“Yes.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry.”
She gave a little shrug that said she wasn’t sorry either.
“I’ve got a video from Terza,” she said. “She seems to be thriving. And Gareth is perfectly adorable, obviously a bright child.”
“Obviously a genius,” Martinez corrected.
Michi smiled. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It’s hard being away from them at this age, isn’t it? I know.”
“Have you heard from yours?”
“Yes. James has matriculated, finally.”
“Send him my congratulations.”
“I will. He’ll be at the Cheng Ho Academy next term.”
That was the Fleet academy reserved for the highest caste of Terran Peers. Michi and Sula had attended it. Martinez had settled for the somewhat less prestigious Nelson Academy.
Michi’s face darkened. “I’m not sure it’s wise to send him into the Fleet. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for him, with Tork hovering over our careers.”
“I’ll do what I can, of course.”
“Of course.” He was family; that sort of thing was expected. She turned to him. “What about Lady Sula?”
His heart gave a lurch. “Sorry?”
“Do you think she’d be willing to take James on as a cadet?”
There was no reason to think that Sula would be enjoying a command in a few years any more than he would, but he answered that he was reasonably sure Sula would oblige.
“Though you may not want James’s career to be entirely in the hands of those on Tork’s shit list,” Martinez said. “I’m sure we’d help, but you might want to find James a service patron who’s not in the line of fire.”
“I’ll do that, thanks.” Michi took another sip of her drink.
Martinez began to fret about his son. Young Gareth would go into the Fleet, of course, there was no doubt about that, and being a Chen, he would attend the Cheng Ho Academy. The junior officers who had thrived under Martinez would then be in a position to aid his son. A brilliant career was therefore assured.
Unless some malevolent force intervened. Of course Tork would be dead by then, but Tork would no doubt pick a successor.
Martinez sipped his drink, letting the burning alcohol fire trickle down his throat, and wondered if for the sake of his son he should hope that Sula was right, that there would soon be another war.
“That rifle? That’s an improvised weapon, used in the fighting in Zanshaa City. And the other one”-Sula turned to him-“that’s PJ’s gun. He was carrying it when he died.”
Martinez looked at her for a long moment, then at the long rifle with its silver and ivory inlay. “He got what he wanted then,” he said. “He was trying to find a way to join the fighting.”
“He was in love with your sister till the end.”
She didn’t have to explain which sister PJ loved. Not Walpurga, the one he’d married, but Sempronia, who had jilted him.
Martinez had been invited to dine byConfidence ‘s wardroom. The frigate’s lieutenants hadn’t heard his war stories yet, and he expected to enjoy himself relating them.
He had arrived early to pay his respects to Sula.
And to talk to her.
And to see her.
And to feel his blood blaze at the sight.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “I can have Rizal boil water.”
“No thanks.” The fewer interruptions by servants, he thought, the better.
“Sit down then.”
He sat in a straight-backed metal-framed chair acquired on the cheap by some government purchaser. Sula’s bare, small, functional quarters were far removed from his own luxurious, art-filled suite.
“Are guns your only ornament?” he asked. “I’d send you some pictures, but I don’t think Fletcher’s estate would approve.”
“You’ve got an artist, don’t you?” Sula said. “Maybe I could commission something from him.”
“Perhaps a full-length portrait,” Martinez said.
Sula grinned. “I couldn’t put up with looking at myself hours on end, especially in a tiny place like this. I don’t know how you stand it.”
Martinez felt an implied criticism in this statement.
“I admire the artistry of it. The sfumato, for example.” It was one of the technical words he’d learned from Jukes while he sat for the painting. “The balance of light and shade, the arrangement of objects on the table that helps to bring the image into the third dimension-”
There was a knock on the door, and Martinez turned to see Haz,Confidence ‘s premiere.
“Beg pardon,” Haz told Sula, “but the wardroom is happy to offer Captain Martinez its hospitality.”
“I’ll see you another time, Captain,” Sula said, rising smoothly.
