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A curtain covered what he presumed was a closet. He walked over to the curtain
and pulled it back. The clothes shelves were empty, as were the hooks and
hangers. The inside of the closet and the walls were all plastered in a light
tan finish. The floor was a silver-shot synthetic black stone, made locally
with some Service help, Gerswin recalled.
Gerswin noted the towel beside his clothes, scooped it up, and peered out into
the empty hall before he walked to the room that contained the shower, a
built-in bath, and sink. Toilet facilities were connected, but behind another
wall. The only doors in the house appeared to be the front door and the door
to bath and toilet, not unexpectedly, since doors required either Imperial
synthetics, imported substitutes, or high-energy local products.
Within another ten years, some locally grown timber would start to become
available, but the major timber supplies were closer to twenty years away. The
real problem would be to keep down demand and native cutting until the newly
replanted and re-established forests had succeeded in stabilizing the ecology.
Gerswin shook his head as he undressed. One complication always led to
another.
A clink and a clatter from the kitchen area reminded him to hurry, and he
finished stripping o£F his damp flightsuit, The shower was an enclosed tile
stall, curtainless and doorless, but with a baffle-staggered wall design to
minimize spray. The tiles were reddish glazed squares set in mortar.
Lerwin had been right. The water was warm. Not hot, not cold, but warm. His
shower was quick.
After shutting off the water-there was a single, long-handled faucet lever-he
toweled himself dry, rubbing his hair with the thin towel which resembled
worn-out Imperial issue.
A glance out the door showed an empty hallway, and, towel wrapped around his
waist, he carried his exercise clothes back to the guest room where he
dressed. Once presentable, he folded the exercise clothes and put them on the
table, then straightened the bed, and headed for the front room.
The living room, a boxy space roughly four meters on a side, was vacant,
although the small table at one end was set for three. Closer to him, and to
the entryway where he stood, with the front door to his left and the sleeping
rooms behind him, were a low couch and two tables, one low and square, the
other to the right of the couch, and two fabric sling seats. The dimness of
the room was only partly lifted by the single lamp on the table to the right
of the couch.
"Now you look the part. Captain." Lerwin marched through the archway by the
dinner table with a covered bowl, which he set down there.
"Part of what?"
"Visiting dignitary."
"Visiting, yes. Dignitary, no."
Lerwin grinned. "Ha! Almost got you to act like an Impie."
Gerswin couldn't resist giving him a grin in return. "Almost. Not that far
gone. Yet."
"Sit down, Captain. Ki says dinner won't be ready for a while. Deputy Ops
boss's requests kept her working too late."
"You didn't?"
"Afraid I did."
Gerswin eased himself into the left-hand sling chair. Lerwin took the right.
"Where did you get these?"
"Lostwin makes them."
"Makes them?"
"Scrap. Whatever he can get."
Gerswin frowned. Supposedly, the Imperial scrap went to the converters, both
for power purposes and for security reasons.
"Just the common things. Broken seats, furniture, panels. He has to replace it
with equal mass conversions. Perfectly legal."
Gerswin ran his hand along the frame of the chair in which he sat, recognizing
it was a section of flitter bracing that had been cut and molded into its new
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function.
"Nice work. What about the shambletowners?"
Lerwin understood the question. "Not much into furniture yet. Lostwin can make
about enough for those who are interested. Has a waiting list already."
The base commander nodded. He needed to push up the schedule for tree
planting. Resource needs were growing faster than food requirements. Without
Imperial synthetics, and without wood, the incipient recovery would turn into
a sickening crash.
"Need more trees."
Lerwin nodded.
Gerswin stood as Kiedra walked in.
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"How do you like it. Captain?"
"Much nicer than quarters. Much . . . warmer."
"You made it possible-everything possible."
"Just helped. Just'helped." Gerswin gestured toward the couch, a movement as
much a question as an invitation.
"Dinner won't be ready for a few minutes." Kiedra sat on the low couch,
tucking one bare foot under her as she settled down.
The quiet stretched out.
"Haven't seen anything like the couch. Lostwin's work?" Kiedra laughed, three
soft musical notes in a row. "Not exactly. He made the frame. Ler, here, made
the cushions." Lerwin looked at the black synthetic stone floor. Gerswin shook
his head in an exaggerated motion. "The talents I
never found out about."
Kiedra bolted upright. "I forgot the liftea!" Returning moments later with
three mugs on a tray, she offered the first to Gerswin. He took the mug, but
waited until she had reseated herself.
"To you, and to your home, and future happiness.'"
"To your own success. Captain."
"To your future. Captain."
The three sipped the hot tea with the orange spice aftertaste.
Gerswin cupped the smooth pottery mug in his hands, letting the steam from the
tea drift into his nostrils, and studied the dark and slender black-haired
woman opposite him.
Happy enough, she seemed. More than happy-more alive than he ever recalled.
She and Lerwin were good for each other, he decided, while surpressing a sigh
at the memory of a devilkid who had not wanted to leave him, though he had
never touched her. His lips smirked momentarily.
Better the way it had turned out, much better for everyone. They had been the
ones who had pushed for the changes that had let Imperials, devilkids and all,
live in either the town or there quarters. They would provide the nucleus for
rebuilding, if he could keep enough Imperial support coming.
"You look rather serious. Captain."
"Reflective."
"You're always reflective."
Gerswin laughed, a single bark. "Point. Point." He took mother sip of the hot
tea, letting the heat relax him as the tea warmed his throat.
"Long time from Birmha to here, that what you thought?" asked Lerwin.
"Something like that," admitted Gerswin.
"And that you've got a long way to go?" added Kiedra.
"Ki!"
"He does. A lot farther than we do. A lot farmer."
Gerswin's eyebrows went up. "What do you mean?"
"You were a captain when you gathered us together. Now you're base commander.
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Have you looked at your official bolos? Or your physicals and stress tests?"
"Of course."
"Notice any changes?"
Gerswin frowned, not wanting to follow the conversation in the direction it
was heading. "Not really. A few lines, perhaps."
"Not even that. In more than ten years, you haven't aged. We may look a bit
older, but haven't you seen that devilkids don't age as rapidly as the Impies?
The Impies notice. I can tell ,. on that. And they sure notice about you."
"That's absurd."
"Is it. Captain?" Lerwin's voice was low, but gentle. "Is it really? I
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