by Kate Elliott
He considered her in silence. She felt uncomfortably like a transparent slate, all motives and desires clear to the eye, under his scrutiny. But she held still in her chair and returned his gaze.
Finally he touched a panel on his desk. The wall screen behind came to life: the slow circle of systems and star fields that marked out Reft space.
“You have learned,” he said slowly, “a few methods besides brute force. You have information for me from Unruli.”
“I’ll transmit it to you as soon as I return to the Forlorn Hope.”
On the wall screen, she saw that the shifting of stars traced her journey from Landfall to Tollgate.
“How long have you been with this man, Hawk?” Jehane asked abruptly.
This diverted her interest from the map behind him. “Since—on and off since Nevermore. You saw him there.”
“Yes, I did,” he replied, as if that answer ought to remind her of some significant detail she obviously had forgotten. He glanced at his wrist-com and flicked off the wall screen, pulling out from the desk a slim screen that he handed across to Lily. She had to stand and come forward to get it. “I would like you to confirm that this is the current manifest of the crew of the Forlorn Hope.”
She scrolled through the file, names with faces: Hawk; Yehoshua Akio Filistia; Heneage Finch Caenna; UnaDia Vitales Wei; Jorge Zia Nguyen; Inocencio Blumoris; Jenny Seria; Gregori Seria; Aliasing Exul; Ridanis known as Rainbow, Cursive, Diamond, Pinto, Paisley; one putative sta called “the Mule.”
“Yes.” She laid the screen on the desk in front of him. “It’s complete except for myself and my robot.”
He rose. At the same time the door sighed open and the white-clad figure of Kuan-yin appeared in the doorway, her basilisk eye fixed on Lily. Behind her stood her usual escort often soldiers and behind them—but Lily could see no trace, no blue flag of hair that would indicate that Kyosti had been allowed to wait nearby.
“No,” said Jehane gently, conveying by his expression and tone that her mistake was merely the prelude to a greater honor. “The acquisition of the Forlorn Hope to our fleet is of incalculable benefit to our cause, comrade, as you know. Experienced crew will be added to those already familiar with the vessel, to bring it up to its full complement. But you will be of more value to our work elsewhere. That is why I am reassigning you to my personal staff.”
He smiled magnificently and came around the desk up to her, extending his hand in a gesture so common that he made it laudatory. “Welcome to the Boukephalos, Comrade Officer Heredes.”
She shook his hand because it would have been idiotic to do anything else. Kuan-yin’s obvious and hostile presence made it impossible for her to protest, and as an officer in Jehane’s army she was in any case subject to his orders. That was the choice she had made when she had joined his revolution.
“Now.” He turned. “I am to address a large assembly, to be broadcast across the fleet. It is time for the final offensive to begin.” He offered her a brief, apologetic smile. “I hope you will wait for the specifics of your assignment until I am finished.”
“Of course,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
Kuan-yin, waiting for just such a cue, swept him out of the room. In the eddy left by their exit, Lily discovered a single white-clad man waiting by the opposite door.
“I am comrade Vanov,” he said. Lily disliked him immediately. He reminded her of a compact and cruder version of Kuan-yin. He grinned at her, recognizing her dislike. “I know you will be anxious to hear comrade Jehane,” he continued, as if he was doing her a great favor. “There are several rooms above the docking bay in which his personal staff can listen in some privacy—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Lily. “But I came here with some people—”
He smiled again. He had particularly small eyes, which lent his face a sly, mean look. “I suppose I could arrange for them to meet you there,” he conceded reluctantly. He waited, as if expecting her to offer him something in exchange.
“I would appreciate it,” she replied.
“Remember one thing, Heredes,” he went on, putting a little threat into his voice now, enjoying it. “Comrade Kuan-yin has asked me to keep an eye on you, for her. I’ll be doing so.”
“Does comrade Jehane know about this—arrangement?” Lily asked, unable to picture Jehane confiding in this man.
