We were two months into our new shift when the announcement came over all of the computers, as part of our morning assignment message:

Vessel dropping into Hallycone orbit at 1600 universal.  Expect new recruits.

Unlike NT Hallycone, being very small, had to basically hold all their recruits, prisoners, and culls until the ship came through… once a month, I think.  I had heard that they had an enormous party, once a month.  On NT that would have meant barbecue, on Hallycone, wet-bamboo grilled fish.  I would have loved to try some but, of course, it wasn’t like we were going down.

Our shifts were all fouled up, of course, and 1800 universal was the end of our sleep shift.  And so, at 1750 it was our turn to get walked in on, with me in the shower!

In the millisecond before I turned around, trying to act casual, I saw that it was a boy and girl, almost certainly from Hallycone, with their arms around each other and the boys eyes gazing at me.

“Hi,” I heard from behind me. “I’m Fenta and this is my partnere Mystarrin. I guess we’ll be sharing your bunks. We just got in and they sent us right here. Didn’t expect such a nice view!”

“Nice view!” I heard and turned at Andrew’s voice, turned just in time to see him launching himself at the Hallycone boy, who caught his arm and twisted him in some fashion. Andrew, his right arm held, tried to hit out with his other arm, but the boy grabbed that too.

“Andrew!” I shouted, running over at him to pull him off while the other girl, Mystarrin, grabbed at her own partner.

But Andrew ignored me, and I was soaking wet so my arm kept slipping off. The two boys struggled back and forth and, finally, Fenta sort of tripped over Mystarrin and we all stumbled, as a group, out into the hallyway.

I struggled to keep hold of Andrew and pull him back. “Andrew, calm down!”

“How dare he!? Andrew said, seeming to notice me for the first time. “How dare he say… Aliyah??!”

I looked where he was looking and blushed. Then I looked up and saw several couples and one grey suited boy all staring at us, at me.

With a shriek I darted back into our room. My training in ‘nakedness’ hadn’t innured me enough to be able to be stared at, naked and dripping, in the middle of our hallway. Blushing I hurried over and dried and pulled on a robe and then, finally, turned around.

Andrew was alone, and the door was closed. “How could you!” I shrieked.

“He… he was looking at you. He said, ‘nice view’, meaning you! How could I stand there…”

“They’re from Hallycone! You’ve been doing the training vids just like me! You know they swim naked half the time, or mostly naked, anyway, and showere in their back yards and all!”

“That doesn’t mean he should… should talk about it!”

“They’re probably used to doing that. Don’t you boys do that? Talk about girls?”

“Not in front of them!”

“Well, maybe they do…”

I stopped as there was a tentative knock at the door. Andrew, glowering, opened it. “I… ummm…” the boy said, but Andrew interrupted him,

“We have to get to our class now,” he said, and stormed out. I gave them an apologetic look, but followed him without saying anything. Indeed I could hardly even look at the boy.

Day 68, morning

Still blushing from the incident I hurriedly was examined and put on my suit.  I was fully expecting to come out and see Andrew, and whatever world we were training on, and was a bit bemused to find myself alone in a large, metal room.  A room with harsh, artificial light.  I wasn’t alone long enough to get really freaked out though as, just a few seconds after I arrived girls started appearing here and there in the room (looking at me as curiously as I looked at them) and then, finally, a soldier dressed girl appeared in the front of the room.

“Good morning,” she said, as soon as we appeared.  “Today is an exciting day for me.  So far, all of our time together, you have been doing basically ‘basic training’.  This is important, of course.  We have no idea, yet, what kind of work you will be doing… colonist, soldier, space.  But regardless, you all needed the ‘basic training’… and of course it is helping us determine what you are good at.”

“But, as I say, you have had your ‘basic training’.  And that will continue.  But for some of you, particularly you here today, you will be adding to your basic training some advance training.  In your case, medical training.”

I looked around, to meet the other’s shocked looks.  In my wildest dreams I had never imagined this! “You each have shown aptitude for the training that you have received so far, and we think you can learn much, much more.  As you know, the life we will be living will, for the most part, be extraordinarily primitive.  And so your training, while the best we can give you in the short time we have, will focus mainly on very primitive fixes… and such more advanced tools as we are able to more easily give you.  For those of you going into space, combat, or even trailblazing, your training will go on past that, eventually.”

She paused and I tentatively raised my hand, “Ma’am, what do you mean by ‘medical training’? We don’t have that long before we arrive at our assignements, or that’s what I understand. What kind of training…?”

