“Lord Sandoval. We have a situation.”

Achernar Customs Security

River’s End, Achernar

A ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, pushing around the tepid air. Closeted away in his office at the Achernar Customs Security building, Raul Ortega hunched forward, dividing his time between a stack of paperwork, his noteputer, and the computer network station built into the top of his desk. A half-eaten maple bar lay forgotten on the desk’s pull-out sideboard; its frosting melted slowly down onto the paper plate, sweetening the air with syrup and sugar. Warm milk remained untouched in a waxed paper cup.

Never enough hours in the day. Raul pulled up an on-screen memo from the joint directive of Legate Stempres and Planetary Governor Susan Haider. As of two days before, all hardcopy news delivered by DropShip would be duplicated, cataloged and routed—by Customs—to Achernar’s chief executive and ranking military office.

Add intelligence gathering to the growing list of new duties for a Customs Security Officer.

And another hour cut out of any given workday.

Footsteps in the hall outside his office. Raul knew how most shoes sounded against the vinyl, stick-on tiles. The angry stomp of military, steel-toed boots. Nervous scuffing of patent leather when shipping agents wanted a favor, and purposeful patent leather when Carl Rossiter, his boss, wanted an explanation. Comfortable civilian shoes, uneven strides, lots of pauses—usually lost or misdirected to Customs Security when they really wanted the downstairs regulatory office.

These footsteps fell into one last class. Professional work shoes. Comfortable but not too relaxed. Customs officers preferred this kind of shoe: a match for the uniform and good for staying on your feet all day. Raul heard their dedicated stride make a line direct for the door at his back, step inside his office, and wait.

“Can’t do it, wouldn’t want it, got no time for it if I did,” Raul said without glancing back. The usual line of excuses. “What can I do for you?” he relented on automatic pilot.

“Dinner would be nice,” a warm voice offered with a touch of amusement.

Raul spun his chair around, a smile spreading over his face as if half the day’s workload had been lifted from him. Jessica Searcy stood just inside his door, leaning back against the frame. Tall and well figured, she wore her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back severely from her face, accenting her dangling earrings and pronounced cheekbones. Eyes of brilliant, inviting blue teased him with their mischievous gleam. Her dress-suit was comfortable, but not too casual, and his fiancée wore the professional shoes also common to doctors who spend a great deal of time on their feet.

“But if you really don’t have time for me anymore,” she said easily, “I can take mother’s advice and find a good-looking lawyer who only works sixty-hour weeks.” She turned as if to go.

Raul vaulted from his chair as if it came equipped with a BattleMech ejection system, caught her up in a strong embrace and swung her back into his office while Jessica laughed. He almost sat her against the maple bar, caught her again at the last moment, and then lowered her into his own chair. “Remember our bargain, Jess.” He shook a finger at her. “I don’t take off-world assignment, and you stay away from the lawyers.” A mostly empty threat anyway. Jessica’s mother lived on Rio now, at one of the best retirement communities in Prefecture IV, and she adored Raul.

Jessica dropped her long hair loose from the severe clips, shaking it down around both shoulders. It fell in strands and curls, like a little girl’s hair after a wild day on the playground. One strand settled between her eyes, resting down onto the bridge of her nose in a manner Raul found extremely cute. She shook off her smile and sat stiffly upright, as if consulting with a patient, tilted her head to one side and considered his offer. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, “do I know you?”

“All right,” Raul surrendered. He reached out to gently push the stray hair aside, tucking it behind Jessica’s ear for her, and planted a tender kiss on her brow before dropping back into the stiff-backed chair he kept on-hand for most visitors. “Guilty as charged. I’ve been absent, lately, I know.” He ran fingers back through his tightly curled, wet black hair. “But you wouldn’t believe the workload being dumped on the agency.”

She softened a bit, relaxing into the chair but never too comfortable in an office that wasn’t her own, Raul knew. “I believe it, Raul. I simply don’t know why you put up with it. I thought the spaceport was crowded with unions to prevent this kind of thing.”

“That’s for the longshoremen and technicians. People who actually do something for a living.” Like doctors. Raul smiled at their shared joke, but thinly. He leaned back into the chair, feeling his fatigue now that the boost from her arrival had passed.

“You look awful,” Jessica said, a touch of worry crowding into her voice.

“Thanks for noticing.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean it. Have you been hunched in this room all afternoon?” A glance around. She prodded at the decomposing maple bar. “Let me guess… your idea of lunch?” She dabbed the back of her hand against her own forehead. “Don’t you have climate control in here?”

Raul nodded at his office’s narrow window, which looked out over the San Marino spaceport. From his angle, he could just see the rounded curve of the merchant– Union sitting on Pad Seven. “That window is it until we get the heat pump fixed, but I never open it. The dead heat that hangs over the ’port simply drifts in and makes the office hot and sticky.”

“Well fine, then let me take you out of here. Dinner? Las Palamas?” She saw his hesitant glance toward the pile of work on his desk. “Margaritas and mariachi bands? I’ll let you get me drunk.”

A weary smile fought its way back over his face. “Now that’s an offer hard to pass up.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and tried to get some enthusiasm into his dark eyes for her to see, a leer which died with the return of professional sense. “Can you give me one hour?” he asked, saw Jessica’s building anger. “An hour! I promise. Customs is on to a new smuggling operation, we’re overseeing a snit between the legate’s office and a private owner, we have an inbound DropShip that’s been stuck in orbit for five days,” he ran out of steam, his enthusiasm waning, “and we’ve just been designated Achernar’s news police. Let me get a few of the big-ticket items off my desk and make them someone else’s problem for a while.”

Jessica stood, shaking her head. Her dangling earrings flashed and sparkled even in the room’s dim light. “I don’t know why I put up with you,” she said wistfully, then bent forward and pecked him on the cheek.

Raul reached up, trapped her in his strong arms, and hugged her. He had pushed his sleeves up to his elbows while working, and his swarthy arms looked exceptionally dark against the pale cream skin of Jess’s neck. “Because you have wisdom beyond your years,” he offered, pulling out another old joke.

“And you’ve had another job offer from Bannson Universal,” she reminded him matter-of-factly, standing back up again. “We’d have to move over to Agnetenar,” Achernar’s smallest continent, “but I can shift my practice.”

“Not tonight, Jess.” He exhaled a long vent of frustration. “Anyway, there’s too much going on to entertain their offer.” Raul wanted to kick himself for continuing. Hadn’t he just said, ‘not tonight?’

But he had opened the door. “There’s always too much going on, Raul.” Jessica sat forward, chin up and eyes boring into his, giving him her debate-team attitude. “You wanted to stay with the Reserves. Fine. You earned your citizenship. Congratulations. Now why continue to beat yourself up? Just for the sake of those holovids and histories you like so much?”