Immediately Vanov looked annoyed. He walked to the door. “Come on,” he snapped. She followed him without a word to a plastine-sheathed bubble of a room overlooking a huge docking bay that had been pumped full of air and populated by cameras and a huge contingent of Jehanist troops, all shifting and seething in anticipation of the speech of their leader. Other rooms and bubbles overlooked the bay.
Comrade Vanov left her there alone, but soon the door sighed open again and much to her surprise Jenny and Kyosti came in.
“Where is—?” Lily began, casting a quick, almost accusatory glance at Hawk.
Jenny shrugged. “I thought it best to leave them on the shuttle. They didn’t mind. But Hells on Gravewood, Lily, is it true that Jehane has transferred you?”
Lily set her elbows on the sloping wall of plastine and stared morosely out at the mass of humanity below. “Yes. I don’t see that there’s anything I can do about it.”
Kyosti chuckled. He did not seem at all distressed that they were about to be parted. “Our Heliogabalus knows which fires to keep close by him, to stoke his own flame.”
“Our what?” asked Jenny.
Lily turned back to look at Kyosti. “Why did you want to see him? ‘See what kind of man he is,’ indeed. What does that mean?”
“Look,” said Kyosti. “Here he comes. They must be preparing this for broadcast illicit and otherwise across half the Reft.”
A file of men and women, clearly notables or officers of one kind or another, marched out and lined up on the platform. A pause, and then the unmistakable figure of Kuan-yin emerged. She halted behind the podium.
From the bubble, they had an excellent vantage point. Some trick of the com-system muted the noise of the assembled troops.
“There,” said Kyosti, and he laughed under his breath. “Oh, marvelous. What an entrance.”
Somehow the sudden appearance of Alexander Jehane, golden hair gleaming in the harsh lights of the bay, the commonplace lines of his brown tunic and trousers marking him both as humble and yet, in the sea of white, as rich in color, brought silence rather than tumult to the waiting crowd. They stilled as if each was touched by Jehane’s hand in passing, and stood in a hush so deep as to be almost eerie.
Jehane walked slowly to the podium, his deliberation seeming somehow necessary so that he might have time to mark and approve each individual in the vast bay.
As he halted at the podium, paused to sweep his gaze once more round the assembled thousands—and not perhaps coincidentally to allow the assembled cameras an opportunity for a few more precious seconds on the careful beauty of his face—Jenny leaned forward and splayed one dark hand on the plastine, staring.
“Well damn my eyes;” she breathed. “If it isn’t Mendi Mun.”
Jumbled together with her amazement that Alexander Jehane was the man who had abandoned Jenny and Lia on Arcadia, only one clear impression of Jehane’s speech remained with Lily afterward: That she recognized immediately that the bold and stirring phrases he spoke were not his words, but Pero’s. Some of them she had actually heard Bobbie Malcolm compose, speaking in his sonorous and deeply sincere voice as Bach recorded them and then spilled a copy through the printer so that Bobbie could both listen to and read the speech again and make what changes he thought best.
But Bobbie had always possessed the gift of brilliant extemporization in great measure, and had rarely needed to change much. His belief in the plight of the people fueled his words, and they flowed from him as smoothly as lava, red and hot, from a split seam in the earth.
Pero’s words: they brought the image of Bobbie back to her so vividly
that it was some time before she realized that Jenny was still standing next to her, staring down at Jehane with an expression blending anger and amused resignation.
“Come on,” said Lily abruptly, pulling Jenny back from the plastine. “By the time he finishes, we’ll be back on the shuttle and halfway to the Forlorn Hope.”
Jenny tugged Lily to a stop, blinking and not a little confused. “What do you mean? You’ve been reassigned.”
“Yes, and I need to pick up all my possessions, don’t I? We’ll pick up Gregori as well and then we’ll see what Jehane has to say to that.”
“Now wait.” Jenny’s lips curled down. For an instant she looked as stubborn as Paisley. “Whatever fantasies I might have had about confronting Mendi with his—” she hesitated.
