Hex by Allen Steele Read Free Book Online

me...”
    â€œCorporal.” From behind him, Mark Dupree spoke up. “Before we go, I think we ought to make sure our equipment has been properly stowed.” Sean glanced at him, and Mark nodded toward the nearby lander. “The gyro, I mean.”
    Sean was about to tell Mark that he was sure the gyro was in fine shape when Cayce stopped at the foot of the ladder. “Good idea, Sergeant. Captain, with your permission... ?”
    â€œI agree.” Andromeda Carson nodded. “We have time for a quick inspection.” She gestured to a large, red-bearded man wearing the insignia of a chief petty officer. “Zeus... please take their gear and put it beneath their seats.”
    Sean surrendered his bag to the crewman she’d called Zeus, as did Mark; then they turned to walk across the apron to the shuttle. Several ground crewmen were standing beneath the belly hatch; they waited while the two Corpsmen approached them. Mark glanced over his shoulder, then looked at Sean.
    â€œSo... want to tell me what’s going on?” he whispered. “With your mother, I mean.”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œC’mon, man. Don’t make me give you an order.” Mark was Sean’s superior officer, but the two of them seldom observed the difference in status. They’d joined the Corps at the same time and gone through training together, with both qualifying for Special Survey, and it was only because Mark had scored a few points better on their final field test that he’d been made sergeant instead of Sean. They were friends first and foremost, though, and only rarely did Mark pull rank on his buddy. But this was one of those times. “Do you have a problem working with her that I should know about?”
    Sean hesitated. “Look, it’s not something I really like to talk about. Can I just say that we don’t get along and leave it at that?”
    By then, they’d reached the shuttle. Looking up at it, Sean read its name, stenciled across the port fuselage beneath the cockpit windows next to the Coyote Federation flag. Something else had once been there, and Sean vaguely recalled that it was the name of some Central American socialist or another. But that name, along with the Western Hemisphere Union flag, had long since been painted over, with a new one in its place: Gilbert Reese , after the United Republic of America colonel who’d been one of the original Alabama colonists, if Sean wasn’t mistaken.
    â€œYou’re going to be flying this thing, aren’t you?” he asked, trying to change the subject.
    A quick smile from Mark. “If I’m lucky and someone else doesn’t beat me to it.” He knelt to look at the tandem-mounted wheels of its forward landing gear, then stood up again. “I’m not trying to pry into your private life,” he went on, speaking quietly. “I just need to know that if she gives you an order, you’re going to follow it.”
    Ducking his head, Sean stepped beneath the lowered left-side door of the belly hatch and peered up into the cargo bay. Suspended from a trapeze within the bay was the expedition gyro; with an aft-mounted pusher-prop, winglike stabilizers, and a main prop whose four blades were neatly folded together above the narrow canopy of its cockpit, the small aircraft was just large enough to seat a pilot and four passengers. Even so, they’d practically be sitting in each other’s lap.
    â€œIf she gives me an order, I’ll follow it,” Sean said, reaching high above his head to grab hold of the gyro’s starboard skid. He shoved at it, and was satisfied to see that it barely moved; the trapeze would keep the gyro from banging around during launch and landing. “Just don’t expect me to have tea with her.” Not that tea is what she usually drinks, he silently added.
    Sean and Mark took another minute to make sure the aluminum cases containing the rest