David Sherman & Dan Cragg - [Starfist 13] Read online

  She found him in that Big Barb’s place, where he was just finishing a late lunch.

  Since he was alone, with no one to watch his back, Corporal Claypoole sat where he could see both the entrance and the stairs. Not that he expected an attack, just that he liked to know if someone was coming toward him. So he saw Jente enter Big Barb’s before her eyes adjusted to the light enough to see him. His heart jumped with joy at first sight of her, then he remembered how she had acted a couple of days earlier when she kicked him out of her bed, her house, and her life, and he wished he were wearing his chameleons so she couldn’t see him. He did not want a repeat performance.

  But he wasn’t wearing chameleons. She quickly spotted him and rushed to his table. He groaned, and pointlessly sank down in his chair.

  Jente threw herself into the chair to Claypoole’s left, grabbed his left hand in both of hers, and leaned close to kiss him. He turned his head just enough that her lips caught the corner of his mouth instead of full front.

  I guess I deserved that, she told herself; out loud she said, “Oh, Rock, I’m so sorry I was so bad to you. I’ve missed you. Forgive me! Please say you forgive me!” She raised his hand and kissed it; he felt wetness on the back of his hand, and slowly turned to face her. Tears oozed from her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and it was obvious she’d done a lot of crying recently. His heart went out to her.

  Aphrodite’s tits, she’s been crying, and I’ve been fucking other women? How many women did I take to bed while she’s been crying? He shuddered at the thought of his unfaithfulness, but then he remembered how she’d thrown him out, how she said she never wanted to see him again, how she said she’d call the police if he didn’t leave, and he decided he wasn’t to blame for getting drunk and taking solace in other women’s arms.

  With that thought, he said coldly, “Why should I forgive you?”

  Jente hung her head, and her shoulders shook with the effort to not burst out bawling. Her voice was strained as she said, “Because I love you. Because I was angry, and I was wrong.”

  Shit, shit, triple shit! Claypoole swore. He couldn’t stand to see a woman crying, especially not the woman he loved—no matter how badly she’d treated him. He freed his hand from her grasp and put his arm around her shoulders to draw her to himself. He caressed her head and patted her back with his right hand. He said comforting things; not words, just soft verbal noises. She sobbed into his shoulder, soaking his shirt.

  After a few moments, she pushed lightly on his chest and sat up. She drew a cloth from a skirt pocket and dabbed at her eyes and cheeks. He held a disposable napkin to her nose. She nodded and took it from him to blow into.

  “Thank you,” she said meekly. She sat slumped, with her hands limp in her lap and asked, “Forgive me?”

  Many thoughts shot through Claypoole’s mind, but none stayed long enough to become coherent. He looked at her for a long moment, then solemnly nodded.

  “Thank you,” Jente said in a tiny voice. She then looked around. The common room of Big Barb’s looked like a restaurant with a bar, not like the anteroom of a whorehouse, and the women waiting on tables and cleaning up looked like waitresses rather than prostitutes. But she knew women’s bodies were for sale there, even if many of the women seemed to have relationships with the Marines of third platoon that went beyond that of a whore to a john, had relationships that looked much more like girlfriend-boyfriend. She felt an uncomfortable ambiguity in Big Barb’s—particularly when she was trying to mend things with the man she wanted to marry.

  “Can, can we go someplace else?” she asked. “Someplace where we can have more privacy?”

  He gave her an odd look. “You mean you want to…?”

  She shook her head. “No, not that—I mean not right now. I mean someplace where we can talk, and maybe snuggle a bit. And not be interrupted by your Marine friends. Oh!” A hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. It’s not, I’m not objecting to your Marine friends, I just mean—”

  He nodded. “I know what you mean. Let me settle my tab, then we can walk down by the beach or something.” While he signaled for his bill, she excused herself to go to the powder room and fix her face.

  Claypoole wondered why it was that women always said “fix my face” when what they meant was “have to pee,” but when Jente came back he saw that she had indeed “fixed her face.” Most of the redness that had rimmed her eyes was gone, and her cheeks and lips had a healthy blush. There was also a bounce to her step that hadn’t been there before.

