Headquarters Annex 6 was the last in a row of pre-fabricated single-story buildings behind the stuccoed masonry of the Headquarters Building proper. It was built from sheets of structural plastic. The walls were beige, while the corrugated roof was reddish brown where it had been in the shade. Where the surface took direct sunlight, it had faded to pink.
“Not a very secure site,” Tovera said as they approached. By training she stepped slightly ahead, putting herself between Adele and the door in the center of the building, but neither of them imagined that there would be any real trouble here.
“If you follow your training, you have less to think about and so make fewer mistakes,” said Tovera in a primly chiding tone. She accepted Adele’s ethical decisions without question: Tovera had no conscience, but her sharp intelligence let her act within the bounds of society so long as she had a guide she trusted to tell her what those bounds were.
Tovera did not, however, defer to Adele’s judgments regarding doctrine and technique, except under orders. She was apt to honor even direct orders in the breach if she decided they would endanger her mistress unduly.
That wasn’t simply a matter of loyalty, though perhaps it was that as well. Tovera knew that she wouldn’t survive in society without direction. She had been the tool of a 5th Bureau officer. After he was killed, she had attached herself to Adele as someone who would appreciate the usefulness of a murderous sociopath the way she appreciated the pistol in her tunic pocket. Either would kill at Adele’s direction, and Adele’s duties and ruthlessness guaranteed that she was likely to need them.
A hefty middle-aged woman in utilities watched through the glass-paneled door. She pushed it open a moment before Tovera would have had to reach for the latch.
A thin, very serious looking, young man, also in utilities, came out of the office at the end of the hall. “Officer Mundy?” he called.
Adele said nothing — and Tovera didn’t sniff, as she might have done — but that was certainly true: if this pair knew who Adele was, they should have expected her to investigate them.
In fact they probably thought they knew who Adele was, but only by reputation. They could no more understand what she really did than they could imagine the processes going in at the heart of a star.
Half the building was an open clerical pool with storage cabinets along one wall. On the other side of the hallway was Runkle’s office with Assistant to the Director on the door, a closed file room, and the door Leonard had come out of. The four of them seemed to be the only people in the building — Tovera would know for certain — but going into the lieutenant’s office seemed the choice that would put the locals most at ease.
Which in turn would get them to the point most quickly, though Adele didn’t have high hopes for that. People simply wouldn’t be as direct as efficiency required.
She placed herself in the corner to the left of the outward-opening door. Her expression was probably one of amused contempt, but it could be read as friendly openness.
Adele seated herself. She knew Tovera as well as anyone did, she supposed, but she certainly wouldn’t claim to know what was going on in her servant’s mind.
“Well, if you’re sure . . . ?” said Runkle; Tovera didn’t deign to answer. Runkle sat gingerly on the open chair.
A Technician Grade 8 was a senior warrant officer, on a level with a bosun or a chief engineer — far superior to a signals officer. The deference Runkle and her commissioned superior were displaying proved, which was scarcely necessary, that they weren’t thinking of Adele in the RCN chain of command. It also indicated that they believed that she and they were all in a continuum of the intelligence community. That was a degree of arrogance which would have made Adele angry if it weren’t so foolish.
She flicked her left sleeve with her right little finger. Her personal data unit was in her lap — she had brought it live without really thinking about it when she sat down — and she was holding the control wands in her thumbs and first two fingers of both hands.
Adele kept a straight face. The lieutenant had obviously forgotten who he was talking to.
Why do I get the feeling that a main character is going to die in this book? Tovera, perhaps?
Reports have been made. No one has listened, except, possibly, Mistress Sand. Is a secret reason for Daniel and Adele and the Cecile being sent here coming to light?
Why would Sand keep this a secret from Adele?
Adele thinks this is supposed to be an easy assignment given to her for Rest and Recovery. If that’s so then it would be senseless for Sand to have lied about the assignment.
Adele has a reason to be here, and that reason is currently with Daniel.