Authors: Tanya Huff
Then the press moved in to take one final image of their leaders standing beside aliens from the stars.
* * *
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Ressk grunted, kicking off his boots and stretching his toes.
“Speak for yourself.” Mysho pulled off her tunic and threw it over a stool. “I feel like I’ve been cooked.”
“Ready for seasoning and serving,” one of the other di’Taykan groaned.
Stripped down to his masker hanging from a thong around his neck, Haysole fell back onto a bunk. “Look at the bright side, these mattresses are wide enough for two.”
“Species with tails need more room,” Corporal Hollice said, coming in from the hall. “You should see the design of the crapper. It’s not just the tail either,” he went on, moving out of the way so the curious could go take a look, “they’re up on their toes so their legs bend high, like the Dornagain’s.”
“You an’ Kleers are gonna need a fukking stool,” Juan snickered to Ressk when he returned. “Good thing there’s so many of them around.”
“Tails,” Hollice said again, one hand absently rubbing Mysho’s shoulder as he spoke. “You can’t use a chair with a back when you’ve got a tail.”
“So, corporal got-all-the-answers, how do you explain that the showers are bang on identical to the fukking showers back up on the vacuum pack?”
“They’ve never been used; I’d say someone sent down the specs and the Silsviss built them special for us.”
“Must’ve smelled you coming, Juan.” Grinning, Mysho stepped away from the heavy gunner’s swing and backed right into Binti’s arms.
The other woman inhaled deeply and her steadying hand moved slowly around the di’Taykan’s waist. “I think you need to turn up your masker,” she murmured, face buried in the moving strands of pale hair.
“Unfortunately, I think I need to take a cold shower.” Sighing, she untangled herself. “It’s the heat. I’ve got to bring my body temperature down, or I’ll keep over-emitting.”
Binti snorted and slapped Haysole on a bare thigh. “So how come the pheromone kid here isn’t any more enticing than usual?” she asked over his protest.
“I don’t know—maybe I’m from farther north, maybe the recruiting sergeant checked his psych profile and gave him an industrial strength masker, or maybe...” Her tone grew distinctly dry, “...because not all members of the same species react to heat the same way.”
“Or maybe,” Juan continued before anyone else could respond, “your climate controls are fukked.” He held out his hand. “L’me look at your tunic while you shower.”
“We’re on duty.”
“So get permission from the sergeant—just do it in your shirtsleeves so I can look at your tunic. It’s not doin’ you any fukking good and anyway, the regs say dress c’s are uniform of the day unless on parade or on guard. What?” he added when everyone in earshot turned to stare. “You never read in the crapper?”
* * *
“Just great, if her climate controls go...”
“She’ll be miserable, but she’ll survive.” Hands on her hips, Trey turned a slow circle in the middle of the small room assigned to the NCOs. “I can’t get over how quiet everything sounds in here.”
“Old building, thick walls,” Torin told her shortly. “Power grids are all surface mounted, so this place is probably at least a hundred years old. And I wasn’t thinking so much of Mysho but of the effect on the rest of the platoon.”
“So
they’ll
be miserable on duty and in the sack off duty, but they’ll survive, too. Haysole’ll probably consider it license to turn his masker off at every opportunity, but other than that I don’t see much of a problem.” Fuschia eyes narrowed. “You don’t usually worry this much about the di’Taykan. This have something to do with the lieutenant?”
“Like what?” Torin asked, wondering if that last night of liberty was finally coming home to roost.
“Like a little sucking up to the species in charge.”
Hoping the relief didn’t show, Torin raised both brows. “In charge?” she repeated with heavy emphasis.
Trey grinned. “Good point. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about an overheated masker. Considering what we usually face eight hours into a planetfall, it’s minor.”
Torin grunted an agreement and dropped onto a stool, grabbing the edge of the desk just barely in time to stop herself from tipping over backward. Chairs with no backs, desks with no brains, and a climate that clung—all inconveniences that could be ignored under fire but under the current circumstances... “So is it a sign of pure intentions that this ‘embassy’ is pretty much completely indefensible or have we deliberately been given the weaker position?”
“Or are you completely paranoid?”
“Just doing my job.”
“Hey, Torin.” One hand on the heavily carved and overly ornate wooden door, Mike Glicksohn leaned into the room. “Sled’s finally here from the VTA.”
