Diane Duane - X-COM - UFO Defense

“I don’t like strawberry!”

“That’s not what you said in Rome,” Jonelle said, putting her head in the bed-wing door.

Ari lay there in the bed, supported at a low angle by a couple of pillows, and turned on her the only slightly changed expression of generalized loathing with which he had been regarding the pink milkshake on the bedside table. He looked thoroughly disgusted and uncomfortable, and she was very hard put not to burst out laughing.

“In Rome,” he said, “they were fresh strawberries, Commander. Unlike this wretched, artificial strawb-o-pap. Nothing that color can possibly be any good for you.”

“The protein content is quite adequate,” Gyorgi said, “for the temporary nourishment of the colonel’s allegedly superb physique, and much more than adequate for the sustenance of the minuscule brain inside that foam-rubber skull. Drink it, Ari, because that’s all you’re getting until dinner.” He headed out of the room.

“What’s dinner? Beef-o-pap?” Ari more or less shouted after him, but the shout cracked and turned into a squeak halfway, as Gyorgi shut the door behind him.

“He’s torturing me for fun, Jonelle,” Ari muttered. “Just because I told him Crud was a dumb game.”

“Serves you right.” She pulled up a chair to the bed and glanced around her. “I see Molson’s moved on.”

Ari nodded. “He said to tell you he said thanks, and he’ll be back.”

“Damn straight he will. He’s a good man.” She looked at Ari and smiled, an expression that felt so odd, after the strains of the last few days, that she was amazed her face didn’t crack. “And how about you? How’re you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been tap-danced on by elephants. The usual, after you have a brush with them.” Jonelle knew the feeling.

The use of the psi-amp itself was not without its strains and side effects, and when you had a mind-to-mind tussle with an alien, you tended to feel afterwards as though someone had been beating you with baseball bats—another result of the body’s tendency to render psi-sourced traumas into physical terms that it could understand. When the alien got the better of the argument, though, the physical effects were much more marked— but Jonelle had never felt it fair to complain about this afterwards. She had been glad enough still to be alive.

“Has Gyorgi said anything about when you’ll be able to go back on duty?”

“A few days, he thinks. But I am not going to survive three days of these.” He gave the milkshake a look that should have shattered the glass.

“Yes, you will. You just do what he says—he knows what he’s talking about. Remember Michaels, that squaddie who didn’t come out of a coma for six weeks….”

Jonelle broke off, for Ari was gazing at her with a most peculiar expression. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?” she asked sarcastically.

“I was going to ask you the same question. You look awful. You’ve got big circles under your eyes.”

She laughed, just a breath’s worth. “Well, I didn’t get to bed until late.”

“Overwork again. You’re going to ruin yourself, Jonelle—”

“I was out drinking with the locals, actually”

Ari blinked. “You mean your yodeling partner?”

“Ueli Trager, yes, and his friends.” Jonelle chuckled. “If the guys here ever get tired of Crud, I’m in a position to put them onto a new betting sport. Cow-fighting is more complex than you might think. I got about two hours’ sleep before I had to go out on a run. Bagged us a large Scout.”

“You had to go out on a—since when does the base commander do interceptions?”

“Since there was no one else available to handle it, and I had the necessary craft on hand but not enough other senior staff,” Jonelle said. She then added, in a slightly more dangerous tone, “Which I might have had, had you been available. Of course, when a colonel disobeys a direct order not to go out and do interceptions, but to stay in one place where he can advise everybody…”

Ari suddenly became very interested in the ceiling, the milkshake, and the bed curtains, one after another. “Well. I wondered if that might come up. I—”

“Not today,” Jonelle said, with a wry look. “Gyorgi would have my head, and rightly. But you and I are going to have a discussion about this at a later date. Yes, I’ve read the transcripts, and talked to the people you led out that night, and yes, I understand what you thought the case for going out was, and yes, you did a nice job in Zürich. But your job was not to be in Zürich.”

Ari opened his mouth. Jonelle looked at him. Ari shut his mouth again.

“Quite,” Jonelle said. “So let’s let that rest for the moment. But yes, I’m pretty wiped out, and I won’t mind the sight of my bed tonight…even though you’re not in it.”

Ari was still looking at her with a slightly astonished expression. “You were worried about me!” he said.

What seemed about a hundred possible responses to this statement went through Jonelle’s head in the space of about three seconds. She threw them all out and simply paused to look at the statement itself, unadorned. Then she smiled again.

“Yes,” she said. “But, for the moment anyway, I’m not anymore. You just lie here and drink the strawb-o-pap, and take the tests Gyorgi gives you, and do what’s necessary, because I need you back in the saddle in a hurry.”

He looked at Jonelle thoughtfully. “Yeah,” he said. “OK. But Commander—”

She raised her eyebrows at him.

“I’m sorry about the Avenger.”

“‘Sorry’ butters no bread, Colonel,” Jonelle said calmly. “I’m going to have to take it out of your pay. Let’s see: one Avenger at $900,000, plus fusion-ball launcher, that’s $242,000, plus one fusion ball used, let’s see, that’s $28,000….”

“Wait a minute! The one I used worked! I fried a goddamn Battleship with it!”

“The use wasn’t authorized. Well, maybe I can get you a discount. Let’s say $20,000. The total is $1,162,000—”

“What about the materials costs on the Battleship! What about all those alien corpses, and all that Elerium—”

“Belongs to Regional Command, I’m afraid. Sorry, Colonel. So, let’s see. Assuming you live another fifty years—”

“I’m beginning to hope I won’t,” Ari muttered.

“Well, think about it, it’s not so bad: only $23,000 a year and some loose change to pay back. Plus interest on the debt—”

“Commander,” Ari said rather desperately, “I feel fatigued. If the Commander would excuse me—”

Jonelle looked at him with what she hoped was an expression suggesting tolerance of a subordinate’s unavoidable inability to cope. “Why, of course, Colonel. I’ll drop by tomorrow, and we can continue working out the details.”

She got up and made for the door, turning quickly to hide her smile. He doesn’t know how I’m going to handle this when he’s better, she thought, and that’s just as well, for the moment…because I don’t know either.

“But, Commander—thanks for the report.”

She turned again, looking at him with slight surprise. “Which one?”

“The one you gave me the other night.” He swallowed, and that big, prominent Adam’s apple of his went up and down. “It was dark where I was…I was wandering around …I didn’t know where to go.” The mere admission made Jonelle’s heart wrench a little—he was always so certain whenever he opened his mouth. “I wandered around for a long time. I was so tired…I wanted to just lie down and not think about anything anymore. I almost did that. But after a while I heard something, someone giving a briefing, I thought, and I went over in that direction and stood outside the room. I thought it was a room, anyway The voice was muffled, like someone on the other side of a door. It was you, giving someone a briefing. Then after a while I knew it was you giving me a briefing. So I stayed.”