Third World (16 page)

In the meantime, they lazed about the
hotel, officially off-duty but under his eye and politely asked to
stick around the building and its outbuildings, of which there were
several. The only place off-limits was the pony shed, which Newt
shared with aforesaid pony, a small black female named Lady. In
that sense, Newton was the only one with any privacy, but command
had its perquisites. His sleep of seven hours had been a big
help.

If the bed of rose petals could be the
most uncomfortable one of all, hay covered with heavy burlap tarps
was perfection as far as he was concerned.

It wasn’t lonely at the top at all.
He’d taken quite a shine to the horse, and thought he would miss
her when they left. It was just one of many slightly surreal
memories to take home from this trip.

Left on his own, Newton studied the
map, and decided to leave a few places out of the
schedule.

He had a few soldiers and the town was
just so small. Judging by the number of folks coming and going,
they were the talk of the town. So far, being accessible meant
people would come up and tell him all sorts of things. When they
left, he had no doubts everyone in the surrounding area would show
up to see them off. They could have an impromptu parade. He’d tell
Burke all about it. The Commander would be thrilled.

Everyone was expressly
forbidden to mention the word
deserters.

Other than that, they didn’t
have a hope in hell of catching any, and in most respects
Lieutenant Newton Shapiro was all right with it
.

The night before there was quiet talk
in all the rooms, and people coming and going from the outhouse in
the yard behind. But essentially, they had been pretty good, packed
in like sardines as they were.

If only they could get out of there
without any trouble.

The only other thing bothering Newton
was the lack of communication with the ship.

It was strange how he’d been relying on
the short evening report to the duty officer, on some sort of
emotional basis, like an umbilical cord home to his mother, or
something to that effect.

Chapter
Thirteen

Hank Puttered
About

Hank puttered about for half a day in
the kitchen it seemed, as he trimmed his hair and his eyebrows,
clipped his finger and toenails, and shaved, endlessly checking for
missed whiskers and having another go.

His guts felt heavy inside and yet this
should have been a wonderful day. Hank was petrified, of Polly
seeing him for what he really was, a lecherous old gomer who had
seen better days, not the least in terms of hairline.

It felt damned odd to heat up pot after
pot of water, filling up a galvanized tub that wasn’t half big
enough for a man, and soaping up and lathering up and then
stumbling around the house looking for a clean towel that didn’t
smell a bit musty, what with the unusually damp season and all. It
was a lot more trouble than just jumping into the pond buck-naked
and holding a bar of soap and a wash-cloth, which he did from time
to time.

He knew on some factual level, an
objective level, that everything he and every other person on the
planet owned must smell like smoke—from the hearth, or the lamps,
or getting rid of the trash. After a while, you didn’t even realize
it.

Imagine that. A planet where the people
went out back and burned the trash, but of course there just
weren’t enough people to go around and there was plenty of
atmosphere for everyone. The atmosphere back on Earth was the
reason for all the state-sponsored colonization programs in the
first place.

Every kid knew that and so he could see
the irony.

The most terrible thoughts were the
most analytical. Why would a girl like Polly ever want to like or
love Hank Beveridge? Was he stark, raving mad to even consider
it?

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense,
and so it must be too good to be true. And yet Polly was the only
one that seriously interested Hank.

He didn’t
know,
exactly, for how
could one ever know? For surely some things must be tried in order
to be properly understood. For all he knew, for Polly it might be
all superficial—some fellow taking her out of the house for a
pleasant evening of music, dance, maybe a drink or two.

For her that’s all it might
be.

Looked at through her eyes,
the picture might be very different from what he was seeing,
no,
imagining.
For
surely it was all in his head. With few distractions, especially in
the evenings, there was always a little too much time to
think.

Hank had no idea of how to act around a
whole bunch of other people, not after being kind of isolated for
some years now, and all he could do was to play it straight and
hope for some kind of an opening. The sheer quiet around there was
something he had treasured for his very own for so long. Having a
woman around might not work out, but he thought it would. He could
always build a couple of more rooms, and hopefully he would have to
anyways. The thoughts of having a child were bewildering, but he
supposed that was why he was doing this. It was just some kind of a
crazy dream. He couldn’t help but notice the fact that pretty much
everyone in the world did it except for him. It was not like he
didn’t dream sometimes—and those dreams could get pretty detailed
when the nights were long and the darkness closed in and you were
all alone with your thoughts.

He already wanted to put a glazed side
room on the barn. Hank had been thinking about that for a while.
He’d have a stove out there and some kindling, a good chair, and he
could at least have some other place to go when the walls closed in
and you’d already read every book in the place twenty-five
times.

There were so many things he could say,
so many things he wanted to say. So many things he would sort of
have to explain about himself. Hank eventually went on to amuse
himself with thoughts of who else might be there. Realistically, if
Polly wasn’t for him then surely someone around these here parts
might be interested. All they really had to do was to be healthy
and look all right. She would have her own mount and she could go
to town and be with her folks and friends and shop and everything.
They’d get used to each other’s ways, given a little
time.

