The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 2

"Queen Eunice," said Thom Chastain, shaking his head. There was a mixture of affection and amusement in his voice, but Tyl had been in enough tight places to recognize the flash of fear in the young man's eyes. "She's really a terror, isn't she?"

"Ah," Tyl said while his mind searched for a topic that had nothing to do with Colonel Hammer's employers. "You gentlemen are in the army also, I gather?"

There were couches around most of the walls. Near one end was a marble conference table that matched the inlaid panels between the single-sheet vitril windows. Nobody was sitting down, and the groups of two or three talking always seemed to be glancing over their collective shoulders toward the door, waiting for the missing man.

"Oh, well, these," said the other Chastain brother, Richie—surely a twin. He flicked the collar of his blue and gold uniform, speaking with the diffidence Tyl had felt at being addressed as "Major."

"We're honorary colonels in the Guards, you know," said Thom. "But it's because of our grandfather. We're not very inter . . . ."

"Well, Grandfather Chastain was, you know," said Richie, taking up where his brother's voice trailed off. "He was president some years ago. Esteban Delcorio succeeded him, but Thom and I are something like colonels for life—"

"—and so we wear—"

They concluded, both together, "But we aren't soldiers the way you are, Major."

"Or Marshal Dowell,either,"Thom Chastain added later, nodding tothe man in green who had broken away from the Delcorios—leaving them to hiss at one another. "Now, what would you like to drink?"

Just about anything,thought Tyl.So long as it had enough kick to knock him on his ass . . . which, in a situation like this, would get him sacked if the colonel didn't decide he should instead be shot out of hand. Why inblazeshadn't somebody from the staff been couriered over on an "errand" that left him available to talk informally with the civil authorities?

"Nothing for me, thank you," Tyl said aloud. "Or, ah, water?"

Marshal Dowell had fallen in with a tall man whose clothes were civilian in cut, though they carried even more metallic brocade than trimmed the military uniforms. The temporary grouping broke apart abruptly when Dowell turned away and the tall man shouted at his back, "No, Idon'tthink that's a practical solution, Marshal! Abdicating your responsibilities makes it impossible for me to carry out mine."