Tanderon (20 page)

Aside from a gasp brown-eyes hadn’t made a sound when I hit him, but that didn’t mean there were no sounds around us. There were too many people in the area for everyone to have missed the goings on, and aside from the shocked noises of innocent bystanders, we also managed to draw the shouts of roving proctors. That last group began to close in at a run, ready and willing to do the job they’d been hired for.

I knew just how things would be going for me by then, so it was no surprise when I saw the hurrying proctors being led by the same chief proctor who had greeted me so warmly at the door. The familiar narrow-eyed proctor circle closed in all around, and the chief planted himself two feet in front of my face.

“I knew it would be you, Santee,” he said in cold satisfaction, his fists on his hips.

“They told me you were a troublemaker, and you’ll be picking up another five demerits for this. You two stick with her until she gets to her quarters. You and you take that kid to the infirmary.”

Two of the men he’d pointed to helped brown-eyes to his feet and into the crowds, and the other two took up positions right near me. The chief had begun to look me over as if what I’d done had been a personal insult to him, and then he spoke to his men without moving his gaze to them.

“You two stay right on top of her,” he ordered, trying to stare me down with flat brownness. “If she so much as looks the wrong way, I want you to paper her with demerits. She’ll start learning discipline, or I’ll find a new job!”

Even if I’d been in a good mood, I wouldn’t have stood for being talked to like that.

As it was, there was nothing to convince me to hold back the words.

“I suggest swineherd for that new job,” I told him, meeting his eyes. “It fits your personality.”

“Cute,” he said with a rage he could barely contain. “Three more. Let’s see how much cuter you can be.”

“I can be downright adorable,” I answered, measuring his average but well muscled body with my eyes. “Especially in the dirty fighting gym. Want to ask me for a date?”

“And another three,” he choked out, resenting the appraisal all the way to his short-cut hairline. “Any more? I’ve got plenty of time and strict orders not to give you an inch! This is one time I’m going to love obeying orders.”

“What’s happening, Langley?” a deep voice said before I could add my own fuel to the fire, and we both turned to see Freddy Drummond coming up. I should say, Major Frederick Drummond
III
, Colonel Rodriguez’s aide. The colonel, as Commandant, handed out the orders and Freddy was around to see to it that those orders were carried out. Freddy and I knew each other pretty well, but I was in no mood to give him the big hello.

“Relax, Langley, reinforcements have arrived,” I said, turning back to the still burning chief. “And just when we were getting on so well.”

“Cut it out, Diana!” Freddy said sharply as he reached us, then he moderated his tone a bit as he turned to my adversary. “You can go now, Langley, and so can your men. I’ll take over and keep the lady company.”

“Lady,” Langley growled, his eyes not moving from me. “Major, this is a bad one.

Give her to me for just a week, and she’ll never be a problem again.”

“One of us wouldn’t be,” I murmured, but before Langley could pick up on the comment Freddy grabbed my arm and pulled me off to one side.

“What the hell are you trying to do, make this your permanent home?” he demanded in a hiss. “The colonel has orders from the Council to keep a strict count on the demerits you pick up, and add time on for every group of fifty. How far on the way are you, do you have any idea?”

“No,” I growled, glaring around at the groups of cadets who had gathered to watch the excitement. They were being sent on their way by the proctors by that time, but I was still spoiling for a fight. “What’s the matter, Freddy, didn’t Pete think Langley could handle it? Did he send you here to baby-sit with me, or to protect everyone else?”

“Langley doesn’t know anything about you,” Freddy answered, moving me around hard by one arm so that I faced him. “He was just told to watch out for you and to keep the trouble down to a minimum. Pete hasn’t liked this idea from the start, and he got nervous. From the way things looked when I got here, he has every right to be nervous. I’ve never seen you so much on the prod. Take it easy, will you?”

“How the hell can I take it easy?” I demanded, pulling my arm out of his grip. “Did you see that schedule I’ve got, or did the little fairies arrange for it? And every time I turn around there’s another proctor there, handing me demerits! For two kicks you could take this lousy job and everything that goes with it, and drop it into the nearest collapsar!”

