“Thanks,” McKeon said gratefully. “Warner and I finished ours off an hour ago.” He reached into the rucksack, and his eyes widened as something gurgled and rattled. He brought the water bottle out quickly, shook it beside his ear, and pursed his lips in delight. “Hey, ice! You didn’t mention that part!”

“Rank hath its privileges, Commodore McKeon,” Honor replied airily. “Go ahead.”

McKeon needed no third invitation, and he twisted the cap off the insulated water bottle and raised it to his lips. His head went back and he drank deeply, eyes closed in sensual ecstasy as the icy liquid flowed down his throat. Because it was intended for Honor, it was laced with protein builders and concentrated nutrients in addition to the electrolytes and other goodies Dr. Montoya insisted on adding to everyone else’s drinking water. They gave an odd, slightly unpleasant edge to its taste, but the sheer decadence of its coldness brushed such minor considerations aside.

“Oh, my!” He lowered the water bottle at last, eyes still closed, savoring the coolness clinging to his mouth, then sighed and capped the bottle. “I’d almost forgotten what cold water tastes like,” he said, putting it back into the rucksack. “Thanks, Skipper.”

“Don’t get too carried away over it,” Honor said, shaking her head with just an edge of embarrassment, and he smiled and nodded. A part of her resented the way that Montoya insisted on “pampering” her. She tried to disguise her discomfort with a light manner, but it seemed dreadfully unfair to her, particularly when everyone else in their little party of castaways had done so much more than she to make their escape possible. At the same time, she knew better than to argue. She’d been injured far more seriously than any of the others during their desperate breakout, and she’d been more than half-starved even before that. Despite the difference in their ranks, Surgeon Commander Montoya had flatly ordered her to shut up and let him “fatten her back up,” and it often seemed to her that every other member of her tiny command kept saving tidbits from their own rations for her.

Not that “tidbit” was actually a word she would normally consider applying to Peep emergency rations. Prior to her arrival on Hell, she’d thought nothing could possibly taste worse than RMN e-rats.

Well, you learn something new everyday, I suppose, she thought, then changed the subject.

“Anything new from the patrols?” she asked, and McKeon shrugged.

“Not really. Warner and I brought back those specimens Fritz wanted, but I don’t think they’re going to work out any better than the others. And Jasper and Anson ran into another of those bear-bobcat thingamies that was just as ill-tempered as the other two we’ve met.” He made a disgusted sound. “It’s a damned shame the local beasties don’t know they can’t digest us. Maybe they’d leave us alone if they did.”

“Maybe not, too,” Honor replied, stroking the comb up and down against her thigh to clear a clot of Nimitz fur from its teeth. “There are quite a few things people—or treecats—can’t digest very well, or even at all, that they still love the taste of. For all you know your bearcat might be perfectly happy to spend the afternoon munching on you. It might even consider you a low-calorie snack!”