Peters sipped coffee and regarded the others. Mannix and Tollison didn’t seem disposed to break off the relationship begun during liberty. The four of them had retraced some of the steps Peters and Todd had taken, discovering in the process that the Grallt were growing other Earth plants in the big factory trays below the ops bay. So far only tomatoes were available in numbers large enough to serve the sailors, let alone provide them to the rest of the crew of Llapaaloapalla, and several of the plants hadn’t grown at all. Peters would have welcomed zucchini. He didn’t like the stuff, but it would have been another source of vitamins—and familiarity.
“Peters, haul out your gadget,” Tollison directed. “How much is three zul back home? I’ve lost track.”
“It ain’t quite eight months,” Peters reported after a little manipulation. “Funny, it don’t seem that long.”
“Time flies, and all that,” Todd suggested.
Peters spotted a familiar face. “Hello, Dee,” he said as she passed. “I haven’t seen you in a little while.”
“What!? Oh. Hello, Peters,” she said. “I had forgotten that you spoke so well. I was afraid one of my superiors had caught up with me.”
“Join us, if you will,” Peters offered with a gesture. “Hey, guys, scrunch up a little and let the lady join us.”
Dee stood by, smiling a little weakly, while Peters snagged a chair from an adjacent table and the other three sailors moved aside to leave a space. Peters handed her into the chair, and Tollison looked up from under lowered eyebrows. “Introduce us to your friend,” he suggested. “Looks to me like somebody worth knowing.”
Dee giggled. “This here’s Dee,” Peters explained. “She’s the second, no, that’s wrong, she’s the third Grallt me’n Todd ever met, and she speaks English real good. She’s the one taught us how to get around the ship and how to order dinner, didn’t you, Dee? Which reminds me.” He unsealed a pocket, brought out Dee’s watch, and handed it to her. “Thanks,” he said. “‘Fraid I kept it a little long.”
“That’s all right,” she said in English. “I haven’t needed it, but I’m glad to have it back.” She looked around. “I remember Todd, of course, but I don’t know your other friends.”
“We should repair that lack as quickly as possible,” said Mannix before Peters could respond. “If I am not badly mistaken, the lady was one of the guides who graciously directed us to the palatial quarters we now inhabit, on the occasion of our first arrival aboard this magnificent vessel.”
Dee smiled. It was hard not to do that when Mannix got rolling. “Yes, I was one of the guides when you first came aboard. I don’t remember if you were in my group or not.”
“I regretfully admit that at the time my taste was not fully formed, and I was not able to fully appreciate the vision of loveliness I now see before me,” Mannix intoned solemnly. “I answer to the name of ‘Gerald Mannix’, among other things, and the hulking lout in the chair next to you is called Greg Tollison.” He rose part way from his chair and addressed an abbreviated bow to Dee, right hand over his heart. “I, for one, am very happy to make your acquaintance. I won’t speak for Tollison. He can speak for himself, if he cares to do so and can muster the brain power, which is by no means a foregone conclusion.”
Tollison simply smiled and nodded. “Pleased to meet you,” he said in his bass rumble.
“And I you,” Dee smiled back.
“Dee’s a translator,” Peters explained. “She’s one of the ones keepin’ the officers happy—”
“Not any more,” she interrupted with some force, then dropped her eyes.
“What happened?” Todd asked.
“I quit,” she told him. “I walked out about half an hour ago, and I’m not going back. That’s why Peters startled me so. I thought he was one of my superiors, wanting to curse me out for leaving my job without authorization.” She looked around. “It doesn’t matter. I’m quitting, and that’s that. No. I have quit. English language, past perfect tense. ‘Perfect’ as in ‘perfected’, finished, over, done with.”
“You likely to get in trouble over quitting?” Peters asked.
“Ask me if I give a shit.” She stopped herself, colored, and looked down at the table. “Listen to me. I never used to talk like that even in my own language. Especially in my own language. Now here I am…” She paused with an indecisive little wave, searching for the mot juste.
“Cussin’ like a sailor,” Peters supplied.
“You got it.” She shook her head. “But that isn’t the worst of it. You may have noticed I’m wearing this thing.” She made a little gesture, a flap of the fingers down her front, and Peters realized that she had on a kathir suit, the first time he’d seen her in one. “I hate it,” Dee went on. “It shows me off too much—”
“I hope you realize nobody here objects to that,” Todd interrupted.
“Don’t you start!” She shook her head. “As I was saying, I hate it, but it does have the virtue that nobody can reach inside it. Or pinch through it… full-handed grabs remain possible, as proven beyond any doubt a little while ago.”
That generated raised eyebrows. “That’s a pretty severe violation of our rules,” Tollison observed. “If you want to, you can get the man in bad trouble.”
“Oh, the men aren’t that much of a problem.”
“How’s Dreelig doin’?” Peters asked into the short digestive pause.
“Dreelig.” The name didn’t easily turn into a hiss; Dee managed it. “I never cared much for the asshole, but at least I could work with him. Now—” She waved disgustedly “—he’s decided he’s the Grand Exalted Panjandrum. The bit about him being an officer, you remember—”
“Yeah. Got us out of a tight spot.”
“He took it and ran with it.” She looked around, mouth twisting in ironic disgust. “I shouldn’t be associating with you enlisted plebians. I’m a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, according to Commander Dreelig.”
“‘Commander Dreelig’?” Todd asked. “Last I heard he was only claiming Lieutenant Commander.”
Dee snorted. “Shit. He’d claim Captain if he thought he could get away with it.”
“Dreelig isn’t an officer?” Mannix put in with interest. “I thought he was an ambassador. That ranks pretty high.”
“Bullshit,” she contradicted. “He’s just one of the sales staff, and not the highest-ranked one, either.” She looked around. Peters and Todd were smiling thinly, a little apprehensive about exposing what had been a secret, and the other two had raised eyebrows. “I’ll admit he has a talent for languages, but he couldn’t sell spacesuits if the air was half gone, and he couldn’t write a tight contract to save himself. The only reason he got the assignment to work with you was because nobody else wanted it.”
“I think I should infer from that,” Mannix said into the breathing pause, “that when the opportunity to deal with the U.S. Navy was offered there was no mad rush of volunteers.”
Dee nodded. “Nobody thought the idea had a snowball’s chance in Hell. That includes me, by the way, but I’m too junior to have any input.” She smiled thinly. “The thinking may have changed.”
“You mean the repairs and cleanup?” Todd asked.
“Oh, that’s the least of it. Remember that the original reason for this was to show off the pilots and machines, and they’re impressive as all Hell in action. When they beat the enkheil Combat Dancers two out of two, clear result and no question, Dreelig grinned for days.”