Voyage From Yesteryear

Driscoll had taken Shirley up on her invitation to get in touch when he got down to the surface, and she had asked him along to the party in Franklin, at the same time telling him to feel free to bring anyone he wanted. So Driscoll had invited Colman, Swyley, Maddock, and Stanislau, who among them had persuaded Sirocco to come too, and Sirocco had suggested bringing some of the girls from the Mayflower II. Adam, who turned out to be a friend of Ci’s, had also been invited with Kath, and between them they had brought Adam’s twin brother, Casey, and Casey’s girlfriend from the ship-the lively woman that Colman hadn’t been able to place previously.

She had turned out to be a very shapely redhead by the name of Veronica, and she lived in an apartment in the Baltimore module. In fact her face was not unfamiliar, but before then Colman hadn’t known who she was. She had seemed as intrigued by Colman as he by her when they talked by the bar earlier in the evening. “Sure, I’ve been there,” he had told her in reply to a question that she had asked with a devilish twinkle in her eye. “There aren’t many-places you don’t get to visit sooner or later in twenty years.”

“Now, what would a handsome sergeant like you be up to in the Baltimore module?’

“Why would anybody be interested?’

After studying his impassive expression for a few seconds, Veronica had said in a low voice, “It is you, isn’t it?”

“Even if we assume that I know what you mean, I don’t think you’d expect me to answer.” So now they both knew, and knew that the other knew. Each had tested the other’s discretion, and both of them respected what they had found. Nothing more needed to be said.

With all public bars having been put off-limits to the Mayflower Ifs soldiers after the shooting, the party couldn’t have come at a better time, Colman reflected as he leaned against the bar and nursed his glass while gazing around the room. Swyley and Stanislau were behind him in a corner with a mixed group of Chironians and seemed interested in the planet’s travel facilities; Sirocco was with another group in the center of the room discussing the war news with another group, and Maddock, looking slightly disheveled, was sprawled along a couch in an alcove on the far side with his-arm draped around Wendy, another girl from the Mayflower II, who seemed to be asleep. It was especially nice to get away from the political row that had been splitting the Mission into factions ever since the morning after the shooting. Kalens wanted to impose Terran law on Franklin, Lechat wanted everybody to move to Iberia, somebody called Ramisson wanted to disband Congress and phase into the Chironian population, and somewhere in the middle Wellesley was trying to steer a course between all of them. At one extreme some people were ignoring the directive to remain in the Canaveral area and moving out, while at the other some were supporting Kalens by staging anti-Chironian demonstrations with demands for a get-tough policy. Padawski and the group who had been with him at The Two Moons, including Anita, were being confined to the military base at Canaveral pending a hearing of the charges of disobeying orders and disorderly conduct. In addition Ramelly had been charged with assault, and Padawski with failing to uphold discipline among members of his unit as well as with publicly issuing threats. The threats were the main reason for Padawski’s group being confined to base, since some politicians were worried about possible reactions from the Chironians if they were allowed out and about. Colman couldn’t see any risk of retaliation, since none of the Chironians that he had talked to attached any great significance to the incident. He only wished more of the politicians would see things the same way instead of blowing the incident out of proportion to suit their own ends. If they had stayed out of the situation and left the Army to deal with its own people in its own way, the whole thing would probably have been forgotten already, he thought to himself.

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