Cally's War

Chapter Ten

Cally left the women’s room and walked past Gra — the other cleaner, wishing him a nice day. The purple vinyl seats and purple and oatmeal carpet of the departure lounge showed the influence of a decorating fad that had been current seven years ago. Makepeace had left the laptop next to her seat. Her eyes scanned the lounge for a few seconds. There it was, next to the clumsy bald man, bless his heart. He was looking at her, and she tugged her right ear gently before looking away, dropping the hand.

As she walked, her left hand came up and brushed at the side of her hair, as if she wasn’t used to wearing it up. The seat had empty seats on either side, even though the lounge was starting to fill up with outbound passengers. She sat down and opened up her laptop. Getting into that now while she had a few minutes was the first thing. The clumsy bald guy got up and walked away.

Booting it showed her it had an old operating system. Good. First thing to try is to see if it’ll boot from the cube reader. She powered it down and back up with a test cube. Nice. It didn’t fry it. Time to go for the cracker cube.

As she was rebooting again a guy came up and stopped by the chair next to hers, clearing his throat nervously. Not now, you loser. I am not in the mood for pick up attempts. Aha! Right to the cracker cube window.

“I — Is this seat taken?” he asked.

“Unless you can lick your own eyebrows, it is,” she snapped, using the cube utilities to reset the laptop’s password and file permissions.

To her great annoyance, he settled into the seat anyway and she had just turned her head to tell the pushy jerk off when he interrupted her.

“How do you think I do my hair?” he said.

Her mouth hung open for a minute before she snapped it shut, returning his salute a little dazedly. He was a slight man with straight dark hair. A lock of it looked like it would tend to fall down into his forehead. He had warm brown eyes you could fall right into, and he was way too young. But what really surprised her about him was that he was the kid shown in her briefings as General Beed’s aide. She kept the recognition out of her eyes with an effort.

“I’m sorry I was so crabby. I guess I’m a little nervous. Can we try that again? I’m Sinda Makepeace.” She offered her hand.

“Joshua Pryce. Is this your first time off Earth, ma’am?” His hand was warm and dry.

She realized abruptly that he still had her hand and that she was staring. She snatched her hand back, flushing. A blush? Me? What the hell is that all about? I haven’t blushed in years.

“Uh… why yes, it is. My assignment’s on Titan Base. I suppose I’m a little uncertain about flying in space. You know, all that space around you and no air to breathe.” She shuddered. “It kinda gives me the willies.”

“Your name sounds familiar.” His forehead wrinkled and he flipped open his PDA, pulling up a list. “Did you say your name was Sinda Makepeace, Captain?”

“Why, yes, I did,” she smiled, tilting her head at him curiously.

“I thought I’d seen the name before. We’ve got the same boss on Titan. I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up working in the same office, ma’am.” He pulled his eyes away from hers. For a second there it had seemed almost like he was staring into her soul.

“Oh, you’re working for General Beed, too?” she asked, smiling brightly.

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked at her earnestly, “Would — would it make you feel less nervous if I arranged to sit next to you on the flight up to the ship, ma’am?”

“The company would be very pleasant, Lieutenant Pryce.” She stretched slightly, straightening her back. Like those, do you? Dammit, girl, behave!

The nature of Federation space travel was that most of the travel time between stars was spent in normal space, “sublight” to laymen, reaching the ley-lines or paths between stars where access to hyperspatial regions was much easier. While it was possible to access hyperspace from anywhere, it was much more power-intensive, maximum speed was less, and exit point was somewhat random. That would allow in-system jumps, but the potential for losses in a crowded environment like the vicinity of Titan Base was prohibitive. The upshot was that where it would take only about six months to get from Earth to one of the inhabited planets in a relatively nearby system, travel in-system to Titan Base took a good eight days, or more, by Federation courier ship. It was their good fortune that presently Earth and Saturn were on the same side of the Sun. At maximum separation, it was nearly a month’s voyage because of the need to detour around the Sun.

