Then he had reappeared during her meeting with Sam Duong, dogging her shoulder and offering advice on how to get Burkett off her back. Foul comments all, and some physically impossible besides.
So she drove augie to the edge, felt the white light in her head and the hurricane gales at her feet, and pitched Neumann over the side, at least for a while. Roger would kill me if he knew. But augie’s neurochemical magic had worked wonders—she felt better than she had for a week. Just a little wobbly . . .
A gentle throat-clearing sounded from the opposite side of the anteroom. General Burkett’s adjutant spoke a few words into her comport, then glanced at Jani and Friesian. “You may go in, Major. Captain.”
Jani stood slowly, gripping the arms of her chair for support. She sniffed, smelled only filtered office air, and offered silent thanks. She followed Friesian to the door, let him palm it open, and preceded him inside. As expected, she saw Burkett sitting at his glossy bloodwood desk, glare at the ready.
She didn’t, however, expect to see Frances Hals sitting across from him, nor another older, blond-haired woman who, judging from the stars on her collar and the scanpack on her hip, could only be Major General Hannah Eiswein, commander of the First Documents and Documentation Division.
I’m gonna die. “Captain Kilian reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Come in, Captain.” Burkett’s gaze shifted to Friesian, and his frown deepened. “Major?”
“Major Piers Friesian, General. Defense Command.” His voice sounded tentative as he looked at Hals and Eiswein. “I’m Captain Kilian’s legal counsel.”
“There’s no need for that, Major.” Eiswein smiled. She appeared companionable, with the sort of relaxed, unlined face that implied an even temper. “This isn’t a disciplinary action.”
Friesian shot Jani a befuddled look. His thick, black eyebrows knit. “Ma’am, my client was given to understand—”
“Circumstances have changed, Major.” Eiswein smiled again, more coolly. “Captain Kilian’s role here will be more in a consulting capacity. If you feel at all uncomfortable about this, of course you may stay. But you’ll be wasting your time.”
Friesian settled back on his heels, chin raised, eyes narrowing. Jani could read the questions in his expression. The concern. The stars.
“If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d prefer to sit in on this.” He gave Jani a “be careful” nod as he walked to a small conference table that basked in the light of the office’s window-wall. “I do possess top-level security clearance, if consultations reach that point.”
“They shouldn’t,” Eiswein said softly as she withdrew a recording board from the briefbag by her chair. Pink-skinned and cushy, she looked the polar opposite of the tanned, narrow-faced Burkett. “Captain Kilian. The famous Eyes and Ears.” She gestured toward the empty chair between her and Hals. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Hals offered the barest smile as Jani approached; the expression altered to one of concern as she took her seat. “Are you feeling all right, Captain?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jani caught herself on the chair arms just in time to keep from collapsing into it. “Trouble sleeping.” She noted that Hals wore the less formal light grey “A” short-sleeve, as did Burkett and Eiswein.
We’re overdressed, Piers. Jani looked around Burkett’s office, a showcase of wine-red cabinetry and satin-finish steel, on the alert for hidden lieutenants with holocams. She faced front to find Burkett glowering at her.
“Looking for something, Captain?”
“Just admiring your office, sir.” It took true force of will for her to smile at him. He made no effort to hide his feelings—the animosity rolled across his desk and buffeted her like a wave.
“Well, General, why don’t we get started.” Eiswein’s voice, flavored by her German provincial accent, sounded at the same time soft and clipped. The rules of the game being what they were, if her sideline double stars had been able to stand up to Burkett’s mainline single and quash any disciplinary actions against Jani and Hals, that meant someone in Supreme Command had thrown their vote her way.
Jani could imagine the scene. Perhaps it had even been Mako himself who had said, You gave the wrong orders, Cal, and I’m ordering you to back off.
Eiswein proved gracious in victory, at least for the time being. She ignored Burkett’s choppy mood, and had only smiles for her two rebellious dexxie underlings. “Colonel, please bring Captain Kilian up to speed.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hals activated her board; an open file bloomed on the display. “Captain Kilian is, of course, an old hand in dealing with the idomeni. She already understands our major issues.”
