“That answers that,” Mattson said, holding his hand to his right eye. He stalked off toward the room’s lavatory, to check out the damage.
“Don’t be so sure,” Szilard said. He turned to Jared. “Private, do you know the man you just struck?”
“I know now he’s General Mattson,” Jared said. “But I didn’t know that when I struck him.”
“Why did you strike him?” Szilard asked.
“I don’t know, sir,” Jared said. “It just…” He stopped.
“Answer the question, Private,” Szilard said.
“It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time,” Jared said. “I can’t explain why.”
“He’s definitely remembering some things,” Szilard said, turning to Mattson. “But he’s not remembering it all. And he doesn’t remember who he was.”
“Crap,” Mattson said, from the lavatory. “He remembered enough to punch me in the head. That son of a bitch has been waiting to do that for years.”
“He could be remembering it all and trying to convince you that he doesn’t, General,” the other man said to Szilard. Jared’s BrainPal identified him as Colonel James Robbins.
“It’s possible,” Szilard said. “But his actions so far don’t seem to suggest it. If he really were Boutin, it wouldn’t be in his interest to let us know he remembered anything at all. Punching out the general wouldn’t have been very smart.”
“Not smart,” Mattson said, coming out of the lavatory. “Just cathartic.” He turned to Jared and pointed to his eye, ringed in gray where the SmartBlood had been smashed out of blood vessels, causing a bruise. “Back on Earth, you’d have hung this shiner on me for a couple of weeks. I should have you shot just on principle.”
“General,” Szilard began.
“Relax, Szi,” Mattson said. “I buy your theory. Boutin wouldn’t be stupid enough to punch me, so this isn’t Boutin. Bits of him are coming out, though, and I want to see how much we can get.”
“The war Boutin tried to start is over, General,” Jane Sagan said. “The Enesha are going to turn on the Rraey.”
“Well, that’s wonderful, Lieutenant,” Mattson said. “But in this case two out of three won’t do. The Obin may still be planning something, and since it looks like Boutin is with them, perhaps we shouldn’t go declaring victory and calling off the search just yet. We still need to know what Boutin knows, and now that the private here has got two people rattling around in his skull, perhaps we can do a little more to encourage the other one to come out and play.” He turned to Jared. “What do you say, Private? They call you guys the Ghost Brigades, but you’re the only one with a real ghost in your head. Want to get it out?”
“With all due respect, sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jared said.
“Of course you don’t,” Mattson said. “Apparently, other than where his lab is, you don’t know a goddamn thing about Charles Boutin at all.”
“I know one other thing,” Jared said. “I know he had a daughter.”
General Mattson touched his hand gingerly to his black eye. “That he did, Private.” Mattson dropped his hand and turned to Szilard. “I want you to give him back to me, Szi,” he said, and then noticed Lieutenant Sagan shoot Szilard a glance; no doubt she was sending him one of those rat-a-tat mental messages Special Forces used instead of speech. “It’s only temporary, Lieutenant,” he said. “You can have him back when we’re done. And I promise I won’t break him. But we’re not going to get anything useful out of him if he gets shot dead on a mission.”
“You didn’t have a problem with him getting shot dead on a mission before,” Sagan said. “Sir.”
“Ah, the vaunted Special Forces snotty attitude,” Mattson said. “I was wondering when it would become obvious you were six.”
“I’m nine,” Sagan said.
“And I’m one hundred and thirty, so listen to your great-great-grandfather,” Mattson said. “I didn’t care if he died before because I didn’t think he was useful. Now he may be useful, so I’d rather he didn’t die. If it turns out he’s not useful, then you can have him back and he can die all over again for all I care. Regardless, you don’t get a vote. Now shut up, Lieutenant, and let the grown-ups talk.” Sagan stewed but shut up.
“What are you going to do with him?” Szilard asked.
“I’m going to put him under the microscope, of course,” Mattson said. “Find out why he’s leaking memories now and see what it takes to leak a few more.” He jerked a thumb back to Robbins. “Officially, he’ll be assigned to Robbins as an assistant. Unofficially, I expect he’ll be spending a lot of time down at the lab. That Rraey scientist we took off your hands has been coming in useful down there. We’ll see what he can do with him.”
“You think you can trust a Rraey?” Szilard asked.