When she stepped into the Main Building, Lotta smelled fresh lumber again. Of course. The Blue Forest Reservation was on loan from the Army, which had used it at intervals over the centuries. The Main Building had been built not only as reservation headquarters, but as an officers' dormitory, and the new interview rooms, like the old, would have been made by subdividing offices and sleeping rooms.
Her team got brief instructions in the lobby, then went to find their sleeping rooms.
The one she'd been assigned was a virtual duplicate of the one she'd been in before, but instead of two beds, it now had two double bunks and two large dressers, and the couch was gone. A narrow metal cabinet had been added in the bathroom. She unpacked and put her things away, then the four of them found their supervisor's office, knocked, and were let in. Eight empty folding chairs were crowded in front of a desk.
Two people were there ahead of them, both middle-aged: a woman behind the desk, and a man standing. Lotta had never seen either of them before. "You're from Lake Loreen?" the woman asked.
As senior in operating qualifications, Lotta answered for her team. "Yes ma'am."
"Good. We'll start when the others arrive." Gray eyes examined them briefly. "You're Lotta Alsnor?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Were all of you in the previous project here?"
"We four were. Two of the other Lake Loreen team weren't; they're brand new Intern-Twos."
There was a knock. The other four entered and took seats.
"All right," the woman said. "We'll get started. I'm Meteen Voranis Kron, your supervisor." She gestured at the man. "This is Jomar Kron, my husband and your bail-out operator." She grinned. "The ideal is not to need him. We were here in Iryala, vacationing from Rombil, and Wellem tabbed us for this emergency project; we're old students of his. Which of you are the new I-Twos?"
A boy and girl of fourteen or fifteen raised hands.
"Congratulations." Her eyes took in the rest of them then. "I suppose you all got a technical briefing before you left Lake Loreen."
"Yes," Lotta said, "from Wellem over the comm. But it was short and pretty general."
"I'll give you another. You can ask questions afterward.
"There'll be eight teams of us—fifty-three operators plus eight bail-outs. Wellem is in overall charge, of course. Jomar and I are Masters. We've spent the last five days here with Wellem, setting things up.
"We selected a sample of twenty trainees, stratified by case level, to send through the teleport. Ran them through 'a space-time loop,' as Kusu calls it, bringing them back to the same place and same time they'd left. The level 5s weren't phased by it. Which was expected, but we had to know for sure. They knew something had happened, but that was all. The 4s were disoriented and more or less spooked, but they weren't a serious problem. We snapped them out of it with two or three minutes of 'Look at That.'
"The 3s came out either scared stiff or semi-comatose, but at least we could get through to them. Took a little while though to get them back to normal. Had to give them each a session."
Meteen smiled slightly. "We almost didn't send a 2 through; we could assume he'd be worse. But would he be manageable? It was worse than we'd thought. He came out totally berserk—it was a good thing we had a couple of T'swa on hand to control him—and for a little bit we thought we might even lose him, it was that bad.
"And of course, we don't have any 1s or zeros here. The earlier project took them all at least to 2s."
Again she smiled. "We sent a T'swi through too, just for the record. All he had to say was, 'Interesting.'
"So—" She paused and looked them over again. "We have a lot for you to do. The 5s don't require any processing, but there are only three of them in the regiment. We need the whole 2,000 at 5. That's our job, ours and the other five teams. Sixty-eight percent are 2s, which any operator in the project can upgrade to 3s. Another twenty-seven percent are 3s, which most of you can handle. Roughly five percent, a total of ninety-one, are 4s. They'll require Experts, which we're short of." She scanned them. "Lotta and Bart— Which one of you is Bart?"
He raised his hand.
"I presume you're aware that Wellem has raised you to provisional E-Ones. Congratulations. He says you can handle it, and if he says so, you can.
"Granted it usually takes only one session—seldom more than two—to take a 4 to Level 5. But we've got nearly 2,000 men here who'll need a session or two from an Expert or higher. And aside from supervisors and bail-outs, we've only got eleven E's or higher in the project.