“That depends. Some of you will be going on to be full field doctors. Others field paramedics. It depends on your apptitudes.”

“So… so if we do go on to be doctors, how much time will that take?”

“Oh, we’ll have you finished by the time we get to your assignment.”

She saw the looks were were giving each other. “You probably have a wrong idea about two things: firstly what a CF doctor is, and secondly you underestimate our training.”

“Firstly a CF doctor has a lot less book knowledge than his groundside peers. For one thing because we aren’t so bound by history. Our computer diagnostic tools are so much better than they used to have that it is foolish of us to try to stuff so much knowledge into a doctors head.

What we do ‘stuff’ is knowledge into their muscles, and muscle brain connections. It used to be that doctor could only see very few of a certain type of surgery or procedure before having to do it, and do very few before they were considered proficient.

With our CATPRT system this has completely changed. Your sim suits not only know exactly what your muscles are doing, but can force them to do the right thing from the beginning. So when you learn you never move a muscle wrong, until your muscles are trained. Then it starts relaxing control until you do the thing automatically.”

“So each skill that we will teach you will be well taught… but not overtaught. In the old days a tech might start one hundred IV’s before doing one NG tube. So they might have well learned the IV stystem, and be poor at inserting NG’s. Not with our system. Our system learns when you have something down and moves on. And it sees when you don’t have something and repeats it. And refreshes whenever you are in danger of forgetting or falling out of habit.

So, to make a long story short, you will learn very well and very quickly, but not nearly so much ‘book knowledge.’

“Now, to begin, we will be doing study in anatomy.” Suddenly the room flickered and we were each standing in front of a table with a sheet covering… “You have each been given a cadaver.  Don’t worry, it isn’t really a dead person, but a simulation.  But it is very well simulated, and all of the anatomy is correct, and very detailed.  In fact, being simulated means you will be able to zoom into any level of detail that you need to examine various structures.

Working with these cadavors will train you not only in knowledge of the anatomy, but of the kinds of cuts, sutures, and the like that you will need for your medical work.

Now, if you would, take the sheet off of your patient.”

I did, and, just my luck, I got a male patient.  But he was dead, at least, and wasn’t likely to ask me to ‘love’ him, so I didn’t have to compare him too badly with Andrew.  The instructor began discussing ‘gross anatomy’ (a term I thought very appropriate) and I was soon lost in the details of all of the way the body worked.

We had barely touched ‘gross’ anatomy and yet two hours had passed.  “Well, I don’t know about you, but I need a bit of a break,” the instructor said.  “Wash up and the break room is in there.”

We washed up and followed her and, sure enough, there were some tables, one of which had some food on it.  The instructor wasn’t there, however, and we all, after taking some food, looked around a bit awkwardly.  I don’t think anyone here knew anyone any more than I did.  “Hey,” I said, as we finally sat down at the table and I found myself next to a short, serious looking girl with simply enormously long brown hair.  “I’m Aliyah.”

“Beth,” she said, nodding her head at me.

“I, um, we haven’t met.”

“No, I haven’t met any of these girls.  What part of New Texas are you from?”

“Victoria area.  You?”

“A small town near Houston.” There was another awkward pause, and then she blurted out, “I’m a cull, partnered to a young man convicted of fraud.  You?”

“Cull,” I said, almost gasping with relief that we had gotten this part of the introductions over.  I could tell from the way they were looking at us, and almost inching away on their seats, that many, at least, of our classmates weren’t culls.  “My partner was a recruit.”

“Are you enjoying this class?” she asked me.  “I am so excited to get picked for this…”

#

The room had gotten rather quiet, and Beth and I looked around.  There, standing by the door, was a new girl, one that hadn’t been in the class this morning, looking rather confused.  But, when she saw me, she brightened up, “Aliyah!” she said, hurrying over and plopping herself down next to me, “Oh, Aliyah, I’m so confused.  Where are we?”

Everyone was still looking at us.  “Mystarrin,” I said, “this is Beth, and this is medical class.  Or, at least, it will be in a couple of minutes when we get done break.  You should probably get yourself some food.”

She looked around at this and hurried off to the table.  As soon as she was gone everyone started talking, again, and Beth leaned over toward me, “Who is she?”

“New cull, from Hallycone.  Partner some kind of criminal…”

“Oh, Aliyah, I am so glad to be in class with you.  And you say your name is Beth?”

