Tuning William - Fuzzy Bones

up?"

Christiana frowned and looked down at the table."He-" she faltered. "He doesn't know what I did before. I'm afraid to tell him. I mean, he's a high-class guy. He might not be able to handle it. I keep thinking we could go away someplace, but I know he'll never leave the Company."

"What makes you think he wouldn't understand?" Gwen asked. "If he's that high-class, he should be able to understand."

Christiana snorted. "Rodney was that high-class-I knew he 'd understand-the bastard. When I told him what Daddy was doing and begged him to help, all he did was fling me out of his life."

"You're going to have to tell him, Chris," Gwen said. "Sooner or later. Guys like Victor Grego have a way of figuring things out for themselves. Otherwise they wouldn't be where they are. If my Jim could figure anything out, he 'd be a Master Sergeant by now."

"Oh, I don't know, Gwennie," Christiana sighed. "I thought I had a way to go, and now I've got this guy putting the screws to me for information; and threatening to tell Victor about me if I don't come across."

Gwen nodded. "He sounds like somebody that's working for Laporte-or maybe Bowlby. He could be an independent, but those bums wouldn't let him keep breathing if he was. Remember what Bowlby did to you."

"I know, I know," Christiana said. "I can't betray Victor, and I can't keep feeding useless malarkey to this guy in the hat. Sooner or later he's going to get wise that what I'm giving him isn't that useful."

Gwen leaned forward and put her hand on Christiana's arm. "Listen, honey," she said, "let me snoop around a little and see if I can find out who the guy is working for. Would that help?"

"I guess," Christiana said. "I'll just have to figure it out as I go along, I guess."

"Good," Gwen said. "How can I get in touch with you?"

Chapter 34

The orange sun was just setting behind the ridge as Jack Holloway grounded the airjeep among the lengthening shadows in front of his bungalow.

The instant it lurched off contragravity, Little Fuzzy was out the side hatch like a shot and streaking for the Fuzzy-sized door next to the front door of Jack's house. There were so many things to tell his family, and Mike and Mitzi, and Ko-Ko, and Cinderella.

Jack ambled after him, let himself in the house, and dropped his gear on the big desk-table. He deposited his rifle on top of the pile of gear, unbuckled his pistol belt and laid it on the table, too. Then, he took a good, long yawn and stretch-and scratched himself here and there.

A few minutes later, he emerged from the kitchen with a highball and sat down at the communications screen. He would think about dinner while he played back his messages, he decided, and then screen Gerd and Ruth at their place.

Lieutenant Colonel James O'Bannon sat down on his bunk, after his guests were

comfortably situated and provided with drinks and ashtrays. He reached down and began to unlace his boots. "Dick," he said to Major Stagwell, "you'll be in charge, of course, while I'm gone. I want you to bust loose with some liberty for the men. See that Casagra's bunch gets the biggest end of it.

They've worked the hardest and the longest. Not much left for them to do, anyway."

Stagwell puffed his pipe and nodded. "You want to maintain current patrol density, Jim?"

"You bet I do!" O'Bannon said. "I don't want a banjo-bird to get within a hundred kilometers of this place without our knowing about it-certainly not until I'm shut of the responsibility. . . .Come down here to shoo a few news-people away from a hypership wreck, and now we've got a damnthing by the tail."

Stagwell nodded again and took a sip of his drink.

O'Bannon peered at him. "Y'know, I think I'll have one of those, myself," he said as he tugged his boots off. He ambled over to his field chest and began to fix himself a drink. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more about this, just now, Dick," he said, while his back was still turned, "but the whole thing is just too damned hot. Maybe after Phil and I have talked to Napier and come back down from Xerxes . . ."He turned to Helton. "Will you have everything case-packed and ready to go by the arrival time of the Ranger?" he asked.

"Easily, Colonel," Helton said. "We 've plenty of inflate-bles, so we can cover it all completely and cushion the gear enough to not disturb so much as a speck of dust."

"Good," O'Bannon said. "What about your quarantine cases?"

Helton smiled and took a slug from his glass. "They 're the ones that'll do the packing," he said.

O'Bannon nodded. "Good thinking," he said as he walked back to his bunk and sat down. "Let's see; that will be 0900 on Saturday. I'd better screen McGraw tomorrow and tell him we 're coming. Wouldn 't look good if he were off chasing skirts when we arrive."

"I just arrived," Holloway said to the image in the screen. "Got to talk to you about some things. How about after dinner?"

Ruth van Riebeek moved into the pickup range, alongside Gerd. "Why don't you just come over here for dinner, Jack?" she said. "You probably don't feel like cooking, anyway, after coming all the way down from Fuzzy Valley."

Jack was about to accept when he saw two more women in the background, setting the big table in one end of the van Riebeek living room; Lynne Andrews, slender and blonde, and a tall brunette that he couldn't recall having seen before. Confound it! This was confidential stuff. He started to make an excuse. "Well-uh-" he began. "I don't want to impose . . ."

"Nonsense," Ruth said. "We're doing a whacking big veldbeest roast. There's plenty-even if you'd brought a platoon of Marines with you."

That did it. No graceful way to back out, now. Just have to see how it works out. We don't have to be there until day after tomorrow, anyway. "Okay, "he said. "Let me clean up my screen messages, here, and say hello to the kids.

Then I'll be along-say twenty or thirty minutes?"

Ivan Bowlby raised his handkerchief to his nose, as if to protest the acrid smell of stale tobacco smoke that filled The Bitter End, and sniffed. "I have to have better information than this, Joseph," Bowlby said, "or I can't go on paying you to act as go-between."

The man in the hat smiled cryptically. "Mr. Weisberg, if you please, Mr.

Bowlby. I prefer Mr. Weisberg to the familiar. We are both gentlemen doing business together, are we not?"

Bowlby looked uncomfortable. "Whatever you like," he said. "The point is that my client will not pay for this sort of information. It's no better than office gossip, really."

Joseph Weisberg smiled again and spread his hands. "It's what she is telling me, Mr. Bowlby, and that is what you hired me for-to get the information from the girl and pass it on to you. As I remember, your reasons had to do with your own anonymity and my being new on Zarathustra. I recall nothing in bur arrangement regarding the-ah-quality of what I bring to you, which consideration, I'm sure you will admit, is a highly subjective matter at the best."

"Very well," Bowlby conceded. "We'll let it slide as it is for a few more weeks. If I don't get some highly confidential data, we'll just have to terminate our deal."

"Perhaps," Weisberg said, "if I could speak with your buyer, he could give me a better notion of what he's after. Some specifics would be of great assistance."

Bowlby made a quick, irritable movement of his head.

"Out of the question!" he snapped. "My buyer-as you put it-requires even more anonymity than myself in this."

Weisberg shrugged. "There are ways to preserve it," he said. "I don't have to be introduced to him to discuss the matter."

Neither of them had noticed the short blonde with the cascading curly hair who had slowly eased her way along the bar to a point from which she could overhear the conversation while appearing to fiddle with her drink and watch the crowd in the front of The Bitter End. Bowlby she recognized easily enough.