  They were hand in hand when they walked out of Big Barb’s.

  Bronnoysund’s beach wasn’t much to speak of. The town was on a fjord, and the beach was more glacial gravel than it was sand. The walls of the fjord were high enough and close enough that the beach only had direct sunlight for a few hours each day—clouds allowing—which didn’t encourage a great deal of sunbathing. And the water was cold, which tended to discourage swimming. As a result, the beach was seldom crowded, so not many people were there when Claypoole and Jente reached it. On top of that, it was winter, so the beach was even more deserted than at other times of the year. They didn’t have to look very hard to find a place where a jumble of boulders created a small, sand-floored alcove where they could lounge safe from the wind and prying eyes.

  They lay against the broad boulder at the back of the alcove. They talked, about the fjord, the cliffs opposite them, the few people on the beach so late in the day, about where they might have dinner and what they might eat. They talked of many things, but not about what had happened two days earlier. At first their only physical contact was where the narrowness of the alcove made them lie hip to hip. After a time Jente sagged onto Claypoole’s side and laid her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, though neither could have said which of them made the first move. They watched the rippling of the water and the changing shadows on the far cliffs, then he turned his face down and she raised hers, and they gently kissed, once, twice, then faced forward once more. Some moments passed, and they kissed again, but more passionately. Again, with unspoken agreement, they looked at the water and the cliffs. After some more moments passed, they slid down off the backrest boulder and their bodies turned toward each other, and they embraced passionately.

  Jente abruptly sat up, flipping her fingers through her mussed hair and adjusting her disheveled coat. “Let’s find a room,” she said hoarsely.

  “I can get one right away at Big Barb’s,” Claypoole said, standing up to adjust his own clothes.

  She shook her head. “Not there. Someplace where they don’t know us.”

  Claypoole cut off a snort. Bronnoysund was small enough, and he’d been there long enough, that he didn’t think there was any commercial establishment of any sort in the town that didn’t know him. He helped her up and said, “Let’s see what we can find.”

  Near the downstream end of the beach they found a small set of rental cabins that catered to tourists who came north for the fishing. The owner recognized Claypoole’s face, but didn’t remember his name. He didn’t know Jente at all. He hid his smirk when he noticed their lack of luggage.

  They tore off their clothes almost before they got the cabin door closed. The first time they let out all the frustration, sorrow, anger, and pain they’d felt since she had driven him away, and both ended with a few bruises to show for it. A short time later, they went at it again, but more slowly and gently and lovingly.

  Later, when they were lying naked, side by side, he remembered what Schultz and Kerr had said about Jente wanting to marry him. He swallowed before he began talking.

  “You asked when I’m going to get promoted to sergeant.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve asked me that before.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I remember that one time you asked when I will get promoted to staff sergeant.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know th
at Marines below the rank of staff sergeant can’t get married, don’t you?”

  In a very small voice: “Yes.”

  Claypoole raised himself on an elbow so he could lean over and look into Jente’s eyes. “Are you saying you want to marry me?” His voice broke halfway through the question.

  In an even smaller voice: “Yes.”

  He fell back down. “Buddha’s blue balls, who would have guessed?” he whispered. He shook himself. “Damn, the Hammer was right.”

  “Who would have guessed?” Jente shrilled, suddenly sitting up and clutching the sheet to her chest. “Who would have guessed? Do you mean to lie there and tell me that you never considered marriage when you seduced me? Did you think I was one of Big Barb’s whores?”

  He popped up to sit. “What? No, no, no! I know you’re not one of Big Barb’s girls. You’re one of the women Top Myer warned us about.”

  “Top Myer warned you about me?” Her voice dropped and became cold.

  Claypoole grimaced and hit himself on the side of his head. “No—no, that’s not what I meant!”

  “Then what did you mean?” Jente demanded icily. “I know what you said, and you said you were warned about me. What does that mean if it doesn’t mean you were warned?”