As Martinez took her hand to say farewell, his mind finally received the message that his senses had been trying to send him for some time.
Sula’s scent had changed. Instead of the musky scent she had worn since she’d joined the Orthodox Fleet, she was now wearing Sandama Twilight, the perfume that he had tasted on her flesh as, over a year ago now, they lay in the vast, hideous canopied bed in her rented apartment.
He looked down at her in shock, his hand still wrapped around hers. She gazed back, her face deliberately incurious.
He dropped her hand, turned to follow Haz to the wardroom, and felt a flow of sheer emotion as it rolled like a slow, implacable tide through his blood.
She’s mine,he thought.
Sula had decided to roll the dice again, three nights earlier when she’d returned from a cocktail party Michi had given for the officers of her sadly reduced squadron. She’d stepped into her little office, her skin still tingling with the awareness of Martinez that she’d felt during the last few hours, and paused to look at the wall behind her desk, the wall with the two rifles.
There was the keepsake of PJ, she and the keepsake of Sidney.
It was only then that she realized that she had no keepsake of Casimir, nothing but memories of frantic nights filled with the sting of adrenaline, the tang of sweat, and the sound of weapons fire. She had put Casimir in his tomb, and sacrificed theju yao pot to his memory. She had intended to join him, to seek her oblivion in a brilliant, clarifying, annihilating blast at Magaria, but pride had intervened.
Very well, she would let pride dictate her course. She would roll the dice on life, not death. She would roll the dice on love, not exile.
She would let Casimir stay buried, and hope that the fantastic Martinez luck would overcome the curse she carried with her.
In her mind, she bargained with Lord Chen. “I can arrange for the return of your daughter,” she said. “Captain Martinez and I were in love before the marriage was arranged. I can arrange for that love to blossom again. The marriage will end, and you will not be blamed by Clan Martinez.
“In return I require your patronage of myself, and your continued patronage of Captain Martinez. And of course Martinez and I will raise the child, who I don’t imagine you’d care to have around anyway.”
And who I need as a hostage to guarantee your cooperation.
She looked at the matter from Lord Chen’s point of view, and saw nothing to object to.
She knew better than to strike any fantasy bargains with Lady Terza Chen. The Chen heir had been born under circumstances that valued her womb over any other part. She was a bearer of precious Chen genetics, to be mixed with other valuable genetics as her family dictated. That Chen genes had been debased by Martinez plasma was, as far as Clan Chen was concerned, a misfortune of history.
Terza had been born a mere carrier of genes, but marriage had turned her into something more formidable. Her social standing was higher than that of her husband, which made her valuable to the wealthy, ambitious clan into which she had married, and who would be inclined to defer to her. In fact-as Sula was inclined to read the situation-it was Lord Chen who was the pawn now, a pawn both of Martinez in
terests and of his newly empowered daughter, the mother of the new clan heir.
It was unlikely that Terza would wish to return to her earlier role as a mere breeder-in-waiting. Any such change would have to be decided elsewhere. Her husband and her father would have to be in agreement on these basics.
With these thoughts in mind, Sula shaped her new program. Her policy of pride demanded that she not cheapen herself in any way. She did not pursue Martinez.
Instead, she drew him a map. She gave up the Sengra perfume that Casimir had given her and returned to her earlier scent, Sandama Twilight. This, she noticed, seemed to produce an effect-Martinez looked as if she’d hit him between the eyes with a hammer.
Detail was added to the map. WhenConfidence was still two wormhole jumps from Zanshaa, she arranged to rent a spacious apartment in the Petty Mount, in the shadow of the High City. To give herself privacy she made Macnamara and Spence the present of a twenty-nine-day vacation at a resort on Lake Tranimo, two hours from Zanshaa City by supersonic train. “You’re sick of the sight of me after all this time,” she told them over their protests. “And though I love you both, I will be happy not to have to look at you for a while.”
