I inhaled sharply, the horror of the thought almost a physical blow. Could NATech have even engineered those events? Even as I thought it, a peculiar wave of certainty washed over me. In Twenty Years ... that had been our credo. The wars with Mars had lasted sixteen years, and NATech had achieved a position of trust and power only several years after that. The idea that they could have caused something so unimaginably frightening was just that: unimaginable. Which was exactly what NATech specialized in.

I glanced at Susie. She'd drifted off. I was glad, too. With my new found youth and my refound lack of mouth control, I could very well have told her more than she was ready to know, or more than I was ready to share. She slept on, blissfully unaware that her time and society-now my time and society-had been manipulated and robbed of its potential. How else could this era be so little advanced than six centuries ago? I needed to answer that question, but couldn't. I didn't have the knowledge, the preparation, or the freedom of movement. Not yet.

I continued to think through other alternative explanations, but couldn't make a very credible effort at it, I was so tired from my first journey into the puterverse. I could tell by her steady breathing that Susie had fallen asleep.

Sleep. I rolled over on my side and hugged my pillow, snuggling further into the sheets. This was, incredibly, my first night of una.s.sisted, non-traumatized sleep in over six hundred years. I lay there, experiencing the differences and enjoying them. My nightwear was different. The mattress, because of my small weight, seemed bouncier, and I couldn't remember the last time I lay in a bed that was so much bigger than me. My position, curled up around a pillow instead of sprawled out with hands and feet over the edge, was different. Even the sleepiness I felt creeping over me was different, though I couldn't explain how. I wondered how long I would have these new sensations of everyday life. A long time, I hoped.

I just wished I had better thoughts to keep me company. Not that it mattered. Within moments of extinguishing the lights and plunging the room into total darkness, I was fast asleep. I don't remember what dreams I had that night, but they were my own.

Chapter Nine.

"UP! Private Wyeth! GET UP!"

I shot straight up. I had worked myself completely under the sheets, so they were still over my head when I bolted. I yanked the sheet down, then as quickly pulled it up again. My top was pretty skimpy and protected my modesty enough from other women, but would turn the guys into drool machines. And this was a man's voice. A man's voice! I woke up completely. Someone was in our room!

I looked around quickly, but it was still pitch dark. I was about to ask for lights when he shouted again, this time right into my ear.

"What're you waiting for, Private? Breakfast in bed? On yer feet! You've got duty in forty-five minutes! Move it, Wyeth!"

I nearly had a heart attack. I felt a fear that tasted slightly of the invasion of the interrog ... the IH ... from a couple days ago. He was apparently standing on my left, bent over me. I started to roll out on my right, to put the bed between us, when he growled at me again, this time right beside me.

"You're pretty lazy, ain't you? MOVE it! There's a ton of laundry that needs cleaning, and YOU'RE doing it all!"

I jumped back against my bed. The frame hit the backs of my legs and I lost my balance and fell off the other side, landing with a thud and in a heap as I pulled the blankets and pillow on top of me. My legs were all over the place as I tried to get to my feet. He barked at me again.

"This is the last time, PRIVATE! Either you get going or I'm gonna personally..."

"Abigail?" Susie's sleepy voice slipped through the shout and it ended abruptly.

"Susie! Someone's in here!" My voice had a hint of hysteria in it, I was so unnerved at how quickly he moved.

She chuckled sleepily. "Silly. That's just the alarm. It's directional so only you can hear it. Sorry, I meant to tell you about it and show you how to set it, but I drifted off while we were still talking. Lights to dim, please." The lights came on just enough to make the room glow with the pink darkness of approaching dawn. Susie rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Time?" she asked softly.

"It's 0317, Corporal Lendler," responded an equally soft male voice.

"Thank you. There you go, Abigail. Laundry detail is from 0400 to 1000. Better hustle if you want to clean up and eat before reporting. At least laundry is in the mess area. That'll save a couple minutes. Don't be late, though. Jackson will put your pretty little b.u.t.t in a sling if even a finger is late through that door."

