Weir Annadetcall
Davidbell's clinic was jammed. Weir wound through the building, remnants of old offices still
under repair. He counted seven group-sessions being held, some in places never intended for
treatment, like the kitchen. Beyond the scope of their demonstration clinics, but demand had
forced the work on them.
Even he had been pressed into moderating a double handful of people intense with high need to
talk. His knowledge of such sessions was skimpy, picked up during planning, so he had ended up
choosing people at random, giving them a share of seconds, moving on ... and making sure everyone
got to talk. Calmer, more assured that their reactions were reasonable, they had finally adjourned
into the evening. Most of them took the time to thank him.
Now he was looking for a place to be alone. But sounds peddled their interruptions everywhere.
Aromas, intentional and otherwise, documented the density of people. Tension hung in the air like
smoke after a fire. Weir poked his head through every doorway until he realized that only the
bathing room promised any privacy.
In a stall, he closed the door and eyed the bowl, feeling its promise to ease the curdling in his
bowels. However, he decided he hadn't come down to where he needed to conduct meetings from a
toilet, especially important meetings with Günter-approved advisors. He had to get some help in
understanding what was going on in Ganj Dareh and what he should do about it.
Violence flooded the paths, its level climbing every day. Injuries abounded. Distress surged even
higher. People, hurt or not, clamored to their clinics, seeking answers to confrontations
immediate and trends alarming.
Should we pitch in and help? Phoebe resists all such offers; she prefers making demands on my
people and resources. Should we abort the project and pull out? No, I'm bound by my own honor and
ambition to protect The Tangent. Do we stick to our project plan and try to ignore the chaos
wrapping itself around us? Impossible: it assaults us with arms of blood and fear. Do I close
our doors and set Rowl and his constables as barrier to the very people we are trying to help and
sell? Hardly. But how can I possibly succeed for myself and for my combine without taking
action?
Mobbed by this swarm of questions and his answers too ready, Weir leaned back against the stall's
door to give himself a background of ambiguous beige, cradled his llevar on his slanting belly with
his left hand, and invoked its holoscreen with the other. He scrolled through the list of
expertises allocated to his project by Günter and selected "peace management."
The expert, named Lincoln Gerovitch Prokopowicz, served as anshinkan chief of Direvnya Shek Kip Mei
on Continent Nikolayev. Weir dragged the name to a Request for Meeting and dropped it into the
recipient's position. He worked doggedly through the rest of the Request, setting Type to
"meeting/will-be-seen" and Time to immediate. He clicked the button Send and spread his feet to
wait better.
Weir didn't know what contract Günter had made with these experts, but it must've been a good one.
"Boots&Saddles" started up within a hundred seconds, and as soon as Weir acknowledged Prokopowicz's
response, he was staring at the man's face in the holoscreen skewed to fit the narrow space. It
was fair, with shaggy brown hair hanging over his forehead, lips, and throat.
"I need some perspective," Weir began, aware that his voice carried spikes of stress. "Things are
happening here and—"
"I am aware of the invitation of Har Norma Byukan," interrupted Prokopowicz. Weir didn't mind; he
was grateful for even this hint of the man's competence. Prokopowicz kept talking: "Extended to
all the people of Continent Popovich for them to journey to Direvnya Ganj Dareh and receive
employment. I anticipated influx would be considerable and from the visible data — reservations
for transport, schedules, and such — I see that it is indeed happening. Are your clinics being
overloaded?"
Weir fixed on the ovals virtual representing the expert's eyes zhuhndí. "It's not
health-management that I'm worried about. It's the peace-management. We planned to do no
more than study those requirements, the level of needs, yet we're — the new people and the old
just aren't getting along here!
"We've got our doors open and people come in, upset, injured, and they expect us to help. We've
increased our capabilities there." Thanks to Berl and Ford's foresight. "The injuries we're
prepared to handle, but what about ... beyond that?" He laid out his issues. "Is it ethical to
begin counseling when we might not even be here in twenty days? How do we respond when the
anshinkan ask us to treat-and-detain just like one of their own clinics? Do my constables —
brought in early to guard my people, though they haven't been needed yet — do they do more than
walk patrol? What about us doing something to stop the violence?"
Prokopowicz smiled indulgently and patted the air in front of him in a "calm down" gesture. "The
anshinkan combine in-place should be able to keep the peace."
Weir resented the condescension, but waded beyond that. "Yes, but will they? Is, uh, is what's
happening out there built into their plan? Are they staffed? Are they ready? Is this typical?"
That last question had snuck in from behind his mind's veil, complete with its own inflections.
Prokopowicz shifted his head so that his right eye took the brunt of Weir's attention. "What makes
you think this unrest is not to be expected from this confluence so abruptly conjured up?"
"I — I don't know. That's why I'm calling you." His image of a river rose within him, no longer
symbolizing his combine, but the whole project. The way ahead narrowed through cliffs that
eclipsed the future. The river crowded between them, bumping him roughly, testing his seat and his
control. "I don't know these things. I wasn't expecting to have to know these things yet. I just
want to know from you whether I should be concerned that I — and my people — are here in the
middle of a — a —"
"Riot? Mob violence? Societal disaster?"
"Exactly!" Cliffs engulfed him and his combine, their rocks echoing the sounds of chaos.
Both eyes came to bear now as Prokopowicz's head snapped rigidly upright. "I will look closer.
The anshinkan combine for Direvnya Ganj Dareh will of course keep their records of incidents
private, but, well, I can take other avenues. Tactician Annadetcall?"
Weir shook off the image. "What?"
"Are your people safe?"
Weir nodded. "Probably. Rowl and a squad have been patrolling for two days now without any major
challenges. Each of my teams keeps close to their clinic and their residence. Some, like here,
are in the same building. I guess I'm more at risk than the others." His laugh sounded more like
a cough. "I have to travel among the clinics. But you know —" he hadn't thought about being in
danger before "— I don't feel threatened out there, on the paths, on the buses. Isn't that odd?"
"No, it's not. It may mean that the ambient threat does not feel nearly as great as when it is
focused naturally through a clinic. After all, you see only its victims there."
"Agreed, agreed. I see that now." Or maybe it's the sessions of Dan-Colora, all both of them. Or
maybe I'm flinching from shadows. "Maybe —" Weir found his head twisting away from eye-on-eye
"— maybe I shouldn't have disturbed you." Embarassment suddenly flooded over him. Then regret
added to the flow, regret over spending money on what was probably only nerves on his part. How
can Günter believe I'm ready for all this?
"Tactician, uh, Weir, consider yourself as a conduit for the cares of eighty-plus people that you
are responsible for in a village far away from your homebase. Consider yourself as the bleeding
edge for a consortium, yet you are isolated in a new culture. And do not judge yourself too
harshly.
"In the meantime, I will see to the numbers, map some trends, compare them with other times and
other places, and, well, ask some pertinent questions in, well, places chosen for fecundity. I
will contact you with my results."
Tension eased within Weir as this expert confirmed his mitzrayim, then took up some of his burden.
"Right. Thanks, er, thank you, Advisor Prokopowicz."
"In the meantime, concentrate on the job you know how to do. And realize that Strategist
Gatogrebok does not waste resources on people who cannot handle them."
Despite himself, Weir took the compliment to heart. "I'll keep that in mind."
The llevar resumed control over its screen and dashed panels and icons across it.
I will try to remember that. Maybe I should write it across my forehead.
Shaking his head with a grin of self-reproof stretching his cheeks, he did the next-best thing: he
set up a panel Reminder on his llevar with those words in bright-yellow on a background of purple.
