Tanderon (28 page)

“Trade secret,” I said with my head down to hide my grin. “You’d better let me get on with these notes, or I won’t be ready for 2100.”

“To hell with 2100!” he roared, moving forward again to put his hands flat on the desk. “I want to know what you said!”

I was in the midst of trying to decide how much longer it would be safe to bait him, when Freddy knocked and walked in.

“You said you would handle it and you sure did,” he enthused with a grin as soon as he saw me. “I wish I could have been there when you told them.”

He swung the door closed the way Pete had, then came over to stand by Pete’s desk.

“I’m glad somebody around here appreciates my genius,” I said, examining and buffing my fingernails. “We artists like that.”

I found the situation amusing, but Freddy’s comment had finally done it for Pete. He sat very straight in his chair and laced his fingers tightly together in the middle of the desktop.

“And we colonels get very nasty when everybody knows what’s going on but us,” he said too softly, giving me those eyes. “You have thirty seconds to fill me in before I start handing out extra duty that will account for your sack time for the next month!”

The roar he’d ended on was a lot more familiar than the soft tone, and I barely flinched at all.

“Be calm, daddy,” I soothed, curious to see how quick he’d be. “You’ve given your daughter enough trouble already.”

He was about to roar at me again, when he chopped it off and stared hard.

“You wouldn’t have dared,” he muttered in disbelief. “Freddy, tell me she didn’t.”

“She told the proctors she was the daughter you refused to admit to,” Freddy said, looking confused. “Wasn’t that what you two had agreed on?”

“Agreed?” Pete exploded. “Since when does she need anyone to agree with her?

Ringer warned me to watch out for her, and I thought he’d been working too hard!”

“What are you getting so excited about?” I asked, calm in the face of the storm. “It was the perfect answer to the problem.”

“Perfect!” he echoed, back to staring at me. “We’ll see how perfect you think it is when this is all over.”

“Why?” I asked with a grin, exhaling smoke in his direction. “Were you thinking about adopting me before this came up?”

“I’ll adopt you,” he growled, shifting in his chair to get comfortable again. “But right now I don’t have to. What I don’t have the authority to do as your C.O., I have the authority as your ‘father.’ I’m going to wait until the first time you step out of line, and then I’m really going to give it to you. If you learn nothing else during your time here, you’ll learn not to mess with me.”

I laughed and picked up the notes again, knowing Pete would get over his upset as soon as he got used to the idea. Freddy went to his own desk, and Pete finally settled down with work of his own. I was deep in the notes when I half-noticed that the cigarette was about to burn my fingers, so I reached to Pete’s ashtray to put it out without really watching what I did. I was trying to figure out what Jeff had and hadn’t included in his classes.

“What’s that?” Pete demanded out of the blue, startling me.

“What’s what?” I asked blankly, looking up to see his frown.

“What’s that on your wrist?” he repeated, grabbing my hand. The sleeve had moved back a little when I’d reached to the ashtray, and now he moved it back farther.

“How the hell did you do that?” he demanded, staring at what the sleeve had covered.

“It’s just blistered a little,” I said, feeling annoyed. “Anybody listening to you would think it was half severed. Let go of my hand.”

“The hell you say!” he told me with a glare, still hanging on tight. “Why didn’t you go to the infirmary with it? Are you looking for something serious?”

“I was a little busy, and you can’t get anything serious from it,” I snapped in answer.

“You’d better make up your mind whether you want me to do a job or to pamper myself. You can’t have it both ways.”

“How did it get so blistered?” he demanded, moving the sleeve again to get a better view. “And what are those scars from?”

“It’s blistered because the new skin can’t take hot water yet,” I explained after getting a better grip on my temper. “The scars are from memory lane, and I haven’t had the time to have them removed yet. Can I get back to what I was doing, or do you want to check my pulse too?”

“Freddy, get that first-aid kit over here,” Pete ordered, then returned his attention to his original victim. “Diana, you need a keeper! The way that wrist looks, it has to hurt. Doesn’t the pain bother you even a little?”

