It wasn’t the one she expected. Ceci cocked her head to one side and then smiled. “And?” she asked with a curious grin. “You want to know if that’s normal?”

Kerry nodded slightly.

“Of course not,” Ceci informed her.

“Oh.”

“But I’ve felt it. I know Andrew has,” the older woman went on.

“When you’re very close to someone, I think it just works that way. You just...know.”

Kerry thought about that for a few minutes in silence while Ceci sucked on her milkshake. “It’s weird,” she finally said. “It’s like...I haven’t felt right all day, and if I call Dar, I bet something is making her upset.”


Red Sky At Morning 181

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Kerry answered. “I think about that and I feel like I’m reading a copy of the National Enquirer,” she admitted, plucking lightly at the seam on her denims. “But I know what I feel, so...”

Ceci chuckled softly. “Must have freaked my daughter out.”

“Uh-huh.” Kerry looked up and smiled. “She thought she was going nuts. I can’t blame her, though. If she felt half as scared as I did, I would have thought I was going nuts too,” she added. “But it’s also sort of nice.”

“That you care enough about someone to feel that?” Ceci asked.

A light blush appeared on Kerry’s face, making her pale brows stand out suddenly. “Well, it’s mutual, I think.”

“No, really?” Ceci chuckled. “I’d never have guessed. You two keep it hidden so well.”

Kerry’s blush deepened. “That brings me to another problem, if you don’t mind. I need to get your advice on something.”

Uh-oh. Ceci straightened, feeling a mild sense of alarm. During her years on the base, speeches like that usually presaged breakups and divorces, and she wasn’t ready to hear that coming from Kerry. “What’s wrong?”

Kerry caught the tension in her voice and looked up, her brows contracting a little. “Wrong? No, I don’t think it’s wrong...it’s just something I’m worried about.”

Little alarm bells, the really annoying ones like the ones the Salvation Army collectors used at Christmas time, started going off.

“Now, Kerry, listen.” Ceci leaned forward. “I’ve known Dar a long time.”

“Um...I know that.”

“She has her moments, and I’ve seen most of them, but deep down, I think she’s a good person.”

Kerry’s forehead rumpled. “I think so, too. Listen, Mom—”

“So whatever it is you’re having problems with, think hard, and don’t give up on that kid too easily, okay? I did, and look where it got me,” Ceci told her very seriously.

Kerry’s eyes closed, then reopened, and she reached over to take Ceci’s hands in hers. “Mom.” She drew a breath. “The only thing that’s going to ever make me leave Dar is one or the other of us dying.” She paused. “And even then, I’m not so sure.”

Ceci blinked, now confused. “Oh. Well, that’s fine then,” she murmured. “Sorry, I thought—”

“I should have just talked faster.” Kerry smiled. “No, what I’m worried about is our relationship being front and center at dinner tonight.”

Ceci thought about that. “Oh.” She freed one hand and muffled a laugh. “I hadn’t even...oh, boy. Yeah...” Now the laugh escaped. “Oh, my goddess, those stuffed-up military—” She stopped and cleared her 182 Melissa Good throat. “Ahmm...I mean, well, yes, Kerry, you do have a point there.”

Her face struggled to remain serious. “But don’t worry about it—if they say anything, Andy will pick them up and toss them out the window, and they know it. If there’s one thing everyone at that table already knows, it’s don’t mess with my kid in front of her daddy.”

Kerry nodded in relief. “Okay. I was just worried about it. I know Dar has strong feelings about how she grew up, and I didn’t want to cause her any pain.”

Ceci sighed. “Kerry, you’re so nice you should be regulated by the EPA.” She reached over and patted the younger woman’s cheek. “Did you ask Dar if she wanted you to give this a miss?”

Kerry nodded.

“And she said no, right?”

Kerry nodded again.

“So don’t worry about it. C’mon, let’s go see if Andy’s gotten the seaweed out of his ears and gotten dressed. Then we can take off.”

They stood, and Kerry suddenly took a step around the table and pulled Ceci into a hug. “Thanks.”

Oh, good goddess. Ceci returned the hug and patted Kerry on the back. I’m becoming a mother...Eeeeeekkkk!

