Fielding raised himself on one elbow, "No kidding? Where did you hear that?" His sunburned and blistered face was alight with excitement.
"Well, you know how it's been. When we first came here twenty years back, we drove the Rumi out of all this country and more or less took their cat feet off the Narakan's backs but now that so much of the Earth garrison has been pulled all the way back into the Solar System, the Rumi are acting up again. So much so that the dope I got is that we may be pulling everything back into the Little Texas peninsula to wait for reinforcements and it will take four years for those to come out from Mars."
"Great! Great! But.... Ah, it's too good to be true. Can't you just picture Fielding and O'Mara parading down Dobi street in New Chicago with their first lieutenant bars on their collars? Say, you don't suppose that's why the Sun Maid is sticking around out here, do you? Imagine, free transportation! A two hour trip to New Chi!"
"I'd sure hate to march those two hundred miles at this time of year!"
"March? Through those swamps? Every time we run a patrol through them...."
Fielding was interrupted by a knock on the door and a skinny young Terran with sergeant's chevrons on his shorts stuck his head through from the other room and said, "Major Chapelle's on the voice radio, sir. He's calling from battalion headquarters and wants Captain Norton."
"Tell him Norton's up playing footsies with the Resident's wife," Fielding said, "You'd think those people down at the river would have enough to do without bothering us in the heat of the day, wouldn't you?"
The sergeant looked shocked and started to withdraw his head. Terrence frowned Fielding into silence and called to the sergeant, "Just a minute, Rogers. I'll talk to the Major."
Major Chapelle was a thickset, balding man in his late forties. Even the blazing suns of Naraka hadn't succeeded in burning the sickly yellow color off his face. In the vision screen he looked like a man on his last legs. Whatever was wrong with him didn't help his temper, Terrence thought as he lowered himself gently into a seat before the screen.
"O'Mara! Where in hell is Norton?" he demanded.