Her cook, Rizal, was given a discharge and permission to return home, though she kept him on retainer in case she needed to produce a meal.
She made certain that Martinez knew of all these arrangements, knew that she would be alone in a comfortable apartment away from the close confines and spying eyes of the High City. She wouldn’t even have any servants around.
She drew the map, but it was up to Martinez to follow it. Pride demanded that, at least.
She received few messages once communication with Zanshaa was restored. The news programs from the capital consisted in large part of executions. She didn’t watch them-she’d seen quite enough of that-but took note of the names.
With the peace, the information possessed by the enemy prisoners was no longer of any value, and batches of them were being flung from the High City every day. All the members of the government, both Naxids and others, officers of the security services, and the members of the ration authority whose lives Sula had spared so the planet would not starve. Now they were all condemned, their lives forfeit, their fortunes confiscated, their clans decimated.
Good,Sula thought.
The tiny revenant of Chenforce flew into Zanshaa’s system, braked, fell into orbit around Zanshaa. Between the ships and the blue and white planet curved a vast section of the broken accelerator ring, a section so huge that it was impossible to tell from close up that it was a mere fragment of what had once been the greatest monument of interstellar civilization. The ring’s smooth flank was studded with antennae, receiver dishes, and vast solar arrays.
In time, fragments of the broken ring would be nudged down to a lower orbit, reconnected to the elevator tethers, then stitched back together. Several large asteroids would be sacrificed to provide enough mass to replace the segments that had been vaporized in the antimatter explosions that had separated the ring sections.
For the moment, though, the ring was still a wreck. Tugs nudged the two warships to bays in the Fleet docks, where they would remain for months, perhaps years, awaiting their overhaul. The ring wasn’t spinning, so there was no gravity, and the crew floated weightless as soon as they released their webbing.
There was no accommodation for officers or crew on the ring. Not only was there no gravity, but the vast empty tube had not yet been pumped full of air. A series of atmosphere shuttles approached the warships and hovered a short distance away while lifelines were rigged. The crew formed in their divisions, donned vac suits, and moved in small groups into the main cargo airlock, where they crawled hand over hand along the lifelines till they reached their shuttles. Their baggage came after them on lines.
Sula waited in the airlock atrium to wish them all goodbye. She stood before the doors, wearing her vac suit but without her helmet, and shook the hand of each of the crew as they passed.
It was harder than she’d expected. Building the secret army and seizing the High City had been her greatest accomplishment, but it had never been her ambition, and she had never trained for such a task. The covert war and the battle for the High City had been a frantic improvisation, and though she was proud of her decisions, it had been too much like a plunge into unknown territory for her to feel comfortable with the memory.
Her training and hopes, however, had always been aimed at the command of a warship, andConfidence was her first. The frigate was small and unlovely, and her quarters a metal-walled box, but she had grown to love this deadly waspish instrument of her will. She had won many victories in its close confines, and not all of them were against Naxids.
The officers and their servants were the last off the ship, and had a shuttle of their own. Sula nerved herself to put on the hated helmet, and managed to contain her terror long enough to slap the faceplate closed and step into the airlock. Seeing the huge blue loom of the planet to one side and the great dazzle of stars on the other calmed her, gave her a sense of scale and helped her forget the confines of the shoe box she wore on her head.
After the transfer, they had to wait on their acceleration couches for the officers fromIllustrious, who took a longer time because they had more crew to transfer. Sula hated every second she was confined in the helmet, and was grateful for more than one reason as she recognized Martinez floating aboard. Even in a vac suit, those long arms and shortish legs were unmistakable.
Everyone webbed in, and the chemical engines ignited. The shuttle trailed fire across half the world before making a series of braking S-turns before Zanshaa City, after which it dropped to a landing at Wi-hun. Sula gazed out the ports and watched the sky turn from black to viridian green.
She was happy to wrench off her helmet as the shuttle taxied to its hard stand. When the big doors opened, they let in a blast of summer heat and the most wonderful air she had ever tasted. It smelled mostly of the volatile chemicals of the shuttle exhaust, but behind the reek she could savor greenery and summer flowers. The air aboardConfidence had been filtered and scrubbed, but still, over time there was a buildup of sweat and dead skin and hair, spilled food and lubricating oil and metal polish, and it produced a deadening musty odor.
In contrast, fresh air was wonderful. It was glorious. It was better than the finest wine.
Sula followed Michi and Martinez out of the shuttle. The docking tubes at the terminal building were incompatible with the doorways of Fleet vehicles, so the officers descended on a metal stairway that had been run out on the back of a small truck. She felt sweat pop on her forehead from the reflected heat of the pavement. Macnamara and Spence helped her out of her vac suit and stowed it in its container.
Final salutes were made, final good-byes spoken. She said her farewells to Haz, Giove, Ikuhara, Macnamara, and Spence. Some of the lieutenants piled into rented transport that had driven out to meet them, and the rest followed the enlisted on a walk across green grass to the train station.
For herself and Martinez, Michi had rented a pair of vast slate-colored Victory limousines, the same model that Casimir had painted eleven shades of apricot. Michi had offered Sula a ride as well, and she had accepted.
Alikhan, Jukes, and Michi’s servants piled the luggage into the second vehicle. Sula, who had brought only the minimum number of uniforms and a pair of rifles, had neglected to acquire statues, figurines, and works of art, and possessed no porcelain blazoned with the Sula crest, no hand-cut crystal, no bed linen, no foam pillows cut to the shape of her head and neck. She simply asked Alikhan to put her vac suit into the baggage compartment of the first car along with her trunk and her rifle cases, and went to join Michi and Martinez in the passenger compartment.
A polite young Lai-own stepped into her path. He held a crisp creamy envelope in one hand, an envelope sealed with a ribbon and a blotch of wax, and a datapad in the other.
“Beg pardon, Lady Sula,” he said. “If you will sign t
hat you have received this?”
She signed the title “Sula” and ducked into the car. The inside of the limousine featured cut crystal vases filled with fresh flowers. The seats were maroon leather and very soft. Michi was dragging a bottle of champagne out of a bucket of ice, and Martinez helped her open it.
Sula opened the envelope, read the contents, and began to laugh.
“What is it?” Michi asked.
“Blitsharts!” Sula cried. “It’s another deposition!”
Michi stared at her blankly. Martinez grinned.
“It’s how we first met,” he said.
Sula and Martinez explained to Michi how they had encountered one another on a mission to rescue the famed yachtsman Captain Blitsharts and his equally famous dog Orange. It was the first time they had worked together, the first time they had experienced the near unity of thought and action that sometimes seemed to make them a part of some higher being.
“Except that once I got to him, Blitsharts turned out to be a corpse!” Sula said.
A Fleet Court of Inquiry had ruled the Blitsharts death accidental, but the insurance company was appealing in civilian court, claiming evidence of suicide, and now a new round of depositions was scheduled.
Michi smiled indulgently as Martinez and Sula relived the past. When the torrent of memory had ceased, Michi undid the top button of her tunic, licked spilled liquid from her fingers, and raised her glass.
“I’d like to make a toast,” she said.
“Wait a minute,” said Sula. She found a glass of sparkling water in the little refrigerator, opened it and poured it into a champagne glass.
“To a campaign well fought,” Michi said.
Sula rang her glass against the others. “And to our next,” she said.
Michi raised her eyebrows at this, but drank in silence.
The limousine left the second vehicle still loading and pulled away. Sula saw that saplings had been planted to replace the trees on the verge of the airfield, those the Naxids had cut to give their guards a proper field of fire.
The Terran driver took the Axtattle Parkway into the city. She had never seen the Axtattle from this point of view, and she looked for the building where she and Action Team 491 had laid their first disastrous ambush against the Naxids. She found the place easily enough. The facade of the building was still pocked by the thousands of bullets the Naxids had fired in response.
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