Free Starbound by Joe Haldeman Page B

sniffing for three military people who could live together in close quarters for thirteen years, getting along with four civilians at the same time, people who had a certain amount of academic training and professional accomplishment. They didn’t want three men or three women, so as not to have one gender dominate on ad Astra .”
    “And they had to be spies, of course. Don’t forget that.”
    “In fact, the probability that they’d come from intelligence was high. A person who’d spent his professional life shooting down planes or disarming bombs wouldn’t be too useful. They wanted one of the three to be a medical doctor, too, who’d done general practice.”
    “We all agreed on that. Someone who could work without consultation.”
    “That may be what happened. The computer pulled out Elza, and she dragged me and Namir along.”
    “That could be it,” I said. But computers have to be programmed, and it would be easy to start out with Namir and his mates and make sure they would be the ones the program selected. “I’d hold them like this.” He was picking up the plant by its stalk; I slid my hand under the ball of medium and lifted it out.
    “Right,” he said. “Have to be careful with the babies.”
    “Were you going to have any?” I asked. “Before you got orders to waltz off into outer space and tilt with monsters?”
    “Well, neither Elza nor Namir wanted any children. They’re not that optimistic about the future. Immediate or distant. If it were up to me, yes, I’d like to watch one grow up. Help it grow up.”
    “Sort of a social experiment? A philosophical one?”
    “Cold-blooded, I know. You have two?”
    “Technically. They were born ex utero, though, for which my ‘utero’ is grateful. And they’re being raised by the community, in Mars. Which I don’t like much.”
    “You’re so right. Speaking as someone who was raised by a commune. With my mother and father warned not to bond too closely.”
    “You didn’t have a mother figure or father figure at all?”
    “No. There was a couple in charge of children. But it was obvious we were just a chore. They were pretty harsh.”
    “That must have been rough. The two in charge of our kids are nice people; I’ve known them for years.”
    “Good luck. Ours were nice to adults.”
    We moved on to the carrots, frilly and delicate. “Working in Washington, did you commute every day?”
    “No, I had a little flat in Georgetown. Go back to New York on Thursday night or Friday. Sometimes bring Elza back to DC if our schedules allowed. Sometimes I’d just go up overnight; it’s only an hour and a half on the Metro.”
    “Best of both worlds.”
    “Started out that way. Washington’s falling apart. Both the cities, actually. Less comfortable, more dangerous.”
    “Did you go armed?”
    “No, I’m fatalistic about that. Elza had a gun, but I don’t think she carried it normally. Namir usually did, and he had a bodyguard as well. But he was threatened all the time, and attacked once.”
    “In the city?”
    “Oh, yeah, right downtown. Stepped off the Broadway slidewalk and a woman shot him point-blank in the chest. Somehow she missed his heart. She turned to run away, and the bodyguard killed her.” He shook his head. “He got hell for that, the bodyguard. No idea who she might have been working for. No fingerprints or eyeprints. DNA finally tracked her down to Amsterdam; she’d been a sex worker there twenty years before.”
    “No connection with Gehenna?”
    He shook his head. “And Namir says he’s never used the services of a ‘sex worker,’ not even in Amsterdam. Men lie about that, but I’m inclined to believe him.”
    “Point-blank in the chest. That must have laid him low for a long time.”
    “Had to grow a new lung. Takes weeks, and it’s no fun.”
    Another bit of mystery for the mystery man. “He’s made other enemies, obviously, since Gehenna. Being a peacekeeper.”
    “Mostly in Africa. Very few pale