She was late, as usual.  As the saying goes, she would probably be late to her own funeral.  So, important as this session was, she didn't straggle in until a quarter-past, long after everyone else had checked in.  The clerk at the reception desk pursed her lips as she checked Renee's name off her list.  "You're late," she scowled informatively.  "You get the last appointment with Mr. Pohlman.  Room 304.  Listen for the call."

Renee turned away from the counter, her mood undampened by the clerk's sullenness. This was far too big a day to let trifles irritate her.  Today she'd find out where her second tour would be and six weeks of uncertainty would be over.  Her first tour had been uneventful, boring even, after the first few days.  She'd answered phones and read letters, trying to make some sort of sense out of communications from people who didn't speak the language very well and who didn't understand that the mission wasn't there to do them favors.  Nothing important had fallen her way; nothing very memorable had happened off duty in the miserable wind-swept steppe she'd been stationed in.  Maybe this tour would be to someplace warm and green; she deserved that at least.

The mood in the room was tense, expectant.  She knew all of the people sitting or standing around by sight at least.  Over half were friends of various degrees of closeness.  She'd been in classes with some of them for the past month and the rest had been present at meals and social events.  She spotted Li Kim standing with a sullen guy she didn't know well, Derek, and moved to join them.  Derek looked pleased for a change, Li Kim disappointed.

"I got London," he announced as she walked up.  So that was why he had a smile on, she thought, he was being assigned to England.  A great Power, an important posting for a third tour.

"Congratulations," she told him.  "England's a nice place, I hear."

"And a real step up," he replied, almost smugly.  "Well, I gotta go."  He turned to Li Kim.  "Stay in touch, hey?  There's worse postings than yours, you know."

"Sure there are," she muttered to his retreating back.  "Like London."

Renee looked quizzically at her.  Li was one of her closest friends at the school.  They were the same age, both beginning their second tours and got along really well, considering that their backgrounds were not particularly similar.  "What did they assign you?" she asked.

"Tuva."

"Tuva?  I've heard the name but I don't recall anything about it.  Where is it?"

"The middle of nowhere.  I mean the literal middle of nowhere.  Between Siberia and Mongolia, if you can imagine that.  I did a good job in my first post.  I worked hard.  I don't know who hates me enough to do this to me.

"In a way," Renee said carefully, "it's good news for you, you know.  It's outside any of your specialties, not an attractive place..."

"You can say that again," Li cut in.

"...and that mean this is a curve they're throwing you to see how you'll handle it.  It's how they check your dedication.  Do a good job on a tour like this and you can go right up the ladder."

Li nodded slowly.  "Yeah, I can see that," she said.

"Sure.  Remember that one speaker, that guy who was retiring.  He said we could all expect a tour outside of our specialties, maybe a hardship post, just to weed out people who didn't have what it takes.  He said it would be like our third or forth post, usually.  This is your second, that's a good sign.  It means somebody thinks you have promise."

Li Kim brightened visibly.  "That's a good way to look at it.  I accepted it anyway so I might as well have a positive attitude. I'll be there tomorrow."  The Service liked to encourage decisiveness so there was no waiting after Assignment Day.  They'd all be en route by evening.

"That's the right way to take it," Renee assured her.  "What other posts did people get?"

"I don't know.  Derek and I were the first out but others keep going in and coming out."  The two young women scanned the room, listening to snatches of
conversation around them.

"...going to Surtafric..."

" ...domestic... get my old apartment back..."

"...not dangerous there now..."

"What's with Dana?" Renee asked, gesturing to the side of the room.  A tall, red-haired woman stood transfixed, back to a wall, silent, her prettiness masked by a bleak expression.  Two men and a woman stood nervously nearby, fidgeting, watching her anxiously.  When one of them lightly touched her arm, she flinched, her only visible reaction.  Around them a circle of floor was clear for a few feet.  Renee and Li Kim drifted over to eavesdrop on the conversations near her.

"...Atlantis..."

"...have to transform for the whole tour..."

The situation immediately became clear.  No wonder Dana was in shock.  She'd been chosen to go to the mission to Atlantis, an envoy to the mer-folk.  She'd have to join them, breathing water, her legs transformed into a tail. It was no secret that the Service had a few posts that required physical transforms but they were very few.  Such posts were so extremely uncommon that most people went their whole careers, over a dozen tours, without drawing one.  It was something that was possible but that everyone assumed could only happen to somebody else.  Somebody like Dana.  The Service was going to turn her into a mermaid on her third tour, or maybe this was her fourth.  A hardship posting, indeed.

"And I thought I had a tough break," Li Kim said, her voice low and sympathetic.  "At least I'll be with people."

"The mer-folk are people," Renee said, abstracted.

"You know what I mean.  Regular human people.  Air-breathing, walking-around-on-two-legs people.  I don't know if I'd go through with it if it was me."  She paused briefly.  "I bet she does, though."  She looked over to where Dana still stood, her face starting to come alive now, her eyes darting slightly, fearfully, to her nearby friends and then to the door.  Her mouth moved as she said a few words and then froze again as her friends tried to reassure her, more with body language than speech.

