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Tosev 3 had changed him. Tosev 3 had changed every male in the conquest fleet. The males and females of the colonization fleet remained unchanged. They might have been on Home yesterday. And he did not fit with them. What did that say? Nothing he wanted to hear. He took out the ginger after all, and had a big taste. With the herb coursing through him, he didn’t have to listen, whatever it was.
14
“Sorry, Lieutenant Colonel.” The first lieutenant with whom Glen Johnson was speaking couldn’t have been much more than half his age, but the fellow’s voice held brisk assurance. “No can do. Personally, I’d say yes, but I have my orders, and they leave me no discretion.”
“Pretty funny orders,” Johnson said. “All I want to do is pilot one cargo flight up to the space station and have a look around. I’m cleared for the controls-I’d better be; they’re a lot simpler than Peregrine ’s. So what’s the trouble about putting me into the rotation during a stretch when I’m not patrolling? It’s not like I charge overtime.”
“Of course not, sir.” The lieutenant smiled to show what a good, patient, understanding fellow he was. “But you must know rotations are made up some time in advance, and are not casually revised.”
“What I know is, I’m getting the runaround,” Johnson said. The immovable young lieutenant looked hurt. Johnson didn’t care. He went on, “What I don’t know is why.”
He didn’t find out, either. The lieutenant sat there, prim and proper as a nineteenth-century Midwestern schoolmarm. Johnson muttered something about his ancestry, just loud enough to let him hear. He turned red, but otherwise did not change expression. Johnson muttered again, louder this time, and stalked out of the air-conditioned office.
Even early in spring, even so close to the coast, humidity made his shirt cling to him like a hooker who’d just spotted a C-note. Something bit him on the wrist: one of the nasty little gnats the locals called no-see-ums. He slapped and cursed. He sure hadn’t seen this one.
“When the going gets tough,” he muttered, “the tough get… plastered.” He wasn’t so sure about getting plastered, but damned if he couldn’t use a drink. Getting one seemed a far better idea than going off to his sterile little cubicle in the bachelor officers’ quarters and brooding.
In the bar, he spotted Gus Wilhelm. After snagging a scotch on the rocks, he sat down next to his friend. “What are you doing here?” Wilhelm said.
“I might ask you the same question, especially since you were here first,” Johnson answered.
“Sun’s got to be over the yardarm somewhere,” Wilhelm said. “And besides, it’s air-conditioned in here.” He eyed Johnson. “Looks like you could use the cool even more than me. If that’s not steam coming out of your ears, I’ve never seen any.”
“Bastards,” Johnson muttered, and gulped down half his drink.
“Well, yeah, a lot of people are,” Wilhelm said reasonably. He let very little faze him. “Which bastards are you talking about in particular?”
“The ones who don’t want to let me go up there and have a look at our space station,” Johnson answered. He could feel the scotch; he didn’t usually drink before noon. “I’m a taxpayer, dammit. Christ, I’m even a taxpayer with a security clearance. So why won’t they let me fly a load up there?”
“Ah,” Gus Wilhelm said, and nodded wisely. “I tried that not so long ago. They wouldn’t let me go, either.”
“Why the hell not?” Johnson demanded.
Wilhelm shrugged. “They wouldn’t say. C’mon, sir-if they started telling people why, what kind of service would this be?”
Before Johnson could respond to that, another officer came into the bar: a large, good-looking, easygoing fellow who wore his brown hair as long as regulations allowed, and then maybe half an inch longer. He was one of the pilots who regularly took loads up to the space station. Johnson waved to him, half friendly, half peremptory. “Over here!” he called.
Captain Alan Stahl peered his way, then grinned and nodded. “Let me grab myself a beer, sir,” he said, his accent balanced between Midwest and South: he was from St. Louis. After corralling the Budweiser, he ambled over to the table where Johnson and Wilhelm were sitting. “What can I do for you gents?”
“Leave me out of it,” Wilhelm said. “I’m just here to drag the bodies away.”