The Galactic Federation tried to keep enough ships in transit between Earth and Titan that there was a minimum of one flight a week. This was not out of any particular love for Earth or humans. On the contrary, humans, being the only carnivorous sophonts in the Federation, were generally regarded as useful barbarians. Their usefulness consisted primarily in their ability to throw the Posleen off of conquered bits of real estate that the Galactics wanted back. The frequency of the ships was more to ensure that Fleet and Fleet Strike could move critical personnel around as needed between larger troop shipments than anything else.

Fleet discouraged carry-on luggage on the shuttle. They preferred for anything that could shift around to be secured with the checked baggage. When Cally boarded with Sinda’s purse and laptop, the pilot at the door, a Fleet captain in black, gave her a rather cold look. Whether at the state of her uniform or at the not one but two loose articles she didn’t know. She responded with a sunny smile that shined out of her eyes, whispering over her shoulder to the lieutenant once they were past.

“Bless his heart, the captain looks as if he could have used another cup of coffee this morning,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.” Pryce tripped, whether over an uneven place in the floor or his own feet she wasn’t sure, but as he landed against her and used her shoulder to straighten himself, she got a whiff of clean male scent underlain with a hint of rut. Her nostrils flared as he apologized profusely. She told herself to ignore the slight clench of her belly.

He’s a baby. Remember the last one? The last thing you need on this mission is to give yourself away as a juv. Makepeace is not a juv. I’m twenty-three. Still, hands off the baby — no matter how good he smells.

The interior of the shuttle greatly resembled that of a small airliner, with the exception that the seat belts were more functional — five point restraints rather than the airlines’ pro-forma lap belts. Also, there was actual webbing overhead to strap in the few loose articles as needed, rather than overhead baggage compartments. The seats looked similar, although they were built to support the body for an hour or two, rather than a long flight. They did not recline, to the great relief of long-legged passengers. They did, however, have footrests at a convenient height to support Indowy personnel when the shuttle was used to transport them. Where first class would have been in an airliner, the shuttle had a few seats configured for Darhel physiques. The seat configuration and lighting was subtly different from that in the human section.

“Are there going to be Darhel on the shuttle flight up?” she asked the lieutenant.

“No. Why do you ask?” He looked over at her.

“Oh, I guess I’m just skinning my ignorance since it’s my first time off-planet. I saw the three Indowy in the back and thought if this was a mixed flight…” She trailed off.

“Oh. Well, there are a lot fewer Darhel than there are Indowy, ma’am. I’ve never seen them travel with humans. The Darhel, I mean. I’ve only seen one once, you know. And, well, with all the robes you couldn’t really see much,” he said.

If she expects the trip out to be one long parade of card games and movies, she’ll find out she’s mistaken. General James Stewart grinned at his reflection in the mirror of his shipboard quarters as he straightened the unfamiliar lieutenant’s insignia on his collar. Makepeace was definitely easy on the eyes. Probably had a problem with backaches, but it sure was in a good cause. Way too young — the only hardship working with her was going to be keeping his hands off. That shouldn’t be too tough, though. She was hardly going to be interested in a klutzy fuck-up lieutenant like Pryce.

Shit. Makepeace is easy on the eyes. And Beed is a slimy bastard. Pete would never have done this on purpose. If Vanderberg did have anything to do with this I’m gonna kill his ass. Nah. Pete wouldn’t do anything like that. He’d have been more likely to transfer her out if he’d known. Damn.

There were twenty-four hours of transmission time, along multiple frequencies, aboard ship — more than enough time for huge chunks of compressed and encrypted data to be transmitted, complete with error-checking, each day. Sure, there was a little over an hour of transmission lag, but that really only mattered with conversations, or their text equivalents.

What that meant in practice was that when they had reported aboard, the cube with the day’s work on it had made it to his quarters before his luggage.

The uniform of the day onboard ship was silks, and they didn’t wrinkle easily, so he didn’t actually need to change. He did want to give the captain long enough to get into a fresh set of silks, though. When he’d arrived in the departure lounge she’d needed a change of uniform, but a lieutenant wouldn’t have thought it was politic to ask why, or to even notice, so he hadn’t.