Renee was sure Dana would go through with her acceptance too.  It was always stressed that no posting was compulsory, that no one had to accept one that they didn't want.  They wouldn't be punished, it wouldn't be held in any way against them.  The only consequence was unspoken.  They'd never be offered another post that could move them ahead.  They'd be stuck at low level positions for their whole career: pleasant, simple, nondemanding jobs, no matter what mission they were posted to.  No challenges and no rewards.  May as well just accept your subsidy and be done with it.  Dana was too ambitious for that; they all were.  They had all worked too hard to get here.

And this was bound to help move Dana ahead, far ahead.  Her loyalty confirmed, she could look forward to some rapid advancement.  Years from now, her long legs restored, she'd be able to laugh with every breath of air she took and look back on this as her big break.  Presently though, right now, this was more of a low point for her.  She wasn't feeling very lucky today.  Still, Renee wondered how bad it would be for her, really.  Swimming unencumbered, free in the sunlit sea - how pitiable was that?  How bad would it be to be a mermaid for a few years, to become for a while a creature of myth, mysterious and exotic?  It could be a wonderful experience.  Renee knew she could handle it, even enjoy it, if it were offered to her.  Certainly she could handle it better than Dana; at the least she wouldn't be standing around shell-shocked like that.

She snapped back to attention at Li's insistent poking.  "Listen up.  They're calling you," she said.

Sure enough, the unpleasant clerk called out her name.  Time to find out where she would be going.  Li Kim squeezed her hand.  "I've got to get going," she said.  "Drop me a note from where ever you wind up."  She glanced sideways at Dana and strode toward the door.

Dana was starting to move also, her friends staying near as she stepped tentatively through the thinning crowd.  A path cleared; no one wanted to block her path..  Renee watched her wonderingly, as the clerk called her yet again.  Time to get her own news.  She squared her shoulders and headed for Room 304.

Karl Pohlman's slight stoop didn't conceal that  when young he had been taller than average and his clear eyes were still as bright as those of a man thirty years his junior. He wore a frown, though, as Renee shut the door behind her and they shook hands.  "Second one today," he sighed, not quite inaudibly, not quite privately.  "Sit down, please sit down," he said in a more normal tone, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk.

Renee was puzzled.  She'd liked his friendly, dry, ironic style in the few lectures he'd given in her sessions; she'd always felt that this man didn't need to lie.  Right now he looked like a man who would much rather be somewhere else, saying something completely different, and that was enough to worry her.  She sat very straight in her chair, very attentive, waiting.

He gazed across the desk at her, toyed with the envelope in his hands, cleared his throat.  "You understand," he began.  "You understand that you can refuse any posting."  When she nodded, he carried on.  "You don't have to accept, hm, accept this."  He looked at the envelope in his hands, dead still now.  "You can say no and you'll be offered something else."

She nodded again, vigorously.  "I know that," she said.  "What do you have for me?"

He looked directly at her while he extended the envelope across the desk top.  "The Sidhe," he said in a flat tone.  "This is an offer of a posting to the Sidhe."

Renee's first thought was irrelevant to the point of being foolish: she wanted to correct his pronunciation.  The name is pronounced "Shee", she thought ; it doesn't rhyme with tithe.  But even through the whirling in her brain she realized that that was just her mind trying to hide.  The important thing wasn't how the Sidhe-folk said their name but who they were, or maybe who they weren't.  The important thing was that the Sidhe weren't human, not exactly human anyway; it depended on your definition.  The Sidhe were wholly human in appearance, only smaller.  Renee was going to face a change, although not  quite the sort of change Dana had drawn. To be posted to the mission to the Sidhe, she'd have to become like them; she'd have to become smaller.  A lot smaller.   A few inches tall.  Her jaw dropped as the thought took hold but no words formed in her throat.  She was unable to think of a thing to say or to make a sound to say it with.  Her stricken gaze fixed on the envelope being extended to her and she slowly reached for it.

Mr. Pohlman folded her numb fingers around the envelope, regarding her sadly, or maybe that was pity.  "It's a shock, I know," he told her.  "But we really don't have a better way of telling you.  Prolonging the decision only makes it worse.  It's your choice but you have to make it right now.  Will you accept this posting?"

Still speechless, she could only stare dumbly, then nod.

"That's a yes?"

Another nod.

"Then let's go to your briefing," he said, rising from his desk to come around and lead her by the hand through the office door.

Not only did he escort Renee to the briefing, he conducted most of it.  She recovered from her shock by trying to remember a few things, that the Sidhe existed, mostly, and that they avoided most contact with humans, and something of their long history.  She hadn't been aware of the importance the Service laid on them, equal to that of a great power like England or China or Armenia.

