“I’m sorry, ma’am. I got my orders. This here ain’t no drill; you got to keep it closed up. They’re loading as fast as they can. It’s my job to keep these lines moving right out the lock, so they get that flat loaded and get the next one up. We got over a million people to load by six AM deadline. So you just be nice, ma’am, and think about all the trouble it’d make if everybody decided to start back upstream and jam the elevators and all.”

16

Beats me. ’Course, the good part about being just a hired man is I got no big decisions to make, so I don’t hafta know what’s going on. Seems like they’d let me know something, though. Batesey was down again, spent a hour with old Denny—like I say, beats me—but he give me a new data-can to program into her, right in her Action/Command section. Something’s up. I just fired a N-class pulse at old Denny (them’s the closest to the real thing) and she snapped her aft-quarter battery around so fast I couldn’t see it move. Old Denny’s keyed up, I know that much.

17

This has been a memorable time for me. I have my assignment at last, and I have conferred at length—for 2.037 seconds—with my Commander. I am now a fighting unit of the 20th Virginia, a regiment ancient and honorable, with a history dating back to Terra Insula. I look forward to my opportunity to demonstrate my worthiness.

18