The Seafort Saga Books 4–7 by David Feintuch

Author:David Feintuch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

2

THE BREEZE WAS chill, but the sun bore down with bracing warmth. In T-shirt, faded work pants, and my usual scuffed boots, I loped steadily up the hill, my breath deep, my heart thumping, my whole body alive with the glory of a Welsh spring morning. It wasn’t often Father let me spend the night at Jason’s, and I ought not annoy him by returning late for chores.

I’d been running for a quarter hour, from Jason’s home to ours. At last I rounded the rise of the knoll. There, below me, was our cottage, morning mist rising like a ghost from the stony farmyard. Beyond our fence lay the twisting Bridgend road to Cardiff.

I stopped for a few breaths, hands on my knees. The lee of the hillside was thick with thistles, but the eastern side was mostly grass, grazed short by our neighbor’s sheep.

Father would have tea boiling. In a few moments he’d be glancing at the clock, lips pursed in disapproval.

I loped down the hill. Gravity and youth sped my steps. My lope became a trot, the trot a joyous gallop. My hair caressed the wind of my passage. My breath came easy. I was young, and happy in myself, and could do anything.

I cried out in delight, and woke myself.

I was in Devon, in the guest suite of Naval Academy.

Fifty irredeemable years separated me from the boy who raced down the hill.

I clutched my pillow like a life vest, washed by a wave of regret so sharp it threatened to carry me to a place of no return.

When finally it passed, I was drenched with sweat. I climbed out of bed, leaned heavily on my cane, hobbled to the bathroom. I stood a long while under the hot soothing shower, mourning the eager young joeykid I’d once been.

It was early afternoon, just past lunch. Sergeant Booker was nowhere to be found. Swarms of mediamen were camped outside Academy’s gates.

I sipped at coffee, irritable from my interrupted sleep. “You had an enviro maniac on staff and didn’t know?”

“It’s not illegal to favor—”

I slammed the table, splattering coffee on Sergeant Booker’s file. “Eleven years an enviro, and you didn’t know?”

Hazen and LeBow exchanged glances. “He wasn’t that outspoken, Mr. SecGen. In fact, other than a few pamphlets in his cabin there’s no evidence he was—”

“Bah.” I waved it away. “Screen these people out! It says Booker’s sister suffered kidney failure after the Glastonbury spill. His mother died two years later, same cause. If that doesn’t qualify him as an enviro fanatic ...”

Hazen’s tone was hot. “My brother is fighting melanoma, and we think it’s from the California Daze.” Incompetent techs had misread Los Angeles ozone depletion stats six days in a row, and thousands had unwittingly been exposed to high gamma counts. “Am I a terrorist? Do you want my resignation?”

“Of course not.” I drummed the table, willing reason into my tone. “Sorry. I suppose we can’t call every loonie enviro a security risk, but ...” But they were, I knew.

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