I knew about soldiers like Jackson , though I'd never met her, or him. (That was interesting. Would I always think of an unknown person as a she first, then a he? I made a mental note to try to keep track of that.) I untangled myself from my sheets and started for my dresser. I pulled short and turned back to my messy bed, throwing it into shape. They probably had inspections.

"Don't worry about that, Abigail. I'll make it for you. Here." She opened up my dresser and pulled out some stuff. "This is your standard uniform. And this," She held up a sheer, black tube of stretchable cloth. "Is a body sheath. Put this on before you put on your underthings. In other words, first."

Although it appeared shapeless at first, I could make out that it was a covering for the torso and upper legs. It was one piece, stepped into from the neck. I frowned, a little uncomfortable. "Uhh ... won't that make it a little hard to, um..."

"Use the bathroom? Yeah, it would, if you got a break to use it, which you won't. So don't drink a lot of juice. The sheath will keep you at least ten degrees cooler, but only when it's right up against your skin. Secret of the dog. Now get going." She started hustling me to the door.

"Shouldn't I put on a bath robe or something?"

"No time. Walk fast. There's no skirmishes planned for thirty-six hours, so no one should be up. The lights are pretty low, anyway. See you at ten hundred. Bye!"

She slapped me on the potential resident of Jackson 's sling and shoved me out the door, which allowed pa.s.sage while remaining opaque; a very strange sensation. The corridor was thankfully deserted and dark. I half ran to the ladies room and made it without being seen. Once inside, I had the place to myself.

If you're a woman, or married to one, then you know that we just can't hurry getting ready. It seemed the faster I went, the worse it got. What's so different? As a guy, I'd use the bathroom, jump in the shower, soap up, rinse off, and get out. A quick towel off, dress, brush the hair roughly in place, brush the teeth roughly, hoping to leave them in place, and viola! , finished. Fifteen minutes if I didn't have to shave, twenty if I did. If I used thirty minutes, I was killing time. Well, a girl has the same number of arms, legs, teeth, and a.s.sorted body parts. Clothing is pretty much the same amount and put on pretty much the same way. Plus, I didn't have to shave yet, if women, or anyone, still shaved. So it should work the same way for a girl, right? It has to, right?

Forty minutes after stepping into the ladies room, I stepped out. My hair was much closer to seaweed than hair, the leftover soap making a credible subst.i.tute for sea foam. I skipped brushing my teeth. My clothes were on in more or less the right places, and facing in more or less the right directions, but they were wetter than my towel. Desert sand was wetter than my towel. I put my shoes on while hopping down the corridor on one foot, then switching. As I raced by my door, I shouted at it to open. I tossed my nightclothes, towel and things through it, and they disappeared from sight as they pa.s.sed through the door's opaque plane. I didn't hear them hit, possibly because the sound shield was still on, but more probably because I was already too far down the corridor by the time they hit the floor. At least they went through the opening. Last night, before turning in, Susie had coded the door for my voice.

"Time, please!" I said.

"It's 0356, Private Wyeth!" the computer exclaimed back.

I ran into the mess and hit the mess line in a flurry. I was by myself except for Cookie, who was moving in and out of the kitchen, stocking up the bins. I grabbed a roll and stuffed it into my mouth, then washed it down with a small gla.s.s of juice, taking to mind Susie's warning. Licking my fingers of the sweet stuff from the roll, I walked to the laundry room, which was located on the wall behind the juice cart.

And couldn't get in. It remained solid.

"Time, please."

"0359 hours." So I was on time, if only just. I'd make a point of getting up an extra fifteen minutes earlier until I'd beaten this new bath routine. I cleared my throat.

