“You’re to report to SpaceBase. Congratulations, son, you’ve been chosen for duty shipside.”
“But, sir …” The lieutenant, formerly so cheerfully obsequious, looked as stunned as if the colonel had suddenly kicked him in the balls. He evidently did not feel that congratulations were in order.
“Grab your gear on the double and you can ride back with me, soldier.”
“Permission to say goodbye to my family, sir,” Demintieff said with some difficulty.
“Permission granted as long as you can do it within the next forty-five minutes. Duty calls, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Maddock, in view of this man’s reassignment, you are authorized to requisition civilian assistance during your civilian orientation process or until the position can be reassigned.”
“Yes, sir. May I suggest my driver, Miss Rourke, sir?”
“Sure, Colonel, Bunny will look after the major,” Demintieff put in, rather gallantly, Yana thought, in view of his own evident distress. “She’s my own sister’s cousin-by-marriage and a very good girl.”
Seeing this side of Demintieff, and realizing how well connected he was locally, Yana cursed herself for making suggestions before she got the lay of the land. He would have done as well as Bunny from the standpoint of gaining the trust of the villagers, but now he was being sent away from home, an assignment he obviously did not relish, to provide a reason for the change in routine. Damn fool shouldn’t have enlisted if he didn’t want to serve shipside, she thought fiercely, but she had trouble meeting his eye. Giancarlo returned to the inner room, and Demintieff’ s eyes were brimming shamelessly as he turned toward her.
“Dama, would you and Bunny mind very much givin’ me a lift up to Clodagh’s? My gear’s there, and Clodagh’ll see to it that my family in Tanana Bay get notified.”
Yana could only duck her head as the lieutenant scooped up a tightly wrapped bundle from his desk, started to hand it to her, then carried it out to the snocle.
Bunny was starting the engine when Yana and Demintieff emerged from the building. She started to say something when Demintieff climbed in beside her, leaving Yana the back section, but Demintieff cut her off with “Take me to Clodagh’s quick, Bunny. They’re shipping me into space.” In his distress, his voice had thickened into the same oddly precise brogue coloring of Bunny’s and her Uncle Seamus’s speech.
Brilliant start, Major Maddock, Yana told herself. Everybody on this damned planet seemed to be related to everybody else.
“Okay, Charlie, but I’ll have to drop you and Yana off and take the snocle back. I’m only checked out for another fifteen minutes. I’ll hitch up the dogs to take Yana home and bring you back over here.”
“If there’s time. Giancarlo may requisition your snocle to take us back to SpaceBase, though Terce brought him out. You’ll look after my dogs, won’t you, Bunny? They already think you belong lo them, and I want them to be well cared for; they’ve been with me since they were pups.” He dug through layers of fur and found
i wallet, then handed her a wad of bills. “Here’s to help you with their food.”
She released one hand from the wheel and accepted the money, stuffing it in her parka. “No problem, Charlie. I’ll keep on looking after them. You didn’t know about this reassignment?”
“No idea. He decided just like that.”
Yana found herself leaning forward, wheezing into Demintieff s ear: “You’ll be going to Andromeda Station to inprocess and for assignment. When you get there, unless he’s gone now, the master sergeant in charge of deployment is Ahmed Threadgill. Tell him Yana Maddock sends her love and reminds him of the time she alerted him to the Ship Police raid. He’ll know what I mean.” Ahmed would know she was calling in the favor and that he was to look after her friend. It wasn’t much, considering the way she had caused however so inadvertently the situation, but it could keep his hide intact.
“Yes, Major Maddock. Thank you, dama.”
She clapped him on the shoulder, a little feebly, and sat back until Bunny skidded to a halt outside a house a little larger than Yana’s own quarters. The morning’s exertions had left her panting and trembling with fatigue, but she still took note of this house. The snow in front of it was full of huge strangely shaped lumps, and the crusted snow all around them was lightly dotted with what looked like some kind of shit, which vaguely shocked ship-bred Yana. Stiff oval nets with points at each end hung over the door, three pairs of what were unmistakably skis leaned against the side of the house, and from the back of the house issued a high-pitched keening, like a woman screaming.