Freddy just stared at me, not saying a word, and slowly, slowly, the tension eased off to the point where I could think again. After a minute I was able to put a hand to the back of my neck and rub at the place where the muscles were all bunched up.

“They say that when you start to get old, the first thing that goes is the legs,” I told Freddy, my gaze on his brightly polished shoes. “With me it’s the sense of humor. If you look at it right, this whole thing is very funny. Maybe I ought to put in for retirement.”

Freddy used one finger to lift my face up to his again, and then he showed me a wry grin.

“You’d better hang onto your sense of humor, because you’re going to need it,” he advised, sympathy clear in his expression. “Every part of this program was laid out for us, and we’ve been ordered not to change it. What did you do to make the Council so mad?”

“I spit on the sidewalk,” I answered, knowing I sounded tired. “It wouldn’t have been so bad, I guess, but it was Sanitation Week… Look, Freddy, isn’t there anything you can do? They’ve handed me every blah course in the curriculum without five spare minutes to breathe. The first time I walk into a classroom I’ll go straight through the roof.”

“You’d better not,” Freddy warned, the sympathy strengthening. “If you do you won’t find touching things with your left hand very pleasant. Demerits handed out on registration day are only for extra duty. You know what happens once you get into a classroom.”

“Don’t remind me,” I said with a groan, seriously wondering how long my no-blood-spilled oath would stand unbroken. “Is there somewhere we can go for a drink? I’m so desperate I’m even willing to buy.”

“You’re a cadet, Diana,” he replied gently, the sympathy changing to pity. “No drinking allowed, remember?”

I must have looked as miserable as I felt, because he put his arm around my shoulders.

“Come on, cheer up,” he urged with a gentle squeeze. “As soon as we finish getting you registered, I’ll take you over to Pete’s office. Maybe we can pry a drink out of him.”

“Sure,” I said with a nod. “And maybe Ringer will quit to become a dancing girl.

Let’s get this over with. I feel like the guest of honor at a funeral.”

I walked over and picked up my schedule from where it had landed on the floor, and then got back on line. Freddy stood on line next to me, telling me all sorts of improbable stories about people we both knew. Freddy was almost as tall and well muscled as Val, and was just as good looking in his own way. Val was dark with steel in his eyes, and Freddy was fair with a twinkle in his. He made his uniform look like something, and he was smart, and brave, and knew how to get things done. But he was also missing that little something extra that would have made him agent caliber…

I eventually reached the front of the line, and was able to pick up my class cards, billet assignment, bedding, and additional clothing allotment. Once I had everything, Freddy and I left the registration center. We walked back up West Street past the classrooms building, then found which of the women’s barracks was mine.

My room turned out to be on the ground floor, and when I walked into the twelve by fifteen spaciousness the bunk arrangement told me I had two roommates. Happily no one was in sight right now, so I dumped everything on the last unclaimed bunk and went back out to join Freddy. Men weren’t allowed in the women’s barracks, not even men who were officers, and Freddy must have been worrying about whether or not I’d show up again.

I can’t say I wasn’t tempted to do a fast fade, but I’m not in the habit of setting up friends to have their lives ruined. At the moment he was in charge of me, and if I disappeared into the wild blue it would be his neck that got chopped. Not by Pete, of course, but directly by the Council. I found Freddy leaning against the red brick of the building, dragging slowly on a cigarette, and he almost jumped when I walked out.

“That was fast,” he said, looking at me in surprise. “Have you been taking lessons in speed bunk making?”

“I’ll do it later when I get back,” I told him, starting off up the street. “I’m not in the mood right now.”

A hand reached out and grabbed me by the collar, and then I was back to standing in front of him.

“You’d better get in the mood, cadet!” he ordered after turning me loose. “You pick up extra demerits for an unmade bunk, and Pete’ll skin me alive. Now, march!”

His bearing was pure military commander, used to giving orders and even more used to being obeyed – but somehow it came off differently than Val’s manner. If it had been Val standing there in front of me like that I wouldn’t have budged an inch, but with Freddy it didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

So I shrugged and held up my hands in surrender, then went back inside and made the bunk before putting away the rest of the junk I’d been given. For some reason looking at Freddy brought thoughts of Val to mind, but I let them slip away without even considering them. Val was a subject I’d have to give more thought to than I had time for right now.

