The trouble did indeed come looking for her a short time later. She was in the middle of browning the fish when someone pounded at her door. She opened it to see Giancarlo standing there.
“Maddock, where the hell have you been and why haven’t you reported in?” he snapped before she could invite him inside.
“Nice to see you, too, sir,” she said with a growl, pumping his hand and pulling him inside. On the stove, the grease she was cooking the fish in crackled and spat. The cat scooted under the bed. For some reason, Giancarlo’s appearance suddenly infuriated her. Maybe it was because she was frustrated trying to keep house with the charity of the villagers because the store was so ill-stocked there was little her meager funds could buy to keep her alive. Maybe it was because they were no longer on shipboard or space station and so it didn’t look like the corps to her. Maybe it was because this guy was the kind of petty martinet she had always hated and had sworn she would get back at when she retired. Maybe it was because he was such a contrast to the polite and kindly locals. But she thought it was because after killing everyone around her and half killing her, the company still allowed brass-assed spooks like him to threaten to withhold medical treatment and to dump her unprepared in a place like this in order to use her. A couple of years earlier she would have taken it for granted that they had the right, that Giancarlo had the right. Now she felt anger rising up inside her high enough to choke her if she didn’t vent a little of it.
“Do sit down and tell me how, sir, I’m supposed to contact you with no radio, no computer, no transportation, no contact person, not even a bloody goddamn pen, sir, or a fraggin’ piece of fraggin’ bloody paper, sir. While you’re at it, tell me how you expect me to maintain cover and gain the trust of the people here when you, sir, come barging in shouting my name like the ship’s bloody paging program. Sir.”
She sat down in the chair, leaving him to remain standing or sit on the bed, she didn’t really care which, while she crossed her arms and glared up at him.
“I see discipline has relaxed after only a few days of pretending to be a civilian.”
“I am a civilian, sir. Maybe an employee, if the company cares to issue me anything to do my bloody job with, maybe not.”
“You, uh, seem to be feeling better,” he said lamely.
“Yes, Colonel Giancarlo, I am. Even we invalids have our good days. A weapon. I forgot. If I’m doing espionage here, I ought to have a weapon. If for no other reason than to hunt my own fraggin’ food. They do that here. They have to. Have you seen that company store? What’s the company trying to do here, sir? Incite another Bremport?”
“That’s enough of that, Major. What I want to know is why the hell you didn’t inform us about this latest fiasco with the geologic team.”
“Could be because I had barely arrived when it happened. Could be because I wasn’t briefed on who was here and who wasn’t to begin with. Could be because I have no means of communication, no liaison officer since you so impetuously dismissed the one who was already here-”
“We had reasons to believe his loyalties were divided,” Giancarlo said. He was sweating now, bundled up in his outdoor clothing while the stove radiated heat throughout the room.
About then she realized that the stove wasn’t just sending heat waves: the fish pan was billowing smoke. She began coughing, but she was so angry that, still bent double from the spasms, she grabbed her knife, stabbed the burning fish, and flipped it over in the blackening grease, still glaring at Giancarlo when her eyes weren’t clenched shut from the spasms.
Giancarlo began coughing, too, and rose as she stumbled for the door and flung it open. They both stepped into the open air, breathing deeply, while the smoke rolled out the door.