LITMIR.BIZ

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a lot.”

      She found that the unbound pages would now fit. They looked at each other. “What kind of Italian?”

      “Gnocchi.” To his ears, it sounded like nooky, and he reddened. “Made with butternut squash. A very delicate flavor.” He cleared his throat. With Menzes, he had been on a roll, in charge, and now he was a stumbling jerk. The story of his life. “I, uh, thought you might, uh—like some.”

      She stared at him. “You’re asking me to dinner?”

      “Uh, yeah, I guess—if you put it like that—and we could call Lieutenant-Commander Siciliano and give her the news—”

      “At your place?”

      “Uh, no, belongs to a friend of mine—out of town—”

      “It’s the same thing! Let me get this straight—are you asking me to dinner, when we’ve just met and haven’t exactly blended, and at your place?”

      “Okay, okay, bad idea—I just thought—” He shrugged.

      “What?”

      “You sort of—interest me.” He tried to smile, and the effort made him feel like a dog who’s trying to make up for eating somebody’s sandwich. He grabbed the door and held it for her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything.”

      “Everything means something, Mister Dukas.” She swept past him into the corridor. “Well, okay.”

      “What’s okay?”

      “Okay, I’ll come to dinner. I’d like to see somebody make gnocchi, because when I tried all I got was dough all over the fork.”

      “You pushed too hard. On the fork.” He didn’t say, Probably you always push too hard. “You’re really gonna come to my place for dinner?”

      “Why not? We can call Siciliano. But please don’t try to make any moves, okay? The best I ever hope for from other people is that we don’t sue each other.”

      She turned away. He saw her buttocks move in the tailored skirt. Life is full of surprises.

      E-mail, Rose to Alan.

      Subject: ITS OVER!

      I cant believe it but it’s over/mike called me just now, just hung up and it’s over!!!! they cut a deal with the agency and i’m to go back to astro soonest, waiting to cut orders, i want to go right back and see the kids and head for houston but mike says no, stay until orders/hes so cautious! i still have to fight whatever allegation was made but this will be a couple of years he thinks sorting it out but i’ll be in orbit by then and fuck em/ i love you, thinking of you kept me sane, a hell of an ordeal but i felt better thinking of you and the kids but helpless, helpless, my god how do people stand it being caught up in suspicion and all that? Kisses, love, moans/ Rose

      Alan sat back and smiled, his whole face transformed. Safe. Rose was safe. Yeah, they’d have to listen to snide remarks for a while. Some semi-friends might drop off. Alan knew that a deal at the Agency wouldn’t help him here on the ship, but if it put Rose back on the space shuttle, they were a long way toward home. He laughed aloud, startling a chaplain’s clerk near him, leaped up, and headed toward his ready room with a new feeling of purpose.

      Everything looked better to him. Even the tanker flight with Stevens, which had been a torment of bad performance by the MARI system—dropped links, bad plane-to-plane communication—and stubborn hostility from Stevens, faded.

      In the ready room, he munched a second doughnut and drank his coffee while he fanned through the detachment’s bulging message board. There was a NATO Air Tasking Order for Bosnia that didn’t include them; that had to be addressed. There were messages for the technical representatives; he skimmed them. Intelligence messages about the frequencies of Serbian radars; Alan made a note that all flight personnel were required to read and initial. A message on decline in manpower retention that he was required to read and initial. He did so, finishing the doughnut in two bites and dusting the powdered sugar off the front of his flight suit.

      Some change in the noise level at the back of the ready room alerted him, and he turned in his seat to see Senior Chief Craw coming up the center aisle with a figure in pressed shipboard khakis, a sea bag over his shoulder and his hands full of luggage. Craw had an anticipatory smile on his face.

      “Look what I found on the flight deck, skipper.” He pushed the slim figure in khakis forward. A Tomcat went to full power overhead.

      “How do you guys hear yourselves think?” asked the figure with what appeared to be genuine concern. A face came into focus—incredibly young, rather pink, eyes as blue and innocent as a newborn’s. Alan got to his feet.

      “Is this by any chance the missing Mister Soleck?”

      Alan looked past the new man to Craw. Craw merely shook his head a little, as if to disclaim any responsibility.

      A hand appeared out of the pile of luggage.

      “Sorry, sir. I’m LTjg Evan Soleck, reporting aboard.” He was a little bowed by his load, giving him a slightly gnome-like appearance below the wonderfully fresh face.

      “Glad to see you brought a tennis racket, Mister Soleck.”

      “Oh, that’s not a tennis racket, sir. That’s a squash racket.” Now Craw was laughing openly. Behind him in the back, a small crowd had gathered. Alan smiled inwardly and reminded himself that this young man had been first in his class at Pensacola.

      “Did you get in any squash in the last few days?”

      “Yes, sir! They had a court at the hotel. It was great! And they had really fast Internet connections, too. Europe isn’t as primitive as people say.” Soleck looked perfectly capable of babbling on (had he really just said that Europe wasn’t primitive?) but Alan cut him off with a gesture.

      “Mister Soleck, you’re two days late meeting the boat.” They had traced him from Norfolk to Aviano, and found that he was waiting there in a first-class hotel for further orders because he hadn’t had the common sense to grab a COD to the boat.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Care to enlighten me?”

      “I missed my assigned flight, sir.” Soleck stood a little straighter and looked Alan in the eye. “No excuse.”

      “And then?”

      “And then I made a couple of mistakes flailing around. Then I got another message and got on the COD.”

      He kept the eye contact. The wide-eyed wetness seemed to drop from him for a moment. He was just Alan’s height, thinner but with obvious neck muscle and he continued to hold his luggage without apparent effort. His demeanor seemed to say, I screwed up but I’m here. Let’s get on with the job. And Alan was thinking, Was I ever this young? Am I really this old?

      “What were you doing on the Internet, Mister Soleck?”

      “Working on a wargame.”

      “You played a wargame all day?”

      “No, sir. Writing one. And only after I had tried to reach the boat and failed.”

      Alan sighed, careful not to meet Craw’s eye. “Okay, Mister Soleck. Get rid of all that stuff, stow your squash racket, and report in flight gear. You’re on the schedule in two hours.”

      “Cool!”

      Alan shut his eyes. “Soleck, was ‘cool’ on the list of acceptable responses at Pensacola?”

      “Wow, yeah. Sorry. Aye, aye, sir.”

      Alan eyed the pile of luggage. “You seem to anticipate a long cruise, Mister Soleck.”

      “Oh,

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