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"Yes, sir!"
All the way upship, he wondered what he'd done. He couldn't think of anything, and Major Conway
had actually complimented him the day before.
Captain Escobar's clerk gave him no warning glances, just smiled and waved him through. Barin came
to attention and waited.
"Ah . . . I thought you'd like to know you have pay." Escobar handed a data cube across to him.
"Sir?"
"Apparently your . . . dependents . . . have found honest work somewhere. They're off Fleet's
hands."
"Where are they?"
"Some colony world. Apparently Professor Meyerson and that Lone Star Confederation diplomat found
them a place, and someone paid their colony shares. Also paid off at least part of what Fleet
spent on them, and HQ has forgiven the rest. So you have pay again. I suppose this means you'll be
marrying?"
Barin felt himself go hot. "I hope so, sir."
"From one fire into another. Better give your family time to get used to it. Have your parents
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ever met Lieutenant Suiza?"
"No, sir. But now that I'm getting pay again, if I could get a little leave "
"You'd get married."
"No, sir, not right away. I'd get her together with my parents, though."
Escobar considered. "You have plenty of leave stacked up. Tell you what figure out a time that
will work for your parents and her, and I'll do my best."
"Thank you, sir."
R.S.S. NAVARINO
"You have mail, Lieutenant." Esmay wondered what it was this time. Her last mail had been a stiff
notice from Personnel advising her that she should have informed them before accepting appointment
as a Landbride, and that any request for a variance would have to work its way through the chain
of command in her sector, then at Headquarters.
A cube from Barin. That had to be better than something from Personnel.
Her heart soared as she read it. Out from under the responsibility for all those women and
children. Getting paid again. He'd talked to his parents; they wanted to meet her. He could get
leave what about her? He was sure he could enlist the senior Serranos to aid in bending the
restrictions about Landbrides. . . .
She, too, had accumulated leave time. Surely it would be possible to meet for a few days, even a
week. Somewhere private she didn't mind meeting his parents, but she wanted at least some hours
alone with Barin.
COPPER MOUNTAIN
Although Fleet's Copper Mountain Training Base, named for the red-rock formation of the original
landfall, had become the generic term for the entire planet, Fleet had other bases where neither
mountains nor red dust were in view. Most NCO training courses, though reached by shuttle from
Copper Mountain, were actually dispersed to other facilities on the same continent: Drylands, in
the northern plains, Camp Engleton in the coastal swamp, Big Trees far to the west. Permanantly
assigned school staff had their own recreational areas which students never saw: the long sand
beaches far east of Copper Mountain where the carnivorous hunters of the deep had been carefully
fenced away. Eight Peaks Mountain District, which offered far more than eight peaks, though the
rest of them weren't quite eight thousand meters.
Among these lesser-known bases were the Stack Islands facilities. Rising almost vertically from
the cold waters of what someone had unimaginatively called Big Ocean, the old volcanic plugs of
the Stacks had been engineered into even more forbidding shapes than time, wind, and water had
created. The Stack Islands group had three Fleet bases altogether, two for research (biomedical
and weapons) and one to supervise the confinement of its most dangerous criminals.
That proximity was no accident; although the Grand Council knew nothing about it, research into
neurobiology used prisoner subjects, some of whom emerged from the program with new identities.
But the proximity was on a planetary, not local, scale: though less than an hour by aircar to
either of the other Stack Islands bases, the prison was distant enough to keep its prisoners
secure. The research bases were only a few kilometers apart, on neighboring stacks, but the prison
base lay at the east end of the group, out of sight from either and far beyond swimming distance,
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even if water temperature and sealife had not intervened.
The security personnel at Three Stack, as the prison base was colloquially called, made no attempt
to prevent prisoners from committing suicide; it was the general feeling that suicides saved
everyone a lot of trouble. So little attention was paid to preventing escape attempts that were
certain to be fatal. Prisoners could jump off the cliffs into the cold water if they felt like it;
if they survived the fall, and the numbing cold, they were easy prey for the native sealife, which
in these latitudes was toothy and voracious. Although guards patrolled the corridors and exercise
courts, and the base's aircars were carefully guarded, no regular watch was kept on the cliffs.
Commanding such a base did nothing to advance an officer's career, and most loathed brig duty. For
a few, however, Stack Islands Base Three offered exactly the milieu in which they flourished.
Corporal Gelan Meharry, second-shift guard at Three Stack, wondered what it was about his new
commander that bothered him. Prison COs were invariably bent in some way Tolin had been soft,
slovenly, entirely too fond of his own comfort, and easily handled by the senior NCOs but this
Bacarion person was clearly not bent that way. What had she done, to get sent here? A tour at a
high-security brig was no disgrace to the enlisted security force, rather the contrary, if nothing
went wrong, but . . . he had an uneasy feeling about her.
After the change-of-command ceremony, his immediate superior, Sergeant Copans, dismissed the
second shift to eat and prepare for their shift. Gelan racked his ceremonial staff, and changed
from his dress to his duty uniform. As always, he made sure that his gear was perfectly aligned in
his locker before heading for the mess hall. Then he checked his bay in the barracks. Sure as
vacuum, that new commander would pull an inspection, and he intended his unit to pass.
On the way to mess, he stopped by the base data center, and called up the Officers' List. At least
he could find out about his new commander's official biography. Her image on the screen showed her
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