Mindbridge by Joe Haldeman Page B

Amerind. He looks fifty but is thirty-two years old. He has been a Controller for ten years, twice the time it normally takes to wear a person down. He has the kind of nerveless self-control that would make an ideal Tamer, but he carries too many bad genes for the job.
    His stomach is made of plastic and his liver is a machine. He has an IQ of 189 and gunslinger reflexes.
    His main job is to prevent another Los Alamos disaster. Two human bodies trying to occupy the same place at the same time turned a mountain into a deep valley and spread heavy fallout from Albuquerque to Mexico City.
    He is looking at the first page of his schedule for today, 27 November 2051:
     
    Jumps          Returns      SlackMission      Comments
    06:09:14       12:38        Tau Ceti           Breeding(3)
    17:20
    06:26:34                   61 Cyg B           Samples for Agr Grp
    09:40
    06:36:14                   Procyon A          Tamers (5)
    06:31
    06:42:45                   Procyon A          Floater
    22:14
    07:04:5970                Ophiuchi A         Tamers (6)
    07:34
    07:12:3370                Ophiuchi A         Floater
    05:11
    07:17:44                   Tau Ceti           Food (hurry crew)
    17:43
    07:35:27                   Groombridge 1618   Tamers (5)
    07:51
    07:43:18                   Groombridge 1618   Floater
    04:18
    07:47: 37                  Groombridge 1618   Misc equipment
    05:19
    07:52:56                   Groombridge 1618   Samples for Bio Grp,
                              Psy Grp (both on standby)
    11:05
      08:04:01                 E Indi       Tamers(5)
                  16:38        Training
     
    He will be on today from six to ten AM and from two to six PM. The clock in the controller lounge says 05:58.
    The door to the control room opens and a young man steps out. Bates has seen him off and on for almost a year, but doesn’t know his name.
    “Bates,” he nods; Arnold nods back. “It’s clear now; you’ve got better’n ten minutes’ slack.” Arnold knows this, of course: ten minutes and forty-some seconds. When he opens his eyes in the morning he knows what time it is, to the minute.
    The young man is pale, mopping his forehead.
    “Trouble?”
    “Yeah, bad one last hour. Geoformy team with three injuries, one deader. Slingshot deader.”
    “Tamers,” Arnold says. “Can’t learn to keep their arms in.”
    “Yeah.” He shuffles out the door and Arnold goes into the control room. His partner is Mavis Eisenstein, overlapping him on the four-to-eight shift. He’s known her for four years.
    “Morning, Mavis.” She nods and sighs, gets up from the prime chair and moves over to the other one, the backup.
    Arnold sits down and opens a fresh pack of cigarettes. He puts that and his old pack on the table in front of him, lights up.
    “Wish you were here at five,” Mavis says. “Instead of me.”
    “That’s what he said. Real mess?”
    She nods, keeps nodding. “One on the bottom cut right down the middle. Even got blood on the glass. Everybody else fell all over. Coordinator and two others were unconscious anyhow. Still don’t know what happened.”
    “Geoformy team?”
    “E Eridani. 05:27:14. Their fucking MS coming in right on top of them, 03:29 slack. Had to steam and bake.”
    “That’s only a two-twenty cycle.”
    “Don’t I know?” Her voice is thin, strained. “Fucking autopsy made me hold. Wanted the cadaver. Almost didn’t make it, steamed one of the loading crew, pretty bad I think. Cycled out with nine seconds slack at that.”
    “Too close. Better file a report.”
    “Bet your cock I’ll file a report. Six,” she says, automatically, as double chimes announce the hour. “Fucking autopsy