Just a little Skip–No Man’s Land Teaser

(Sarah got attacked by probably pollen, possibly a virus, and the weirdest but maybe most effective unrequested tech support personal–Indy now fixes computer hardware, and said I should share a bit of the book. Something funny and self contained, which, well, Skip generally is, until he isn’t, so herewith, trials of future academia. If it isn’t your tastes, well, you got an Indy here to fix your computer fan photo for your time today!)

Schrodinger Path

Skip:

It is not true that the engraved plaque you see when you come into the IDS buildings devoted to the training of future diplomats of Britannia says Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

I do understand why that has become widely believed, and to be fair, given how strict the testing of incoming students, it could be that. But my guess is that it would be too much blunt truth-telling for the IDS.

What the plaque, a fine sheet of silver, or perhaps a glassteel imitation of silver says, in raised golden letters – it is also not true that the IDS has ever had any aesthetics – is: You Can Never Know Enough.

This was certainly true for me. Through the year of my initial training I was often grateful that the initial problems, first contacts and negotiations were virtual, done in mersi chamber, and with species, worlds and issues created from whole cloth by instructors. This is good, because no matter how much I studied on the upcoming situation, learned all the trigger words I should never use, the relationships I shouldn’t mention, implied we’d consider their just cause – even if their just cause was wanting to eat their neighbors raw – or whatever I did, it ended with food thrown at me, elaborate insults offered to me, or me running out of the mersi room with a virtual lynch mob at my heels. Fortunately they evaporated on the threshold. Unfortunately, after a year of this, I started thinking whatever I was suited for it was not being a diplomat.

I might have said that failing wasn’t an option. Not for my Mother, at least. But at almost nineteen, I was starting to get a feeling Mother’s view of reality might be unrealistic.

So I read the card she sent me to congratulate me on finishing my first year of training with flying colors – what kind of bilge were the instructors selling her? Oh, yeah, under no circumstances is the IDS truthful – and tell me she was proud of me. I set it on the table, looked at myself in the blue uniform of a diplomat trainee – why did I always end up in blue uniforms? – and thought well, it was time to find something else to do with my life. Which was a pity because the small room with its single bed, its reader and its music system had been a refuge of sorts. Since I didn’t use my title here and went by Skip Hayden, no one seemed to know me. Because the IDS frowned on lack of self control, I’d been celibate as a monk, which I found oddly restful. Out there, or on the estate, I’d have to become the viscount Webson, and – yes – the prodigy war hero. And I’d probably have to hide in someone’s bed again.

But one thing my father had told me is that many people spent their lives in pursuit of careers they weren’t suited for and that it was a waste. He was speaking of a particularly thick-headed student at the Academy, but considering my performance here, I was sure he would say it applied to me and diplomacy.

I walked out of my room, stepping crisply. That was one of those things they’d told me to change – among the other hundred things. My walk was apparently too crisp and “military.” Which since I’d lived in a military academy for most of my life, should be no surprise for anyone. But one of the many mottos that the IDS threw around was: A Diplomat Always Looks Relaxed.

Well, I wasn’t going to be a diplomat, and I didn’t feel particularly diplomatic. I didn’t try to correct my walk – which attempt at any rate meant that instructors told me I was walking like a sick duck – and just left the dormitory floor, in search of the first instructor whose face I knew. I was going to ask for a resignation form and then I was—

Well, probably going to go back to the estate and figure out what to do with the next 100 or 150years. The impulse to become a diplomat had probably been stupid, anyway.

Of course the instructor I ran into was Matt Crowe, who was walking out of the mersi room with his own crisp step, probably just having set up hell for the next patsy to walk in for a simulated diplomatic interaction.

Crowe or Mr. Crowe – though none of the instructors had less than a doctorate, mind – as he preferred to be called, was one of the youngest instructors. He was about forty, had dark hair, grey-blue-green eyes which could assume a laser-point intensity if he thought I was being particularly stupid, always kept close-shaved and looked like a military academy graduate, as I should very well know. Which meant I was always tempted to salute and call him “sir.”

I controlled with an effort of will, as I came to a stop in front of him, and of course, predictably, what came out of my mouth was a weak and wandering, “Er…. Mr. Crowe?”

“Hayden?” he said. As though it were a big surprise to find a student wandering the halls of the instruction wing.

“Yes, sir,” I said, and there must have been something to my voice because he didn’t correct me. “I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time, sir? Or do I need to make an appointment?”