Freddy had given up on building leaning when I came out the second time, and I was willing to bet it was because of the increased foot traffic going by on the street.

Officers have an image to maintain, and the female cadets moving by on the street might have laughed to see him lounging around against a building like an ordinary mortal.

He now stood a short distance away from the building entrance, his body at parade rest, his attention on the male cadets who were policing up the big grassed area that composed the central square of the Academy. When I came up beside him, he turned his head with a smile and asked, “All set now?”

“Yes, sir, Major, sir,” I answered promptly, coming up with the sort of salute that was never used at the Academy. “All shipshape and straight as regulations.”

“Let’s go then,” he said, taking my arm as he gave me an uninterpretable glance.

“And you’d better watch that wisecracking. Pete was chewing his paperweight when I left, and he probably has a report on you by now. If you even breathe funny he’ll hand you your head.”

“Still as sweet and quiet as ever, hm?” I asked as we walked along the street.

“When’s he going to retire?”

“Are you kidding?” Freddy responded with a snort. “He’s got more left than both of us put together, and when he goes this whole project goes with him. I can’t see anybody else running it.”

“I know what you mean,” I agreed with a faint smile of memory. “I think he was here before the buildings went up.”

He nodded his agreement, and we continued along West Street to its end, turned left onto South Street, and walked the five hundred feet that brought us to the small, two story building that was the Commandant’s office. Opening the door showed a sergeant, who looked up from the reception desk he sat at.

“It’s a good thing you’re back, Major,” he said quietly with a glance toward the closed door in the wall behind him. “In another five minutes he would have sent a squad out after you. I think you’d better arm yourself before you go in there.”

Freddy and I exchanged looks. Obviously Pete had heard about my victorious homecoming, and was waiting to congratulate me.

“You go first,” Freddy said to me, stepping back to close the door behind us. “I’m too young to die.”

“That’s the gallant officer and gentleman we all know and love,” I answered with a nod. “Women and children first always has been a typical male reaction.”

Suddenly the door to the inner office flew open, and Colonel Peter Rodriguez, Commandant of the Federation training facilities came striding through. He was a tall, straight man, completely gray-haired, with the coldest green eyes I’d ever seen anywhere. It was rumored that he ran fifty miles every morning then killed a dragon and ate it for breakfast, but that was silly. Nobody can run fifty miles in the morning.

The sergeant and Freddy jumped to attention as if they’d been quick-starched, but he didn’t even glance at them. He only had eyes for me, as they say, and those eyes were freezing.

“So!” he breathed, stalking toward me. “You’re finally here! I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to it!”

“Now, Pete – ” I began, but he exploded in my face.

“That’s ‘Colonel Rodriguez’ to you!” he roared from not two feet away, making the walls shake. “And you’d better learn to snap to attention when you see me, or you’ll be the sorriest cadet that ever came through here! Now, let’s see how tight you can hold it!”

I sighed and got to attention. Pete had never been easy to handle, but right now he was impossible.

“The Council dumps this idiocy on me, and that’s not bad enough!” he shouted, hanging over me like the promise of doom. “Then you arrive, and what do you do?

You walk into my facilities armed, you threaten a chief proctor with a knife, you assault another cadet, and mount up thirteen demerits even before you’re completely registered! And that doesn’t even count the fact that you’re on report for insubordination! Were you trying to set some sort of record, or were you just afraid I wouldn’t notice you? What do you think I’m running here, an amusement park? I don’t care how good an agent you are! As long as you’re at these facilities you’ll behave in the proper cadet manner or I’ll know the reason why!”

He stood with his fists on his hips, outrage clear in the green of his eyes, uniform neat and precise in spite of all the shouting and raving he’d done. I think he would have gone on for another hour if the private ‘phone in his office hadn’t chimed. He gave me another glare to keep his points set in place, then turned around and stomped back to the other room to answer his call.