“Gunnery Sergeant Warhurst, ma’am,” he said, correcting her.
“Larissa Sloan,” she told him, extending a hand. “Danis’s first wife, don’t you know. Welcome to our little gathering!”
He took her hand and gave a slight, perfunctory bow above it. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“Now, Sergeant! Don’t ‘ma’am’ me! I’m Rissa to my friends!”
He made a noncommittal sound, more of a grunt than an assent, but softening it with a smile. Warhurst wasn’t entirely sure yet if the woman was actually offering that level of friendship … or if he should accept it if she did. Her exuberance was just a little disturbing, as was her misunderstanding of the Marine rank structure.
For a moment, she had a faraway look in her eyes as she accessed data. “And are your wives and husbands here yet?” she asked brightly. “I haven’t seen them so far. …”
“Actually, I’m here alone tonight, Ms. Sloan.”
“Oh, but you must know this affair is for Marines and their spouses and other partners! Feel free to call them and have them come right over!”
Briefly, he considered replying with a blunt, “I’m divorced. They kicked me out a month ago.” If the woman had bothered to look more deeply into his public data stats, past the front page, at least, she would have seen that.
But it didn’t matter. And he certainly didn’t want to have to explain the circumstances to this … naked butterfly. He let the comment pass. She was already taking him by the arm and leading him deeper into the crowd. “There are so many people for you to meet! Please, help yourself to food, drink, drugs, whatever suits your fancy! And inside there’s so much going on. If you want a companion, we have a number of lovely girls here as personal entertainers … boys too, if you prefer.” She patted his arm. “I might look you up myself after a while, if your partners don’t mind!”
“Ah, excuse me, ma’am,” he said, stopping abruptly. “I see a couple of Marines over there I know. If you’ll forgive me?”
He disentangled his arm and strode across the deck, not waiting to find out if he was forgiven or not. He came up between two young PFCs in full dress blacks at a buffet and put his arms over their shoulders. “Semper fi, Marines,” he said.
The two Marines started, whirled, and came to attention. “Sir, yes, sir!”
Warhurst grinned and shook his head. “You can always tell the ones straight out of boot camp. Danvers? Garroway? What are you two fucking dipshits doing in a galahole like this?”
Garroway stammered, swallowed, and tried again. “Sir! We were invited, sir!”
Warhurst raised an admonishing white-gloved finger. “Negative on the ‘sir,’ son. You both are Marines, now, and that means that I am no longer a ‘sir.’ I may still be God, so far as you sorry-assed PFCs are concerned, but I do work for a living. ‘Gunnery Sergeant’ will do perfectly well.”
“Thank you, s-, uh, Gunnery Sergeant.”
“That’s better.” He looked around. “So this is how the other half lives.”
Garroway turned, his eyes following a small group of attractive and naked young women as they made their way through the crowd toward the pool. “Must be nice,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind having a couple of mil, if it meant living like this.”
“Dream on,” Ami Danvers told him. “You’d need a couple of bil for a spread like this!” Eyeing a couple of equally nude men who’d just joined the women, “Of course, I must admit that the scenery is very nice.”
Garroway sighed dramatically. “Such a tough job, living like this, but someone has to do it.” He popped a purple-iced something into his mouth and chewed reflectively. “At least they feed well.”
“So, Gunnery Sergeant,” Danvers said conversationally. “Now that 4102 has flown the nest, will you be taking on a new boot company?”
“Negative, Danvers. I’ve had it with diaper duty and babysitting. I’ve put in for 1MIEF.”
“Maybe we’ll be serving together, then,” Garroway said. “Our orders are for 1MIEF, too!”
“I know,” Warhurst said, nodding. “The whole company. God help me. I thought I was free of you clowns.” He shrugged. “But, hey, who knows? Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll stick me on a listening post on some God-forsaken asteroid at the other end of the galaxy instead. Then at least I wouldn’t have to look at the likes of you two!”
“We love you, too, Gunnery Sergeant,” Danvers said.
“Where do we go around here to get a drink?”
Garroway pointed to a bar at the other side of the nearest swimming pool. “They’ve got booze there. Or there’s a bigger bar inside.”
“Marines, I’m going to attach myself to you two—just temporarily—because I am using you for protective cover. Shall we perform a reconnaissance in force?”
Garroway grinned. “Yes, sir, Gunnery Sergeant, sir!”
Together they entered the house.
The mansion’s interior was, if anything, more decadently luxurious than outside. The rooms were large and sprawling, most with soft-carpeted floors that rearranged with a thought into any size or shape or design of furniture imaginable. Most walls and ceilings were taken up by projection screens, some showing outdoor or undersea views, other showing erotic scenes with such high resolution it was possible to bump into a wall that looked like an archway into yet another bedor playroom. Food was everywhere, available at small buffets, or straight out of niches in the walls. Many of the guests wore sensory helmets, which picked up and enhanced sights, sounds, tastes, touches, and smells according to preset programming. He noticed that most of those folks had bypassed the food, and gone straight to the caressing and sex.
One large, circular room, in fact, proved to be the source of several of the erotica projections they’d seen on various walls. A dozen people of various sexes were grappling with one another in an impromptu orgy. The three Marines had to carefully pick their way over and past a number of thrashing bare limbs to reach the doorway on the other side.
The house wasn’t entirely devoted to orgies, however. One room they passed through had been set up with sim projectors, so that people walking in saw and heard and smelled the claustrophobic bustle of the Tun Tavern late in the year 1775, with Samuel Nichols seated behind a large wooden barrel, puffing at a long-stemmed pipe as a recruiter regaled the listeners with the benefits of service with the Marines. The lines about bounty payments and a ration of grog brought amused chuckles from the twenty-ninth-century spectators … especially the handful of men and women in uniform.
That raised a question, though. Warhurst wondered why most of the people he was encountering were in civilian clothing, or no clothing at all. This was supposed to be a Marine function, after all.
Or were the Marines all shucking their uniforms to join in the orgies? A disquieting thought.
“So … Gunnery Sergeant Warhurst?” Garroway asked.
“Yeah?”
“This is the Commonwealth way of life we’re supposed to be fighting for?”
“Well, you won’t find it in the Theocracy or the Hegemony.”
“Sure, you would,” Danvers said. “They’re just not as blatant about it.”
“Bullshit,” Garroway said.
“No, it’s true. The prudes of every age in history had orgies. They just didn’t admit to them.”
Warhurst bent over and dragged one white-gloved