Women in Deep Time by Greg Bear Page B

she was near another crew member. She was startled to think someone else might be as curious as she. The other hawks and crew, for the most part, had long outgrown their need to wander and regarded it as birdish. Prufrax was used to being different—she had always perceived herself, with some pride, as a bit of a freak. She scooted expertly up the tunnel, spreading her arms and tucking her legs as she would in a fightsuit.
    The tunnel was filled with a faint milky green mist, absorbing her environs beam. It couldn’t be much more than a couple of hundred meters long, however, and it was quite straight. The signal beeped louder.
    Ahead she could make out a dismantled weapons blister. That explained the fog: a plexerv aerosol diffused in the low pressure. Sitting in the blister was a man, his environs glowing a pale violet. He had deopaqued a section of the blister and was staring out at the stars. He swiveled as she approached and looked her over dispassionately. He seemed to be a hawk—he had fightform, tall, thin with brown hair above hull white skin, large eyes with pupils so dark she might have been looking through his head into space beyond.
    “Under,” she said as their environs met and merged.
    “Over. What are you doing here?”
    “I was about to ask you the same.”
    “You should be getting ready for the fight,” he admonished.
    “I am. I need to be alone for a while.”
    “Yes.” He turned back to the stars. “I used to do that, too.”
    “You don’t fight now?”
    He shook his head. “Retired. I’m a researcher.”
    She tried not to look impressed. Crossing rates was almost impossible. A bitalent was unusual in the service.
    “What kind of research?” she asked.
    “I’m here to correlate enemy finds.”
    “Won’t find much of anything, after we’re done with the zero phase.”
    It would have been polite for him to say, “Power to that,” or offer some other encouragement. He said nothing.
    “Why would you want to research them?”
    “To fight an enemy properly, you have to know what they are. Ignorance is defeat.”
    “You research tactics?”
    “Not exactly.”
    “What, then?”
    “You’ll be in a tough hardfought this wake. Make you a proposition. You fight well, observe, come to me and tell me what you see. Then I’ll answer your questions.”
    “Brief you before my immediate overs?”
    “I have the authority,” he said. No one had ever lied to her; she didn’t even suspect he would. “You’re eager?” “Very.”
    “You’ll be doing what?”
    “Engaging Senexi fighters, then hunting down branch inds and brood minds.”
    “How many fighters going in?”
    “Twelve.”
    “Big target, eh?”
    She nodded.
    “While you’re there, ask yourself what are they fighting for? Understand?”
    “I—”
    “Ask, what are they fighting for. Just that. Then come back to me.” “What’s your name?”
    “Not important,” he said. “Now go.”
    She returned to the prep center as the sponge space warning tones began. Overhawks went among the fighters in the lineup, checking gear and giveaway body points for mental orientation. Prufrax submitted to the molded sensor mask being slipped over her face. “Ready!” the overhawk said. “Hardfought!” He clapped her on the shoulder. “Good luck.”
    “Thank you, sir.” She bent down and slid into her fightsuit. Along the launch line, eleven other hawks did the same. The overs and other crew left the chamber, and twelve red beams delineated the launch tube. The fightsuits automatically lifted and aligned on their individual beams. Fields swirled around them like silvery tissue in moving water, then settled and hardened into cold scintillating walls, pulsing as the launch energy built up.
    The tactic came to her. The ship’s sensors became part of her information net. She saw the Senexi thornship twelve kilometers in diameter, cuckoos lacing its outer hull like maggots on red fruit, snakes waiting to take them on.
    She was