“But it worked. You handled that interviewbeautifully. No wisecracks. No embarrassing gaffes. You were acredit to your heritage and to my administration. That’s exactlythe kind of performance your country needs from you today.” He gavea halfhearted smile. “The doctor assures me he has adjusted thedosage. You’ll be a little sleepy, but not nauseous this time. Wehave his word on it.”
Zia sank back into her chair, sobered by thethought of ingesting a calmative—at any dosage level—again.
Dubbed the most important breakthrough inquality of life in the last fifty years, calmatives were arelatively new class of pharmaceuticals that were already part ofevery well-stocked medicine cabinet. Originally developed as an aidfor white-knuckled public speakers, they had proven to have almostlimitless uses for the general population. Non-habit-forming andrarely abused, mostly due to their lack of hallucinogenic oreuphoric properties, they offered freedom from all sorts ofsituational anxiety. For those who were afflicted with stagefright, they allowed a calm, focused, stress-free performance. Tothose with other phobias, most particularly fear of strangers orcrowds, they offered nothing less than a normal life. Evenoutgoing, phobia-free people had found occasional benefits from thedrug’s ability to allow rational thought to prevail overirrational anxiety. The most important job interview ofone’s life? Take a calmative. A once-in-a-lifetime appearance onOmniVid? Take a calmative. Accepting an award? Why allow runawayemotion to sabotage your carefully crafted speech?
It had all seemed academic to Zia until herfifteenth birthday, which had coincided with her uncle’sinauguration as president. He and his private doctor, a man namedFuller who had also been Zia’s physician from time to time, hadapproached her with a carefully crafted proposition to prevent herfrom embarrassing her uncle on this, the most important day of hislife.
Since she had never tried calmatives beforethat day, she had welcomed the chance to do so without getting intotrouble. And the drug had worked wonders of a sort, transformingher from a wise-ass to a perfect little interviewee. Later,reporters had remarked that Zia seemed more focused. Classier. Morecontemplative.
More like Elena Quito.
That had been a first. In fact, it had beenthe only time anyone had ever compared her to her mother,all the more poignant given Elena’s death in a horrific shuttlecrash just months before the interview. As much as Zia hadpretended not to care about the comparison, it had made a permanentimpact on her.
Not that it mattered. The interview did infact go well, but within hours, the vomiting had started, teachingZia and her doctor a valuable lesson—that she was among the fivepercent of the population who literally couldn’t stomachcalmatives. Luckily, she had returned home before the reactionstarted.
Still . . .
“It’s just a half dose, Zee. Fuller isconvinced you won’t have any side effects.”
“That’s easy for him to say.” Zia shook herhead. “Sorry, Uncle J. No calmatives for me. But I promise I’ll beextra careful not to say or do anything stupid this afternoon.”
“You know how you are,” her uncle said, histone grim. “You’ll upstage them without even trying. It will becomeyour day, not theirs. And if Rem Stone is anything like hisfather, he’ll try to outdo you. Then we’ll have a realcircus on our hands. Is that what you want?”
Zia winced. She didn’t want to embarrass herfamily, nor could she bear to ruin the medal ceremony. The cadetsalways looked so proud—not to mention adorable—as they waited forthe announcement of the three top-award winners. They deserved tobe honored by someone like Elena Quito instead of her fogheadeddaughter. Would it really be so awful to try one more time to bemore like her, even if it took drugs to accomplish it?
“If you don’t agree,” her uncle told hersuddenly, “maybe you shouldn’t do it at all this year. We’ll justcancel the interview, and I can present the medals myself—”
“Don’t threaten me, Uncle J. We both knowyou’d never dare do that.” She gave him a disgusted glare.Then she continued. “If Dr. Fuller can look me in the eye andpromise I won’t puke my guts out again, I’ll take the stupid pill.But only because I don’t want to upstage the cadets. It’s theirday, Rem Stone included, and I want to honor them the way—well—”She took a deep breath, then admitted, mostly to herself, “The wayMom would have done it.”
* * * *
Sitting in the front row of the open-airassembly with the other high-honor students, Rem was actually ableto relax and enjoy the proceedings, thanks to having seen Zia Quitoin the hangar that morning. Had he not witnessed her heart-to-heartwith Quito the Great, Rem would have been filled with resentment atthe prospect of meeting her. Instead, he could dismiss her asharmless and ultimately irrelevant, focusing his attention on theringing words of the speakers. These illustrious generals andscholars had come to praise the cadets for having endured therigorous intellectual and physical regimen of the academy—a featthat had prepared them to enter military service as officers andleaders.
When Zia was finally introduced, Rem was ableto see what the other cadets saw—a pretty girl with waist-length,gold-streaked hair and a dynamite shape. Of course, she lookedspoiled rotten, as usual, with her skimpy dress and confidentsmile, but he no longer judged her harshly. He even admitted tohimself that maybe her life hadn’t been as privileged as it lookedfrom the outside. Her father had been assassinated before she waseven born; she had never had a chance to meet her famousgrandfather—the yardstick against whom she would be forevermeasured; and her mother had been so busy running the country, Remsuspected there hadn’t been a lot of time for mother-daughterbonding.
His speculation was interrupted when the deanof the academy stepped up to the microphone next to Zia andaddressed the crowd. “As you know, the academic awards were givenout at the commencement last Sunday. We want to congratulate thosewinners again. And now, without further delay, we’ll move to themoment you’ve all been waiting for. The medal ceremony.”
A smattering of applause emanated from thebleachers filled with spectators, but the ten rows of cadets didn’tmake a sound or move a muscle. In a week filled with
