It was brutal. The class gasped. We looked at each other. Chief Farrell, his lecture now lost beyond recall, got up and stepped out into the corridor. We could hear voices. Eventually silence fell. Chief Farrell brought Stevens back into the classroom. He dropped blindly onto the nearest chair. The Chief placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder, said, ‘I think we’re finished here today,’ and went quietly out of the room. I suppose it was too much to hope he was giving her a good kicking in the corridor.
Stevens was devastated. Grant and Sussman rushed him to the bar for emergency treatment. Nagley and I did his packing for him and spent an enjoyable half hour dreaming up a series of elaborate and painful deaths for Bitchface Barclay, as she was everlastingly known.
He cried when he left and, to my amazement, so did I. We didn’t have much time to mourn Stevens. Now we moved into the more physical part of our training. Apparently, up until now we’d had it easy.
‘Good morning, everyone,’ said Major Guthrie, trying not to grin evilly and failing. ‘Up to this moment, I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed the cut and thrust of academic debate, but the time has come to embark on the more “hands-on” part of your training. I see there are just the four of you remaining, which gives my section the opportunity to ensure each of you will receive extensive, thorough, and frequent attention. You will find your new timetables in the folders in front of you. Please study them carefully. The alternatives to non-attendance, for whatever reason, will not be pleasant.
‘However,’ he continued, ‘your primary survival strategy will always be running away, which brings me to the running schedules you will find in Appendix C. Those of you who have hitherto avoided our jolly cross-country sessions,’ he smiled unpleasantly, ‘will be sorry.’
Oh, bloody hell.
I got to know the security section rather well. As well as you usually get to know people who have their hands all over you five times a week. I suspect there are married couples who have less intimate physical contact than we did. I met Big Dave Murdoch, Guthrie’s number two, a real gentle giant, calm and polite.
‘Good morning, Miss Maxwell. Today, I’m going to rob, rape, and strangle you. Shall we begin?’
I also met Whissell, our other unarmed-combat specialist, small and runty with bad teeth and a habit of standing too close. They said he liked the girls a bit too much, but I suspected he didn’t like girls at all. Sessions with Whissell and his hands were always a little too real to be comfortable and one day, enough was enough.
I reached down, grasped, and twisted.
‘Aarghh,’ he yelled. I saw the blow coming but didn’t quite manage to avoid it.
He closed in.
‘Very good, Miss Maxwell,’ said Murdoch, appearing from nowhere. ‘But a more effective response would have been to catch his wrist – like this – and follow through – like this – finishing with the heel of the hand – like this.’
We both regarded the groaning heap of Whissell.
‘Most instructive,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Mr Murdoch.’
‘An honour and a privilege, Miss Maxwell. And keep that thumb un-tucked.’
After that, I always tried to make sure I got Murdoch. Weasel, as we called him, was the type to hurt the things he feared. I tried to keep a discreet distance from him and remain politely aloof, but he sensed my dislike and I would pay for it one day.
I survived unarmed combat. I even survived First Aid and Fire Fighting. So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself until Major Guthrie knocked the smirk off my face with Outdoor Survival. Apparently, we would be regularly driven to places unknown and left for two days to die of starvation and exposure. I hate the cold and wet and when I discovered this would be part of the final examination in November, I started to make plans. Not to cheat exactly, because that would be wrong, wouldn’t it? More like dealing with the situation on my own terms.
They kicked up the simulations programmes until we were in Hawking morning, noon, and night. I loved these sessions. I loved walking down the hangar, joking with Nagley or Sussman. I loved entering the pod and smelling that special pod smell. I loved checking the lockers and stowing my gear, settling myself in the lumpy chair, beginning the start-up procedures, laying in my pre-calculated co-ordinates under Chief Farrell’s watchful eye, taking a deep breath and initiating the jump. I loved dealing with the hair-raising scenarios that followed. The sessions were so real to me that I was always surprised to open the door and find myself still in Hawking.
We simulated missions where everything went according to plan, but only a couple of times because that almost never happened.
We simulated missions where we were attacked by hostile contemporaries. That happened a lot.
We simulated missions where we became ill with something unpleasant. That happened a lot too.