Starfist: Wings of Hell (8 page)

Dean had been called up to the orderly room just as he was getting ready for liberty in Bronnys. Now, of course, that was the furthest thing from his mind. But when finally he got back to his room in the barracks, he was all alone. He needed the privacy. He lay on his rack, the tiny reader in one hand, studying the images. He was a father. It was hard to believe.

“Mind if I join you, Marine?”

It was Charlie Bass. Startled, Dean made to get off his bunk.

“Keep your place. This is not an official visit.” Bass pulled up a chair and sat facing Dean. “Busy day, I hear.”

Dean grinned. “Yes, sir.”

“For this conversation, you call me Charlie. Word’s all over Ellis about this ambassador lady who came all the way from Wanderjahr to have a private chitchat with Corporal Dean.” He grinned. “Everyone wants to know why but it’s all a big secret.”

“Well, I can tell you—”

Bass waved a hand. “No, you don’t have to, Dean. I already know what it was all about. You and Claypoole had quite a time back there on Wanderjahr, on detached duty with Commander Peters, didn’t you? Claypoole talks a lot. Said you were pretty hot on this oligarch’s granddaughter. Now she’s head of their planetary council and you get a visit from a special envoy of her government. You going to go back there when your enlistment is up?”

Dean’s face twisted with emotion. “I-I don’t know, sir.”

“Son, let me tell you something. You are responsible for other people. As a corporal in this Corps you’re responsible for the men under you and around you. As a man you’re responsible for what you do with other people, whether they’re other Marines or the girls down at Big Barb’s. Some men screw their way all across Human Space and never think twice about it. I don’t think you’re like that, Dean. Are you?”

“Well, sir—”

“I didn’t think so. Those women take a piece of your heart away with them, don’t they? And maybe you left one of them with a piece of yourself. It happens. Maybe you have a decision to make. Now, speaking as your platoon commander, I’d hate to lose you. But we get used to that in the Corps. I want you to do three things, Dean. One, as long as you’re a corporal in this outfit I want your mind focused on your duty. Two, I want you to keep faith with the people who’ve kept faith with you, whoever they may be, and three, be true to yourself.” He got up. “Well, that’s it. Shift into your civvies and take the next liberty bus into Bronnys. Do what any man facing a big decision would do: Get drunk with your buddies.” Bass extended his hand. “You’re a damn fine Marine and when the time comes you’ll make a damn fine daddy.”

On his way back to his quarters Bass reflected on the little speech he’d just delivered to Dean. A fine advisor he was. He fingered the flimsiplast letter he’d just gotten from Comfort Brattle back on Kingdom. She’d named his own son Charles. Damn! He hated that name.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ensign Charlie Bass walked slowly back to his quarters.
Dean,
he thought, and smiled to himself. The lad had gotten that girl pregnant back on Wanderjahr. Where the hell had he ever found the time to do that? He laughed out loud. Give a Marine a chance…He shook his head.

What am I laughing about?
he thought.
What have I gotten myself into?
He’d promised back on Kingdom before he left that he’d marry Comfort if she’d join him on Thorsfinni’s World and he had meant it. But then time passed and he had come to consider that promise something made on the spur of the moment, that Comfort would find a man from her own world who could be with her, help her raise their children in the proper manner, in a family environment, not gallivant all over Human Space, leaving her to languish in government quarters with a brood of screaming brats while he was away for extended periods. What kind of marriage would that be?

And then there was Katie Katyana. Charlie Bass was no welsher, but here he was, promised in marriage to
two
women. Love is not something you dish out in dribs and drabs; it’s an all-or-nothing proposition and it’s entirely possible to love equally more than one person at a time. And Charlie Bass really did love both Katie and Comfort, two completely different women, maybe not even compatible personalities.

And to complicate the problem further, he had his own illegitimate child to think about now. He’d already been to Personnel and designated Comfort Brattle the sole beneficiary of his insurance policies. That would take care of her and the boy if anything were to happen to him, and it was likely something would since Thirty-fourth FIST had been alerted only that morning for another deployment.

Well,
Bass thought,
if I make it through this one I’ll figure something out.
But right now he had to clear his mind, get ready to do his duty.

