Jem

“Which exercise — swimming, ru

“All of them, dear Da

“What’s that?”

“I just want to set the record straight. With Nguyen Tree I’m fucking. With you I was making love.”

Twelve on perimeter guard, two in sick bay, three in the comm shack, and eight more on the other twenty-four-hour details that always had to be ma

She retreated behind the little stand and sat cross-legged on the ground, breathing deeply. Marge Me

It was Marge Me

While she was waiting for the cha-cha to end she considered the next day. Ship One would be empty, and a team could be started on separating the two halves and moving them into position in the perimeter.

Dalehouse or Kappelyushnikov — which? the Russian, she decided — Kappelyushnikov could be briefed on Tinka’s mission, or at least enough of it so that he could escort her partway to the Greasy camp. A work team could be organized to start putting up poles for the farm plot. She would meet and learn to know at least six of the advance party; in two weeks, she should know everything she had to know about everyone in the camp. Orders would be cut naming Guy Tree as her G-l and Santangelo as G-2. The others she would wait on; there might be people she hadn’t met yet who should have the jobs. And, if things went well, during the three hours she allowed herself for a midday break, she would go for a walk in the woods. If you could call them woods. They needed to be dealt with too: Knock down some of those skungy ferms, scoop out some farm ponds to drain that soggy swamp. It would work — all they needed was a couple of bulldozers. Which reminded her that she needed at least to make a first approximation of a requisition list for the next shipment from Earth. That couldn’t wait. With all the fuss the civilians were kicking up, Marge Me

The smell of pot from beyond the stand pleased her. She thought of lighting up before getting up to make her speech — it was another way of showing her personal style. But it had been less than half an hour since the last one, and Marge knew her tolerances exactly; it might make her fuzzy.

The cha-cha ended, and the girl at the tape machine, looking toward Margie, switched it off. Marge nodded and climbed the stand.

The laughter and buzz dwindled as the hundred-odd people turned to face her. She smiled out at them for a moment, waiting for silence. They looked exactly like the plebes at West Point had looked, exactly like the audience in the Senate hearing room, like every audience she had ever faced. Marge was in touch with her audiences; she could always make them like her, and for that reason she liked them.

“Welcome to the first weekly Food Bloc Expedition Saturday Night Dance. I’m Colonel Marjorie Me

For the next half-hour Marge Me