He spent the last three hours waiting
on the porch, wearing the bare minimum, trousers and shirt only
until it was time to go. With the awful feel of gobs of sweat
occasionally drooling down his ribcage, although it wasn’t that
warm out, Hank reckoned that he actually had time for a second
bath. He might need one, if this kept up. They were getting a few
hours of brightness this afternoon, enough so that he had to put
his hat on to cover his eyes from the glare. Hopefully it was some
kind of an omen. He’d already forced himself to eat something. The
hair-gel had a kind of smell to it.

It was all he could do not to think.
The wind gusted and died, coming out of the southwest as it did in
early summer.

Hank idly watched the big, long-tailed
flyers as they soared and drifted on the wind, sensitive nostrils
seeking food, always food. They were pretty much scavengers, as far
as he’d observed, but maybe they hunted as well if they got
desperate. There were a lot fewer of them in the cold weather, and
so he figured they migrated to a certain extent.

Up at the barn, his animals nickered
and snorted, and he could hear one of them taking a drink from the
trough. The critters were notoriously silent, although people said
when they were killed by a predator they carried on something
awful.

Polly expected him about seven-thirty,
and it would take no more than an hour and twenty minutes to ride
into town at a walk, unless the horse broke a leg or something.
He’d be dogging it all the way.

In front of Hank’s porch and all
around, the vast and empty plains echoed with an infinite number of
bugs, and critters, and flyers, and it seemed they were all looking
for a mate too.

That was a kind of a disturbing
thought.

Finally the sun began to approach the
perpetual line of purple-grey clouds on the horizon.

It would only take a few minutes to
saddle up, and if he rode slow and stopped in for a pee in a
thicket he knew just on the outskirts of Oak River, he could time
it right down to the minute.

To say his guts fluttered and rumbled a
bit as he put on his boots and jacket would be an
understatement—and an afterthought.

Hank had no one to blame but himself.
On that thought, he stuck his foot in the stirrup and mounted
up.

“
Come on, Boy.”

The dappled grey creature’s eyes lit up
at the thought of going somewhere.

One of these days he’d have to find a
better name for the animal, but his mind was always on other things
and this was just not the time.

***

Lieutenant Shapiro seemed to dominate
the household, for it was more that than an actual
hotel.

“
All right, people. Listen
up.” By adopting a manner more closely akin to a high school
volleyball coach, he was having an easier time of managing the crew
under his command. “There is only one bathroom and only one tub.
There is no shower. We all know this. Our hosts are in the kitchen
heating water like mad.”

They had a second fire out back and had
borrowed half the pots and kettles in town, according to Mrs.
Gregory.

“
All set!” Bellowing from
the top of the stairs, Mister Gregory indicated that the first bath
was ready.

Newton picked a slip of paper out of a
bowl thoughtfully provided by their hostess.

“
Cornell!”

“
Here, sir.” The trooper
slid with a dramatic flourish out of the billiards room, poised
like a dancer on the waxed and polished tiles.

He was already stripped down to
skivvies and white socks. There were giggles and comments, but
Newton just grinned. Cornell might have a streak of exhibitionism
in him. A little comic relief would help considerably.

“
You’ve got six minutes in
the tub. Waste your own time, nobody else’s.” Newton looked at his
watch. “Next person will be sitting in your lap at…four-fifty-two
p.m.”

“
Ah…yes, sir!” Cornell
grinned and headed off up the stairs and past a beaming Jim
Gregory.

“
I thought he was about to
spit out a name just then.” Semanko’s remark made Newton laugh out
loud, but he couldn’t think of anything to add.

Newton fought to urge to glance at
Trooper Barnes.

With a big dance in town tonight, bath
time was at a premium, but after the last few days, it was a luxury
and a Godsend.

The sound of a door closing up there
came and Jim Gregory came down stairs to check on the kitchen and
the guests.

“
Are you going to the dance,
Mister Gregory?” Ensign Spaulding was bored and tired and her
number might not come up for another hour or so.

“
Oh, well. I was thinking I
might just sit home tonight. I think my wife and daughter might be
going, though, with some friends.”

Beth Spaulding nodded thoughtfully. The
daughter seemed kind of young, but she was definitely something of
a fresh-faced beauty, and not shy at all as far as the young male
troopers were concerned. That came from working in a hotel, she
supposed. It would be wise to keep an eye on all concerned, and she
sighed with the necessity of it all. Still, it was what she had
signed up for, and if she was ever going to command even the
smallest detachment on her own, she’d better pay attention, not
just to Shapiro’s mistakes, but to his small wonders of tact and
patience.

How the hell he did it sometimes, she
just didn’t know.

Six minutes in the bathtub. One way or
another, they would manage it. In spite of the sheer vast number of
behinds going through there in some industrial production-line
process, she was really looking forward to hers.

Three more days on the road, where it
was all hills and swamps, rivers and bush, and then they could go
back to the shuttle. A few hours later, they’d be back aboard the
ship.

Four more nights at the most, and she
would be sleeping in her own berth.

The thought was all that kept her sane
by this point.

***

Hank picked up Polly at her place. He
was a bit disturbed, even saddened by the fact that her mother was
still abed and not feeling well these days.

It put the whole thing in perspective,
in that her mother wouldn’t be around forever and Polly would have
to have a life of her own, on her own. The house represented an
inheritance, one of the few things people really had to look
forward to when he thought about it.

He wondered how she thought about that,
for he knew little of women other than what he read in books and
magazines, few and far between as the latter admittedly
were.