Heaven knows what the people in the restaurant thought, we left our meal half-eaten, threw some money at the waitress and, hand in hand, raced out. We...almost ran along the street and were both out of breath by the time we got to where she worked and I felt sure someone was going to know exactly what we were up to from just the look on our faces. But, being lunch-time and lucky, we met nobody in either the lift or the short corridor to her office, which I immediately found out adjoined her. “Don’t bother. Ship will move it for us.” As soon as they were clear of the entrance passage, they stopped while Jeff sent Ship a mental request. A couple of seconds later, a large patch of snow disappeared to crash down into the woods a hundred feet or so away. An instant after that, a canvas-covered mound appeared where Jeff instructed Ship to put the supplies.“Wow. Please tell the lady thank you from me. Too bad that she can’t stay. She surely would come in handy after a heavy. "Maj. Miller, surely you can't be serious," she expostulated. "Haven't you reviewed the records of our last visit? Haven't you been hearing the welcome we've already been extended over the communicator?" She turned to Shaw. "Bernard, I'm sorry but I think we need to get this settled now about who's in command under our charter."The outcome wasn't in any real doubt; Meiersdottir had been careful to privately sound out Shaw before risking this direct confrontation and had been assured of his. Someone else was the Wizard of Oz and was pulling his strings while doing a remarkably job of making themselves hard to detect. This was going to be much harder than I anticipated.“Now that I have given you something to play with, what do you have for us to play with?” I asked to change the subject, before I became too distracted by the new challenge to focus properly on the task at hand.“Ah chaps, I do have a rec room you will find highly entertaining. Why don’t you join me later for a pint.