“Harris, I never—” he interrupted.
And I interrupted him back. “Warshaw, you were still a master chief petty officer when he was promoted. You might have recommended him for the promotion, but you couldn’t have approved it.”
“Yeah …yeah, you’re right.” Warshaw sounded relieved. He could see me, but I could not see him. There was a camera in the ceiling, but no monitor for showing images. Being in this room was like being on the reflective side of a one-way mirror. And that was too bad. I would have liked to have seen the sweat rolling down Warshaw’s bald pate.
“There’s only one man who could have approved Fahey’s promotion,” I said.
“It wasn’t Thorne,” Warshaw said. “He had a woman on Terraneau.”
“And when was the last time he got to see her?” I asked.
“That horny old bastard.” Now there was admiration in Warshaw’s voice.
There were still pieces missing from the puzzle. Fahey knew more than he was letting on. I did not mention this to Warshaw, however. Instead, I looked into the camera, and said, “Just remember, you owe me a case of Earth-brewed.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
I had one more debriefing to conduct; but it could wait, so I called it a day.
The two-hour plane ride from Outer Bliss to Norristown would give me time to think about the future. I piloted my own Johnston R-27, a little twelve-seater commuter capable of both space travel and atmospheric travel. I did not know how to fly anything as big as a transport, but I had no trouble with this little bird. I’d once owned a little Johnston Starliner myself.
Before taking off, I scanned the Zebulon plateau. The runway stretched along the outside of the relocation camp. Three rows of electrified razor-wire fence separated the right side of the runway from the prison. A line of portable barracks sat off to the left of the runway.
Outer Bliss was a naval facility with MPs for guards. I would have preferred to post Marines, but Warshaw said his men needed the shore leave.
I took off into an early sunset with clouds the size of mountain ranges, painted orange and peach by the last dregs of sunlight. As I took off, I searched the sky for hints of silver—not the literary device used to denote a brighter future but the first traces of the Avatari ion curtain. Nothing. Below me, Terraneau looked like an artist’s rendition of the ideal planet. In the ebbing light, the cobalt sea had turned to steel. A few, small islands shone against the horizon. Beyond that, the clouds parted, revealing black-satin skies filled with twinkling stars. Somewhere up there, a broadcast station orbited the planet. It orbited so low that on clear nights, people could spot it without a telescope when it passed before the moon.
By the time I reached Norristown, the sun had set and lights sparkled all across the landscape. With the Corps of Engineers’ help, Doctorow and his people had repaired the power lines. Most of the city still lay in ruins, but streetlights now shone along the avenues. Lights blazed in the three skyscrapers/dormitories.
Before I could call it a night, I would have dinner with Ellery Doctorow, a formality I could not afford to ignore. The peace between Doctorow and the fleet remained tenuous. After seeing Fahey and the guards, I was more convinced than ever that my men needed a place where they could go for entirely immoral rest and recreation. We had found other cities, but only Norristown had the facilities and the population to accommodate us.
But Doctorow did not trust the military, and maybe he had it right. We did hide things from him. We didn’t tell him we had built a relocation camp, and we did not tell him we had filled it up with prisoners. He found out about it on his own. Until he did, we had him convinced that the reconstruction of Norristown was the only thing we had going on Terraneau.
The real reason I had come was to see Ava, of course. We had not spoken for weeks. I worried that she might have moved on. Hearing that she had taken up with some local would not kill me, but I would feel it. Sometimes my jealousy got the better of me, and I fantasized about hiding her in my quarters again. My insecurities got the better of me, and I thought it would be a relief when she finally moved on.
As I came into the airstrip for a landing, I saw a car waiting just outside the gate—a white sedan, a civilian vehicle, Doctorow’s car. He left his headlights on, shining twin shafts of light through the fence.
I touched down, rolled the R-27 in toward the tower, and parked it. I climbed out and pulled my rucksack from the back.
As I walked toward the gate, I heard a voice I recognized. “Harris, over here.” Ellery Doctorow stepped into the beams, his silhouette nearly swallowed in the glare. He waved a hand to catch my attention. “Harris!”
I slung my rucksack to my left hand and waved with my right just as the loud crack rang through the air.
At first, I had no idea what happened. I was waving, walking toward the gate, then I was on the ground. The force of whatever hit me had picked me up and thrown me on my ass. I felt the bruising on my back first, and then my chest began to burn, and I realized the front of my blouse was wet.
Doctorow came running through the gate. In the glare of the headlights, I saw Ava’s outline, too. She came running after him. I recognized her hair …her beautiful hair. I touched my chest and saw that my hand was covered with blood. I felt dizzy and winded, but not weak.
It didn’t make sense. I could not have been shot.
PART IV
AND THEN THERE WAS WAR
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Doctorow yelled, “Harris, don’t move!” as he ran over and knelt by my side.
“Wayson!” Ava screamed. She was already crying.
“I’m not hurt,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows. In an act of bald stupidity, I had not brought a gun, not even a pistol to defend myself. I had not a prayer of defending myself if the sniper decided to finish the job.
“You have to stay down, Harris,” Doctorow said as he pushed on my shoulders.
“I’m not hurt,” I complained.
“Captain, you are covered with blood,” Doctorow said, now forcing me back down.
Ava fell on her knees and reached for me, but I pushed her hand away. I did not want to get the blood on her.
“Wayson …Oh damn! Oh damn! Wayson,” Ava said. She looked at me and cried.
“I’m not hurt,” I repeated. I tried to sit up again, but Doctorow pushed me back down. I had an urge to slug him.
Then my former partner, Ray Freeman, strode in through the gate, as silent and as mysterious as a shadow. He carried a sniper rifle with a smart scope in his left hand.
Ava turned and saw Freeman’s gigantic outline against the headlights. She screamed even louder than she had when she saw me get shot.
“Admiral Brocius says you broke the rules. He wanted me to give you his regards,” Freeman said in a low, slow voice that reminded me of cannon fire echoing in a valley.
Seeing Freeman, Doctorow forgot all about me. He turned and stared, finally allowing me to sit up. I made it to a sitting position, and said, “You shot me, you specking son of a bitch.”
“I assassinated you,” said Freeman, his voice little more than a whisper. He turned and started to walk away.
I sprang to my feet and followed.
“Wayson, what …are you …what?” Ava did not know what to say.
“What in God’s name is going on?” Doctorow asked.
I ignored them and chased after Freeman. “You’re delivering messages for Brocius now?”
Just as I caught up to him, Freeman turned to look at me. The light from the headlights caught half his face, and I saw nothing but ice in his expression. “They’re coming for you.” He said this so quietly that neither Doctorow nor Ava could hear him.