After what seemed like a good beginning in Trinar, things became increasingly complicated and disappointing. For one thing, she was not making the progress that she wanted to make on her medical practicums. Not only were there fewer patients at the medicenter than one would expect in a city where so much kept going wrong, but when Jaraidans came for treatment—often reluctantly because they had been brought in by a rescue team—Merleth was put to work reassuring patients and as an interpreter. It didn’t matter that she was assigned to “assist” as a medical trainee. Her language skills and cultural sensitivity were needed. Her assistance on medical procedures was not.
As one medic told her, there were many qualified medics to treat the patients, but she was the only one who knew the language well enough to talk to the people who they were trying to help.
“But I can do both!” she had said many times. “I need the medical practicum hours so I can get certification.”
“There is no hurry. You are not scheduled to finish your apprentice year for another eight threefs, and you are young. You should not be so impatient. PASS agents must serve where they are needed,” she was told by the medics she worked with.
Ironically, while the medics were not giving her a chance to earn her practicum credits quickly, Senior Ncatl was being pressured by the Naulor leadership to send her out into the field so she could make connections among the people and help track down Gin’va and everyone else they wanted her to find. Because she was only a trainee, however, she couldn’t go outside the PASS base alone. It was a rule designed for her protection, she knew, but it created a complication for her and for Ncatl who had to explain why she was not progressing as fast as Leader Dtat and the others back in Naulor thought she should be progressing.
Her participation in the food delivery runs gave her only a limited opportunity to meet local people and talk to them. Then, when she needed to meet with Da’téa to discuss the shelter project or anything else, she either had to interrupt her work distributing food packs to the homeless and hungry, or one of the other team members had to stay with her after the scheduled delivery. Though her team mates were good-natured about it, whoever was stuck “babysitting” her was being taken away from other duties—or time off—and couldn’t be blamed for being impatient.
What made it worse was that the plan to create a shelter for the orphans was not going as well as she had hoped when Ncatl had first encouraged her to propose it. Sometimes she felt like a fraud when she talked to Da’téa. How could she explain that the shelter idea was being bogged down by bureaucracy (and who knew what else) and that the two supervisors pushing for it were getting nowhere?
Da’téa was eager to help. She had even volunteered to put Merleth or whoever oversaw the project in touch with the head of the Trinar Council when PASS was ready to move on the shelter idea.
“It may take a while,” Merleth warned. “My immediate supervisor supports it, and the supervisor that must give us the space is also very interested, but you know how sometimes the leadership will not always understand the urgency of a proposal?”
She did not know if Da’téa had much experience of bureaucracy, and she could not begin to explain that she suspected part of the delay was political. It would not be right to expose the failings of PASS to the Jaraidans.
Meanwhile, all Merleth’s efforts to get information from Da’téa about anything other than the orphans and their needs tended to fail.
The woman would not discuss Gin’va, the Jaraidans that the Alliance was interested in, or anything about the government and the Ciardei. She did admit, when Merleth asked specifically, that Esh’tiret-ne had died in Kib?, but like Dav’s contact, she would not reveal the name of the present Ciardei, his relationship to other Ciardeis or anything else that could help PASS place him.
She even suggested that maybe there was no Ciardei but a Ciardai. Women could inherit the Ciardeitat, she reminded and listed a few women who had done so in the past—fascinating information, you could tell the woman had been a teacher—but not much use when Merleth was trying to narrow down the possibilities, not widen them. However, since everyone, including Da’téa herself spoke of a Ciardei, Merleth thought the woman was just mischievously trying to confuse her.
Though Da’téa had sent a message through her sister, the telepath, to Gin’va, there had been no reply—which Da’téa had warned might be the case.
“Would she have received the message,” Merleth asked after a few local days without a response. “If she is still alive?”
“She is alive,’ Da’téa said with certainty. “I would have heard if she had died.
“I don’t know if she has received the message. Neither does my sister. Maybe it has been held back somewhere in the relays, or maybe she has received it and chosen not to answer.”
“But why?” Merleth asked. “We were friends.” She could guess at some reasons, but could not believe that Gin’va, who had usually been so independent and determined would not find a way of contacting her if she wanted to, if she could.
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“It is unnecessary contact,” Da’téa explained gently.
Would a government ruling that forbade her from contacting PASS have stopped Gin’va? Merleth had to remember that they were both adults now. It had been some eight years since they had graduated, more since Gin’va had been the independent girl she remembered.
*****
The failure to get the orphan’s shelter plan approved was in some ways more frustrating than not being able to contact Gin’va. After all, her friend had been silent for four years. Other attempts to contact her had failed. But the shelter idea was so reasonable and so easy to implement! Pumenkzi was ready to turn over one wing of the medicenter which was not in use to provide the residence for the young people. It already had everything necessary except a commissary, and a large area could be fitted with low tables for that purpose. And it would obviously meet an important, humanitarian need.
The only problem was that the two co-leaders, Storbel Neuhüss and En-li Cho, were not willing to approve the plan. Their response to the proposal that Ncatl had helped her polish and present had been discouraging.
