Mind Over Ship

and kellys.”

“Then consider me an honorary john.”

FRED’S NEW SIDEKICK contained maps of the entire station, so he didn’t get lost on his way to the Admin Wheel. Inside the wheel he took a spokeway to the rim and found the muster room where about fifty russ brothers were milling about in TECA uniforms. A quick transponder scan told him that Mando was not among them. He hadn’t expected him to be since new personnel were usually given a couple of days to settle in before taking a shift. Fred was pretty tired, but he hitched up his attitude and strode into the midst of his brothers. Their sidelong glances told him that they already knew of his arrival. He picked out a brother at random and went up to him, but the man turned aside and walked away. Fine, Fred thought, we’ll play it like that. He went to a side of the room and waited alone for the show to begin.

Fifteen minutes before shift change, the commanding officer came in and called the room to order, and Earth Girl gave a quick station status report. Then the commander gave the order to proxy up, and the roomful of russes formed ranks. Fred got into one of them and asked his neighbor what was going on. The man ignored him, but the commanding officer barked, “Specialist Stain!” Fred didn’t recognize his truncated name, but the officer and everyone else was looking at him. “Do you have a problem with your orders?”

“No, sir,” Fred said, “but this is my first shift, and I don’t exactly know what mission I’m supposed to think at my proxy.”

“Think it foot patrol, Stain.”

“Thank you, sir. And the name’s Londenstane.”

“Are you contradicting me, Stain?”

Fred glared at the man. In his old life, Fred would have outranked this brother. “No, sir. Everything is crystal clear.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Stain. Now, proxy the feck up.”

Fred closed his eyes and thought, Foot patrol. Not letting it get to him. Not killing anyone. Foot patrol.

When he opened his eyes, his proxy — head, keystone-shaped torso, free-floating hand — appeared before him. Fifty other proxies were also present and being inspected by their makers. Fred inspected his own. It floated there grim-faced. It looked functional. “Know what I want?” he asked it.

“Yeah,” his proxy replied, “to get the hell out of here.”

“Anything else?”

“To patrol, though I don’t know where, with whom, the rules of engagement, or any other parameter. And to lay low as much as possible and try to survive the shift.”

“You’ll do,” Fred said and swiped the proxy to Earth Girl. On his visor his own assignment showed up — staff a forward post in Spar Delta. The muster room was dismissed, and Fred followed the others back to the spokeway lifts.

THE FORWARD POSTS were scattered along the hundred-kilometer-long docking spars. The view of the port from Fred’s shuttle was astonishing. He witnessed not only the shuttles and cargo trains crisscrossing the port, but their trajectory traces. The effect was of skeins of multicolored yarns against the starry background. Earth Girl had its work cut out for it keeping everything on course without collisions. Most of the cargo was transferred in nothing more than shipping shells. The shells were shot across the port in long streams, like bullets from a machine gun. Behind him, the large administrative and rez wheels shrank to dots.

Fred took the occasion to call Mando, who answered with a guarded expression. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Walter Mitty.”

“I tried to tell you as we disembarked,” Fred said, trying for the casual tone they had used on the Dauntless. “Without the cover ID, I would have had to spend the entire transit in my pouch.”

“That’s interesting,” Mando replied. “Anything else?”

The snub was hard to take, especially coming from someone he had begun to think of as his friend. But Armando Mendez was Walter Mitty’s friend, not his. “No, I guess not. Take care, Mando.”

They signed off.

FRED’S POST WAS a converted break room, and he shared it with four fellow russes. He expected one of them to inform him, however reluctantly, what their duties entailed, but they simply tethered themselves to the walls and ignored him. They might have been napping or watching vids for all he could tell.

Fred tethered himself and opened a line to Earth Girl. What gives? he said.

Please rephrase the question.

I’m here at my post. Now what?

That’s about it, Specialist. You’re to remain in the post and lend assistance to your proxy if requested. A map of the spar opened in Fred’s visor. His post was not far from Space Gate DG, where his proxy was patrolling.

I don’t get it, Fred said. Why aren’t we patrolling in realbody? I mean, isn’t that the whole point?

I have explained your assignment, Specialist. Do you wish to file a grievance?

No, not at all. Fred broke the connection but kept the map open and explored the spar. There were approximately a hundred dockworkers in his proxy’s patrol area off-loading six freighters. Pulling back a little, he saw dozens more freighters docked at the same spar. Fred studied the spar layout and then turned his attention to other sectors of the port. Finally, he pulled up the map of the passenger terminal wheel and told his sidekick to trace his usher path of the day before. The path appeared on his map, starting at the hub and taking a direct route through connecting gangways to Wheel Nancy. It was not as circuitous as the path he remembered. With a little more searching, Fred found a large area designated as a construction zone. If that was where he had met the donalds, it was nowhere near his alleged usher line.

He called the station mentar back. Earth Girl, show me the route I took yesterday from customs to my quarters.

Your map is already displaying it.

That may be my programmed route, but show me the one I actually took.

Sometimes a new facility can be disorienting, Specialist. According to my records, that is your actual route.

Thank you, Fred said, not sure what to do next — file a formal complaint with Marcus? He decided to wait on that and continued his map tour. He found the donalds’ barracks. They were located across the port, along with the quarters of the other two Capias spacer types, the xiangs and aslams. Because their bodies were designed for life without gravity, they did not require housing in rez wheels, at what must have been considerable savings to their employers.

A COUPLE OF hours of self-orientation later, Fred checked in with his proxy and piggybacked on its POV. It was floating outside a warehouse-sized decon bay that was receiving cargo from a megaton freighter docked to the spar. Large, bulky shipping shells, which must have weighed tons on Earth, were spewing out of the mouth of the cargo tunnel at an impressive rate. They hit a dampening field where they were slowed and aligned and where donald dockworkers in isolation suits snagged them with hand tractors to sort and stack in the bay. The donald crew performed this hazardous work with the prowess of dancers. Their small bodies were not only agile but strong, and the advantage of grasping feet and prehensile tail was plainly obvious. It was as though each donald possessed five strong arms.

But though the donalds were hard workers, they mocked and insulted Fred’s proxy and its partner everywhere they went. And although russes were trained at the Russ Academy to let verbal abuse roll off them, what Fred saw and heard made his ears burn.

And it cleared up his question about the proxy patrol. Subjected to that level of abuse, day in and day out, even a levelheaded russ would snap and strangle a few of the little devils. The proxy patrols were intended to prevent open warfare.

As Fred watched through his proxy’s eyes, the proxy and its partner lingered at a viewport to watch a flight