for tomorrow: thanks to their own training, Z-B had kept him in top shape for the last five years.
Lawrence couldn't stand the idea of having his supper in the hotel restaurant. The place would be full of all the other candidates, forcing themselves to be polite to each other. So he set off on a short walk through the old city as dusk fell. Amsterdam's heart had been beautifully preserved, with marvelous old houses lining the canals, each with its own hoist on the top. The antique mechanisms still worked, hauling furniture up so it could be brought in through the windows. Houseboats were tied up on the still black water between the arched stone bridges, ranging from tiny cruisers to barges with double decks and roof gardens. Berths had become so valuable that the city hadn't issued a new houseboat license for over two centuries; his briefing had mentioned that some had stayed in the same families for over eight generations now.
The bar he eventually found on Rembrandtplein served a decent menu of hot food, and beer that claimed to replicate the recipe of an original Dutch lager. It wasn't the classiest place in town, but it had a lively atmosphere, and a hologram pane was showing a sport feed. He sat at a table near the back and ran through the menu. It took him a moment to work out that the last ten items on the sheet were narcotics, three of which were quite hard. There was an option to have some of the lighter ones as garnish on your food.
His waiter took the order and delivered some of the supposed original-tasting lager. Lawrence settled back and took a look around. The big pane on the far wall was showing Manchester United versus Monaco. He chuckled and took another sip of his lager.
The girl from the protest group was sitting up at the bar, giving him a cool stare. He did a double take, then smiled and raised his glass in salute. She looked away hurriedly.
Too bad, he thought. She was with a couple of other girls, no male companion in sight. Her duffel coat was slung over the back of her stool. She was wearing a thin scarlet rollneck sweater, with an unpractically long scarf wound loosely round her neck, and baggy olive-green trousers held up with a broad rainbow bead belt. With those clothes, and an age he estimated at three or four years younger than himself, she had to be a student. Philosophy, no doubt, he decided, that or sociology. Something utterly useless for the real world.
His food arrived. Pasta with a three-cheese sauce and smoked ham. A side order of garlic dough balls. Sprinkling of ground pepper. Hold the hashish.
He wound the first strands around his fork.
"Killed anyone today?"
He glanced up. The girl was standing by his table.
Just like Roselyn, appearing out of nowhere to talk to me.
Somehow, he thought the motive would be different "Not today, nor any day," he answered, politely casual. Her nose was too broad to make her a classic beauty, but she had what people called a fierce intelligence lighting her eyes, analyzing and judging everything she saw. It made her very appealing: that and the raw hostility. Getting her into bed would be quite a challenge.
"You're one of the cybersoldiers," she said. "I can see the blood valves on your neck."
She had an accent he couldn't quite place. "And you're a welfare princess. I saw you standing in the Dam square while everyone else was working for a living."
Her cheeks darkened in anger. "I devote my time to achieving something worthwhile: your downfall."
"Had any success?" Lawrence had heard of opposites attracting, but this was ridiculous. He was sure she was about to throw her drink over him. Except her glass was back on the bar. She couldn't be carrying a weapon. Could she?
"We will," she said.
"So who do you plan to control our factories and revitalization projects once you've driven us out of your countr
y? Yourself and your friends, perhaps?"
"We'll close down your factories. We don't want that kind of society."
"Ah, green anarchy. Interesting ideology. Good luck convincing everyone to adopt it."
"I'm wasting my time. You're not allowed to think: you just recite company dogma. Next you'll tell me to buy a stake if I want to change the way things are."
Lawrence closed his mouth before he said, Well, yes, actually.
"Are your career and your stake worth so much that you have to build them up on the destruction of others?"
She looked so damn earnest when she asked him. It was the worst kind of student politics: we can change the whole world if we can just open a dialogue. Try opening a dialogue to a mob flinging Molotovs at you. "I've never destroyed anyone," he said lightly.
"You've taken part in the campaigns to pillage other worlds. If that's not destruction, I don't know what is."
"Nothing is destroyed. And our campaigns help fund the greatest human endeavor there is."
"What's that?"
"Establishing colonies on new worlds."
"My God, you're worse than a cybersoldier, you're an ecocide advocate."
"It's even worse than that, actually. I'm here in Amsterdam to join the starship officer college. I'm going to find lots of new planets we can ecocide."
Her head was shaken in soft disbelief. "Why?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "Why would anyone do such a thing? That's what I never understand about your kind. Why do you always think that you can only achieve anything by violating what's right and natural? If you have this urge, why can't you channel it into something creative?"
"Exploring the universe is the most creative endeavor there could possibly be. It's the culmination of a thousand years of civilization."
"Starflight is the most appalling waste of resources and money. Z-B is practicing interstellar imperialism with its expansion program. There's no worthwhile outcome. We have a planet here that desperately needs our help in just about every domain you can mention, and we can't provide that help because you're bleeding us to death."
"Z-B provides almost as much funding for ecological and urban revitalization projects as it does for starflight."
"But they're your revitalization projects. Revitalizing in your image, spreading the dead corporate uniculture into weaker societies."
"Look, I can see where you're coming from. You want money devoted to issues you think are important. That's perfectly natural politics, convincing governments or corporations to pay for your own pet projects, or convincing enough people to win you the popular vote. Fine. Keep on campaigning and raising people's awareness. But you will never, ever, get my vote, because I will always vote for more star-ships. And the only practical way I get those is through a stake in Z-B. Sorry, I'm not going to be converted. I'm already doing the one thing I believe in the most."
"It's wrong, and in your heart you know that."
"I do not know that. I'm afraid all your arguments fall down with me, for the simple reason that you can't look above your own horizon. You have no sense of wonder, no drive. You've limited yourself to seeing only the smallest pixel in the picture. You practice the worst sort of parochialism."
