“Exactly,” I said. “And there’s another thing. I was in the cargo hold today, going over the manifest with the cargo chief, and he mentioned that we were packing a whole lot of obsolete equipment.”
“That’s probably to do with the Mennonites,” Jane said, and sipped her water again.
“That’s what I said, too,” I said. “But after I talked to Trujillo I went through the manifest again. The cargo chief was right. There’s more obsolete equipment there than we can chalk up to the Mennonites.”
“We’re underequipped,” Jane said.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “We’re not underequipped. We have a whole bunch of obsolete equipment, but it’s not in place of more modern equipment, it’s there in addition to it.”
Jane considered this. “What do you think it means?” she asked.
“I don’t know that it means anything,” I said. “Supply error happens all the time. I remember one time when I was in the CDF we were shipped dress socks instead of medical supplies. Maybe this is that kind of screwup, a couple degrees of magnitude larger.”
“We should ask General Rybicki about it,” Jane said.
“He’s off the station,” I said. “He left this morning for Coral, of all places. His office says he’s overseeing the diagnostics of a new planetary defense grid. He won’t be back for a week standard. I asked his office to look into the colony’s inventory for me. But it’s not a high priority for them—it’s not an obvious problem for the well-being of the colony. They have other things to worry about before we ship out. But maybe we’re missing something.”
“If we’re missing something, we don’t have a lot of time to find it,” Jane said.
“I know,” I said. “As much as I’d like to peg Trujillo as just another self-aggrandizing prick, we have to work on the theory that he might actually have the interests of the colony at heart. It’s galling, all things considered.”
“There’s the possibility he’s a self-aggrandizing prick and he has the interests of the colony at heart,” Jane said.
“You always look on the bright side,” I said.
“Have Savitri go through the manifest with an eye toward what we might be missing,” Jane said. “I had her do a lot of research on recent seed colonies. If there’s something missing, she’ll find it.”
“You’re giving her a lot of work,” I said.
Jane shrugged. “You always underutilized Savitri,” Jane said. “That’s why I hired her. She was capable of a lot more than you gave her. Although it’s not entirely your fault. The worst you had to deal with were those idiot Chengelpet brothers.”
“You’re just saying that because you never had to deal with them,” I said. “You should have tried it, one time.”
“If I had dealt with them, one time would be all I needed,” Jane said.
“How was your thing today with General Szilard?” I asked, changing the subject before my competence could be questioned further.
“It was fine,” Jane said. “He was saying some of the things Trujillo was saying to you today, actually.”
“That the DoC wants the colony to fail?” I asked.
“No,” Jane said. “That there’s a lot of political maneuvering going on that you and I don’t know much about.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“He didn’t get into specifics,” Jane said. “He said that was because he was confident in our ability to handle things. He asked me if I wanted my old Special Forces body back, just in case.”
“That General Szilard,” I said. “A first-class kidder.”
“He wasn’t entirely joking,” Jane said, and then raised a placating hand when I gave her my best confused look. “He doesn’t have my old body on hand. That’s not what I mean. He just means he’d prefer not to have me go to this colony with an unmodified human body.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” I said. I noticed Jane had begun to sweat. I felt her forehead. “I think you actually have a fever. That’s new.”
“Unmodified body,” Jane said. “Had to happen sometime.”
“I’ll get you some more water,” I said.
“No,” Jane said. “I’m not thirsty. I feel like I’m starving, though.”
“I’ll see if I can get you something from the galley,” I said. “What do you want?”
“What have they got?” Jane said.
“Pretty much everything,” I said.
“Good,” Jane said. “I’ll have one of everything.”
I reached for my PDA to contact the galley. “It’s a good thing the Magellan is carrying a double load of food,” I said.
“The way I feel right now, it won’t be carrying it for long,” Jane said.
“All right,” I said. “But I think the old saying is that you should starve a fever.”
“In this case,” Jane said. “The old saying is dead wrong.”
FOUR