Chapter 8

"Fifteen minutes, exactly. What've you got there honey?"

"Personnel dossiers for three prospective Caretakers. We are supposed to review them and select one by next Saturday when I am to return to Crossroads."

"Can I see?"

"Sure, but lets go to dinner first."

Leia drove them to Sir Scott's, a nearby steakhouse, where they had reservations. Once settled at their table, off in a corner where they had fewer close patrons for company, she insisted on the report that Cameron wanted to give anyway.

"OK, when I stepped through the portal it was into a well lit and very stark white anteroom. A lady named Elizabeth Supervisor showed up within a minute or so to "facilitate my selection of a Caretaker."

"What was she like?"

"Stately, about 60, I would guess. About your height, maybe 10 pounds heavier, well built though, I think handsome would be a good word for her overall appearance. Blue skirt, mid-calf length, wide maroon belt, white blouse, and she wears her iron-gray hair in a pair of braids.

She is an expert interviewer. I always felt at ease in her presence in spite of the situation. The technology behind the scenes is fantastic. Probably the best way to describe it is to compare it with a Star Trek Next Generation Holodeck. The whole place was keyed to her voice command and items like drinks and snacks just appeared out of nowhere. She asked me just about everything imaginable and somehow it always seemed reasonable and comfortable to discuss even intimate things. We zigged and zagged from topic to topic as the conversation led us. All told we spent several hours and in the process I found out some things as well.

This has been going on for many years. The very first Hero was a medieval French knight named Guilliam de Coucy starting about 1347. It took the people of Cassandra many years though to figure out how to recruit more than a couple of Heroes at any one time and unfortunately for them the virility effect of the Hero disappears after the third generation. There were still no more than 20 heroes at a time until after 1945. Just recently a new young Hero named Sid Jones inherited a portal from his uncle and started a lot of stir in the Cassandra/Crossroads bureaucracy. He is the guy who first asked for a rulebook like the ones your cousin sent us."

The waitress brought their steaks and conversation slacked off while they attacked their dinner. They were both hungry; Leia because she simply hadn't taken much time to refuel while working on the portal and Cameron because his perceptual elapsed time included several hours on Crossroads. While contemplating the last bite of her meat, Leia asked, "When do you need to be back in Bellingham?"

"My first class is at 9."

"Can you stay the night?"

"Yes, if I hit the road by 6:30 or 7 I should have plenty of time. To change the subject a little, or maybe not, I liked the sound of "honey" when I came back through the portal. When we first met you made it pretty clear that you were not ready to have a steady relationship. Is that changing?"

"Maybe, you sure don't come across like the committaphobic couch potato sport nuts I was used to meeting. I hope I'm not wrong in thinking that we have been working together well in creating the portal and that is surely building something more than just being fuck buddies."

" I think so too - but I have to say I worry about an "us" when we both know about the Crossroads Caretaker and what goes on there. That is bound to be an intimate relationship also. Can we both handle it?"

"The only way to know is to try it and I am up for that. Bringing back the dossiers is a good way to start - somehow I feel better about you having a relationship with somebody I helped pick than I would if it was a surprise stranger. The question I have is, what sort of criteria should we be looking at in selecting a caretaker?"

"Elizabeth Supervisor and I talked about that. A lot. In the end we had a consensus that I needed someone who could help me fill in the blank spaces in the vast majority of distressed damsel cases. The information base we were looking at argued for someone with substantial knowledge of Chaos conditions. In particular we were interested in the history, culture and mores of Chaos on the one hand and a good sense of practical aspects of travel, the physical conditions, and how these will influence the planning and execution of a rescue plan. It also seemed to me helpful to have someone able to brief me on how the culture of Cassandra was likely going to influence the behavior of the damsel in question."