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even
though people are looking away. They see a crazed woman, hair down, so
distracted she forgot to put on shoes before she told the guards she wanted to
go to the medical unit. I’m walking through the cold corridors with bare feet,
wearing a knee-length white shirt and matching pants—my comfort clothes—in a
place where almost everyone else is in uniform.
     
    The medical evaluation unit is on
the fifth level of the medical wing. Everything here is as white as my
clothing, with nanobits that keep the walls and floors clean. My bare feet
leave footprints that get erased by the nanobits after just a moment. The dirt
from the guards’ shoes evaporates as quickly as well.
     
    The staff working in the medical
unit must work one week in other parts of the ship. This area is too sterile
for good human health, and the medical personnel who do not leave find
themselves developing allergies and sensitivities to the most normal
things—like skin cells and cooking oils.
     
    I’ve put in time in the medical
unit as well—all of the linguists do as part of our training. We program the
medical database with medical terms from any new language we’ve learned. We
also train the staff to speak the most rudimentary forms of many
languages—enough to ask after another person’s health— and to understand the
answers.
     
    The guards lead me to the fifth
level. There a woman waits for me. She’s not the woman who invaded my
apartment. Nor is she anyone I know.
     
    She’s tiny, with raven-black
hair, black eyes, and a straight line for a mouth. She extends her hand.
     
    “I’m Jill Bannerman,” she says. “I’ll
help you through the evaluation.”
     
    “I can’t do anything until my
advocate gets here,” I say. The words come out awkward and ungracious. I’m
excellent at being accommodating, at saying the right thing at the right
time—or I used to be.
     
    “I know,” Bannerman says. “I’ll
get you ready, and then we’ll wait for her. She should be here shortly.”
     
    I don’t know what ready means. It
makes me nervous. I shake my head. “I’d like to wait.”
     
    “All right,” she says, as if she
expected that. “Sit here. We’ll get started as soon as she arrives.”
     
    She leads me to an orange chair
that curves around my body as I sit. I’m so paranoid that I wonder if it’s
taking readings from me.
     
    But the Ivoire —the Fleet,
actually—has privacy laws. Even if this chair records information off me, no
one can use the information without my permission.
     
    Have I given permission by
agreeing to the evaluation? I have no idea. I should have checked with Leona
first.
     
    That’s what she’ll say.
     
    Jill Bannerman speaks softly to
my guards, then she leaves the room. The guards move out of the main area and
back outside the doors. I’m alone in a room with half a dozen chairs, with
walls that reset themselves, and furniture that changes color every ten
minutes. First orange, then red, then mauve, then purple, then blue. I watch
the furniture, a bit unnerved by it all.
     
    There is nothing else to watch,
no entertainment, no open portals, no other people. Just me and the constantly
changing furniture.
     
    I tuck my cold feet underneath my
legs and make myself breathe deeply. I want to tap my fingertips on the chair,
but someone will read that as nervousness, I’m sure. I don’t know why I’m
worried that they will notice—it’s hard to miss, and if the system is recording
my vital signs, the nervousness will show in my elevated heart rate, my slightly
higher-than-normal blood pressure, and even in my breathing.
     
    The only thing I’m not doing
right now is regretting my decision. I’m suddenly quite happy to be out of my
apartment. I hadn’t realized how claustrophobic I felt in it, how shut down I
had been.
     
    How terrified.
     
    The doors slide open and Leona
sweeps in. Her green tunic changes the color scheme in the room. Now the chairs
float through forest