He frowned at me. “Is it vital that you see me right now?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. We could wait, but it would be a waste of both our times.”

His frown got more thunderous and I swear he’d had someone install laser light behind his eyes. That kind of look, with a glow should hurt. Him, I mean. It did hurt me. Or at least made me sound like an idiot.

He nodded once, pivoted on his heels and said, “Come.”

I followed. We walked past the mersi room, past the study rooms where we had to read over the records that we weren’t trusted to take to our private rooms, and past a rowdy group of just-enrolled trainees making jokes about their last mersi experience.

We stopped by a row of doors at the back, in front of the one that read Matt Crowe. Like most things at the Academy, they were low tech wood doors – I guess they didn’t want to get us used to unnecessary gadgets – and he pushed the door open and gestured for me to go in.

Inside it had the look-feel of an interrogation chamber, with a battered wooden desk, and two chairs one on each side. I took the one in front of the desk, and looked around to make sure there was no glaring interrogation light to point at my eyes. Crowe took his seat behind the desk, looked at me, as if that would tell him anything, and then leaned back – I guess a diplomat must strive to look relaxed, or something – and said, “What is wrong Hayden? How may I help you?”

All my instincts from Academy days reared up. When an instructor asked how he could help you, you inevitably found out he wished to help you improve your attention to detail by making you hand sew a whole new uniform between night and the morning, or perhaps clean all the restrooms in the building in two hours, given only a small sponge and a bottle of breath freshener.

But I took a deep breath, told myself I was being an idiot, and said, “I would like to resign, sir.”

He looked…. I wasn’t sure how he looked. It wasn’t exactly surprised. But it was…. Okay, I was a failing diplomat, but I’d lived with humans before. If I weren’t talking to an instructor, I’d think he was angry.

I cleared my throat, “I signed up for instruction voluntarily, and it is my right to—”

He nodded, once. And then he did the most bizarre thing.

He took something out of his pocket, got on a chair and, reaching to what looked like a completely featureless piece of ceiling, stuck the something on it. From my perspective, it looked like a round, colored paper dot. Green dot.

Then he stepped down from the chair, walked to the door, and locked it. He took his chair back behind the desk, and sat on it. Then he leaned across the desk, “Please, don’t.”

I blinked, looked up at the dot, back at the door, and then at Crowe, wondering which of us had taken leave of his senses.

He smiled, but it was a weird, restrained smile. “I suspected that’s what you wanted to do. Which is why I brought you to my office, instead of to one of the learning rooms, which is more common for this sort of interview. You see, for whatever reason video pickups just don’t work in my office, and the audio becomes oddly random and choppy, even when I’m not here. They’re used to this, so I doubt it will be noticed.”

“Sir? Is this an exercise?”

The smile became rueful, “In a way. Something you’ll learn, Hayden, is that at the IDS nothing is ever simple. Or at least that’s what I’m learning. Look, I looked at your file. There are weird whispers about you… Someone tipped us you’d been visiting houses of ill repute in certain quarters.”

“Sir, I haven’t—”

He waved it away. “I know. I checked. I’ve crawled over your records and everything you’ve done the last year. You’re Viscount Webson, right? And your mom is a countess who is sixth cousin to the queen or something?”

I blinked again. “Something like that.” It was actually third cousin, but who was counting?

“Then what I suggest is that you tell your mother someone is trying to make you wash out of the training. And tell her to have the Queen send word she would like you to graduate as soon as possible.”

I was about to say that my mother wasn’t in that kind of relationship with the Queen. And it was true. Although there was a blood relation, Queen Eleanor might be a cousin – a lot closer than sixth and probably on three sides, because Father despite being a mere commoner, had some royal bastard blood and relatives who’d married into the nobility or bought into it – but I didn’t think that Mother had the sort of friendship where she could ask a favor of the queen. Mother didn’t have that sort of friendship with anyone. Mother commanded, she did not plead.

On the other hand, it occurred to me that I might. Well, not that sort of friendship, but that sort of reach. After all I was a war hero. Things being done against a war hero would be bad news for the monarchy’s image. I had a feeling – though I’d never paid much attention to politics – that the Queen wouldn’t like this.

I sat up straight. “Tell me exactly what’s been happening, besides my rather unspectacular performance.”

He made a face. “They have been ordering you to be put through 3^rd year mersis. The ones given to the trainees who have done both three months rotations in the field.”

