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"Well, ah, yes, Field Prime," he said. She was leaning against the doorway of her quarters, set into the fissured rock, smiling slightly.
"Field problem in the morning," she said, looking at the chronometer-compass on her wrist. "Oh," she added, just as she closed the door. "Co
This is ridiculous, Geoffrey Niles thought, staring at the doorknob.
His room was a simple bubble in the rock, roughly shaped with pneumatic hammers; the floor was covered with mats of woven quasibamboo, and there was simple furniture of wood and metal that looked as if it had been knocked together in one of the workshops and doubtless had been. There was a jug and bowl on the dresser and a field phone beside the bed, which was covered in furs that would have been worth a fortune on Earth and were probably what the poor used on Sparta. Someone had unpacked his gear and stowed it neatly in the dressers: there were four sets of Helot uniforms in his size with Senior Group Leader's rank-badges-about equivalent to Major-hanging from the wooden rod that served as a closet, a complete set of web gear, and boots that fitted him. No excuse to linger beyond washing up and changing his clothes.
Also a bottle of brandy and some glasses in a cupboard. For a moment he considered taking a shot… Don't be ridiculous, he told himself again. You're twenty-four years old, not some schoolboy virgin. You've had plenty of experience with women. His palms were sweating; he wiped them, and looked at the door again. Saw Skilly's face as she shot the man in the stomach this morning, bored disinterest. Saw it as they ran down the stairs in Sparta city, laughing as the grenade blew and shrapnel licked at their heels amid the screams and curses. He shivered slightly with a complex emotion he could not have named, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. "So she's not a debutante," he muttered.
The door swung open noiselessly. There were two chambers on the other side; the first was an office, tables of neatly stacked papers, filing cabinets, a retrieval system and desk; all dim, lit only by the reflected light of a small lamp in the next. The only ornament was something that looked like an Indian figurine about six inches high, a six-armed goddess dancing.
He walked through. The bedroom was larger than his, but scarcely better furnished, except for one wall that held racked bookcases and a veedisk player. A big Japanese-looking print beside that, but he paid little attention to it. Skilly was lying reading on her bed, the blankets and ermine coverlet folded down to the foot of it. She was entirely naked, and there were two glasses of brandy waiting on the night table.
"Well," she said softly, putting aside the book. Some distant part of his brain noted the title: Seven Pillars of Wisdom. "Skilly was begi
She slid down from the pillows and stretched; her chocolate-colored skin rippled in long smooth curves as she linked her hands behind her head. Her breasts were high and rounded, the nipples plum-dark and taut. He felt his hands open and close convulsively, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse with the pulse that hammered painfully in throat and temples and groin.
"I think you'll find me man enough and more."
She laughed, with a child's gleeful malice in the tone. "Come show Skilly, then. Show me what you made of."
The Englishman murmured slightly as Skida slipped out of bed; she waited for a moment until he turned over and burrowed his head into the pillow. Chuckling soundlessly, she pulled the ermine coverlet up around him before slipping into her pajamas and out the door. This was officer country and safe, but she tucked a small automatic into the back of the trouser-band just the same; habit, and good habits kept you alive. She gave a contented yawn as she padded down to the wardroom and over to the cooler unit set against one wall, taking out a tall glass of milk and a plate of her favorite oatmeal cookies before flopping down on a couch. The wardroom's style was deliberately casual, to encourage the command cadre to develop a club spirit. Not very likely anyone would be here at this hour, though; Base One rose with the dawn, and Sparta's nights were short.
She sipped and nibbled contentedly, thinking, smiling to herself.
"Skilly looking happy," Two-knife said. "You going to drop Croser?" He knew she seldom had more than one man at a time; Skida Thibodeau hated mess and confusion and u
"Not right now, but it time to put us on a more professional footing," she said lightly.
Two-knife walked over to the cooler and fixed himself a plate of cold chicken, popping the cap off a beer bottle with one thumb. He was wearing only cotton-duck trousers, and the faint glowlight emphasized the heavy bands of muscle over shoulders and chest and stomach; he was taller than her, but broad enough to seem squat. She smiled affectionately, remembering the time a pimp in Mayopan had decked her from behind with a crowbar during a negotiation session over territorial rights; Two-knife had grabbed him by wrist and neck and done a straight pull until the man's arm came out at the shoulder socket.
"What joke?" he said.
"Remembering old times," she said; they dropped back into a familiar mixture of Belizean English, Spanish and low-country Mayan. "Remember the time RoBo was going to shoot you?"
Two-knife laughed, a rumbling sound. "Never forget it. The look on his face when you broke his neck!
Ah, those were the days, Skilly." There was a companionable silence. "How long you going to keep the Englishman?"
"Permanent, Skilly thinks," she said. At his look of surprise: "Well, Croser not the one I want for keeps.
Hard man, him, maybe too much to handle up close. Besides, Skilly don't like cutting throats in the family, and if…" She made a gesture, and he nodded: it had long been obvious there would be an endgame after the Revolution, if they won.
"Jeffi perfect; got the right co
Two-knife grunted. "Yes. There's going to be a lot of dead white-asses soon."
"Hey," she said playfully, "no race prejudice in the Helots-that a gauntlet offense!" They both laughed.
Of course, there was a regulation to that effect; there had to be, given the polyglot nature of the force.
Two-knife made a show of despising everyone but Mayans from his home district, anyway, and for that matter, the term meant "naive fool" as much as anything specifically ethnic.
"Besides, Skilly's momma was a white-ass."
"I, Two-knife, will forgive you for that. Even forgive you that your father was a damned Black Carib pimp."
She finished her milk and licked her lips. "Hey, Two-knife, serious, mon; remember after we win, we gots to put this place back together and run it." She looked at him from under her eyelids. "Ah! Skilly will find you a nice widow-widows be plentiful then-with yellow hair and big tits and good hips and a big hacienda, she teach you how to take off your boots in bed and eat with a fork, so Skilly won't have to hide you in the closet at the fancy parties."
"You want to kill me, woman?" he asked, shaking with laughter again; then his face fell, as he realized she was half-serious. And when Skilly made a plan… "You told the Englishman he's getting married?" he said.
"No," she said, dusting her hands as she finished the last cookie. "Skilly will train him up to it gradual."