“Such as figuring out the difference between what’s important to us and what’s important to them, ma’am?” Jani looked around innocently. Burkett met her eyes, his face like stone.
“But surprises still occur,” Hals added hastily. “Scanpack health, for example, has suddenly become a pressing concern.” Her voice lowered in genuine distress. “Lieutenant Domenici’s ’pack suffered a stroke soon after we returned from the embassy. It can’t recognize certain symbols anymore, and can’t decode the right sides of chips. Scantech blamed the elevated temperature in the embassy. They said nutrient degraded, formed a clot, and blew out her fourth octant region.”
Jani thought back to the embassy visit. Everyone had complained of the heat except her. “If ’packs are experiencing heat distress, the embassy interior must have been at least forty-five degrees. You need to switch out spent nutrient more often. Make sure you’re using a warm-weather brand, and that fluid levels are topped off. Has that been the only stroke?”
Hals nodded. “Yes, although we have had some scares during previous visits. Transient ischemic attacks—the ’packs malfunction for a few hours, then snap back. Tech Service is starting to write papers about our problems, and that is a worry.”
“Lieutenant Domenici will, in fact, need to have her ’pack replaced,” Eiswein interjected. “I approved the requisition an hour ago. The damage proved so extensive that it’s cheaper to grow her a new one than try to fix the old.” She patted her own ’pack pouch absently. “They’ll farm her cells tomorrow. It will be six weeks before she’ll have something she can begin to teach.” Her eyes bored into Jani’s. They shone palest blue, like Burkett’s steel. “So not only are we dealing with the replacement of an extremely expensive piece of equipment, but I’m also out one experienced dexxie in an already-stretched department for the time it takes her to retrain her ’pack. How long does that take on average, Colonel?”
Hals called up another screen on her board. “Four months, ma’am. On average.”
“And that’s assuming she returns to FT, of which there’s no guarantee.” The color rose in Eiswein’s face as she hit her stride. “Dexxies get edgy when their equipment’s threatened, and the knowledge that merely doing their routine, uncomplicated jobs could result in irreversible damage to the devices on which their livelihoods depend is enough to make them pretty damned edgy!” Her anger held a particularly distressing aspect, like being chewed out by your favorite aunt.
Burkett remained silent throughout, although he did twitch about in his leather-upholstered chair as though he needed to adjust his underwear. Especially after Eiswein spat out the words routine and uncomplicated. Direct quotes, no doubt. Jani almost felt sorry for him. If Eiswein hammered him like this in front of subordinates, what had she said to him one-on-one?
Scheißkopf? She struggled to keep a straight face. “So, along with the measurable loss in equipment and efficiency, FT may also find itself dealing with a serious morale problem.”
Hals sighed. “There are so many minefields where the idomeni are concerned, things we think nothing of. We know we can’t wear red. That we can’t carry in food, not even so much as a pack of gum. My concern is that one or more of our rebellious souls might resort to sabotage. Considering how important the idomeni think we are, the magnitude of the percei
ved insult would be great indeed.”
Burkett finally opened his mouth. “And you’ve made no effort to supply me with the names of those souls, Colonel, despite my repeated requests.”
“Give those souls the tools to maintain their equipment and you’ll stop the revolution in its tracks.” Jani pulled her scanpack out of its pouch and studied the underside. “My ’pack was manufactured on Shèrá as part of a joint humanish-idomeni project. Lots of effort went into synthesizing the heat-dissipation system. It’s functioned flawlessly for over twenty years. I don’t even consider it exceptional anymore.” She looked at Eiswein. “Did anyone talk to Three through Six about this? They have the same type unit I do—they could have advised you on what to expect.”
“Three through six?” Burkett muttered crankily. “What does that mean?”
“The Captain is referring to her fellow Academy graduates.” Eiswein made a notation into her board. “The funny thing is, Captain, that whenever we dexxies talk about the fabled Academy days, we talk about you, and we talk about the late Hansen Wyle. The others don’t make the cut.” She regarded Jani intently. “Shortsighted of us, was it not?”
