A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet by Ron Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

care to tell me why you are here?”
    “Because you sent for me, sir.”
    “And why did I do that?”
    “Because you wanted to see me, sir.”
    “And why do you think I wanted to see you?”
    “Well, sir, I could only guess about that.”
    “Try.”
    “Well, perhaps you found an error in your arithmetic, sir, and wanted to refund some of my money.”
    “Now you’re being insolent!”
    “I don’t know what that means, sir.”
    “There’s no use in pretending that you don’t know that I know you’ve been stealing from me!”
    “No, sir?”
    “No, there isn’t.”
    “I’ve never stolen so much a demipfennig from you, sir,” she said, flatly, never taking her eyes from his.
    Oh, what a good little girl! he thought, happily. Stout denial! The very first thing I try to teach them. And right here to my face! Without blinking an eyelash! Oh, she’s got a little nerve, she has!
    “There’s no use denying it, Judikha. I’ve got proof.”
    She didn’t reply, nor did her bland expression change.
    He held up the marked coin between a chubby forefinger and thumb. “I’ve seen this coin,” he said, “three times, and each time it was in your payment.”
    “I’m sure there must be many coins with nicks in them, sir.”
    “No doubt. But not another one with a mark I put on it myself.”
    She was silent for what could not have been more than three heartbeats, though her expression did not waver.
    “Oops, huh, sir?”
    “Oops, indeed.”
    “I’m sorry, sir. I should have been more observant.”
    “No, no. Well, yes, you should have been more careful, but you did very well. Better than anyone has before you, I can tell you that. There’ve been some pretty bold liars in this office and some very slick operators, but no one, Judikha, no one among all the hundreds who’ve been through my academy, have had the nerve to steal from me!”
    “Thank you, sir. I really do try to do my best.”
    “Would you mind telling me how you went about it?”
    “Do I have to, sir?”
    “No. No, I suppose not. But you’ve been punished once or twice before. How did you know that it wasn’t for stealing from me? Why did you keep on doing it?”
    “Well, sir, I figured that if I was being punished for stealing from you, I surely would have been told. Just to make sure, I stole again the next week and nothing happened. So I knew that it must have been either for something else—though just what I couldn’t figure out—or you were only making an example of me.”
    “Good heavens, you are nerveless!”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    Judikha was obviously such an apt pupil that The Fox felt a wholly unexpected and unfamiliar quiver of pride. He rewarded himself by increasing her tithe to an even ninety per cent. Nevertheless, he instructed the hag (his mother? some thought so) to punish the girl that night and he withheld the old woman’s gin to insure that it would be an experience Judikha would not soon forget.
    Turned out at eight and a quarter years of age—more than a year and a half earlier than the average—Judikha found a niche for herself in an abandoned garret, much as the infant barnacle, set free from its parent, soon attaches itself to a rock, pier or hull.
    An irregular hole that served as the only window looked out on a chaotic landscape of steam and wheels and smokestacks and ruined warehouses. Factories gloomed through the oily mists, dynamos throbbed and steam hammers rang. And every now and then there would be the subsonic roar of a launching rocket. She could feel the city’s vibrations through the soles of her feet and when she pressed her cheek against the clammy plaster of the wall. Squabs of grass, wounded by the iron-dust that sifted from the atmosphere in lieu of rain or snow, added a sad color among the rockeries of broken bricks and shattered masonry. An unceasing brown rain dripped from the bare hedges. From across the singed yards, where snakes of yellow smoke writhed, she could hear the voices of