shyly hugged him
'Take care, buddy. I'll see you soon. While you're there, try to learn some horseback riding, you'd like it.'
'As you command, my lord,' Kirha said huskily.
The blonde took Kirha by the arm, looking a bit nervous, and she led him down a side corridor. Ian watched them leave looking somewhat wistful.
'Come on,' Doomsday said, 'you're not getting sentimental over a Cat, are you?'
'Well actually it's the blonde,' Ian replied, but Jason could tell that Ian was actually fond of Kirha and hated to see him go.
'Damn, the sight of a Cat riding a horse,' Doomsday said. 'I'd pay good money to see it.'
Walking to the far end of the terminal, where private craft were docked, they turned down a side corridor and reached their gate. A light Zephyr trans-atmospheric transport was parked outside.
'Hey, it's Round Top!' Doomsday cried, and he raced up to the pilot and grabbed hold of his hand.
'Did you run emotional therapy for that guy?' Ian asked, watching a second display of joyful greeting on Doomsdays part in as many days.
'I guess he got kind of attached to our pups.'
'Like hell I'm a pup, sir,' Round Top announced, coming up to shake Jason's hand
'Excuse me, gentlemen.'
Jason turned and saw a slender gray-haired man, wearing a simple pair of flight coveralls, approaching them. He looked vaguely familiar and then he realized that it was Tolwyn's old steward from the Concordia.
'Johnston, isn't it?' Jason asked, and the man nodded.
'I think you're the last for this load,' Johnston announced. 'Why don't we get aboard?'
Jason picked his bag back up.
'And might I add, gentlemen, that it'd be best, for now, to drop your old noms de guerre.'
The group followed Johnston out the door and scrambled aboard the Zephyr. Johnston secured the rear hatch and went up to the forward controls. Putting on a headset he called in to the tower for clearance, powered up the engines, and turned the ship to head for the runway. The Zephyr gained the launch track, did a short fifty-yard roll and then nosed up, soaring up on a sixty-degree climb.
Ian looked around the cabin and checked over the half dozen other passengers crammed into the small plane and realized that several of them looked familiar.
'Vanderman from Tiger's Claw, isn't it?' Ian asked, and the old pilot sitting across from him on the other side of the aisle nodded and shook his hand.
'Hell, I thought you bought it when the Claw got it, Vanderman asked.
'I got transferred off on a two week furlough the day before she got hit,' Ian replied, a flicker of sadness crossing his features at the mention of his old ship.
'Luck of the draw I guess,' Ian mused, 'if it hadn't been for the furlough I'd have died with the rest of my friends.
'But what about you,' he asked, forcing a smile, 'I saw you go down over Draga just before we pulled out.'
'I ejected and made it down to the surface, mostly in one piece. Stranded for a couple of years,' Vanderman said, 'kind of wild and woolly down there, with the carnivores and such.'
'I've heard of them,' Ian interjected. 'It was a famous hunting reserve of the Cats and used for the old rites of coming of age.'
'Well, it sure as hell aged me,' Vanderman replied, 'dodging the local denizens and Kilrathi patrols until a raiding unit dropped in for a visit and I got picked up. I tell you it was an experience.'
With that he unbuttoned his shirt collar and pulled out a chain. Dangling from the end of it was a gleaming serrated tooth several inches long.
'I heard the Cats take the tooth of a nalga as a trophy. I got one with a bow that I made and hung on to it, figured if I finally got captured it might make me look a bit better in their eyes. Actually I'm kind of attached to it now.'
'It doesn't look like much of a tooth,' Ian retorted. 'Why it ain't much bigger than my little finger. Now on Farnsworth's World there, you'll get big teeth. I remember . . .'
'The owner of this little gem's got claws bigger than your arm,' Vanderman interrupted, 'and you got your choice out of which of four heads to pull the tooth from.
Ian, knowing he'd get outclassed in a tale swap, fell silent.
The Zephyr quickly boosted up on a high trajectory jump, so that the breadth of England, from the Irish to the North Sea was clearly in view.
The shuttle reached apogee over Scotland and then started its long curving descent over the North Sea, dropping down through a high bank of dark clouds. Buffeted by the wind the shuttle bounced in the turbulence as it crossed over the cliffs, circled to kill speed, and then touched down hard, kicking on reverse thrusters and jerking to a stop.
'Welcome to Windward, gentlemen,' Johnston announced as he walked through the cabin and unlatched the rear hatch. 'Move quickly now, lads, it's a bit of a blow out there, and besides, the Admiral's waiting.'
As Jason stepped through the doorway the stinging rain lashed into him, the wind driving it in almost horizontally. Cursing he grabbed hold of his duffel and ran towards the dark building barely visible in the driving storm. A portal of light showed where a door was suddenly opened and he ran for it.
Sliding on the wet paving stones he nearly fell on his backside as he gained the door and rushed in, almost knocking over the man holding it open.
'Damn, what a blow,' Jason said, wiping the rain off his face and then he realized who was holding the door open and snapped to attention.
'At ease, Jason, remember we're no longer in the fleet,' and Geoffrey Tolwyn extended his hand.
The rest of the group came racing in behind Jason and all came to attention at the sight of Tolwyn who smiled and shook their hands.
'Gentlemen, our little meeting was waiting for your arrival. Would you follow me?'
He led them into a semi-darkened library room and Jason was surprised to see real books made of paper lining the walls, something that had not been produced in hundreds of years.
'It's the treasure of my family,' Tolwyn said, 'some of the volumes go back to an age when England ruled most of the world before the time of flying. This house is nearly as old, and was built in the style of manor homes from an even earlier time.'
At the far end of the library a fireplace glowed, and again it caught Jason by surprise. Wood was far too precious on his home world to be used in such a manner, but even as he looked at it he understood the strange almost primal appeal of a fireplace, the smell of burning wood, and the comfortable feeling it provided.
Going through a wide double doorway, they stepped into a broad open room, at the far end of which was yet another fireplace, this one big enough to walk into. Dozens of chairs were drawn in a circle around the fireplace, each of them already occupied and Jason saw yet more familiar faces.
'Hey, it's Sparks,' Doomsday announced and the chief fighter maintenance officer from the Tarawa got out of her chair and came up to Doomsday, shaking his hand and then Jason's in turn.
'It's like old home week here,' she whispered, 'pilots, a couple of maintenance officers like myself, ship's computer officers, there's even a commodore of a destroyer group over there in the corner.'
'I'd like to get started,' Tolwyn announced and he motioned for the new arrivals to grab some chairs.
Tolwyn turned away for a moment and extended his hands to the fire, rubbing them, silhouetted by the flames and Jason felt a flash memory of the hangar deck of Tarawa on fire. He closed his eyes and pushed the thought aside, knowing that it'd be back again tonight, one of the worst of the recurring nightmares.
'To start with the old familiar line. I guess you're wondering why I invited you all here tonight.'
The group laughed politely.
'We heard about your stockpile of Scotch,' Ian quipped.
'Afterwards, Hunter, but business first.'
The group settled down.
'It has been four weeks since the formal armistice agreement between the Terran Confederation and the