Back in his quarters Bass shook off his cold-weather gear, rubbed his hands together vigorously, and opened his tiny liquor cabinet. Time for some bourbon, and he still had some of those Montecristo cigars in his humidor. Might as well relax and enjoy the comforts of home while he could, since soon they’d be off to another deployment.

Someone knocked on the door. It turned out to be a red-faced yeoman from Mainside. “Ensign Bass, sir?”

“Yeah, first class, what is it?”

“Special letter, sir, just came through in this evening’s dispatches.”

“Little late for mail call, isn’t it?”

“Sir, the chief told me to deliver it in person. It’s marked ‘High Priority’ and ‘Deliver Upon Receipt.’ Please sign for it here.” He held out a digital clipboard. Bass swiped it with his ID bracelet and accepted the envelope. The yeoman saluted and left.

The flimsiplast envelope was stamped “Kingdom” and had been mailed ten days earlier. It was from Zechariah Brattle, the patriarch of the Brattle family.
Well, here it is,
Bass thought.
Either I’m a beloved son-in-law or a vile seducer who betrayed Zechariah’s trust.
In fact he was a bit surprised Zechariah hadn’t written him much sooner since Comfort’s baby had been born some months ago. Charlie Bass was not the type of man to hesitate facing bad news, if bad news it was, but before he read the letter he was going to be prepared. He poured a generous dollop of Old Snort into a glass, clipped one of his Montecristos, and lit up. He sipped the whiskey, letting it slide slowly down to explode in a fiery ball deep inside his stomach. When there was a tiny white ash on the end of his cigar he felt ready for anything and tore the envelope open.

He read only as far as the first paragraph and exclaimed aloud,
“Holeeee shit!”

“Dear Charles,” the letter began. Bass shook his head. Zechariah would just
never
learn to call him Charlie. “Some time ago the boys found a Skink, as you call the creatures that devastated our homes, a baby, evidently left behind when they evacuated Kingdom…” At that point Bass got back into his cold-weather gear and took the letter to Captain Conorado.

“Holy shit!” Conorado exclaimed, and the pair walked over to Commander van Winkle’s quarters.

“Holy shit,” Commander van Winkle sighed after he’d read Zechariah’s letter. “Let’s go see the brigadier about this!”

Brigadier Ted Sturgeon was still at FIST headquarters despite the lateness of the hour. He read the letter in silence. “Get Colonel Ramadan and Sergeant Major Shiro,” he said. They waited in silence until those two notables joined them. He handed Ramadan the flimsiplast. “Read this and pay particular attention to the concluding paragraph.”

“Buddha’s balls,” Ramadan exclaimed, and passed the letter to Sergeant Major Shiro.

Sergeant Major Shiro read the last paragraph aloud:

“We gave Moses up to the two ‘scientists,’ this Joseph Gobels and Pensy Fogel, because at the time we were convinced he would be of use to humankind in its war with the aliens. I am convinced now these men are charlatans and took the boy for their own purposes, not back to Universal Labs in Fargo on Earth. I believe this is so because they seem to have fallen completely out of Human Space; they never returned to Fargo, far as I have been able to find out. Charles, you are the only person I know who has the contacts that might be able to find Moses; the authorities here are not interested in tracking these two men down. I’m only sorry I didn’t say something about Moses much earlier, but Hannah and the boys, well, they love the little thing, Charles, and I just couldn’t. But finding Moses is of the utmost importance to us all. What he can tell us about his species would be invaluable in our war against the Skinks. But bear this in mind, during the time he lived with us, became a member of our family in fact, we came to realize these creatures are much more like us humans than anyone ever realized.”

Silence enveloped the six Marines. “A live Skink that speaks Standard English and has adopted human ways,” Commander van Winkle mused aloud at last, “would be a great asset infiltrating those damned caves they like to hide in.”

“He could tell us what makes them tick,” Sergeant Major Shiro offered. The others nodded their agreement.

Sturgeon said nothing, just drummed his fingers on his desk. Then he said, “Charlie, you know this Brattle. He doesn’t sound like a kook.”

“No, sir, he is not,
definitely
not. If Zechariah says all this happened, it did.”

