"Eisenhower quit cold turkey, ma'am, after his first heart attack." That didn't come out quite the way I meant it.

"If Ike did it, that's good enough for me. And he had a choice, right? I don't. Maybe we should have had nicotine put on the essential medicines list." She said with a grimace.

I wanted to sympathize with her, but I couldn't. I felt sympathetic, but since I'd never had to kick a habit of smoking or drinking or drugs, I couldn't truly understand what she was going though, you know what I mean? I'd taken the easy route of not getting hooked on anything in the first place. Not knowing what to say, I made a sympathetic 'um' sound and waited for her to talk.

"Medicine is what got us into real trouble anyway. You're right, the lizards don't give a shit about rumors going around. What got them pissed is when we accepted an offer from the Ruhar to provide advanced medical care. You heard about the Buzzard crash last month? Two dead, four injured, one of the injured lost a leg, another has a broken spine. And the Kristang won't medevac them back to Earth. The Ruhar heard about the injured, they were surprised to hear that humans don't have the ability to regrow limbs or nerve tissue; they've had that technology so long they take it for granted. As an experiment, we sent some badly injured cases to a Ruhar hospital, and they're being treated, including two from the Buzzard crash. The Ruhar docs took a while to adapt to our different biochemistry, but their biochemistry is based on DNA like us. Reports are all the injured are expected to make full recoveries eventually, including regrowing a leg. The Kristang were furious when they heard about us accepting Ruhar medical care, called UNEF Command on the carpet for fraternizing with the enemy. I hear that conversation got heated, General Meers told the fucking lizards we wouldn't have to send our people to Ruhar hospitals, if the lizards would share their own medical technology." She smiled. "The Old Man won't back down to anyone, human or lizard."

"Am I in trouble, ma'am?"

"Hell, no, Bishop. Lay low for a while until this blows over in a couple weeks, months maybe. Think of it as an opportunity to see more of the planet."

I didn't believe that for a second.