Spy ships and satellites …I had gone through that broadcast zone a week ago, and the clone in the trunk landed on Terraneau a few days later. Until we sent a ship through that zone, it really didn’t matter if I was alive because I was cut off.
“What are we dealing with?” I asked. “Should I send some fighters out to look for the satellite?”
Freeman shook his head. “Don’t bother. The satellites are too small to locate.”
“And the spy ships?”
“You don’t see them unless they want you to.”
I did not bother thanking Freeman for saving me. In his ruthlessly self-sufficient heart, Ray Freeman didn’t care about my gratitude. He didn’t need gratitude or approval, and he did not concern himself with things he did not need.
Freeman and I had once been partners. We might have been friends, too, but you could never tell with him. As far as I could tell, Freeman did not have friends. Raised by Baptist colonists before becoming a mercenary, he was an outcast among his own people, and he just plain didn’t care what the universe thought of him.
We drove in silence. As I said before, Ray Freeman was a man of few words. If I’d tried to strike up a conversation, he’d probably have ignored me.
When we pulled up to the security gate at Fort Sebastian, I heard the guard radio in. “Holy shit, he’s got himself a specking giant,” before coming to my side of the car, saluting, and letting us in.
Freeman pretended not to notice, but I knew he’d heard the guard as well. He could do that. Freeman could outwait you. He had many strengths, patience was among his best.
We drove to the administration building, where Hollingsworth and a small group of junior officers waited to meet us. It was still early in the morning. A lot had happened, but it was only 09:00, and dew still glistened on the grass.
Hollingsworth walked up to the car, took one look at my face, and laughed. “Let me guess, the big guy caught you stealing his car,” he said, pointing at Freeman.
When I did not say anything, Hollingsworth laughed even harder, and said, “No? Don’t tell me. Your girlfriend hit you with a shovel?” His entourage joined in on the joke.
Hollingsworth was still busy laughing as I climbed out of the car and opened the trunk. I smiled, and said, “You think I look bad? Have a look at the other guy.” As I said this, I reached in, grabbed the faux Sergeant Lewis by his collar and belt, and flipped him onto the ground.
By that time, some rigidity had entered the body, and the arms remained bent at the elbows. The blood on his forehead, what remained of it, at least, had crusted over.
“What the hell?” Hollingsworth asked, shocked and serious.
“I’ll tell you about it sometime,” I said. “In the meantime, would you mind putting him on ice? I want a coroner to have a look at him.”
“Is he one of ours?” asked one of Hollingsworth’s cronies.
“He said his name was Lewis, Sergeant Kit Lewis. Ever heard of him?” I asked.
Hollingsworth shook his head. So did his friends.
“That’s funny. He swore you sent him to pick me up at Ava’s.”
“I didn’t send anyone after you.”
“No? How’d he know where to find me?”
“A lot of people knew where you went. I mean, it wasn’t classified information. I—I mentioned it to …” He stopped. “Why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t kill him,” I said. “Freeman did.” I tapped on the roof of the car, and Ray Freeman came out. The top of the car came up to my chest. It came up to his stomach. He stood there, hulking, huge, intimidating, silent.
“The late sergeant said you wanted to meet with me, then he drove me out to the woods west of town. That was when things got physical.”
“Shit,” Hollingsworth hissed.
“Wrap him up and throw him in a cooler,” I ordered. “There’s something special about this clone. We’re going to need an autopsy to find out what it is.”
“Yes, sir,” Hollingsworth said, suddenly sounding like a proper Marine.
“Something else. If this son of a bitch called himself Sergeant Lewis, that means there’s probably a dead Sergeant Lewis lying around here somewhere. Send out a team. I want to know what happened to him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ellery Doctorow summoned me to his office, the political equivalent of a master whistling for his dog. Worse yet, I responded. Even knowing what he was going to tell me, I came running. Some duty-bound voice inside me reminded me that this was his planet. I would be gone soon, and he would still be here, the emperor of this little rock. He whistled, I came, and the chain of command was preserved, goddamn it.
So I climbed in a jeep with a twentysomething-year-old corporal I did not know. I took two precautions before climbing in the jeep with the kid. I asked his platoon leader if the corporal had been acting strange lately. When the sergeant asked what I meant, I simply said, “Never mind.” If the guy had to ask, there was no point in explaining.
I also brought a sidearm. That last infiltrator clone had nearly killed me even after I’d dealt him enough damage to leave him spitting blood. I was in no mood to go for a second round. But the corporal did not give off the same aura of outrage and danger that the faux Sergeant Lewis had. This kid just came off nervous.
We drove to the capitol building, and the corporal waited for me in the jeep as I went in to see Doctorow. Armed guards watched me from inside the door as I approached. I saw them and remembered a little more than a week earlier when guards had tried to stop me from going to see Ava …Going to see Ava, had it really been such a short time ago?
I asked myself if I still loved Ava, and I had no answer. Whatever I once felt for her, it was the closest I had ever come to love. And now? I told myself that I would get over her the same way I had with so many other girls. She was just more scrub, I told myself, but I didn’t believe it.
The guards stayed out of my way as I entered the building. They did their best imitation of the sentinel statues in a giant cathedral, eyes straight ahead, standing silent and stiff. Maybe they knew me by reputation. Perhaps one or two of them had been at the girls’ dorm.
I did not need to introduce myself to the man at the reception desk. He greeted me by name and called Doctorow’s office to let them know that I had arrived. A few moments later, an aide came to escort me in.
Ellery Doctorow, former Right Reverend, former Army chaplain, and former colonel, had gone grand. He had an office the size of a small parade ground. His floor had a foot of black marble running like a border around two- inch-thick carpet. Bookshelves and paintings lined the walls. In the center of this opulence, Doctorow had an oak- and-mahogany desk that looked large enough to use as a landing pad.
As I entered the office, Doctorow met me at the door and shook my hand. Not even a second passed before he noticed the breakage on my face. How could he miss it? My right eye was a purple goose egg. I had multiple bruises on my jaw, a badly swollen cheek, and cuts on my lips. I saw disapproval in the way his eyes narrowed. He pursed his lips, but he said nothing.
“General Harris, I am glad you came,” he said as he shook my hand.
“I had the impression attendance was mandatory,” I said.
“Oh please,” he said as he led me toward a set of chairs. “You have twenty-two hundred fighting Marines and enough weapons to destroy this planet three times over. You don’t take orders from me, and we both know it.”
He sat down behind his fortress of a desk. I sat in the wood-and-leather seat in front of the desk.
“The planetary council rejected your proposal, General. We won’t be joining your empire,” he said. “We would like you and your Marines to leave Terraneau as soon as possible.” He did not say this in an angry fashion or in a demeaning way. If anything, he sounded serene.
“Are we making way for the Unified Authority?” I asked, though I already knew what he would say.
“No. When and if they contact us, we will give them the same answer we gave you. Terraneau is a neutral