“Yes,” Beth said, rather taken aback by this loud Hallyconer.  Her Ship Talk was almost flawless but her manners were, well, loud.

 

“Did Aliyah tell you how we met, this morning?” Mystarrin asked, grinning.  “Oh, my poor partner, he felt so bad!”

“He felt bad?!” I asked.  “He certainly didn’t act it! I don’t think I have ever met a boy so rude!”

I had spoken way too loudly, and the entire room, again, turned and looked at me.  “Oh, I’m so sorry.  I know your partner was very upset but I… we still don’t  understand.  He… I thought he… what did Fenta do wrong?”

“Well, he shouldn’t have looked at me, for one thing!”

“But… how could he… I mean, there you were… he is a boy!”

“Excuse me,” a girl said, from across the table.  The rest of the girls, embarrassed, had eventually turned away from our conversation but this girl had actually scooshed over closer and was now leaning forward, toward us.  Mystarrin was crying now, and I’m sure my face was red.  This girl had a NT accent but, from her features, I would almost have said she was from Hallycone herself.

“I couldn’t help overhearing, indeed I imagine the whole world couldn’t help overhearing, and I think I might be able to be of help.  You see, I’m from NT, and my father is from NT, but my mother is from Hallycone, and I think I may know what the problem is.”

“Let me guess.  They came, this morning, and walked in on the two of you in the middle of bed play?”

I blushed bright red and stammered out, “No! I was… I was in the shower.”

“Ah, OK, same concept.  And the boy, your partner, he looked at her?”

Mystarrin nodded, tears still flowing down her face.

“And made some kind of compliment?”

“Yes,” Mystarrin said.  “At least, I thought it was a compliment, and I’m sure he meant it that way.  I don’t know what she expected him to say.”

“She’s from NT,” the girl said.  “What she expected was for him to turn around, blush, and stammer out some kind of apology.”

“But, but we didn’t do it on purpose!” the girl said, sounding horrified.

“No, but Aliyah here is from NT, and that is the way they, we, behave when we walk in on someone.  Aliyah,” she said to me, “you have to understand.  That boy, he was probably just as embarrassed as you.  Not in seeing you naked, that doesn’t mean much to those from Hallycone, but from ‘walking in’ on you when you expected to be in private.  And he did his best to apologize.  You see, to a Hallyconer, telling a naked girl, or any girl, that she is beautiful is considered a very polite thing to do.  A little dangerous if it goes too far, but I bet he said something to his own partenere, too?” she asked,

“He didn’t have time!” Mystarrin protested. Her partner attacked him!

“Well, of course he did!” I said. “He was defending  my honor.”

“You… you tried to stop him?” she protested.

“Of course,” I protested, and the girl laughed.

“Oh, Mystarrin! New Texas can be confusing.”

We all stared at her as she explained, “When Andrew got angry at your partner and attacked him, he was doing his job as a NT  male: standing up for a woman, being all chivalrous. Aliyah reacted as she has been taught to, attempting to defuse the male aggression. If there were nothing but NT involved, the girls would have separated the boys, and the boys would have ‘calmed down’… once they knew their girls understood ‘how mad they were’… and the girls would have talked the whole thing out… and then had each other over for barbecue or something.

We all laughed at that last, except Mystarrin. “but I don’t understand why he was angry!”

Hallyconers are rather open about nudity,” the girl said.  “My mother was always getting in trouble about that.  And they are very open about compliments, even very sexual compliments. But New Texans aren’t, especially in mixed company. When your partner complimented Aliyah Andrew took it as if Aliyah was some sort of naked model, for Fenta to stare at.

Mystarrin grew beet red… “he didn’t mean that!!”

“No, but Andrew didn’t know that.”

“So why did he say… what he said?” I asked.

Fenta wasn’t embarrassed that you were naked.  But he could tell that you had expected to be alone, and was trying to ‘make it up’ to you by complimenting you.”

“I can’t tell you how hard it was for my mother, even after years and years amongst us, when people would not compliment her when apologizing.  The NT way of just stammering something incoherent, she always took to be very insincere.  ‘If they really want to build the relationship back’, she would say, ‘they need to say something positive.  Tell me I bake a good apple pie, or something!'”

“Luckily my father was good at compliments and, for a New Texan, rather immodest, so they got along great.”

