Gauntlet - Michael Jan Friedman [41]
“And what do you think you’re doing?” someone demanded.
The admiral looked around and saw a figure moving toward him, alternately drenched in sunlight and dipped in shadow. It was a man, much older than McAteer, judging by his thatch of white hair and the lines in his face. He wore black overalls and a pale-blue pullover, and there was a spray can in his hand.
“I beg your pardon?” the admiral said.
“I asked you what you thought you were doing,” the man snapped, his watery blue eyes fierce and warlike. “But if that was too subtle for you, how about this— keep your hands off the cotton-picking flowers.”
McAteer felt a spurt of anger. No—he reserved anger for enemies of equal strength. What he felt was indignation.
“Listen, old-timer, maybe your eyesight’s not what it used to be.” He held up his sleeve and pointed to it. “But if you can see these bars, you ought to have some idea to whom you’re speaking.”
The groundskeeper—for that’s obviously what he was—chuckled dryly beneath bushy eyebrows. “You’re an admiral. Big deal.”
McAteer felt the color drain from his face.
“I see guys like you come and go twenty times a day.” The older man moved past McAteer and inspected the branch that had yielded the flower. “And the vast majority of them know better than to pick blossoms off my darro tree.”
“I don’t think you understand,” the admiral told him, his tone clipped and imperious. But then, he wasn’t going to take that kind of talk from a mere gardener. “I could have you fired for speaking to me that way.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
The groundskeeper chortled as if McAteer had said something very funny. “Great. I could use a vacation. Haven’t had one in longer than I can remember.”
The nerve of him, McAteer thought, his teeth grinding together. The unmitigated gall.
He hadn’t become an admiral to have a—a civilian tell him where to get off. “I’ll be happy to oblige you, old-timer. Just give me your name and I assure you, you’ll have nothing more to do with this place.”
The old man sprayed a cloud of water at the injured branch, tilted his head to one side to see something McAteer couldn’t, then turned an amused expression on him.
“The name,” he said, “is Boothby.”
And he walked away.
The admiral stared at the old man, sputtering. Then, no longer feeling quite so appreciative of the Academy garden, he returned to his office by the straightest route possible.
Simenon was still wondering about Valderrama’s change of heart when he received a visit from Commander Wu.
“Don’t tell me,” he snapped in a preemptory tone. “You’ve spoken to Lieutenant Valderrama and you think I can do a better job of enhancing our sensor capabilities.”
The second officer looked confused for a second. But only for a second. Then she seemed to regain her composure.
“I trust you know what you’re doing here,” she said.
Simenon didn’t know what Wu was talking about, but he couldn’t resist making use of the straight line. “We had better hope so, hadn’t we? Otherwise, the warp core may blow at any time now.”
He chuckled at his little joke. Unfortunately for Wu, she didn’t see fit to join him.
“I’m not here about engineering expertise, Mr. Simenon. I’m here about violating Starfleet regulations.”
It was another straight line, even better than the first one. “You’re too late,” the Gnalish said, moving along a bank of monitors. “The mutiny was last mission.”
Again, he chuckled at his own jest. And again, the second officer appeared to be unamused.
“I mean it, Chief,” she said as she followed him. “You’re in violation of the regs.”
“Oh?” he said, wondering exactly where she was going with this. “And which reg am I violating?”
“The one that says engineers are prohibited from working a double shift unless there’s at least a yellow alert in effect. I count six men and women who are here for their second consecutive shift—and that’s not including you.”
Simenon looked at Wu, and saw by her frown that she was serious. “You