"You have my authorization code," Hammer said to the human operator on the other end of the connection. From Jolober's flat angle to the plate, he couldn't make out the operator's features—only that he sat in a brightly illuminated white cubicle. "Patch me through to the chairman of the Facilities Inspection Committee."
'"Senator Dieter?" said the operator, professionally able to keep the question short of being amazement.
"If he's the chairman," Hammer said. The words had the angry undertone of a dynamite fuse burning.
"Yessir, she is," replied the operator with studied neutrality. "One moment, please."
"I've been dealing with her chief aide," said Jolober in a hasty whisper. "Guy named Higgey. His pager's loaded—"
"Got you a long ways, didn't it, Commandant?" Hammer said with a gun-turret click of his head toward Jolober.
"Your pardon, sir," said Jolober, bracing reflexively to attention. He wasn't Hammer's subordinate, but they both served the same ideal—getting the job done. The ball was in Hammer's court just now, and he'd ask for support if he thought he needed it.
From across the waiting room, Joachim Steuben smiled at Jolober. That one had the same ideal, perhaps; but his terms of reference were something else again.
"The senator isn't at any of her registered work stations," the operator reported coolly.
"Son," said Hammer, leaning toward the visiplate, "you have a unique opportunity to lose the war for Placida. All you have to do is not get me through to the chairman."
"Yes, Colonel Hammer," the operator replied with an aplomb that made it clear why he held the job he did. "I've processed your authorization, and I'm running it through again on War Emergency Ord—"
The last syllable was clipped. The bright rectangle of screen dimmed gray. Jolober slid his chair in a short arc so that he could see the visiplate clearly past Hammer's shoulder.
"What is it?" demanded the woman in the dim light beyond. She was stocky, middle-aged, and rather attractive because of the force of personality she radiated even sleepless in a dressing gown.
"This is Colonel Alois Hammer," Hammer said. "Are you recording?"
"On this circuit?" the senator replied with a frosty smile. "Of course I am. So are at least three other agencies, whether I will or no."
Hammer blinked, startled to find himself on the wrong end of a silly question for a change.
"Senator," he went on without the hectoring edge that had been present since his arrival. "A contractor engaged by your government to provide services at Paradise Port has been causing problems. One of the Léégèère's down, in critical, and I'm short a company commander over the same incident."
"You've reported to the port commandant?" Senator Dieter said, her eyes unblinking as they passed over Jolober.
"The commandant reported to me because your staff stonewalled him," Hammer said flatly while Jolober felt his skin grow cold, even the tips of the toes he no longer had. "I want the contractor, a nonhuman called Red Ike, off-planet in seventy-two hours with all his chattels. That specifically includes his Dolls. We'll work—"
"That's too soon," said Dieter, her fingers tugging a lock of hair over one ear while her mind worked. "Even if—"
"Forty-eight hours, Senator," Hammer interrupted. "This is a violation of your bond. And I promise you, I'll have the support of all the other commanders of units contracted to Placidan service. Forty-eight hours, or we'll withdraw from combat and you won't have a front line."
"You can't—" Dieter began. Then all muscles froze, tongue and fingers among them, as her mind considered the implications of what the colonel had just told her.
"I have no concern over being able to win my case at the Bonding Authority hearing on Earth," Hammer continued softly. "But I'm quite certain that the present Placidan government won't be there to contest it."
Dieter smiled without humor. "Seventy-two hours," she said as if repeating the figure.
"I've shifted the Regiment across continents in less time, Senator," Hammer said.
"Yes," said Dieter calmly. "Well, there are political consequences to any action, and I'd rather explain myself to my constituents than to an army of occupation. I'll take care of it."
She broke the circuit.
"I wouldn't mind getting to know that lady," said Hammer, mostly to himself, as he folded the visiplate back into the counter.
"That takes care of your concerns, then?" he added sharply, looking up at Jolober.
"Yes, sir, it does," said Jolober, who had the feeling he had drifted into a plane where dreams could be happy.
"Ah, about Captain Hoffritz . . ." Hammer said. His eyes slipped, but he snapped them back to meet Jolober's despite the embarrassment of being about to ask a favor.
"He's not combat-fit right now, Colonel," Jolober said, warming as authority flooded back to fill his mind. "He'll do as well in our care for the next few days as he would in yours. After that, and assuming that no one wants to press charges—"
"Understood," said Hammer, nodding. "I'll deal with the victim and General Claire."
"—then some accommodation can probably be arranged with the courts."
"It's been a pleasure dealing with a professional of your caliber, Commandant," Hammer said as he shook Jolober's hand. He spoke without emphasis, but nobody meeting his cool blue eyes could have imagined that Hammer would have bothered to lie about it.
"It's started to rain," observed Major Steuben as he muscled the door open.
"It's permitted to," Hammer said. "We've been wet be—"
"A jeep to the front of the building," Jolober ordered with his ring finger crooked. He straightened and said, "Ah, Colonel? Unless you'd like to be picked up by one of your own vehicles?"
"Nobody knows I'm here," said Hammer from the doorway. "I don't want van Zuyle to think I'm second-guessing him—I'm not, I'm just handling the part that's mine to handle."
He paused before adding with an ironic smile, "In any case, we're four hours from exploiting the salient Hoffritz's company formed when they took the junction at Kettering."
A jeep with two patrolmen, stunners ready, scraped to a halt outside. The team was primed for a situation like the one in the alley less than an hour before.
"Taxi service only, boys," Jolober called to the patrolmen. "Carry these gentlemen to their courier ship, please."
The jeep was spinning away in the drizzle before Jolober had closed and locked the door again. It didn't occur to him that it mattered whether or not the troops bivouacked around Paradise Port knew immediately what Hammer had just arranged.
And it didn't occur to him, as he bounced his chair up the stairs calling, "Vicki! We've won!" that he should feel any emotion except joy.
"Vicki!" he repeated as he opened the bedroom door. They'd have to leave Placida unless he could get Vicki released from the blanket order on Dolls—but he hadn't expected to keep his job anyway, not after he went over the head of the whole Placidan government.
"Vi—"
She'd left a light on, one of the point sources in the ceiling. It was a shock, but not nearly as bad a shock as Jolober would have gotten if he'd slid onto the bed in the dark.
"Who?" his tongue asked while his mind couldn't think of anything to say, could only move his chair to the bedside and palm the hydraulics to lower him into a sitting position.
Her right hand and forearm were undamaged. She flexed her fingers and the keen plastic blade shot from her fist, then collapsed again into a baton. She let it roll onto the bedclothes.
"He couldn't force me to kill you," Vicki said. "He was very surprised, very . . ."
Jolober thought she might be smiling, but he couldn't be sure since she no longer had lips. The plastic edges of the knife Vicki took as she dressed him were not sharp enough for finesse, but she had not attempted surgical delicacy.