Torkel nodded his thanks and started to turn to Diego, but Clodagh stopped him.
“Captain, I was thinking maybe, you know, if your doctors think Dr. Metaxos won’t get any better, maybe he and Diego could come here to live with us? Dr. Margolies, too, if the company wanted to station him here. Maybe he could do the work you need better if he lived with us?”
Yana wondered what Clodagh was thinking of. She knew the villagers had responded well to Diego at the latchkay, but in many close-knit communities, Dr. Metaxos would have been held indirectly responsible for Lavelle’s death. Maybe these people were just unusually generous, but she couldn’t imagine they would welcome a known company agent on the premises. On the other hand, theoretically Scan was a company man, too.
Torkel looked as flummoxed as she was by Clodagh’s offer and said with his customary charm, “That’s very kind of you people, and I’ll certainly suggest it to Dr. Margolies and to Colonel Giancarlo. It might indeed be convenient to have Dr. Margolies based here in Kilcoole, at least for the time being, and good for young Diego to be around people his own age again. At least until the company comes up with some permanent solution for his problem.”
Clodagh shrugged. “It’s no problem to us, Captain. You might not realize it, but what happened to Dr. Metaxos has happened to quite a lot of people on Petaybee. This planet can be kinda hard on certain folks.”
“Thank you for your concern, ma’am.”
Yana had her coat on before he stepped a foot out the door. Hooking her arm in his, she said, “Tell you what, Torkel. How ‘bout if Bunny takes Diego back to base and I keep you company on the way out and ride back with her?”
“I’d like nothing better,” he said.
With somewhat forced heartiness Scan said, “Well, back to the latchkay for the rest of us. Bunka, make sure you girls are back in time for the night chants. Major Maddock will want to hear those.”
For someone who had appeared so ardent earlier, Torkel Fiske was strangely silent during much of their two-hour snocle ride to SpaceBase. The river trail was wide and flat, streaks of clear ice showing black where the snow had drifted away, the moons gleaming white, mirroring the planet’s surface. As the snocle cleared the trees and approached SpaceBase, white, blue, and red lights in the sky shot skyward or fell like multicolored snowflakes toward the landing pads.
“Looks like Kilcoole’s not the only place there’s a party going on,” Yana said jokingly to Torkel.
“Hmm,” he said, and in the closeness of the warmed air in the snocle, she could smell the musky cologne he wore. The man who has everything, she thought as she admired his classically handsome profile. She ought to be more moved, she told herself. She really ought.
“Yana? I thought you were medically retired here. Yet there doesn’t really seem to be anything wrong with you that 1 can detect. Has it occurred to you that you needn’t cut your career so short? I could arrange for light duty for a while, until you get back in the swing of things.”
“What kind of light duty did you have in mind, Torkel? To tell you the truth, it’s not bad here.”
He snorted. “You could have fooled me. But actually, I thought maybe as long as you were here and you have the rank and the ‘in’ with the people, you could relieve Giancarlo. He’s really blown it by letting that woman die while she was offplanet. It’s that kind of stupidity that triggered the Bremport massacre.”
“You’ve been reading my mail on that one,” she said. “That guy has zero finesse.”
“Exactly. Now, I don’t have to tell you that at times you need a pretty heavy whip hand if you’re going to accomplish a mission that people may not understand the rationale behind, or that may cause some temporary inconvenience. People hate change. But I think someone who already gets along with them …”
“I see,” she said. And she did. Someone who already got along with them was in a better position to betray their trust and kindness. Still, she might be able to help ease any transitions, which would not be a concern of Giancarlo’s.