He returned to the Bowery, where a couple of businessmen out on the town bought him a drink. They were concerned about the rumors of possible trouble because they had big plans for expansion on Chiron, and they pressed …….. Colman for inside information from the Military. Colman ‘ ~d he didn’t have any. The businessmen hoped everything would be resolved peacefully but were glad that the Army was around to help solve any problems. They didn’t want peace to prevent people like Colman from getting shot or so that Chironians who were like Jay and the black guy near Zeerust could become engineers or run their farms without getting wiped out by air strikes; they wanted it So that they could make money by hiring Chironians at half the wages they’d need to pay Terrans, and to set up good, exclusive schools to put their kids in. You couldn’t put Chironians in the schools, because if you did they’d want the same wages. And in any case they’d never be able to afford it. The Chironians weren’t really people, after all.
“What does a Chironian computer print when you attempt illegal access?” one of them asked Colman when they had got into their joke repertoires.
“What?”
“RAPE” Ha-ha, hah-hah
He decided to go up to Rockefeller’s to see if any of his platoon were still around. On the way his pace slowed abruptly. Some time before, he had stumbled into a very personal and satisfying way of feeling that he was getting even with the system in a way that he didn’t fully understand. Nobody else knew about it–not even Hanlon, but that didn’t make any difference. He hadn’t seen her for a while now, and he was in just the right mood.
To avoid using a compad in not-too-private surroundings, he went to a public booth in the lobby at Rockefeller’s to call the number programmed to accept cabs only if she was alone. While Colman waited for a response, his mind flashed back six months. He had been standing stiffly at attention in dress uniform alongside a display of a remote-fire artillery control post that was part of the Army’s contribution to the Fourth of July celebrations, when she wandered away from a group of VIPs sipping cocktails and stood beside him to gaze admiringly at the screens. carrying simulated battlefield displays. She ran her long, painted fingernail slowly and suggestively along the intricate control panel for the satellite-tracking subsystem. “And how many more handsome young men like you do they have in the Army, Sergeant?” she murmured at the displays before her.
“Not for me to say, ma’am,” Colman had ‘told the laser cannon standing twenty feet in front of him. “I’m not an expert on handsome men.”
“An expert on ladies in need of stimulating entertainment, perhaps?”
“That depends, ma’am. They can lead to a heap of trouble.”
“Very wise, Sergeant. But then, some of them can be very discreet. Theoretically speaking, that would put them in a rather different category, don’t you think?”
“Theoretically, I guess, yes, it would,” Colman had agreed.
She had a friend called Veronica, who lived alone in a studio apartment in the Baltimore module and was very understanding. Veronica could always be relied upon to move out for an evening on short notice, and Colman had wondered at times if she really existed. Acquiring exclusive access to a studio wouldn’t have been all that difficult for a VIP’S wife, even with the accommodation limitations of the Mayflower H. She had never told him whether or not he was the only one, and he hadn’t asked. It was that kind of a relationship.
The screen before him suddenly came to life to show her face. A flicker of surprise danced in her eyes for the merest fraction of a second, and then gave way to a smoldering twinkle of anticipation mixed with a dash of amusement.
“Well, hello, Sergeant,” she s. aid huskily. “I was beginning to wonder if I had a deserter. Now, I wonder what could be on your mind at this time of night.”
“It depends. What’s the situation, company-wise?” “Oh, very boring for a Saturday Right.” “He’s not–“