Free Starfist: Wings of Hell by David Sherman & Dan Cragg Page B

car into park but left the engine running.
    Sonia turned in her seat to face Dean directly. “Joe, you do have someone and she is Hway Kuetgens. Here.” She opened her bag and handed him a portable reader. “Look at what’s on the screen.”
    In the reader’s screen appeared a smiling boy perhaps seven or eight years old. Dean’s heart skipped a beat. The child was holding Hway’s hand. Suddenly the memory of her rushed back upon him, the smell of her hair, her breath against his neck, the warmth of her cheek against his, the rich odor of the earth in that tomato patch back on Wanderjahr where they’d made love in the dust between the rows of plants. “Ah,” he sighed.
    “That boy is your son.”
    At first Dean couldn’t say a word. Gradually the import of what Sonia had just told him sunk in, causing him to catch his breath. “I—I—”
    “You didn’t know.” Sonia nodded. “Hway wanted it that way. She had her mission, you had yours. You had to go your separate ways.” She told Dean all that had happened to Hway Kuetgens in the intervening years, including her assumption of the leadership of the Morgenluft government and her election to the Chair of the Ruling Council.
    “Wh-what is the boy’s name?”
    “Dean.” Sonia took the reader back, glanced at the hologram image, and smiled. “He looks just like you, doesn’t he?” She handed the reader back. “Keep this, Joe. It’s the reason I’ve come all this way to see you. Joe, in two years we’re having an election. Ms. Kuetgens cannot run for another term as chair and she plans to retire to Morgenluft. Your son asks after you often. It’s time he met his father. How much longer do you have on your enlistment?”
    “Uh, two years, ma’am.”
    “Well.” Sonia scratched her chin. “That really is the message.”
    “That’s it?”
    “Yes. Well, if you were to take your discharge and come back to Wanderjahr, if only for a visit, that would make your son very happy. I know what kind of Marine you are, Joe, and he would be thrilled to have such a brave man as his father. And of course if you wanted to stay with us”—she brushed the side of Dean’s face with her hand—“you would be welcome.”
    “Quit the Corps?”
    Sonia did not reply. She rubbed her hands together. “It’s warming up in here.”
    “Yes,” Dean replied absently. “Am I at liberty to tell anyone else about my—Dean?”
    Sonia shrugged. “You may tell whomever you wish, Joe.”
    “You see, ma’am,” he said, “although on the books I have two years left on my enlistment, we’re all in this actually for the duration, until the alien threat is finally eliminated, and that could be a long time. The best I can promise anybody is, if there’s a lull, a drawdown on deployment, maybe I could get some leave. Hell, I’ve got a lot of unused leave in my account. Sooner or later, the Corps has to give it to me. But this is a bad time to take leave. We can be deployed at any time, so I can’t even think of requesting leave.”
    “I know. The alien threat hangs over all of us, Joe, and you Marines are on the cutting edge of the war. I understand and so does Hway and so will Dean, when he’s older. Do you have any message for your son that I can take back with me?”
    “Yes, ma’am, tell him—tell him—tell his mother—I’ll see them, soon.” He thought for a moment, staring at the swirling snow outside the car. “I have something I want you to take back to my son,” he said at last.
    At their parting Sonia held Dean tightly, just the way his mother had when he left home to join the Corps. “Joseph,” she whispered, “any woman would be proud to have you as her companion.”
    Once back in New Oslo, Sonia decided not to take Mr. Berg up on his offer to go skiing: Ambassador Morelles, she heard, had broken both legs on one of the slopes. They said he was calmly smoking a Davidoff during the medevac flight to the hospital.

    Dean had been called up to the