“She’s not a fanatic. Don’t you think she has some valid points?”
I wanted to say, Yeah, if I was still on Austro and hadn’t met the strit and symp in question. I didn’t quite link with all the gossip about the fact they were murderers and shit— even though they probably were—because they’d stood behind my father at that press conference, stood by him now despite rampant arguments in the Hub about his credibility.
“Damiani’s points would be valid if they were stuck on top of her head,” I said.
“Don’t be glib, Ryan.”
“She’s an alarmist. They all are. They think the strits are just doing this to get the Hub to sit back, and then they’ll attack. Like the strits have been lying about the fact their resources are strained.”
“Well, can’t they? Possibly?”
Not according to Jos. It was true that another bout of war was the last thing Captain S’tlian wanted. “I just don’t agree with how Centralists think the only way the war will end is if we take away all the strits’ spacefaring tech. That’s a little extreme. And paranoid.”
“Granted.” She half smiled. “But extremism aside, the moderate Centralists have good points. Do you think it’s a good idea to decommission our arms? What about pirates?”
“Moderate Centralist. Oxymoron. Surely you don’t mean members of the Family of Humanity?”
Terrorists that they were, who touted Centralist politicians like Universalists touted Spiritual Harmony.
“Ryan.”
I’d had this discussion with my father, so I gave her the answer he’d given me. “The idea behind it is to decommission them against each other. Not against the pirates. If we pooled our resources against the pirates we’d clean up the trade and travel routes in no time at all. Merchant ships will get on board for that.”
And they were. Too bad the strongest opposition was coming from the Centralists on Earth and that was still the seat of the Hub government. Austro’s weight was considerable, but so was Pax Terra’s, Earth’s closest and largest station, and the way votes worked, a station was a station, no differentiation between deep space and Hubcentral. Plus the military, which made up a considerable chunk of the votes, was still being paid by Hub Command—in Hubcentral.
“Territorial claims?” Shiri persisted, since she couldn’t argue my other point about merchants. “Giving back moons and colonies? How realistic is that?”
“We’d taken them at gunpoint to begin with. Are you just arguing with me to be a devil’s advocate or do you really not condone the treaty?”
She smiled. “You sound suspiciously like a meedee with that question.” She still thought I shouldn’t have dropped out.
“It’s in the blood, if not the diploma,” I said.
“I’m not sure if a treaty, with all of those terms, would be the best thing. I mean, they’re even asking for a release of prisoners of war. Meanwhile we all know they don’t keep prisoners of war, at least not admittedly. So we should just hand over their symps while they kill Hub citizens?”
“They have a different approach to things like that.”
“You mean inhumane.”
The Hub had bitched when Musey had killed Falcone too, because that kind of justice went against their traditional sensibilities that said it was far more civilized to spend cred on imprisoning a man who’d escaped once already. It was pride, not humanity, that fueled their reactions.
Strivs and symps were much more expedient. “Do we hold them to the same standards as humanity? That’s what got us into the war in the first place.”
“Tell that to the families of those prisoners.”
Shiri had Centralist tendencies. I never would’ve thought. Even though she was an Earther born and bred, she had always come across as more outward thinking.
“You’re a lot more militant now,” she said, in a quieter tone and with a closer stare.
“I was thinking that about you. Since when aren’t you willing to see the other side?”
“It’s scary, Ryan, to think about the strits flying around out there without being caged somehow. It’s hard to trust that.”
That was what it came down to, all the time. Fear.
“Like it’s scary to have my father, the so-called pirate, in command of an EarthHub carrier? The problem with Centralists is they want to control everybody and see everything, meanwhile they won’t get their own asses off their planet and their minds beyond the Spokes.”
Her frown deepened. “It’s our planet too. All of humanity’s. Stationers and deep spacers that don’t consider Earth a part of things—that contributes to the division too, you know. There’re deep-space extremist factions just like there are on Earth.”
“Yeah, and Earthers call them captains, while putting them out here to defend their green pastures.”
“I think you’re clouded because it’s your flesh and blood being attacked. I’m not a Centralist, any more than you’re a symp, despite how you sound.” She sat back and folded her arms casually.
I didn’t put any weight to it, in case she followed up. “Getting shot at does that to a person.”
She watched me ior a long second. “I’m so sorry, Ryan,” she said, in a different tone. “I wish you’d stayed on Earth, then that wouldn’t have happened.”
Stayed with her. She didn’t move her stare and I had nothing else to look at.
“It might’ve still happened, Shiri… just… on planet.”
“Do you think, um, you’ll ever head insystem again?”
I had to do something before it got too far into hopeful promises and expectations. Considering where I was. So I didn’t answer except with a slow, devious smile.
She shook her head and pointed at my nose. “I know what you’re thinking, Azarcon, so stop it.”
“What am I thinking?”
“You’re a rotten little boy.”
I widened my grin. Gave her the eyes. Piled it on thick because I knew so much sweetness would sicken her, and she’d laugh and forget about wanting to talk about where I might end up in a month or two. “So when’re you going to leave Mars and come farther out?” I asked.