“Betrayal?” suggested Lily.
“I don’t think that under the circumstances, it would be a good idea—it’s been almost eight years. Why bother it now?”
“How am I supposed to trust someone who would do that?”
Jenny glanced back, at Jehane speaking: passionately, forcefully; the entire crowd—indeed the entire audience made up of uncounted millions watching him in this system and in systems to come when the tape would be sent out on every ship leaving Tollgate—rapt in his spell.
“Maybe he’s changed,” Jenny said, meaning it. “Void knows we saw enough corruption on Central to be changed by it. Hawk.” She extended a hand, a pleading gesture. “You agree with me?”
“Not at all.” He looked amused. “I wouldn’t dream of missing this reunion for the world.”
Jenny grinned abruptly. “Well, I must say I’ve always wondered what excuse that squirrelly bastard would come up with. But, Jehane. …” She shook her head as she followed Lily out.
Lily easily bullied her way through the ship to the shuttle. By the time they reached the Forlorn Hope an urgent call had come in from the Boukephalos asking—not quite demanding—that Lily report immediately for duty on the flagship.
So she did, but with three companions and one ’bot in tow. In some confusion, a staff officer showed them into the empty office, and left.
A moment later Kuan-yin appeared, Vanov at her back. Her diamond-hard glare swept over the group and came to rest on Lily.
“You were to report for duty, comrade,” she snapped. “What does this mean?” Her gesture, encompassing Hawk, Jenny, and a wide-eyed Gregori who had a strong hold on his mother’s hand, was just short of being insulting.
“I have a last piece of business to finish with comrade Jehane,” said Lily without raising her voice. She was beginning to realize that if she remained calm, Kuan-yin’s belligerence would have nothing to act on. “You must understand that I still have some responsibilities to the people who are remaining on the Forlorn Hope.”
“I understand that you are disobeying orders, comrade,” Kuan-yin barked. “And I have the authority to—”
“Joan.” The softness of his voice permeated the room as easily as the coarse energy of Kuan-yin’s anger. He stepped into the office, alone, and she retreated with abrupt meekness to leave him in solitary splendor, still in his plain brown clothing, facing Lily and the others.
He acknowledged Lily with a nod of his head. Bach and Kyosti he merely remarked with a glance. His gaze rested longer on Jenny.
“Eugenie,” he said, and though it was not a name Lily recognized, she knew immediately that it must be Jenny’s real name. He said it a little sadly, as though its memory filled him with regret.
Last, he looked at the boy.
In such close quarters, the golden hair clearly linked them. Lily had never seen hair with such a metallic sheen in any other human. Beyond that link, Gregori was more his mother’s child, or at least the intervening years had made him so. Dark-skinned, with a square-jawed, narrow face, he had none of Jehane’s charisma. So solemn, solitary, and quiet a child had little scope in which such a trait might blossom, even if it had been encouraged under the hard circumstances of his day-to-day life.
Gregori stared with somber curiosity at his father, but did not venture to speak. He kept a tight grip on Jenny’s hand. She, too, said nothing.
“I wish,” Jehane began, and stopped. He looked back at Jenny, direct, sad, but unashamed. “I’m sorry I had to abandon you and Aliasing, in such straits. Her child?”
“She miscarried,” said Jenny bluntly. “Too many windows, too fast, getting away from Arcadia.”
His expression was impossible to read. “I had to make the choice, between you and the revolution, which I had only then realized I was called to lead. Sometimes duty exacts a harsh price.”
“Yeah,” said Jenny, looking uncomfortable. “Well, we managed.” She looked over at Lily. “We’d better go now.”
“Please.” Jehane crouched, putting himself more on a level with Gregori, and extended one hand. “If I may.”
Slowly, Gregori detached his fingers, twined in among his mother’s, and took first one, than two, then three steps toward his father, so that he stood in the gap between the two, looking small and hesitant. He glanced over his shoulder at Jenny, seeking permission.
