CHAPTER


TWO

En Route, Halfway to Cecil Roads

It was a night of phantasmagoria in the top-floor bar of the Hotel Victoria. But it didn’t start out that way.

Sergeant Jak Daly had departed Camp Basilone in good order. The process of clearing base was one he’d done before. After twelve years in the Corps, getting those personal belongings he wasn’t taking with him into storage, turning in his field gear, clearing all the hand receipts he was responsible for, updating his medical and personnel records, and getting clearances from a dozen other places around the base—even places he’d never visited like the sports locker—were routine. But by the time he reported to the base transportation office to get his tickets, his name had to be deleted from all the fields in the clearance system or he’d have to get last-minute checkouts, always a pain in the nether regions.

Because Daly had to report in to Arsenault in six weeks in order to catch the next OTC cycle, and no military vessel was available that would get him there in that amount of time, he was booked out of Halfway on a merchant ship, the SS Accotink. She would drop him at Cecil Roads, where he’d catch an Earth-bound cargo vessel, the SS Miomai, which would drop him off at Arsenault on the way and in time to report for his course. His orders specified he’d report in to OTC in dress reds, but while in transit he was to wear “appropriate casual business attire.”

One of his last stops was the Navy Times Bookstore, where he stocked up on the vids and readers he’d amuse himself with on the long voyage to Arsenault (and during whatever free time he might have while at OTC). Among these were the military classics All Quiet on the Western Front, Charlie Don’t Live Here Anymore, The Soldier’s Prize, and all twenty-two volumes of the Starfist series, books he’d read when a boy but ones he wanted to read again because they had convinced him he wanted to be a Marine someday. He also got copies of all the popular vids based on the Starfist novels.

Next he visited the navy finance office, where he drew, in cash, his travel pay, and finally the local Navy Credit Union, where he drew his account down to only a few hundred credits, to keep it active against his return. The rest of the money he took with him in cash and a debit chip that would be good anywhere in Human Space. Daly did not like to travel with only “plastic” money; he liked the feel of security cash gave him. He’d have a forty-eight-hour layover at Cecil Roads before catching the Miomai so who knew what use he might find for the money. Besides, during the months he’d be in Officer Training College he’d be authorized liberty at Oceanside, and he did not plan to go third-class.

It did not take Daly long to discover that the SS Accotink would have been better named the SS Neanderthal. The captain was a taciturn man who spent most of his time in his cabin. When he was on deck, he gave orders using as few words as possible. The first mate was a morose slob who never seemed to change his work clothes, and the crew amused themselves when off duty playing cribbage in the galley until all hours. They played for money, a decicredit a point, and made it clear the game had been in progress since the vessel had left her home port and Daly was not welcome. That was just as well because often fights erupted when someone pegged too many points on the board. The ship’s cook was a woman—at least Daly thought she was, or had been once—and the food she prepared was indifferent at best. He laid the crew’s bad temper to her cooking.

Sergeant Jak Daly breathed a sigh of relief when the Accotink at last docked at Cecil Roads and he was able to catch a shuttle to the surface. That is when he took a room at the Hotel Victoria, which happened to be the lodging most convenient to the spaceport. “It’s clean and reasonable,” a porter informed him, “and within walking distance.” The man gave Daly the once-over. He could see Daly was no space bum and guessed from the way he was dressed and his haircut and just the way he carried himself that he was a military man between assignments. “How long you gonna be here?” the porter asked.

“I have a forty-eight-hour layover,” Daly replied. “I’m due out on the Miomai on third day this week.”

“Miomai?” The porter nodded. “I know her. Good ship. She’s got good clean lines too. Wait’ll you see her. The captain and crew are okay. Passenger accommodations too.” He paused and regarded Daly speculatively. “Looks to me like you been around, son, but I’ll tell you anyways. The Victoria’s on the Strip, end closest to the port here. But stay away from them clip joints.” The porter nodded affirmatively and shuffled off.

Cecil Roads was a busy port and the streets outside the surface terminal were full of traffic. A huge sign glittering a few hundred meters outside the main gate announced the location of the Hotel Victoria, and Daly, carrying his handbag—the rest of his gear was being transferred to the Miomai (he hoped) and he’d retrieve it once he was on Arsenault—started walking in that direction.