He spent what he thought would be an appropriate wait sorting through the morning’s files. Beed was not letting the grass grow under his feet, obviously. The past ten years of Titan’s criminal cases had been forwarded for “background material,” along with a large body of statistical data on the military and civilian personnel living on Titan and an annotated base map, including the carefully recorded observations of the CID personnel they were replacing — good parts of town, bad parts of town, the pimps, the pushers, where the working girls hung out, which gambling operations were where, which businesses were connected to which tong. The annotations read like an encyclopedia of general vice. It was so useful he had to doubt it was Beed’s idea.

He used the intercom to buzz through to her quarters.

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant Pryce?” she came back, voice only.

“Captain M-Makepeace? I was wondering if you could spare some time to meet with me? I’ve picked up the daily cube of our work for the general and I was wondering when we could get started. I know you haven’t actually reported in yet, but the general, he doesn’t believe in idle hands,” he offered apologetically.

“Well bless his heart, I was afraid I going to be stuck with old movies and monopoly. Is there someplace on this ship with a desk, or are we going to have to work here?” she asked.

He had to give her points for accepting the extra work gracefully. He thought about trying to work in the mess hall, but it would mean they couldn’t start until after the second shift of breakfast, and had to break for both shifts of lunch. Then he thought about trying to work with Captain Sinda Makepeace in her quarters, in a cube not much bigger than six feet on a side with no place to sit but her bunk, for a whole week. There were times when doing the right thing approached the painful.

“I think it’ll have to be the mess hall between mealtimes, ma’am,” he said.

“Fine by me. Are you headed over there now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right, I’ll see you there in a few minutes.” She pressed the button to disconnect the call.

One of the improvements in modern Federation courier ships over earlier designs was that most areas of the ship were able to sense which species was passing through a given area and adjust the lighting accordingly. The walls reflected each version of the lighting in a shade that at least was acceptable to the inhabitants. For humans this amounted to a muddy brown that had no distressing overtones. Still, the drabness of the walls tended to make the gray silks look washed out, and the institutional pale green of the human-only mess hall walls was a bit of a relief. Except on Earth itself, of course, all eating areas for humans were human-only by common aesthetic decree of the other Galactic races.

She had beaten him here. Her quarters were closer. Stewart saw that she had already gotten halfway through a cup of coffee. He came to attention and saluted smartly, then ruined the effect by sideswiping a table with his thigh and bending over it, wincing slightly before straightening up.

Makepeace hesitated disbelievingly in the act of returning his salute. He offered an apologetic grin.

“Guess I haven’t gotten my space legs, yet, ma’am.”

“That’s all right, Lieutenant. Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee and we can start going over that cube the general sent us,” she said, smiling.

“Can I get you a refill, ma’am?” he asked.

Her eyes widened in alarm, doubtless envisioning a lapful of hot coffee.

“Uh, no! I mean, I’m just fine as I am, Lieutenant, thank you.”

You certainly are, Captain, you certainly are. Maybe could spare a bit off the thighs, but otherwise just fine. Stewart walked past her to the coffee machine, stifling a grin.

After he got his coffee, as he sat down and pulled out his PDA, he glanced at her eyes before looking away somewhere over her left shoulder.

“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

“What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?” She leaned forward, crossing her hands one over the other, and focused on him with an earnest, listening expression.

“Ma’am, how much did they tell you about this job?”

“Very little, Lieutenant. Any scuttlebutt you could offer would be very helpful, if you’ve got any.”

“Your background is clerking in personnel, right ma’am?” When she nodded, he went on, “Well, what kind of things does a clerk in personnel do?”

“Well, I’m not sure why you want to know, but mostly I matched square pegs to square holes. Checked position requirements to make sure they were correct and not tweaked to make someone’s buddy a fit for a job. Well, not very much, anyway,” she amended. “Mostly I ran searches for positions and optimization programs and then checked behind the computers to make sure their recommendations made sense. The human factor in the loop, you know?”

“Well, ma’am, this position may be a bit… different… from what you were expecting.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular. Different how, Lieutenant Pryce?”

His words would have triggered red flags in the minds of almost any experienced officer in Fleet Strike. If a red flag had gone up in Makepeace’s mind, the earnest and slightly puzzled blue eyes gave no sign of it. She leaned slightly farther forward, and, if anything, the impression of careful, attentive listening increased.

“Ma’am, do you remember in college taking an elective course, taught by computer, in the history of legal administration?”

