The Quality of Mercy, Part 1
Etain Antrim
"The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Wm. Shakespeare, *Merchant of Venice*
***
Alonzo rounded the corner on his way into the common room and had to jump back to avoid walking into Walman. "Hey, sorry about that!"
"Why don't you look where you're going, Solace." Walman growled and stomped off, never even meeting Alonzo's eyes.
Alonzo stared after him in dismay. He had been in camp for three weeks now, and Walman was still angry at having been forced to share the pilot's dreams. Alonzo had tried to speak to the man, but somehow Walman was always just leaving as he arrived, no matter where they were, or when. He had even left dinner without eating when the pilot sat down beside him. Walman had also started to volunteer for every trip out of camp, so that he spent very little time in camp during the day.
The pilot walked on into the common room and found Devon studying a plan of New Pacifica. "Hey, just the woman I was hoping to find!" Alonzo said with a charming smile.
Devon smiled back up at him, "Alonzo, it's great to see you looking healthy and full of energy again. What can I do for you?"
"Devon, do you have any scout trips coming up soon? I'd love to get out of camp for a day."
"Well, there's one tomorrow . . ." Devon stopped. "Actually, it's supposed to be Walman and Morgan, but Morgan has another project that we could really use his help on. But, Alonzo, I don't think Walman is the best partner for you right now . . . And will Julia even agree to you going?" Devon was evaluating Alonzo as she spoke. He was no where close to being completely recovered, but she could feel his impatience and his need to stretch his wings a bit. The man was the embodiment of wander-lust at the best of times, and he had been held on a short lead for weeks.
"Great. Please sign me up. And listen," he leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially, "I'll get my doctor's approval first.
"Okay, if Julia agrees, it would really help us out. I'll talk to Morgan, but he hates scout trips. He'll have no problem with you going instead." She paused to collect her thoughts. "Are you sure you want to go with Walman?" Devon stressed his name slightly, a small worried frown creasing her forehead.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks Dev." Alonzo spun around and headed out again. Devon watched him go, enjoying his regained pleasure in walking.
***
Walman walked over to the solar power storage device he was spending the day working on. He was still tense from his encounter with the pilot, and, not for the first time, wondered why he wasn't able to get past his anger when everyone else had weeks ago. For whatever reason, though, just seeing Alonzo sent adrenaline and violent thoughts rushing through his body.
He was still pondering his reaction when he suddenly heard Baines' voice at his elbow, "Hey, Walman. I overheard Solace talking to Devon. It looks like he might be your partner on the scout tomorrow."
"Great." Walman added internally, *That defeats the purpose of volunteering for the scout trips.* "Why?"
"He says he needs to get out of camp. Well, I guess he has been stuck here for a while. Solace beats Martin as a partner any day in my book. I hate all that whining Martin does on every trip." Baines mimiced the bureaucrat, "It's too hot. It's too cold. I'm getting sunburned. Why did Yale even suggest we try this direction?"
"Yeah, I guess." Walman tried to laugh with Baines, but his heart wasn't in it. His mind drifted back to the puzzle of why the pilot affected him so strongly. Walman's first exposure to him had been after the crash, when Solace had been badly injured, and had suffered his first Terrian dreams. Walman initially found the man moody and unpleasant to be around, but that had changed after a few weeks when he had seen the charming and charismatic man-about-the-galaxy for the first time, and had decided instead that he was cocky and shallow. He had been shocked, no, more than shocked, he had been horrified when he realized that Julia Heller, the fragile and beautiful woman he had gone to sleep thinking about for weeks, was in love with Alonzo. Walman no longer found Julia alluring; time in her company had shown him that she was uncomfortable and stiff, and that awkwardness had removed his desire for her. Despite that, he had never been able to warm up to Solace, and they had settled into a cordial but distant relationship.
But then he had been forced to share the pilot's dreams, and even worse, so had the rest of the group. Walman ground his teeth unconsciously when he remembered how Magus had lashed out at him under the influence of Alonzo's memories. But even without the others' reactions, the dreams had been a violation, an intrusion, and he had been powerless to stop them.