“Pete, try to listen to what I’m saying,” I told him with a sigh, finally understanding that his disturbance would not go away without some effort on my part. “I know you don’t understand how I work, but I’ll try to explain it to you. No matter what my feelings are the job comes first, and I’ve learned to ignore things a lot worse than that wrist to get a job done. If I make it through in a reasonable number of pieces I can always have whatever’s wrong taken care of later, but the prime objective is to get through and get out. Bandages are too bulky to fit easily in a field pack, and squeamishness doesn’t fit anywhere at all. Now, will you please cool the paternal outrage and let me handle it?”

“No,” he denied in a flat voice, finally letting my hand go. “While you’re under my command you’ll take care of yourself the same way everyone else does. This isn’t a hostile planet with everyone against you. You won’t be shot for showing up on sick call.”

“That’s funny,” I commented, glad to be able to lean back again. “I hadn’t noticed the difference. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

“Because it explains a note I got this morning,” he said, giving me a narrow-eyed inspection. “When are you scheduled for your physical?”

“I’m not,” I answered. “Someone must have decided I look too healthy to need one, and frankly I couldn’t be happier. I’ve had enough of doctors and hospitals for a while.”

“You’ll show up at the infirmary at 0700 tomorrow,” he said with a renewed growl, reaching over to make a note on his desk pad. “I thought this Valdon Carter was a nut when he sent me a message telling me to have the doctors check you over at regular intervals, but I can see he knows you better than I do. Who is he?”

“He’s a well known congenital idiot!” I snarled. Even from a hundred and fifty miles away, he was still giving me a hard time! “If you’re smart you won’t listen to a thing he says. He’s touched in the head, but you have to get to know him to realize it. It isn’t worth the trouble.”

“Give me that wrist!” Freddy said sharply from next to me. He’d gotten the first-aid kit, and he put it on Pete’s desk to open it.

“Will you two quit acting as if I’m at death’s door?” I said in exasperation. “It’s only blistered a little!”

“Let him take care of it,” Pete ordered ominously.

I looked from one grim face to the other, then gave Freddy my wrist. Men! If they aren’t beating on you, they’re doctoring you. Freddy smeared some glop on, then added a neat little bandage. All he left out was a pink ribbon. When he finished, I went back to the notes without saying a word. If I ever got a headache around there, they’d call in the specialists.

I finished the notes at about 2040 and Freddy wanted to go directly to the hopper, but I told him I had to make a stop at my quarters first. When I got to the room, I told Elaine and Linda that I had extra duty and wouldn’t be back for a while. Without letting them see what I was doing I got the second souvenir I’d picked up the day before, then grabbed a jacket. On the way out, I also left a copy of my pass on the OD’s desk. I didn’t need proctors searching the hills for me.

We got to the hopper field and on our way right on time. Freddy set the course after we were airborne and let the automatic pilot take over, then he leaned back.

“You know, I never realized before how casual you are about getting hurt,” he said.

“You can’t be that used to it.”

“I’m not used to it,” I returned with a laugh. “No one has that kind of cool. You just have to learn not to let it bother you when you can’t do anything about it.”

“Well, you can do plenty about it here,” he came back with a frown. “If I ever catch you letting something like that go again, I’ll spank you till the tears come.”

I stared at him in the faint light of the control console, close to being open-mouthed.

“Freddy, you’re not for real,” I finally managed to say. “Do you remember the last time I was here at 2, about two and a half years ago? You got mad about that innocent little gag I pulled on you, and decided to do something to get even. That something was handing me a challenge for a fight with padded kenji sticks. We both got away lucky because your longer reach made up for my greater speed, but it did get kind of brisk. If I recall correctly you weren’t too concerned about my getting hurt then, and you never, ever threatened to spank me. What makes things so different now?”

He was quiet for a minute, thinking about it. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I can’t see myself handing you a challenge now, but spanking you seems so … natural.”

“Natural,” I repeated, giving in to the urge to close my eyes. “I’ve got to get rid of this face before it’s the last thing I do.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked in confusion, causing me to look at him again. It would have been interesting to go into details, but I decided I needed a short rest from the interesting.

