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sunlit form of his left leg, upheld in traction above the surface of the bed.
"So," the duty medical officer, a brisk, round-faced, fortyish major had said
with a fiendish chuckle when Cletus had been brought in, "you're the type who
hates to take time out to give your body a chance to heal, are you, Colonel?"
The next thing Cletus had known he was in the bed with his leg balanced
immovably in a float cast anchored to the ceiling.
"But it's been three days now," Cletus remarked to Arvid, who had just
arrived, bringing, as per
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orders, a local almanac, "and he promised that the third day he'd turn me
loose. Take another look out in the corridor and see if he's been in any of
the other rooms along here." Arvid obeyed. He returned in a minute or two,
shaking his head.
"No luck," he said. "But General Traynor's on his way over, sir. The nurse on
the desk said his office just phoned to see if you were still here."
"Oh?" said Cletus. "That is right. He'd be coming, of course." He reached out
and pressed the button that tilted the bed to lift him up into a sitting
position. "Tell you what, Arv. Take a look up and down the other rooms for me
and see if you can scrounge me some spacepost covers."
"Spacepost covers?" replied Arvid, calmly unquestioningly. "Right, I'll be
back in a minute."
He went out. It took him more like three minutes than one; but when he
returned he had five of the flimsy yellow envelopes in which mail sent by
spaceship was ordinarily carried. The Earth Terminal postmark was square and
black on the back of each. Cletus stacked them loosely together and laid them
in a face-down pile on the table surface of his bedside console. Arvid watched
him.
"Did you find what you wanted in the almanac, sir?" he asked.
"Yes," said Cletus. Seeing Arvid still gazing at him curiously, he added,
"There's a new moon tonight."
"Oh," said Arvid.
"Yes. Now, when the general comes, Arv," Cletus said, "stay out in the
corridor and keep your eyes open. I don't want that doctor slipping past me
just because a general's talking to me, and leaving me hung up here for
another day. What time was that appointment of mine with the officer from the
Security
Echelon?"
"Eleven hundred hours," said Arvid.
"And it's nine-thirty, already," said Cletus, looking at his watch. "Arv, if
you'll step into the bathroom there, its window should give you a view of the
drive in front of the hospital. If the general's coming by ground car, you
ought to be able to see him pulling up about now. Take a look for me, will
you?"
Arvid obediently disappeared into the small bath cubicle attached to Cletus'
hospital room.
"No sign, sir," his voice came back.
"Keep watching," Cletus said.
Cletus relaxed against the upright slope of the bed behind him, half-closing
his eyes. He had been expecting the general in fact, Bat would be merely the
last in a long line of visitors that had included
Mondar, Eachan Khan, Melissa, Wefer Linet and even Ed Jarnki. The gangling
young noncommissioned officer had come in to show Cletus the new sergeant's
stripes on his sleeve and give
Cletus the credit for the fact they were there.
"Lieutenant Athyer's report tried to take all the credit for himself," Jarnki
said. "We heard about it from the company clerk. But the rest of the squad and
me we spread the real story around. Maybe over at the Officers' Club they
don't know how it was, but they do back in the barracks."
"Thank you," said Cletus.
"Hell & " said Jarnki, and paused, apparently at somewhat of a loss to further
express his feelings.
He changed the subject. "You wouldn't be able to use me yourself, would you,
Colonel? I haven't been to clerks' school, but I mean you couldn't use a
driver or anything?"
Cletus smiled. "I'd like to have you, Ed," he said, "but I don't think they'd
give you up. After all, you're a line soldier."
"I guess not, then," said Jarnki, disappointed. He went off, but not before he
extracted from Cletus a promise to take him on if he should ever become
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available.
Jarnki had been wrong, however, in believing that Athyer's report would be
accepted at face value
among the commissioned ranks. Clearly, the lieutenant was known to his fellow
officers for the kind of field commander he was just as it had been fairly
obvious that Bat had not by chance chosen an officer like him to test Cletus'
prophecy of guerrilla infiltration. As Arvid had reported to him, after that
night at
Mondar's party, the word was that Bat Traynor was out to get Cletus. In itself
this information had originally meant merely that Cletus would be a good
person for his fellow officers to avoid. But now, since he had pulled his
chestnut out of the fire up on the Blue River without burning his fingers,
there was plainly a good deal of covert sympathy for him among all but Bat's
closest supporters. Eachan Khan had dryly hinted as much. Wefer Linet, from
his safe perch inside the Navy chain of command, had blandly alluded to it.
Bat could hardly be unaware of this reaction among the officers and men he
commanded.
Moreover, he was a conscientious commanding officer in the formal sense. If
anything, it was surprising that he had not come to pay a visit to Cletus at
the hospital before this.
Cletus relaxed, pushing back the tension in his body that threatened to
possess it in impatience at being anchored here on the bed when so many things
were yet to be done. What would be, would be &
The sound of the door opening brought his eyes open as well. He raised his
head and looked to his right and saw Bat Traynor entering the hospital room.
There had been no warning from Arvid, still in the bathroom. Fleetingly, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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