“Okay, what about it?”

The expression in the blue eyes was still blank. Stewart was starting to feel like he had stepped into the twilight zone.

“Ma’am, General Beed likes paper.”

“Well, okay. It’s not very usual, but people collect some very strange things. What, does he display the collection in his office or something? I’ll make a point to admire it. Thank you for—”

“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but that’s not what I meant. He doesn’t collect paper, he insists on working with it.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” She tilted her head to the side and waited for him to elaborate.

“Ma’am, the general does not use an AID, he does not use a computer, the only electronic devices in his office I’m sure he uses are the lighting and the life support. Oh, and the coffee machine,” he added.

“Paper?” she whispered, the light of understanding dawning in her eyes at last. “Well, that’s… special.” She paused, obviously lost in thought. Stewart was beginning to suspect she could get very lost indeed.

“How does he ever get any work done?” she asked.

“Ma’am, Fleet Strike promoted you to captain and sent you here because you’re the closest thing to a legal secretary it had. In this case, you were the closest thing to a square peg it had for this square hole. I’m afraid that means this position may be a bit different from what you’re used to, ma’am,” he said. He carefully didn’t state that the promotion had probably been something in the way of a consolation prize from a fellow personnel officer who had winced at the obviously shitty job he was forced to stick her with. Promotions weren’t supposed to be given out like that, but the bean counters tended to stick together.

She brushed her left hand over her hair, smoothing it unnecessarily.

“Lieutenant Pryce, a good Fleet Strike officer goes where she’s sent and does what she is ordered to do.” She shrugged, “I guess I’ll have to brush up on paper.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you for the scuttlebutt, Pryce.” She smiled warmly at him and Stewart was suddenly glad he was seated on the opposite side of a table. “Now, about that work you mentioned. Hadn’t we best get started?”

Okay, she’s stacked and her face and hair aren’t bad. Beautiful wouldn’t be too strong a word. But for God’s sake, man, you’re not seventeen! Definitely a good idea not to work in her quarters. Constant seven-foot separation would be about right. Unfortunately, that suggested the kind of work he was beginning to think he’d like to do in her quarters, including a remarkably vivid mental image of her naked breasts in his hands — He cut the thought off and handed her the copy he’d made of the original cube. A spark of static jumped between their hands and he inhaled sharply. She was a hopeless ditz, but obviously there was some chemistry there in addition to the normal reaction of any healthy, straight young man to a woman built like she was. Not that he was young. But his body obviously thought it was. It was going to be a long week.

Cally had escaped after dinner to her quarters which, being onboard a ship, resembled a broom closet with all the necessary furniture and electronics shoehorned in. Everything except a head. That was down the hall and wasn’t exactly designed for meaningful privacy. The design specs for these hulls had been laid down when female humans had been few and far between in Fleet Strike, and Fleet had evolved a more relaxed attitude towards body modesty anyway. The upshot was that her shower shift in the morning had surreptitiously been more crowded than strictly necessary. Some of the troops who showered on her shift had almost certainly been scheduled for the other one. But as they didn’t touch and were discreet about looking, and as Makepeace was enough of an airhead to get by with it, she affected not to notice. She did notice that the lieutenant was not among her covert admirers. He was on the same shift, but kept himself well along towards the end of the line of shower heads. At least, if he was looking, he was very good at not getting caught at it.

She and Pryce were on the first meal shift with the other officer passengers and a few rather glum enlisteds that probably would have preferred the other shift for their chow.

This left the problem of what to do while the second meal shift was using the mess hall. Since space was at a premium, however, they usually spent the time leaning against the wall in the passage outside. Cally tended to either linger over a second cup of coffee or play two-player Space Invaders against Pryce. They had discovered that they both shared an odd passion for very early arcade space games. He had offered to show her his collection of games once they got to Titan. She didn’t think it was a line, and wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.

