Turn of the Cards by George R. R. Martin

Author:George R. R. Martin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

Croyd tipped back his bottle of Giai Phong. He and mark, whose squad had been stood down after coming in a little after noon, sat on lawn chairs in front of their bunker. The afternoon sun lit up bubbles the color of Croyd’s eyes.

“As far as I know,” he said regretfully, “I got no ace powers this time around.” He gave a half-lidded glare to a bunch of jokers drifting their way in evident hope of cadging beer. “Not that I’ve been in any hurry to let these shrabs know that.”

“You really dig life as a gecko, man?” asked Mark. He wore a T-shirt tied turban-fashion around his head and nothing on his chest. He wasn’t worried about ultraviolet radiation at the moment. He was worried about hot.

“Skink, dammit. I’m a skink.”

“I thought skinks were skinny, squinty lizards with heads smaller than their necks.”

Croyd drew himself up in his chair. At Mark’s suggestion he had discovered that he could sit in a lawn chair if he fed his tail through the back.

“See the words you’re using?” he asked. “Skinny. Squinty. ‘Sk’ words. They sound like ‘skink.’ That’s why you associate them with skinks.”

Mark looked mulish. “I don’t know, man.”

“Look, who’s the authority here? You — all right, you’re a biochemist. But I — I’m a skink. So there.”

He had an audience for his outburst. “Naw,” said one of the old breed, a three-eyed joker Brigade vet everybody called Tabasco. “You’re a fuck-you lizard.”

“Okay,” Croyd said. “Fuck you.” He lunged at the joker, opening his mouth wide. It was shocking red inside and armed with alarming teeth. Tabasco squawked and ran, pelted by the jeers of his buddies.

“You fools wouldn’t know a skink if it bit you on the ass,” Croyd grumbled. He settled back and resumed his beer.

“Uh-oh,” he said at once. “Now what?”

For the last ten or fifteen minutes there had been a lot of activity around the wooden headquarters buildings in the center of camp. Now the tall figure of Evan Brewer — Brew — was striding across the parade ground toward Croyd’s bunker.

Tabasco was standing on the far side of the group of idlers from Croyd, batting at his buddies’ hands as they poked at him. His hand hit something hard and spiky. He stopped and turned to see Brew with the end of his lobster-claw resting on his shoulder.

“You. Down to the quartermaster. Do it now. And you, and you.” He was picking out men from the original Brigade.

He stopped in front of Mark, reached out his claw to touch Mark on the sternum. The spiny tip was strangely cool as it pricked Mark’s bare skin.

“You too,” Brew said. “The Colonel wants an ace along. Though I don’t exactly know how your friends will find you to help you if something comes down.”

Even a half day on patrol had left Mark drained. But he struggled to make himself rise. “What’s happening, man?” he asked.

Brew’s handsome face clouded. “Somebody just took a couple of shots at one of our training patrols.

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