Leaving aside the matter of whether the name of this lucky angel was appropriate for him, when Major Booker had told Rei that the general was a devout believer in one all-powerful god, Rei’d replied that he was glad he wasn’t. He had no contract with any such omnipotent being and didn’t ask for any favors from him. On the other hand, he wasn’t liable to get punished for betraying him either. Major Booker had wearily replied that God himself didn’t directly hand out the punishments, and that he shouldn’t say things like that to devout followers of a religion. At worst, he might get killed by one. At the very least, all he’d be doing is buying their antipathy.
Naturally, Rei wasn’t intentionally looking to nitpick any stranger’s beliefs, but hearing someone say, “You’ll be punished by heaven if you don’t believe” just pissed him off. He didn’t want to hear that from anyone, be they a believer or the religion’s founder itself. People come up with all sorts of theories with which to control others who won’t be manipulated as they like, and they tend to shun those who will not be brought into the fold. It wasn’t a question of the existence of a supreme being; if one did exist, then human opinion would likely matter very little in how that being used its power. Divine punishment wasn’t something for humans to declare, and in general it was just presumptuous for any person to judge who deserved it. The will of a supreme being might not match up to the expectations of his adherents. After all, it would be the god’s lack of concern for individual people that made it a suitable object of fear and worship. But if such a being did exist, there’d be little difference between belief and unbelief. Either way, its will would be beyond human means of control, and so it would all boil down to what advantages its adherents gain from their relationship with it on the human plane of existence. If some joined their group and thus gained comfort, then so be it. And if others found the group annoying, they could just stay away from them. That was all there was to it. Personally, Rei didn’t believe in a supreme being of any sort. The only existence he could be absolutely certain of was his own.
Of course, this was all probably taboo when it came to talking to General Laitume.
The other man, Colonel Rombert, Rei had met once before. Thin, with sharp eyes, he could only be a member of the Intelligence Forces. He’d asked him repeatedly about how the JAM had made a copy of his flight officer Lieutenant Burgadish on the last mission Yukikaze flew in her previous airframe. The interrogation had made him feel like he was a spy. Even after the man had driven Rei to exhaustion, Rombert hadn’t let him go. He was a hardcore intel officer. Even so, he hadn’t come off as a heartless machine. Rei recalled that, occasionally, his sense of humor would poke its way to the surface. It showed as part of his interrogation training, though.
For example, at one point the colonel had said, “There have been times when I’ve wished I could just eat up somebody I didn’t like right from the start. I’ve probably thought about it myself, like how my brain would taste and the like. If I could make a copy of myself, I could try it out. The JAM made a copy of you too, right? You blew your big chance to see how you’d taste, don’t you think?”
Basically, he was working under the assumption that Rei had hated Lieutenant Burgadish, took the opportunity to murder him, and then made up the whole story about the copies and everything else. Rather than asking him straight out, Rombert had been trying to tease it out of the suspect in a roundabout way. Rei’s impression was that here was a man he couldn’t eat. When he’d told the colonel that, Rombert had replied in deadly earnest, “I think you and I can talk with each other.” For Rei’s part, he hadn’t particularly wanted to keep talking to the man.
These two men, General Laitume and Colonel Rombert, were both prime examples of humanity. The woman leading them, General Cooley of the SAF, was not.
It was difficult to pin down what she was thinking or where her values lay, and she didn’t really care if that was the impression of her people had. Rei, on the other hand, felt a comforting familiarity about her. Other people, like Captain Foss, might judge the general to be a bit of a strange woman, but not Rei. It wasn’t necessary to think of her as a human. To him, she was just the person who issued his orders, and she caused no problems for him beyond that.
Still, lately Rei had found himself wondering what had brought her to Faery.
Captain Foss told him that General Cooley was a distant relative of hers. She wasn’t just a general; she was somebody’s child and had family too. It had taken Captain Foss’s words to make Rei aware of this very obvious fact.
That was just one more thing he was lately curious about, where once he’d paid no attention to it at all. Rei had once believed that anything unrelated to combat wasn’t worth thinking about. Though he was going through some changes, Rei didn’t believe they were making him weaker.
Major Booker approached the three officers and saluted them. Rei followed his lead.
General Cooley introduced her subordinates, and General Laitume personally greeted the three SAF personnel, a good-natured smile on his lips. First Major Booker, then Rei, and finally Captain Foss. However, when he stopped in front of the woman doctor, he reached his hand out toward her breasts. Captain Foss stiffened, looking startled, which elicited a laugh from the general. “Your lapel pin’s crooked, Captain.” He chuckled as he straightened it with his fingertip.
“It didn’t look crooked to me,” Colonel Rombert said coldly. “You have good eyes, General. And fast hands.”
“And you, Colonel,” the general said with a laugh, “have bad eyes and a nasty mouth.”
“I can see that Captain Foss is a young and attractive woman,” the colonel replied. “But I didn’t see a crooked lapel pin. I’ve heard you don’t have the best reputation with the ladies, General. Oh, forgive me. My ears must not be very good either.”
“And you’d better not forget that, Colonel Rombert. Captain Foss, be careful with your pin from now on.”
“Yes…sir,” replied Captain Foss.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Well, General Cooley, shall we get started?”
General Laitume moved off. Cooley followed, suggesting that they start with some champagne as she showed him to his seat.
“I appreciated that, Colonel,” Captain Foss whispered. “The general has a reputation for doing things like that.”
“Can’t hear you,” Colonel Rombert replied with a smile. “Didn’t you hear me say that my ears were bad? Although I do think my eyesight is quite keen. Well, it doesn’t detract from his skill as a soldier, so that’s a saving grace, at least. Now then, you think I could get a Guinness here?”
“All ready for you,” said Major Booker. “I made sure to find out what you liked.”
“You really do prepare well. It’s hard to tell who are the real Intelligence Forces around here. So just what is the SAF up to? No, wait, the whole point of this lunch meeting is to ask about that. Let’s relax and enjoy ourselves first. Captain Foss, would you do me the honor of joining me?”
Captain Foss looked at Major Booker, wondering what to do. The major gave a tiny nod, and Captain Foss moved off with Colonel Rombert.
Rei sighed.
“I know exactly how you feel,” Major Booker said. “It’s such a pain in the ass.”
“The general and the colonel are a lot alike,” Rei replied.
“I guess that’s what they call the ‘secret intentions of men.’ The colonel’s a smart one. I think you know just how intelligent that man is. When it comes to relationships between men and women, what goes on in your head isn’t always logical, but people who ignore logic end up hated. On that point, the colonel’s—”