Chapter 38

"He was nutty as a fruitcake, Colonel," said Accorda. "I've seen him a lot of ways before, sometimes a real pro, sometimes even kind of friendly, sometimes pissed off—he lost his temper pretty easy—but never completely bananas until today. It was scary."

She'd joined the wedding party at their table in the pavilion following the ceremony, which after the unexpected delay had gone off as planned. One person had been obliged to miss the nuptials—Josephs who, as junior trooper and one of the few qualified pilots, had been assigned to return the second lander immediately to the Gardener, taking a trussed-up Miller, still woozy from Accorda's kick, with him. The former major would remain in his quarters for the remainder of their stay under, as Meiersdottir had warned him now so many months before, armed guard.

Evidently Miller had taken advantage of the ship's semi-deserted state to break into the weapons locker where he'd picked up the laser he'd been wielding. He'd been walking uncertainly toward the lander bay when he'd encountered the trooper, hurrying to board the final shuttle to the planet.

"'We'll go down together, Corda, ' he told me. You know, I hadn't realized until then how much I hated him calling me that. Anyhow, his eyes were real crazy looking, and he kept muttering a lot of really nasty stuff about you, about your wife, about Sgt. Zo, about Captain Shaw, but his hand was rock steady and he kept that laser pointed right at me every minute. I figured I was dead no matter what, but finally I decided it was better to get him off the ship rather than leave him loose up there with a weapon. So I went along, hoping to jump him on the way down, but he never gave me the chance."

"Good sense, to a point," the colonel approved.

"I blame myself for a lot of that," put in Meiersdottir. "I took him too lightly, and indulged myself by really rubbing his nose in it back when he was there in sick bay." She shook her head in self-reproach. "I know better than to act like such a snot to anybody, and I was vindictive. It must've helped push him over the edge."

"My love, you take too much on yourself," her husband told her. "Miller acted according to his nature, which was mean-spirited and petty. I cannot believe any action you might have taken would have significantly altered the outcome." She could only shrug her shoulders.

"Sir," Accorda said hesitantly, "what do you mean, 'to a point?' Do you see something else I should have done?"

"Well, you showed remarkably little faith in your commanding officer, Trooper."

She looked at him in utter surprise.

"Did you not believe I would have taken the elementary precaution of rendering our weapons inoperable in his hands?"

"Sir, I thought he had to be there to change the weapons recognition," she said. "I mean, when they added us we had to go through a really detailed process, have our hands scanned and then the programming had to be changed. It took two tries for me, I remember, the first one didn't take."

"To add someone to the recognition system requires that," the colonel explained. "To remove someone is a much simpler procedure, and the individual need not be present. I had thought you knew that."

"Carlos, stop badgering poor Simone," interjected Meiersdottir. "She's been through enough."

"My love—"

"Or do you want to have the conversation now about how you scared the living shit out of your wife by not having enough 'faith' to tell her about fixing the weapons programming? Good luck trying to fob me off with the crap you're feeding her."

"Amanda, I told no-one. I never thought—"

"Well, you told your damn sergeant, Carlos," interrupted Meiersdottir. "Don't you think it would have been nice to have included me?"

"He didn't tell me either, Amanda," said Zo.

"Huh? Then why did you stop me and say it was going to be OK?" she demanded.