“About time. Hold down the fort,” she tossed over her shoulder at Trey as she headed out into the hall. “I’m going for my slate. And you,” she threw at Glicksohn as she passed, “get a work detail together and get everything unloaded before the Silsviss offer to help.”
The two sergeants exchanged a speaking glance as Torin’s footsteps faded out toward the courtyard.
“Is she completely paranoid?” Glicksohn asked after a moment.
Trey shrugged. “Apparently, it’s her job.”
* * *
“Hey, did any of you guys notice that some of the Silsviss soldiers inflated those throat pouch things when that big guy on the step roared?”
“Not me.” Ressk wrapped his feet around the bar at the end of his bunk, toe joints cracking. “I was too busy trying not to overload the moisture sensors in my uniform.”
Frowning, Juan looked up from the sensor array exposed in the armpit seam of Mysho’s tunic. “What the fuk does that mean?”
“It means he was trying not to piss himself,” Binti explained from her bunk. “Me, I was just glad my brain came back online before my finger squeezed the trigger.” She reached up and stroked the stock of her KC. “And civilians wonder why we’re not hardwired into our weapons. Mama does like having her baby this close, though.”
Each bunk had a weapons rack built in. Or what looked like a weapons rack. The platoon had decided, individually and collectively, that they didn’t much care what the Silsviss used it for.
A sudden cheer from the dice game in the back corner drew everyone’s attention.
Corporal Hollice ducked his head so that he could look through the line of bunks at the players. “Hey, Drake, you win back that fifty you owe me yet?”
“As if!”
“Then keep it down before one of the sergeants shows up.”
A Human, his skin only a little lighter than Binti’s, rose up out of his crouch and flicked a good-natured finger in the corporal’s direction. “Why don’t I owe you this, too?” Then he froze. “Or not.”
The Marines closer to the door turned to see what had caught his attention.
Sergeant Glicksohn smiled. “You’re not gambling back there, are you, Drake?”
“Uh, no, Sarge.”
“Glad to hear it. Outside, now. The sled’s here from the VTA, and it needs unloading.” His smile broadened. “Bring your friends. And if you...” A finger jabbed at Haysole. “...aren’t back in uniform in three seconds and heading up to the sled, I’m coming over there to kick your bare butt. You’re standing down, you’re not off duty.”
“But, Sarge, it’s hot.”
“So.”
“The Silsviss aren’t wearing clothes.”
“Grow a tail and we’ll talk.” As the dice players filed past him, he frowned thoughtfully. “In the interests of expediency, you three...” The frown lit on Hollice, Juan, and Ressk. “...can join the detail, too.”
“Aw, Sarge, I’m fixing Mysho’s fukking tunic.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Cooling system’s fukked. She’s getting too warm for her masker to handle.”
“That’s just what we need. All right, Mashona, up top in his place.”
Binti dropped off her bunk, muttering under her breath just low enough for the sergeant to ignore.
“What’re we unloading, Sarge?” Ressk asked, shoving his boots back on.
“Personal effects and rations,” Glicksohn told him. “Not that it matters, you’d be unloading it regardless.”
“So you find out what the Silsviss drink for fun yet, Sarge?” Ressk asked as they started up the stairs to the courtyard, side by side.
“Beer. Local brewery supplies the army with its own brands. There’s a light and a dark and a green.”
“Green?”
Glicksohn grinned. “Maybe they’re Irish.”
“Irish?”
“Skip it. Alcohol content’s low by our standards and since there’s nothing in any of it that’ll hurt us, once we get used to the taste, we’ll be able to drink the Silsviss under the table. Officers and ranking civilians’ll be drinking a distilled, fruit liqueur that packs more of a punch but smells like socks after a month in combat boots and will build up toxins in both Human and di’Taykan. You Krai, as usual, can handle it.”
Following close behind, Hollice and Binti exchanged an identical, questioning glance.
“We’ve only been here a few hours, and we spent most of that time playing toy soldiers. How did the sergeant find that stuff out so fast?”
Hollice shrugged. “It’s a gift. Let’s just hope he never uses it for evil.”
“Half the time, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Binti muttered, shaking her head.