I blinked.

“Frankly the fact you have lasted almost the full simulations is a sign of enormous talent. Which is why I’d prefer you don’t resign. Queen Harmonia left us in a hell of a mess. To clean it up we need real talent. Which is why I was brought in, from the Space Force, having finished a doctorate in diplomacy while deployed. And why I am an instructor despite my having no title, amid all you noblemen, instructors and students alike.”

I narrowed my eyes as the picture formed. Crowe had been given a sponge and a bottle of breath freshener. “You’re on cleanup duty?”

“Of sorts.”

“But why would anyone put me on third year—” I stopped. “Did they misjudge my ability?”

He snorted. “Oh, no. I can’t find the details, on account of not being a director.”

Really, a small sponge and a tiny bottle of breath freshener. “But?”

“But it bothered me. Both the completely unsubstantiated rumors and that they were ordering this course of action, and I poked around enough and spied at doors enough—”

“Sometimes good diplomats listen at doors,” I said, piously, another plaque in another room of the complex.

He made a face which exactly reflected how I felt about the plaques, too.

“Anyway, I get the impression that one or more of the directors were…. We won’t say bribed but something very like. There would be a donation coming, sort of thing if you were made to wash out.” He opened his hands on the desk. “Nothing I can prove, or take to her Majesty. Not with the directors all being noblemen and women at the highest levels. And I very much suspect the bribe was less tangible than money changing hands.”

I sat back. Well. That could have come from anyone, though my main suspect would be Mother, complete with the card complimenting me on finishing out the year. It was just the sort of thing she would do, since she would much prefer I go back to the estate, and learn to do estate things, not to mention marry and set about producing a long line of heirs. Though the marrying might be optional. I had no idea if she knew my proclivities, but even without, I suspected she’d be absolutely happy with my having a lab contracted for children which would be wholly hers to raise, while I managed the estate, or perhaps went back to the Space Force.

For the first time I wondered if Father had stayed so long in the Force for a reason.

But if Mother was behind this, I obviously couldn’t go to her. And if Mother was behind this I definitely didn’t want to expose her. Our relationship was fraught enough.

Well.

I looked up. Crowe was looking at me, eyebrows slightly raised, as though trying to divine my calculations.

“Look,” I said. “It’s a very long gambit, but I can send a note to Queen Eleanor through some contacts.” From what I understood, my great uncle, the Judge, took tea with her majesty fairly regularly. “I need a half day pass. But I warn you, it might not work.”

He made a face. “Very well. I will, at the same time, pass a message through my contacts. It is all a very long shot, but I’d prefer the diplomatic service of the Star Empire not lose you, Viscount Webson.”

“Just… Skip Hayden,” I said, and offered him my hand. Yes, I knew this might all be some complex lie, but somehow it didn’t feel like one.

He shook my hand and did his best to break it, the bastard, then nodded and got a disposit pad from his drawer. He set it on an away pass, and signed it with his gen-print, then handed it over. It was a little thing, smaller than my palm. I slipped it into a pocket.

Yes, that did mean I had to endure tea with Great Uncle Zymon. And yes, the tea in his ornate office, with a footman behind each of us –making sure we didn’t drop crumbs or throw the cups on the floor, I guess? – felt unaccustomed and oppressive, though I’d done this once a month when I’d been in the Academy.

Great Uncle Zymon had a completely different idea of who and what was causing my issues at the Academy. He was fairly sure it was that the directors themselves were jealous of me, and afraid the Queen would appoint me to the board. Which would make perfect sense, of course, if I had a doctorate, which I didn’t. Or have any intention of getting one.

But my – paternal – uncle thought the Haydens were the most illustrious and brilliant family in all the Star Empire, and all the other families conspired to bring it down. Pretty much constantly. It was a pet paranoia which I suspected he kept in his bedside table, fed on chocolate, and only admitted to other Haydens, that is to me, otherwise someone would have locked him up long since.

But the end result is that he took my note to the Queen and I returned to training at the IDS, not expecting much of anything to result from that afternoon. I’d planned that if nothing changed, I’d resign in a week.

However, things changed.

The first thing that changed was that I found I did indeed receive stellar grades for my first year, each of the exercises being graded on a curve, for being far above my ability, and therefore the portion completed counting as more than enough.

The other change is that the mersi experiences became more…. Related to how much I had studied and how much I concentrated.

This is not to say they became easy.