mostly,” he told her, sparring for time. He hadn't really expected her to ask him about Harrington, and he wasn't at all sure he wanted to encourage any interest in him she might be feeling. Not that he had anything against Harrington, of course. Quite the contrary, in fact. But he wasn't exactly invisible . . . or the safest person someone's sister—especially his sister—might be spending time with.
“Well, his name is Harrington,” she said. “Since you made such a fuss about who I spend time with, and since he happens to be from off-world, I thought I'd ask you to . . . I don't know, check up on him, for me.”
“And how much attention do you pay when I ‘check up' on people for you?” he challenged, then grinned. “I told you that jackass Illescue was going to piss you off, didn't I?”
“He's not as bad as you said he was,” she replied. He only grinned at her some more, and she shrugged. “Okay, he's bad enough,” she admitted. “He's just not as bad as you said he was.”
“Oh, I see. Thank you for explaining that to me.”
“You're welcome. And now, are you going to check out Lieutenant Harrington for me? Or should I just go ahead, walk up to him, and introduce myself? I'm perfectly willing to do just that, you understand.”
“I'm sure you are.” He considered her for another moment, and then it was his turn to shrug. “As a matter of fact, I already know quite a bit about him.”
“You do?”
She was unfolding her napkin as she spoke, draping it across her lap, and she seemed to be paying the simple activity more attention than it really needed, he thought.
“Yes, I do. In fact, I made it a point to meet him when he landed and I walked him through Customs to the university.”
She looked up from her lap, her eyes suddenly intent, and he sighed. He knew that expression. He'd rather hoped she might decide he was hinting her away from Harrington, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. And the truth was that everything he knew about the Sphinxian was to the other man's credit, although he suspected Harrington didn't see it that way.
“Why?” she asked simply.
“Because Lieutenant Harrington is a very . . . interesting fellow,” he replied. “Interesting to a fellow like me, I mean.”
She pursed her lips slightly. Unlike quite a few other members of the family, she had a very clear notion of what Jacques' duties with the Biological Survey Corps had involved upon occasion. Even she knew only a part of it, of course, and he intended to keep it that way. But she knew enough to know that being interesting to a “fellow like him” could be a very bad thing.
“I don't know anything negative about him, Alley,” he said quickly. “In fact, from everything I do know, he sounds like a very good man. But he's landed in the middle of some things that have . . . complications.”
“What kind of ‘complications'?”
“The kind I can't tell you about.” He grimaced. “Not won't tell you about, Alley—can't. It's all very classified and hush-hush, and we don't know all the implications over at BSC yet.”
“What can you tell me?” she asked, and his eyes narrowed.
He knew his sister well, better than he knew any other human being, and he recognized the edge of steel behind the question. What he didn't know was why he was hearing it. Obviously, her curiosity about Alfred Harrington was less casual than she'd tried to imply, yet there was a trace element of uncertainty in her, one he was unaccustomed to hearing or seeing. A part of him—a very strong part of him—was suddenly tempted to end this conversation now, immediately. There were currents here that he didn't want to get into, and the truth was that Harrington had made enemies of his own. Those enemies probably weren't foolish enough to try to do anything about their enmity, especially here on Beowulf, of all the planets in the galaxy, but there was no guarantee of that. And if his own activities were mixed into their calculations . . .
But this was his sister.
“He enlisted in the Manticoran Marines when he was eighteen,” he said, his voice suddenly crisper than she was accustomed to hearing from him. “He did well. By the time he was twenty-three, he'd made platoon sergeant, and the Corps was considering offering him a commission. Then there was . .