The porter had been right, Sergeant Jak Daly had been around, he’d seen port-town strips like this one before. They were not like the strips outside the military bases he’d been on. Those places were full of the youth and life of the fun-loving sailors and Marines who crowded into the beer joints, tattoo parlors, bordellos, and restaurants to enjoy their hours of liberty. But this place was depressing, peopled with the flotsam of Human Space, the most depressing of all those who eked out a living serving the transitory space bums who sought temporary forgetfulness there. And the most depressing of these were the women. At least the transients who hung out in the bars and flophouses could get out of the place, back to the familiar surroundings of their ships and the company of their shipmates and, who knew, maybe somewhere a home waiting for them. This place, even from the street where he was standing, only beckoned him to leave as soon as possible.

Given the sleazy neighborhood it occupied, the Hotel Victoria was not bad, so he took a room on the tenth floor, just below the penthouse restaurant. His only plan was to sleep, eat, and read until the Miomai was ready to depart. It was morning in that hemisphere of Cecil Roads when Daly arrived. He had skipped breakfast aboard the Accotink—wisely since the cook’s breakfasts tended to remain on one’s stomach for quite some time. So after unpacking his bags and washing up, he stretched out on the bed for a while. As he lay there, his stomach began to rumble, and he decided to try the Victoria’s restaurant.

The breakfast was quite good, although the bacon and eggs were clearly ersatz. Daly sat at his table for some time after he’d finished his repast, the only diner in the place, enjoying his coffee. The restaurant consisted of a small dining area, a dance floor, and a comfortable bar.

“Place picks up at night,” the waitress informed him conversationally as she cleared his table. “We even have a live band.” She gave Daly a sidelong glance. She could see he was no space bum: neatly dressed, closely cropped hair. “You in the army or sumptin’?” she asked.

“Nope.” Daly smiled and rolled up his left sleeve to reveal the Eagle, Globe, and Starstream tattooed there. “Marines, ma’am.”

“Well, we don’t get many Marines in here,” she replied speculatively, then, almost as an afterthought, said, “We stop servin’ at twenty-one hours, but the bar stays open all night.”

“Thanks.” Daly fished out his wallet and laid several bills on the table. “You keep the change, miss.” He got up and nodded politely at the waitress, who could not help grinning at the tip, or noticing the wad of credits in his wallet. She watched him as he strode over to the elevators.

On an impulse, she followed him over. “My name is Maria,” she informed him. “Thanks for the tip. Most of the bums who eat in here only give me a hard time.” She smiled self-consciously.

Daly regarded Maria curiously. “My name is Jak.” He extended his hand. Is she coming on to me? he wondered, and grinned to himself. He could see she’d been a pretty woman at one time, but now she looked old enough to be his mother.

“Well, this place begins to pick up after dark, Jak, and I just wanted to say,” she glanced over her shoulder at the bar, “I just wanted to tell you, be careful who you sit with if you come back up here tonight.” With that she hurried back to the table and noisily began to clear it. Daly stared after her, then shook his head and called for the elevator. He had no plans to go back there that night.

Hotel Victoria, Cecil Roads

Daly spent the rest of the morning stretched out on his bed, reading. He picked up the first volume in the Starfist series, First to Fight, and read the opening lines. How true to life these novels were! After twenty years they still rang true. He scrolled to the author’s pictures and studied them for a while, wondering what had happened to them all those years ago. They sure had their stuff together when they wrote these novels, he thought. He continued to read and at some point dozed off. He awoke with a start. The sun was down. He’d slept away the entire day! He stretched luxuriously. Maybe he’d call room service and watch a movie the rest of the night. From far away came the thump-thump-thump of a base drum. It must be the band in the penthouse restaurant. He picked up the reader. He’d left off at the liberty scene near the end of the book. Suddenly he was overcome by a wave of nostalgia. He realized he was homesick for Camp Basilone! “Aw, screw it,” he said aloud. He got up and dressed. He’d go up to the bar, have something to eat, a few drinks, listen to the music, and relax.

Jak Daly liked live music, and the band, incongruously called The Dead Socks, was certainly “live.” But their female vocalist was pretty good and their repertoire was pretty catchy. One song in particular made him smile and keep time to the music with his fingers on the bar:

“We were havin’ sex, aft n’ before

“When Death come a-knockin’ at muh door…”

“Lonely?” Daly was startled by a fairly good-looking woman climbing onto the stool next to him.

“Not particularly.” He did not appreciate the interruption, but he looked her over anyway. Barfly he thought. In Sergeant Daly’s code of conduct, if a woman sat next to you in a bar and spoke to you, you were obligated to be polite to her. “Have a drink on me,” he offered.

