Chapter 15

Month -2: Dolores, as Terry's logistical deputy, met with Mike Lifton, the designated head of construction for Midway Base. Terry's unit was a planned major tenant at that base, but, like Terry, Mike reported directly to the 17th Naval District.

Mike, a medically retired lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Seabees, had been selected by people in the Confederacy who knew him personally, and, when he volunteered, been regenerated in a medtube. Fully physically capable again, he was now a lieutenant colonel in the Confederacy Navy. Terry had him meet with Dolores to find out his needs for getting the base moving, and anything he needed personally.

"More than anything else, I need people. Oh, I certainly need equipment, but I can start by asking the AIs about them. In some cases, it's going to be a matter of delivering a prototype to Midway, once I have replicators set up.

"The very first thing will be building some hangars into which we can put replicators, as well as putting down the power supplies. Apparently, the AIs have some contracts with construction and transport services that can get those things going."

Mike put the key problems to Dolores: "Midway has to be built around replicators, and, as a second step, pod-based integration, testing and movement to space. Since the Confederacy uses standard pods so much, we need one or more factory replicators to produce pods, and then handling equipment that can move large pods. At first, I thought we'd need a complex system of cranes, but I'm now hoping that the AIs can provide factory-sized grav sleds. We'll need to be able to hold a pod from the top or bottom, so we can work with both dorsal and ventral hatches. A revolver launcher pod, for example, has to have the bottom clear, so the preliminary testing, in gravity, drops things downward. I picture one symmetrical pod design, which can have hatches on top, underneath, or in both places. These are things that mechanical engineers can visualize better than I can.

"We need a lead integration and test engineer. That person could be in either of our families. I understand, though, that you either have, or will be having, a human factors expert?"

"Yes, Mike. We have someone in mind, but haven't formally taken her into the family. That, I suspect, will happen in the next few days. Her name is Siobhan."

"Good. The AIs overestimate, in my opinion, their ability to test via simulations. Real people are going to have to work with these things, so simulations alone won't be enough. Assuming Siobhan joins us, she will sign off on all the human interfaces. Once we get a design we like, we can use more replication but there still will be a production assembly area. From there, they have to move to a staging area from which the tenders can lift them.

"Even if the individual pod designs are fine, we need to do system testing. With some of the intelligence sensors, at least ones we can test in atmosphere, we need to know how they work spaced out along a long baseline. We need to test the flow from sensor to command center to weapons launchers."

"OK, Mike. Tell me about the kinds of people you need. Define them in terms of military specialties, and I'll see what I can do."

"Start out with a logistics person that can boss stevedores, warehousemen and truckers. Add a construction supervisor to set out those warehouses, the pod pads, etc. Air movements controller who worked special operations, including loading odd things -- I'm thinking here of tenders picking up pods.

Before contacting people outside his inner circle, he needed to know if CAP testing would be an obstacle. <<Ishmael, if someone has had significant responsible military service, will the AIs grant a provisional Sponsor status in the event they haven't been CAP tested? I'd like to be able to promise medtube benefits, especially to medically retired people.>>

<<That seems acceptable, at least on a trial basis. Perhaps we should review after 20 or so people handled this way.>>

For the first experiment, Terry contacted a colonel in the new joint U.S. service personnel shop, who provided a list of medically retired personnel with the desired skills. The list took a bit longer to prepare than he would have liked, but the colonel's shop added an officer that would serve as a reference, and information on the family status, of each of the candidates.

Since the U.S. people did not know all Confederacy office locations, the next step was to identify those candidates who were in reasonable distance of a Confederacy facility with a transporter pad, or an Earth military facility. They didn't want to have to carry a portable transporter through airport security. They had realized that they might have to bring back people in wheelchairs or otherwise needing assistance. Terry borrowed two Confederacy Marines from the small detachment at DIA, and sent Gunnery Sergeant Teresa Wong and Sergeant Liam O'Rourke with Mary. They carried a portable transport pad.

Dolores and Terry went to Mary, and asked her to take charge of recruiting and rehabilitating military, or other people, who were on disability retirement. Just to be on the safe side, they made sure she had strength enhancements, her implant was given long range and she was qualified with a small "stinger" stunner as well as a conventional handgun. She dressed conservatively for the trip, although she did slip a few enticing things into her suitcase.

Dolores also was to work on recruiting, but through her old friend, Aimee Cavanaugh, who managed the Le Marquis anything-goes strip club, as well as a separate service that provided home delivery of dancers.

