Evening heat received them with less violence than afternoon but greater weight. The town had begun giving back what the sun had put into it. Brick, timber, sheet metal, road dirt, all radiated accumulated warmth into the dimming air. Cookfires were appearing beneath awnings. Lamps came on one by one. Somewhere a generator coughed itself awake.
They walked back toward the base without hurry.
The day's traffic had thinned. Workers traveled in the opposite direction carrying lunch tins home empty. Children occupied portions of the road surrendered by carts. A man washed mud from a motorized carriage using a bucket of water whose cleanliness declined visibly with every pass of the rag.
By the time the VSEA fence appeared ahead of them, the Heavenly Veil had begun showing faintly through the failing blue overhead.
The sentry at the gate raised one hand.
“Halt.”
Koldin stopped. Defort stopped beside him.
The guard knew both of them, but this did not alter the procedure.
“Identification.”
Defort sighed theatrically and reached into his fatigues.
Koldin produced his own card.
The guard compared Defort's face with Defort's photograph, then Koldin's with Koldin's. Koldin's photograph had been taken several years earlier. His fur had been better groomed and there was less gray in the fur above his eyes.
The sentry looked at the card, then at Koldin, then back at the card.
“Something wrong?”
“No.”
“You keep looking.”
“You looked happier.”
“I wasn't.”
The guard handed the card back.
“Welcome home.”
Defort pocketed his own.
“Zhis isn't home.”
“Then welcome somewhere with a fence.”
“Better.”
They passed through.
Inside, the base was moving into the peculiar half-life between workday and night duty. Engines had been shut down beside the motor sheds. Mechanics washed their hands in an outdoor basin. Steam rose from the kitchen building. Somebody had strung wet shirts beneath an overhang where they would remain wet until morning.
Koldin did not go to the barracks.
He wanted the day finished while it still existed in sequence.
The administrative building smelled of old paper and floor polish. He found an empty desk outside Obs’rt's quarters, took a report form from a tray, and sat.
For a while he stared at the blank spaces. There had been many things and almost nothing.
He wrote the date. Patrol route. Personnel. Defort joined after midday. Then the incidents.
Liquor theft on eastern road. Suspect not apprehended. Statement lodged with Olissingen district police.
Freight-yard cable failure. No injuries. West lane temporarily obstructed.
Water prices at southern stand increased following claimed disruption of supply from up-country bottling plant. Proprietor produced transport documentation. District notification allegedly pending.
Airport perimeter. Minor fence displacement consistent with animal intrusion.
Market disturbance.
Koldin stopped.
The pencil remained against the paper.
He could hear somebody talking in Obs’rt's room. A low baxxid resonance, then the voice of a human clerk. Pages changed hands.
Koldin looked down again.
MARKET DISTURBANCE: INDIVIDUAL ENGAGED IN SUSPECTED EXTORTION OF TWO VENDORS. SUBJECT SUBDUED. NO SERIOUS INJURY OBSERVED. SUBJECT LATER TAKEN INTO CUSTODY BY LOCAL POLICE.
He read it over twice, correcting a few misspellings. The revolver did not exist. Koldin considered adding it, but he didn't.
The report had room for another sentence. This did not oblige him to use it.
He signed the bottom.
Obs’rt's door opened and a clerk emerged carrying three folders. The baxxid remained behind the desk, artificial hand resting beside an inkpad.
Koldin knocked against the frame.
“Enter.”
He went in and handed over the report.
Obs’rt read it while Koldin stood.
His eyes moved independently over different portions of the page. Whether he truly read several lines at once Koldin had never determined.
Eventually one eye settled on the market entry.
“Subject subdued.”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
Koldin paused.
“Quickly.”
Several of Obs’rt's eyes focused towards Koldin.
“Was force necessary?”
“Yeah.”
“Was anyone injured?”
“No.”
“The subject?”
“Not seriously.”
Obs’rt looked at the page again.
“You sound uncertain.”
“He woke up.”
“That is not ordinarily our threshold for acceptable force.”
“He had a weapon.”
This was true.
Obs’rt regarded him.
“What weapon?”
Koldin felt the missing sentence on the report as though it had become visible through the paper.
“Revolver.”