Today Pryce had muttered something about needing something from his quarters. She hadn’t paid much attention, grateful for the respite that gave her time over the coffee to sort out how she felt about him. He wasn’t the clumsiest man she’d ever met, but he certainly wasn’t graceful. Maybe Granpa’s right. The job’s starting to get to me. Okay, it’s been a couple of weeks and I’ve got a normal, healthy set of hormones, but half the guys in the shower were as okay looking, and none of them were tripping over their own feet. Okay, the way that little strand of hair keeps falling across his forehead is kind of sexy, but… the job must be getting to me after all. The first acceptable excuse I get for getting laid I need to do something about some of these hormones.

Her coffee cup was empty, so she went back into the mess hall for more. She could hear a couple of whispers, and feel the eyes, but the railroad tracks on her collar effectively prevented anything more overt. Pryce was back when she got back out with her fresh coffee.

“I wonder what’s on the cube this morning. Had a look?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.” He leaned against the wall just a bit outside normal conversational space, as if he was afraid of getting too close.

“Okay. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about our office setup on Titan. Have you been out there yet?” Her back was already aching a bit, and she stood away from the wall so she could arch back and take some pressure off of it, reaching a hand back to rub out the slight cramp.

“What? Oh.” He shook his head slightly. “I’ve been to Titan Base before, ma’am, but not to CID. I reported in to the general before he left Earth. Okay, ma’am, you know the general just took command of the Third MP Brigade on Titan. Most of the brigade, all but about two companies of it, brigade headquarters, and CID, is forward deployed with various combinations of the infantry. Most of the day to day management of the brigade is handled by the XO, Colonel Tartaglia. The general feels that the best use of his attention involves more of a hands-on focus with CID, so, other than the time-honored passing of canapés, that’s where I’m likely to be spending most of my time. That’s also why he wanted you familiar with so much of CID’s background. If he asks you to find him something, he’s… well, patience and explanations don’t appear to be his strong suits, ma’am.”

“I’m looking forward to this assignment already,” she commented dryly.

Stewart had always worked at jobs without fixed hours. When most teens his age had been watching the clock at fast food places, Stewart had been running a successful street gang under his original name, Manuel Guerrera. Then, as now, organizational problems and responsibilities often couldn’t be pigeon-holed into set hours. Which was why he was lying here on his bunk, while Captain Makepeace was either in her cabin or doing God knew what, going through a list of names and detailed security profiles trying to detect which one or more of the people who had put in for assignment to the Fleet Strike CID on Titan were most likely to be plants of the nameless enemy organization revealed by their contact.

The completed profiles had finally come in this morning, but his scheduled work with Makepeace had meant he couldn’t go over them during the day. They were arriving in Titan orbit tomorrow afternoon, and he wanted the list done before they landed. Five more of their people had arrived on Titan while he was on Earth, and he wanted to know what he was looking at before he met them.

It was a frustrating task because of their near total lack of information about the goals and motives of the enemy, beyond knowing that those goals included espionage against Federation military and civil government organizations, which in itself was enough to suggest unfriendly and likely hostile intentions. Their best guess so far was that someone in the humanist fringe had finally gotten organized, a thought that was frightening, given the number of feral Posleen that were still on Earth and other planets, and the extent to which Earth’s defenses against a resurgence still depended heavily on purchase of Galtech technology and equipment.

Constant vigilance against reorganization of the Posleen, including retaking previously conquered Galactic Federation real estate, was Fleet and Fleet Strike’s highest priority. Each and every feral Posleen was a potential danger because each was born with the fundamental knowledge of the species. While most feral Posleen were the moronic and barely sentient normals, all Posleen were hermaphrodites who could self-fertilize in a pinch. A single smart God King could potentially rebuild the entire ravening hoard.

Consequently, the first part of his task was to list all the humanist connections of the various personnel, and the second to list anything that stood out in the personnel or their friends and relatives as having any discontent with the Federation.

It made for a long list, and a late night. Anders, for example, had a brother and a second cousin who were humanists, the brother more active, but she and her brother were allegedly estranged and hadn’t spoken in years. Could be true. Could be a cover. Baker’s family were Indianapolis Urbies and apparently apolitical. Carlucci had no family, and no close friends outside Fleet Strike. Sergeant Franks had a humanist wife who was profiled in the report as also believing the aliens were in league with the Masons, the Illuminati, and Satan — your typical, garden-variety humanist nut. It certainly made him a security risk. The rest was more of the same. Even Makepeace had a neighbor the next farm over with a humanist daughter. Out of fifteen people in the office, twelve had some sort of documented humanist connection. The other three, well, you never could tell, could you?

