The Stars Down Under (8 page)

Lying in the dark, his hand resting against her thigh, he tried to imagine success in forbidding Jodenny to help Gayle.
Tell me what you want me to do,
she'd said, as if it mattered. Myell's hand clenched. Of course his opinion mattered. But in the end, she had to do as her conscience dictated, or she wouldn't be the officer he'd married.

Woman
he'd married, he reminded himself. Rank had no place in their bedroom.

He slept, his dreams a jumble of hissing pipes and coiling snakes and the crocodile, neck-deep in the watering hole. Jodenny was still sleeping when he left for work. He had to wear a light sweater over his khaki short-sleeved shirt to hide the marks on his wrists. At school, fifteen minutes before classes began, he went looking for Senior Chief Talic's office and found it on the third deck.

The office was small but well decorated with plaques and vids. Talic was on his way out when Myell blocked the doorway.

“Out of my way,” Talic ordered.

“Fuck initiation,” Myell said. “You want to threaten me, you do it by yourself, to my face, wherever you want. No more chicken-shit attacks in the dark.”

“Are you crazy?” Talic asked, and tried to push past him.

Myell punched him hard across the jaw. That hadn't been part of the plan, but he took immense satisfaction watching Talic smash backward against a bookcase. A moment later Talic rebounded, his fists catching Myell in the ribs, and they crashed to the floor, cursing and struggling.

The fight didn't last long. The door swung open and Senior Chief Gooder and Sergeant Etedgy broke them up. Etedgy wrapped his arms around Myell and dragged him to a corner to calm down. Gooder pinned Talic up against the wall. Other chiefs were clustered in the doorway, and Gooder unceremoniously kicked the door shut for some privacy.

“What the hell is wrong with the two of you?” Gooder asked, red faced and breathing hard. “You want to get fired? You want Captain Kuvik to bust you down to able technicians?”

“He fucking started it.” Talic spat out a bright wad of blood. “Came in here like a crazy person.”

Myell had one arm pressed against his already bruised stomach. He too had blood in his mouth. “I'm finishing a conversation he started last night.”

“Either of you need a doctor?” Etedgy asked, handing Myell some napkins from Talic's desk.

“They're fine,” Gooder snapped. “Sergeant, you stand outside and shoo the crowds away. Get someone to cover Senior Chief's class. I'll handle these two idiots.”

Etedgy left with a backward, worried glance. Gooder planted himself in the middle of the room and said, “One of you start.”

“I told you.” Talic was sullen. “He barged in here yelling gibberish.”

Myell wiped blood from his lip. “He knows exactly what I'm talking about.”

Gooder's gaze shifted to Myell's right arm. The sleeve of his sweater had ridden up, and the bruises around his wrist were livid in the overhead light. Myell pulled the sleeve down impatiently.

“I want to press charges,” Talic said. “Assault. See how far a Silver Star gets him then.”

“You want to press charges, too?” Gooder asked Myell.

Talic was indignant. “Against who?”

“No,” Myell said. “I'm handling it.”

“I can see that,” Gooder said, dryly. “Come on, Phil. Let's take a walk. Myell, you stay here.”

“He gets to stay in
my
office?” Talic asked, indignant, as Gooder steered him out the door. “What the hell—”

Left alone, Myell probed the inside of his mouth with his tongue, relieved not to find any loose teeth. He sat in the chair, suddenly cold, and was gazing blankly at pictures of Talic and his three towheaded children when a nurse from the clinic came knocking.

“Senior Chief Gooder asked me to check on you,” she said. She was a brusque woman in her fifties or so, dark skinned, with braided hair and civilian clothes. “I'm Sally Clark, in charge of all cuts and bruises and assorted maladies that befall sailors young and old.”

“I don't need medical attention,” he told her.

“That might be, but I don't take orders from you.” Sally put her medical bag down. “He said you fell down. Naturally clumsy, are you?”

Myell bit back a retort.

“You can make this easy or you can make this hard, but I've a job to do, Chief. You're not the first to fall down some stairs, walk into a hatch, or suffer some other silly accident. Look into this scanner, please.”

