Red set out for the mine in a convoy of automated ore cars returning for a new load. They crawled along at a fraction of Red’s top speed while Hobson’s double moons rose above the fractured horizon. They were still on full fifty-percent alert, which meant half the Dismount teams were awake in the Crew Compartment, ready for combat if an emergency arose. Doug Hart and the other half of the Dismount Teams’ members had bunked in hours ago, resting up for the arduous mission facing everyone, leaving Banjo with the night watch.
Willum DeVries hung in his hammock, unable to sleep. Unlike the others, he had nothing to do. Nothing to plan for. Hart and Banjo both had a million details to sort out, plans to review, alter, substitute. The Dismount Teams had equipment to check, stealth penetration plans to finalize, their own set of a million details to fuss over. Naturally, they were content in their frenzy. Even Hopper, for God’s sake, had calmed down once given something to do.
All Willum had to do was wait.
During the long hours of waiting, he’d read everything on Red he could access; he knew her systems as well as he was going to. All that remained was to sit through the coming mission and hope like hell the Deng didn’t give him anything to do. He turned over, restive and too keyed up to relax, even when he tried deep breathing and relaxation techniques. Finally he gave up and slipped out of his bunk. He tiptoed into the head and closed the door. The head was quite literally the only place inside Red where a man could find any privacy at all.
“Willum?” Red asked softly after he’d been in there for twenty solid minutes, trying to cope with night terrors and the sense that he would somehow fail his fellow crewmen by forgetting or not knowing something critical. “I am not registering any signs of illness. Nor do you appear to need to use the head’s standard facilities.”
“Uh, no . . . I’m not sick.” Not physically . . . He took the plunge. “I, uh, just wanted to get away from the others. I can’t sleep,” he admitted.
“Your service record indicates that you have never been in combat. You are not a Marine. Combat is not your function. Nervous stress is normal in your situation, Willum. Would you like a mild sedative?”
“No . . . No, I don’t want to be muzzy tomorrow.”
“I can prescribe a medication which will not leave you groggy after you reawaken. You need to rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day.”
“Yeah,” Willum muttered. “For everyone else.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest. “Dammit, I feel about as useful around here as an opposable thumb on a coconut.”
“Willum. We need to chat.”
He sighed. “Shoot.”
“You have expressed the same frustration I heard often from Honey Pie. Honshuko Kai,” she added. Willum could all but see her amused smile. “Honey Pie often felt himself to be a useless team member, even though he was my longest-serving crewman and essential to my continued mission readiness.” The door to the head hissed open silently. Red’s manipulator arms entered on the overhead track. The door closed again. “Here” —she extended a manipulator arm— “let me give you that sedative. Hold still, it’ll sting only a second.”
He allowed Red to give him the injection.
“Honey Pie once said he felt like cook, butler, and chief bottle washer in an expensive travel-trailer.”
Willum chuckled. “Know the feeling, Red. I know the feeling. How’d he deal with it?”
“We played a lot of cards. Would you like to learn canasta?”
“Canasta?” Willum blinked, momentarily startled; then smiled. “My grandmother used to play canasta. Okay, Red, show me.”
She produced two card decks from a small console in the head itself; then a tiny tabletop slid out from the wall. Willum just stared. Red told him, “Honey Pie installed these fixtures just for the two of us to share on nights like this. This is the only place, you know, where I can hold a private conversation with one of my boys. I think you need that almost as much as you needed that sedative and something else to think about.”
She shuffled cards with extraordinary skill. “Now . . . before we begin, I have one last piece of advice. I always told Honey Pie this, so I will tell you, also. We are each selected to serve in exactly the right capacity for our talents and skills. Beware asking for something more. The gods may be listening.”
Willum shivered. “Thanks. You have a point, there.” He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess I wouldn’t be much use on a Dismount Team. I couldn’t sneak my way out of a paper bag.” Then, because curiosity got the better of him, he asked, “How come you’re so . . . not smart, wise?”
Red’s chuckle issued from the speaker grill. “I was programmed with an extensive library on psychology, philosophy, and comparative religions in order to interact more effectively with my crew. And I have learned during the past eight years what my crewmen think about on the eve of a mission.
“Now . . . I deal each of us fifteen cards. The object is to collect sets of seven like cards. Such a set is called a canasta. You may use up to three wild cards per canasta, although such a `mixed’ canasta has a lower point value. At least one canasta is required before you can go out. . . .”
Willum fell asleep in the third hand, a thousand and fifty points behind but content with the score.
Gunny Hokum woke at 03:40 and eased out of his bunk to use the head. Someone else had closed the door to use it ahead of him. Gunny waited. And waited. Twenty minutes later, he knocked on the panel to assure himself that no one was ill—although surely Red would’ve said something—and heard Red’s voice whisper, “Yes, Gunny, you should come in, please.”
He eased open the panel and found Willum DeVries slumped over a hand of canasta, fast asleep. One of Red’s internal manipulator “hands” rested on his shoulder, gently. Gunny discovered a sudden thickening of the throat that made swallowing difficult. No wonder Ish fell for you, little lady . . .
He felt sorry for DeVries, sorrier in some ways than he felt for Hopper, who at least had something to do. Gunny had lost track of the number of times Honey Pie had sat at that same tiny table, playing canasta in privacy with Red while Gunny and his men prepared for a mission. He missed Honshuko and Specter. Losing men out of a crew like this left gaping holes in a man’s life. Unfinished conversations, plans that would never come to fruition . . .
Successful Mark XXI teams remained together, often for years at a time, growing closer and ever more effective, because once a crew was assembled which worked well together, breaking it up for anything more than seriously important reasons was just plain stupid. Specter and Honey Pie had been like family to Gunny. He appreciated how difficult it must be for someone like DeVries to be thrust into such a tight-knit group as outsider—then find himself with absolutely nothing to do. He was glad Red was taking care of the young engineer.
“Hey,” he shook DeVries gently. “Sleeping Beauty. Wake up.”
DeVries snorted, stirred, peeled his eyelids. “Hnnhh?”
“You’ll get a crick in your neck, sleeping like that. And I gotta use the can. Hit the sack.”
DeVries stumbled, a little glassy-eyed; then nodded and said, “Sorry, Gunny. G’night, Red.”
“Good night, Willum. Sleep tight.”
Gunny chuckled. “And don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
DeVries reeled a little, but made it safely back to his hammock. He collapsed into it and faded back into oblivion. Red quietly put away the cards and slid the table aside as Gunny settled in the head.
“How much of that sleepy-time did you give him, Red?”
“Only three cc’s. He needed it.”
Gunny finished his business; then sighed. “Yeah. I bet he did. Red—” He paused before opening the door.
“Yes, Gunny?”
“Oh, nothing.” Gunny didn’t lack for courage; but expressing his feelings was one thing he’d never had the luxury of doing. So he simply said, “Good night, Red.”
“Good night, Gunny.”
In the privacy of his own thoughts, he added, “Thanks for being such a damn good friend.”
As he climbed back into his hammock, he realized he needed that friendship tonight in a way he couldn’t explain. He drifted back into sleep without difficulty, content that Red was there, watching over them.
3
The Enemy has established a large staging area north of the mines, where expected. I enter a holding area for ore carriers which arrive in a convoy. I survey our surroundings. There are no Enemy physically present at this facility. I scan the mining complex. The operation is entirely automated. The mine has been drilled into the face of a sheer cliff and descends 12.5 kilometers beneath it.