It's that fellow, Nash, who thinks he's such the clever one. Yeah, thatNash—the one who ran for US Senate and lost when people found out thathe'd embezzled some military funds for his own personal use back when he wasan active duty Air Force colonel. Well, truth be told, I had something to dowith his being found out; but that's another story for another time. [Details in Familiar Aliens ]
Even after he was beaten in the election by Penna's grandfather, Nashseems unfazed, I mean totally unhumbled, by his disgrace. What a contempt forhumanity this guy has! It's been how long since it was all over the mediaabout his thievery? They almost had the prosecutor ready to go after him too,but she said she was too busy. Yeah, right; too busy plotting her ownpolitical career. At least that's what Penna says.
So, I was down by the lake the other day, and saw Nash on his big boatwith some other people. I did something really crazy—when they all wentbelow deck for something, I boarded the boat and slithered my way over to thefront part of the boat to find a place to hide. Under one of the seats in thefront part did just fine as a hiding place.
I could hear them talking down below. Nash was bragging about his militarydays when he commanded the base just outside of town. There was this captainin his command whose wife didn't kowtow to the colonel's wife like she thoughshe should. Nash's wife gave the woman one last chance to redeem herself. Itwas a silly little thing she asked her to do, in a casual unthreateningway.
The woman just ignored her and went about her business. She felt she hadthe right to; after all, she had a career in her own right and the colonel'swife's life was nothing but the Air Force. That did not settle well at allwith Nash's wife. The nerve of that woman, anyway! She sounded bitter andangry, like her rightful position in the herd had been belittled.
Nash, upon hearing his wife's complaints, decided to wreak revenge uponthe captain himself. The young man needed to learn a lesson about being partof the Air Force family. That this particular captain was one of the best andmost disciplined of all the pilots in the command mattered not a bit to Nash.I could hear the cold hatred in his voice as he told the story.
How to best get back at the captain, was what obsessed Nash for the nextfew days. For starters, he put him on a duty rotation that was at odds withthe hours of his wife's job. If the captain's wife is such a nuisance, bestto keep them separated as much as possible—and that without any outsidesigns that they were kept apart from one another. On top of that, Nashassigned the captain numerous little annoyance jobs and badgered himrelentlessly about them. That served Nash's purpose of distracting thecaptain from his real duties, in clear hopes that it would affect hisperformance as a pilot.
It worked. After a while, the captain was worn down by all the extrastrain and his standing in the command went down. That allowed Nash to writea rating that would keep the captain from ever being promoted further.
Nash sounded so proud of himself that he had the power to punish what heconsidered disloyalty. His wife cackeled as she said something about justicehaving been done.
They started to move around down below, so I decided to get off the boatbefore they all came topside again.
As I ran to put as much distance between me and the dock as quickly as Icould, I wondered why anyone would care that much to harm someone who wasdoing them no harm.
When I got home, I jumped into Penna's lap and snuggled into her—it was so good to be back with someone who loved me.