“Ma’am,” Jani replied. Eiswein’s examination possessed a distinctly maternal quality, if one’s mother had the talent for seeing through to the back of one’s head. “If you’re going to keep working with the idomeni, you need to act. Right now, FT is taking all the hits. You need to start dishing out.”
“That’s Diplo’s job,” Burkett growled.
“From what I gather,” Eiswein countered, “any negotiation with the idomeni must take place on many different levels. They believe existence is a series of incremental steps, like multiple stairways approaching from all different directions, and every undertaking is approached the same way. Any resolution of this Lake Michigan Strip matter will be reached in the records room as well as the negotiating room.”
“My thoughts on that, I believe, have been added to the record, General.”
“Yes, General, but be that as it may, we have our mandate from Supreme Command—”
Jani glanced sideways at Hals at the same time Hals glanced sideways at her. Then Hals activated her stylus and executed a quick sketch. With a few rapid strokes, she outlined a pudgy matador, cape in one hand, scanpack in the other, advancing upon a snorting bull that had been branded on his backside with a single large star—
Jani faced front and focused on a point on the wall above Burkett’s head.
“—and participate in this process, we will.” Eiswein smoothed an errant lock of hair behind her ear and eased back in her chair.
Burkett drummed his fingers on his desktop. Once. Twice. Thrice. “Could we just ask the idomeni to turn the heat down?”
“You could, sir,” Jani answered carefully. “But it would be better if you made a bigger splash. They know you’re miserable—all they have to do is look at you. They’re enjoying watching you sweat, both literally and figuratively.”
She paused before continuing. “A visual display of your adjustment to their conditions would act as an issued challenge, and win you a little of your own back. It needs to be something obvious, something the idomeni can appreciate. They find us so difficult to read that an explicit action by us would both please them and take them by surprise.” A spot of personal whimsy popped into her head, and she tossed it out to the house. “Wear base casuals the next time you’re called in.”
Hals sighed. “God, that would be so comfortable!” She starting making notes. “Do you think we could bring little cooler units, too? The ones you can set up on your desk—”
“Colonel!” Burkett’s bronzed skin flared maroon. “That’s outrageous!” He thumped his fist on his desk. “I’ll be damned if I ever represent my Service in a T-shirt and trainers.”
“Don’t forget the shorts, sir.” Jani heard a tiny, strangled sound emerge from Hals’s throat. Burkett twisted around in his chair to face her, but before he could erupt, Eiswein cut him off.
“Calm down, General.” She beamed like Mère Christmas. “I like it.”
Burkett’s jaw dropped. “General—!”
“Well, why not! I’m always hearing about the idomeni’s playful side, their need to make and accept challenge, the constant one-upmanship they seem to thrive on. And here we are, with a golden opportunity to stick it in their ear, and you want us to back off in the name of propriety?” Eiswein gave the word a gamy twist, making it sound like something nice people didn’t talk about.
Burkett looked stricken. “Aren’t there any alternatives?” The hard look he directed at Jani held a hint of pleading. “What did you wear, Captain, when you were stationed at Rauta Shèràa Base?”
“We were issued desertweights, sir.”
Burkett nodded in relief. “We can ship some of those in from Bonneville or Aqaba. We’ll have them in a couple of hours.”
Hals shook her head. “Base casuals are an official part of the Sheridan-issue uniform set, sir. If you name it Uniform of the Day for our trip to the embassy, no matter how strange it may seem to some, we are technically in A&S compliance. But desertweights are not an official part of the Sheridan-issue uniform set; therefore, we would need sign-off from A&S before we could even place the order.”
“We’re in a crisis situation, Colonel.”
“Yes, sir. The problem is, sir, that if you go to A&S with this type of request . . .” Hals faltered. “It’s the Joint Perception Committee, sir. The Cabinet-Service group that monitors how the civilian public perceives the Service. They’ll get wind of it, and once they do they’re going to stick their—get involved.”