  “Ple-please, Jente, please. Let me explain.”

  “I’m listening.” If her tone was cold before, her voice now could shatter ice.

  “Top Myer warned us that there were good girls coming to that party.” He caught a steely glint in her eye. “Women who weren’t like Big Barb’s girls. And we should treat them like we’d want our own sisters to be treated. That’s what the warning was about.”

  “So you’d want your sister to be seduced by a man who just wanted someone to fuck,” in a dead flat voice.

  “Jente!” Claypoole gaped; where did she get the idea that he only wanted someone to fuck? “It’s not like that at all.” He reached to take her hands, but she twitched them away from his grasp while keeping the sheet firmly covering her breasts.

  Claypoole sat up, back against the headboard, drew in a deep breath, and huffed it out. “Jente, I can’t get married until I make staff sergeant. Or until I get out of the Marines. Whichever comes first. So, no, I didn’t think about doing something that I can’t do.”

  Jente sniffed and looked away from him. “So when were you going to tell me the quarantine’s been lifted? And what are you going to do about it?”

  “I didn’t know about it when I went to your farm the other day. We just got the word yesterday, and it’s unofficial. I won’t know what it will mean to me until we get the official word the day after tomorrow.” He paused, then added, “And I might not even know then.”

  Jente glared at him. “I don’t hear you saying anything about us.” She hopped off the bed and dressed.

  Claypoole didn’t say anything; he didn’t try to talk to her. This was too much like what had happened two days before. After Jente slammed the door behind herself, he stared at it for a long moment before saying, “I seduced you? The way I remember it, you came after me.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  In a virtually unheard-of fit of appreciation for the fighting men of the military, the Senate of the Confederation of Human Worlds approved a design for the War of Secession Campaign Medal even before the fighting was over and distributed the design to every military command and world from which units were deployed to fight the war on and around Ravenette, including the navy vessels that participated in the blockades of the various worlds of the Coalition.

  That meant that Joen Berg, the president of the Stortinget, Thorsfinni’s World’s legislative body, knew what the medal looked like before anyone from Thirty-fourth FIST did. In appreciation for the Marines and what they meant to the economy of Thorsfinni’s World, Berg pushed through a bill to strike a medal in the exact design of the official Confederation medal so the Marines could wear one until the official medals arrived from Earth. President Berg and Stor Edval, the mayor of Bronnoysund, presented the medals to Thirty-fourth FIST commander Brigadier Theodosius Sturgeon shortly after the Marines returned from battle—actually, in the middle of the five-day liberty. As it happened, Sturgeon was taking advantage of the liberty call himself, and the two dignitaries, after looking for him at Camp Ellis and Bronnoysund, finally tracked him down at Bjorn’s, a night club in New Oslo, where he was just about to have dinner on the second of two nights he was allowing himself away from his command.

  “Brigadier Sturgeon,” Berg said with a stiff bow, “I am most pleased to see you again.”

  “Velcome back, Ted,” Edval said, sticking his hand out to shake Sturgeon’s. “How come you here in da fancy town, ’stead of in good ol’ Bronnoysund?”

  “Gentlemen,” Sturgeon said, rising, returning Berg’s bow, and shaking hands with Edval, “so good to see you. Please, sit.” He signaled for a waiter to bring chairs for his unexpected guests. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Gif me a Reindeer Ale if you got it,” Edval told the waiter.

  “A nice Thorvall red for the table,” Berg said to the waiter. “This meal and drinks are courtesy of the Stortinget. I’ll sign for it.” He turned to Sturgeon. “We’ve gotten reports from Ravenette, Thirty-fourth FIST performed magnificently.”

  “Thank you, Mr. President, for your compliment—and for picking up the tab. But we’re Marines; the way we see it, we merely did our job on Ravenette.”

  “Such modesty, dese Marines,” Edval said, nudging Berg in the ribs with an elbow. “Dey got a reputation for beink high on demselves, but dey really very modest.”

