Chapter 15

Back on the Gardener Miller had been awake most of the previous night, diligently monitoring the visual feed that was his only link to the planetside contingent given Meiersdottir's insistence on closing down all audio. When Zo had reactivated his communicator in the morning—after carefully admonishing Hill not to say anything—the major had demanded a detailed report of the night's events. Having been far too preoccupied to have observed anything, the sergeant cheerfully invented a narrative that seemed (although he was careful not to say so specifically) as if he'd spent a large part of the time on watchful guard.

It wasn't as easy as he might have hoped; after assuring herself that they could not be seen on the visual, Hill impishly spent much of the conversation nibbling on his ear. But quietly.

Still, the major had seemed satisfied. Directing Zo to leave his communicator active "at least for the day," he then announced his plan to retire to catch up on his sleep. "I'm leaving Corda to check the feed," he told the sergeant—Accorda, who as the only female trooper seemed to catch more than her share of the grunt work.

Since Accorda couldn't have cared less about his on-planet activities, Zo was undisturbed as he resumed his work with the natives on animal husbandry. In any event she lacked authority to direct him; Miller had empowered her only to "wake me up immediately" if there were any disturbance, and the sergeant's concentration on providing the Edenites with instruction on how to train beasts of burden scarcely qualified.

Thus, Zo's work went forward uneventfully for several hours. It was only when his communicator abruptly exploded in his ear that he became aware his commander had awakened and returned to the comm center.

"What the fuck are you doing, Sergeant?" Miller screeched.

The interruption came at an unfortunate time, just as Zo and Wildebeest were attempting to persuade a somewhat unhappy and restive hexapod to accept its first bit. The human was unpersuaded that a bit would be the best means of establishing control over the Eden creatures—the fact that the mouths of Earth's work animals were their most sensitive points might not translate well to another planet—but, as he told Wildebeest, "we have to start somewhere, and since this works back home I'd like to try it first."

They'd carefully prised the beast's mouth open slightly and were struggling to insert the bit when Miller's outburst came. "Wait, sir!" he barked. "OK, Wildebeest, back off for now. My ship is calling me." Carefully he began to extricate himself, making sure the native—as well as the other two they'd enlisted to restrain the animal—were likewise clear.

Meanwhile his brusque reply had set Miller into a rant. "What do you mean, wait! Sergeant, you answer me right now, you hear me? Sergeant! Sergeant, this is your commanding officer, when I speak to you, you fucking jump to attention! Sergeant! Goddammit—"

"Yes, sir," Zo finally answered. "Sorry, sir, you caught me in the middle of something," he added in an unapologetic tone.

"I don't give a shit if you had your dick in your hand, you don't tell your commander to wait!" the major ranted on.

"Sir, I had my arm in the mouth of a really big animal who wasn't very happy about it," Zo said dryly. "I don't think I'd be much use to you if he'd bit it off."

"Oh," Miller abruptly subsided. "Well," he continued in a calmer tone, "how come you got your hand stuck there? In fact," he added, his voice starting to rise again, "what the fuck are you doing anyhow?"

"I was helping Wildebeest with some of the local livestock, sir."

"You were helping who?"

"Wilde— One of the natives, sir."

"'One of the natives?'" repeated Miller incredulously, his voice rising back to near fever pitch. "The bugs you mean? You got pet names for bugs?"

"It's easier to be able to call them something when you're working with them," Zo began to explain. "They don't have names of their own, you see, so—"

"What do you mean, 'working with them?'" Miller cut him off. "You're not down there to coddle these ugly insects, you're there to be on fucking guard every waking minute!"

"I'm keeping a close eye on things," the sergeant prevaricated; in fact, well aware that any hostilities would be instantly species-wide, he'd paid little attention to any but the few Eden­ites in his impromptu work gang. "But when we were here before they had me helping with—"

"Fuck 'before, '" snarled Miller. "Sergeant, do you see any similarity at all to 'before' in the way I run things?"

"No, sir."

"Damn straight," the major continued, missing entirely the distinct undertone of regret in Zo's response. "I'm not responsible for the undisciplined horseshit that went on 'before.' I do it the right way, the army way. You're a fighting man, not some damn circus trainer."

"Uh, sir, you told me Aman— uh, Dr. Meiersdottir was in charge here, right?"

"Well..."

"Sir, she told me to go back to what I was doing before," Zo continued. "I'm just following her orders."

"Jesus wept! I didn't mean— Never mind. I'll straighten the bitch out. Goddammit..."

The link was severed.

Zo was suddenly quite aware that he'd ... well, not quite lied, but certainly stretched the truth appreciably. Meiersdottir had not in fact "told him" to do anything at all, he'd taken it on his own initiative to continue his work with Wildebeest and the others on the unspoken assumption that she'd be pleased. If Miller was planning to contact her...

He knew roughly where she was likely to be found, but the direct path would take him squarely through the field of the single visual scanner, which he knew Miller would be watching. He was compelled to make a lengthy detour to avoid that, and by the time he saw her he was clearly too late; she was embroiled in one of those seeming soliloquies that he knew meant a communicator link, and he was pretty certain he knew with whom.

But as he drew near enough to hear her end of the conversation, he began to relax.