His eyes flared at the casual use of his first name, a liberty I hadn’t taken the whole time I was the commander of the mission, but then he relaxed and shook his head.
“Oh, hell, now you’re gonna be impossible to live with.” But his laugh was good natured, and he clapped me on the arm. Then he frowned again, staring back at the road into town. “Who the hell is this?” Nance asked, nodding toward a groundcar pulling up near the ship.
The rear door opened even before it completely stopped and a tall, rangy man in black emerged, a large duffle over his shoulder. Even with the sunglasses, I recognized him.
“Major Conner,” I called to him, “didn’t expect to see you here.”
Deke Conner’s stride was long and powerful, almost a lope, like he was walking in low gravity, and I wondered if he was native to a higher-G world.
“Yeah, well, this is an intelligence mission, Alvarez,” he said, face twisted in a sneer. “And unless I missed a section in your CV, neither you nor your lovely wife is an intelligence officer.”
“What about Captain Nagarro?” I asked sharply, not caring much for his tone or his attitude. “She’s been with us this whole time. I think she’s qualified to…”
“To analyze intelligence, sure,” he agreed. “But we’re not talking about analysis, we’re talking about field work.” He waved it aside. “Either way, it isn’t up for discussion. Captain Nagarro has been reassigned to a desk job in Amity—with not a single argument from her, by the way. And I’m going with you.” He jerked a thumb at the Ellen. “Does this thing have cabins, or do we all just lay out sleeping bags around a fucking campfire?”
“There are crew quarters,” I confirmed, “though they’re not much to write home about. Racks but no mattresses, so you might want to run back home and grab a pillow.”
“Everything I need,” he told me, slapping a palm against the huge duffel, “is right in here.” He slung it again and continued his long-legged stride toward the boarding ramp. “See you on the ship.”
“Don’t want to say goodbye to Colonel McIntire?” I asked, half-mocking because he was being an asshole, half serious because I was sure I’d detected something between them before and it would be nice to think that after all these years of marriage, my emotional sensors had at least been calibrated that much.
Deke didn’t even stop walking, just threw a smartass grin over his shoulder.
“We’ve been together long enough,” he told me, “that I don’t have to.”
“Well, he’s a real winning personality,” Nance muttered once the Intelligence officer was on board the ship and out of earshot. “Gonna be a fun trip. By the way, where are your buds, Jay and Bob? And that weirdo alien scientist?”
“Dr. Spinner,” I supplied.
“Yeah, him. They not interested in coming along?”
I sighed, remembering the hurt look on the faces of the two of them when I’d broken the news.
“Afraid not. Now that this is officially a military expedition, they aren’t authorized to go on this mission. Munroe said he’d try to find something for Jay and Bob… and Spinner is already with the engineers, seeing if there’s anything from the technology on his world that we’re lacking here. He’s fitting right in, but the other two seem kind of lost.”
“The grass is always greener,” Nance said with a shrug. “I think they’re all gonna regret not staying home.” He laughed sharply. “Particularly if they can’t find girls who’re into the exotic.”
Shaking that image out of my head, I checked the time on my ‘link.
“We’ve only got a few hours left,” I said. “I’m going to check on Vicky, then pick up a couple things from town before we ship out. Anything I can get you?”
Nance frowned, forehead wrinkling in thought.
“You know, it’s been so damned long since I had anything we couldn’t fabricate on the ship, I honestly can’t think of anything I’d want.”
“Well, I can,” I assured him. “There’s not that many of us on board, and we won’t be gone that long. The engineering crews installed a freezer and this place has shitloads of livestock. I’m bringing along some steaks.”
The Unity might be coming to end us all, but by God, until they did, I was going to enjoy myself.
[ 11 ]
“Man, I could get used to this,” Deke Conner sighed, watching Hausos grow larger on the main screen. “When I think of all the months I’ve wasted in Transition Space, stuck in a cramped, little cutter…”
I didn’t reply, too mesmerized by the sight of the world that had been my home for too short a time. Hausos gleamed blue and green and precious little white, a warmer world than Demeter, with smaller ice caps and shallower oceans and rolling hills lush with grass like the steppes of Asia Minor.
“She’s still beautiful,” Vicky whispered from beside me.
We weren’t bothering to strap in, not when there were no threats in sight, and she leaned against my shoulder, what might have been regret in her voice.
“You wish we hadn’t left?” I asked her softly. She shook her head.
“No. Every bad thing that happened would still have happened, and a lot of the good things that happened because we were out there wouldn’t have.” She patted my arm and smiled. “And we wouldn’t have ever met Dunstan. I’m just glad he and Hazel and their baby are safe and away from all this.”
“That kid’ll be how old now?” I asked, brow furling as I tried to do the math. “Eight?”
“God knows,” she admitted. “I hope they have three or four of the little rug rats by now.”
“What’s it look like down there, Woj?” I asked.
“No spacecraft in orbit,” he said. “But there’re at least two small fusion reactors down there.”
“There was only one when we were there,” Vicky observed. “At the center of the settlement. I wonder when the second one was installed?”
I looked over Woj’s shoulder at the placement of the second reactor.
“That one’s Gamma Junction,” I said, pointing at the easternmost of the two. “But the other power plant… there was nothing within a thousand klicks of that area the last time we were here.”
“According to Kara,” Deke said, “her source is in that Gamma Junction place.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “You used to live here. What do you think the reaction of those people would be to this ship landing right outside their city?”