Downtime

by Cynthia Felice

  “It was Singh’s decision,” she said. “I think he was being cautious with half the Decemvirate in the bellies of his ships.”

  “Who’s bringing the other half, Commander Calla?” Macduhi asked. And when Calla looked at her blankly, she added, “The rest of the Decemvirate.”

  The room silenced. Calla had the good grace not to give D’Omaha a questioning glance. She answered directly. “They’re not coming.”

  “Didn’t you brief her?” Koh asked D’Omaha.

  “Why would an inactive decemvir be expected to brief an active one?” Macduhi asked pointedly.

  The moment was quite predictable in light of his conversation with Macduhi earlier in the day; it was to have been his moment of triumph. But it didn’t feel at all like D’Omaha thought it would at the time. Oh, Macduhi was painfully aware that everyone in the room knew something she didn’t know, but instead of feeling satisfaction, D’Omaha was only aware that Stairnon was looking at him with a puzzled frown and that, in a moment, when she pieced it all together, she would be disappointed in him. Koh had already figured it out and just stood drumming her fingers on the mantel.

  “Just where is the rest of your raider Praetorian guard, Commander Calla?” Macduhi said to the one person she knew would not dare to refuse her an answer.

  “Aboard Compania, falling off Mercury Novus orbit,” Calla replied promptly.

  “Well, that’s better use of them than shoveling snow off the walks at Aquae Solis, but not where they were ordered to be. Why have you disobeyed the Decemvirate’s orders?”

  “Prior orders,” Calla said, “which included publicly appearing to accept the Aquae Solis Honor Guard Command.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Decemvir D’Omaha’s.”

  “Praetor D’Omaha,” Macduhi corrected.

  “He was still Decemvir D’Omaha when he gave the order.”

  “And I suppose he also ordered you to provide transportation to only half the Decemvirate for this little gathering.”

  “Less than half. Originally you were excluded, too. But you couldn’t possibly be the traitor since you were not decemvir when the plot was discovered.” Macduhi blinked and raised her brow. Traitor? Calla nodded. “I let Koh include you at the last minute.”

  Macduhi looked from Calla to D’Omaha in disbelief.

  “Since when does the Honor Guard Commander tell a decemvir elder what to do?”

  “When she’s not merely decorating Aquae Solis with her presence these days, Raider Commander Calla is directing a special mission for the Decemvirate. She’s charged with identifying and stopping a traitor before he destroys the known worlds.”

  Macduhi put her empty mug on the mantel, turned away from the fireplace and crossed her arms over her chest, looking too angry to ask all the questions coming to mind.

  “Decemvir Macduhi, I owe you a briefing. Perhaps the others will excuse us for a while. Macduhi looked up to see Commander Calla gesture toward the table. Macduhi nodded, and the two of them went to sit down. As soon as they stepped onto the hearth rug, they were completely protected from being overheard.

  “You might have warned us,” Koh said to D’Omaha, her brown eyes unforgiving. “We still have to work with her.”

  “There wasn’t time,” D’Omaha said stiffly, “She can be impossible.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to knock the snow off the trees,” Stairnon said worriedly. “You had important things to do, and I made you go out to take care of the trees.”

  D’Omaha put his arm around her. She knew better. Nothing could have distracted him if he’d been determined. Koh knew it too, but she said nothing. She might well be wondering how she would deal with her replacement two years hence.

  D’Omaha watched the two women under the sound shield.

  Macduhi’s back was to him, but Calla had shoved the place setting at the head of the table aside to make room for her elbows. She seemed dwarfed by the big chair, but it was a mistake to think of Calla as being dwarfed by anything. She was counting off something to Macduhi on her fingers. It took all ten; it had to be all the warnings of war, right here in the Hub, perpetrated at least in part by Macduhi’s own homeworld, Dvalerth. Dvalerth had put down an insurgence on a colony world called Tagax Cassells, but they were Cassells now, not colonials. Along with Boscan Cassells, they’d formed a fleet that was at this very moment headed for Dvalerth, an old world Hub planet, not far in the spiral Arm from Mercury Novus, the world on which they were standing at this very moment.

