The information was not what DODNET and the Pentagon were most interested in at the moment, but Stan felt sure they would want to know.
He linked into the Global Net and began uploading his observations.
THREE
20 SEPTEMBER 2067
The Palace of Illusion
Burbank, California
2130 hours (Zulu minus 8)
Why, Colonel Kaitlin Garroway asked herself, do I come to these damned functions?
The answer was obvious, of course. Because the Corps wants well-rounded, well-balanced, socially ept officers and it wouldn’t look good if you turned down too many invitations. She had to ask the question nonetheless. She always felt so damned out of place at these affairs; at least the proverbial fish out of water had managed to evolve legs and lungs after a few million years. She held no such hopes for herself.
Once upon a time, social gatherings of this sort had been held in private homes—well-to-do private homes, to be sure, but homes all the same. If the guest list was simply too big for the living room, a reception hall might be rented for the occasion.
Nowadays, an entire minor industry thrived to provide suitable ambiance for the evening. The Palace of Illusion was run by a major area theme park to cater expressly to formal social events. She wondered how much all of this had cost—the lighting and special effects, the live music, the endless tables of food, the sheer space: the grounds and gardens outside on a hilltop overlooking the dazzling horizon-to-horizon glow of Greater Los Angeles; a Grand Hall so large the walls were lost in the artificial mists and play of laser holography designed to create a sense of infinite space; and elsewhere, private rooms, conversation bubbles, or even private VR spheres designed to accommodate social and conversational groupings of every size and taste.
Several thousand people were in attendance. Kaitlin felt completely lost. She wished Rob, her husband, was here, but the lucky bastard was on the other end of the continent right now, CO of the Marine Space Training Command at Quantico, and he’d been able to plead schedule and a meeting with the Joint Chiefs to duck the invitation. It was harder for Kaitlin. Her current assignment had her in command of the 1st Marine Space Regiment, which consisted of the 1st and 2nd Marine Space Expeditionary Forces, and various support elements. Normally, she was in Quantico too, but for the past month she’d been stationed at Vandenberg, commuting by HST on those few weekends she had free.
All of which had left her without an acceptable excuse for being here tonight.
She wandered the fringes of the Great Hall, looking for someone she knew. She had her personal pinger on, set to alert her if she came within fifty meters of any other pinger broadcasting an interest in things that interested her: the Corps, recovered ET technology, science fiction, programming—especially cryptoprogramming—chess, anything involving Japanese language or culture. It was also searching for any of a handful of people she knew who might be here. So far, no luck. Senator Fuentes was here, of course; it was her party. Twenty-five years ago, Colonel Carmen Fuentes had been her CO in the desperate fight for Tsiolkovsky on the Lunar far side. Unfortunately, the senator was surrounded five deep just now by well wishers, sycophants, politicians, and social climbers. Kaitlin didn’t have a chance in hell of breaching those defenses.
She wandered through the crowd, amusing herself by observing the variations in dress and social custom. Kaitlin was wearing the new formal Blue Dress Evening uniform—long skirt, open jacket with medals and broad red lapels over ruffled white blouse, and the damned silly gold braid epaulets that made her feel like she was walking around with boards balanced precariously on her shoulders. And heels. She hated heels. Heels had been abandoned by progressively thinking women fifty years ago. All she needed to feel a perfect fool was a sword and scabbard.
There were quite a few of those in the room. Most of the male Marine officers were in full Blue Dress A uniform, with swords—the famous Mameluke blade first presented to Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon for the capture of Derna in 1805—at their sides.
Corps tradition. It was everywhere she looked. Those red stripes on the legs of their pants, for instance, symbolized the bloody Battle of Chapultepec in the Mexican War, the “Halls of Montezuma” immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn.
Most of the people at the gathering, however, were civilians, and Kaitlin found herself feeling quite out of place with the creatures—as alien to her way of thinking as the Builders or the An or any of the myriad species glimpsed from the Cave of Wonders at Cydonia. Their dress ran the colorful gamut from full traditional formal to almost nude; complete nakedness was still frowned upon in most social circles in all but small and informal gatherings, but donning nothing but footwear, suitably fashionable technological accessories, and skin dyes or tattoos was customary for larger parties, if still mildly daring.