  The waiter returned quickly with Edval’s Reindeer Ale and the wine Berg had ordered for the table. When Berg had tasted and approved the wine, the waiter asked, “Would you gentlemen like to see menus?”

  “You got a reindeer steak?” Edval asked. “Two-inch tick, medium rare. Bake potato, big von, lots a butter—reindeer butter, not dat inferior moo-cow stuff. And something green.”

  Berg maintained a diplomat’s straight expression during Edval’s order then said, “A pâté and cracker appetizer will be enough, thank you.”

  “Would you like me to hold your order and serve it with the others, sir?” the waiter asked Sturgeon. He said he would appreciate that very much.

  The waiter bowed away and was back with their food sooner than expected.

  They made small talk during the meal, but as soon as the dishes were cleared away, Berg ordered “a bottle of your finest cognac.” He couldn’t hold back a grimace when Edval asked for a Reindeer Ale chaser.

  Berg waited until they’d had a moment to savor the aroma and taste of the cognac before reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a presentation case of polished, imported, blond oak and handed it over. Edval bounced with joyful anticipation.

  “Brigadier, I took the liberty of having enough of these struck for every man in your command.”

  “It’s a beauty, dat’s for sure! Open it, open it,” Edval exclaimed.

  “Thank you,” Sturgeon said, turning the box over in his hands and feeling the polished grain of the wood. He turned it upright and lifted the hinged lid. “Buddha’s blue balls! Is that an accurate facsimile?”

  “It is indeed. I know how the Confederation is. It’ll be months before the official campaign medal reaches you. I thought you and your Marines should have it sooner. I’m sure you can get away with using this as a placeholder until the official medals reach Camp Ellis.”

  Sturgeon looked at Berg. “Mr. President, I believe I will wear this one even after the official medals come. I’m very touched. It is an honor to receive this medal from you.”

  Berg beamed almost as brightly as Edval did.

  As soon as the extended liberty was over, Brigadier Sturgeon had an officer’s call. Every officer and senior noncommissioned officer in the FIST attended. There, Sturgeon gave final orders for the following day’s awards and promotions ceremony and gave every company commander and higher enough of the campaign
medals that President Berg had struck so that each of his men could receive one. He gave additional medals to the commanders of his major subordinate units to send to the families of the Marines who had died on Ravenette.

  After that, each company commander and higher held a formation for his unit, at which the medals were distributed. “You will wear these on your dress reds at tomorrow’s FIST formation,” the commanders told their men—needlessly, since all the Marines were thrilled with the unofficial medals that had been struck by an appreciative local government.

  There weren’t many personal decorations given out; as Brigadier Sturgeon had told President Berg, the Marines had merely done their jobs on Ravenette. While collectively what they did might have been heroic, the ancient descriptor “Uncommon valor was a common virtue” held true. On the other hand, General Cazombi had decided to award Thirty-fourth FIST the army’s Distinguished Unit Citation, the equivalent of every man in the FIST being awarded a Silver Nebula. Brigadier Sturgeon pinned that ribbon on the chests of one Marine from each of his major subordinate units as symbolic of the entire FIST receiving it. The ribbons for everybody else, along with the printed citations, would be distributed at company formations following the FIST formation.

  The FIST had suffered casualties on Ravenette, and many of those casualties had necessitated the movement of Marines into positions of higher rank. Most of those Marines had been promoted on Ravenette or, at worst, aboard ship during the journey back to Thorsfinni’s World. Still, there were a few additional promotions to be given out, meritorious promotions to Marines whose positions didn’t require a specific rank but could be held by Marines of a range of ranks. Only the promotees’ superiors had been informed in advance of the promotions, so they were a surprise to almost everyone. Those promotions were given out in order of rank, from lowest to highest, in the FIST formation after the symbolic pinning on of the campaign medal. Four enlisted men were called to the reviewing stand, one each promoted to corporal, sergeant, staff sergeant, and master sergeant. The final promotion was of significance to Company L, and particular significance to third platoon.