"Open, please." It ignored me. "h.e.l.lo? Jackson ? This is Private Wyeth, reporting for detail. h.e.l.lo?" Nothing. I knocked on the door, but the hollow thooms! went unanswered. I pictured my b.u.t.t with a big boot print and knocked again. This was getting frustrating. Was I in the wrong place?

"Computer, please locate laundry relevant to my position."

"The laundry is located one meter directly in front of you."

"Computer, please allow me access."

"You are not allowed access." Okay. Time to try another tact.

"Computer, please state duty for Private Abigail Wyeth."

"Private Abigail Wyeth has laundry detail from 0400 to 1000 each day."

"And who do I report to?"

"During laundry detail, Private Abigail Wyeth reports to Private William Jackson. All remaining hours,

Private Abigail Wyeth reports to Corporal Susan Lendler."

"Computer, please locate Private William Jackson relevant to my position."

"Private William Jackson is located four meters directly in front of your current position."

"Computer, what is the privacy status for the laundry door?"

"The sight privacy for the laundry door is active. The sound privacy is not active." That made Private

Jackson, deaf, dead, or a jerk. I'd give it one more try.

"Private Jackson!" I yelled at the door. "This is Abigail! Could you let me in? Please?" Nothing. Well, enough of this.

I looked for the override and located it, as on other doors, about a meter above the floor. I hadn't had a

chance to really study it before, but I did so now. I pressed the override switch, but it ignored me. I wondered why. Maybe he liked to play games. Or maybe he was hurt, I thought suddenly. I immediately felt terribly guilty for the things I had thought about him. Poor William! I hurriedly detached the faceplate and studied the guts of the thing. Six lengths of fiber optic cabling and a type of gravity switching that would probably allow for manual override at power loss. I took a quick look at the logic board and calculated the probabilities of function. Getting desperate to get in and help him, I took a chance. I grabbed the two outside cables, twisted them together and shoved them against the gravity switch.

Nothing for two seconds. Then I smelled a quick whiff of ozone, and there was a soft pop. I felt a tingle going up my arm, and I jerked it away quickly and stood up. The door was now an opening, and there stood poor William Jackson, glaring at me. I'd have to keep my imagination in check from now on. He looked awful, but I guessed he had grown into that. Maybe regulations on shaving had relaxed over the years. He glared at me through piggy eyes. I felt like mud had been slopped on me.

"Time!" he snapped.

"0401!" the computer barked.

"You're late! You were supposed to have reported here at 0400!"

"I was outside the door on time, but it wouldn't open!" I protested.

"Uh-huh. So what did you do to the door?"

"Well, when you didn't open the door after I knocked and shouted, I thought that you were hurt." I was

getting a little ticked off myself. "Why didn't you open the door? In fact, why couldn't I have just walked

in? I'm supposed to be here."

"That's right, you're supposed to be here!" he sneered nastily, ignoring my question. "But you weren't.

You're late. Give me fifty, Wyeth!"

"What!?" I couldn't have been more surprised if he'd suddenly turned into an ogre. Which he was starting to.

"You heard me! Give me fifty!" He pointed to the floor.

I didn't know what to say. That I was fl.u.s.tered was an understatement. I was completely dumbfounded. I didn't know what to do, so I did as he said. Maybe this was one of those initiation things. If so, I preferred the food trick.

I dropped to my hands and gave him fifty pushups. Or tried to. After fifteen, my arms and chest muscles were burning. By twenty, I couldn't go any further. My upper body strength was gone. Rather, it had never been there.

"Can't count, huh? I said fifty. That's twenty. And most of them were little girl pushups." I didn't point out the obvious. Instead, I managed about five more before he shoved a foot under my stomach and flopped me over.

"Okay, you can do the rest later. Don't be late tomorrow. Now get to work."

By this time I was more than ready to unload on him. I'd been treated like a princess until now, when they weren't poking around in my head or beating me up, and although I didn't really expect that kind of treatment to continue, I was hoping to at least be treated with some respect. I opened my mouth to get really nasty, then closed it, and fought down my anger. Keep calm, Abby. You stick around long enough and you'll make corporal or better and then you can read him from the book. I'd give him the worst detail available.

