[Callahan 05] Lady Slings The Booze by Spider Robinson

Author:Spider Robinson [Robinson, Spider]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science.fiction
Published: 2011-01-26T17:21:13+00:00

“Bulishit,” I snarled, knowing it was not. My side was hurting a great deal, and it was my own fault for refusing the painkiller she had offered me when I woke, and I was giving consideration to becoming as violently pissed off as a post-op patient can be. I had a lot of anger built up, and what seemed like a perfectly good reason to take some of it out on her. She had been instrumental in risking and then saving my life; I wasn’t sure just then which was more unforgivable. “I know a lot, more about weapons than some mercs, especially esoteric weapons. Call it a hobby. And I am absolutely certain not even the Joint Chiefs or the Politburo could build a laser powerful enough to boil a man’s brain in under a second, that would fit in anything smaller than a van.”

“But you saw it with your own eyes, did you not? Didn’t I promise to believe in a damned ghost on the same evidence? If it wasn’t a laser pistol, what was it?’

“I never said it wasn’t,” I told her. “‘What I said was ‘Bullshit,’ and maybe I did get that wrong. Maybe what I meant to say was ‘Chickenshit.’”

Did you ever see somebody who wanted to frown but wasn’t sure she should? It’s an expression only a Raffalli could really enjoy. But I didn’t hate it, as I should have. I was steamed. “Speak plainly, Joe.”

“I will if you will,” I taunted. “After what I’ve been through in your service, don’t you think maybe you owe me the truth?”

Maybe it had been a long time since anybody had caught her on a spot that raw. I started to lose steam when I saw her expression. But I couldn’t quite make myself take the question back.

Finally she reached her decision. “It is not a kind of truth that can be ‘owed’ to someone-in the way that I can now give you my solemn oath that I will never tell another living soul your birth name. It is not a kind of truth that is mine, to give as a gift to anyone, no matter how great a favor they do me. In the military sense, you do not have adequate Need To Know.” She sighed. “But I find I have adequate need, and justification, to tell you-and now is as good a time as any, I suppose.” She got up from her chair and began to pace. “But I do owe you this much: I will warn you first. If I tell you the truth you want, I will be recruiting you-irrevocably-into a war that will make this last skirmish with Raffalli seem as insignificant as any other knife fight.”

“Why does this not surprise me?” I said bitterly. “Come on, spit it out!”

“You sure you won’t wait until you’re more than a few hours out of abdominal surgery? Your judgment is legally impaired.”

“Who says I’m going to pull through?”

“Doctor Kate, who is rarely wrong-but I take your point,” she agreed.

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