To get to the world known as Jaraida, you spun through the second loop into Transfer Gate 16, which served the three Pai II planets. Merleth had been to Jaraida three times before, but this time was different.

  She was not traveling as a student or a visitor this time. She was part of PASS, the PanWorld Alliance Support Service, and this first assignment was an important one.

  Under ordinary circumstances, she would not have been sent on the field, even on a minor mission, until her third level medic training was completed. However, she had the advantage in this case of being fluent in the main language of the planet, and she was one of the few people in the Service who had visited the planet before. Indeed, by accident and coincidence more than merit, she ranked as a sort of expert. It was not, of course, that she knew so much about Jaraida, but that everyone else knew so little.

  ? Please fasten your harnesses and stay relaxed as we spin to your destination. ?

  With the ease of experience, Merleth lay back on her seat and waited for the spin.

  It was funny, she thought. She was not yet an “expert” on any of the subjects she had studied at the PanWorld Academy or the PASS College. Yet friendship with a Jaraidan and a few visits to the planet had turned her into an “expert” on Jaraida. Since PASS had become aware of the crisis on the planet, Merleth had been interviewed, questioned, and examined on everything she knew about Jaraida, its people, culture, politics, and law.

  Merleth's friend Gin'va had been the first Jaraidan to attend the Academy. Through Gin’va, Merleth had become interested in Jaraidan culture and made it the subject of her required capstone project in Comparative Cultures at the Academy. This project became the basis for a longer document, composed during her last year at the PASS College—when the crisis in Jaraida began, and PASS leadership requested a basic overview of the planet and its culture.

  “Expertise,” her friend Nadaly had pointed out, “Is always relative.”

  “But sometimes it is more relative than others,” Merleth had replied. And they had laughed at the irony that the Alliance couldn’t do better for “experts” than a couple of PASS College students who had known Gin’va Adeni.

  Nadaly, a linguist, had also been questioned and examined about what she knew of Jaraida when the crisis had begun, as had several of their Academy friends. However, only Nadaly was also at the PASS college, so like Merleth, she had been encouraged strongly to spend her last year at the college and most of her internship work on material that would help the Alliance’s efforts to learn more about Jaraida.

  Arand, the main language of Jaraida, had been a special interest of Nadaly’s. An analysis of the language and how it was spoken had been her capstone project at the Academy. When communication with Jaraida, ended, and the Jaraidan locnet collapsed, most of the information about the language became inaccessible. Nadaly’s Academy work, which had used the Jaraidan locnet for her research, suddenly became invaluable as one of the few studies of the language available to the Alliance.

  Just as Merleth was instructed to expand her Academy project and develop a more detailed analysis and discussion of Jaraidan culture, Nadaly was told to apply what she had learned about Arand to teach others the language. Now she was working on an advanced lexicon and grammar for Arand. An “expert” only because more senior linguists had not been greatly interested in the language of a minor world in the Pai 2 system.

  *****

  As she got out of the spinner tube at Transfer Gate 16, Merleth noticed that there were very few other travelers. When she had visited before, the tube connecting the transfer spinner to the gate had taken her to a spacious, open, somewhat circular concourse that had been bustling with activity.

  Today the concourse seemed narrower and broken into sections. Passenger activity was minimal. Following signs in Alspik, she lined up at a sort of booth labeled “Orientation,” where a Kron woman checked people’s travel documents and gave them directions to the transfer gates for their destinations.

  This was new—and unusual. Travel documents were submitted to the AI at the final destination, not to human staff at transfer gates. Furthermore, though Gate 16, which served both Jaraida and Kronval, was supposed to be staffed by representatives of both planets, the only human staff was Kron, and most of the travelers were also.

  There was no reason for Kronval to be controlling Gate 16. Its administration had largely been independent of either government, so even if, as the Kron alleged, Jaraida was in a state of anarchy and revolution, the staffing and control of the transfer gate should not have gone to the Kron. The Alliance had final authority over all transfer gates and had not turned this one over to Kronval.

  She was taking careful notes of what she was seeing and hearing, but when she overheard one of the Kron staff telling a businessman from Sylfon that he could not travel to Jaraida because the planet was “unsafe,” Merleth wished she were wearing a shoulder-cam. A vipix record would have been such an effective addition to her report.

  When her turn came, she did not submit her travel documents but instead identified herself by name, position and identification number then asked for directions to the PASS quick-gate to Jaraida. The Kron woman at the booth stared at her for a moment, but apparently decided not to mess with PASS and simply pointed in the right direction.

  Telling her luggage to follow her, Merleth headed to the quick-gate to wait for the green light for crossing. Unless a crossing was pre-scheduled, it could take as much as 15 or 20 minutes for the gate to be available, so Merleth sat down on the bench next to the gate to wait.