Stahl gave him a quizzical look. “How much of a start have you got on me?”
Instead of answering that, Johnson asked a question of his own: “What are you bus drivers hauling up to the space station, anyhow, that makes it so precious ordinary working stiffs like me can’t get a peek come hell or high water?”
Stahl’s open, friendly face closed like a slamming door. “Now, sir, you know I’m not supposed to talk about that,” he said. “I don’t ask you how you run your business. Isn’t polite to ask me how I run mine, especially when you’ve got to know I can’t answer.”
“Why the devil can’t you?” Johnson snarled. He didn’t like being balked. Nobody who had the temperament to climb into the cockpit of a fighter plane took well to frustration. But Alan Stahl didn’t give him anything else; he just sipped his Bud and kept his mouth shut.
Gus Wilhelm put a hand on Johnson’s arm. “You may as well give it up. You aren’t going to get anywhere.”
“Well, what the hell are people hiding up there?” Johnson said.
“Sir, if more people know, the Lizards are likelier to know, too,” Stahl said. “And now I’m talking too much, so if you’ll excuse me-” He gulped down his beer, nodded-he was always polite-and hurried out of the bar.
“Well, you spooked him,” Wilhelm remarked.
“I already said once, I’m a taxpayer with a security clearance,” Johnson said. “What am I going to do, step into a telephone booth and call the fleetlord? Radio whatever the hell I find out down to a Lizard ground station next time I ride Peregrine? Not too damn likely, I don’t think.”
“Oh, a lot of security’s nothing but nonsense-I know that as well as the next guy,” Wilhelm answered. “But you might say some little thing to somebody, and he might say something to somebody, and on down the chain, and somewhere down there whatever you said might bounce off a Lizard’s hearing diaphragm. And you’re sure as hell a taxpayer, but maybe your security clearance isn’t high enough for whatever’s going on upstairs.”
“A bus driver like Stahl knows, and I don’t?” That wasn’t fair to the other pilot, but Johnson was in no mood to be fair.
“Give it up,” Wilhelm said again. “That’s the best advice I’ve got for you. Give it up. If you don’t, you’re going to end up in more trouble than you can shake a stick at. If Stahl reports you, you may be there already.”
“Screw him,” Johnson muttered, but he did his best to calm down; he knew it was good advice, too. He thought about buying himself another drink, then decided not to. If he got smashed now, or even high, he would end up in trouble. He could feel it, the way fellows with old wounds or broken bones could feel bad weather before it happened.
When Johnson got to his feet without another word and without waving to the bartender, Gus Wilhelm let out a not quite silent sigh of relief. Wilhelm misunderstood. Johnson hadn’t given up-far from it. But, plainly, he couldn’t do any more here and now. His friend knew no more than he did, and wasn’t curious. The bird who did know something had flown the coop.
Deciding he ought to do something useful with his time, Johnson went over to the big hangar where Peregrine was being fixed up between flights. He shot the breeze with the technicians, examined the latest pieces of modified equipment they were installing, and shot the breeze some more. Some of the modifications were undoubted improvements; others looked to be change for change’s sake.
“All right,” he said, “it’s a digital clock, not one with hands. Is it more accurate?”
“Not so you’d notice,” the fellow who’d installed it answered cheerfully. “But the numbers are supposed to be easier to read.” Johnson wasn’t convinced, but didn’t
see how the new clock would do any lasting harm, either. He held his peace.
After lunch, he did go back to his cubicle. He was rereading The War of the Worlds and reflecting, not for the first time, that Wells’ Martians would have been a hell of a lot easier to lick than the Lizards when somebody knocked on his door. He stuck a three-by-five card in the book to keep his place and got up off the bed to see who it was.
His visitor had three stars on his shoulder straps. Johnson stiffened to attention; the Kitty Hawk base commandant was only a major general. He hadn’t known any higher-ranking officer was on the base. He couldn’t imagine why a lieutenant general wanted to see him.