"They've helped us a lot.  Ever hear of tetanus?  They got rid of it for us.  They helped us learn to train plants where not to grow so we don't have to poison them any more.  Without their help we couldn't have missions to most non-human peoples; they're responsible for all the transforms."  He looked at her significantly.  "Including yours.  I can tell you they've done a lot more than that but most of it's too technical for me.  But beyond all that, we don't have a real idea what they could do if they chose not to be friendly or even neutral with us.  We lack a lot of basic knowledge about them.  They're not very keen on having too many of us posted to them and they absolutely won't meet with any of us except those..."  He paused apologetically.  She knew what the end of that sentence would be without him saying it.

Pohlman and the others told her  only the most essential details, of course.  An important part of a posting was to experience a new culture with fresh sight, unencumbered by pre-existing beliefs.  Conditions with the Sidhe were unusual in that there was no Mission headquarters or living quarters.  She would be guested in private dwellings and her only duties were to get along with them and stay in touch with the others posted there.  She and the others there need report to headquarters only as they saw fit.  He finished with something of a pep talk.  "They're a generous folk.  They'll clothe you, feed you, house you, entertain you, and expect nothing at all in return, beyond your company.  This should be a very rewarding posting for you."  He looked almost wistful.  "You won't have to worry about offending them; they don't have many taboo subjects.  It would be well for you to keep in mind, though, that their society is not exactly like ours.  They are very, let's say, affectionate.  And very casual, or so it seems at the time."  His look now was mournful.

The end was very formal, very much by the book.  Once again, in the presence of witnesses, she agreed that she was under no obligation to accept this posting, that she could refuse it with no penalty.  The offer was laid before her.  Without giving herself a chance to reconsider, she picked up the pen and signed the thing.

Renee had nearly conquered her nervousness as she stepped into the headquarters garden.  She had often wondered why there was a courtyard in the middle of the building with a garden that no one was allowed to visit.  That minor mystery was clearing up fast.

"Is this where I'll be, uh, stationed?" she asked the guard who was her sole companion.  Pohlman had hurriedly left as soon as she signed her agreement, his initial reserve drawn about him again.

"Not exactly," the guard said impassively.  "This is a meeting place for the Sidhe sometimes and a place for the mission staff to do their briefings.  The Sidhe won't meet any of us regular humans face-to-face, you know, that's your job.  People in their mission report here, not often.  Replies go back through the mission to the Sidhe.  You'll have all that explained to you later."  He looked at her dully, the way he might look at some thing, not a person.  Maybe the way he'd look at a bug.  She didn't like it.

He handed her a box he'd carried with him.  "Here's what you'll wear for your transform.  They'll issue you other stuff when you report to the mission.  You can change behind that screen of bushes.  When you're done, just put what you're wearing now in the box.  It'll be stored for you."  He turned to look away as she stepped behind the dense hedge into a little private glade.

The box proved to contain a shapeless white cloak or maybe poncho was a better word.  It was just a piece of thin cloth with a hole cut for her head and two more for her arms.  Paying no attention to the morning chill, she stripped and put on the cloak.  It wasn't until she started to put her old clothes into the box that she noticed the other things in it, the grey blouse and dark green pants, the colors of an undress Service uniform.  A Service uniform that she couldn't put on just yet.  Not until it fit.  As she held the tiny clothes in her hand, unreality began to build again.  These doll clothes were intended for her.

Renee returned to the entrance to the garden and shakily returned the box to her phlegmatic escort.  "Can I have a few minutes before we go on?" she asked.

"Go on?"  He seemed puzzled.  "We're not going anywhere."

"I mean, before you start whatever the process is to..."  Renee couldn't continue speaking with a mouth suddenly gone dry.  She swallowed and forced out the words in almost a shriek.  "Before you start to shrink me."  Now that she had said it, words poured out in a torrent.  "I'm having second thoughts after all.  I have to get myself together or else..."

"It's too late for second thoughts," he said in a level tone.  "The process, if you want to call it that, began when you signed your agreement.  Your shrinking has already started.

A lump materialized in her throat.  It had already started.  That was why it had been so easy to take off her old clothes, why her shoes had practically fallen off her feet.  She had been shrinking already.  A look down at herself confirmed what was happening.  She was pretty sure the cloak had barely cleared her knees when she put it on.  Now it was ankle length.  The miniature uniform she clutched flexed spontaneously, growing in her hand.  She knew it wasn't.  She was shrinking to fit it.  It was too late to stop, too late to turn back.

The world stretched around her.  She whirled around in desperation, instinctively trying to find some way out of her predicament.  The hem of the cloak was dragging on the ground now and when she took a step forward, the folds of the material caught her leg so that she tumbled in a heap.  As she watched, the small trees in the garden grew to be towering giants and even the manicured shrubs soon loomed far overhead.  No longer fighting it, she lay docilely as her surroundings expanded until a sea of rippling white fabric covered her.  She huddled beneath it, still clutching her now perfectly sized Service uniform.

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