“I will,” he said, and returned to his shirts.
“You brought so many clothes!”
He nodded absently.
“I brought everything I have, but it isn’t much.” When he said nothing, Vanessa added, “That’s a hint.”
“I thought so.”
“Two dresses and a pants suit. A few cosmetics. I ask you.”
“Ample. Now get out of here. I have to change, as you suggested. I have to shower. I’ll get you when I’m ready to eat.”
Vanessa leveled a long, crimson-tipped finger. “I am starving, I’ve scarcely a nora, and I’m not leaving ’til I am fed. If you try to throw me out bodily, I’ll scream my glamorous little head off. I bite, too.”
“I’m going to strip—”
“Shut up! Do you think I’ve never seen a naked man?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“One must shout at idiots when kindness doesn’t work. You have a robe, I see it in your closet. Take your robe and go into the bathroom. Take off those clothes and have a nice shower. Put on the robe and I will bring you fresh clothes piece by piece. Why did you bring so much anyway?”
Skip sat down on the bed. “Chelle has a year’s leave coming. I was hoping—I don’t know that it will happen—that we could go off together right away.”
“The EU?”
His shoulders rose and fell. “Wherever she wanted. Paris or Antarctica or around the world.”
“Without me.”
“Correct.”
“You will stop paying, and I will die again. Is that right?”
“Only if you turn yourself in.”
“I’ll be broke and friendless. Starving on the streets, and they’ll be counting on that.”
He sighed. “I specialize in criminal law, Vanessa. Maybe you knew that.”
“It must be interesting. Serial killers, hijackers, burglars, and counterfeiters. The woman who drove me to the station told me.”
“Then let me tell you something. Nearly everything is against the law on this continent. Cockfighting. Using a few watts over your energy allotment. Signing with someone too young to contract. Picking your nose in a public park. On and on and on. As a result there are at least seventy million fugitives, and there could be more. Nobody really knows.”
“Most of whom nobody gives a hoot about.”
He sighed. “You’re right.”
“Reanimation would care a great deal about me. More than enough to offer a reward. Enough to have its private security run me down, a friendless woman without money.”
The telephone on Skip’s nightstand caroled; the screen lit to show Chelle’s anxious face.
* * *
While they waited for a room-service dinner, Skip said, “If they won’t let anybody off base, what are you doing here?”
Chelle grinned. “I hopped over the fence. Went AWOL. Bad, bad Chelle!”
“Won’t you be punished?”
She shook her head. “I could be—court-martialed and reduced in grade. All that shit. I won’t be. There are too many of us, and we’re just back from the smokehouse and in line for uppity-ump awards and citations. I’ll go back tomorrow morning, get a chewing-out and a lecture, and keep processing. I’m going to sleep here, right? With you?”
Skip nodded. “I certainly hope so.”
“But you deserted to see me,” Vanessa protested. “You didn’t even know who Skip was.”
“Yeah.” Chelle paused, looking from one to the other. “Except that I didn’t desert. I went away without leave. You don’t desert unless you put on civvies, and you have to have been missing for more than a week.”
She yawned and smiled at Skip. “Hey, listen to me—I’ve turned into a guardhouse lawyer. You probably know all this already.”
He shook his head. “Military law’s a different field. I should have boned up on it while you were away. I’ll do it, now that you’ve come back.”
Vanessa said, “You’re getting out, aren’t you, Chelle? Getting a discharge?”
“No, sir! Not ’til I use up my paid leave.”
Their food arrived, and Skip signed for it.
“I’ve got a ton of pay coming, too,” Chelle remarked as the waiter left. “How long was I gone?”
“Twenty-two years, one hundred and six days.” Skip cleared his throat. “I didn’t count the hours. I was…”
“Speechless, Counselor?”
“Looking for the best word. Devastated. Knocked off my feet. Half dead. Veritas nihil veretur nisi abscondi. None of those I’ve found are quite right, and I’m still groping for it.”
Chelle uncovered her plate. “This smells heavenly. Army food’s not really as bad as everybody thinks, but I’m starved and this is going to be better. So I’m going to ask questions now, and you two are going to have to answer while I liberate the best chow.” Abruptly her voice grew serious. “This one’s driving me nuts. Why don’t you look old, Mom?”
Vanessa snapped, “Please don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”
“Last time, I swear. Why don’t you?”
“I’ve been away.”
“In space? Sure! You had to be.” Chelle’s strong, white teeth tore the breast of a chicken.
“I shall not say more, darling.”
Through the chicken, Chelle managed, “Where’s Charlie?”
“I neither know nor care. I voided our contract—unilaterally, which is quite difficult. It was after you divorced us, thus you were not notified.”
“Uh huh.”
“Charles grew boring as he aged. Perhaps Skip has as well. You’ll have to tell me.”
“I haven’t grown boring,” Skip declared, “because I was boring already. Chelle found me restful after combat training.”
“Atter lif wi’ you.” Chelle swallowed. “You’re a breakdown trying to happen to somebody else, Mother dear.”
“Why, Chelle! That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Absence makes the heart horny, or whatever it is. Why won’t— I’ve got it! You were a spy! I’ll bet you were good at it, too.”
Skip said, “I can’t imagine how a human being could spy on the Os.”
“Electronically.” Chelle was mining her baked potato.
“We spy on the EU, and they upon us,” Vanessa told him. “Everybody spies on Greater Eastasia.”
“I know, but it doesn’t involve interstellar travel.”
Chelle said, “Right. We’re all allies together out there, arm in arm as we march through thick and thin and all that shit. One of the best noncoms we had turned out to be an EU spy, Master Sergeant Pununto. I killed him. Do you know that as soon as I finish my dinner—yours, too—I’m going to rape you? I just decided on it. Anybody want wine?”
Vanessa held out her glass, and Chelle poured. “While he was in that goddamned bathroom getting dressed I damned near broke down the door. What kind of underwear does he wear?”
Before Vanessa could reply, Skip said, “Not relevant.”
“I’ll find out. Probably those cool silk loincloths—they’re big right now.”
“Chelle, really!”
“Now listen up, Skip, ’cause this is serious. I could be stuck here for weeks. I don’t know, but I could be.” She took a pencil and a small notebook from a pocket of her uniform. “I’m going to give you my service number, and the number of the base commander’s office. Phone tomorrow and ask where I am—what part of the processing. They’ll say they can’t find out without my number. It’s a damned lie, but give it to them and ask when I’m getting out. That’s important. They might tell you, but they won’t tell me. Go all legal on them and you’ll probably get it.”
Skip said, “I understand. What I don’t understand is why they may hold on to you for weeks.”
“They think we’re crazy, that combat’s shoved us over the edge.” Chelle fluffed her blond curls. “Those pricks call themselves soldiers, but there’s not a fucking one of them—”