was infectious.
I haven't had time to set up a distillery,' Locklear said, 'or I'd offer you drinks on the house.'
'A man could get parched here,' said a swarthy little private.
'Good idea, Gazho. You're detailed to get some medicinal brandy from the med stores,' said Stockton.
As the private hurried out, Locklear said, 'You could probably let the rest of the crew out to stretch their legs, you know. Not much to guard against on Newduvai.'
'What you see is all there is, ' said a compact private with high cheekbones and a Crashlander medic patch. Locklear had not heard him speak before. Soffly accented, laconic; almost a scholar's diction. But that's what you might expect of a military medic.
Stockton's quick gaze riveted the man as if to say, 'that's enough.' To Locklear he nodded. 'Meet Soichiro Lee; an intern before the war. Has a tendency to act as if a combat team is a democratic outfit but,' his glance toward Lee was amused now, 'he's a good sawbones. Anyhow, the Wayne can take care of herself. We've set her auto defenses for voice recognition when the hatch is closed, so don't go wandering closer than ten meters without one of us. And if one of those hairy apes throws a rock at her, she might just bum him for his troubles.'
Locklear nodded. 'A crew of seven; that's pretty thin.'
Stockton, carefully: 'You want to expand on that?' Locklear: 'I mean, you've got your crew pretty thinly spread. The tabbies have the same problem, though. The bunch that marooned me here had only four members.'
Sergeant Gomulka exhaled heavily, catching Stockton's glance. 'Commander, with your permission: Locklear here might have some ideas about those tabby records.'
'Umm. Yeah, I suppose,' with some reluctance. 'Locklear, apparently the Kzinti felt there was some valuable secret, a weapon maybe, here on Zoo. They intended to return for it. Any idea what it was?'
Locklear laughed aloud. 'Probably it was me. It ought to be the whole bleeding planet,' he said. 'If you stand near the force wall and look hard, you can see what looks like a piece of the Kzin homeworld close to this one. You can't imagine the secrets the other compounds might have. For starters, the life forms I found in stasis had been here forty thousand years, near as I can tell, before I released'em.'
'You released them?'
'Maybe I shouldn't have, but-' He glanced shyly toward Lieutenant Agostinho. I got pretty lonesome.'
'Anyone would,' she said, and her smile was more than understanding. Gomulka rumbled in evident disgust, 'Why would a lot of walking fossils be important to the tabby war effort?'
'They probably wouldn't,' Locklear admitted. 'And anyhow, I didn't find the specimens until after the Kzinti left.' He could not say exactly why, but this did not seem the time to regale them with his adventures on Kzersatz. Something just beyond the tip of his awareness was flashing like a caution signal.
Now Gomulka looked at his commander. 'So that's not what we're looking for,' he said. 'Maybe it's not on this Newduvai dump. Maybe next door?' 'Maybe. We'll take it one dump at a time,' said Stockton, and turned as the swarthy private popped into the cabin. 'Ah. I trust the Armagnac didn't insult your palate on the way, Nathan,' he said.
Nathan Gazho looked at the bottle's broken seal, then began to distribute nested plastic cups, his breath already laced with his quick nip of the brandy. 'You don't miss much,' he grumbled.
But I'm missing something, Locklear thought as he touched his half-filled cup to that of the sloe-eyed, languorous lieutenant. Slack discipline? But combat troops probably ignore the spit and polish. Except for this hotsy who keeps looking at me as if we shared a secret, they've all got the hand calluses and haircuts of shock troops. No, it's something else…
He told himself it was reluctance to make himself a hero; and next he told himself they wouldn't believe him anyway. And then he admitted that he wasn't sure exactly why, but he would tell them nothing about his victory on Kzersatz unless they asked. Maybe because I suspect they'd round up poor Scarface, maybe hunt him down and shoot him like a mad dog no matter what I said. Yeah, that's reason enough. But something else, too.
Night fell, with its almost audible thump, while they emptied the Armagnac. Locklear explained his scholarly fear that the gentles were likely to kill off animals that no other ethologist had ever studied on the hoof; mentioned Ruth and Minuteman as well; and decided to say nothing about Loli to these hardbitten troops. Anse Parker, the gangling belter, kept bringing the topic back to the tantalizingly vague secret mentioned in Kzin files. Parker, Locklear decided, thought himself subtle but managed only to be transparently cunning.
