Readyworld

fiction by michael werneburg

A sudden sensation told me I had an incoming call. From the tone, it felt official. Could it be a response, already? Would the message even have reached the nearest starlab, yet?

I responded, and felt an unfamiliar presence. A masculine voice asked, "Is this Dr. Sitara Rees Neilson?"

"Yes," I replied. This caller should know perfectly well who he was talking to, just as I knew from my OHUD that he was Major II Hugh K.K. Weaver. I asked, "What's up, Major?" and sent his name to the personnel database for a lookup. I was treated to a lengthy career summary that stretched back almost to the days when machines like my analyzer were considered new!

"Come around to the oversight quarters, civilian. We require your input on an artifact."

That got my attention. They wanted to see me?

"An artifact? A natural artifact?" I asked, gathering my things into my backpack, once more. I didn't ask about the obvious other source.

"Yes, I trust there isn't a problem? I see you're taking a vacation day?" Then his tone changed. "You're not sick?"

"Not sick, sir. Fit as a fiddle."

"Just come to lock 30K. You will be met by personnel at that lock."

Just like that, the connection was dead. I shook my head, and made for the lock on my lab. I wondered why it was that certain career types adopted such phony-sounding dialogue. It was like they'd forgotten how to communicate with people in a natural fashion. The military flavor was the only thing that was new.

When the outer lock let me out, I just made my way across the bare rock and soil of the periphery of the downtown.

I made my way between the collection of weird alien-built buildings to the towering all-purpose vehicle where the garrison lived and functioned. It was a modern bit of military hardware, all inscrutable in design and make-up. I'd tried running my field scanner over a portion of its under-surface when I'd first arrived, but whatever it was made of, it simply absorbed any kind of field or pulse that the scanner threw at it. I had probably gone on file just for trying, though, and hadn't tried a more sophisticated scan. In fact, like most of the scientific and support staff here on Readyworld, I hadn't been near the ship since my 'welcoming' briefing.

I found myself at hatch 23N, and crossed the space beneath the big ship to the far side. I don't know where "N" and "K" had originally come from, but I knew enough from years aboard various orbitals and deep-space stations that they signified the port and starboard sides of just about everything aboard space-faring vessels as well as stationary habitations. As I crossed the space beneath the ship, where Readyworld's red sunlight failed to do much more than create an atmosphere of gloom, one of the locks on the far side of the ship sprouted a tube that ended in a hatch. The tube touched down when I was only about five meters away, the hatch opened, and a figure stepped out. It was a young woman in some sort of military outfit.

She waited for me without saying a word. The attitude from these people was matched by the equally aloof arrogance of the scientific staff here at Site 4. It got wearisome.

I stepped up to the hatch and waited for it to open. Instead, the woman waved some field sensor of her own in my direction. Were they really doing a security scan? I'd spent two weeks aboard the Inas Dorge even before they'd even let me down to the planet! What could I have smuggled to the planet that they wouldn't have already detected?