The Janus Syndrome | Page 7

parameters constantly,
momentarily, and without warning."
"Boy, oh boy," I said. "Are you in trouble."
"Explain, Kevven."
I shrugged. "I always got that the whole point of humor was changing it
-- kinda like a surprise, opening the jack-in-the-box and getting a
custard pie in the face instead of --"
"No," Area Fourteen said, interrupting the explanation; he was
probably way ahead of me anyway. "I doubt that I need to know. I may
investigate more thoroughly later."
He paused for a moment, anther gesture.
Then, "This Leonard Nimoy is an actor, correct?"

"Yep. Stage, screen, TV, radio, you name it." I grinned. "Famous for
his ears."
"Hmm. I expect there was sarcasm intended."
I laughed. "Precisely, Captain. Vanity isn't good for you."
"Neither is it good for you, Kevven, though you may believe it is. I
much prefer that you attempt to remain quiet on missions, though you
may believe otherwise."
I shook my head. "Each to his own, m'man. I could lecture you on the
importance of baaaadness, but you wouldn't be impressed. 'Sides,
L.A.'s my gig, not Harlem." I stood up again, smoothing a wrinkle out
of my pants; I'd put clean ones on -- the others had wound up damaged.
"Is there anything other than the lecture on the futility and expense
inherent in using a quarter pound of explosive F on snipers?"
"No. You might as well return to your quarters."
"Wonderful," I said, and started to head for the door.
"Kevven."
I stopped. "What now, monocircuits?"
"I apologize for the shortness of your stay here this time."
Don't you believe the sentiment; there was a smirk in the SOB's voice,
and I could hear it. Area Fourteen just had to have an accountant's mind
-- sneaky, nasty, evil, various other epithets.
"And your mother, too," I said.
And left before he could say anything else. Not that running out of a
briefing room would stop him. It just made me feel better.
My quarters were located on the opposite site of the base; I'd never
seen it from the outside, and I wasn't sure I knew my way around the

inside all that well. I could reach the emergency boats -- some lifeboats
they were, dustpipes; anywhere a personal transmission beam could get,
so could they -- as fast as anybody inside, but that was because of
training. I hadn't spent all that much time on the base, despite being
born on it. One of the disadvantages of setting up a legitimate and solid
cover.
University on Earth, even.
The part that strained my mind was trying to work out where the hell
the bases had come from -- they were everywhere in the universe, as far
as I knew -- as far as anybody knew, come to think of it. Mostly, they
were located -- still are -- centrally; Area Fourteen was just in a
convenient location within his sector, which includes a few assorted
civilizations in a two hundred light-year span.
And, you can bet, wherever the Builders' bases were, there was also a
bunch of Enemy skulking around. I once tried checking back in records
for the first appearance of the Enemy, and gave up after five hours and
thirty thousand years. I could have asked a Base historian, but that
would have been cheating. And it wasn't just us little old humans
getting it; from what I'd learned -- and Enemy-ID was kindergarten
stuff for us -- the rest of the known Universe had Enemy around them,
looking like the natives.
The worst of it was, one Enemy hit-attempt wouldn't be the only one. I
could guarantee another one, and more afterwards if that failed. We lost
agents regularly.
It made life painful, not knowing what to expect from the people who
didn't like us much. It made it even more so not knowing who or what
the Builders were; we didn't even know what they looked like. But the
Builders' mystery could be lived with; the Enemy preferred us dead.
That was the Enemy for you.
I slipped my comkey into my left hand and put my thumb over the plate,
and went through the door as it irised open.

As the door irised shut again, the linkscreen at the bottom of the room
flicked on, with a message for me from Area Fourteen.
It read: WELCOME HOME, MR. SPOCK. SIGNED: CAPTAIN
KIRK.
I grinned and said, "I didn't think it would last that long, Area
Fourteen."
"Highly illogical in the first place," his voice said, from my comkey.
"A momentary review of my storage was all that was required."
"I thought you didn't understand jokes." I clipped my comkey back
onto my belt and went over to the wall, touching the bedbutton. The
bed obligingly slid out for me. There wasn't