Walman decided to talk to Adair about the crew change as soon as possible. "Hey, Baines, you want to lend me a hand getting this panel down?" He indicated one of the solar panels on the portable device. "I need to look at the connection. Somehow we haven't been getting the output we should for the past few weeks."
"Sure." Baines studied Walman surreptitiously as they worked. He knew Walman and Solace had not reconciled; that Alonzo had tried to re-establish a friendly relationship, but that Walman had resisted every overture so far. He hoped that being forced to spend some time together would allow the two men to get past whatever the issue was. That was one of the reasons he wanted to give Walman warning of the crew change. Perhaps with time, Walman would let the pilot work it out with him.
***
Julia looked at Alonzo, affectionate exasperation clear on her face. "'Lonzo, it's too soon. You are not strong enough yet."
Alonzo just smiled even bigger, sending his dimples deep into his cheeks. "Come on Doc. It's not like there's much physical activity involved. All I have to do is sit in the DuneRail for a few hours, and wander out occasionally to look through the jumpers. I promise, I'll walk slowly, and if it's a long distance, I'll get Walman to go instead." He paused, and seeing Julia's doubtful expression, changed tactics. His smile disappeared, replaced with an earnest expression, and he reached out and took her hand in his. "Julia, I just have to get out. I've been in camp for 3 weeks, and I swear I'm going crazy. Now, I've been a very good patient, haven't I?"
Julia had to admit that he had, to the best of his ability and patience, done everything she had directed. "Yeah, you've been very good. But, Alonzo, just look at yourself." She waved her hand over the length of his body. "You're still, what, twenty pounds down in your weight? And you still get tired before the end of every day." Alonzo stood before her, a shadow of what he had been before his illness. His clothes hung on him, and his pants were cinched tightly around his waist by a makeshift rope belt, since his real belt was too large to work properly. But, Julia admitted to herself, his eyes were bright and he no longer crept around camp like an old man. He had recovered most of his zest and was, she knew, starting to feel the restrictions she had imposed on him. "Well, I'd be happier if you were going with Danziger or Baines. Walman is still holding a grudge."
Alonzo could see her objections starting to crumble, and pressed the attack. "But, that's why I want to go with him." He moved closer to her, and put his arms around her in a comforting hug. Then, leaning back, he lifted her chin so that he could see her face. "I think this may be a good chance to work this thing out. Besides, I know Walman is no happier with my company. What would you wager that he's trying to wriggle out of this right now?"
Over in the common room, Walman was at that moment talking to Devon. "Dev, listen, 'Lonz isn't strong enough yet to go with me. Besides, isn't it Morgan's turn?" He tried to keep his disgust at being forced to endure Alonzo's company off his face and replace it with a "strictly-business" expression, but was not entirely successful.
Devon was amazed that Walman would actually prefer Morgan Martin's company to Alonzo's, and had to work to keep her irritation off her face. "Walman, I know that Alonzo isn't the ideal scout partner right now. But Morgan has a communications project that he and Yale are working on, and Alonzo is really eager to get out of camp for a while. He's been stuck here for weeks and has cabin fever. He needs this trip." Devon knew full well what Walman's real objections were, but refused to countenance them by the acknowledgement that they even existed. He was an adult and would just have to cope. The group was too small to start coddling individuals. "Sorry Walman. But you and Alonzo are going on tomorrow's scout together."
Walman's shoulders slumped. "Okay. But it's under my protest."
"Noted"
Walman and Alonzo left together in the 'Rail early the next morning.
***
Yale and Morgan were huddled at a table in the common room, a large sheet of paper spread in front of them. "You know Yale, looking at this plan, it looks like we are within the range of our dish in New Pacifica. We should be able to access the signal from here, if only these mountains weren't in the way."