“When you invite me for an exclusive interview.” Her smile matched. “With your father.”
I groaned. “That hurts me.”
“I doubt.”
I’d forgotten how sharp she could be. I was slipping. “You must irritate the hell out of Valencia.”
She smiled, all false candy and sunshine. “I’m going to land a major story by the end of this year, I promise you.”
“Not with my father.”
She said, “Then what’re you good for? Get off my comm already.”
I missed her. Especially on this ship, where the women looked at me as if they could chew me up and spit me out without breaking stride. Not that they were butch, but I didn’t want to get involved in that culture, not here, not with my father looking over my shoulder and jets who liked to brag.
“Take care, Ryan,” she said, smiling genuine now, and put her hand on her comp screen.
I couldn’t do the same, with my mobile, but I smiled back. “I’ll comm you again.”
“You better.”
“Even though the only reason you care is because I’m an Azarcon.” Bait. Just to see how she’d react now.
“I’d kiss you if I was there or you were here,” she said, “and then I’d slap you.”
We tried to have dinner together at least three times a week, my father and I, just alone. Breakfasts were usually a rush job because he needed to be on the bridge now that Macedon was back on patrol, and because govies from Earth had no sense of timing and liked to comm him at 0500 to ask him for updates from Aaian-na.
He said, Until some things are signed and action backs it up, the Warboy is still patrolling the DMZ, so don’t think about attacking them.
Damiani didn’t like that, but my father said the last thing he was going to do was spy for her under the guise of administrative interest.
&nb
sp; The Family of Humanity had a new political dartboard and my father’s face was on it. Of course Damiani didn’t support those extremes.
She just fed them.
Politics, my father said, wasn’t one of the things he cared to discuss at our private dinners. Instead he wanted to know how my school was going and if Sid was fitting in and did I think Sid would be happier assigned back to Earth? He said Admiral Grandpa was asking.
We were in the captain’s mess, but without the formal place settings and interrupting servers. It was just me and him in casual clothes and a simple meal. I pushed my pasta salad around on the plate.
“Do you want to send him back to Earth?” I asked him.
My father never said much to Sid, which suited Sid fine, but I couldn’t help thinking it was because my father didn’t want to accidentally say something that he’d rather not. About Mom Lau.
That was something we never talked about either. Sid and Mom Lau.
“I won’t kick him off the ship,” he said, “but he might prefer being somewhere—”
Where he was needed. Because I seemed to be going along all right with my new school and my new friends.
“I don’t think he minds being here and working with the jets,” I said. “Besides, I’m going to need him when I go back to Austro.” I had every intention of going back to Austro, once things settled down.
And I still, selfishly, wanted Sid around. Just because I couldn’t imagine being somewhere without him, not after seven years. Not when we still understood each other’s hand signs and sometimes all we had to do was look at each other and nobody else got the joke when we laughed.
The captain looked at me and sipped his water. “I don’t want to depress you, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.”
“It doesn’t—depress me. But… I can’t live on this ship. Not, like, forever. It’s not my life.”
Maybe that insulted him, or hurt him, but lying about it would be worse.
“I understand,” he said. He picked up the napkin from his lap and folded it into a neat square and placed it beside his plate. “How about some dessert?”
“All right.”
He was going to shelve the discussion, but it wasn’t over. He liked me here. He even talked about giving me my own quarters on the command crew deck because he didn’t want to crowd me. I didn’t request it; he wasn’t much in his own quarters so I had the run of it most of the time.
He stood to go to the captain’s galley and get the dessert, but his tags beeped when he was halfway to the door. His tags always seemed to beep during meals.
On the other end was Lieutenant Hartman. “Captain,” she said, “we have a situation.”
He slid open the galley door and motioned the cook there to bring out the dessert plates. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Corporal Sanchez, sir. Dorr had planted a mirror tracking code in Sanchez’s comp that would siphon his actions to Dorr’s, and he was, well, in a dive to Austro.”
The captain’s face froze. “Burndiving for what purpose?”
“Well, apparently he’s been in contact with a Centralist rep on station. Someone from the Merchants Protection Commission, not a higher-up.”
“Centralist.”
“Yes, sir. Would you like me to bring him to your office for questioning?”
The cook came out with a couple plates of chocolate cake. My father let him pass but he wasn’t looking that way. He rested his hands on his waist and turned to the wall, chin lowered.
“No,” he said. “I’ve had enough. Is he in brig now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Get him to medbay so Rodriguez can remove Mac’s tattoo. Then get his ass off my ship.”
With Macedon in transit?
“Yes, sir,” she said, without hesitation.
He added, “We’re meeting up with the replenishment ship Oasis in two hours, Lieutenant. See to it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and commed out.
I didn’t touch my cake. “What would you have done if we weren’t rendezvousing?” I knew the answer, but I sat there hoping my father might surprise me.
He didn’t. He rejoined me at the table and edged his spoon into the dense chocolate. “I’d have found somewhere out of the lanes and jettisoned him. He’s had enough warning and he didn’t heed it.”