He glared at her.

Sally didn't back away. “Sooner you do it, sooner I leave. Otherwise you and I will be here all morning.”

Reluctantly he gazed into the handheld device. Sally made a tsking noise in the back of her throat. She took his pulse and blood pressure. Without asking permission, she rolled up his sleeves to see the rope marks.

“You do these to yourself?” she asked.

Myell rolled his sleeves back down. “None of your business.”

“Hurts when you breathe or piss?”

“I think we're done now,” Myell said.

She handed him a small tube. “That's antibiotic cream, with a bit of analgesic and skin sealant mixed in. Rub it on twice a day for any lacerations or cuts. For headaches, take whatever you normally do. Anything gets worse, come by and see us on the first deck.”

She left without further instructions. Myell was left to sit alone until Senior Chief Gooder returned, this time carrying two cups of coffee.

“Captain's rightly pissed,” Gooder said, handing one cup over.

The coffee smelled heavenly. Myell said, “He didn't want me here anyway. Where am I being transferred to?”

“Oh, you don't escape that easily. You're his for three years, he says. He'd be willing to string you up on the yardarm in the courtyard, except for Kenny Deeds.”

“I don't understand.”

“Custodian. Came to work this morning, found rope tied to some pipes in the basement. Right near your office, in fact. And the scanners say you didn't leave last night until well after working hours. Looks like someone's been pulling shenanigans.”

Myell gulped the coffee. It burned his tongue, but he was glad for the distraction. “I have nothing to say about it.”

“Nothing except you came in here fists flying, blaming Phil Talic for something. I'll admit, the man's stubborn. Not very personable. A stick-in-the-mud. But if you're looking to blame someone for a prank or two, I don't think he's your man.”

“I wouldn't call it a prank.”

“Would you call it an assault?”

Myell remained silent.

“He's denying everything, of course. Has a good excuse, too. Left here at fifteen hundred hours yesterday, went to the dental clinic. All right and proper.”

Myell hadn't accused Talic of being there. He hadn't recognized the main attacker's voice, and wasn't sure if two or three other men had been with him. But Talic could have easily orchestrated it from afar.

Gooder sighed. “For the good of the command, he's not going to be pressing any charges. The two of you don't have to love each other, but any more of what you did this morning, you'll be sitting in the brig. You have a problem, you bring it to me. No one in this command goes it alone. Understand?”

“Yes.” Now that the adrenaline of the fight had faded, he was beginning to feel sheepish about losing his temper. He really did know better than that, though he obviously hadn't proven it to anyone here.

“Come on, then,” Gooder said. “I told the captain that to keep a proper eye on you, I need you up out of the dungeon.”

Myell's new office was just down the passageway from Talic's. From his chair he had a view of the courtyard, where young sailors were marching in formation to and from classes. Within the hour a clerk from Etedgy's office was signing over a hand gib for him and telling him how to set up an agent. Another clerk hauled up the boxes of regulations that Myell still needed to catalog. He may have been promoted out of the basement, but he had no doubts he was still on Captain Kuvik's shitlist.

Or maybe not. Right before lunchtime, Sergeant Etedgy came by with another assignment.

“Captain said to put you in with the 510s,” Etedgy said. “It's a study hall for those needing extra help. Usually we just set them up with Core tutorials and let them go at their own pace.”

Babysitting. Myell could do that. But he couldn't quite face the ordeal of lunch in the mess. He made do with food from the vending machines. His esophagus was still smarting from a helping of spicy chili when he went in search of Classroom 510. It had nice views of Water Street, a dozen study cubicles, and a teacher's desk filled with old newspapers and fishing magazines.

He thought the room was empty, but some whispering led him to a pair of corner cubicles. Putty Romero was hunched over the gib of a young, fair-haired AT.

“But once you run your query, you don't need the additional parameters—” he was saying.

AT Tingley bit at her thumbnail. She was young, maybe eighteen, with a wide-eyed innocence that didn't seem to take umbrage at Romero's arm inching around her shoulder.

“AT Romero,” Myell said, startling them both.

“Chief!” Romero said. His arm went back to where it belonged. “Didn't hear you.”