Yale sighed internally, and steeled himself to once again restate the problem they were working on. Morgan was as hard to get to focus as Uly and True. "Perhaps. But for now we should focus on the problem set before us. The cable we had planned to use for the New Pacifica network is probably at the bottom of some Grendler's cache. We may be able to substitute some other cable, but we will certainly have to plan the network carefully so that we minimize the material used. The network must connect the administrative buildings and the hospital with the communications dish and to each other. We need to consider the candidate materials we can use in the network, and how to design the network to use as little of that material as possible."
"Hey, I have an idea!" Morgan was obviously enjoying this work more than he had ever appreciated scouts, or gathering wood, or any of the other camp chores that he had tried to avoid for the past 18 months. He leaned forward eagerly. "What about if we use some of the cable for the solar power network. Danziger has only needed a small amount of the total so far. And we can even try it out here in camp. We can string a span up a hill to see if we can get the dish on line. Then we can monitor the connection from here, and see how it survives the weather."
Yale looked thoughtfully at the bureaucrat while stroking his beard. "Morgan, you may be on to something there. But we need to be sure that we can get a line-of-sight connection to the dish from some nearby spot. And we still need to design the New Pacifica network."
"Well, we do have all the survey maps. There's topographical information on them, isn't there? And the final network design will have to wait until we know what material we will use, since it'll have to accommodate the specific characteristics of that material. You know, impedance, bandwidth, that kind of thing."
"Yes, the survey maps do have topographical information, but it is rather crude. But, you're right, there should be enough information to determine if it is possible to contact the dish from here." Yale was starting to see promise in the project. "I can get the maps now, they're just over there." Yale pointed at another table in the common room, littered with papers. "And I have the coordinates of the dish and our present location. Devon will be disappointed that we won't be able to design the network yet, but she'll be interested in this trial."
A couple of hours later, Devon looked in on the two men, who had completely taken over the common room. They had maps spread on every flat surface, and were pouring over the most recent set of calculations. "Hey, you two. How's it going?"
"Devon! We think we can access the dish at New Pacifica from the top of the mountain to the south of us." Morgan was loud in his excitement.
"Devon. Morgan had an idea for how we can get around the supply problem for the New Pacifica network, and we want to build a trial network here. It looks like we can communicate with the dish from nearby, and that seemed like a good way to try the substitute material and also allow us to develop the command set for controlling the dish at the same time." Yale tried to fill Devon in as concisely as possible.
"What? We can access the dish from here? That's great! So how can we do it? Where?" Devon had taken no time to understand, and typically, she wanted to make it happen *now*.
Yale smiled fondly at his first and best student. He knew she'd like the idea. "This was Morgan's idea. He is going to be very useful in all our communications needs. I would like to suggest that we also pull Baines into this project. He is a communications expert, and should be very familiar with the protocol used by the dish."
"Do it. That's a good idea, Yale." Devon spun on her heel, "In fact, I'll go get him now. He's just outside, helping Danziger with the ATV."
As Devon slammed through the door, Morgan turned to Yale. "Hey, that's a great idea, Yale. Baines will be able to help a lot." He turned back to his calculations, "It looks like the signal may be pretty weak, since we're toward the edge of the dish's range, so we may want to boost the gain somehow."
Yale settled in to listen and learn. On this project, he would not be the technical expert, but with his broad educational background, he would make sure that all the bases were covered.
End of Part 1.
Story Notes:
Folks,
This story is, in part, a continuation of "Perchance To Dream", and will probably not be completely coherent to anyone who hasn't read that tale. Sorry about that.
As always, I owe thanks to a couple of great e-pals. Rosa inspired this tale by suggesting the sequel topic to PTD. Jayel added tremendously to what you read here by giving me insightful feedback on an earlier version. As always, her kindness is greatly appreciated.
All comments, positive or negative, will be cheerfully accepted.
This story is, in part, a continuation of "Perchance To Dream", and will probably not be completely coherent to anyone who hasn't read that tale. Sorry about that.
As always, I owe thanks to a couple of great e-pals. Rosa inspired this tale by suggesting the sequel topic to PTD. Jayel added tremendously to what you read here by giving me insightful feedback on an earlier version. As always, her kindness is greatly appreciated.
All comments, positive or negative, will be cheerfully accepted.