Free Jinx on a Terran Inheritance by Brian Daley Page B

temporary billeting? Food and bath and so forth?"
    "We'll come quietly, officer," Alacrity pledged gravely.
    On their previous voyage in the Ransom, the immense Easter ornament of a ship made the intrasystem trip from Palladium to Epiphany in less than three hours. On this voyage, though, there was more time.
    Departure was delayed until the flagship's role in ground operations was ended and her forces back inboard.
    Alacrity and Floyt were shown to a stateroom equivalent to a first-class suite in a five-star hotel. The steward unloaded their baggage from the passageway tram, acquainted them with the appointments, and left.
    Floyt began digging through his toilet kit. Alacrity stepped over his warbag, bound straight for one of the two big, soft, turned-down, ground-style beds. He paused only to undo the double buckle and shoulder strap of the Sam Browne.
    Flopping on the bed, dirty boots and all, he groaned ecstatically, dropping the gunbelt with a heavy thud.
    "Chinga, I forgot how heavy that thing is to lug around. Possible hernia. Don't let me sleep through Judgment Day."
    "At least take off those bog flatteners." Floyt removed the Webley from his Inheritor's belt and gazed at it. It smelled strongly of propellant and he could still feel the impact it had made on his ears. An hour ago, or so, he'd been in Yumi's arms.
    He was aching with fatigue too, but strangely depersonalized, waiting to feel some emotional reaction.
    He doubted he could shut his eyes. He shook off the memory of the man he'd had to shoot.
    Concentrating on the smell of jasmine, he headed for the luxuriously appointed head.
    Floyt tried to mark the distance in space and time and internal changes since his first lift-off, in the Luna shuttle Mindframe, from Nazca spaceport to the Moon.
    Novel plumbing no longer intimidates me, for one, he thought, looking around. He began hunting for file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...aley%20-%20Jinx%20on%20a%20Terran%20Inheritance.htm (42 of 320)19-2-2006 17:12:28
    [Fitzhugh 2]-JINX ON A TERRAN INHERITANCE
    instructions and experimenting carefully. He was soon lazing in a hot, foaming bath with concert-hall water jets. He had the scent system add the fragrance of jasmine to the air, then angrily commanded it to stop and change to attar of roses, a scent favored by Balensa, his estranged wife.
    Floyt finally emerged clean in pore and follicle, crevice and tooth and nail. If not in thought, he sighed to himself.
    Alacrity was sitting on a portable examining table that hovered several centimeters over the wood-plank deck, being attended by Colonel Chase, the surgeon, plus quite a number of fetching distaff medical techs. Floyt guessed that someone—Dorraine?—had passed word that there was one good way to get Alacrity's uncompromising cooperation.
    "Intensive care?" Floyt asked mildly.
    Alacrity grinned. "We can't pass up a chance like this. The good doctor says he'll update our immunities, free of charge !"
    "You don't find deals like that much anymore," Floyt admitted. Particularly if you're an Earther. He had no idea how good or comprehensive the immunization treatments given him by Earthservice had been; that sort of thing was seldom called for on Terra.
    One of the techs eyed him calculatingly. "We do noses, sir." It sounded flirtatious.
    Several hours later the two rode a tram to an interview with Redlock and Dorraine.
    Floyt had accepted repair work on his nose and, once the surgeon had promised that they'd cause no aftereffects, immunizations.
    Colonel Chase had also called in a colleague, a specialist named Captain Twain, a very handsome middle-age woman who eclipsed the female techs in her own subtle way. Twain brought a dental unit with her and, in an astoundingly short time, initiated the growth of teeth to replace the ones Alacrity had knuckled loose. She also fit Floyt with a temporary retainer to keep the space open and the surrounding teeth in place until the new ones came in.
    Alacrity