“I’m not talking about anything,” I answered with a headshake. “Just a slight matter of sanity. But don’t you worry about it. Raving lunacy doesn’t hurt much after they put you in a rubber room.”

“Diana, don’t you ever get dizzy thinking thoughts like that?” he asked, an odd curiosity showing in his light eyes. “I get dizzy just listening to them.”

“I guess I’m built of sterner stuff,” I answered with a sigh, then crossed my legs. “So let’s change the subject. I hear that the hunting from 2 is better than ever. What are the chances of our getting a little action one of these nights?”

“Are you crazy?” he suddenly shouted, twisting around to put his hand on the back of his seat. “If Pete ever heard you ask a question like that, nothing on this world or any other would save you! He’s been working like mad to get the people in Flowerville talked out of a concerted attack on 2! Those lunatic agents and would-be agents there have been sneaking out and killing locals every time the mood strikes them, and now you want to go too?”

“I notice that you’re not counting the agents and would-be agents the harmless villagers of Flowerville have accounted for first!” I countered hotly, twisting around the way he had. “They’re the ones who first decided a few ambushes would nicely fill a long and dreary night. It’s their game and we play by their rules. Any decent people left a long time ago, when the mines played out. All that’s left now is the dregs who are too lazy or too stupid to move on to a better planet. Are you really so softhearted that you cry when they get what they ask for?”

He made an effort to get control of his anger, then ran a weary hand through his light hair.

“Look, Diana,” he muttered, glancing down at his palms. “I can’t deny that what you say is true. But Pete is trying to put a stop to this trouble, and as far as I’m concerned what he wants, I want. I’ve worked for him too long for it to be any other way.”

I calmed down too, and studied him for a minute.

“You really are fond of that stubborn old man, aren’t you?” I asked. “You should have told me, brother, then I never would have tempted you. Let’s both call him

‘daddy’ when we get back.”

“Don’t you ‘brother’ me,” he said with a grin, poking a finger at me. “I’ve been trying to get you into a dark corner since the first time we met, and I have no intention of dropping the idea just because you changed your looks. How about stopping off for a drink in my quarters when we get back? I’ll close my eyes and pretend you’re not a cadet.”

“Freddy, love, you don’t have quarters, you have a parlor,” I told him with a laugh.

“But you’re set up for flies, not black widows. And besides that, I never drink when I’m working – but don’t stop trying. It’s good for my ego.”

“It’s not doing much for mine, but surrender is not the military way,” he responded, a sigh clear in the words before his tone suddenly changed. “Hey, take a look down there. They must be busy tonight.”

I looked out the hopper window to where he pointed, and then looked away again.

Even in the dark the looming bulk of Blue Skies was much too familiar, the activity going on meaning a lot of unpleasantness had happened to somebody. Being rushed to Blue Skies was never something an agent looked forward to, even if they were in any condition to look forward to things…

“We should be at 2 in another minute,” I commented in a very casual way, brushing at a crease in Freddy’s uniform blouse. “I hope you’ve been practicing your landings. The last time I was black and blue all over.”

“One more crack about my landings and you’ll be black and blue all over again,” he countered, pushing my hand away. “Before the landing.”

I grinned but didn’t say anything else, and sure enough, he messed up the landing again. Normally he had no more trouble with landings than with any other part of the flight, but my commenting on it made him think about it and that was a sure-fire guarantee that something would go wrong.

It was a short walk from the hopper field to the large, well-lit building that housed the quarters and classrooms of the people at 2. We passed the guards, then found our way to the room the class was being held in. Freddy said he hoped there wouldn’t be too many apples on the desk, and we both laughed as we walked in. You don’t find many apple polishers at 2.

I took off my jacket and threw it on the desk, then looked around at the audience.

There were about twenty of them, men and women, and there wasn’t a servile face in the bunch. When I checked the back of the room my eyebrows rose in surprise, but when I stopped to think about the matter it was obvious that Val would be there. He hadn’t been on Jeff’s class list because Jeff had left the same day Val and I had arrived. Val was staring at me as if he hadn’t seen me for a month, and his gaze kept shifting to Freddy.