He stopped, thought about it, and nodded. Then he gave me a smile. “OK. No hard feelings. It’s a rough war, isn’t it?”
I smiled back. “Rough? Why, if you’re not careful, they tell me, you can get killed in it.”
The receptionist was a soft little blonde with two wedding rings on one hand, and one wedding ring on the other. From what I knew of current planet-side customs, that meant she’d been widowed twice.
She took our orders and read jauntily into her desk mike: “Attention Final Conditioning. Attention Final Conditioning. Alert for immediate shipment the following serial numbers: 70623152, 70623109, 70623166, and 70623123. Also 70538966, 70538923, 70538980, and 70538937. Please route through the correct numbered sections and check all data on TAF AGO forms 362 as per TAF Regulation 7896, of 15 June, 2145. Advise when available for Final Interviews.”
I was impressed. Almost exactly the same procedure as when you go to Ordnance for a replacement set of stern exhaust tubes.
She looked up and favored us with a lovely smile. “Your crews will be ready in a moment. Would you have a seat, gentlemen?”
We had a seat gentlemen.
After a while, she got up to take something out of a file cabinet set in the wall. As she came back to her desk, I noticed she was pregnant—only about the third or fourth month—and, naturally, I gave a little, satisfied nod. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the kid make the same kind of nod. We looked at each other and chuckled. “It’s a rough, rough war,” he said.
“Where are you from anyway?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like a Third District accent to me.”
“It isn’t. I was born in Scandinavia—Eleventh Military District. My home town is Goteborg, Sweden. But after I got my—my promotion, naturally I didn’t care to see the folks any more. So I requested a transfer to the Third, and from now on, until I hit a scrambler, this is where I’ll be spending my furloughs and Earth-side hospitalizations.”