They did not accept excuses. They did not permit stalling. And even while he slept they continued debriefing him, tapping the incredible store of memories given him by Chub. They were merciless.
And they were effectve.
His sojourn among the Seiners had mellowed his memories of the cold determination of his Navy compatriots. He had come in unprepared. He was less ready to fight the reconstruction.
It went more quickly than his doctors anticipated.
When he was past crisis they opened him up and repaired his ulcerated plumbing.
He was permitted visitors on day twenty-nine.
"Two at a time," his nurse protested. "Just two of you can go in."
"Disappear," Mouse told her.
"Yes sir. Captain. Sir."
Mouse was nearly trampled by two women. He dropped his portable chess set. Chessmen scattered across the floor. "Oh, damn!"
Greta plopped her behind on the edge of the bed, flung herself forward, hugged McClennon. "I'm glad you're back. I've been calling every day since I heard. They wouldn't let me come before."
And Max, the old girlfriend, "Christ, Walter. What the hell did they do to you? You look like death on a stick."
"That's why I love you, Max. You've always got a pleasant word." He squeezed Greta's hand. "How are you, honey? How's Academy?"
She started babbling. Max got on about some new stamps she had at her hobby shop. She had been saving them for him.
Mouse recovered his chessmen, deposited the set on the nightstand, took a chair. He crossed right leg over left, steepled his fingers before his mouth, and watched with a small smile.
McClennon turned his head, trying to hide his eyes.
Softly, Max said, "Walter. You're crying."
McClennon hid behind his hand. "Max... It was a rough one. A long one and a rough one. I was lost for a long time. I forgot... I forgot I had friends. I was alone out there."
"Mouse was there, wasn't he?"
"Mouse was there. Without him... He brought me through. Mouse. Come here." He took Storm's hand. "Thanks, Mouse. I mean it. Let's don't let it get away again."
For a moment Storm stopped hiding behind the masks and poses. He nodded.
Greta resumed babbling. McClennon hugged her again. "I'm having trouble believing it. I thought you'd have forgotten me by now."
"How could I?"
"What am I? A sentimental fool who helped a pretty girl in trouble. We never knew each other."
She hugged him a third time. She whispered, "I knew you. You cared. That's what matters. When you were gone, your friends were always there to help." She buried her head in his shoulder and blubbered.
McClennon frowned a question at Max, who said, "Your Bureau took care of her like family. She's got to be the most pampered Midshipman in Academy."
"And you?"
Max shrugged. "I did what I could." She seemed embarrassed. "Well, how else was I going to keep track of you? I don't have connections."
"I'm glad you're going to be all right," Greta murmured. "Dad?"
More tears escaped McClennon's eyes.
"Did I do wrong? I didn't mean... "
"It's all right, honey. It's all right. I wasn't ready for that." He squeezed the wind out of her.
"Just get the hell out of my way, woman!" someone thundered in the passageway outside. Beckhart kicked the door open. "See if you can't find a bedpan over around Tycho Crater, eh? Go on. Get scarce."
The nurse beat her second retreat.
The Admiral surveyed the room.
McClennon stared at his professional paterfamilias.
"Looks like everything's under control," Beckhart observed.
"Place is drawing a crowd," McClennon said. "Must be my animal magnetism."
Beckhart smiled with one side of his mouth. "That's one crime they won't convict you of, son. Lay out that board, Mouse. I'll beat you a game while we wait for the females."
The game had hardly started, and McClennon had hardly gotten Greta's eyes dried. The door swung inward again. The nurse watched with a look of despair.
Tanni Lowenthal's face rippled with emotions. It selected an amused smile. "Tom. I thought I'd get here first. I guess you don't run as fast when you've got short legs." She crossed gazes with Max. The metallic scrang of ladies' rapiers meeting momentarily tortured the air. Then Max smiled and introduced herself. She and Tanni got past the rocky part in minutes.
Beckhart checked his watch. "Damn it, they're late. I'm going to have somebody's... "
The harried nurse stepped in. She carried a portable remote comm. "Call for you, Captain McClennon."
"Let me have that," the Admiral said. He seized the comm. "Jones? You find her? Got her on the line? All right. Thomas, your mother." He handed the comm to McClennon and returned to his game.
McClennon did not know what to do or say. He and his mother were estranged. She was Old Earther born and bred, and they had battled fiercely ever since his enlistment. Their last meeting, just before the Seiner mission, had ended bitterly.
"Mother?"
"Tommy? Is it really you?"
"Yes."
"I thought you'd been killed. When they came to the apartment... God. They say you were mixed up in this war business that's got the whole world turned upside down. The spikes are everywhere. They're grabbing people off the streets."
"I was in it a little." She had not changed. He hardly had a chance to get in a word of his own.
"They said you got married. Is she a nice girl?"
"It didn't work out. But yes, she was. You would have liked her." He checked his audience. Only the Admiral seemed to know his mother's half of the conversation.
They did not talk long. There had been little to say since he had gone his separate way. It was enough that, for all their differences, they could show one another they still cared.
McClennon handed the comm to the Admiral when he finished. "Thank you, sir."
"I owe you, Thomas. One mission and another, I put you through hell for four years. I won't apologize. You're the best. They demanded the best. But I can try to make it up a little now. I can try to show you that I didn't take it all away... " Beckhart seemed unable to say what he meant.
"Thank you, sir."
A baffled, resigned nurse opened the door. A youth in Midshipman blacks stepped in. "Uncle Tom?"
"Horst-Johann! Jesus, boy. I hardly recognize you. You're half a meter taller."
Jupp von Drachau's son joined the crowd. The boy had been closer to McClennon than his father since his parents had split. The boy was in his father's custody, and resented him for being absent so much. Thomas did not understand the reasoning behind the feeling. The boy saw Jupp more often than him... He thought of his mother and reflected that children applied a special logic to that species of adult called a parent.
He lay back on the bed and surveyed the gathering. Not a big circle, he thought, but all good friends. Surprisingly good friends, considering what he had been through the past few years... Friends whom, most of the time, he had not known he had.
He really had been way out there, lost in the wildernesses of his mind, hadn't he?
The universe now seemed bright and new, specially made for him. Even his starfish memories and his knowledge of the doom approaching from centerward could not take the gleam off.
Horst-Johann was first to leave, after a promise to visit again come the weekend. Then Mouse, who had to return to his own extended debriefing. Then Tanni, who had to get back for her watch aboard Marathon. She departed after a whispered promise that left him in no doubt that his masculinity had survived the hospital weeks.
Beckhart sat his chair silently and waited with the patience of a statue of Ramses.
A half hour after Tanni's departure, Max announced, "We have to leave, Walter. Greta has to get back for morning muster. You be good. And try not to collect any more little blondes."