  Macduhi shrugged, and D’Omaha could imagine that she was pointing out to Calla that war between Cassells and Dvalerth was a local matter. The Council of Worlds refused to consider it, which effectively kept the Decemvirate out of it, too. And Calla, of course, nodded patiently, then began talking again. Visibly Macduhi’s shoulders began to stiffen as Calla asked her to consider how far the Cassells-Dvalerth war would escalate when the Decemvirate made its decision regarding elixir reapportionment.

  Macduhi turned slightly in her chair and stared for a moment at D’Omaha. She was, no doubt, remembering that he had started to tell her that she had, indeed, been manipulated into not making a decision on elixir reapportionment. Now she knew the real reason. The other four active decemviri here at Aquae Solis had already decided, but were deliberately stalling for time before revealing their decision, trying to give Calla enough time to get into position to end what would be the war of wars. The only optimistic decemvir, Bentham, hoped she would stop the war before it ever started by revealing the traitor, a traitor who could only be decemvir.

  D’Omaha could stand it no longer. He excused himself from Koh and Bentham, whose conversation he wasn’t listening to anyhow, and went to the table.

  “War is inevitable by any probability tree you look at,” Calla was saying. “The Decemvirate can only hope to delay it for a while.”

  “But the traitor puts a new unknown into the probability trees,” Macduhi said, “and you’re counting on the traitor to scale it down. You don’t know how, but you’re going to risk everything on the chance that exposing the traitor will do it.”

  “No,” D’Omaha said sitting down opposite Macduhi. “The traitor is obviously entrenching for a long, long war. Otherwise he wouldn’t be establishing his own supply of elixir. It also tells us that he probably hasn’t yet aligned himself with either old worlds or new worlds.”

  “He? What makes you think it’s a man?”

  “I discovered what he was planning to do only because he made a procedural mistake that an elder decemvir would not have made. That limits our traitor to being one of the most recent five, who are all men. You had not yet been selected, so you, too, are above suspicion.”

  “How did the traitor err?”

  “It takes two decemviral seals to authorize a supply of elixir starter seed. Seydlitz Garden returned the authorization with a note that apologized for having to delay shipping the seeds until the second seal was affixed. It was just luck that our traitor hadn’t drawn the short straw for doing the stacks that day. By tracing the requisition, we finally matched the ultimate destination to a research center we’d authorized equally blindly. Actually it was an expansion of a minor post already in existence. The request originated with the ranger-governor; it was fairly routine, definitely legitimate in its original form. But the expansion was greatly enhanced after the original approval, and again the seal quite authentic.”

  “But the seals are unique. You must have recognized the traitor’s.”

  “Now the seals are unique. Until that moment it was expedient for them to be identical. One decemvir could act for the entire body on minor matters. A traitor in our midst was inconceivable.”

  “And you, D’Omaha, never let on to me that you had discovered the traitor’s plan for establishing a source,” Macduhi said. “You let me think . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” D’Omaha said hastily. What she’d thought had gone beyond the predictions, and had somehow b
een more painful for him than predicted, too.

  “Still, I owe you an apology.”

  “And I, you,” he said. “We did manipulate you.”

  She nodded, face impassive, then turned back to Calla.

  “And you’re going to this obscure downtime world, Mutare, to establish the traitor’s elixir supply. Then you wait for him to come and spring the trap.”

  “Something like that,” Calla said.

  “What makes you so sure he’ll go to Mutare?”

  “He can’t afford not to. He has to be certain of his elixir supply before he permits the war to escalate. There’s no way to do that except by going. He can’t very well have messages coming back to the Decemvirate; he can’t guarantee that he’ll be reviewing the stacks when they arrive, and messages regarding elixir production don’t fail to get our attention. He will go to Mutare himself to determine if yields are satisfactory.”

  “And he does that by not permitting the Decemvirate to come to a decision over the elixir redistribution.” Macduhi sat back in her chair looking pale. “How did you know it was not me? I’m the latest stumbling block, aren’t I?”

  D’Omaha nodded. “I told you that you were above suspicion. As for delaying the decision, we’ve all had a turn. I . . . guess you were too angry to notice how quickly we adjourned for the winter. No discussion, no attempt to dissuade. It was prearranged. Had you failed us, Bentham was prepared to whine about due representation for the new worlds, and Koh would have declared recess out of desperation.”