“I… I…” I stammered out, and suddenly everyone laughed, including me, at my typical New Texan way of being embarrassed.  I turned to Mystarrin, “Let see if we can start our relationship again.  Let me see.  You seem to be a very friendly girl, very nice, have a partner that,” I gulped, “looks very, umm, nice… and I am looking forward to getting to know you.”

Mystariin grinned gain, dried her tears, and said, “Let me see if I can get this right.  I… I… oh, I’m, we’re so sorry for walking in on you… won’t happen again…”

Everyone laughed.  “It’s just like on the videos!” she said.  “There is this video series, ‘The Star of Texas’ and, well, we all like it but we always laughed at this one character who always was getting himself in embarrassing situations and then blushing and stammering and all.  Did I do it right?”

Everyone agreed that she had done it right, and the room went back to break.  “What are you doing here, anyway?” I asked.  “I thought this was your sleep shift.”

“Oh, no,” she said, breezily.  “We were just coming together for our first bed play, and then the computer sent us off to train.”

“Your first… now? Haven’t you been together for a month or so?”

She laughed, “Some of them have, but I didn’t get assigned to my partner till yesterday, and we were too busy at the party to get time for a quiet cuddle.”

“So what are you doing here? I thought this was only for those who had finished their basic training.”

“Oh, I did.  We did.  Hallycone has an awesome set of VR suites, and the CF, since they can’t do what they do with you all, have downloaded all of their programs onto them.  We even have people learning stuff for fun.”

“Oh, Nestin is going to be so upset when I tell him about this morning.  We even talked about it for several minutes before we got started on bed play, if you can believe that.”

“Don’t tell him,” I said.  “I don’t want to make him feel bad.”

“Oh, no, I have to,” she said, shaking her head.  “We need to learn to deal with other cultures, and I’m sure that most of them tend to act more like you than like us… or different in some other way.”

“Well, tell him I appreciate the compliment, then, anyway, even if I didn’t at the time.”

“Oh, I knew that,” she said.

“Say,” I said to that girl, who was still sitting across from us listening to the whole thing, “How did your folks get together, anyway?”

“Just like this, almost,” she said. My dad was recruited, five year term. He has never admitted this, but I think he just wanted to get ‘recruit’ on his resume. He partnered up with a nice girl from New Texas, got her with a bun, and got ‘recruited’.”

They got a month out and she, my dad’s first partenere, started hemorrhaging. It had something to do with the pregnancy and it happened in the middle of the night and she never even woke up. My dad woke up to a pool of blood. It was horrible.

Anyway, they were just getting to Hallycone and they pulled my mother up for him. She still tells us the story. She wasn’t recruited in the regular way. Apparently a couple of CF officials showed up in a jeep in front of her house right as she was about to go to bed. They sat her down, told her the story, told her that they, and the computer, had decided that she would be a great partenere for him.

She told us that she agreed without leaving the couch or asking a question. Her mother was all upset, but she just left, went upstairs, said goodbye to her siblings, and came back, ready to go.

“Wow!” I said, and Mystariin nodded her head,

“I don’t think I could have done that!” she said.

“I know I couldn’t have!” I said.

“I’m Ulina,” the girl said, reaching out her hand.

“You’re a recruit, and you’re willing to talk to us?” I asked Ulina.

Her face fel a bit but she answered, bravely, “Look, we’re all going to end up in the same place in the end, anyway. And have to work together.”

“OK, so regular recruits tend to dislike Culls. Finishing schoolers, always boasting about their education and jobs… not doing their duty to the country… sitting at school while the rest of us wipe bottom… I’m sure you’ve heard it all.”

“And, come on, you’ve got to admit there’s some truth in it. It isn’t like just ordinary people go to finishing school. You’ve got to have something to prove, and some way to prove it. Me, I jumped at the first guy that offered to partner with me. Not that he isn’t a great guy, but I just jumped at him. We…” she blushed.

“I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one jealous at someone brave enough to sign up to finishing school… skipping first choice and risking being culled.”

“You were jealous of me?” I asked. “I mean, not me but people like me?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You’re not surprised?”

“Surprised?!” I said. “Do you have any idea how jealous I was of girls like you? Girls that could say ‘yes’ to a partner… to commit the rest of your life to some guy, to sleep with him, obey him, have his children?”

“Ladies,” a voice came from the doorway, “Time is up, let’s get back to your corpses…”

#

Mystarriin, of course, hadn’t had a corpse but, the computer being what it was, she had one when we got back. She, and a half a dozen other new women that had, apparently, came directly into the room right before we got back. The instructor must have already introduced them to the class because she just had to introduce Mystariin, who ended up right next to me and, right after the introduction, as she started carving, started talking, to me, “So, this is y’alls first day in the class, I didn’t miss anything?”