  *****

  She was eager to get to Jaraida, but she was also nervous because she knew she was not prepared. She had expected to be assigned to the mission when she had finished her last apprenticeship requirements—at the end of the current year. Instead, she had been told—with only a tenner to get ready—that she would be sent as a “trainee” to complete her requirements on Jaraida.

  “Your familiarity with the planet, the culture and the language will give you an advantage to balance against your relative inexperience,” they had said. “And you are not so inexperienced as many other trainees. We feel your background justifies some acceleration. You will be assigned as an advanced trainee with only one more threef of required fieldwork, and, of course, the completion of your medical certificate.”

  They were letting her skip two of the internship placements, cutting her final apprentice year by two or three threefs—maybe as much as a half-year, if she finished the medical certificate quickly. It was a wonderful opportunity, and though she was given a choice, she was not even tempted to refuse.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Still, she was concerned. She would be the youngest on the Mission, and some of the work she would be assigned, her strange status of “expert” while she was still only a “trainee” would make her vulnerable to the jealousy and pettiness of some agents. Her mother, when consulted, understood her anxiety but been encouraging. This was not an opportunity to miss, she had said.

  “The directors are sure you can do it,” her mother had said. “Or they would not be sending you before you qualify. Dealing with jealousy and competitiveness is nothing new to you. Just stay focused on your work, and finish the medical practicums as soon as possible. From what I hear, that shouldn’t be difficult. There are enough incidents on Jaraida that the medicenter should be busy.”

  Merleth was not sure whether this was encouraging or not. She hoped she would have a chance to do her practicums quickly, but she was not sure she looked forward to spending the first threef of her mission treating casualties from the strange explosions and other “incidents” that kept being reported.

  She also had some doubts about her assignment. Though officially she was just going to be an interpreter and general resource, it had been clear that unofficially her main assignment was to locate Gin’va Adeni and any other Jaraidan that had been off-world.

  So far, efforts to contact Gin’va or other Jaraidans that the Alliance hoped would work with PASS had been unsuccessful. Merleth feared that Gin’va had died—what other explanation could there be for her friend’s silence? But she hoped that the Intelligence operatives who believed Gin’va might be alive were right.

  She suspected that one reason she was being sent to Jaraida before she was qualified was that the higher-ups were hoping that Gin’va would come forward if a friend was looking for her. In other words, Merleth thought, she was “bait.” She would not mind, if it worked, and Gin’va did come forward, because it would mean that her friend was still alive.

  *****

  Merleth had met Gin’va during their first term at the Academy. Both had snuck out of their bedrooms to grab an after-hour snack in the dormitory Common Room. It was officially against the rules, but no one ever got into trouble for it.

  As a PASS brat who knew older Academy students, Merleth had known she would not get in trouble, but she had been surprised to run into an Outlander in the Common Room. Students without a PASS background, especially those from the second loop planets, tended to follow the rules carefully in the first few tenners.

  Merleth had been even more surprised because, initially, she couldn’t sense the other girl at all. Merleth had the ability to sense other people’s presence. It was often an annoyance because other people’s emotions would impinge on her awareness whether she wanted to sense them or not.

  However, the sensitivity was an advantage when sneaking around the dorm and not wanting to get caught by a proctor. The AI security system that monitored the building would ignore students wandering about after lights out, but a dorm proctor would, at best, ask questions. Merleth had sensed out carefully as she had made her way to the Common Room and when she’d approached the Common Room, she had believed it empty. There was no psi-aura, no emotions, nothing she could sense with psi, to tell her there was someone else in there. And yet, there she was.

  A pale girl with long, blue-black braids, sitting at one of the low tables and looking at her tablet while she ate something from a bowl. She looked up, met Merleth’s eyes and smiled in greeting. Only then could Merleth sense her presence.

  It had confused Merleth enough that she’d blurted, “How do you do it?” and then felt embarrassed. What a stupid way to start a conversation. She must have sounded like a child.

  “What do you mean?” asked the girl, friendly but faintly puzzled. Her command of Panlex was good, but she had an accent Merleth couldn’t place.

  “I couldn’t ‘sense’ you,” Merleth explained. “Until you saw me, and smiled. Usually, I can ‘sense’ people before I enter the room.”

  “Oh, I was ‘muffling,’” said the girl. “At least, that is what I think it’s called in Panlex.” She suddenly turned off her aura again. She might as well have been a holo. “Like this,” she said.

  “Yes,” Merleth said. A quick search on the infi confirmed that “muffling” was the correct term and that it was something powerful psions could do with training. Yet Merleth, who knew she had been well-trained, had never heard of it or known anyone else who had ever done it around her.

  “Do you have your psi-enhance implant already?” she had asked. “I’m too young; I only turned 16 recently,” It was the youngest you could enter the Academy, and she was used to people being a little impressed.

  “I am sixteen also,” said the girl showing pleasure at having something in common. “But I shan’t ever have a psi-enhance implant because implants are forbidden on my world.”

  “What about the infinet and aucomm links?” Merleth asked. How could anyone get on at the Academy without these tools?

