Radiant by James Alan Gardner Page B

answered the Alvarez question."
    Festina allowed herself a little smile. The Alvarez question had arisen at the Explorer Academy decades ago, first asked by a professor named Ricardo Alvarez. The question was this: Which is more deadly? Despair or false hope? When, for example, you're possessed by alien spores, is it worse to give up immediately or to let yourself hope some miracle will save you? Both options were undesirable—or, as the Buddha would say, "unskillful." Alvarez had wanted some student to resolve the question through statistical research... but generations of Explorers had preferred to let the question go unanswered. Instead, they used it as a private shorthand for I'm not dead yet; let's leave it at that.
    "When I was at the Academy," Festina said, "the Alvarez question did have an answer."
    "It still does." We recited in unison, "Fuck off, Ricardo!"
    The way past despair and false hope is just letting go. It doesn't improve your odds of survival, but it doesn't waste mental energy.
    Festina grinned. I grinned. Our comm implants buzzed in unison, and we both stopped grinning immediately.
    "Ready?" Festina asked.
    I nodded. "Immortality awaits." Those were the last words an Explorer traditionally spoke before embarking on a mission. No one took the phrase seriously; but if you died, IMMORTALITY AWAITS almost always looked better on a memorial plaque than your real last words... which were far too often "Oh shit." ("Going Oh Shit" was an Explorer euphemism for death.)
    Our comm implants buzzed again—a general hail on the standard Explorer Corps channel. Festina said, "I'll take it," and clicked her comm to answer.
     
    I didn't hear much of the conversation. Festina had an old-style Explorer comm—the kind that was embedded in her throat with the audio feed snaking up under the skin to her jaw and making her whole skull resonate. It gave her a noticeable lump on the neck... which I thought would be uncomfortable, though I didn't know for sure. Thanks to Festina's changes in the Explorer Corps, my own comm unit was much less intrusive: subcutaneous audio wires in the pinna of each ear; a primary voice pickup that replaced the roof of my mouth; and a secondary subcutaneous pickup running the length of my sternum. (The secondary pickup could be activated remotely. If I ever got knocked out, Pistachio could turn on my chest mike from orbit and track me down by the sound of my heartbeat.)
    The new systems were more reliable and practically unnoticeable once you got used to a slight taste of plastic in your soft palate. Festina, however, had never upgraded. Most old Explorers hadn't—diehard holdouts. I activated my comm with my tongue to see if I could pick up the admiral's conversation... but as soon as I did, my ears were blasted with a mechanical voice. "Explorer Youn Suu, come in. Explorer Youn Suu, come in. Explorer Youn Suu, come in..."
    Pistachio's ship-soul on autorepeat. I stepped away from Festina and tongue-switched to transmit. "Youn Suu here," I said. "Go ahead."
    There was a pause while the computer notified my caller that I'd finally responded. Five seconds later, Captain Cohen came on. "Glad you're there, Youn Suu. We were worried. Tut's suit sent a signal it was executing an emergency evac, then your suit sent an autodistress call half a second before going no-comm. Everything all right?"
    "No, sir. But we don't need assistance."
    "You're sure? I could contact the Cashling authorities..."
    "They'd just get in the way. We can handle—"
    Ambassador Li broke in. "Explorer, where the hell are you? Ubatu and I are ready to go."
    "There've been some complications, Ambassador."
    "What complications? I told that damned Balrog to leave, and it did. Just goes to show, aliens may act cocky, but they'll knuckle under if you take a hard line. That's what diplomacy is. Now I intend to use the same approach on the Cashling government—fly straight to their capital, point out how I saved their city, and demand