“Yes,” I said, sort of wondering how being walked in on made us best buddies already. “What do you think?”

“Oh, it’s kind of gross, but I think I’ll like it. I like people, and doing doctor stuff means getting to deal with people a lot, no?”

I guess it did. I hadn’t thought of that. I was enjoying the knowledge bit. This sim was a wonderful way to do this. I could cut and re-cut, and cut here and there and then have it go back together, figuring out how everything worked. I was still embarrassed by my corpses nakedness just staring at me. I would have covered it but… who knows… they might have flunked me for that. Certainly none of the other girls had covered theirs.

“And everyone else is here from NT, eh?” she asked, into the silence.

“Yes, yes,” I said.

“Well, we didn’t bring as many as you did and, well, it is true that most Hallyconers wouldn’t really be up to learning all this. I was considered very odd, back at home. Wanting to learn things instead of wanting to swim.”

“Really?” I asked, startled. I could imagine some of my friends thinking this, but I couldn’t  imagine any of them saying it!

“Life’s too easy on Hallycone,” she said. “Our island was only about two miles across at the widest, and four miles long. So no one was more than a mile from the beach, and most of us a lot less. My house was right on the beach. I would sit there, on the porch, with my reader, and kids from the town would stream past to go swimming.”

“Wow, that must have made it hard to study,” I said, uncovering the liver and staring at the vessels connecting it. Huge blood vessels… which the computer was labeling in mid air, a bizarre kind of sim effect.

“Oh, yuck!” she said and I turned. Yuck indeed.

“You’d better replay that!” I said.

“What?” she asked. “How do I do that?”

Replay wasn’t a common feature of anything but game sims, so I showed her how to get the computer to ‘rewind’ her actions and get the bowel reunited. “Thanks!” she said, as I went back to my corpse.

She kept talking for the next couple of hours and then even she got a bit wrapped up in what she was doing. Several other girls were kind of talkative. But I, I enjoyed listening but couldn’t really talk while I was doing this kind of work.

#

It was kind of late in the day, but I didn’t think it was fully evening, when my world suddenly flickered and I found myself back in the changing room. Pretty much all alone, too. Only Mystarrin was changing with me, and June was there, looking serious.

Aliyah, I’m afraid you are up on discipline charges, she said, once I had my robe on. Mystarrin, you are called to the same hearing, but not under charges.

“I… what?” I said.

“You are up on charges for violating the dress code.”

“I…!!!” I blushed as I suddenly realized what she meant.

Mystarrin and I followed June and she led us down our hallway, then out into the main hallway and for about ten more minutes. She paused at the door of a room, looked at us as if asking if we were ready but she didn’t say anything before keying the lock.

“I bring the accused,” she said, “And the witness Mystarrin.”

Blushing brightly again I moved forward as she moved out of the way. There was a table at the front of the room, at which several officers were sitting. Two in grey and the rest in colors of other branches.

I didn’t have much time to look at them, though, as Andrew was there with a bunch of others, standing to the side of the room. “Aliyah!” he said, trying to come forward and being restrained by a grey suited guard type and a couple of other men, men from our hallway.

“The witness will remain silent,” the man sitting in the middle of the table said.

“I am her partner!” Andrew said, turning to him.

“Noted,” the man said. “Do you need time to speak to her in private? Do you wish to offer her advise?”

“I… no… I suppose not.”

“Aliyah nee Brendon, do you wish counsel?”

“I… I don’t understand,” I said.

“You have been accused of violating the dress code rules. Witnesses have been taken. You will not be asked to testify. Do you wish to seek legal advise before sentence is passed?”

I thought about it. I had broken the dress code, even if I hadn’t done it on purpose…

“Can I ask a question? Of the court?”

The men put their heads together, whispered, and then the head man said, “You may. We will not consider it testimony, so you may say whatever you wish.”

“I… does it make a difference if I did not do it on purpose?”

The head man looked to a man on his right, who, I guess, knew this kind of thing.

“There are three answers to that,” he said. “Firstly, if this were a matter of a true accident, or even an emergency, there would be no case. If the door had fallen off, or there had been an explosion, or even if some illness had presented itself… then your nudity would not be a fault.”

“If you were being accused of willfully presenting yourself nude in the cooridor, as has happened with some cultures, then your punishment would be more severe.”

