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them, so you had to search each one.
This had been the one he'd least expected. It had certainly not been one he'd put his name down for.
SmallMac's name wasn't in the Equestrian unit either. It was on the same list as Fitz's.
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 Inserted and initialed in the same way. So were the other two who'd been there that night.
* * *
That first pass had an almost surreal feel to it. Walking out of the camp gates . . . The air was just too
crisp, the sunlight too beautiful, the grass too green. And nobody was yelling at them. Strolling down the
road in a casual, deliberately out-of-step snaggle of other dazed but happy-looking squaddies from tent
17, Fitz wasn't even fazed that he'd have to walk a couple of miles to get to a bus stop, instead of having
the Aston Martin. It was just great to be out. There was also an "eye-to-the-storm" feel about it. The life
expectancy of frontline troops was short, and everyone knew it.
"I am going to drink myself into a stupor, wake up, stay in bed and get drunk again," announced Ewen
with great satisfaction. "I don't see myself getting to spend much of my pay where I'm going."
"You're abnormal!" said one of lads. "I haven't seen a woman for six weeks. Even the colonel's bulldog
bitch was starting to look sexy."
Ewen laughed. "Women get posted to the front, too. And if one eighth of what my cousin Dimitri told me
is true, we'll catch up on our shagging. Everyone is scared and everyone is bored. There is nothing much
else to do but shag and die. But booze . . . Enlisted men are allowed two blasted beers a night if you're
not in frontline trenches. Dimitri said they end up buying the stuff from those rats. Reminds me. You guys
had better buy whatever chocolate you can get and smuggle it in. The rats will pay through the nose for
it."
"I hear there are a lot of places in town that won't admit men in uniform," said another one of the men,
cracking his knuckles suggestively.
"Keep out of trouble, Isaacs," said SmallMac. "The town's crawling with MPs. I've heard they get a
bonus for every Vat they beat up and toss into the cells."
"Huh. They'll have to catch me first. So what are you going to do, SmallMac? Kiss a horse or two?"
"That's not a polite thing to say about my wife and daughters," said SmallMac, looking indecently happy.
It left Conrad Fitzhugh feeling indecently sad instead. SmallMac was one of the few who got regular
mail. Somebody out there loved him. Which was both sad and frightening at the same time. Fitz hadn't
spoken to his father for two years, since his mother's death. Who else did he have to see? They were
either in the army or belonged to the other life that that stranger, Conrad Fitzhugh, Shareholder, had led.
Or both. SmallMac had someone that he could go back to. And to whom it mattered if he was killed.
Fitz wondered now, from a dispassionate distance, what Candy would have said if he had killed himself.
Or if he was killed in the war. He hadn't thought about her much in the last six weeks. He resolved to go
and straighten things out. After all, Cartup was either dead or he wasn't. One way or the other it didn't
really matter now. And he'd go around and see his father, too.
He caught a bus into town. Took another to Van Klomp's apartments on Clarges Street, on the off
chance that Bobby's army plans had gone awry. Besides, he hadn't a lot else to do, except look at the
girls on the street. It was quite amazing how beautiful they'd become over the last six weeks.
The door opened. Meilin, Van Klomp's factotum, manager of his small electronic repair business,
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general fix-it woman and fanatically loyal Vat-servant, looked at Fitz blankly. Fitz had been a regular
caller for the last five years.
"Where is Bobby?" he asked with a grin.
"I am sorry, sir," said Meilin stiffly, doing her best Vat-butler imitation. "Mr. Van Klomp is not home.
He's at military headquarters. He is due back this afternoon, if you would like to call again?"
"He's not got that parachute regiment formed yet ?"
Meilin sniffed. "He believes that it may be happening today, sir. That's what Mr. Van Klomp believed
yesterday, and the day and the week before too, sir." Meilin spoke with an urbanity that betrayed how
Van Klomp must have been making the walls shake for the last while. "If I might have your name, sir? I
will tell him that you called."
Fitz shook his head. "Don't you know who the hell I am, Meilin? Conrad Fitzhugh."
The factotum who did everything from packing parachutes, repairing electronic cameras and writing
invoices for Van Klomp blinked. Her mouth fell open, and she hauled Fitz into the apartment, neatly
kicking the door closed. "Good Lord, Mr. Fitz! The boss has been trying to track you down, discreetly.
I'd never have recognized you in a month of Sundays. You've changed."
"I've had a haircut."
"No." She shook her head firmly. "It's your posture. Well, you're tanned, and your face is thinner. And
the uniform and the haircut, I suppose. But you don't look like . . . well, the youngster you used to be."
"The spoiled Shareholder brat, you mean." Fitz grinned.
"Oh, you were never as bad as some of them, sir."
"Damned with faint praise," said Fitz, laughing now, flopping down into a chair. "Anyway, do you know
what happened to Cartup? And has Bobby got any drink left in this place?"
Meilin gave him a wink. "I hide it. Otherwise. that useless bunch of Shareholder friends of his drink it up.
And Talbot Cartup recovered three days after you disappeared."
"So I'm in the clear after all! Well, well." He stood up again. "Hold the drinks, Meilin. I'm going to pop in
on my old girlfriend. Clear the air. Tell her I wish her well. Y'know, there's nothing like six weeks of boot
camp to give you a new perspective on life."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" asked Meilin worriedly. "She did try and have you arrested, Fitz.
Why not wait until Van Klomp gets home?"
Fitz shook his head. "When he gets home I'll be back with a few decent bottles. I'm going to see Candy,
see my Old Man. Get things off my chest."
He went out onto the streets of George Bernard Shaw City, whistling. Took a cab across town. He [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]