“You know it is.” Fiske, jaw out, took the necessary step to loom over her in the chair.
“I don’t know where Dr. Shongili is, Captain Fiske. How could I since I’ve been … involved … here for the past four or five hours.”
“He’s somewhere on this planet …”
“I hope so,” Yana murmured.
“… And I’m going to find him and find out how he’s doing this.” Fiske flicked his fingers at the ground.
Yana did not have to pretend surprise. “You think he’s blowing his planet up to thwart you?” She actually had trouble suppressing her laughter. “He’s got no explosives. The company has ‘em all. And why would he want to blow his planet up?”
“I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s responsible.”
“Using what?” Yana fired back at him. “Or, maybe,” she said, turning devious, “he’s told the planet to resist, to hamper, to impede your efforts to strip it of its natural resources.”
Fiske jutted his jaw out again, clenching his teeth over whatever it was he wanted to blurt out in frustration. Instead, he transferred his feelings to the grip of his fingers on her arm as he roughly hauled her up from the chair.
“You’re coming with me!” And he began to frog-march her out of the room.
“Like this?” she asked. Part of her paper skirt, soaked with her perspiration, had been left on the seat of the chair. She had also lost one of her paper shoes in his haste to get her moving.
“Captain!” the colonel barked in a tone that could not be ignored, even by Torkel Fiske. “You will permit the major to dress before she leaves this installation.”