The Unincorporated Woman by Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin Page B

and suggest they find another booth when he simultaneously heard the door close behind him and felt something tickle at the nape of his neck. He was unconscious before he hit the floor, but the other caught him just as he fell and then easily lowered him to the ground in the low Martian gravity.
    The other quickly removed a small pouch from inside her jacket pocket and flipped it open. It contained a small mirror plus a series of tubes held in by soft elastic bands. She pulled a tube of short-term nanoepidermis and used it to change both her and the doctor’s facial features. Then she applied a gel to change their eye color and another to change their hair. Both makeovers took less than three minutes. She then used the small mirror to check out her handiwork. Once the other was satisfied, she closed the pouch, placed it back in her pocket, and stood up. She then went over to the suspension unit, input a code, and waited patiently for the hatch to spring open. Inside, she found two uniforms that bore the dreaded insignia of UHF Fleet Intelligence. There was one uniform for her and one for the doctor, with a matching set of identifications based on their new features.
    With an ease that came from knowledge and experience, she made quick work of undressing, redressing, and moving the doctor into the suspension unit. She then resealed the hatch and input a few more commands that would see the doctor enter into a much deeper sleep as his body cooled to an unearthly minus-200 Celsius.
    She was examining her pistol and checking the ammo capacity when the back wall dissolved. Determined to finish her task, she barely looked up as a man wearing maintenance overalls guided a small load lifter into the privacy booth. There was no exchange of greetings as he perfunctorily gathered her and the doctor’s old clothes and placed them into a shoulder bag then maneuvered the lifter under the suspension unit and began to slowly back it out of the room. When they’d all cleared the room, the wall re-formed behind them. The other saw that they were now in a long narrow passageway reserved for official personnel. It led out, she saw, to another area demarcated for government officials only. The maintenance man tilted his head slightly forward, handed her the controls to the load lifter, and disappeared down a side tunnel almost as quickly as he’d appeared. She walked through the passageway with the suspension unit floating silently behind her and emerged into the opening. She then headed for the nearest reservation desk. Without so much as a good day, she handed her DijAssist to the bored-looking young man behind the counter.
    “How may I help you, Captain?” he asked, momentarily startled.
    “Look,” she said icily.
    He noted her uniform with concern, stared once again at the DijAssist, and then his eyes lit up as the blood drained from his face. Not sure what to do next, he saluted.
    “Corporal,” she said in a lowered voice still shrill enough to command fear, “you will refrain from saluting.”
    “Sir,” he whispered back, eyes darting to and fro. “Yes, sir.”
    “Further,” she added, maintaining her low, biting tone, “as you’ve undoubtedly realized, this mission is of the utmost importance and secrecy, so unless President Sambianco himself asks, I and my boss,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the suspension unit, “were never here. Is that clear?”
    “Sir, yes, sir!” Beads of sweat began to form at his temples. His fingers and eyes worked the holodisplay furiously. “Your t.o.p. is in tube 317, Captain. It has clearance to leave as soon as you and the colonel are aboard.”
    “Corporal,” seethed the other , “is your tour of duty at this orport so boring, you’d prefer a marine assault brigade in the Belt?”
    “Sir?” he asked, befuddled.
    “If no one is here,” she intoned with the cruel and studied temperance of a spider approaching its trapped prey, “then what’s all this talk about