'But you get the idea. The more laconic, the better — ah, Mr. Mills; salud,' Salter finished, raising his glass with a manful attempt at good cheer.
'Health it is,' Mills agreed, eyeing his own glass as though undecided whether good health were worth such sacrifice. The men laughed, taking their cue from Salter.
'Boren Mills, let me introduce two of my right arms; Seth Howell,' he indicated the long-legged topheavy man with unruly brows, 'and Jose Marti Cross,' he went on, nodding at a man of Mills's own slight build.
'Marty, Seth: Mr. Mills of IEE.'
Mills had intended more polite conversation, but found this Mutt and Jeff team intriguing. Both were training supervisors — chiefly, Salter explained, of the rovers. To Mills it was obvious that the President hadn't told Salter just how much Mills knew about the S & R operations. Obvious: but true? In some ways, Salter was an opposite number to Mills; they both performed crucial operations for the Lyin' of Zion. They even did favors for each other — but at Young's direction.
Mills turned his attention to the supervisors. Most men preened for Mills, hoping to be remembered.
These two seemed to care so little, they might have been members of some other species; Howell a middle-aging grizzly, Cross a graying weasel. To tempt them, Mills tossed out a small bait: 'I'm always looking for good security men.'
Howell, his wispy tenor suggesting an old larynx injury, his hard eyes amused: 'Folks're always mistaking us for the fallen-arch brigade,' he said easily.
Mills missed the connection for one beat, equated fallen arches with flat feet, and smiled. Seth Howell might look and sound like a brawler, thought Mills, but like a gosh-and-grits politician he could sandbag you. Or maybe break you like twigs in those huge paws.
Cross, his faint sibilants and high cheekbones tagging him as part Amerind: 'Our kids are more like anthro field men — and women, Mr. Mills. Remember those hobo jungle fires two years back? Our rovers saved S & R lots of grief by a little field work.'
Mills nodded. He knew rovers would have cover stories and wondered how much scrutiny they could stand. 'Tell me about it.'
'Army-issue canned heat,' Howell husked. 'Poor buggers thought it was gel alcohol and tried to process it to drink. But GI stuff makes good incendiary bombs these days.' His eyes refocused on someone just behind Mills. 'Yes, Quantrill?'
'When you have a minute,' said a very young man with a faint southern accent.
Mills turned, smiled, and held that smile while a vague memory of violent death thudded at his diaphragm.
He'd seen this youth somewhere before in dangerous circumstances, but couldn't place him.
Ted Quantrill's green gaze flickered in recognition, then returned to Howell's {ace. 'Reporting for extra duty,' he said, using their term for disciplinary action.
Cross grinned, big wide-spaced teeth shining in his small dark face. 'Let me guess, Quantrill: you spiked your fruit juice.'
Quantrill did not smile, but his tone was sadly whimsical. 'Talking in ranks during inspection,' he said.
'I'd sooner believe it of the Sphinx,' Howell joked, then pursed his mouth in thought. 'Marty, seems to me that Quantrill has just volunteered for Salter's little tete-a-tete.'
'If he's all through talking,' Cross said with a grunting laugh.
Mills felt the conversation sifting around him, knew he was not supposed to understand it — and besides, the sturdy Quantrill made him uneasy. 'If you gentlemen will excuse me,' Mills said, lifted his glass again, and moved off to mull it over.
From a distance, Mills studied the muscular young rover. Somewhere he had met Quantrill face to face.
And the kid knew it. Eventually, watching Quantrill's stoic acceptance of some duty as Cross explained it. Mills shrugged away the problem and slid into the vortex around Blanton Young.
Quantrill took it impassively. He was damned if he would tell Marty Cross and Seth Howell just how much he loathed interviews. It would only give them another key to the small punishments they could use against him. Then he excused himself and made a point of stopping several times, swapping greetings with regulars, on his way to Marbrye Sanger.
She leaned against a partition of decorative 'dobe, which told Quantrill she'd laced her fruit juice with some local lightning. You drew penalties for slouching in dress blacks. 'I've already seen the old village,'
she was saying to one of the new regulars who hadn't yet given up on her.
'No harm in offering,' he said equably, nodding as Quantrill moved near. 'If you don't mind my saying so, you could use the fresh air. What's in that drink, anyway,' he went on. It was half curiosity, half rebuke.
'Manna from hell,' she grinned, smacking her lips.
'Most regulars don't believe in hell,' Quantrill said.
'Show me a rover who doesn't,' Sanger challenged, slurring it a bit as she turned toward Quantrill.
'Hello, compadre.'
In the private lexicon of Quantrill and Sanger, compadre served for
Quantrill glanced at her drink, shrugged to the other man as if to say, 'what can you do? She's a rover.'
'He's right about the fresh air,' he said to Sanger. 'Let's get about five minutes' worth of it.'
'Five minutes? Don't do me any big favors,' she said, nodding to the disappointed regular as she strolled with Quantrill toward an exit. 'And where the hell have you been?'
'Drawing extra duty,' he grumped. 'That's why I've got only a few minutes. Gotta catch a monorail to the Alameda in town so I can give a goddamned interview.' They passed outside, negotiating steps toward a scatter of trees near the parking area. Sanger stumbled once, caught his arm for support, spilled some of her drink. 'You ought to dump that, compadre,' he said gently.
She cast it onto the ground. 'Sure. My source has more.' Her hands mimed a sign: Ethridge.
'I thought so. I wish he'd drawn my duty tonight.'
'Maybe he will,' she said, dripping saccharine sexuality.
'Unfuck you,' Quantrill parried. 'I was thinking about the docudrama that was made when they were forming S & R. One of our people met Eve Simpson then; said she was fat as a pig, no matter how she looked on holo.' It had been the ex-Iowa State gymnast, Kent Ethridge, who'd made that discovery.
Ethridge was still a rover but had suffered too many disillusionments. Now he spent most of his leaves spaced out on pills and booze.
'Rumor says Simpson's a washed-out druggie; that they use a double for her interviews,' Sanger mused, then jerked around. 'Is that who's going to, quote, interview you tonight? Doesn't sound like extra duty to me, compadre. Sounds like fun and games.'
'Reciting cover stories for a cooing sow? Some fun. Some games,' he muttered, and drew a polymer poncho form his medikit. 'Here; let's just sit and cool off for a minute.'
In the pale glow from distant fluorescents, Sanger's honey-tinted skin took on a deathly greenish cast. It reminded him that life was brief, and that they had little of it to call their own. And Control could always be listening. Their shoulders touching, he rested his forearms on his knees, stared out across the dark line of hills under a billion stars.
He felt her hand slide into his lap, provocative, familiar; but shook his head. 'What's the point,' he said. 'I don't have the time.'
'Or the urge,' she said.
He took her hand, placed his fingers in her palm, began a slow laborious manual conversation learned through moonless nights to deny Control their communion.
She signed back:
