Cold Welcome

^{CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE}

Ky made it back to the first hut and found Marek awake in the kitchen.

“All secured?” he asked.

“Yes. Power shut down, though I didn’t lock the door,” Ky said. “If we find enough fuel, we can open it up again for the extra space.”

“Open bunk, left side bottom,” he said.

“Thanks. Wake me at shift change if I’m not up.” She lay down. She didn’t feel like sleeping; finally getting a contact with the outside world had her mind racing. Rafe was here; he knew why no one had come for them; he knew about dangers she’d barely guessed. And how was she supposed to warn everyone not to use their skullphones or comunits without creating intense curiosity about how she had come up with such a wild notion? She dozed off finally.

In the morning, she woke determined to explore every possible resource in the area. So far they had found six empty barrels that had once held fuel for the generator, a half barrel more of fuel, no more full ones. No sign of a well house, or any pipe or pump for water. Ky wondered if the crew that had been here had brought water in by air. She looked down the smooth strip of snow that reminded everyone of a runway—because the land undulated, she couldn’t see all of it—then over at the two big humped buildings that might be hangars. She considered climbing up onto the cabin roof, or up on the tower, for a better view, but for now other things had more priority. Those two big humped buildings that might be hangars, for instance. They could explore the runway another day.

“Over there, Admiral!” Corporal Riyahn said. Ky looked. Out from behind a rumple of land she hadn’t noticed, a file of at least twenty of the gray-brown animals she’d seen earlier ambled toward the runway, then pawed at the thinner snow and lowered their heads to eat whatever grew under it. Barely a hundred meters away—if she’d had a rifle, and not her pistol, she could have dropped one easily. With a pistol—she remembered her early training with firearms. She might hit one, or simply spook the herd.

She walked slowly toward them, gesturing to the others to stay back. The animals ignored her for the first ten meters, fifteen meters, twenty, then one lifted its head and stared. Others looked. Ears waggled: forward, back, forward, back. She stood still. One stayed alert; the others went back to eating. She took one step. No reaction. Another. No reaction. Another. The sentinel waggled its ears and two other heads came up. She walked backward three steps and stopped. The sentinel tipped its head side-to-side, the antlers making a wider sweep. All the heads came up, but they didn’t move off. Ky turned and angled back toward the others, watching from the corner of her eye. Soon all were back to eating.

“They’ve been hunted,” Marek said.

“Yes. But not recently, and I think not often. Maybe only in summer, when people come here. I’d need to be a lot closer to get a good shot with my pistol and the ammo I have.”

“I could hit one at that distance,” Marek said. “Maybe not a clean kill, but wound it badly enough we could catch it. If you’d allow—just two rounds, at the most.”

“We don’t even know what they are,” Ky said. “Some kind of deer, maybe?”

“Whatever they are, they’re probably good eating,” he said. “I wonder if they’d get used to us, enough to let us get really close.”

“I hope so,” Ky said. “Because they’re the best food source I see.” She glanced at the sky; clouds had thickened overhead, and even as they stood there, the first flakes of snow fell. “We’ll go back, see what we can find in those other buildings.”

Snow fell more heavily as they walked, and by the time they were past the first hut and nearing the generator shed, they could hardly see their way. “We need more ropes,” Marek said. “Someone could get lost in this.”

Ky said nothing. She could think of many things they needed more of—water, food, fuel for the generator, a working communications device other than her cranial ansible. They made it safely inside and set about cooking their boring and meager supper.

“If I had my father’s rifle,” Sergeant McLenard said, “we’d have had fresh meat tonight. Easy shot. Admiral, did I hear Master Sergeant say you had a firearm?”

“Pistol,” Ky said. “Optimized for short-range, in-ship use.”

“Ah. Not as easy then. Too bad. But still, if we could get close enough—”

“When the weather settles, I’ll certainly try,” Ky said.

They woke to blinding blue-and-white beauty. Ky squinted against the glare. Right in front of the hut door, some animals had left their mark: droppings and footprints. Not the hooved and antlered creatures but something with paws, and droppings that looked like those of big…

“Dogs,” McLenard said, squatting down to look closely. “Really big ones. You can tell dogs by the arrangement of toes.”

“Can you tell how many?”

“Six at least. This sun is so bright… we could get snow blindness; we should go back in and make eyeshades.” Inside he spoke softly to Ky. “We shouldn’t go out alone at night. They might not be dogs, but wolves. There are some in the northern forests, but these tracks are of larger ones.”

“Do wolves attack people?”

“Rarely, there. Deer, mostly. But here—depends how hungry they are, I imagine.”

With eyeshades in place, they went back out. Ky soon spotted the herd they’d seen before, grazing along the margin of the runway.

“Someone had to bring them,” Inyatta said. “Whoever terraformed the place. I never studied Origin biology, but my guess is they’re from Old Earth. And if someone put grazers here, they’d have put their natural predator or some equivalent here as well.”

“They’d have to be from the time people first got into space,” Marek said. “Whatever was left on the home planet by then. I mean, we’re told it was in bad shape, many species already gone.”

Suddenly all the animals jerked up their heads and stared—not at the humans, but in a different direction. They moved, not in a panic, but in a group. Ky looked where they had looked. Something moved, just visible behind the nearest rise. “What’s that?”

“I have no—”

A tall shape rose into view, turning toward them. Another followed, and another.

“That’s not anything I ever saw in a picture of Old Earth animals,” Inyatta said. “Unless they had shaggy elephants. And elephants were gone by the first colonizations. Besides not fitting on spaceships.”

Ky watched as the animals trudged nearer. Much bigger than any animal she’d seen, like pictures of elephants, only covered with long coarse hair. Ears like ragged flaps of thick woolly blanket, dramatic tusks gleaming in the sun, long noses hanging down in front. Despite their size, they moved with surprising grace. The leader stopped. That long nose—trunk, she remembered, was the name for it—lifted, pointing at them.

“They’re downwind of us; they’re getting our scent,” Inyatta said as the rest lifted their trunks.

“We’ll go back now,” Ky said. She wished they had real weapons. Her pistol would be no use against something that size.

In the next hour, all the animals wandered away, the deer-things in one direction and the hairy elephants in another. Ky turned her attention to the other buildings, assigning a group to examine each. The two that looked like hangars had huge sliding doors chained together, the chains locked with a simple padlock for which they had no key. “Bolt cutters would work,” Sergeant Chok said. “If we had any.” The doors did have small windows, one each; they brushed off the snow and looked into the dim empty space of the first building, hoping to see barrels of fuel for the generator, even aircraft. “Something in the back corners, maybe, but until we get the doors open I can’t tell what it might be,” Chok said. The next had some machines inside, but they couldn’t tell, in the dimness, what they were.

That left the building beside the tower. Only a small part of it showed; it ran straight into the rise behind it. They had already tried the Rector’s code on the door, but it didn’t work. Was Marek right? Could the door be rigged to harm anyone who tried to force it open? Marek’s group was still over at the more distant hangar. It was her decision. Frustrated, she asked for suggestions.

“There’s a crowbar in the generator shed,” Ennisay said. He jogged off and came back with it. “There’s a sledgehammer, too, and an axe and other tools. I found ’em this morning when I filled the generator’s fuel tank and knocked over those boards stacked at the end.”

“You could have mentioned that before we went to the first hangar,” Chok said. “We might’ve been able to break the chain.”

“Never mind,” Ky said. “Let’s get this open. Ennisay, go back and bring all the tools you find.”

In the end it took well over an hour to destroy the lock, using the crowbar, sledge, and a pick, but they finally wrenched the now-damaged door open, revealing a small square chamber. “It may never lock again,” Sergeant Cosper said, with satisfaction.

An overhead light came on when Ky stepped inside. Rough concrete floor, concrete walls, large enough for all six of them. To the left was another door, closed, with a pushbar on it and a sign: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Ky walked over and pushed the bar; the door, thick and heavy, swung open silently. Beyond, lights came on in a sequence, revealing a corridor slanting down into dimness. “Sergeant McLenard, stay in the antechamber. You can close the outer door, but don’t try to lock it. Chok, Ennisay, you’re with me.” She started down the slope; the others followed. As she went, lights turned on ahead of her. After about ten meters, the corridor turned right and continued downward. Ky checked to be sure there were no secret doors that might shut behind them. After another ten meters, the corridor turned right again.

“You have any idea how far down we’ve come?” asked Chok.

“No,” said Ky. “The slope is not as steep as a stairway; makes it hard to figure.”

“At least it’s cut off the wind,” said Ennisay. “Feels warmer, whether it is or not.”

Ky nodded without answering. The ramp ended in a space larger than the chamber above with a wide opening to the left. Here, too, lights came on, this time along a straight, level corridor as wide as the opening, with doors on either side. All were closed. All had keypads but no card slots. Although they were labeled, the labels meant nothing to her; clearly they were codes. She tried the first door, expecting it—like the outer door—to refuse Aunt Grace’s code, but to her surprise it opened. A small room, not more than three meters wide and deep, lined with metal shelving, the shelving full of boxes. Two were open and partly full: one of white paper, one of yellow.

“Admin,” Chok said. “The spoor of the paper pushers.”

Across the passage, the shelves of a larger room held a wide variety of electronic gear: desk comps, pocket coms, printers, cameras, surveillance gear including both wire-guided and wireless fliers, each carefully wrapped in transparent fabric and labeled, this time in familiar symbols. “Whatever this organization was—or is,” Ky said, “it’s certainly well supplied with equipment. I wonder if they’ll know we broke the lock or turned the lights on.”

She turned as a clatter of boots on the ramp neared them. Marek and his search team came into the main hall. Marek whistled.

“If they noticed, they’ll come rescue us,” Ennisay said.

“They’ll come, at least,” Marek said. His brows drew together; Ky noticed a bulge of muscle at the side of his jaw.

Ky moved on to the next rooms. Later they would have time to examine everything in each of them, but she still needed to find something they could use to survive. Fuel for the generator. A water source. Food. Clothing.

The next door on the right opened into a larger room lined with racks that held weapons familiar to all of them. An armory—and one full of Slotter Key military weapons stamped with the familiar logos. An unlocked door on the far side opened into a practice range with a shooting gallery and a line of targets on cables at the far end. Cabinets on two walls held ammunition, cleaning supplies, replacement parts, fully charged powerpaks for the weapons that needed them. Two long workbenches filled the center. On one, a standard-issue rifle lay clamped in a stand. She went to it, recognizing the biometric control panel just as Marek said, “No good; these are all palm-locked.”

“If we can break the code, we can hunt with them,” Cosper said.

“Later,” Ky said. Her mouth watered at the thought of fresh meat. There had to be a way to unlock those weapons.

Across the passage again, and this time something immediately useful: a store of clothing, from olive-green heavy-duty cold-weather suits through indoor shipsuits to underwear, in a range of sizes, all with Slotter Key military tags inside. Clean, whole clothing—now if they could find water enough to bathe and change, what a difference that would make. Ky resisted the temptation to grab gloves off the shelf—she didn’t really need them down here.

“Almost paradise,” Inyatta said. “Warm, no wind, new clothes—”

“Maybe it’ll have water and food as well,” Gossin said. “Or a magic tunnel straight to Port Major.” Nobody laughed.

Next down on that side was a door without a lock, a swing door, and inside what Ky had hoped for—a large shower room and toilet facility, much like those she’d used at the Academy. She turned one of the faucets; a trickle of water came out and stopped. A loud click came from overhead and a mechanical voice blared:

“THIS FACILITY IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR USE AND REQUIRES AUTHORIZATION FROM OFFICER TO RESTORE FUNCTIONALITY. IF OFFICER IS PRESENT, STATE NAME, RANK, NUMBER.”

Marek looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Ky shrugged. It couldn’t hurt to try. “Vatta, K., Admiral—” and uttered not her aunt’s number, but the one she’d been given at the Academy.

After a moment, the voice spoke again: “FUNCTIONALITY RESTORED.” This time the water ran from the faucets, hot from hot and cold from cold. Ky turned them back off. Was the speaker connected to an AI of some kind?

“Locate mess,” she said, testing that idea. No response. Several other commands—to open doors—also produced no response.

“If it’s an AI, it’s a very limited one,” Marek said. “Maybe they had a problem with troops leaving the water on or something.”

“So we’ll explore,” Ky said. She led the way to the end of the passage, a T-intersection. To the left was a short passage with two doors on one side, one on the right, and a heavy door with a lock panel and wheel, like a pressure door. To the right was an open arch.

That led into a dining area: four rows of three tables, each topped with eight upside-down chairs. To the left, behind it, was a kitchen, with a serving line dividing kitchen from dining: long metal counters, cooktops, ovens, storage below for large pots, all neatly covered, implements hanging on racks, bagged to keep them dust-free. At one end an opening led into a large pantry with coolers, open empty racks for produce, and rows of canned and boxed foods. Ky’s mouth watered.

Specialist Gurton opened one of the coolers: neatly wrapped packages of frozen foods, clearly labeled. “I could start cooking now,” she said. She turned on a faucet; water came out. Then she touched one of the cooktop controls and a red light came on. “It’s all working. We could have a real meal.”

Ky almost said yes, but Marek spoke first. “Cleanup first. Everybody showers, gets into clean clothes, then we can eat.” He looked at Ky. “If the admiral agrees.”

“Cooks clean up first,” she said. “Get a start on the meal. But not too rich a meal at first. We still need to be careful about that.”

“Good point,” Marek said. “Two of you—” Two hands went up: Gurton and Kamat; he nodded. “Get clean clothes from the storeroom, see if you can find hairnets and kitchen gloves, then shower.” The two volunteers hurried off. To Ky he said, “Send someone back topside to bring the others down?”

“Yes. Let’s see what we have for sleeping quarters next.” More questions rose with every discovery, but she had to focus on the immediate needs. Water, food, warmth, someplace safe to sleep… but this whole place felt safe. Which could mean it wasn’t.

The entrance to quarters was only a few meters back up the main corridor, a passage with no door and doorways opening off it. First on the left, a small office. “Watch station,” Marek said before she commented. “Good place for it.” They moved down the passage, opening all the doors. On the left, a large open bay with bunk beds. Bedding, neatly folded and sealed in clear bags, lay on the foot of each. On the right, smaller rooms with two or four beds each, also with bedding. “NCO quarters,” Marek said. “That’s probably officers’ quarters down there.” He nodded toward the end of the passage, where one door ended the passage, and another was set nearby on either side. “My guess is the end one’s yours, Admiral, as ranking officer. Your aide will take one of the others.”

“You’ll take the last, as senior NCO?”

He shook his head. “No, Admiral. I’ll take one of the NCO rooms nearer the watch office up there. Lets me keep a closer eye on things. We have plenty of room; no one will be crowded.”

Ky opened the door to the end room. She found a small suite: an office with desk, chair, two side chairs, shelves along one side and cabinets below, then a door into a comfortable bedroom with another desk built into shelving and cabinets on one side. Power outlets showed at the back of the desk. On either side of the bed a small nightstand with a light; power outlets on the wall beside both nightstands. Two comfortable-looking chairs. A closet with a built-in clothes ’fresher and a lockbox with a key in the lock. She stowed the flight recorder and the IDs she’d collected in the lockbox, and took the key with her. She felt the bed and thought of lying down just for a moment.

In the distance, she heard excited voices and returned to the main corridor. Jen stood near the sanitation suite door, counting people off. She looked at Ky. “Admiral. It’s too bad we didn’t find this place right away.”

“Agreed,” Ky said. “Would have saved us those miserable days down on the beach.” She didn’t mention Jen’s opposition to her exploration. “Still a lot of questions to answer about this place.”

“Just a moment,” Jen said to Droshinski and Hazarika as they started to enter. “Let the admiral go first.”

“No,” Ky said. “I’ll wait. And I can show you where you’ll be quartered, Commander.”

“But I need to—”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to skimp on their shower,” Ky said, grinning. “Come on—you’ll have a real bed and some privacy.”

Jen sighed but followed as Ky led the way down the passage. “You can have your pick of these two rooms,” Ky said, gesturing to the doors. “I’ve claimed the one on the end. It’s got a little office in front where I can do paperwork and we can talk in private. I haven’t seen the others yet; they may be the same.”

Jen opened the door to the right. She also had two rooms, both smaller than Ky’s. “Very nice,” she said. “Who’s got the one on the other side?”

“Nobody,” Ky said. “Marek refused it; he wants to be up the passage nearer the watch office.”

“You offered him an officer suite?” Jen’s brows were up.

Ky wondered what Cascadian rule she’d broken this time. “He’s the senior NCO, two grades higher than any other.”

“But it put him back here with us—with two women. It would have been… unseemly.”

“It’s—” Ky stopped. She had been saying It’s different here. This is Slotter Key, not Cascadia too much. Yet it was true: in Spaceforce, men and women bunked in the same passage, even in the same bay.

“It is not appropriate,” Jen said with emphasis. “I know this is an emergency situation and I said nothing in the life rafts. But now that there’s room, it matters. The very fact we’re so isolated and few in number…”

Ky managed not to say, You remind me of Aunt Grace at her worst. “Well, he refused,” she said instead, “so it’s not an issue.”

“He refused very properly,” Jen said. “He knows what is appropriate; you are lucky he is with us.”

“If you’re satisfied with your quarters, let’s go get some clothes and start moving in,” Ky said, hoping to cut off that topic. She turned to leave.

“I don’t suppose there will be any proper insignia,” Jen said. “It’s important to maintain appropriate appearance—”

If she heard appropriate many more times today, Ky thought, she would say something inappropriate. On purpose. She held her tongue all the way down into the clothing stores.

There she gathered enough almost-fitting clothes to last several days and tried on several pairs of indoor soft-soled shoes until she found one that—with two pairs of socks—fit well enough to walk in without tripping. When Jen had an armload of her own, they returned to their quarters. All the others were either in the showers or already out. Ky dumped all but a utility uniform, underwear, and socks on her bed and headed for a shower.

Hot water and soft soap were sheer bliss. She felt both grime and muscle knots melting away. Now she could really see how thin she’d become in only a few tendays, ribs and hip bones prominent. Well, food and exercise would fix that. Maybe there was a gym in this place, too. And a clinic. One cut looked puffy and red. Others, too, would have unhealed injuries. And they needed a laundry: one or two ’freshers would not be enough for everyone.

Once in clean new clothes, she padded sock-footed out to the main room, ran her hands through her clean hair, and braided it snugly to the back of her head. She heard another shower running. Jen, most likely. She picked up her dirty clothes from the floor, wrinkling her nose at the smell. It was worth trying what the ’fresher could do with them, but she suspected her uniform would never be the same.

By the time she had put her survival suit and uniform into the ’fresher and set it on long cycle, she could smell something cooking. She fished in the desk drawer for a fresh cord and tied off her braid. She heard Jen next door, opening and shutting her inner door, and met Jen in the passage.

“Good to be clean again, isn’t it?” Ky asked.

“Necessary,” Jen said. She looked Ky up and down. “We need to find a way to put your insignia on these things.” She had her own pinned to her shoulders.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake me for anyone else,” Ky said.

“That’s not the point,” Jen said. “If you—” She clamped her mouth tight, gave a little shake of her head, and followed Ky down the passage.

“I wanted mine to go through the ’fresher,” Ky said. “They’ll be shinier when it’s done, probably.”

“Oh. Well, then. At least you’re thinking about it.”

Ky could think of no answer to that. “Let’s see what Gurton and Kamat have found for supper,” she said. The closer they got to the mess hall, the better the smell. When they came in, Marek signaled the others; everyone stood. A separate table had been set for her and Jen. As soon as they sat down, the cooks brought in the food.

“It’s just a simple stew,” Gurton said. “Not too rich, as you suggested.”

“It’s not basic gruel or fish,” Ky said. “So it’s perfect.”

“We did put some oat flour in it.”

“Fine.”

Halfway through the bowl of stew, she felt much better. She slowed down, aware she’d been gulping it in, in spite of having advised others to eat slowly. “Talented cooks,” she said to Jen.

“It’s excellent,” Jen said. “What about an inventory of the supplies?”

“Tomorrow,” Ky said. “Unless the cooks want to stay up and do it tonight. But I imagine they’ll be tired enough when they’ve cleaned up the kitchen. Tonight I’ll talk to Marek about a work roster.”

“Not much to do down here,” Jen said. “It’s all automatic.”

“As far as we know,” Ky said. “We still don’t know what the power source is, how much fuel there is, what the water source is, and how to monitor the environmental conditions. We need to check every door, every room. How much more is there to this facility? I’d expect some kind of medical area, perhaps even a full clinic, and a gym that could be used in bad weather. A library? A communications center? Perhaps a local weather station giving a readout of conditions on the surface.”

“Isn’t this enough? Water, food, sleeping area, clothing?”

“It’s great, Jen, but why is it here? There’s not supposed to be anything on the whole continent. Yet here we are, with supplies for at least a hundred.” She took another bite and swallowed it. “We need to know what it is, how it got here, and why it’s not known.”

“Secret military bases aren’t unknown.”

“True, but they’re usually known to the military. Marek said he didn’t know about this one. None of the others seemed to know it was here, though I’m going to ask every one of them, now that we’re in a safer place.”

“But it’s a Slotter Key base, so it’s not a problem, is it? If they come here seasonally, they’ll find us and take us away, won’t they?”

Jen, Ky reflected, must have led a very sheltered life. Of course, that’s what Cascadian culture and law were for, to shelter Cascadians from unpleasantness. “Not necessarily,” she said. “Secrecy suggests that our presence could be embarrassing or dangerous for someone. In which case—” Ky ran a finger across her throat, then took another spoonful of the stew.

“Surely not! That would be—wouldn’t it be illegal?” Jen had put down her spoon and paled again.

“Yes. But if we’re all dead, we won’t be taking it to court.”

“You really think—?”

“I don’t know yet. But I don’t want to find out the hard way. I want to get us all back to Port Major alive and well.” That, after all, was her mission. Ky finished the rest of her stew. She felt pleasantly full, though she could have eaten more. She looked over at the other tables.

Gurton came over at once with two small bowls. “There’s a dessert,” Gurton said. “The custard didn’t set, but it tastes good.” A beige-colored thick liquid… Ky wondered what it was as they took the tray over to the others.

She dipped her spoon in it and took a cautious taste. “Sweet,” she said. “And creamy. I imagine it would set up if left in a cooler overnight.”

Jen tasted it. “Yes—it’s good. I hope they do it again, if there’s enough of the ingredients.”

“Inventory tomorrow,” Ky said. “Tomorrow we’ll start a new schedule.” She ate the rest of her near-liquid custard and took the bowl back to the serving counter. “A wonderful meal,” she said to the cooks.

“She knows more about cooking,” Kamat said. “I just did what she told me.”

“Good assistant,” Gurton said, smiling at Kamat. “Sir, if you’d like, I could do a lot of the cooking.”

“Let me talk with Master Sergeant Marek. We need to rotate duties so if one gets sick there’s not a gap, but good food’s important.”

“Yes, sir. It’s just that I did have training in both cooking and kitchen management.”

“That may seal your fate,” Ky said, grinning. “We’ll get you some help for cleanup, but count on cooking tomorrow—and we’ll need an inventory of supplies and equipment.”

Marek and the others stood as she approached his table. “At ease,” Ky said. “Master Sergeant, Specialist Gurton has volunteered to continue as cook. She’s trained, but she should have some help—an assistant, and also cleanup crew daily.”

“Yes, Admiral. I’ll assign them.”

“Tomorrow we’ll inventory the kitchen, the clothing stores, any other storage area we find. I’m sure there’s more to this facility.”

“Wake-up at 0600?”

“Yes. Inspection of quarters, then breakfast, then work details. You and I will need to talk about that. I rely on your judgment for balancing maintenance and exploration. Commander Bentik and I are returning to quarters for a planning session.” Senior NCOs preferred to be left alone to arrange work details, she knew. “I’d like your opinion on security issues; let’s meet at 2100 for a short conference.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Ky collected Jen and headed back to their quarters. Her ’fresher was still running, not surprisingly. She picked up two clipboards, gave one to Jen, and settled into the chair behind the desk in her front room.

“Here are the issues I see as most urgent,” she said, jotting them down as she spoke. Jen seemed comfortable enough writing away, her gaze intent, as Ky talked about securing the facility from intrusion from outside, setting up a regular rotation of door guards, cleaning, cooking, and then exploration of the rest of the facility.

“I thought you might give everyone a day or two off,” Jen said when Ky ran down. “It’s been so hard—”

“Yes, it has,” Ky said. “That’s why we need to get back to a regular routine, something that feels normal instead of chaotic and just barely survivable. They’re tired now, of course, and I don’t expect full efficiency for the first days—from either of us, for that matter. But now that we’re in a safer place with adequate supplies, we need to recover mental and physical sharpness. If we can’t find any gym equipment down here, I’m sure Sergeant Cosper will have ideas—running up and down the ramps if nothing else.”

“I suppose,” Jen said.

“It’s just like being on the ship,” Ky said. “Routine is comforting and sustaining as well as productive. Remember what it was like?”

Jen scowled. “Of course I do. I know what’s right, Admiral.”

“I know you do, Jen, but I know you’re also tired, malnourished, and not your usual self. Give it a few days; you’ll see.” She waited; Jen said nothing, but the tight muscles in her face relaxed. “So let’s review the priorities. Do you see anything that looks out of order to you?”

Jen looked at her notes. “Well… I’d put searching for medical supplies one up on this list.”

Ky nodded. “I agree.”

“And you don’t mention enabling the weapons in the armory—what about that?”

“Once we found all the food, I was less concerned about hunting,” Ky said. “If there’s enough to last until next summer, we don’t need to. And in this weather, I don’t think anyone’s going to show up on the doorstep. Which I would like to get better secured.”

Jen nodded. “What about laundry—finding ’freshers for everyone’s clothes? Even with a roomful of new clothes, troops will need to clean them.”

“And not by hand in the kitchen sinks,” Ky said.

“Of course not!”

“Put that on the list. I wish I knew how much water is available—”

“Already on the list. High priority.”

The list was long enough to keep everyone busy for the first few tendays. “Jen, you’re off duty tonight. Get some sleep until wake-up; after this, we’ll share the night watch.”

“But Master Sergeant Marek can—”

“There should always be an officer available,” Ky said. “You never know what might happen.”

Jen nodded. “Good night, then, Admiral. See you in the morning.” She left; Ky heard her door close, then the inner door.

Ky wrote out orders for the next day, and at 2100 walked down the passage to the watch office. Marek and Betange were there. “Excuse me, Admiral,” Betange said, and left the office. Marek stood up. “Have a seat, Master Sergeant,” Ky said. “I’ve just roughed up some orders for tomorrow; this much should be doable, I believe.”

He looked them over. “Perfectly doable, Admiral. I’ll see to it. I have a watch rotation for tonight.” He handed it over.

Ky nodded approval. “Call me if you need me. Starting tomorrow night, Commander Bentik and I will share night watch, but I wanted her to get a full night’s sleep tonight.”

“You could do with that yourself, I imagine,” Marek said.

“I’m a light sleeper,” Ky said. “I may be up and down; don’t worry about it. Being down here out of the howling wind and cold is rest in itself.”

“That it is, Admiral,” he said.

She dozed off briefly at the desk in her office, then woke when the ’fresher beeped that it was finished. Her PPU and uniform looked somewhat better, but still had an odor. The ’fresher was cycling, its readout said. She laid the clothes over a chair in the front room, shut the door between the two, and lay down. The ’fresher beeped again when it was ready for another load, waking her again, this time from better sleep. Now it was 0345. She had her implant alarm set to wake her at 0530, well ahead of the others. Might as well put the clothes back in the ’fresher and hope it wouldn’t go off until it was time to get up. As she drifted off, she remembered that she hadn’t warned the others about com security. Tomorrow.