She opened the channel, but after a half an hour passed, and she heard nothing, she concluded that he must have made it back safely.
The central cabin seemed very lonely without him. Unlike any of the others, except, perhaps, Chria Chance, he had filled the entire cabin with the sheer force of his personality. He was certainly lively enough.
She waited until oh-six-hundred, and then opened her line to CenCom. There was a new operator on, one who seemed not at all curious about her or her doings; seemed, in feet, as impersonal as an AI. He brought up Beta's office without so much as a single comment.
As she halfway expected, Beta was present. And the very first words out of the woman's mouth were, "Well? Have you picked a brawn, or am I going to have to trot the rest of the Academy past you?"
Hypatia stopped herself from snapping only by an effort. "I made an all-night effort at considering the twelve candidates you presented, Supervisor," she said sharply. "I went to the considerable trouble of accessing records as far back as lower schools." Only a little fib, she told herself. I did check Alex, after all.
"And?" Beta replied, not at all impressed.
"I have selected Alexander Joli-Chanteu. He can come aboard at any time. I completed all my test-flight sequences yesterday, and I can be ready to lift as soon as CenCom gives me clearance and you log my itinerary." There, she thought, smugly. One in your eye, Madame Supervisor, I'll wager you never thought I'd be that efficient.
"Very good, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied, showing no signs of being impressed at all. "I wouldn't have logged Alexander as brawn if I had been in your shell, though. He isn't as... professional as I would like. And his record is rather erratic."
"So are the records of most genius-class intellects, Supervisor," Tia retorted, feeling moved to defend her brawn. "As I am sure you are aware." And you aren't in my shell, lady, she thought, with resentment at Beta's superior tone smoldering in her, until she altered the chemical feed to damp it. I will make my own decisions, and I will thank you to keep that firmly in mind.
"So they say, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied impersonally. "I'll convey your selection to the Academy and have CenCom log in your flight plan and advise you when to be ready to lift immediately."
With that, she logged off. But before Tia could feel slighted or annoyed with her, the CenCom operator came back on.
"AH-One-Oh-Three-Three, congratulations!" he said, his formerly impersonal voice warming with friendliness. "I just wanted you to know before we got all tangled up in official things that the operators here all think you picked a fine brawn. Me, especially."
Tia was dumbfounded. "Why, thank you," she managed. "But why?"
The operator chuckled. "Oh, we handle all the cadets' training-flights. Some of them are real pains in the orifice, but Alex always has a good word and he never gripes when we have to put him in a holding pattern. And, well, that Donning character tried to get me in trouble over a near-miss when he ignored what I told him and came in anyway. Alex was in the pattern behind him, he saw and heard it all. He didn't have to log a report in my defense, but he did, and it kept me from getting demoted."
"Oh," Tia replied. Now, that was interesting. Witnesses to near misses weren't required to come forward with logs of the incident, and in fact, no one would have thought badly of Alex if he hadn't. His action might even have earned him some trouble with Donning.
"Anyway, congratulations again. You won't regret your choice," the operator said. "And, stand by for compressed data transmission."
As her orders and flight-plan came over the comlink, Tia felt oddly pleased and justified. Beta did not like her choice of brawns. The CenCom operators did.
Good recommendations, both.
She began her pre-flight check with rising spirits, and it seemed to her that even Ted was smiling. Just a little. All right Universe, brace yourself. Here we come!
CHAPTER FOUR
"All right, Tia-my-love, explain what's going on here, in words of one syllable," Alex said plaintively, when Tia got finished with tracing the maze of orders and counter-orders that had interrupted their routine round of deliveries to tiny two to four-person Exploratory digs. "Who's on first?"
"And What's on second," she replied absentmindedly. Just before leaving she'd gotten a datahedron on old Terran slang phrases and their derivation; toying with the idea of producing that popular-science article. If it got published on enough nets, it might well earn her a tidy little bit of credit, and no amount of credit, however small, was to be scorned. But one unexpected side-effect of scanning it was that she tended to respond with the punch lines of jokes so old they were mummified.
Though now, at least, she knew what the CenCom operator had meant by "hang onto your bustle" and that business about the wicked witch who'd had a house dropped on her sister.
"What?" Alex responded, perplexed. "No, never mind. I don't want to know. Just tell me whose orders we're supposed to be following. I got lost back there in the fifth or sixth dispatch."
"I've got it all straight now, and it's dual-duty," she replied. "Institute, with backup from Central, although they were countermanding each other in the first four or five sets of instructions. One of the Excavation digs hasn't been checking in. Went from their regular schedule to nothing, not even a chirp."