JELA STOOD QUIETLY in the arid breeze, fascinated—or so it might have appeared to an observer—by the pair of contrails crossing the cloudless blue-green sky on exactly the same heading, one perhaps a hundred of Jela's calm breaths behind the other.
There was no way that a man without instruments could positively say which was higher, though Jela felt he knew. The leader, he thought, would land and be on its way to rotating its wheels for takeoff before the second touched down. After all, that's what had happened when he'd landed here, many days ago.
Yet the observer—and there was no small chance that there was such, likely watching from a camera or sensor stand for one last bit of measurement, one last bit of information about this particular candidate—the observer would have been wrong.
Far from being fascinated, M. Jela Granthor's Guard had pitched his mind as close to a dream state as he might while continuing to stand upright at the edge of the runway, and was himself observing: Listening to the keening echo of ancient, dead-and-gone flying things and concentrating on templates that fell almost visually across his concentration. The tree sat companionably by his side, its topmost leaves moving in a pattern not entirely wind-driven.
Leaning against the tree's lightweight traveling pot was the small kit he'd been given on his arrival at the training grounds. Anything else he owned was elsewhere, perhaps not to be seen again. He hoped, as he stood watching the contrails approach, that he'd soon be allowed his name back. The trainers had, without fail, called him Captain M, and while his name was nothing more than a quartermaster's joke, he was fond of it.
It could well be that they had been told no better name for him. After all, the fact that he was an M was there for all to see—and that he'd been training for duties and activity somewhat . . . above . . . those assigned a corporal, was also as clear as the air here.
There.
With an almost audible snap the top branch fluttered and the template not quite before his eyes became an odd cross, the image half a small spacecraft and half a dragon gliding serenely on stiff wings.
Jela's back-brain applauded the attempt to match this relatively new experience with an unutterably ancient one, and to adjust that template on the fly, as it were.
The scary thing—and it was scary, on the face of it—was that the template continued to evolve, as if the tree were able to reach into Jela's own store of memories and capture details it could never have known of and for itself.
As he watched, the dragon's wings began to bulge at wing-root—but that was surely because Jela knew the craft on the way was an air-breather for much of the trip and would have engines buried there. Too, the keening of mighty dragons was giving way to not one, but two sets of incoming jet sounds, yet the approaching craft was still some moments beyond the range where any human ears might actually hear them.
He shivered then, did Jela, and let his attention return to the exact here and now that he breathed in, letting the template fade from his thought. The first craft was on final approach over the distant river and the second was making its turn—and now the engine sounds hit him, waking a touch of nostalgia for the first time he'd flown an air-breather.
There, the landing gear glinting, and there, the slight flare-out as a moment of ground-effect lift floated the graceful plane a heartbeat above the cermacrete runway.
A beautifully light landing then, with hardly a sound from the gear and barely a sniff of dust, and the underwhine ratcheting down quickly . . .
The fuselage hatch opened and two people stood inside, one to a side, as the craft rolled to a stop directly in front of him. The plane obligingly folded its gear to bring Jela within reach of the short step-ramp, and the two inside jumped the final knee height to his side to help him up, each flashing a salute, despite the fact he had no insignia on his near-colorless 'skins.
One of the assistants took his kit, the other considered the tree for a moment, decided on the proper way to hoist . . . .
And that quickly was Jela within the plane, and the tree beside him, the only occupants of a small if comfortable passenger cabin. The engines began revving, the plane started rising on its gear to take-off height, and the assistants helped Jela snap into his belts.
Two more salutes and the assistants stepped off the plane, leaving the tree, taking the kit, and closing the hatch against the sound and the breeze.
On the wall before him was the flashing "Lift in Progress" sign, but he'd already felt the plane's gear lock and the motion of the completed turn. He settled in, envisioning—for the tree—what had just occurred, and then relaxed as the craft hurtled down the runway and into the air. The small thwap of the gear-doors closing mirrored a jolt of acceleration, and the nose rose.
Through the cabin's small view port he caught a glance of the second craft, now landing. Like this one, it bore no markings.
"Well," he said conversationally to the tree, "guess I get a new wardrobe when we get where we're going!"
He closed his eyes as the comfortable push of the ship's lift continued, indicating a pilot in something of a hurry.
Being neither pilot nor co-pilot, the best thing he might do for the troop at the moment was sleep. Which he did, willingly.
AS USUAL HE WOKE quickly, finding the plane about him barely an instant after deciding to wake. The afterimage of his working dream was a reprise of his last meeting with the language team. Of all the work—ranging from new and surprisingly interesting methods of killing, to explosives, to studies of maths far beyond those that he'd aspired to—it was the language work which had been a non-stop challenge. And the dream left him with the impression that he still needed work, that his skills were not quite adequate for the task to hand.
It was then that the craft banked, and the door to the piloting chamber slid open. A voice, somewhat familiar, drifted back.
"Captain Jela, welcome. Please come forward and take the second seat."
Jela unstrapped, pleased. He hated to be bored.
The flight deck was exactly like the trainers they'd tested him on—no surprise. Nor was the pilot's face.
"Commander." He nodded as he strapped in. Her 'skins, like his, were without markings, he saw.
She nodded in return.
"Your board will be live in a few moments. We'll hit the boost shortly—but there—see your screen for details. Soon we'll rendezvous with a ship carrying your crew and you'll begin simming on your new command."
"Your board is live, Captain," she said quite unnecessarily. "And, as you'll find in your info pack when we arrive, I am Commander Ro Gayda. Welcome to the real war."