“That’s not my decision, Lieutenant,” Dillard said impatiently, “nor yours either. Get some food and rest, report at ten hundred hours.”
He made a brusque gesture with his hand. So far as Huber had been able to tell during his week’s contact with Captain Dillard, the man genuinely didn’t care whether or not what he was doing had any purpose. Maybe to Dillard, nothing had purpose . . . which wasn’t a bad attitude for a professional soldier. Anyway, it didn’t keep Dillard from being efficient at his present job.
Huber walked out of the lot and stumped up the stairs to the back of the HQ building. His quarters were in a barracks within the Central Repair compound in the warehouse district. It was walled and guarded by a platoon of combat cars, making security less of a problem than it would’ve been elsewhere in the city. There’d be an aircar driven by a contract employee, a UC citizen, in front of the Bureau HQ, or if there wasn’t the receptionist in the entranceway would call one.
After he took a leak . . .
“Lieutenant Huber?” called the receptionist as he pushed open the door to the rest room. Huber ignored him. To his surprise, the door opened again as he settled himself before the urinal. The receptionist, a middle-aged warrant officer with signals flashes on his epaulets, had followed him in.
“Sir?” the fellow said. “There’s a woman out front to see you. She’s been waiting, but I told her nobody disturbed the personnel on duty.”
“I’ve been disturbed ever since I was assigned here,” Huber muttered, “but that’s nothing new. Who is she and what’s she want?”
His tension and frustration drained away as he emptied his bladder. Was it that simple? All the trouble in life was just a matter of physical discomfort?
No, there were still the Colonel Sipajis of this world. They might have no more value than a bladderful of urine, but they weren’t as easy to void.
“Her name’s Daphne Priamedes, sir,” the receptionist said. “I don’t know what she’s got in mind, but she’s a looker, that I know.”
She must be, to get a plump, balding veteran this excited. Well, the receptionist hadn’t spent the past fourteen hours talking to the commanders of mercenary units who had an amazing number of variations on the theme of, “No, I think I should do something else instead.”
“Never heard of her,” Huber said. Right now the only thing that was going through his mind was that if he let her, she’d slow him down on his way back to the barracks and a bed. He didn’t plan to let her. He turned, closing his fly. “There a car out front to take me home?”
“She’s got a car, sir,” the receptionist said. “A big one, brand new.”
Huber started to swear and realized he didn’t have the energy for it. The receptionist got out of the way as Huber lurched toward the doorway and down the hall.
Huber hadn’t been able to find a comfortable position to sleep in, and being tired made his left leg drag worse than it would’ve anyway. Slivers of metal from both the frangible shot and the bits it’d gouged from Floosie’s bow armor had spattered him from knee to pelvis, and even the most expert nanosurgery did additional damage in removing the tiny missiles.
A striking black-haired woman stood between Huber and the outside door. She was within a centimeter of his height; her gaze was as direct as it could be without being hostile.
“Lieutenant Huber?” she said in a pleasant contralto. “I heard you tell Chief Warrant Leader Saskovich that you needed a ride. I have a car, and if you’ll permit me I’ll also buy you a better meal than you’re likely to get on your own.”
“Ma’am . . .” said Huber. He wondered if she was going to jump out of his way like the receptionist—Saskovich, apparently, and this woman had not only noticed the fellow’s name but she’d gotten his rank right—or whether Huber would shoulder her aside on his way to the door. “The only bloody thing I know is that my job doesn’t include talking to civilians. Find somebody in the public affairs section or talk to your own government; I don’t have the time or the interest.”