The punishment for mutiny on ships at war was summary execution.
Except—technically we weren’t at war.
And technically Sanchez didn’t commit mutiny. He was just disobedient and shot off his mouth a lot.
But you didn’t split hairs like that on deep-space carriers. Not on my father’s, anyway.
I had learned.
I was surprised to hear my father’s voice in the living room when I came out the bathroom after my shower. It was already 0730 and the captain was usually on the bridge or in his office, doing his captainly things. Some instinct or tendency to eavesdrop made me pad quietly to the screen, which was open halfway, and lean my shoulder against the inside panel, out of sight from the kitchen. I saw my father’s arm and the back of his right shoulder from where he sat on the couch, and it didn’t take long to figure out that my parents were talking to each other over comm.
“… about that, Song?” my father was saying, with an uncharacteristic, implicit sigh in his tone. “You feed them information and they’ll just want more.”
“Maybe they deserve to have more,” Mom said. “Cairo… all this time. And you never thought you could trust me enough to tell me? You didn’t even pick up my comms until now, so how am I supposed to feel?”
“It wasn’t about trust. It was about not wanting my private life in everybody’s living rooms.”
“Thanks a lot. This strategy’s worked well for you over the years, hasn’t it? You’d rather the coward’s way out and have me learn about this—from a meedee? And Ryan—what you did to him—”
“Ryan is fine. We talked. He’s fine.”
“You talked.”
“Yes, you know, I don’t chain him up in a dark room and kick him on off-shifts.”
I heard myself in that comment, and I thought so did my mother.
“Don’t, Cairo.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. That you feel you have to deal with it in public. You never understood—there’re lines that don’t need to be crossed in a public forum, and it’s you that have to dictate where they are. Not them.”
“Don’t tell me my job. When my husband, a public figure, makes a declaration such as you have, there is no other way to deal with it but in the public. Or else they think you’re hiding something.”
“I am hiding something. I’m protecting my personal life from a rabid galaxy that has no right to know—”
“They have a right, Cairo! They pay for your ship!”
I heard the shield go up. “They don’t pay for my ship,” he said.
“Pretend for one second that you actually work for EarthHub.”
The captain’s voice hardened. “EarthHub. Not the government. I don’t care what they have written down, once we’re out here staring down the torpedo tube of a strit battleship, the government is not in the equation. They’re canceled out of it, Song. That’s something you stationers and dirtsiders don’t get. I spent hours trying to get it through Damiani’s head, but she was so adamant in her ignorance.”
“You treat your relationships just like your captaincy, do you know that? Not everyone thinks like you—or should! Other people exist in your personal equation.”
“If they want to survive out here they’d better think like me. You don’t want me telling you your job. Well, don’t tell me mine. And that’s what Damiani and her ilk want to do. They’d like me to tell Aaian-na that we’ll have a mutual cease-fire on our terms. How does that make sense? How does that get us anywhere but back where we started, stomping all over an alien race? It’s pride. Dirtsiders and Hubcentralists are ignorant and proud. It’s a rotten combination, Song.”
“Yo
u should know about pride, Cairo. I wasn’t talking about the government or the strits. I was talking about us.”
An audible breath. “Song… there hasn’t been an us for years. Haven’t we recognized that already?”
Silence.
“Because,” Mom said, in a quieter voice, “you’ve given up. It’s no longer important to you. I don’t know that it ever was.”
“It was,” the captain said. “But never as important as what I do. You knew that, Song. I told you. I can’t… I never could devote myself to the extent you wanted.”
“Now I know why.”
My father said, in a tight voice, “Yes. Now you know. And I looked the other way with you and Sidney because of it. So don’t talk to me about pride.”
I should’ve shut the screen at that point, picked up my guitar, and minded my own business.
But I didn’t. Couldn’t.
“What happened, Cairo,” Mom said, a hitch in the words. “Help me—understand you. For once.”
“There’s nothing…” the captain started, on automatic, it seemed. He was quiet for a long time. I thought he was forming his thoughts but when he spoke it was clear he was fighting—for composure. “I learned from the bastard. So what does that say? That I enjoyed some of it? That some of it was worth it? I can’t—that isn’t something—who I am… as a captain, a person… tied up in that. Like I owe him something. But I don’t. I know I don’t. Except when I think about how it was and I’m back there. I hated it. But I still can’t make myself remove these damn tattoos or even cover them up now like I did when I was in the Academy. I can’t toss the weapons he gave me because… in a way I don’t want to forget. And it’s nobody’s bloody business, Song. Not even yours, or the admiral’s, or Ryan’s. It’s mine.” A long beat. “It’s mine. Do you understand?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t understand why you think you need to handle this by yourself. I don’t even understand who you’re talking about. Who is this ‘he’?”
No sound from my father.
“Cairo. Falcone had a reputation—”
“Justly deserved. Let’s leave it at that.”
Of course she wouldn’t. But she tread gently, it was in her tone. “Is that why you let that symp kill him?”
Burndive Page 33