“Afternoon, Chief,” Tingley said, in a very soft voice.

“Speak up, Tingley,” Myell told her. “I don't bite.”

“My vocal cords just aren't very big,” Tingley said, ducking her head.

Romero asked, “Is it true, Chief? You went and punched Senior Chief Talic?”

Myell didn't touch the bruise that he could feel by his eye. “Never you mind. What are you studying back here?”

“Data flow,” she said.

“Louder, Tingley. They'll never hear you in the fleet.”

“Data flow, Chief!” Tingley said, belting the words out. But then her face screwed up. “It's a makeup exam. If I don't pass it, I can't graduate.”

“I told you,” Romero said, “you're going to pass. We're both going to the
Kamchatka.
Who cares if Senior Chief Talic calls it a rust bucket?”

The bravado in Romero's voice was a far cry from the uncertainty he'd shown Myell the other day, but love could do that to a person. As for the
Kamchatka,
it was true that it wasn't very exciting duty, but someone had to do it.

“Tell you what,” Myell said. “Let's concentrate on data flow, and worry about graduation later. If you want to go to the stars, AT Tingley, don't let anyone tell you you can't. Is that clear?”

She grinned. “Yes, Chief.”

Romero nudged her. “Told you he's not like the other chiefs.”

“So they say,” Myell said.

*   *   *

Jodenny slept in later than she expected. Myell had left her a note on the kitchen counter. “Love you,” he'd written. She went for a nice five-kilometer run through housing with the paper folded inside her bra. At the top of Admiral's Hill, she jogged in place with the whole of Kimberley spread out before her. Her city, her home planet. She knew nothing of the missing scientists, where they'd come from, not even their names, but she could have grown up with one of them in the North Prosper orphanage, or passed them in the street, or known their siblings or met their children.

Love you,
Myell had said. Nothing else.

And what if that crocodile he'd seen in their kitchen was a sign she couldn't ignore? That she should do what she could, do her duty, do her best.

Back at home, she called Anna Gayle on a secure channel.

“I'll help you at Bainbridge,” she said. “Just to call the token. Nothing more.”

“Excellent!” Gayle said. “Let's get you in for a medical screen and briefing. Civilian clothes, please. The less attention, the better. Will your husband be joining us?”

“No.”

She spent several hours in Gayle's lab, donating tissue and blood samples, signing additional security clearances. Admiral Mizoguchi's office was contacted and asked to excuse her from work the following day. Permission was granted. Jodenny had no idea what kind of budget Gayle had to work with, but Team Space didn't seem to be skimping on workspace, manpower, or other resources.

Toledo and Farber were in charge of securing the Bainbridge Spheres from visitors. The monuments sat on a national park, not Team Space property.

“Just can't block them off without warning,” Toledo said, rolling his large shoulders under his too-tight shirt. He dwarfed the chair he was sitting in. “Tourists get mad. And then they complain, and the gadfly press gets wind of it, and we don't need that kind of publicity.”

“How will you do it, then?” Jodenny asked.

Farber didn't look up from her gib. “We're pretending to be filming a vid for a new virtual-reality game. Hush-hush, trade secrets, closed set.”

“Do you know any of the missing team?” Jodenny asked.

“Good men and women.” Toledo was snacking from a bowl of jellybeans on the conference table, assiduously picking out the purple ones with his large fingers. “Commander Gold, especially. He's in charge.”

“I thought Dr. Monnox was in charge? Dr. Gayle's husband?”

Farber glanced up from her gib. Toledo picked up a red jellybean and juggled it from one hand to the other. He said, “Commander Gold was the mission commander. Dr. Monnox was the lead scientist.”

Jodenny was done at Gayle's office in time to swing by Supply School. She hoped to catch Myell by surprise. Maybe they'd go to dinner again, or catch one of the live theater shows over in the Piccadilly District. She waited outside the main gate as a traditional ship's bell rang at sixteen hundred hours. Students and faculty streamed past. She saw Myell before he saw her, and admired how handsome he looked in his summer uniform. He was walking with two young able techs, teenagers really.