“What you are being accused of, here, is of a failure to properly control your actions. The witnesses have testified that you were attempting to restrain your partner from offering physical violence in an inappropriate way. He has already been punished for his actions, but his punishment would have been more severe without your actions.”

“However a soldier or other member of the CF must have enough presence of mind to realize where they are at all times. You should have realized that, when the fight threatened to spill into the hallway, your duty lay in obeying CF regulations. The evidence showed that there was no danger of the scuffle becoming overly dangerous… certainly no more than your partner undergoes in his training.”

“Therefore we have ruled that you will be given three lashes, barring any protest you wish to lodge against this punishment.”

Three lashes… and I had been stupid. If I let my emotions carry me away against the BN…

“But it was our fault,” Mystarrin suddenly said. “We didn’t handle the encounter well. We should have apologized quicker.”

The head man took up the talking. “Indeed, you did handle it poorly. This encounter was actually planned by the staff… altho we hadn’t expected it to get this out of hand. All four of you are suffering from a difficulty in understanding alternative points of view.

Andrew,” he said, turning to him, “You are aware that many of the CF cultures view nudity very differently than the NT culture. And that most cultures handle conflict differently. Yet you leapt to the conclusion that Fenta was being insulting of your partner. In general we judge this a result of your own insecurity in your partnership.

Fenta, we know that your training on Hallycone included handling modest culture such as New Texas, New Geneva, or… others. You were aware of difficulties this has made on Hallycone. We do not fault your for trying to defuse the situation, but you will need to work on your immediate reaction of apology.

Mystarrin, we believe you handled the situation well.

Aliyah, let me speak frankly. You are one of the most gifted recruits… well, in your case culls, we have had in a long time. We think that your partnership with Andrew will make one of our most powerful partnerships. You were even chosen, just last week, for medical training.

But in order to use those gifts you will have to develop more situational awareness. A trait you failed in this morning.

Your punishment has been ordered, unless you have further protest.

“I… no,” I said. Three lashes. I suppose I had received worse pain during training. And it was just a neural whip, it would not actually cause any damage…

“I will take the punishment,” Andrew said, startling me.

“What? No!” I said.

“That is your right,” the judge said.

“What?! No!” I said, again, and the judge looked at me.

“As your partner, it is his right. Carry out the punishment.”

I made to move forward, to stop them, but Mystarrin held me back, and a couple of other girls looked like they would help, so I stopped trying. But I couldn’t believe this! Why was he being punished? He had tried to defend me! He had done everything right!!

The punishment was very quick. They had his shirt off and the first lash before I could even really finish my protest in my own head. Andrew screamed and I tried to rush forward again, but the girls were ready and held me back.

When the third lash fell they let me go, and I rushed forward to him. “Oh, Andrew!” I said, coming up and hugging him, then stopping, confused. Did that hurt?

“Well,” he said, hugging me back, “At least I get a hug out of it.”

“Oh, Andrew…”

“It’s not that bad, and it really was my fault,” he said. “Let’s go home now.”

Day 68, evening

I kept expecting Andrew to wince, or limp, or do something, on the way home… still not really comprehending the ‘no damage’ of the neural whip, finding it impossible to reconcile after the pain that I had seen on his face.

“How was your day?” Andrew asked me, as we made it through the door. “I mean, after this morning and before this?”

“Oh… You’ll never guess!” I squealed, glad to change the subject.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I got chosen to be a doctor!” I said. “Or, something medical anyway, and I don’t think a nurse, either. A doctor, or a field paramedic. I’m not sure what those are, but, still, it sounds exciting.”

“That’s what the judge said. How did they choose you?”

“I dunno, they just took us to the class today, first thing, for sim.”

“I noticed you werent’ there,” he said, getting into the showere.  I turned around and took my robe off, hanging it up”So, what did you do?” he asked.

“I had to cut up a dead person,” I said, shivering.

“Oh, yuck,” he said.

“He wasn’t really dead,” I said, “and I get to be a doctor!” I couldn’t control myself any longer and ran across and hugged him.  Which of course got me wet, and so I just stayed in the shower.  But I didn’t care, not today.  Today I was excited. And… and not at all sure how to handle the fact that he had taken what should have been my punishment

We got to bed really late that night, what with talking and duty, and carefully avoiding talking about the punishment, but I didn’t care, I would have been too excited to sleep anyway.

