by Jenn Lyons
tried to make peace—or at least change the subject. “Janus Project, huh? Randolph here was just telling me what a fan he is of Nicholas Rhodes. Did you work with the Gala?”
I glanced over at Jonathan and sighed. “I was his assistant.”
Randolph’s change in tone and demeanor was nearly miraculous. “You were? How exciting! You hear so many rumors. What’s he like?”
“Old.”
“He’s the finest mind Terra has ever produced!”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”
Randolph’s expression turned hateful. I could walk in wearing the forbidden royal colors of white and gold. That was an affectation. Everyone would wear white and gold in a month. Disturbing his carefully crafted hero-worship of the most famous Terran scientist—the man who’d developed Rhodes’ Law and invented the Janus Drives that won the war—that was a capital crime, a hanging offense. Someone should do something about me.
He turned to Jonathan. “This is what I’m talking about! No respect for anyone! Rudeness!”
The side of Jonathan’s mouth flirted with the idea of a smile. “I’m not sure I’d rush to judge the entire Solar Independence League by one very cute scientist who’s had too much to drink. I’m sure you’re very polite normally, aren’t you, Mallory?”
“Normally? Depends on how many weapons are pointed at me.”
Jonathan laughed. Randolph didn’t.
“I’ve seen their type before. Pretentious, pompous—”
“Are you still talking about the League here?”
Vanessa sighed, long-suffering and weary. I would have felt sorry for her, but we’d both known perfectly well she didn’t invite me to parties expecting me to behave.
Randolph’s eyes blazed with holy indignation. Maybe he’d had too many drinks as well; it was a rare scholar-caste who could handle their liquor. They didn’t smuggle in the stuff often enough to have a high tolerance.
“The Sarcodinay surrendered, fine! Why are you people automatically in charge? That’s what I want to know! We’re supposed to simply accept that? We’ve been prisoners here. Maybe pampered prisoners, but prisoners all the same. We suffered Sarcodinay oppression first hand. We didn’t have some quarantine zone to run to, some utopian colony on a distant star where we could hide. You admit you’re from Terra, but you don’t even bother to hide your contempt for us, your disgust. You think we’re not smart enough to see your hate? Consider this: if it wasn’t for scholar-caste scientists like Gala-Rhodes Nicholas, you wouldn’t have your precious Janus Drives, and you’d still be dodging Sarcodinay cruisers and begging for handouts from the Kantari. You wouldn’t have won this war without us!”
I took a single deep breath before I lost my temper completely. “Won this war without you?”
Vanessa sighed. “Mallory—”
“Oh no. He asked. The gentleman deserves an answer, don’t you think?” I turned back to Randolph. “We won this war in spite of you, hot stuff, in spite of all you cute little Sarc pets who fetched and begged and rolled over. Don’t talk to me about who won this war until you’ve watched your best friends bleed their lives away, and even if you could drag them to a hospital, it would be a Sarc hospital and you might as well kill them yourself. The League was out there fighting, day in, day out. Dying day in, day out, and very often dying just so we could free people like you, who were, by the way, very seldom grateful once you learned that the colonies are hard and harsh and don’t come equipped with day spas or broadcast gladfight matches. Meanwhile your biggest problem was figuring out whether your bootleg martinis should be shaken or stirred!”
“You try sitting in the middle of a cage, waiting for your jailers, knowing any day could be the day they come for you! Nothing but fear, every day and all day, and you tell me we had it easy!”
I took a step forward, and he looked like only pure force of will and stubbornness was keeping him from taking a step back. I stared into his eyes and said: “Did you do anything about it, Randy? Did you stare into that fear and do something, anything, or did you simply behave, lie down and play dead?”
“What was I supposed to do? What could I do?”
“Oh Randy, if I had thought like that...if Nick had thought like that...where would we be now?” I shook my head. “You’re right, you know. Absolutely right. Many of the primary staff who worked on the Janus Project were from Terra, Sarcodinay raised and trained. Nicholas Rhodes. Paul DuPres. Vanessa here. Me. But you know what? We were out there, able to do what we did, able to make the impossible happen—those Janus Drives that even a scholar-caste like you knows won the war—because we’d stopping thinking like you.”
