Free Ad Astra by Jack Campbell

turned a doubtful look on his cauldron. “I have been seeking to interpret certain messages from the stars.”
    “Surely a wizard of your powers can deal with two tasks at once.”
    “There is a way,” the Wizard Wil agreed. Calling up the proper spell in his mind, Wil summoned an elemental assistant and ordered it to continue his work. He walked toward the door, the earth spirit bound to it seeing his approach and opening the portal, then closing it behind him.
    Outside stood the Sorceress Jainere, who sometimes appeared in the south tower of Wil’s fortress. Jainere, her eyes glowing with the fires of the powers that lay beneath the world humans knew, sought wisdom in places few dared venture. Now Wil tried not to stare at the beauty she barely concealed behind a few filmy garments, her breasts glowing with a magic older than time that offered the promise of pleasures no man could withstand. The sorceress Jainere crossed her arms under those breasts, smiling enticingly as she saw the reaction Wil could not hide. “You’re in a rush. Going on some important mission?” she inquired in a voice that rang like the tiny bells the dancers of Dasiree wore.
    “We seek that which was frozen and can be rendered perfect again once thawed,” Wil spoke haltingly despite his efforts to resist the spell of Jainere. “It comes from the lands far to the East, where priests and priestesses with skins the hue of the sun have long guarded it.” He had desired Jainere for many lives of normal men, but the unpredictable sorceress had always scorned him, declaring that no sorceress could live by the rules of right and wrong which Wil followed. Perhaps if she joined the quest Jainere would finally learn enough about him to desire uniting their powers and their lives. “Do you want to come along?”
    Jainere reached down to the slim, bejeweled girdle which hung on her hips in a way that made men’s minds go astray, drawing forth the enchanted mirror in which she viewed images of what might be. “Your possible futures are of interest. I will accompany you. It might be amusing.”
    #
    The agent: Now that’s more like it. Fantasy! There’s a big market for that now. It’s a lot easier for readers to understand than SciFi and people seem to be able to relate better to the characters.
    I wonder why they don’t want to read science fiction as much these days?

Author's Note on Do No Harm
    This story had a simple premise. If spaceships (or anything else) is built with a capacity to detect damage and self-repair, you are essentially giving it an immune system. That is a good thing, as a rule, but immune systems don’t always work as they’re supposed to. In fact, they often go off kilter. The ship that can repair itself might find itself suffering a form of auto-immune disease. When that happens, what kind of specialist is going to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it?

Do No Harm
    “Sandra’s acting weird, the geeks can’t figure out why, and the boss is spinning like a pulsar.”
    Kevlin pulled his attention out from the immersive medical simulation long enough to give Yasmina a questioning look. “I thought Sandra was supposed to leave this morning.”
    “Right. She won’t go. Come on. The director’s called an all principals meeting.”
    “I’m a doctor,” Kevlin objected. “I’m supposed to keep the people working for the corporation on this station healthy. Why do I care about Sandra’s problems?”
    Yasmina smiled back at him in a mocking way. “I’m a doctor, too. If I have to go, so do you.”
    “They need you to analyze the project director’s mind just in case he gets really dangerous this time,” Kevlin suggested. “I’m just a simple country doctor with a low-gravity, space illness specialty.”
    “Sure. Then you’ll come in handy if the director bursts a vein while he’s yelling at everyone.” Yasmina beckoned. “Come on.”
    Grumbling just loud enough for her to hear, Kevlin paused the sim