Earth Afire (The First Formic War 2)

Mazer always responded as if he sensed no subtext at all. They were making conversation, nothing more. Why yes, a bay window would be lovely. But no, gardens were a pain; there were weeds to be pulled and bugs to be sprayed and dirt to be tilled. That was time, and time was money. I'll buy my vegetables, thank you very much.

It was a game they played, a game of compatibility. And the more they played it, the more convinced Mazer became that he would never find a better match.

He woke the officer on duty at the motor pool and checked out a vehicle. The drive from Papakura to East Tamaki was quick, and he parked across the street of Medicus Industries at ten minutes to seven. She would already be up in her office, he knew; she always came in early to get a jump on the day.

He didn't call her. Instead, he tapped his wrist pad three times to ping her, then he watched her office window on the fifth floor. She appeared a moment later, smiled, and waved him to come up. He walked to the front door, waited for the holo to appear in the box, and typed in the sequence she had taught him. The door opened, and he crossed through the empty lobby to the lifts.

She met him on the fifth floor and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. She looked as beautiful as ever, her hair pulled back in a ponytail to keep it out of her face while she worked over her holos all day. "This is a pleasant surprise, Lieutenant," she said. Her American accent always made him smile.

"I'm a captain now actually," he said.

"As of when?"

"This morning."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? With a captain's pay?"

"I assume so. There wasn't much time to discuss it. Why, you need a loan?"

She smiled, though he could see that the promotion made her uneasy. An unexpected early-morning promotion was a bad sign. It might mean they were shipping him out.

He waited for her to ask, but instead she cocked her head to the side and said, "You look tired."

"I haven't slept in thirty-something hours," he said.

"And yet you came to tell me about your promotion before getting some sleep. I feel special."

"I didn't come to tell you about my promotion," he said.

She sensed bad news coming and held up a hand. "Before I get the whole story, let's eat first. There are pastries in the conference room."

She hooked her arm in his and led him down a corridor. All the offices they passed were dark and empty of people. They reached a glass-paneled room with a long table and a wide marble counter at the far end loaded with fresh fruit, pastries, and self-cooling containers of juice and milk. Kim handed him a plate, grabbed one for herself, and started loading up.

"Are these yesterday's pastries?" Mazer asked, picking up an apple turnover and giving it a sniff.

"A caterer brings them in early. They're fresh. And why should you care? You're supposed to be able to survive off the land, eating worms and roasted field mice. Day-old pastries are luxury food."

He didn't feel like eating, but he put the turnover on his plate anyway and followed her back to her office.

A holo of an adult-sized human skeleton was floating on its back in the air above Kim's holodesk. Windows of data surrounded it, along with handwritten notes in Kim's squiggly shorthand.

"Looks like we're a party of three for breakfast," said Mazer.

Kim waved her hand through the holofield, and the skeleton disappeared. "Sorry. Not exactly what you want to see before eating."

There was always something floating above Kim's desk. If not bones, then muscles or the circulatory system or some cross section of damaged tissue. She had studied medicine at Johns Hopkins in the U.S. and done her residency at one of the most notoriously brutal trauma centers in Baltimore. Despite being one of the youngest doctors on staff, she quickly built a reputation for being coolheaded and smart in the most gruesome situations. Several medical associations honored her, and it was those citations that had brought her to the attention of Medicus, which had offered her a position at their corporate offices in New Zealand with the promise that she would be helping far more people by working as a medical consultant.

The company made the Med-Assist device, a holopad designed to help soldiers treat battle wounds. It could do anything: bone scans, blood work, give surgery tutorials, even administer drugs. It was like having a medic in your pocket, only you had to do all the work. The U.S. military had funded the initial development and now used the device extensively throughout all branches of their service. Other countries had since jumped on board. A device for the New Zealand Army was near completion.

"Is that the new Kiwi version you've been working on?" Mazer asked, gesturing to a Med-Assist on the corner of her desk.

"Latest prototype," she said, handing it to him. "Tell me what do you think of the voice."

He turned on the device, clicked through the first few layers of commands, and placed it over his leg. A scan of his femur appeared on screen, the image tinged in green. A woman's voice with a New Zealand accent said, "Femur. No trauma detected."

"Why isn't it your voice?" he asked.

Kim's voice had been used in the American version. The U.S. Defense Department h