"And we can't have the bail-outs doing routine sessions. They have to be available when an emergency comes up. While the supervisors will have their hands more than full, supervising.
"Wellem's gotten agreement from a number of E's to come and help out when the 4s start to pile up on us. You may not appreciate how few Es and Ms there are on Iryala, planet-wide, or on any world; not nearly as many as there'll be ten years from now. For too long the need for lower-level operators has had the institutes sending most of us out when we'd reached journeyman."
She scanned them again, grinning now. "So you journeymen—that's Feelis and Norla and Rob, right?—as much as we need you to process Level 2s and 3s, in the evenings you'll be training instead, under Jomar. We plan to make provisional E-Ones out of you, to help with the 4s. It'll be a crash course, but we're depending on you.
"Any questions?"
There weren't.
"Fine. The exception to that is tonight. All of you will be giving sessions this evening." Meteen got up and gestured. "You'll find the summary and instruction for your next trainee on a shelf in the ready room, above your name. Now I'll show you what session rooms are yours. You'll be there no later than 1845 this evening, and familiarize yourself with the case summary. A page will bring your trainee to you at 1900. You'll get another one at 2100, unless the first one gets into something that takes unusually long to lead him through."
They left the small office then. To Lotta's surprise, she had the same session room as before. She still had time to look up Bosler, if he was available.
Bosler was tied up, so she waited till supper and caught him on his way to the dining hall. They got their food and sat down side by side; their conversation was casual until they'd finished eating.
"So," he said then. "What is it you need from me?" Lotta's gaze, as always, was direct. "I'd like to give a session, sort of, to Artus Romlar. Tomorrow evening would be a good time."
Bosler's eyebrows raised slightly. "Romlar's a 5. In fact, he's already been through the teleport. Unfazed. I have no session lined up for him at all."
She nodded. "Right. I'd like to give him one anyway."
" 'Sort of a session,' you said. What do you have in mind? An Expert-One is pretty limited in what they're qualified to do with a 5."
"I know. I want to do a meld with him."
Wellem Bosler wasn't often surprised. He was now. "Before I ask you why," he said, "let me remind you that that's tricky business with a 5. For an E-One certainly; especially a provisional. If he was a Level 3 or 2, it would be pretty safe; most 2s wouldn't even be aware of a meld, and most 3s probably wouldn't know what was going on—feel a bit spooky perhaps, or exhilarated. While a 7 and probably most 6s have enough stability to deal with it easily. But a 5's got a lot of power freed up, Romlar especially. The meld could easily get out of control. Then we'd have to bail you both out, and it could take awhile." He eyed her curiously. "What do you hope to accomplish?"
"I'm not sure. But you know what he is, what his potential is. And you said you wanted to get him in session again before he left Iryala."
"Hmh! I did, didn't I. I've had so much to do, I'd lost track of that. But—" He smiled slightly. "I was talking about me, not you. Supposing that's what we do? I'll give him a session—get him up to a 6—and maybe you can meld with him then. Will you settle for that?"
"I'd like to have you give him a session. But meanwhile, I'm asking to do a meld with him myself. As he is."
"Hmm." Bosler frowned, contemplating the suggestion. Ordinarily he'd have said no, out of hand. But ordinarily the matter would never have come up. And Lotta Alsnor had more native talent than perhaps any student he'd ever had. Including Meteen Voranis. Someone like that needed as free a rein as possible, when their intuition spurred them.
And when someone as sane and talented as Lotta asked to do something crazy-sounding, he couldn't help but wonder if she was giving birth to a breakthrough of some sort.
Although he still couldn't see what a meld would accomplish. Melds were not in themselves therapeutic.
"All right," he said after a slow minute. "I'll speak with Meteen about it. If she's willing to spare you, you can have him tomorrow evening. I'll have her alert Jomar, in case you get into trouble. And you be sure your monitor is on before you start, so he can keep half an eye on you."
She nodded soberly. "Thanks," she said. She got up and took her tray to the wash belt, then left, wondering if she really had any business doing what she'd proposed. She caught herself half hoping Meteen would refuse.