'Shit! Are you sure? No, forget that, of course you are. Goddamnit, how could that happen?'
'We don't understand yet. According to the inventory they're still in storage. We did a physical check, of course. Eight are missing.'
'Eight?' Ebrey asked in alarm. 'How many were planted in the park?' He was never terribly at ease with land mines. Z-B policy required them to be available in case the situation on the ground became troublesome, and the squaddies had to protect strategic areas from outright aggression. Effectively that meant the spaceport during their retreat. He was thankful that he'd never had to order their deployment. The damn things were a lethal legacy that could last for decades, completely indiscriminate in choosing their victims.
'We found five. With one detonated...'
'Oh, Christ.' Ebrey went to the small drinks cabinet on the rear wall and poured himself what the locals laughingly described as bourbon. He didn't normally drink in front of his junior officers, and certainly not those from internal security, but it had been a long, bad day, and this wasn't a happy ending. 'Want one?'
'No, thank you, sir.'
'Your choice.' He stood at the French windows, looking up into the night sky. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the stars were twinkling warmly. After today, he was seriously beginning to wonder if he'd ever make it back up there among them. 'So we've got three mines planted out there somewhere in town waiting for us to step on them.'
'Two, sir.'
'What? Oh, yes. Two unaccounted for. Any chance the platoons could have missed them in the park?'
'It's possible, sir. I'm going to order another sweep in the morning, when it's light.'
'Good man. Now how in Christ's name did they get them out of the armory?'
'I'm not sure, sir.' Blanche hesitated. 'It would be difficult.'
'You mean difficult for anyone outside Zantiu-Braun.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I can't believe one of our own people would do this. There's no grudge or vendetta worth it.' He looked around sharply at the deeply uncomfortable captain. 'Is there?'
'No, sir. Nothing that serious among the platoons.'
'We're missing somebody. Jones Johnson, the one whose blood they found. Could he have... I don't know, defected?'
'Possible, sir.'
'Is Johnson capable of getting into the armory?'
'I don't know, sir. A lot of the squaddies tend to know shortcuts through our software.'
'Damnit. We have safeguards for a reason. Especially on weapons.'
'Sir. I do have one possible lead.'
'Yes?'
'The other mines were on standby, and the soccer teams were running all over that field for thirty minutes before the explosion. It must have been activated just before Chapell ran over it.'
Ebrey brightened. 'KillBoy transmitted a code.'
'Yes, sir. If it went through the datapool we can try to trace it. Of course, it could have been an isolated transmitter. In which case, someone had to be close enough to send the code. I can review all the memories from every sensor in the district. The AS may be able to spot someone who fits the right behavior profile. But somewhere in today's data there should be some evidence.'
'Whatever you need, as much AS time as it takes, you've got it. Your assignment has total priority. Just find this piece of shit for me. I don't care how long it takes, but I'm going to see Mr. KillBoy swinging from the top of this Town Hall before we leave.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Earth. Once more.
The brilliant white-and-blue world continued to fascinate Lawrence as much now as it had during his first arrival five years ago. As always during the transfer flight down from Centralis to low orbit, he spent as much time as possible staring at the real-time images provided by the interorbit ship's visual sensors. As they curved in over the Americas he watched wide swirls of cloud twisting with soft grace out across the western Atlantic, congealing into a single storm spiral, pure white around the ragged edges, but darkening swiftly toward the dense high center as if night were erupting out of its heart. Within days the Caribbean islands would be cowering from winds and waves and stinging rain, unbound elements stripping the leaves from every tree and washing the land into new shapes. Once again their population would hunker down and wait for the howling winds to pass. And then afterward they'd carry on anew, treating the event like an unwelcome holiday. The palms would sprout new fronds, and people would sport and swim on the clean white sands. He smiled down at them from his angel's perch. Only on a world so teeming with life could such acclimatization occur, he thought. A world where life belonged, where symbiosis between nature and environment was the governing evolutionary factor. Unlike Amethi.
He still held a nest of feelings for his old homeworld. They weren't as strong now as they had been when he first arrived, and most of them remained antagonistic. But every now and then, he could recall times and places from that world when he'd actually been happy, or enjoyed himself. None of those times were with Roselyn. He still shielded himself from those recollections. There was too much pain involved, just as sharp and bright now as the day he left.
His hand went to the pendant under his shirt. He'd almost flung it away the day he left Amethi. Then he decided to keep it so he would never forget all of the treachery at loose in the universe. Nowadays it was a kind of talisman, proof he'd survived the very worst life could throw at him.
The Xianti 5005 carrying them down landed at Cairns spaceport in the middle of another of Queensland's bakinghot afternoons. There was no one waiting to meet Lawrence. He walked past his platoonmates as various families rushed forward in the arrivals hall. Wives and long-term girlfriends flung themselves at their menfolk, clinging tightly and trying not to cry. Until the starship arrived back from Quation two days ago, none of them had heard how the asset-realization campaign had gone; who was alive, who was injured, who wasn't coming back. Relief and fear echoed through the big air-conditioned hall. Children milled around the embracing couples, smiling and happy that Daddy was home again.
There had been a local girl called Sandy whom Lawrence could reasonably claim to be a regular girlfriend in the time between Floyd and Quation. Sandy had promised to wait for him, but that was just over nine months ago now. She was twenty-one; he never seriously expected her to hang around.
So he walked out of the terminal building into the clean sea air, taking a long minute to look around at the scrub-covered hills behind the spaceport, looming dark as the sun sank behind them. The humid breeze blowing in from the ocean. Gulls squawking. Another spaceplane splitting the air overhead like slow thunder. He smiled