* * *
Although the door was open, the lieutenant wasn’t alone. Moving quietly across the wide hall—an action made more difficult by the steel-reinforced heels of her dress boots—Torin paused in the open door. Rank had gotten Lieutenant Jarret a pair of adjoining rooms on the upper floor. Out of the half dozen available, he chose two at the top of the central stairs and Torin had to admit she liked the symbolism. Enemies of the Confederation would have to go through him to get to the civilians.
She liked the symbolism of the doctor and the corpsmen setting up shop directly across the hall a little less.
The room the lieutenant had decided to use as his headquarters was huge, painted a deep, under-the-canopy green, and mostly empty. It held what passed for a desk on Silsvah, a long, low table along one wall, a number of stools of varying heights, the lieutenant, and a Silsviss male. At least Torin assumed it was a male; it was difficult to tell the genders apart without either a size comparison or an inflated throat pouch.
He was standing with his back to her, facing the lieutenant across the desk. A pair of scars ran parallel across the dark gray of his right hip and another marked his right shoulder.
Left-handed,
Torin thought.
Weaker on the right.
He wore three narrow metal rings spaced evenly around the lower end of his tail and a military-style harness with about half the hardware that had been attached to the soldiers who’d met them at the landing field.
“Of courssse there’sss no intention of making thisss your permanent embasssy should we decide to join your Confederation.” His voice, while still annoyingly sibilant, was deep and, allowing for the variables of translation, he spoke with a confidence Torin rather liked.
She cleared her throat.
The Silsviss reacted a fraction of second before the lieutenant but waited for his host to look up before he turned.
Retired officer,
she decided.
One of the good ones.
Catching the lieutenant’s eye she said, “Excuse me, sir, but you wanted to go over the duty roster.”
Lieutenant Jarret had clearly forgotten he’d ever given her such an order, but he recovered quickly and beckoned her into the room. “Yes, of course. Staff, I’d like you to meet Cri Sawyes, our Silsviss liaison. Cri Sawyes, Staff Sergeant Kerr.”
“Ah, yes, your Rissstak.” The flat black gaze weighed and measured. Whistling softly—it was a quieter version of the sound the crowd had been making, so Torin assumed he approved—Cri Sawyes turned back to the lieutenant. “Here we have a sssaying that a good Rissstak isss the equal of location
and
sssuperior numbersss.”
“We have a similar saying.”
“Sssoldiersss are sssoldiersss whatever their ssspeciesss.” Tapping his tail lightly against the floor, Cri Sawyes moved toward the door. “I will leave you two to your dutiess. When you need me...” He indicated the squat, pale green box on the desk. “...you have only to call. A pleasure to meet you, Ssstaff Sssergeant.”
“Sir.” Torin waited until the sound of his claws faded, then leaned over the desk. “And this is?”
“A communications device.” Lieutenant Jarret looked speculatively down at the pattern of slots. “It’s set up for claws, but I expect I can make do with a stylus.” He held out his hand for her slate. His fingers were warm where they brushed against hers—a quick glance at his cuff showed his climate controls still at the lowest setting. He couldn’t be comfortable, but it didn’t show. “You have fireteams with di’Taykan standing watch at night when it’s cooler?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He downloaded the schedule into his own slate and handed hers back. “Everything looks in order. Let me know if you make any changes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The desks are somewhat less than we’re used to, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir.”
He drummed his fingertips against the wood and sighed. “In fact, I’d have to say that, officially, they suck.”
Torin smiled, more at his indignation than anything, but he didn’t need to know that. “Yes, sir, they most certainly do suck.”
“The doctor says we’re all on rations tonight until he finishes testing the local food, so I’ve had a reprieve.”
“A reprieve?”
“The local versions of state dinners.” Jarret dropped down onto a stool. “I’d rather be shot at.”
“That’s because you’ve never been shot at, sir.”
His hair lifted. “And how many state dinners have you attended, Staff.”
“None, sir.”
“Then I’d say neither of us have a basis for comparison.” Smiling up at her, he leaned back and caught himself just before he fell off the stool.
T
he week in Shurlantec went remarkably quickly. To Torin’s surprise, the entire platoon kept their off duty behavior within acceptable parameters—no one got arrested, eaten, or shot. She didn’t want to know how Haysole’s shoulders got gouged and since Sergeant Glicksohn assured her that both the di’Taykan and diplomatic relations were essentially unaffected, she didn’t have to ask.