Crystal Soldier by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Page B

not-entirely-comfortable, if welcome, meal-mate, but she wanted something a little less—controlled—for the bed-sport side of the evening. That little redhead, for instance. Cute, quick, and not drunk yet, dancing all by himself in a vacant square of floor.

    She watched him, feeling her blood warm agreeably, and just about cussed when the music ended.

    The redhead stopped dancing, and looked around like maybe he didn't know what to do now.

    Cantra pushed away from the bar and went over to introduce herself.
    * * *

    "He was here, sure," Ragil said. Most of his attention was on the stim-stick he was rolling. Command frowned on soldiers using non-regulation stimulants. Not that Ragil had cared much for that particular reg when he was regular troop. Now that he was on the underside, he claimed the stim habit gave him "verisimilitude" in his role as bar owner. For all Jela knew, he was right.

    "So he was here," he said now, working on holding his temper. "Where is he now?"

    Ragil finished the stick and brought it to his lips, drawing on it to start the thing burning. He looked up, broad face worried.

    "How do I know? I gave him your last, that you'd be at the prime spot an extra day, same time, same code." He drew on the stick, sighed out smoke. "You're asking because he didn't connect?"

    "Why else?" Jela sighed. "Somebody else did connect, though. Scan the floor?"

    "Sure." He left the stick hanging out of the side of his mouth, tapped a code into the top of his desk. "Center screen," he said.

    Jela sat carefully back in his chair—no upscale lounger here—and watched the slow pan of the barroom. The stage was empty, the dancers down on the floor, circulating, collecting tips, no doubt, and offers of companionship, after hours. The room was crowded and he sharpened his focus, in case he missed her in the crowd.

    "Busy," he commented.

    "Damn place is always busy," Ragil returned. "And it's not 'cause the drinks are cheap. Owe you one, by the way. Your idea of getting a couple dancers in here paid off."

    "Getting anything useful?" Jela asked absently, eyes on the screen.

    "Who knows what's useful?" Ragil countered. "Rumor, hearsay, and speculation, most of it. What they do with it at the next level—how do I know? Heard one pilot the other day give as his opinion that there's no enemy now, nor hasn't been for longer than you or me's been fighting. Command, see, needed a reason to increase the production of soldiers, so they sorta invented an enemy."

    "I've heard that one," Jela said. "What they never explain is why Command wants soldiers, if there's no enemy."

    "Take over the Arm?" Ragil asked.

    "And hold it how?" He was beginning to think that Pilot Cantra had left the bar without—

    "There!" he said. "Grab and grow the tall woman there next to the redhead."

    Ragil obligingly did this, and Pilot Cantra's strong-boned face filled the center screen.

    "Know her?" Jela asked.

    The other took a deep drag on his stick while he considered the image. "No," he said finally. "Don't think I want to, either. What's your interest?"

    "She came to the primary, asked for a meal-mate, if there was a pilot available."

    Ragil whistled, soft and tuneless. "So—what? She's Muran's replacement?"

    "Didn't say so," Jela said, slowly. "Didn't act anything but like a pilot half-crazy from running solo and looking to have a voice that wasn't her own to listen to. Didn't make any play to stay close; I invited her along. In case." He paused, thinking, among other things, of the Batch-grown's warning, which had shocked Pilot Cantra—but for what reason? "She's a hard one to peg, and I won't say she's not fully capable."

    "So she might be a beacon?"

    "Might," he said, still not liking the idea—not that it made any difference what he liked, or ever had. "Might not."

    Ragil pitched the end of his stim-stick into the recycler, leaned forward and tapped a command into his console. The grow-frame vanished as the camera went