Sturgeon fell silent for another long moment. “This exobiologist, Gobels, he’s kidnapped the damned thing to get himself a Nobel Prize, you can bet on that.” He slammed a fist on the desktop.

“We’ve run across his type before,” Captain Conorado said. “That crazy bitch on Avionia Station who wanted to dissect Owen.” Conorado’s defiance of the scientist had gotten him in a lot of trouble, but he’d have come out all right, even if the lady scientist hadn’t up and died suddenly. But ever since, he’d harbored a profound distrust of the “pure scientist,” which this Gobels appeared to be another example of. He’d also felt guilty because he’d kept the fact that Owen was a sentient being to himself all this time. He’d done it because he didn’t want someone like this Gobels taking him away to study him. He understood fully how the Brattles felt about the Skink whom they’d named Moses. Now, in view of what had happened to this Moses creature, Conorado knew he’d been right to keep quiet about Owen.

“How is that little bugger?” van Winkle asked. “That Owen of yours. He’s Thirty-fourth FIST’s unofficial mascot, so we should know how he’s doing.”

“Very interested in Skink physiology.” Conorado grinned, glad no one in the room was telepathic. But he didn’t like the way Bass glanced up at him, a half smile on his lips. Rumors had begun to spread in Lima Company that their CO had been talking to himself in his office at night. Everyone knew he wasn’t
that
far around the bend.

The remark broke the tension and Sturgeon laughed. “I’m going to jump channels with this. I’m going straight to General Cazombi, info copy to General Aguinaldo. If we go through fleet with this it’ll only get delayed. I’m classifying this information Ultra Secret and you know what that means about keeping this under your covers. I’m going to send it off tonight. We have too much to do to get ready for this deployment to waste time screwing around. Who’s staff duty officer tonight?” he asked Colonel Ramadan.

“Lieutenant Hamish, I believe, sir.”

“Have him stand by with a driver. I’ll write up the back channel and he’ll take it over to the navy at Mainside. I want it hand-delivered to the sparkheads. Now, gentlemen, kindly leave me alone while I put this thing together. Oh, Charlie, good work! This Zechariah Brattle, he took good care of you while you were on R & R on Kingdom, didn’t he?” They all laughed. Bass’s experience on Kingdom, where he’d been captured by Skinks and then left for dead, had become legend in Thirty-fourth FIST. His fellow Marines often referred jokingly to the ordeal as his period of authorized “rest and relaxation,” although he’d managed almost single-handedly to survive captivity, and overthrow a ruthless dictator. All in a day’s work. But of his personal victory over Comfort Brattle’s heart, only he knew of that.

Back in the company office Conorado slumped tiredly into his chair. Owen sat perched comfortably on top of the bookcase, digesting some rocks. “When do you move out, Skipper?” the Woo asked.

“Couple of days. Owen, can you keep a secret?”

“I guess so, since there’s nobody I can tell it to except you, Skipper.”

Conorado told him about Moses. “What do you think of all this, Owen?”

Owen wobbled precariously on the edge of the bookcase, his bulbous eyes regarding Conorado steadily. “All I know about those Skinks is what I’ve heard you Marines say. They’re tough customers. This baby could tell you much about them you need to know. Where did they come up with a name for him like ‘Moses’?”

“It’s from their scriptures. Moses as a baby was taken in by some people who found him floating down by a river.”

“An extraordinary baby, no doubt.”

“Yes, extraordinary indeed. And so is this Skink Moses, Owen. We have to find him, rescue him from this renegade scientist, and put him to work for us.”

“That’s not what you let them do to me, is it, Skipper.”

That made Conorado pause for a moment. “Well, you’re different, Owen.”

“How? I’m not dangerous? You know very well your exobiologists would cream their jeans if they could get their hands on me. You’ve been denying them their shot at that Nobel Prize I hear you talking about sometimes.”

Conorado had to laugh at how expertly the Woo had learned Marine slang. “Cream their jeans!” Of all the expressions an alien entity would pick up! “Well, fuck them. And yes, Owen, you are
not
dangerous but if anyone’s to discover the potential of you Woos for the good of humanity, well, it’ll have to be someone else, not me. But there’s another reason, more important, why I’m not telling anyone about you.”

“And what would that be, Skipper?”

“Because you’re one of my Marines.”