Toni laughed.
From the sound of her laugh, Howard figured she still hadn't gotten around to discussing Angela Cooper with the commander. Well. It sure as hell wasn't his business, and he wasn't going to—
His virgil peeped, the tone indicating it was a personal call. He frowned. He wasn't really in the field, so he hadn't shut off everything but tactical reach yet; still, it was unusual for his wife to call. "Excuse me a moment," he said. He walked away from the table and pulled the virgil from his belt. Mindful of where he was, he kept his visual transmission off.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Dad."
"Tyrone. Everything okay? Your mother—?"
"Mom's fine, we're three by three and go ahead here, Dad."
Howard relaxed. Nobody had gotten into a car accident or anything. "What's sailing, son?"
"I don't want to bother you if you're busy."
"I'm not that busy. Shoot."
There was a pause. It stretched.
"We are talking transcontinental rates here, Tyrone."
"Sorry. Well, there's this girl at school…"
Howard listened to his son pour out his problem, and he felt himself grinning. Whenever anybody asked him if he'd like to go back and live his life over, he'd always told them no, not a chance. He hadn't made so many mistakes that he would go through puberty again to make up for them. No, sir.
Fiorella and Fernandez ignored him, looking at the computer visuals, and after a little while, Cooper and Michaels arrived.
Finally, his son ran down. "So, whaddya you think, Pop?"
"Well, I could be wrong, but I think your boomerang girl likes you. And she's maybe a little jealous of Bella."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. And she might have a point, too. Why do you like hanging around with Nadine?"
"She can throw, Dad. She's smart, she's funny, and she's got an arm to sell your comic collection for."
"But she's not much of a looker?"
"Not really."
"And Bella?"
"Jeez, Dad, she's gorgeous!"
"And if my memory serves, she's also got a mean streak. You remember talking to me about her when she cut you loose before?"
"Yeah."
"She thumped you pretty good once before. You got any reason to believe she won't do it again if it suits her?"
"Uh… no. But maybe she realized she made a mistake."
"And maybe you're more desirable because somebody else wants you."
"Nadine? No offense, but I can't see that Bella would be the least bit worried about Nadine, Dad. She's fun and all, but she's not somebody you'd cross the street to get a better look at."
"If Nadine is athletic, smart, and funny, some people might find that intimidating, especially if they aren't."
"You mean Bella is jealous of Nadine?"
Howard chuckled. Tyrone spoke in the same tone of voice he might use if he'd just heard his father say he was going to fly home by jumping into the air and flapping his arms real fast.
"What else changed, son, since she dropped you?"
"Nothing." Another silence. Then, "Man."
"It's nice to be wanted," Howard said. "But you have to ask yourself who wants you, and why. You can't blame anybody for the face and form God gives them, but they can't take any credit for those looks, either. Unless maybe they've paid for a lot of expensive plastic surgery."
"What are you saying here, Dad?"
"If Bella wasn't beautiful, if she was plain or even ugly, would you want to spend time with her? Has she got something going for her other than what she looks like? Would you cross the street to talk to her if you couldn't look at her when you did it?"
This dead air was getting real expensive.
"Uh…"
"Think about it. Let it perk for a while and see what comes out."
"Oh, man. I guess I better go. Uh, thanks, Dad."
"Say hello to Mom for me."
"I will. Discom."
"Bye, son."
Howard hooked the virgil back to his belt. He was a soldier, and he was going to be gone a lot, that was the nature of soldiering, but he worried about not being there for his son. A man had to do his job, but a man also had responsibilities to his family. Whatever else was going on, he had a son who needed a father's help. There were values that needed to be passed on, lessons to be taught. He had to remember that. It was important.
Chapter 33
Ferns as tall as pine trees loomed in the sweltering heat, and dragonflies the size of hawks flitted among the lush greenery, hunting mosquitoes that could pass for skinny sparrows. This was primeval, primordial, hot, wet, and dank in ways far beyond a tropical rain forest.
The wide-base Humvee hit a dip and a mound of humus that might grow up to be part of an oil field in twenty or thirty million years. The front wheel on the passenger side bounced into the air and clawed at nothing, but the other three studded tires had enough traction to clear the decaying lump before dropping the vehicle back on all fours.
Jay's teeth clacked together, hard.
Belted into the passenger seat, Saji said, "Damn, Jay! You want me to drive?"
Jay gunned the powerful engine. The Humvee lurched forward. "Like you could do any better."
"I don't see how I could do any worse. Unless maybe I drove off a cliff."
The damp ground leveled out a little, and the tire studs dug in and pushed the wide-track along a little faster. "It's not as easy as it looks."
"Well, the way you do it, easy isn't the word that leaps to mind."
He was trying to come up with a killer comeback when he spotted the smashed ferns. He slowed, crept a few feet closer to the downed plants, then pulled the UV over and put it into neutral. He glanced at Saji. "You can stay here while I go look. Stand by the gun, if you want."
There was a.50-caliber water-cooled belt-fed Browning machine gun mounted on the uncovered rear deck of the Humvee. Clipped to the deck was also a shoulder-operated, laser-guided antitank rocket launcher and half a dozen rockets. Jay had considered bringing rifles and shotguns but decided not to bother. Anything smaller wouldn't do the job. He would have preferred a tank and spent-uranium armor-piercing rounds to shoot from it, but, relatively speaking, the rocket launcher was the biggest thing he could carry in this scenario. Anything more powerful simply wouldn't work. Unfortunately.
"I'd rather not," Saji said. She wore a set of bush khaki shorts and shirt, with Nike waffle-stompers and knee socks rolled down. She was gorgeous in the tropical clothing. He wondered what she looked like without any clothes.
"All right. Slide over and take the wheel, then. Leave the engine running. We might need to take off in a hurry."
He alighted and walked toward the smashed fern boles over fairly springy ground covered with what looked like green moss.
He could hardly have missed the footprint: three toes and a pad, no heel. A little water had seeped into the bottom of the print, which was big enough that, if you completely filled it, you could sit down and take a bath.
Jay swallowed dryly. Jesus, look at that thing. He followed the direction of the toes. Twenty-five feet ahead was another footprint, and there was a definite path through the brush ahead of that, as if somebody had driven a big diesel tractor-trailer through the forest, knocking down anything that got in its way.
Jay stared at the trail of destruction. It wasn't a truck. Nope. It was Rex Regum, the king of kings, Carnosaur Supreme, the ultimate predator. Made your average tyrannosaur look like somebody's pet iguana. The thing could run from one end of a football field to the other end in a dozen steps. Probably was fifty feet tall, not even counting the tail.