"I see this whole world and how it's hurting."
"Exactly. This world and no other. Without starflight I would never have been born. I'm not from this planet." He smiled at her frown of confusion. "I'm from Amethi. And we don't practice ecocide there. We're regenerating an entire living biosphere. Something I happen to think is worthwhile in the extreme."
"You weren't born on Earth?" she asked.
"That's right."
"Yet you came here to join Z-B so you could fly starships further into the galaxy?"
"Yep."
Her short laugh was of pure incredulity. "You're crazy."
"Guess so." Lawrence grinned back. "So are you going to wish me luck for my assessment tomorrow?"
"No. That I can never do." Her expression was sorrowful as she turned away.
"Hey," he called. "You didn't tell me your name."
For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him. Then she glanced back over her shoulder, hand running through her buoyant hair as she made the decision. "Joona," she said at last. "Joona Beaumont."
"Joona. That's good. I like that. I'm Lawrence Newton. And I wish you a happy life, Joona."
Finally, just before she reclaimed her barstool, she allowed him to see a slight smile tweak her lips.
Breakfast was as depressing as Lawrence expected it to be. The Holiday Inn restaurant was full of his fellow candidates, all being hearty and cheerful. He joined in, putting on that same mannerly facade the way he'd learned back home when his father had other Board members at the house and he had to be a proper little Newton. It was surprising how easily the deceit came.
The other hopefuls were mostly from upper-management families with big stakes in Z-B, fresh out of college, or with a few years spent in one of the company's various spaceflight divisions. Dressed in his strategic security uniform, and with his starflight experience, Lawrence soon became their focal point. They kept him busy answering questions throughout the meal. He was still telling them about Floyd and the aliens when they walked en masse over to the headquarters building. Lawrence looked around the square, but there was no sign of any protesters. Not that he'd expected them there quite so early in the morning.
Group epsilon three's morning started with the introduction, a half-hour talk from a captain about what Z-B looked for in its starship officers. The usual bull about devotion to duty, comradeship, professionalism. Lawrence got a different version from a strategic security officer every time the platoon was put through a new training course. The captain ended with: "We expect you to give us better than your best"
Day one was devoted to testing their reflexes. The college's i-environment was the most sophisticated Lawrence had ever experienced. They were given full stim-suits to wear, a tight-fitting one-piece made from a fabric of piezoelectric fibers; then led into a big anacoustic room with three rows of gyro-seats. Once they were strapped in, the AS started off with simple coordination tasks. It was easy to begin with, three-dimensional grid alignments, like being inside a hologram pane graph, lining up the glowing green-and-scarlet symbols. They soon progressed to steering fast cars through a maze, and different wheel limitations and engine fluctuations were gradually introduced. Crashes became progressively more violent. After lunch they were given full aircraft simulations, taking up single-seat jet trainers. That was when the AS began to put them under stress, giving them engine flame-outs, failed flaps, spins that were so fast they threatened to make Lawrence vomit. Equipment malfunctions at critical moments. Cockpit fires, with real smoke blowing in through the suit helmet vents and heat searing their hands and legs.
When it was finally over, Lawrence had to grip the gyro-seat's support pillar while his legs regained their strength and stopped shaking. There was a noticeable lack of jovial esprit de corps in the locker room afterward as they all showered and changed.
It was raining when they came out of the headquarters building, a thin, cold drizzle whipped up by the erratic gusts blowing out of the streets surrounding the square. Joona Beaumont was standing outside, her duffel coat hood up against the weather, stamping her feet on the cobbles. There were only three other protesters with her, and the potato stall was absent. They propped up their panes, but couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to shout anything.
Lawrence gave her a quick nod, but she didn't respond. He wasn't even sure she saw him.
An hour later it had stopped raining, and he made his way back to the bar on Rembrandtplein. He didn't bother with a table this time, just sat up at the bar and ordered a mixed mango and apple juice.
Joona arrived a few minutes later. She saw him immediately, and Lawrence offered the empty stool beside him. There was a moment's hesitation; then she came over, shaking the water from her coat.
"You look frozen," he said. "Can I
get you something hot?"
She signaled to the barman. "Tea, please. Put a gram in."
"It's bad for you, you know," Lawrence said.
"What, it glitches your circuits? I don't suppose you'd like to lose control, would you?"
"Nothing to do with it. It's a poison, that's all."
"All medicines are to some degree. That's how they kill germs. It's perfectly natural."
"Right. So how did your day go?"
"We made our point."
"Did anybody listen?"
"Being there is our point."
"Then I guess you made it well."
Her tea was delivered. She gave the barman a smile of gratitude.
"You going to ask how my day went?" Lawrence inquired.
"No."
"Okay." Lawrence dropped a ten-EZ-dollar bill on the counter, stood up and walked out. And just how cool is that?
He sort of blew it at the door, when he looked back to see how she'd reacted. She hadn't. She was sitting with her elbows resting on the bar, holding the cup of tea to her mouth with both hands.
He shrugged and stomped off into the night Day two was all about puzzles. The AS controlling the i-environment put him on a small tropical island four hundred meters long and barely seventy wide. A few palm trees and spindly bushes grew along the central strip, but it was otherwise desolate. He was in charge of a five-strong party that had been diving along the offshore reef. One of them was badly injured to the extent he couldn't be moved and needed medical care urgently for decompression sickness and unspecified internal organ damage. There were three islands nearby, one with a resort complex, the second with an abandoned plankton harvest factory, and the third also deserted, but with another diving party visiting it. The resort was farthest away, the plankton plant was known to have an advanced first-aid store with a quasi-AS diagnostic. He only had one boat, which couldn't make it to the resort before the injured man died. There were no communications systems.