“Thanks. Henri—” She signaled to the bartender, a painfully thin man with a narrow face, long nose, and pencil-thin black mustache, “gimme a Yellow Basher with a twist of grimmick leaf.”

Daly threw a bill on the bar. “You know good stuff,” he commented. He had no idea what this Yellow Basher might be and had no intention of switching from beer, but he thought it was the thing to say under the circumstances. When the drink came, they saluted each other. Daly sipped at his beer. “What’s your name?”

“Zephyr. Yours?” Zephyr’s eyes had widened when Daly had withdrawn his bulging wallet to pay for her drink, and he had not caught the glance that had passed between her and the bartender when he served it. Daly told her his name. “Let’s get a bite to eat,” Zephyr offered. “They’ve got a private room in the back. We can get to know each other better there.” She gave Daly a significant look.

Daly suppressed a slight twinge of annoyance. He’d come up to the bar to enjoy himself and now this intrusion. But he was hungry and this Zephyr wasn’t a bad-looking woman for one in her profession. Besides, Sergeant Jak Daly was not the kind of man to tell any woman to go take a flying leap. So he gave in to circumstances and what he knew was the woman’s objective—to cadge some drinks and a free meal off a lonely space bum—and accompanied her to the back of the bar where they entered a private booth.

The booth measured about four by five meters. In the middle was a table flanked by two comfortable benches long enough that Daly could have stretched out fully on either of them. He suspected that’s just what they were for, but the cushions looked clean. Once they were inside, a soundproofed panel slid closed behind them and they were cut off from the rest of the bar and restaurant. The music from The Dead Socks came to them muted through the soundproofed panel. They both had access to small consoles on which were the food and bar menus from which they ordered. Daly noted a key marked Privacy Sign, which he deduced correctly could be pressed to insure they were not disturbed; another indication of what the little room’s main purpose was. The food was served by a waiter. Henri, the bartender, delivered the drinks. Daly brought his unfinished schooner of beer, which he intended to make last the evening, but Zephyr eagerly ordered Yellow Bashers one after the other.

Zephyr maintained a steady torrent of talk throughout the meal. “I’m from Euthalia,” she informed him at one point between bites of steak and potatoes. She ate with so much gusto Daly wondered if she might not be starving. He tuned out most of her blabber, concentrating on the meal, only offering an occasional “Um-hum” or “Oh, yeah?” to be polite. The steak, from cows bred on Cecil Roads, as Zephyr proudly informed him, was quite good.

“So what do you do, Jak?” Zephyr asked, spooning some soup and slurping it eagerly.

“Me? I’m in the Marines.” Daly, who had by this time endured over an hour of Zephyr’s nonstop chatter about everything but anything revealing about herself, knew this question was coming. He looked at his watch. It was past 21 hours, time to call it a night. “And you, Zephyr?”

“Marines?” Zephyr echoed. She punched in an order for two Yellow Bashers on the console and almost immediately Henri appeared, as if he’d just been waiting with them in hand right outside the booth, which Daly suspected he had been, as with many of the things Zephyr had ordered during the meal. “Our Jak here is a Marine, Henri, did you know that?”

“Ah?” Henri said. “Have you ever killed anyone?” He smirked as he served the drinks. Daly felt an urge to flatten the man’s thin nose. The soup had just been served, a viscous brew with chunks of meat floating in it. At least it was hot. Maria described it as a “speciality of the house” and encouraged him to taste it. Mentally, he turned up his nose instead. It was high time to finish the stupid meal and go.

“And what do you do, Zephyr?” Daly asked again, after Henri closed the panel behind him. He sipped cautiously at the Yellow Basher, just to be polite, and wondered how much the farcical meal was going to cost him. The drink tasted quite horrible and left a strong medicinal aftertaste. He made a face and shoved the glass aside, not even trying to hide his disgust.

Maria grinned at Daly, sipped her drink, and answered, “Me? I’m a whore, just a fucking whore, Jak, ol’ boy.”

Daly found himself startled at the frank admission. He stared at Zephyr in surprise. “Well, I—” he began, but the entire room began to go out of focus and his tongue refused to form words.

Zephyr burst into laughter when she saw the expression that had come over Daly’s face. “Yeah, just a whore, Marine,” she sneered, “and I make my livin’ rolling dudes like you. And my name ain’t Zephyr, either, you stupid bastard.”

Daly could only make out blurry movements and heard someone else talking, but the voice sounded tinny and far, far away. He thought it belonged to Henri and he thought it said, “Do you think he got enough of it?”

Then Daly’s head plunged straight into the soup. He’d gotten enough of it.