“Easy to be insulting when you had the luxury of—”
“You don’t get it, do you? What luxury? I escaped. We all did. Took the risk that we’d be put down like sick farm animals and clawed our way out. That’s how we joined the League. There were no striketeams to escort us to the Promised Land on a silver plated shuttle. Virtually any Urban who joined the League initiated their own rescue, or teamed up with another group doing so—no one came to save us. We saved ourselves.”
“There is nothing I could have done!”
“You’re the local director of social placement! Your recommendations decide who should be trained as a scientist and who ends up as slave labor, who ends up in the fields and who needs to be transported to a new sector. You could order the nanite markers changed, had high level access to the medical centers. There was nothing you could have done? Truly?”
Randolph closed his mouth.
Jonathan grabbed my glass from me, traded it for a new one with whiskey from a passing waiter, and handed it back. He winked at Vanessa. “I can see why you invited her. She would liven up a party in a morgue.”
She snickered, but continued to glare at Randolph and me like we’d tracked mud across her best carpet.
“So which is it?” Jonathan asked me.
“What?”
“Should a martini be shaken or stirred? Sounds like something I should know. Purely for the advancement of scientific knowledge, of course.”
I stared at him in disbelief and then laughed. This time, everyone laughed.
I looked at Jonathan over the rim of my glass. “You are charming, I’ll give you that. I was trying hard to hate you on principle.”
“I’m not sure I could live with you hating me,” He grinned. “How about you, Randolph? Willing to make peace? I’ve heard it’s quite the fashion these days.”
The blond man rubbed his caste mark wearily. “Yes, yes. I’m sorry, very sorry. I was rude. How terrible of me.”
“You could stand to be rude, Randolph,” I told him. “Rude looks good on you. Makes you human.”
He chuckled, still nervous. That might have been the first real serious emotional outburst he’d ever had in his life. It wasn’t healthy to lose your temper under Sarcodinay rule. Urbans who wanted to live learned to keep it all inside. Sometimes they turned witty and sarcastic. Sometimes they snapped and crackled like dry tinder waiting for the spark.
“It’s been a hard week,” Randolph continued, his voice softer, apologetic. “Very hard. President Keiler has me going over discharge papers for Strikers. I told her the League should be doing that, but Lisa said no, it should be me. I’m scared for my life, I tell you. I’m supposed to find jobs for these people, find things for them to do, and what am I supposed to tell them? Most of them aren’t qualified for anything but blowing up bridges and killing people!”
“Sounds like they’d be perfect for Ministry of Justice,” Jonathan laughed. “Or maybe Entertainment. Oh, I know! Education!”
“It’s no joking matter! Have you had to work with any of these people yet? They’re psychotic!”
Vanessa put her hand on my arm. I shrugged it off.
“They’re humans, like you,” Jonathan reminded him.
“They’re liars, braggarts and murderers. They walk into my office and expect me to give them a palace and some pampered
job that requires no work. I saw one yesterday. You wouldn’t believe him. Chris Martinez. Technically he’s labor caste from Sector 15, but I think it’s been a few years since he’s been doing his official duties. I asked about his job skills. He told me he was a wet worker and when I asked if that was related to plumbing he laughed in my face! He said that amongst his list of skills was the talent to walk into a busy restaurant, walk right up to a Sarcodinay, snap his neck, and walk out without anyone stopping him. So what kind of job am I supposed to give him? Either he’s the world’s greatest assassin or the world’s greatest liar. Even his nickname says he’s not going to do what he’s told. He’s called Maverick! Feh!”
“Oh, Keepers.” Vanessa said. She looked pale.
Jonathan’s expression turned into a perfect poker face, completely blank. He wasn’t looking at Vanessa or Randolph. He was looking at me. The man had good instincts: he knew where the trouble was brewing.
Randolph confused Vanessa’s reaction for sympathy. He nodded sagely. “You can understand why I’ve been short-tempered. How do you deal with someone like that?”
I carefully placed my glass down on a nearby table. No sense wasting good liquor. Someone must have paid a small fortune for it after all. I was mentally going through the odds that Jonathan would interfere. He might: pretty looks aside, he seemed like he could handle himself.
“You don’t have any family in the League, do you?”
Randolph blinked. “What