  “I wear a combi,” the girl said, lifting her right hand to show the flat disk on a strap on her forearm. Children wore it until they were deemed old enough for their first implants. Merleth had never seen one on a girl her own age before.

  Many years later, after the destruction of Thualat, when Merleth had been asked to compose an overview of what PASS needed to know about Jaraida, the first thing that had come to mind had been the prohibition against implants. At the time, however, Merleth was more struck by the fact that Gin'va, though her own age, was more advanced in psi. It made Merleth a little uncertain.

  She had met people from different cultures all her life, but rarely those who were more advanced than she was as a psion. And who had ever heard of an Academy student who couldn't have an implant?

  “Why haven’t you cut your hair?” she had asked, wondering if there was some cultural prohibition against that too.

  Apparently, there wasn’t.

  “The line at the barber was too long today, but I will do it tomorrow before the first class,” the girl explained. “Did you have your hair cut for the Academy, or do you always wear it short?”

  “I wore it longer than this,” Merleth replied. “But not as long as yours. It’s a shame you have to cut it. It must go below your waist.”

  “Yeah,” said the girl again. “It will be strange to be without all my hair, but it will be more practical to have it short.”

  “That’s why they require that we cut it,” Merleth agreed. It was the official reason, but Merleth knew that it was also part of diluting cultural and social identity. Academy students should identify with the Academy and the Alliance, not just their planets of origin or their families’ positions. The required school uniform and haircut were supposed to reinforce that new identification during their school years. For the same reason they would not be allowed to dye their hair until their last year.

  “I’m Merleth Bachlar Caruth,” she introduced herself, holding out her hands, palms outward, in the formal, Alliance greeting. The other girl mirrored the gesture.

  “I’m Ginaava Taval Adeni,” she said. “Call me Gin’va.”

  “Where are you from?” Merleth asked.

  “Jaraida,” The word was slurred as if she had said it in her own language. Merleth could hear a trilled “r” and a vowel sound between “a” and “i,” stressed. The girl paused and then enunciated carefully as Panlex speakers would say it, “Jah-RAee-da. On the Pai II system. What about you?”

  Even before she did a quick infi search, Merleth remembered vaguely, from her schoolwork, that the Pai suns were in the second loop. The girl was an Outlander for sure, but despite her accent, her Panlex was better than many Civvies.’ She did not hesitate over the words or slip into Alspik as many other new students did. Merleth herself had spoken Panlex at home, so she tended to be critical.

  "I was born on Horeb in the Atul II system," Merleth said. “But I’m a PASS brat—I’ve been raised on several different worlds.”

  “That must have been so interesting,” Gin’va had said. “What are some places you have visited?”

  The friendship had progressed from there. The Jaraidan girl was academically advanced, so she placed in many of Merleth’s classes. She was interested in everything, outstanding in most of her classes, and—not surprising in a powerful empath—she got along well with people. She also had a wry sense of humor that Merleth enjoyed.

  When, at the end of their first year, the students were allowed to select roommates and organize themselves in dormitory groups, Merleth suggested to her friends that they invite Gin’va. They needed one more person for the accommodations they wanted, and they all liked the Jaraidan girl.

  Gin’va seemed free from the childish bickering and posturing to impress one another that characterized most girls their age. When she made mistakes—and in the first year she made plenty because she was not familiar with mainstream culture—she did not seem overly embarrassed or try to cover it up as the other students—including Merleth herself—did. She seemed sophisticated.

  Now that she was older, Merleth suspected that Gin’va apparent sophistication came from detachment. Coming from a different world and with every expectation, at least initially, of returning to it, Gin’va had not shared the anxieties of her Civvie peers who were, like adolescents everywhere, trying to discover themselves and defining themselves within the Academy social groupings.

  In her last years at the Academy, Gin’va, who had completed all the psi-tech training the Academy could offer, was excused from Academy psi-tech and allowed to attend classes at the PASS College. She graduated from the Academy with certificates in psi-tech and two other areas: language and comparative culture. By then, she wanted to attend the PASS College and train as an agent, but her family had opposed it.

  Though she could have invoked her right to “self-determination,” and enrolled anyway, Gin'va hadn’t. She told her friends she did not want to be pitted against her family which included some of the leaders of her world. Instead, she would wait until her majority and see what she could do then.

  Gin'va would have come of age—turned 25 standard— shortly after the destruction of Thualat. Since then, Merleth sometimes wondered if her friend would have kept with her tentative plan of applying for advanced admission at the PASS College if tragedy had not struck Jaraida.

  Gin’va had been living in Thualat at the time of its destruction, but she had survived the incident, at least initially. She had replied to messages of concern from her Academy friends, reporting that she was unhurt but had lost many relatives, including her beloved foster-mother. Merleth had replied with condolences and questions about what she could do to help from afar.

  There had been no reply. No one heard from Gin’va again.