#

“Greetings,” our  instructor said.  “This may seem a bit strange to you, but today we are going to deliver babies.  Our classes for the next few weeks will keep going back and forth.  Once again, you don’t need to worry, today’s patients are all simulations.  Soon, however, we will be delivering real babies.  As you know many women come to us pregnant so we are already busy. But we’ll get a lot busier as time goes on.”

“Now, the most important thing to realize about child birth is that it is natural. Women were designed, by The Creator, to have babies. Men, well, that’s another story, and not one I need to tell you I’m sure. But we women were designed to have babies. Let’s look at a pregnant woman,” she said, and suddenly there, in front of us, was a pregnant woman… naked, of course. Grossly pregnant, too, eight months at least, if I had my guess. “Look inside here,” she said, splitting the woman open with a wave of her hand, and showing us the growing baby inside of it. You probably already know this, but the baby is attached to the mother by a placenta…”

#

“How did today go?” Andrew asked me, that evening.  We had arrived before Mystarrin and her husband had left, but they were dressed, sitting talking. I think Mystarrin actually stayed so she could say hello. We hadn’t gotten to talk hardly at all today, except for break, and I think she was just bursting to talk.

“Oh, I so loved today!” she said, gushing and hugging me, while Andrew and Nestin looked on, grinning.

“I kind of liked yesterday, better,” I said. “Surgery on a dead person is easier for me that dealing with some screaming pregnant woman that keeps telling me what an idiot I am.”

She laughed. We had had a patient like that yesterday, and we had each had to handle her, on our own, before the teacher had shown us how it was done. We had each tried to, you know, defend ourselves. Mystarriin had been practically in tears by the time it was done. But the teacher, working with the patient, practically ignoring the patient while she screamed and cursed her, rubbing her back, encouraging her to walk around.

“Well, we need to go,” she said, reluctantly, with a final hug, leaving me alone with Andrew. I could tell he was hoping for a repeat of yesterday.

“How did it go?” He asked me, getting into the shower.

“OK,” I said. “I’ve had better days, I’ve had worse days.”

“What’s the matter?” he asked, coming forward and putting his (wet!) hand on my shoulder.

“Well, today was all about childbirth,” I said, bowing to the inevitable and taking my robe off and moving with him back to the shower, letting him rub my back

“Didn’t you like childbirth?” he asked, not as distracted as I would have liked by my joining it.

“I loved it,” I said.  “I was just jealous.”

He turned me around, and not so he could see me naked either, but to hug me and say, “You’ll get pregnant! The tests all say we are both fine.  It hasn’t been that long.  Lot’s of couples don’t get pregnant right away.  They say only 85% in their first year.”

“Well, it seems to me like the 85% are already pregnant,” I said, moping.

“Well, we’ll just have to try harder,” he said, grinning, and I slapped him.  But, actually, he liked it when I slapped him like that and pretty soon we were out of the shower and ‘trying’.  But my heart wasn’t really in it.  I was beginning to be convinced that I couldn’t have a baby.

#

That next evening I was surprised, and quite a bit nervous, to see that Mystarrin and I were, again, dismissed early. As soon as I pulled off my helment I looked at June, but she was grinning. “Special evening,” she said.

“What?”

“Both of us?” Mystarrin asked, coming up next to me.

“A special evening, both of you, and your husbands, Room R45, Hurry along.”

Mystarrin and I looked at each other and ‘hurried along’. I knew the layout well enough that I didn’t need directions, and Myst followed me.

“What do you suppose is up?” she asked.

“I have no idea. None of the other girls seem to be  invited.”

“She said it was ‘a special evening’. That doestn’t sound like something work related. Do you suppose Fenta and Andrew will be there?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope so,” she said, and I tried to decide if I wanted Andrew to be ‘there’ or not. But, if he was going to be there we would have met him, met them, at the door to the changing room, no?

“How far do we have to go?” she asked me.

“It’s quite a ways,” I said. “And we have to go up this ladder.”

 

Up that ladder, then down a hallway, then up another ladder, then to a door, which I opned and… “Andrew?!”

Andrew was standing by an enourmous fire, one of the two in the room.Yes, you heard that right, two fires in this room. It had a high rounded ceiling, with stars or somesuch painted on the ceiling.

“Hey, Love!” Andrew yelled… the room being big and the fire making a bunch of noise. “Help us get ready?”

“Get ready for what?” I asked him, as I hurried over, Mystarrin doing the same thing for Fetna on the other side of the room. “Barbeque!” he said. “We’re hosting a barbeque… and fish steam,” he added, wrinkling his nose.