One little vein stood out in Burkett’s temple. “Which Cabinet Ministers sit on that committee?”
“Exterior Minister Ulanova, for one—”
“Scratch that,” Eiswein entoned glumly. “Ulanova would kick our sand castle over just to watch us cry.” She pondered. “We place the nice, aboveboard order for the desertweights, via A&S, and amass our weapons for the fight. For this next visit, which is scheduled for early tomorrow morning, we go casual.”
“You need my buy-in for any off-the-beaten-path scheme.” Burkett’s voice had thinned. The stressed metal had been drawn very fine, and seemed about to snap. “I want it on the record that I disagree strongly with our constantly and consistently putting idomeni sensibilities before those of our own people.” He didn’t look at Jani as he spoke; he didn’t have to. “Why are we always giving in to them?”
“They gave in to us just by the act of coming here,” Jani said to the side of his face. “Just by the act of living here. We’ve discussed this before, sir. Your refusing to see the point doesn’t make it any less valid or any less important.”
“In other words, what’s a little dignity if it saves us the Lake Michigan Strip?” Eiswein deactivated her board and stuffed it back in her briefbag. “Your buy-in, as you call it, would certainly make the row easier to hoe, but if it doesn’t prove forthcoming, I suppose we’ll have to carry on without it.”
Before Burkett could counter, a voice piped from the far corner of the room.
“Ma’am? Sir?” Friesian spoke quickly, as though he’d been trying to fit a word in edgewise for some time. “If Captain Kilian is to leave the base so soon, we need to clear her through the JA immediately.” He looked at Hals. “Colonel, with whom did you talk to arrange clearance for the captain’s previous trip off base? I did not receive a restricted-movement repeal related to that trip, and with her status, it’s vital I have those on file.”
Burkett stared at Jani. “You’re restricted to base?”
“Yes, sir.” She cast a wary eye at the four confused faces watching her. “I assumed everyone knew.”
“I did, but . . .” Hals fell silent.
Burkett seemed to be having trouble wrapping his mind around Jani’s status, too. “You were under official restriction when you traveled off base to the embassy?”
“Yes, sir,” Jani answered, more harshly than
was prudent. “Is there a problem?”
“I don’t understand this at all.” Pimentel stood in front of the imaging display and flipped through the multiple deep-tissue scans of Jani’s right arm. “Where did the calcification come from?”
One of the many new medical faces that had surrounded Jani for the past two hours spoke up. “My best guess is that when they implanted the chip at Constanza, they used standard nerve solder, which is, of course, human-compatible.” She nodded toward Jani. “Captain Kilian rejected the solder as foreign material and sealed it off from the rest of her tissue. In sealing off the solder, she sealed off the rest of the chip as well, causing the security function to fail.”
“Not all the way.” Jani massaged the crook of her right arm, from where William Tell Pimentel had withdrawn about half her blood. “My arm hurt like hell as soon as I passed through the Gate. By the time we returned from the idomeni embassy, it had gone numb.”
The internist waved a hand. “Captain, trust me, ‘hurt like hell’ doesn’t begin to describe the pain restrictees feel when they try to leave their allowed area. Prisoners pass out. We’ve even had a few try to cut the chips out themselves—luckily, we got to them first.” She wandered up to the imaging display. “Has anyone notified the Judge Advocate?”
Jani had been thinking longingly of sleep, but mention of the JA jarred her alert. “Why do you need to call them?”
“Your chip’s security function needs to be reset. Only someone from the JA can do that.” Pimental studied the image again, and shook his head. “Judging from the looks of this thing, they’ll need to insert a new chip. We’re going to have to keep you here until we can perform the surgery.” He walked to the door, the rest of the medicos falling in behind him. “Major Friesian is holed up in the sunroom. I’ll speak with him. Under the circumstances, I think he should notify the JA.”
The removal of Jani’s calcified ID chip and the implantation of her new one were performed in a cramped operating theater, under the official eye of a blasé sergeant major who observed the magnified interior of Jani’s lower arm without a blink of discomfort.
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