When Dat’éa had offered to put whoever led the project in contact with someone in the Trinar council who could help, Merleth had hoped that it would stimulate the leaders to approve. After all, the mission was to work with the Jaraidans to help them, and this would be a perfect opportunity for collaboration. Instead, the leaders said that this was “not the right time” for the project and that they should/could consider it more carefully later.
Besides a series of minor objections that Pumenkzi and Ncatl could easily deal with, the main argument was that PASS’s mission did not include providing housing for the locals, and that to set up a shelter would create a dangerous precedent.
“If we do it here, what is to prevent it being expected of us on another mission? We start creating shelters here, where will it lead?” demanded Leader Cho at the only meeting she was allowed to attend—but not speak at.
Merleth thought that was an odd argument. PASS was always setting up new things when needed, and if they were good enough to repeat, so much the better—or so she thought. Her mother, to whom she vented during a vitalk chat, agreed.
?Seems shortsighted. Why not start a project that is not expensive, might do good and reflect well on PASS? Who cares about creating a “precedent”? If it is needed on other missions, then it should create a precedent, ? her mother said, frowning.
? Do you think it was something else? ? Merleth asked.
? Besides ego? ? her mother replied with a cynical laugh. ? I wouldn’t be surprised if the problem isn’t just it was not Cho’s idea or the idea of someone on his “team.” ?
? Leader Neuhüss opposed it also, ? Merleth said.
? Storbel Neuhüss is a good friend of En-li Cho, ? her mother said, raising her eyebrows meaningfully.
Oh. Merleth thought. One of those close friendships that might or might not be romantic or sexual but came down to unquestioning allegiance. She did not need to have it explained that Neuhüss would not question or challenge his co-leader.
Her mother went on to remark that it was a shame, because her idea had a lot of merit.
Something should be done about the orphans in Trinar—but not by Merleth, if Leader Cho was set against it. Ncatl and Pumenkzi could pursue it if they wanted. They were senior agents and had standing. But Merleth was not even a full agent. It was not for her to question the mission leader’s decisions.
Merleth understood. If she continued to advocate for the shelter, Cho might resent it. He was powerful and could make trouble for her, especially while she was only an intern.
She hated being an intern. She would not be in such a hurry to get her practicums done if it didn’t mean that when she finally finished she would have the standing of a PASS agent.
*****
Dav Arteyn was supportive when she told him that the shelter plan had been turned down. Although he agreed with her mother that Cho was probably motivated by ego, he had another suggestion.
He had spent a few tenners in Trinar before being assigned to Kyeros, and he believed that Cho had a poor opinion of Jaraidans.
?He opposed any efforts to recruit Jaraidans to help on the Trinar base. According to Dalchk Etyff, Cho did not think Jaraidans were well-prepared to serve as anything more than grunts, and ‘we have robos for that.’ ?
?What?!?
Merleth was shocked. It went against what she understood as the ethos of PASS.
?Ask Ju Pumenkzi sometime about how Cho reacted to that document I sent out with what I had learned about how the Jaraidans have more than a prohibition against implants and transplants and the same rule may extend to refusing intra-venous medication,? Dav said.
?Cho didn’t like it??
Pumenkzi had given no hint that there was any problem—quite the opposite. In the medicenter, there had been a few new policies established immediately, based on Dav’s paper.
?Cho objected very strongly to the conclusions I had drawn and the changes in policy that I was recommending. I know because he sent his objections not only to Pumenkzi but to Leader Tro and Leader Hakis on our base—copying to me, of course. ?
?Did it cause trouble for you?? Merleth asked. Though a qualified agent, Dav was not very senior in the service.
?Not at all, ? Dav replied with a chuckle. ? Hakis had approved my paper before I sent it out, and Tro is very supportive of anything that encourages Jaraidans to trust our medics.
?I think Cho made himself look bad. Hakis and Tro dismissed his objections, and instead of refusing to back the paper, as Cho had hoped, they made a point of saying that the information I had brought forward was essential, and that they encouraged me to continue with my excellent work.
?Pumenkzi told me privately that what truly bothered Cho was that we would have to ‘ask Jaraidans for permission to treat them.’ He argued it would delay things and lead to misunderstandings since the locals didn’t appreciate our advanced medicine. ?
?Shadows! What an idiot. Jaraidans are just as advanced in medi-science as any tier 1 planet. They produce more psi-healers than we do, so they can do some things differently, but that is not less advanced.?
Merleth thought of the Jaraidans she had known on Naulor. Besides Gin’va’s cousin E’let, who had gone on to specialized medical studies at the prestigious Hoans Medical Center after achieving level 1 medic certification at the University, she had met a couple of other Jaraidan medical students when she had been dating Alonz Kejaims.
Dav nodded agreement.
?I met a few Jaraidans on Naulor, and was always impressed by their command of whatever subject they were studying.?
He paused and shook his head before adding.
?Your mother is right that you should not speak up about this—nor should I. We are too junior. Senior Cho holds a powerful position. We must respect it.?
Merleth understood. She could wonder how someone with Cho’s prejudices could have been appointed to lead a mission on Jaraida, but it would not do to discuss it over the vitalk.