Titan Base had the worst case of smog in the inhabited universe. Approaching from the black of space, the glowing blue edge of the nitrogen atmosphere looked almost Earth-like, but the orange-brown layer of hydrocarbon smog, so thick as to be visually impenetrable, would have made prewar Los Angeles or Mexico City, or present day Chicago, look like sparkling bastions of atmospheric cleanliness.

The shuttle didn’t bother with artificial gravity, so the first part of their descent into Titan’s atmosphere felt like riding up a steep hill, “down” being in the direction of the backs of their seats. Pryce had let her have the window seat, and Cally stared out the window in what she hoped was not complete tourist goggling. In fifty-one years of a life that in many ways had made ordinary cosmopolitan sophistication look positively cloistered, this was her first time off-planet. Fortunately, it was also Sinda’s first time off-planet, so she didn’t really need to restrain natural curiosity and excitement too much.

The lieutenant reached over her shoulder, pointing at a fluffy white mass. “Look, a cloud. We don’t see too many of those.”

“It’s methane, isn’t it?” She stared out the window.

“Yes, ma’am.”

As they moved into the heavy brown haze, they also curved around into the nighttime side of the moon. The outside blackened. Unfortunately, they were at the wrong angle for her window to have a view of Saturn. They crested the “hill” of freefall and then started “down,” pressing lightly forward against their five-point seatbelts as the shuttle began braking.

“Will we be able to see Saturn from the base?” She craned her neck to see if there was anything interesting still visible through the darkened window.

“Only as an occasional hazy bright spot in the dark, ma’am.” He smiled regretfully. “Other than that and the Sun for a couple of days when we’re close to noon, it’s pretty much like living in an underwater birdcage with a blanket thrown over it. Well, if the bird had electric lighting,” he added, grinning.

Landing was a couple of muffled thumps, and, at one-seventh her accustomed weight, did feel extraordinarily like being at the bottom of a swimming pool.

“And now is when we’re glad for the warmth of our silks,” he said.

“How cold is it?”

“Outside? About minus one-forty C. In the tube to the dome, a handful of degrees below zero.” He unbuckled his seat belt and stood.

“Brrrr.” She shuddered. “They can’t get it warmer?”

“Won’t.” He shrugged. “It’s a safety issue. The whole base is built on various ices. One of our biggest engineering challenges, besides the overpressure, is minimizing heat leakages that could destabilize the ground underneath us.”

“Couldn’t they insulate? Or float?” As she stood, she had to reach back and rub the achey place at the base of her spine.

“Oh, they do insulate, ma’am. Believe me they do. This platform and the base itself are actually about fifty feet off the ground, to let air circulate underneath. Short term, you can build on the ground, and it’s not as much of a problem with ground research vehicles because they move. But you just don’t want to put a big hot spot on top of ice for a few centuries. Flotation was one of the designs considered, but ultimately discarded. Something about gravitational effects and stability issues.”

“It’s all ice? There isn’t, well, rock underneath it?” She looked as if she couldn’t quite grasp the concept.

“Some. Not enough,” he said.

“And can’t the Crabs do gravity?”

“Sure, and they did, for the base itself. I think cost considerations counted a lot in the choice of the final design.” He motioned her out into the aisle in front of him.

The chill bit at her cheeks and nose and she could see her breath as they made the short walk, with the other passengers, through the tube into the main dome of Titan Base. The air smelled vaguely like a gas station.

“What’s the smell?” She wrinkled her nose and waved a hand at the air.

“Leakage. With this much overpressure, there’s bound to be some. It’s a trade-off. They could have made the place more leak proof, but it would have cost a lot more. Or so I’m told.” He gripped her elbow as they crossed a red line on the floor and full gravity returned abruptly.

She’d been expecting it and hadn’t expected to fall at all, but suddenly she stumbled against him as her elbow tingled where he’d touched it as though she’d just touched a live wire. She was suddenly short of breath and she actually blushed as he steadied her back on her feet. What the hell? He’s not that attractive. Okay, he smells pretty nice. Check that. Real good. But so what. My God, what is wrong with me? Must be the excitement of my first trip off-planet. Who’da thunk?

