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long, I fear. I shall pray that we will get our instructions to move
as early as those in-structions can reach us. In the meantime, we will use the
simulator aboard to hone our skills in a nontechnological environment. Any
questions?"
"Yes, one," Katarina Socolov, the youngest and newest, put in. "Can I, or we,
just go down to the port for an afternoon? We train and train, and I've even
gotten the simu-lator program running with far more realism than anything you
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had before, but you can be overtrained. We need a break.
Or, at least, I need a break."
"Audio and visual terminated," Park commanded, then sat back in his
dressing gown and munched on a candy stick. "So, seen and heard enough?"
"They have a simulator up there?"
He nodded. "State of the art. Same corporation that made ours, in fact. Only
their program is to drop you on a Titan world wearing nothing but a smile and
a machete or similar weapons, no food or water, no nothin', and set scary but
artificial Titan globes after you if you do anything to attract
attention. That was the basic program, anyway. You just heard that our
cute little anthropologist there has made it a lot more realistic."
"They're gonna mutiny if they don't move soon. I've seen that kind of
fidgeting among those kind of folks many times before."
Park agreed. "They're more than ready. You know, they've agreed to let Socolov
and Takamura come down and just have dinner in town, relax and unwind. You
think you can spend a little time in makeup today and become irresistible?
Neither of them saw you before; you might just have a pleasant
evening and also learn something. A nice dinner, a few drinks, maybe a
neurostim or so, walk by the river under the stars who knows? Two bored,
lonely girls with a good-looking guy like the one we can simulate with you,
and maybe they'll spill their guts out."
It wasn't the kind of thing Harker felt all that comfortable doing, but it was
worth a try. "If I can get some sleep while they work on me, sure. Why not?
Any idea who they're waiting for?"
Park shrugged. "For all I know it's the Dutchman. Would you recognize him?
Would I? I doubt it.
It's a nasty disguise by somebody who's really good, that's all."
"You don't think he's just a code here?"
"Why bother? With the trillions of possible codes they could use, why use one
that attracts all this official atten-tion? No, I think the Dutchman is very
much involved in this. I just don't know how or why. Maybe you can get the
ladies to tell you."
"Or maybe the ladies will tell me where to go or give me a judo
chop to the groin," Harker responded pes-simistically.
"Ah, you're such a romantic!" Park sighed.
He got Harker off to makeup not long after that, and then cursed the fact that
he was now, and would remain for a few more hours, one hundred percent wide
awake. Might as well get dressed and go to work.
At least, Commander Park reflected to himself, he'd gotten Harker's
mind completely off the subject of the original cause for their meeting.
The scars on Harker's face were minimized, the growths that inspired them
gone, and the hair and eyebrows all firmly planted, although nobody had ever
fig-ured out a way to keep them from itching in the short term. The neatly
trimmed beard, though, was something of a giveaway to anybody who knew much
about the Navy, since it was a standard man's disguise of the scars of
re-peated space travel. Because of that, he'd decided not to disguise his
affiliation or rank at all, but instead wore a standard dress uniform with his
warrant insignia on the shoulders and his service stripes and ribbons
prominent. It had been so long since he'd put the damned thing on that it
surprised him he had so many legitimate decorations. It was another reminder
that he was getting old for the kind of active duty he was putting himself
back on.
He was instantly glad that he had opted for a more open look when he saw the
two women sitting in the restaurant looking over a real printed menu and
sipping local wine. He'd spotted Alan Mogutu, wearing casual clothing,
loung-ing on the street just outside the place, clearly keeping an eye on the
pair. He wondered if they thought he or, more likely, Park would have the
women kidnapped and debriefed with a hypno and a telepath. He suspected
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