Prior to going to the first candidate's apartment, Mary and Terry asked Rona to review his records. Both of them were troubled going into personal records without permission, but rationalized it because they could offer him a fresh start, and perhaps, by regenerating his legs, remove the cause of his depression. Thinking about other aspects, they consulted with Father Dan, the ethicist.

"What are the ethics of repairing a disability without explicit consent? Is implicit consent, saying one would like one's old life, sufficient to do something such as render someone unconscious, and then regenerate lost limbs in a medtube? What about the situation where the patient is severely depressed and not competent?

"We ethicists never get the easy questions, do we? My initial reaction is that the implicit consent is good enough. To be completely licit, though, there's a problem if you create an obligation to serve the Confederacy.

"The security of the medtube, and the Confederacy, is a priority for a greater good. Clearly, it would be an enormous disclosure of our secrets, to return someone to his or her prior environment, with the minor detail of having missing body parts repaired.

"You may need to return them to another place on Earth, even having, at least until the medtubes are public knowledge, where the repair is not known. When the fact of medtubes becomes known, you must give the person all possible opportunities to choose which life he wants to lead.

"When families are involved, I don't see an alternative to more explicit consent by all --. I hate to take away memories, but it would be in search of a greater good."

Arriving at her first stop, Mary called on Harold Whitcomb, medically retired as a U.S. Army Transportation Corps captain. Whitworth had been acting in at least a major's slot, as a transportation battalion executive officer and acting commander. As well as the Transportation Branch training, he was also qualified as an Engineer, and had an undergraduate degree in civil engineering.

He had lost both legs when he pushed a fellow soldier out of the way of a falling crane, but prostheses were not successful. Army and Veterans' Affairs records showed he was living alone, on a pension, and had a clinical depression managed with medication.

They phoned Whitcomb first, but there was no answer. On a hunch, they went there anyway. He slowly responded to a knock on the door. Mary said, "We were given your name by the Veterans' Affairs people. Brigadier General Knowles, your old boss, said that we could tell you that 'Knowitall's nose says you want to talk to us.'" While he looked rather beaten, he invited them in, intrigued by a Knowles reference.

"First," she said, "if it is something you can handle, would you be interested in using, and passing on, your logistical operations knowledge?"

His face lit up, and then fell. "Sure, but even with the power chair, it's hard to get around other than on smooth floors. I also have enough phantom pain to distract my concentration."

"Let me show you some of the new prosthetics under consideration." She handed him the neuralizer. Not only did it inject the memory-suppressing nanites, but put him into an anesthetic state. They set up the portable transporter pad, and put him through it, to the secure medical facility at Georgetown. Once there, he went into the medtube.

While he was still in the tube, Rona took responsibility for him from Mary. She programmed the medtube to sedate him heavily before he regained consciousness. When he was removed from the tube, an intravenous line went in, and he continued to receive sedation. Placed in a hospital bed, in a darkened room, he was allowed to return to partial consciousness. "Harold, I am a doctor who is taking care of you. You may not remember all this, but I want you to know that you will be regaining much of your mobility. Sleep now, and we'll begin to acquaint you with your improvements."

He went through several cycles in which he returned to partial consciousness, was reassured that he was improving and put back to sleep. As he came to full consciousness, his legs had been given a regional anesthetic, and his arms were in soft restraints.

"Harold, we are awakening you slowly. You're going to have very good news, but it will be extremely surprising, and something of a shock. Please believe it will get better and better. Are you experiencing any phantom pain?"

"No. Numbness--no pain. Feels different." She was pleased with his calm.

"Your arms are in temporary restraints so you won't thrash around and hurt yourself. They will be coming off very soon." The lights brightened a little. "We're going to raise the head of your bed. Look down."

"Oh my God! The blanket isn't over nothingness! Do I have new prostheses -- maybe long-wearing?"

"It's more than that. While you can't feel them right now, we have been able to replace your legs." He fell back on the pillows.

"A transplant?"

"No, an even more advanced technique about which you'll learn the details. Harold, we were able to rebuild your own legs. They will work as well as before the accident. I know this is a surprise, and I'm going to help you sleep for a while, while sensation returns. You will feel your legs when you awaken."

And so it was. Rona had been exceptionally concerned about the emotional shock, but, as she found, Harold was a very disciplined and tranquil man.

