“You’re as bad as me,” Yana said finally. “I’m a fine ‘zample to the younger gen’ration.”
“I sure would have liked to see you haul that Giancarlo in and kick him out,” Bunny said. “I been driving him around for days and he’s-he’s-”
“Yeah, isn’t he?”
“He’s been browbeating Lavelle, even though she told him what happened. And he has poor Dr. Metaxos locked up in the crazy ward and won’t believe what Diego tells him, and Diego’s all by himself and can’t find his other father …”
“Other father?”
Bunny nodded. “His father’s partner, Steven Margolies. You know, they’re like Aisling and Sinead, and they’re Diego’s folks, but nobody’s even let the other father know about Dr. Metaxos. If Charlie were here, he could maybe have gotten a message to this Steve through people he knew at SpaceBase, but now there’s no one in town who can help Diego, and you can bet Giancarlo won’t do it.”
“My my. You’ve sure taken up this Diego’s cause in a short period of time. I thought he was in shock and half out of it.”
“He’s not. He’s just worried about his da and nobody will believe him.”
“What’s he look like, Bunny?” Yana asked her.
“He has really dark eyes, very big, and his hair is-Yana, you’re laughing at me!”
“Yep, I thought so,” Yana said. “He’s cute, is he? ‘Sokay, Bunny. So you like this boy and nobody will help him and Giancarlo was his usual charming self to your buddy, so you’re glad I told him off and you came to tell me so? Or did you really just come down to cook me dinner so I wouldn’t starve to death?”
“Well, I was talking to Clodagh …” Bunny’s face grew a little sly as she turned and pulled two steaming and fragrant fish out of the pan and arranged them on a plate. Carefully she picked the third one up by the tail. The cat was no laggard and had snagged it out of her hand before she could lay it on the floor for him.
“What I told Clodagh …” Bunny began, managing to stand between Yana and the fish.
“What?” Yana said, sobering now so that Bunny stopped playing and settled into the chair, handing Yana the knife so she could carve into her fish.
“Was maybe you could help Diego. You know, maybe you could ride in with me to SpaceBase next time I have a run and like wear your uniform and maybe Arnie’s boyfriend would help you get a message to that man you said would help Charlie. Maybe he could let Dr. Margolies know what happened and-well, you did say he was in deployment. Maybe he could get him down here.”
“Military deployment, Bunny.”
Bunny shrugged. “It’s all just PTBs anyway, isn’t it? Can’t they pull strings or something?”
“Hmm. Maybe they can. If anyone could, Ahmed could. Or if not, he’d find out who could.” And in the back of her mind, it occurred to her that she could also use her full uniform and access to SpaceBase as an opportunity to “requisition” some of the equipment necessary to the duties Giancarlo seemed to think she was so derelict in performing. If at some later date he actually got around to issuing her duplicates, she could trade the items for other locally produced items. She wasn’t really qualified for this kind of subterfuge, having never actually been a supply officer, but she figured necessity was going to have to be the mother of invention in this case.
Yana was very popular that evening. Bunny hadn’t been gone more than a half an hour when there was another knock at her door. She opened it to find Scan Shongili leaning against the doorframe, astounding her again with how much less bulky he was than everyone else.
“Come in,” she said. “You’ll catch your death. A virus or something …”
The silvery eyes glinted with amusement and his mouth quirked at the corner. She had an unauthorized urge to brush back the lock of silver-brown hair that fell boyishly forward onto his forehead.
“I hear you’ve been taking on the Intergal high command,” he said, stamping his feet outside and entering, shrugging off his light jacket before even closing the door.