The Rift by Walter Jon Williams Page A

responsibility. Which didn’t bother her at all— she liked being in charge.
    Where she told the water to go, it would go, or she would know the reason why.
    She turned to the photograph of the President on the wall behind her desk and gave it a wave.
    “Thanks, boss,” she said. And tossed her hat across her desk and onto the brass hat stand behind.
    By the time her secretary came with the tea, Jessica was seated behind the desk and was halfway through the stack of congratulatory messages and faxes that had arrived from all over the world: from Bob in Sarajevo, from Janice in Korea, from Fred in some place called Corrales, New Mexico.
    “Thanks, Nelda,” she said, and sipped at the tea.
    “Does it taste okay?”
    “Tastes fine. It’s only weeds and water, after all.”
    Nelda smiled. “We’re mostly Java drinkers around here.”
    “Never cared for it myself.” Jessica preferred not to explain that she avoided caffeine on the theory that it might exaggerate her hyperkinetic manner, which she had been told, occasionally at length, was not her most attractive characteristic.
    “Anything else I can do?”
    “Can you get me Colonel Davidovich?”
    “He’s out at the Riprap Test Facility at the moment, but I can page him if you like.”
    Jessica considered. She wanted private meetings with all her senior staff, as well as the officers who commanded the six districts that made up the division. Davidovich was her second-in-command, and she wanted a meeting with him first.
    “No— don’t bother. You wouldn’t happen to know when he’ll be in his office?”
    “By eleven-thirty, General.”
    “I’ll call him then.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Yes. Thank you.”
    She returned to the congratulatory notes. Then, because it was hard to sit still, she opened her briefcase, took out the photograph of her husband Pat Webster, and put it on her desk. In the photo Pat was leaning back in an old armchair, sleeves rolled up, boots up on a table, playing a banjo.
    Next to Pat, she placed the photo of her parents, taken on their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and the photo of her sister with her husband and children.
    There were empty picture hangers on the wall where her predecessor had hung various photos and certificates, and she was able to fill the blank spaces with her own. Jessica had an impressive number of credentials to display, even considering her rank and number of years in the service.
    One reason for the large number of degrees was the Army’s uncertainty, when she graduated from Engineer Officer Candidate School, as to exactly what to do with a female military engineer. There weren’t very many precedents. Her arrival at her first assignment— in Bangkok, of all places, scarcely then or now a bastion of progressive feminist thought— had been greeted by jeers and catcalls from the enlisted men. But her fellow officers, who appreciated the presence of a round-eyed woman, were supportive enough, though perhaps a little uncertain as to the social niceties.
    That uncertainty— what was her place, assuming she had one at all?— resulted in the Army’s apparent decision to keep Jessica in school as much as possible. Which resulted in her getting a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Virginia and another master’s degree in contract management and procurement from the Florida Institute of Technology. She had graduated from the U.S. Army War College, the U.S. Army Engineer Basic, Construction, and Advanced Courses, Army Command and General Staff College, the Medical Service Corps Advanced course, and even the Naval War College. She belonged to the National Society of Professional Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Army Engineer Association, and the Society of American Military Engineers.
    The end result of all this education, the overwhelming weight of her credentials, was that it had become very difficult to refuse her any job that she really wanted.
    She really