Free Trang by Mary Sisson

and the soldier took him to her. She introduced him
to Sucre and Doug, both regular SFers, and the second medic, Gingko, who had
accompanied Patch on his earlier visit to the station.
    “Are you in the twenty?” Philippe
asked Shanti.
    “What do you mean?” she replied.
    “Well, I’ve met the doctor, one of
the two pilots, you, your second, and 18 soldiers, two of whom are medics. I
had agreed to an entourage of 20 soldiers, and I guess they don’t count the
pilots or George, but I was wondering if they count you and Patch and the
medics, or if there’s more.”
    “Are you sure you met eighteen?”
Shanti asked.
    Philippe counted on his fingers.
“Baby, Bi Zui, Bubba, Cut, Doug, Feo, Five-Eighths, Gingko, Mo, Ofay, Paco,
Raoul, Rojy, Sucre, Thorpe, T.R., Vijay, Vip. Eighteen.”
    “Shit,” Shanti said. “What are the
pilots’ names?”
    “Cheep, who I’ve met, and Pinky,
who I haven’t.”
    She grinned. “No fucking way!”
    “Is that everybody?” asked
Philippe.
    Shanti nodded. “Yeah, yeah, throw
in George, me, Patch, and you, and that’s the whole unit.”
    “Good,” said Philippe, thinking, I’m
glad there aren’t more. “Do you mind if I address everyone before we go?
I’d like to give them some pointers on diplomacy.”
    “Sounds good,” said Shanti. “Hey,
here’s your suits.”
    Vip walked up with Philippe’s dress
suits, which he had taken off to mike up the day before. “Do you need a
tutorial?” he asked, brusquely.
    “They just slap on and off, right?”
replied Philippe.
    “Sort of,” said Vip. “You hit it,
you start talking, and it transmits to everyone. But if you want to talk to a
specific person, then you hit it and say the name, like this.”
    He hit his own mike and said
“Trang. Got it?” The question echoed in Philippe’s earplant.
    “Yes,” said Philippe.
    Vip slapped his mike off. “You can
also transmit to groups. ‘Medic’ will get you all the medical personnel, ‘outer
guards’ will get you the perimeter guards, ‘soldiers’ will get you—well, it
will get you everyone except you, so I guess you won’t need that one very
often. There are some advanced features as well, but you probably won’t need to
use them—if you do, Thorpe or I can show you how.”
    “Thank you,” said Philippe, gently
feeling the fabric for any unexpected stiffness that could indicate additional
gear. “I’m not carrying surveillance equipment, am I? Diplomats aren’t allowed
to.”
    Vip shook his head. “Only the
soldiers do—you and the doctor are camera-free.”
    Eventually the unit, outfitted in
space suits, gathered in a room near the docking area. Shanti instructed them
to “shut the fuck up and listen good” because “the illustrious Philippe Trang
is hoping to teach you assholes some manners.”
    “Thank you,” said Philippe, walking
up to the front of the room. “Of course, no one knows for certain what we
should do when we get to the alien station, because with the exception of Patch
and Gingko, we’ll be the first human beings to actually set foot there and deal
with the aliens face-to-face. We’re pioneers, both from a security and a
diplomatic standpoint, and we’re working without a blueprint. So we’re going to
be winging it, at least to a degree, and it’s quite likely that we will make mistakes
or have some kind of disagreement with the aliens at some point. I’m hoping we
can minimize any conflicts, and I have some experience doing so on Earth—”
    “Such as?” Shanti interrupted. She
made an encouraging gesture with her hand.
    Philippe took the opportunity to
recite his resumé for any SFer who hadn’t bothered to look it up—which, to be
honest, was probably most of them. “I’ve been involved in conflict-resolution
negotiations in a number of Union and non-Union countries, including the Sudan,
Kurdistan, Indonesia, Palestine, and Macedonia. In most of these cases, there
were multiple parties involved who either had not engaged