Dawn of Procyon by Mark R. Healy Page A

minute,” she said, horrified. “What?”
    Dodge dumped the egg roll impatiently on his desk, then wiped his fingers on his sleeve. “Landry’s dead. Officially. He’s been missing for a full day with no authorized leave, and no clue as to his whereabouts. That means we put a line through his name and move on.”
    “Is that for real?”
    “That’s the policy.” Dodge burped loudly and took a swig of coffee. “Shame. He was the best Optech I had, but it’s his own dumb fault for running off—”
    Cait thought of the photographs she’d stashed in her coveralls. The red-haired woman, the embryo. “They can’t just declare the guy dead . Are they sending out a search party? Anything?”
    “Now? With the Marines heading out and the outpost in lockdown? No. Not a chance. Besides, if he was alive, we’d have heard something by now.”
    Troubled, Cait wound her way through the junk on the floor and took out the photo frame. She placed it on Dodge’s desk. “I found these pictures in Landry’s desk last night. Did you know about this woman?”
    “Woman?” Dodge said. He flicked through the photographs out with a swipe of his greasy fingers. “I’ve never seen her in my life.”
    “Well, that’s what I was thinking, too, but maybe she lives in Landry’s apartment—”
    “No, no. This is ‘shopped, for sure. I could whip this up on my omni-device in about three minutes flat.”
    “Huh?”
    “It’s two different images put together. A forgery.” Dodge held up the photo of Landry and the woman kissing. “Landry probably sits staring at this every night. Uses it to make himself feel like he has a life.”
    “I don’t know about that—”
    “Listen, Underwood. This isn’t your concern.” He pushed the photo frame back toward her and picked up his egg roll. “I’ve got plenty of other stuff for you to worry about.”
    “Like what?”
    Dodge tore another chunk off the egg roll with his teeth, a devious smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Fun stuff.”
    “Oh, great. This sounds good.”
    “It is, it is.” He tapped on the console on his desk. “With Landry having officially croaked, there’s some paperwork coming your way. For a start, you have to lodge a death certificate and inform the next of kin.”
    “ Me? Why am I doing that? That’s your job.”
    The humor left Dodge’s rotund face. “You want this supervisor position or not?”
    “Yeah, of course I do.”
    “Then do your job.” He leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “What? You think this job is all rainbows and puppy dogs? Get real . Most of the time, being a supervisor is one of two things: bureaucratic garbage or mind-numbing boredom. There’s no middle-ground here. Welcome to low-level management.”
    Cait glared at him, sullen. “Yeah. Okay.”
    “So I suggest that if you have any intention of keeping your shiny new desk, you might want to do what I tell you.”
    Cait was still reeling from the thought of Landry being dead, and tried her best to keep up. “Uh, so where do I find the next of kin?”
    Dodge’s mouth gaped in exasperation. “Do I have to do everything for you?” He waved at the door. “Go and talk to someone in Outpost Control. Talk to HR. They have files on all of this stuff.”
    “Yeah, all right.”
    “But before that, make sure those boneheads in the workshop have their task lists updated.” He swiped a finger across his console. “I’m seeing low priority jobs being handed in when there’s criticals sitting around unassigned. These twerps do know that the Marines are shipping out tomorrow, don’t they?”
    “I’ll talk to them about it.”
    “Assign the crits, make sure they get done. Or I’m going to have someone cleaning out your desk next.”
    “And the situation with Landry—”
    “Is not your concern,” Dodge interrupted. “That’s in the hands of OC, now. Leave it to Barakula.”
    Cait took the photo frame and closed the door behind her. “Fat jerk,” she