Free Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel by C. J. Cherryh

He couldn't imagine the young fashioneers gave a damn for anything but their own bodies. His own generation was the borderline generation, the one that had seen the War to end all wars… and even at seventeen, eighteen ship-years, now, still a mere twenty-six as stations counted time, he saw the quickly grown station-brats taking so damn much for granted, despising money, but measuring everything by it
    Hell, not only the station-brats were affected. Their own youngest were quirky, strange-minded, too fascinated by violence… even shorter of decent upbringing than his own neglected peers,—and that was going some.
    Dean and Ashley showed up. Nike and Connor came next The waiter, forewarned, was fast with the drinks, while they talked about the strangling plants effect and the swamp and the engineering.
    "Effex Bag," Bucklin said "Same one, I'll bet you." It was a full-body pocket you dealt with. The things fought back as hard as you could provoke them to fight, but a feed-back bag was self-limiting and you learned a fair lesson in morality, in JR's estimation: at least it taught a good lesson about action and reaction, and the effects here were more sophisticated than the primitive jobs they'd met in their repair standdown at Bryant's, a notable long time ashore. The quasi-dangers in any Effex Bag were all your own making. Hit it, and it hit back, Struggle and it gave it back to you. Go passive and you got a tame, boring ride,
    "Pretty good jolt at the end," Dean said "They drop you real-space."
    "Yeah," Nike said "About a meter. Soft."
    "Junior-juniors'll like this one" JR said, deciding he couldn't take more of the pink juice. He listened to his team wondering about trying the
Haunted
Castle
for another five credits.
    Vid games and sims. Earth's cultural tourism run amok.
    You could experience a rock riot. Swing an axe in a Viking raid, never mind that they equipped the opposing Englishmen with Renaissance armor.
    The reapplication of the pre-War Old Rules on
Finity'sEnd
had let them out without restrictions for the first time in three decades, after the rest of the universe had been war-free for close to twenty years, and this senior-junior, listening to his small command discuss castles and dinosaurs, had increasing misgivings about their sudden drop into civilian life. The fact was,
he
hadn't had an unbridled fancy in his life and didn't know what to permit and what to forbid, but after an education, both tape-fed, and with real books, that had taught him and his generation the difference between a dinosaur, a Viking and Henry Tudor, he felt a little embarrassed at his assignment. Foolish folly had become his job, his duty, his mandate from the Old Man. And here they were, about to loose
Finity's
war-trained youngest on the establishment.
    Under New Rules or Old Rules, however, they
didn't
wear
Finity
insignia when they went to kid amusements or when they went bar-crawling, or doing anything else that involved play. It was a Rule that stood. Break it at your peril.
Finity
insignia, in a universe of slackening standards, sloppy procedures, almost-good instead of excellent, still stood for something.
Finity
personnel wouldn't be seen falling on their ass in a carnival, not in uniform. But there
was
one in his sight at the moment, a junior cousin violating the no-uniforms rule. He indicated the cousin with a nod, and Bucklin looked.
    "That's in uniform," Bucklin declared in surprise.
    That was Jeremy, their absolute youngest: Jeremy, who eeled his small body among the tables of sugar-high youth, wearing his silver uniform and
with
the black patch on his sleeve.
    He went for their table like a heat-seeking missile.
    Business. JR revised his opinion and didn't even begin a reprimand. Jeremy's look was serious.
    "They got Fletcher," was Jeremy's first breath as Jeremy ducked down next to them, "We
got
him. They signed a paper."
    "Cleared the case?" JR was, in the first breath, entirely astonished. And in the next,