“We are?”

“Yeah, I got permission from my commander. Our whole group is coming, about fifty people total.  You and Myst need to get the other stuff organized, they’ll all be here in about an hour.

“What?!” I squealed, and looked off to Mystarrin, who was busy talking with Fenta. “What are we having?”

“All the usual… Pork ribs, brisket, chicken… they even had some lamb. You need to get the salads and everything ready.”

“For fifty people?” I squealed. “Where do I get everything?”

“Oh, there’s some fridges back over there,” he said, nodding.

“Oh, my,” I said, hurrying off.

Praise the creator they already had a lot of food all chopped and everything, so throwing together potato salad, coleslaw, and the like wasn’t actually that hard. In fact I got done before Mystarrin.

“What is that?” I asked her.

“It’s our standard fish sauce,” she said. “One of them, anyway. Mayonaisse, pickles and pickle juice, and horseradish. Plus a pepper that we grow on Hallycone. I was lucky they had some.”

I tasted it and kind of squealed. It was kind of spicy, in a very different way.

“you like it?” she asked, as I tried again.

“I might on the fish,” I said. “What are all those?”

“Pickled salads,” she said. “Not that they’ll be that pickled today, I could kill that boy, giving us only a couple of hours to get ready.”

“Andrew said one hour.”

“That’s when the guests arrive. Or start arriving. But the meal will need to be in two hours. Or, rather, she said, glancing at her com, one hour and fifteen minutes from now. Fenta said your partner would have some ‘cracked ribs’ to start with? How do they eat them?”

“Oh, with their fingers. We put them in large bowls…” I suddenly realized that the ‘we’ was me, and rushed off to find the bowls.

Andrew had had the cracker and I had just gotten a half dozen ribs cracked when the door opened and our first ‘guests’ walked in: a couple I hardly knew from our hallway, a different shift.

“Aliyah,” the woman said, and came and kissed me. She was hugely pregnant and we had to lean over her stomach to get the kiss done. “Thank you for inviting us!”

“Well, you’ll have to thank Andrew,” I said, ruefully, he put this whole thing together.

“Oh, you just pass it on,” she said, “the boys are already arguing barbeque technique. I guess Andrew and Fenta have made up?’

“I…” I said, suddenly in my own head realizing that that was what this was, “Oh, yes. They’ll probably end up best friends.”

She laughed, “And you are done blushing?”

I blushed, and she laughed again.

She left a minute later to talk to a friend that had just arrived and I hurried off to Andrew. “Did you do this to make up?” I whispered.

“I guess,” he said. “Fenta and I worked it up together. Surprised?”

“Yes,” I said, kissing him and earning us some cheers. But it had been really well thought of.

 

#

“Oh, Andrew, that went so well!” I said that night in the shower.

“I’m glad you liked it,” he said. “I really am sorry for not controlling myself better, back then.”

“I thought you were wonderful. It is hard dealing with these others, but I think we’ll get used to it. Mystarrin was really fun tonight. I had no idea she could play the guitar!”

I think it was called a ‘lute’, Andrew said. But it was kind of like a guitar, wasn’t it. I love you, you know.”

“I know,” I said. “I love you too.”

As we finished showering I mused on the fact that that was true, and yet I was still furious at him for how he had gotten us together.

Over the next few days we vacillated, but eventually went back to the ‘turn around’ and ‘lights out’ except when I had a particularly good day at the sims… or when he had a particularly bad day.  Which I had learned to tell.

“I’m just not good at anything,” he moped one day, after we got done and he was in his ‘I can’t sleep yet’ mood.  Everyone else beats me in everything.”

“I’m sure you’re not that bad,” I said.

“Oh, come on,” he said, rolling over and facing me in the light of the jungle scene that was our current bedroom wall mural.  “You’ve seen my scores.  I’m not near the top in anything!”

“Well, you don’t need to be.  You aren’t near the bottom in anything.”

“That’s helpful,” he said, grumping.  I held him and, like he always did, he drifted right off to sleep and left me worrying about his problems.  It was true, none of his scores, not that we really knew what they were about, were very good.  Out of the ten thousand people in training, he rarely rose above the 5,000 mark, and that usually only for a few days.  Not that anybody ever complained, and most of our new shift, and most of our old shift, were about the same.

Jill’s partner, on the other hand, was really starring in one of his scores.  They seemed to go up every day.