Well, it didn’t really matter. Like he’d told Major Steuben last night, he wasn’t a politician. Aloud he said, “I see, sir.”
“None of that matters to you, of course,” Steuben continued. “I called you here to say that a review of your actions at Rhodesville the day you landed has determined that you behaved properly and in accordance with the best traditions of the Regiment.”
He giggled. “You may even get a medal out of it, Lieutenant.”
Huber’s mouth was dry; for a moment he didn’t trust himself to speak. Then he said, “Ah, sir? Does this mean that I’m being returned to my platoon?”
Steuben looked up at Huber. He smiled. “Well, Lieutenant,” he said, “that’s the reason I called you here in person instead of just informing you of the investigation outcome through channels. How would you like a transfer to A Company? You’d stay at the same rank, but you probably know already that the pay in A Company is better than the same grade levels in line units.”
“A Company?” Huber repeated. He couldn’t have heard right. “The White Mice, you mean?”
“Yes, Lieutenant,” Steuben said. His face didn’t change in a definable way, but his smile was suddenly very hard. “The White Mice. The company under my personal command.”
“I don’t . . .” Huber said, then realized that among the things he didn’t know was how to end the sentence he’d begun. He let his voice trail off.
“Recent events have demonstrated that you’re smart and that you’re willing to use your initiative,” the major said. His fingers were tented before him, but his wrists didn’t quite rest on the touchpad beneath them.
The smile became amused again. He added, “Also, you can handle a gun. You’ll have ample opportunity to exercise all these abilities in A Company, I assure you.”
“Sir . . .” said Huber’s lips. He was watching from outside himself again. “I don’t think I have enough . . .”
This time he stopped, not because he didn’t know how to finish the sentence but because he thought of Steuben’s hell-lit smile the night before. The words choked in his throat.
“Ruthlessness, you were perhaps going to say, Lieutenant?” the major said with his cat’s-tongue lilt. “Oh, I think you’ll do. I’m a good judge of that sort of thing, you know.”
He giggled again. “You’re dismissed for now,” Steuben said. “Go back to Logistics—you’ll have to break in your replacement no matter what you decide. But rest assured, you’ll be hearing from me again.”
Arne Huber’s soul watched his body walking back down the hallway. Even his mind was numb, and despite the closed door behind him he continued to hear laughter.
THE POLITICAL PROCESS
The air above Fencing Master sizzled just beyond the visual range; some of the farm’s defenders were using lasers that operated in the low-ultraviolet. Lieutenant Arne Huber sighted his tribarrel through his visor’s thirty percent mask of the battlefield terrain and the units engaged. He swung the muzzles forward to aim past Sergeant Deseau’s left elbow and gunshield.
If Huber fired at the present angle, the powerful 2-cm bolts would singe Deseau’s sleeve and his neck below the flare of his commo helmet. He wouldn’t do that unless the risk to his sergeant was worth it—though worse things had happened to Deseau during his fifteen years in Hammer’s Slammers.
“Fox Three-one,” Huber said; his helmet’s artificial intelligence cued Foghorn, another of the four combat cars in platoon F-3. “Ready to go? Fox Six over.”
A rocket gun from somewhere in the Solace defenses fired three times, its coughing ignition followed an instant later by the snap-p-p! of the multiple projectiles going supersonic. At least one of the heavy-metal slugs punched more than a hole in the air: the clang against armor would have been audible kilometers away. No way to tell who’d been hit or how badly; and no time to worry about it now anyway.
“Roger, Six, we’re ready!” cried Sergeant Nagano, Foghorn’s commander. He didn’t sound scared, but his voice was an octave higher than usual with excitement. “Three-one out!”
Huber figured Nagano had a right to be excited. Via, he had a right to be scared.