Austin Schmidt, the wide-shouldered blond, had little capacity for Armagnac and kept toasting the day when '… all this crap is history and I'm a man of means,' singing that refrain from an old barracks ballad in a surprisingly sweet tenor. Locklear could not warm up to Nathan Gazho, whose gaze took inventory of every item in the cabin. The man's expensive wristcomp and pinky ring mismatched him like earrings on a weasel. David Gomulka was all noncom, though, with a veteran's gift for controlling men and a sure hand in measuring booze. If the two officers felt any unease when he called them 'Curt' and 'Grace,' they managed to avoid showing it. Gomulka spun out the tale of his first hand-to-hand engagement against a Kzin penetration team with details that proved he knew how the tabbies fought. Locklear wanted to say, 'That's right; that's how it is,' but only nodded.
It was late in the evening when the commander cut short their speculations on Zoo, stood up, snapped the belt flash from its ring and flicked it experimentally. 'We could all use some sleep,' he decided, with the smile of a young father at his men, some of whom where older than he. 'Mr. Locklear, we have more than enough room. Please be our guest in the Anthony Wayne tonight.'
Locklear, thinking that Loli might steal back to the cabin if she were somewhere nearby, said, I appreciate it, commander, but I'm right at home here. Really. '
A nod, and a reflective gnawing of Stockton's lower lip. 'I'm responsible for you now, Locklear. God knows what those Neanderthals might do, now that we've set fire to their nests.'
'But-' The men were stretching out their kinks, paying silent but close attention to the interchange.
'I must insist. I don't want to put it in terms Of command, but I am the local sheriff here now, so to speak.' The engaging grin again. 'Come on, Locklear, think of it as repaying your hospitality. Nothing's certain in this place, and-' his last phrase bringing soft chuckles from Gomulka,..they'd throw me in the brig if I let anything happen to you now.'
The taciturn Parker led the way, and Locklear smiled in the darkness thinking how Loli might wonder at the intensely bright, intensely magical beams that bobbed toward the ship. After Parker called out his name and a long number, the ship's hatch steps dropped at their feet and Locklear knew the reassurance of climbing into an Interworld ship with its familiar smells, whines, and beeps.
Parker and Schmidt were loudly in favor of a nightcap, but Stockton's, 'Not a good idea, David,' to the sergeant was met with a nod and barked commands by Gomulka. Grace Agostinho made a similar offer to Locklear.
'Thanks anyway. You know what I'd really like?'
'Probably,' she said, with a pursed-lipped smile.
He was blushing as he said, 'Ham sandwiches. Beer. A slice of thrill cake,' and nodded quickly when she hauled a frozen shrimp teriyaki from their food lockers. When it popped from the radioven, he sat near the ship's bridge to eat it, idly noting a few dark food stains on the bridge linolamat and listening to Grace tell of small news from home. The Amazon dam, a new 'must-see' holo musical, a controversial cure for the common cold; the kind of tremendous trifles that cemented friendships.
She left him briefly while he chased scraps on his plate, and by the time she returned most of the crew had secured their pneumatic cubicle doors. 'It's always satisfying to feed a man with an appetite,' said Grace, smiling at his clean plate as she slid it into the galley scrubber. 'I'll see you're fed well on the Wayne.' With hands on her hips, she said, 'Well: Private Schmidt has sentry duty. He'll show you to your quarters.' He took her hand, thanked her, and nodded to the slightly wavering Schmidt who led the way back toward the ship's engine room. He did not look back but, from the sound of it, Grace entered a cubicle where two men were arguing in subdued tones.
Schmidt showed him to the rearmost cubicle but not the rearmost dozen bunks. Those, he saw, were ranked inside a cage. of duralloy with no privacy whatever. Dark crusted stains spotted the floor inside and outside the cage. A fax sheet lay in the passageway. When Locklear glanced toward it, the private saw it, tried to hide a startle response, and then essayed a drunken grin.