THE COFFEE HELPED. Dar had also detoured to her car and tossed back a half handful of Advil, and now she was prowling around the barracks looking for her friend the petty officer.

The base was quiet, otherwise; most of the active groups were out on some kind of maneuvers, and only the new recruits and the usual business units at the base were out and about and doing their daily tasks.Dar entered the long wooden barracks structure at one end and looked around the empty interior for a moment before she walked down the large central aisle. To either side were partitions with bunks in them, each bunk with its footlocker and open set of shelves made from what looked to her like old orange crates. Now that the new recruits had settled in, shirts were folded and in place, and the beds had obviously just been made.

Dar smiled. Probably remade a half-dozen times before the petty officer had been happy with them, the dark blankets tucked with meticulous neatness around the thin mattresses. She remembered watching the new groups come in and peeking through the window as they’d been badgered and badgered by the admitting officers.

Not her, she’d decided once. She’d have done it exactly right the first time out. After all, hadn’t her daddy taught her to make a regulation bunk and fold pants and shirts when she was only six years old?

With a smile, Dar continued through the room and out the other Red Sky At Morning 183

side, exiting onto a long, wooden porch with shallow steps that led down to the muddy ground. She looked to one side and spotted her little targets, now dressed in their new clothes, struggling to follow the orders of a new, different petty officer.

Dar wandered over and watched for a few minutes, until the new officer noticed her and walked over. This one was a woman, with short, crisply curled dark hair and an efficient attitude. “Ma’am? Something we can help you with?”

With a better attitude, at any rate. “No, just observing,” Dar replied.

“Where’s the guy you relieved?”

The woman cocked her head in question. “Petty Officer Williams?”

She waited for Dar’s nod. “Off duty, ma’am.”

Uh-huh. Dar looked over her shoulder at the recruits, surprised to find her slim blonde friend looking back at her. The gray eyes met hers and sparkled, then the girl looked straight ahead, her body stiffening into an efficient attention. “Good group?”

The new officer, whose name was apparently Plodget, looked behind her, evaluating the question seriously. “A few of them, ma’am.

It’s always the same. Most aren’t much use, but we always do find a few that’ll make it.”

“What’s your dropout rate?”

A guarded look fell over the woman’s face. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

“Ballpark,” Dar pressed. “I’m sure you’ve got a feeling as to how many of these poor saps you lose.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t,” Plodget assured her. “We only get them for the first two weeks, then someone else takes over.”

“Why?”

“That’s just how it’s done, ma’am.”

Dar nodded slowly. “Where are their admitting records?”

“Haven’t gotten here yet.”

“Why not? You guys use a computer system to recruit. What’s the holdup?”

Unemotional dark brown eyes met hers squarely. “That’s just how it’s done, ma’am.”

“All right.” Dar straightened. “I’ll just go see if I can’t change that for you.”

Dar turned and walked away, feeling the eyes on her back as she headed for the Admittance Center. She ducked inside with a feeling of relief and went to the computer console, seating herself in front of it and cracking her knuckles slightly. “Okay. Answer time.” She logged in, and this time, instead of going through the regular channels, she keyed in a master code. “Idiots.” The code still worked, and dropped her to a command line. “Where do you want to go today, hmm?”

Master database was where Dar wanted to go, and a string of commands got her there. She accessed the file structure and entered it 184 Melissa Good through a back door, watching as the screen filled with line upon line of file records. Dar watched it for a few minutes, her eyes flicking back and forth searching for a certain pattern.

Ah. One long finger stopped the display. “Gotcha.” She keyed in another command string and accessed the recruits’ records, bringing them up and comparing them.

Her brow creased. “What in the hell?” Of the twenty, ten were, as the petty officer said, fairly standard, pretty much ordinary kids from lower-class backgrounds, with bad grades and poor ASVAB test results—destined, if they did make it, to be shipped out as seamen or women in whatever grunt job the Navy needed when they spit them out of training. Dar had known hundreds like them. Some might, she admitted, if they worked very hard, break through the ranks and ascend higher, but most would happily fill a berth and take three squares a day for as long as the US was willing to give it to them.

“What in the hell?” she repeated, then shook her head and captured the data, opening a second command page with a flick of her fingers.

She snagged the files she’d been studying and zipped them, then sent them up the network path into her own, now specially protected file space.