Next on the list was a former Air Force Special Operations combat controller. Senior Master Sergeant John Tolstoy had been burned and blinded in a helicopter crash. His wife, Jocelyn, continued to be his loving supporter. By all accounts, he was an exceptionally sane person, who dictated training materials to pass on his skills. Jocelyn had family money, which, with his pension, let them live a comfortable life. Before his injury she had been a high school art teacher. Mary learned that the two had often spent vacations drawing and painting.

Since he was extremely skilled in directing close air support and precision guided weapons, he had periodically been assigned to the 46th Test Wing, which evaluated air-delivered weapons, navigation and communications systems, and systems specific to Air Force Special Operations. Terry saw him as the supervisor of testing of space and air to ground weapons, or at least that testing that was not handed off to the Naval Ordnance Laboratory and the Air Force Armament Center. At the least, John could be the test engineer that Mike wanted. Terry thought he probably could do field integration and troubleshooting, although full integration design would come from professional engineers.

His situation was more complex than that of Harold, in that Jocelyn had to be considered. A former commanding officer spoke very highly of both of them, and his message to John was "remember how you told the team they didn't need to worry about what they ate before a long flight, because a John would be available?"

When the team went to their home, after making an appointment by phone, Jocelyn met separately with them. She was clearly very protective of John, who she obviously loved very much. "You said that there was an experimental program that might help him. You do know he had one eye completely destroyed, and the other that went blind with a rare disorder called sympathetic opthalmia. Conceivably, you might do something for the latter, although I haven't seen anything in the literature. I do not, however, want to set up false hopes."

Mary pulled out her tablet computer, which had neuralizer functions along the edge. "Let me show you some work we've done with visual recovery." The display indeed showed Jocelyn some eye evaluation. She was quite engrossed when the nanites were injected.

"Jocelyn, I'm going to give you more specifics. You will have to keep this secret, although it's rather unbelievable. Earth is threatened by hostile aliens, but we've been approached by other aliens who can't do the fighting. They have, however, given us a great deal of technology, including something we call a medtube. Medtube capabilities go to the genetic level, and can regenerate missing body parts. We expect to be able to return John's vision to normal, and to remove his scars."

The nanites had gently sedated Jocelyn, but she was still shocked. "Hurt him more, and I will do whatever it takes to make you suffer. Do what you claim, and we will do whatever you want."

She asked them to wait, and went to get John, whom she assisted to the living room. "Darling, I think they have something that has real potential to help you. Don't get your hopes up too far, but I think we should go with them.

"How do we do this?"

"Another technology we've acquired is a transporter, right out of the old Star Trek. We can set it up here. Is there anyone else in the apartment, two- or four-legged?"

"No, just us."

The Marines set up the pad, and helped John onto it. Jocelyn and Mary followed, and met Rona at the hospital. Rona was again concerned about the shock of repair, but since John could be brought slowly to consciousness, first sensing dim light, she judged it would be less stunning than suddenly having legs again.

Dolores met with Jocelyn. "Thanks for trusting us; you won't regret it. He will be healed no matter what further decisions you make. We do need, however, to keep the capability secret for up to two years.

"Let's assume that you both want to participate. It's our hope that John will want to take on an immediate task that goes back to his traffic control experience, although there's no combat risk at present. Eventually, our group will move into space, and to a new colony.

"The cooperating races believe that Earth must increase its population rapidly, and, for that reason, there will be quite a few changes in family and sexual relationships. Think of polygamy, and, as our particular clan sees it, polyamory. Everyone will be tested for what is called a CAP score, and people above a certain level will be Sponsors, or leaders of households. The official policy is that dissolves any conventional marriages, but certainly, people can choose to keep their spouses. Exactly how the people relate, in part, depends on whether one or both has Sponsor status. In my particular household, I am usually considered a subordinate leader and the senior spouse.

"The Confederacy -- the group of races -- has made the assumption, in the short term, is that anyone with significant military experience is assumed to have Sponsor status."

Dolores went back to Mike. "I've got a ground logistics and an air controller for you, once they are out of the medtube and get some orientation. The logistics guy is also a civil engineer, and the air controller is qualified in testing. Now, you complained about not being able to find people to build a family and household, saying that in your USN days, you mostly had interacted with women in strip clubs. Why the fuck shouldn't some sex workers also be good people, like me?" She had changed into a seductive low-cut full-length gown, with nothing but Dolores under it. "Now, we can talk and make out, we can make out, or you can talk and I can masturbate."