THE JOURNEY TO CAPITAL
THE JOURNEY TO CAPITAL
Maybe you have a wafer jack: then you know how it works. Hold the skill wafer to the niche in the nape of your neck and you can feel the magnets pull. There is just the slightest wobble in your thought processes, but other than that, if you aren’t really thinking, then you feel nothing special, and that’s normal.
It’s when you’re thinking that it matters. The skills kick in and suddenly that gibberish of equations in front of you makes sense. You aren’t any smarter, but you suddenly understand what the symbols and the characters mean and how they interact. Taking the wafer out is like closing a door: you know that you knew just a minute before, but no longer.
The warnings say, “Don’t leave the wafer in place for more than 30 days. Take breaks. Monitor for non-standard reactions or behaviors.” Too many people ignore them and end up on restoratives. Worse: they develop an immunity to wafers which either stop working or provide nonsense skills. I once knew a clerk who worked an entire shift finding that the solution to every equation was 1 (or –1, he knew there were two roots to the equation) and never caught on.
The Angin Wafer is different. Hold it to the nape of your neck and you feel the magnets pull. There is the slightest wobble in your thought processes, and suddenly:
You are somewhere else, in a different position, in a different place, in different clothes. When you check the time it’s four weeks later. You, whoever you were in the interim, have done things that will gradually unfold to you, maybe. He used your body and your voice and your name, but it certainly wasn’t you. If you are lucky, the use wasn’t major, and things return to normal. For some, it was major, and they transfer you to someplace new, where no one remembers that other you or knows what that other you did.
281-461
Aboard AF Ukaammur Above
Core 1424 Khusgarlu B652AEE-B Hi Po
Ukaammur’s displaced captain had not been happy, but the service is not about making people happy.
Now-Lieutenant Shuginsa’s journey, commanding one of the fleet’s routine couriers, covered 97 parsecs in just about 58 weeks: a week in jump, a week insystem refueling, a week in jump, another week insystem refueling. There was an element of tourism: seeing new systems and strange worlds. Shuginsa had instructed the astrogator to include Ilelish—the homeworld of the Suerrat—on their itinerary if it did not affect total travel time. Several weeks out, it had become apparent that the travel controls in the aftermath of the Ilelish Revolt would make a casual visit ill-advised. Shuginsa was disappointed, but philosophical, perhaps another time.
Now the ship was almost to its destination.
297-461
Aboard AF Ukaammur Above
Core 1822 Holex A200353-C Lo Va
Lieutenant Shuginsa’s astrogator strictly followed standard procedures in the final stages of their journey to Capital. At Holex, a rock ball of a world significant only because it had a naval base on the edge of the Identification Zone, they received time-stamped authorization codes and strict compliance procedures.
The final jump itself was uneventful; breakout was almost dead on time, followed by immediate instructions to maneuver to a holding area and then slow movement to the naval base annex of the Highport above Capital.