All My Sins Remembered by Haldeman Joe

Author:Haldeman, Joe [Haldeman, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780575111653
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2011-09-28T11:00:00+00:00

5.

Ramos found that his rank—which was new, Teniente Salazar told him—entitled him to his choice of private quarters. There were only two billets available, though. Ramos took the second, even though it seemed more subtly bugged, because it was cleaner and he was expecting company. A girl named Ami Rivera; Julio had said they’d been close, before. He would warn her about his indisposition.

A clerk brought over a duffle bag of personal effects belonging to the real Guajana. Ramos found out disappointingly little about himself from the items in the bag. There were swords: blunted epee, saber, and foil for practice; functional saber and epee. Three sets of clothes, civilian. No uniforms. An opened package of pistol targets. Three books from the castle library; one of short stories and two on fencing theory (these were bound technical journals; Ramos looked for his own name but didn’t find it). The only thing that didn’t have some practical use was a beat-up harmonica with no upper octave. There was also a little bag of things evidently dumped from a desk drawer—anonymous stationery, pencil stub, eraser, two dried-out pens, postage stamps stuck together, a half-smoked box of dope-sticks but no matches.

Maybe the TBII’s Sherlock section could comb through this collection and tell you everything from Guajana’s ring size to his preference in women. To Ramos, to Otto McGavin, after an hour of close inspection, it was still just five swords, three sets of clothes, and a bunch of kibble. Anything he could infer from that he already knew.

Ami came by about sundown and fixed Ramos trimorlinos secos, a regional seafood specialty. She was a laughing, worldly, handsome woman about Ramos’s age. He enjoyed talking with her and making love with her, and never could decide whether she’d been sent to spy on him.

The next night was a slim young thing named Cecelia who had rather more exotic tastes than Ami but didn’t talk much. The third night it was one Private Martinez, rather dumpy and male besides, who had been sent to bring Ramos to the Commandante’s billet.

Ramos had anticipated just a larger version of his own austere quarters, but Julio’s “billet” was a rambling stucco mansion in the shape of a squared U, built around a carefully tended garden.

Julio was in the garden, sitting under a large tree at a table covered with papers. A bright lantern hanging from a branch above him hissed softly and threw a circle of soft yellow light around him; the smell of its burning mixed pleasantly with the perfumes of the garden. Julio was scribbling rapidly and didn’t hear Ramos and the private approach. The private cleared his throat, signalling.

“Ah! Mayor Guajana. Sit, sit.” He waved at a chair across the table from him and went back to his writing. “I’ll only be a moment. Private, find the cook and bring us some wine and cheese.”

After a minute he laid the pen down with a slap and gathered the papers together. “Ramos,” he said, stacking the pages, “if they ever offer you a colonelcy, turn it down.

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