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you," she told Annie, throwing the lieutenant a look out of the corner of her
eye.
"Thanks! I feel like a beauty queen!" Annie tried a pirouette, giggling
all the while, and almost lost her balance.
Cross-legged on the floor, Rand stifled a laugh. "One thing's for
sure-you're no ballerina!"
Annie looked at him and shook her head as though to clear it. "And now
the moment you've all been waiting for," she said like an emcee. "Approaching
the judges' runway is our next contestant for the title of Miss Birthday
Girl!"
Lunk and the others caught on to the act and applauded.
Annie switched to a squeaky parody of her own voice. "Thank you," she
said into the wineglass. "My name's Annie. I'm four-foot-seven with blue eyes,
and I'm often complimented on my personality." As she sauntered by Rand, she
flashed some thigh and slipped him a wink. "And my legs aren't bad, either,
big boy."
"I'll say," Rand enthused, knocking back another goblet of wine.
Annie cozied up to Lunk next. "Oh, I can't tell you how happy I am to be
here! It's just too thrilling for words!" She gave him a light peck on the
cheek and moved away from the table, snatching up his glass of wine.
"Hey, wait a second, that's not fair!" Rand protested while everyone
else laughed. "If a contestant kisses one of the judges, she's gotta kiss all
of them."
Annie had backed away tipsily to clink glasses with Lancer.
"Gee, do I have to?"
"Yep. Them's the rules."
"Well, pucker up then," she said on her way over to Rand. But as he
stood up and offered his lips, she stuck one of the wineglasses in his mouth.
Annie dismissed the laughter and sidled up to Scott, who was leaning against
the wall. "Now, don't anybody move, because my very favorite part is coming up
next-the swimsuit competition!" As Scott's eyebrows went up, she reached up
and shut his eyes with her fingertips. "But you don't get to watch, you dirty
old man!"
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"That's telling him, Annie!" Rook encouraged her.
Rand said, "Well, she's got my vote."
"Yeah," from Lunk, getting to his feet.
Rook seconded the vote, and everyone else said, "Agreed!"
"It's unanimous, Annie," Rook announced. "You are the new Miss Birthday
Girl!"
Annie skipped over to the curtained window while they toasted her easy
victory. "Jeepers, I don't know what to say!" Then suddenly it was her natural
voice once again, full of emotion and sincerity:
"Except that this is the happiest night of my life."
But far above the spirited celebration, some uninvited guests were
converging on the deserted village: an Invid patrol from the nearby hive, now
under the leadership of Corg himself. He had narrowly escaped being blown to
bits by the explosions that had destroyed the underground city, and the Regis
had granted him a new command ship of the same design as the original.
"Are we approaching the site of the disturbance?" Corg inquired into his
cockpit communicator.
The source of active Protoculture readings recently received by the hive
monitors had been traced to the village, and the Regis was certain that the
Robotech rebels had made their way here. She was just as certain there would
be no escape for them stow.
"Estimated arrival time: five point two minutes," she told Corg through
the command net that linked her with her troops.
Corg glanced out over the landscape from the cockpit of his ship and
thought: The thrill of approaching victory makes me feel almost...Human!
The women were cleaning up-by choice, not design. Normally they wouldn't
have even bothered to tidy up, but there was something about the house and the
town itself that brought out sentiments most of them thought they had left
behind. Marlene was a little puzzled by it all, but she volunteered to help
Rook clear the table and clean the glasses and plates. The luxury of running
water was more than enough for Rook, and she really had her mind on the hot
bath she planned to take once the supplies were repacked.
"I've never seen Annie so excited," she was telling Marlene now. "This
is one birthday she'll never forget." Annie was peacefully asleep in a chair
nearby. "I never thought I'd live to see her wearing a dress like a regular
little girl."
Scott was outside the window, eavesdropping, his handgun raised. Lancer
found him there and wondered what it was all about.
"You're concerned about Marlene, aren't you?"
"Well, what about you, Lancer? Don't you get the feeling there's
something mysterious about her? And I don't just mean the amnesia. It goes
beyond that...like she's never had a past to remember. Like..."
"Like what, Scott? Go on, say it."
But Scott simply tightened his mouth and shook his head.
Lancer sighed knowingly but wasn't about to open up his own thoughts if
Scott couldn't bring himself to do the same. "I don't think that she's going
to murder us all in our sleep, Scott. But I agree that she's an unusual woman.
Maybe we just have to give her some time to come out of it."
Scott gave him a dubious look and was about to press the point, but just
then Rand broke into the conversation.
"Hey, guys, do you really think the Invid might show up tonight?"
There was something about Rand's tone that suggested more than his usual
concern, almost as if he had other plans. But Lancer chose to reply to his
remark, not to the unsaid things. "There's no sign of them yet," Lancer told
him. "And believe me, that's just the way I want it. I think I've had more
than enough entertainment for one day."
Rand tittered, delighted. "Well, maybe you've had enough. But as far as
I'm concerned the party's just beginning."
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Lancer beetled his brows. "Rand, what exactly do you have in mind?"
When Rook and Marlene finished the dishes, they woke Annie up and
surprised her with a bag of peppermints they hadn't brought out at the party.
"Peppermints!"
Rook patted her on the shoulder. "I knew those bags you took wouldn't
last."
Annie was handling the bag lovingly one moment, and the next she was
crying. "When I think that I'm having a real birthday after wanting one so
badly...with peppermints and everything..." She buried her face against
Marlene.
"We're just glad you enjoyed it," Rook said, smiling. "The only problem
is we only get to do it once a year." She yawned and stretched. "And now,
something for the three of us to enjoy together..."
The bathroom was in the rear of the house; it was a completely tiled
room with a shower stall and a sunken tub large enough for four. Rand had been
there when Rook made the discovery, and he knew it was only a matter of time
before she would go back to avail herself of the pleasures of an
honest-to-goodness hot bath. So he had already stationed himself below the
room's only window well before the time Rook, Marlene, and Annie entered. He
couldn't believe his luck when he realized that all three were about to take
the plunge.
He had actually convinced himself that he had no idea just what the room
contained. As far as he or anyone else was concerned, he was merely standing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]