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group.
Likewise, the end of the roster was all of the jacked noncoms and privates,
besides the guards. They also had been jacked together since day before
yesterday. They would all theoretically come out of it on the
9th of August, cured of war.
In between those two groups, a list of the sixty-some who had spent all their
lives up to now under the handicap of normality. The four doctors had been
drilling since yesterday. It looked like team 1 was doing about five a day,
and team 2 presumably the hotshots from the Canal Zone were doing eight.
I heard Amelia moving in the bedroom, changing out of the clothes she'd slept
in. She came out combing her hair and wearing a dress, a red-and-black Mexican
thing I'd never seen.
"I didn't know you brought a dress."
"Dr. Spencer gave it to me; said he bought it for his wife, but it didn't fit
her."
"Likely story."
She looked over my shoulder. "Lot of people."
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"They're doing about a dozen a day, with two teams. I wonder whether they're
sleeping at all."
"Well, they're eating." She checked her watch. "How far away is that mess
hall?"
"Couple minutes."
"Why don't you change your shirt and shave?"
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"For Marty?"
"For me." She plucked at my shoulder. "Shoo. I want to call Ellie again."
I scraped a quick shave and found a shirt that had one day's wear.
"Still no answer," Amelia said from the other room. "There's no one at the
motel desk, either."
"You want to check with the Clinic? Or Jefferson's motel room?"
She shook her head and pushed the PR button. "After dinner. She's probably
out." A copy of the roster drifted out of the slot; Amelia caught it, folded
it, and put it in her purse. "Let's go find Marty."
THE MESS HALL WAS small but, to Amelia's surprise, not totally automated.
There were machines for some standard simple food, but also an actual food
station with an actual cook, who Julian recognized.
"Lieutenant Thurman?"
"Julian. Still can't tolerate jacking, so I volunteered to step in for
Sergeant Duffy. Don't get your hopes up, though; I can only cook four or five
things." He looked at Amelia. "You would be ... Amelia?"
"Blaze," Julian said, and introduced them. "Were you jacked with them for any
length of time?"
 If you mean 'Are you in on it,' yes, I got the general idea. You did the
math?" he asked Amelia.
"No, I did the particles; just tagged along behind Julian and Peter on the
math."
He started tossing two salads.
"Peter, the cosmology guy," he said. "I saw about him on the news yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Julian said.
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"You didn't hear? They found him wandering around dazed on some island."
Thurman told them all he remembered about the news item.
"But he doesn't recall anything about the paper?" Amelia said.
"I guess not. Not if he thinks it's the year 2000. You think he can get it
back?"
"Only if the people who took out the memory saved it," Julian said, "and that
doesn't sound likely.
Sounds like a pretty crude job."
"At least he's still alive," Amelia said.
"Not much good to us," Julian said, and caught a look from Amelia. "Sorry.
True, though."
Thurman gave them their salads and started a couple of hamburgers. Marty came
in and asked for the same.
They went to the end of a long empty table. Marty slumped into the chair and
unpeeled a speedie from behind his ear. "Better sleep a few hours."
"How long you been on your feet?"
He looked at his watch without focusing on it. "I don't want to know. We're
just about through with the colonels. Two Team's just up from a nap; they'll
do Tomy and the topkick, what's his name?"
"Gilpatrick," Julian said. "He could use a little humanizing."
Thurman brought over Marty's salad. "That was a mess up in Guadalajara," he
said. "The news came in from Jefferson just before I left the Twenty." Most of
the communication between Guadalajara and
Portobello was via jack circuit rather than conventional phone you got
through more information in less time, and everyone who was jacked would know
sooner or later, anyhow.
"It was sloppy," Julian said. "They should have been more careful with that
woman."
"That's for sure." Thurman went back to his hamburgers. Neither of them knew
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they were talking about two different incidents; they'd tried Thurman on the
jack twice; he'd been in contact when the news came in about the killing
rampage that ended in Elbe's murder.
"What woman?" Marty said between bites.
Julian and Amelia looked at each other. "You don't know about Gavrila. About
Ray."
"Nothing. Is Ray in trouble?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]