“Perhaps we might have a few moments alone,” said Jehane in a gentle voice, but it was clearly an order, not a request.
Jenny nodded once, short, and turned quickly to leave the room. Lily and Hawk followed her.
Outside, Jenny halted and set one hand, palm resting on the wall, to hold herself up. “Damn him,” she muttered. There were tears in her eyes. Lily put an arm around her. Kyosti, mercifully, kept his thoughts to himself.
The interview lasted about ten minutes. Jenny did not speak the entire time, not even when the door opened and Jehane personally showed Gregori out, and then went back inside.
Gregori regarded his mother with a child’s solemnity. “Is he really my father?”
She nodded, still not trusting her voice.
“He’s nice. He invited me to visit him once the war is over.”
“Do you want to go?” Her voice was choked.
He shrugged, conveying his indifference with the gesture, but his eyes remained fixed on his mother, gauging her reaction. Her relief was obvious. He smiled and went to take her hand.
20 Gordion Knot
LILY SAID GOOD-BYE quickly to Jenny and Gregori, and Hawk, when they left for the Forlorn Hope, because to linger over farewells would have been too painful. In the three days before the fleet broke up to begin Jehane’s new offensive, she dreamed of Kyosti often.
Worst, when they did at last cast off from Tollgate system in their designated groups—the Forlorn Hope receiving her assignment far from the Boukephalos’s projected field of action—the first window they departed through brought her such a vivid, disquieting image of Kyosti that she could almost believe he had actually been with her.
And within the hour, she was ill. Quite ill. So bad that they admitted her to Medical and even let Bach stay with her, day and night.
She lapsed into delirium—could not gauge time—forgot the name of Boukephalos’s physician and the others who attended her sporadically; now and then surfaced enough to hear the physician telling a presence she thought must be Jehane, because his being there brought her at least partway back to consciousness, that it was either psychological strain or else some disease she had not seen before.
Lily was moved to a white, enclosed space. Only Bach’s singing remained constant.
Bach’s singing, the occasional glowing memory of a visit from Jehane, and the windows.
In every window she went through she saw Kyosti. For that instant, with piercing clarity, she felt his pale hands and recalled the coarse curling blue of his hair. Then the ship would come out of the window and for a few hours the delirium would fade and she would recover enough to understand that she was sick.
This occurred with such regularity that the physician once told the visiting Jehane, not aware that Lily was aware enough to listen, that she could only speculate that some unknown property of the windows
was curing comrade Heredes, and that if they had not been traveling so far and so fast along the highroad, they would have lost her.
Finally, the delirium faded and disappeared all together. Lily found herself lying on a stasis couch in a white isolation chamber in one corner of Medical. Bach floated at the foot of the couch, linked by one of his attachments to a terminal built into the wall. He seemed to be doing calculations. Lily lay quietly and did not bother him.
Almost immediately, the isolation unit door popped aside and the physician came in. She was outfitted entirely in quarantine gear, but Lily could still make out deep brown eyes in a broad, dark face beneath the clear mask. She stopped beside the couch and stared first at Lily and then at the readings on the couch’s monitor.
Her lips pursed tight, she took a blood sample from Lily and left as abruptly as she had come. An assistant came by, also outfitted in quarantine gear, and gave Lily a clear liquid to drink, seeming pleased by Lily’s hunger. By this time Bach had detached himself from the terminal and drifted up to wink lights happily about an arm’s length from Lily’s head.
Bach Lily whistled as soon as the assistant left. How long have I been sick?
Patroness, thou has been ill indeed. Even I have despaired of thy recovery. A full eighteen days, in the day periods designated by this fleet’s systems, have passed since thou didst fall ill.
She lifted a hand. It looked no different. Swinging her legs over the side of the couch, she sat up carefully. Her head seemed light, but sound. She stood up. Reeled and grabbed at the couch until she could balance herself. Then she waited a few moments.