Two hours later, I saw the flaw in my plan. He already had the worst detail available. Except mine. I was already aching from the pushups, but now I was really hurting. There were nearly two hundred people in this complex, and they got a lot of clothes dirty. Bundle after bundle of clothing was loaded, washed, dried, sorted, folded and rebagged. It was hot, smelly, steamy back-breaking work. If it hadn't been for the body sheath against my skin, I would have pa.s.sed out. As it was, I was sweat soaked within twenty minutes and stayed that way.

Jackson didn't help much. It became pretty clear that those pushups and the locked door were no initiation. I'd had it pegged from the beginning; he was a jerk. I'd come across them my first time through the military. I'd had the ability to deal with the Jacksons of the past, but this one was my superior. So I shut up and tried to live through it.

It wasn't easy. He was sloppy, lazy and rude. He did a fraction of the work and gave no consideration for my far smaller size and strength. Claiming there was too much "paper work" to do-somehow that phrase had survived the ages-he fiddled on the computer terminal for several hours, keeping the field tight, so I couldn't see what he was viewing. When he did help, it was grudgingly and only on the heaviest loads, which I couldn't lift high enough to get into the huge front-loading washers. Dr. Barrett was right; washing clothes hadn't changed a great deal over the centuries. It had gotten much faster, which is how two people could do the work. Okay, one person and an animated bag of lard.

I'd pulled far worse details before, but only ones that involved killing people, which this one might yet still. This was really, really bad. I wondered for a while if Dr. Barrett had put me in here as some sort of weird test. After thinking it through, though, I decided that n.o.body really knew how bad it was in here. More than likely Jackson was alone most the time; the job really could be done by one person, if he were big enough, which Jackson was and I wasn't.

I don't know how I kept sane during that first shift. He blocked off my computer access so I could not even ask for time. On top of that, he repaired and reactivated the door, blocking out both sight and sound. The laundry was Private Jackson's little kingdom, and I was his peasantry. I understood now the appeal of mixing royal heads and guillotines.

Finally, finally, finally, Jackson walked over and told me my duty was over. He wasn't too happy about it, either.

"Geez, you've still got a couple loads left! I'll have to stay and cover for you." He paused to let me thank him, which I didn't. Instead I walked by him. He grabbed me by the shoulder. In a split second, I selected five ways to get that hand off my shoulder. One of them even left the hand unbroken and attached. I denied myself the pleasure and stood still and stiff.

"Hey, don't give me an att.i.tude, Wyeth! You might be some special toy outside, but in here, you do as I say, got it?"

"Yes, I've got it, Jackson ," I said tiredly. "Can I go now?"

He looked like he wanted to say something mean, but instead just nodded.

I stepped out of the laundry and blinked at the bright pseudo sunlight pouring down from the high ceiling. It felt warm and wonderful. The mess had about thirty people in it, most of whom waved when they saw me. I waved back tiredly and trudged off to my quarters. I'd gone only a few steps down the corridor when I heard Susie calling my name and running up behind me. I turned and waited for her to catch up.

She looked wonderful. She had on a more feminine cut of uniform, with skirt, and had her hair done nicely. Maybe even a little make up, though I couldn't really tell. She was smiling as she approached, but stopped when she got up to me. I started walking again.

"Hey, you okay, girl?" she said, a note of concern taking some of the cheerfulness out of her voice.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Let my next of kin know the reading of the will is Tuesday, okay? Open, please." I walked through the door and to my dresser.

"You don't have to ask to enter, anymore. The door's keyed to your presence as well as voice now."

"Great. Thanks." I started to pull out a change. I heard my bed calling to me, but I wasn't going to even think about sleeping until I'd washed the laundry and Jackson down the shower drain.

"Sorry about the duty, Abigail. Jackson 's a jerk."