Free To The Stars (The Harry Irons Trilogy) by Thomas Stone Page A

seated across from him.
    They passed him a bowl filled with a putrefied liquid and watched him, giving no indication of what they expected. Harry sniffed at the disgusting concoction. He knew it was a holographic image, but it looked, smelled, and even felt like it was real. After a moment's hesitation, he turned up the bowl and drank the liquid.
    Immediately, the holographic display disappeared and an image of Mr. Thanopolous appeared.
    "Sorry, Harrison," he said. "You died. If you had looked closely enough, you would have noticed that the aliens poured the liquid on their heads. It wasn't meant to be consumed. Let's try another one." With that, Harry was transported to another scene and underwent a similar exercise.
    This time, he was on the bridge of a spacecraft. A man dressed in the uniform of a survey team commander looked at him expectantly.
    "Well?" He said and pointed to a display readout. "What does it mean?"
    Harry looked at the display. It contained a series of hieroglyphs. Next to the display Harry noticed a scratchpad in his own handwriting that contained a matrix of symbols and glyphs. He began to compare the symbols on the screen with those in the matrix.
    A woman's voice came over the intercom. "Sir, we're detecting some unusual solar activity. Radiation levels are climbing."
    The commander frowned and urged Harry to decipher the message.
    Harry concentrated and, within minutes, translated the message. It was a warning: a solar flare was imminent. Harry reported his findings to the commander who then ordered the ship to be taken out of orbit and directed towards deep space.
    The bridge disappeared and Thanopolous reappeared. "Very good, Harrison, that'll be all for today."
    Harry was almost disappointed the session was finished.
    As usual, afterwards the team gathered to discuss their experiences and run additional exercises. Doris moderated the sessions.
    "Help Nadine plot a course." Doris instructed Bonner. Bonner shrugged and stepped to the navigations console where Nadine sat. Nadine ignored him.
    "Bart?" Doris hated speaking to the wirehead. "Would you assist Harry with his calculations?"
    Bart sat at his chair with his eyes closed. His expression never changed.
    "Bart, did you hear me?"
    He opened his eyes. "What do you want me to do?"
    "Help Harry with his calculation."
    Bart sighed. "Okay. Harry, the approach vector is 5 degrees from the initial entry. That's with a correction of plus or minus .23659 degrees thrown in for drift."
    Doris stood with her arms folded. "That's not what I meant. I want you to watch him go through the steps to see that he knows how to do it. It's very important that we cross-train in our various disciplines in case one of you has to take over for the other."
    Nadine said. "I can't be expected to learn umpteen dozen different languages to take over for Harry!"
    "No, you can't," replied Doris. "There are accepted limitations. On the other hand, Bart can access the language archives in the data bank. Similarly, Kathleen is cross-trained by Charlie to perform the standard corporation tests on bio-organisms."
    Parker reacted. "Please call me Charles."
    Harry almost winced. Earlier, he'd overheard the doctor speaking to Kathleen in a training session. Parker complained when Kathleen mixed substances in a different order than Parker had.
    "Do the acetic acid first, then the base."
    "What difference does it make?" Kathleen asked.
    Parker stared at her. "Because it's the order I learned. It's the correct method."
    "But the results are the same."
    "As far as you know. Is it necessary that I give the standard lecture on lab practices?"
    "No, no," Kathleen backed off, laughing, "I'll take your word for it, Chuck."
    Parker bristled at the nickname but said nothing.
    If Harry found Parker to be the most abrasive, with Doris running a close second, he found Bill Bonner to be the most easygoing among the group. Usually, the engineer was paired with Nadine, but he got along with everyone