Yana’s parka was uniform issue, and she opened it to let her rank show as they passed the gate guard, who nodded at Bunny’s ID and saluted Yana. The guard hut was a small “instant” building of composite material in a pale pastel. In the lights of the base-and the entire base was so strongly lit that Yana wondered that they couldn’t see the lights clear from Kilcoole-she noticed that the buildings all had some sort of a pastel tint: anemic pink, bilious green, jaundiced yellow. All of the colors were watered down with the familiar omnipresent gray, so that the squat, rectangular buildings merely stood out in ugly relief from the snowy surroundings but achieved nothing so frivolous as beauty or gaiety. The buildings were set in precise rows, down which the arctic wind roared. Beyond the hunkering buildings, abandoned launch gantries towered awkwardly, swaying in the wind like the writhing legs of dying insects.
Bunny pulled up to a building much like the others except that it bore a letter and a number-C-1000. “There’s my fare,” she said between closed teeth, then jumped out, ran around to hold the door open for Yana, and said with a large obsequious smile, “I thank you for your patronage, dama. Please remember to ask that Rourke be sent for when you wish to return to our village again.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Yana growled between her teeth and in a louder voice said, “Could you direct me, Rourke, to the infirmary and the communications depot?”
Bunny’s fare, in the usual anonymous company parka and muffler up to the eyes, walked around the front of the snocle and squinted at Yana.
“Major Maddock? Yanaba Maddock?” he asked.
Startled to be recognized so soon after arriving on the base, she counted to three and turned slowly to face the man, raising a rapidly icing eyebrow. “Yes?”
The man pressed his padding against her padding and gave her a stiff hug. “With all due respect, Major, I thought I’d never see you again. When I heard you were on Bremport…” He was struggling to unwrap his scarf and hood from his face.
“Rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated, as the man said,” she told him. By then, he had pulled the hood back to reveal the longer-than-regulation bronze hair and smiling brown eyes she recognized from her days with the survey teams. “Torkel!” she said.
“Small universe, eh?” It was a very tired but often true spacer’s joke.
“What are you doing on Petaybee?” she asked.
“I was wondering that myself until I met you. Can I buy you a cup of something hot?”
“Sir …” Bunny began.
“I’ll make it worth your while to-uh, cool your heels, Rourke. Shouldn’t be too hard around here.”
“Yes, Captain,” Bunny said. Then she spoke more boldly, surprising Yana. “Sir, would it be possible for me to go see Diego? I mean, I just thought-”
“Good idea,” Torkel said. “A pretty girl his own age ought to cheer him up some. Building ten-oh-six. If anybody questions you, tell them I authorized it.”
Yana wasn’t surprised that Torkel was confident in the amount of weight he swung as a mere captain. The fact was, as she and a few others had reason to know, his rank had little to do with his true degree of power. His family had developed the terraforming process used by the company to create colony worlds such as Petaybee, and his father currently sat on Intergal’s board of directors. Torkel was a very competent officer, but he had been a captain longer than it took most to make general. Generals had a lot hidden from them, whereas captains tended to end up in the thick of things. No one had told Yana this, but she had figured it out, from shipboard conversation and a few remarks Torkel had made in jest.
It was a joy to sit across from him over steaming cups and energy bars in the dingy little canteen. They had removed hats, hoods, and mufflers but still wore their coats unfastened and peeled back, for the canteen was not well heated. Torkel studied her face as if he was memorizing her.