As they moved from the tube through the doors into the shuttle port, and then through the double-glass doors out of the arrival area, the temperature warmed quite a bit, but she could still see her breath. The air felt heavy, cold and heavy.

A line of reproduction analog clocks across the wall gave the local time and the time in various time zones on Earth. She noted with a start that local time and the local “day” was set to be synchronized with Chicago, as ship’s time on the courier had been. Wow, she didn’t even have to change her watch.

Small, potted evergreen trees were tucked along the walls. The lieutenant must have noticed her puzzled expression as he turned and led her through double doors into a room that was obviously the shuttle port bar.

“It’s not just to look nice. That’s part of it, but they’re also a cheap way of scrubbing some of the hydrocarbon volatiles out of the air. The small-scale oxygen release is just a bonus,” he said.

The bar was warm enough to take off their gloves, and she began looking around for someplace to set her laptop case down for a minute. He pulled out one of the tall, backed barstools for her, folding his thin but warm gloves and tucking them into the pocket in the lining of his beret.

It was about three in the afternoon Greenwich, and the bar was empty but for the Asian bartender who was busying himself washing glassware and watching a vid. As the lieutenant put her coat aside and she climbed onto the stool, he hung the glass he’d just rinsed on the rack and walked on over.

“What can I get for you Pryce, Captain?” He took a towel and absentmindedly rubbed at a small water-spot on his bar.

“Two Irish coffees, Sam, short on the Irish.” He turned to her. “Would it surprise you, ma’am, to find out hot drinks are popular here?” he asked.

“Oh, terribly.” She laughed. “Why is it chilly on the base itself?”

“I’ve heard two theories. The first is the conventional one of controlling heat pollution. The second is that someone in the design team saw that the average temperature on Earth was fifty-nine degrees Fahrenheit and decided that was the optimum setting.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and waited.

“The second makes a nice story.” She laughed and took a sip of the coffee when it arrived, then set it down.

“You know, when I went through officer basic, I don’t think they recommended reporting to your new CO with alcohol on your breath,” she said.

“Ma’am, Beed’s a real vintage sort, but he’s from before that late twentieth century PC craze. As long as we don’t show up drunk and unfit for duty, and we won’t, he won’t care.”

“Well, that’s one good thing about this assignment.” She cupped her hands around the mug and took a long, appreciative sip. Sam made one hell of a cup of coffee.

After picking up their luggage from baggage claim, they had boarded one of the transit cars that ran on horizontal and vertical tracks, in singles or chains, throughout the base. Stewart carried the captain’s bag in addition to his own as he guided them to a departing car with empty seats. The car was one of a line that appeared grouped together, though not physically connected. The light bar across the top of the front car spelled out the destination: Fleet Strike Quadrant. Judging from the volume of traffic, the shuttle from Earth had not been the only one coming in at roughly the same time. The light blue berets of the infantry surrounded their own gray ones, and Sinda looked around curiously. He supposed she hadn’t seen many troops who were actually on deployment, having been immured in Personnel for most of her short career.

“The base is divided into four roughly equal sections, ma’am,” he explained. “Fleet and Transient quadrants are on either side of us, Engineering and Fleet Strike on the other side.”

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the shuttle port next to engineering for incoming supplies?” she asked.

“There is one. This is the passenger port.”

“So,” she gestured with her PDA, “is there a map of this place that I can download, or something?”

“Sure. Hang on and I’ll beam it to you, ma’am.” He tapped a few keys and pointed his PDA at hers so she could download. “The BOQ is highlighted. Your quarters are marked in red, mine in blue, the office in green.”

“You have my quarters marked on your map?” she teased. “What, is the red for stop?”

“For danger, at least, ma’am.”

“And work is safe? You’re an interesting person, Lieutenant,” she said. “So, it looks like the BOQ is on the way. It’s probably best to drop off our bags before reporting in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll carry my own bag in. No need for you to enter the danger zone.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He turned his head and looked out the transit car window so she wouldn’t see his eyes narrow. Minx. That does it. Just you wait, Sinda Makepeace.