  Macduhi pursed her lips thoughtfully. “You know, we just might smoke out the traitor here, Calla. When the Decemvirate officially reconvenes, we could all forestall another winter recess. The traitor would be in a position of needing recess to have time to go to this Mutare planet and return, yet would have to be certain no decision was made until after that recess. He’d get desperate, perhaps reveal himself.”

  “I’d be very glad to learn my mission was in vain,” Calla said. She smiled for the first time. “There are five other decemviri. We believe four of them are innocent, and each of the four could have just reasons for not wanting the recess.”

  Macduhi smiled, too. “I didn’t say it would be easy, just possible. At least you’ve cut down the odds by having my cooperation.”

  “Koh pointed that out.”

  “You didn’t agree?”

  “For my mission, the fewer who know, the better. For hers . . .” Calla shrugged. “It was a tradeoff.”

  “Koh’s very persuasive,” D’Omaha said.

  Calla shook her head. “She didn’t convince me. She bribed me with an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you at dinner. The others don’t know either.” Calla pushed back her chair and stood up. “I imagine we’ve delayed Stairnon’s dinner long enough. I’ll let her know we can begin.”

  When Calla had stepped out of the sound shield, Macduhi turned to D’Omaha. “This must be the first time the Decemvirate is not acting as a unanimous body,” she said.

  D’Omaha closed his eyes. “Unique decemvir seals, secret meetings of decemviri who are nothing more than self-appointed patriots, deliberate deception of our peers, manipulating the innocent. We have not even told our own imperator general what we are doing. We’ve taken one of his subordinates into our confidence and excluded Mahdi.” D’Omaha opened one eye. “Pray the Timekeeper we’re never found out. Our benevolent little subterfuge is indistinguishable from high treason.”

  “Highly irregular,” Macduhi said thoughtfully. “But the better to foul the traitor’s probability trees, don’t you think?”

  “Only if we’re right.”

  “Your selection of Commander Calla was right. She’s a wily old woman. And the alternative to this subterfuge is the billions of lives you were talking about this afternoon. I’m not ready to condemn them.”

  “You’re learning, Macduhi,” D’Omaha said. “You’re learning.”

  ***

  Neither Calla nor Koh disturbed Stairnon’s fine meal with any hint of business. But the moment the last of the silverberry compote had been consumed, Macduhi pulled the silk nap from her lap and turned to Calla. “Commander, you mentioned a change in plans.”

  “Not a change so much as an enhancement,” Calla said, folding her own nap into a neat square. “Marmion here has been studying all the available data on the successful elixir gardens. As chief of the perfection engineers it will be his job on Mutare to ensure the success of the new elixir garden. It’s tricky, as you well know, to get good yields. He tells me we’ll improve our chances if there’s a decemvir sharing the responsibility with, him. The data shows the best yields are from the gardens with retired decemvir running them. I want D’Omaha to come to Mutare.”

  “Me?” D’Omaha said, startled.

  “But we’re your cover here at Aquae Solis,” Stairnon protested. “It’s D’Omaha and I who must make certain your absence isn’t discovered.”

  “I believe you can manage alone, Stairnon. I have the utmost confidence in you,” Calla said quietly.

  “I don’t think we have to tell either of you how important this is,” Koh added, “and that we wouldn’t ask you, D’Omaha, if there were any other way. An elixir garden with low yield won’t hold much attraction for our traitor. We’ve given Calla absolute authority for stopping the traitor; she thinks you can help and I agree with her. We’ve gone too far to refuse her now.”

  Macduhi was looking at him expectantly, no doubt eager to have him out of her way at last. He looked away from her, away from all of them to stare at the frozen falls. Snowflakes were coming down again, melting on contact with the transparent wall. Lives like Stairnon’s were so ephemeral. He’d be downtime, time dilation favoring him in relation to her, and he’d be taking elixir, as well. He might just as well be frozen in time while Stairnon . . .

  D’Omaha shook his head. “I could be gone for years,” he said. He looked at Stairnon, her expression stoic, though she must know it would be too many years for her. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. “I must . . .”

  “. . . do it, of course,” Stairnon broke in. “And of course I must go with you.”

  “We’ve been friends for too long for me to mince words with you,” Calla said to Stairnon. “It’s an outback, downtime world that isn’t even a frontier world. Nothing but a few hundred rangers. They live in caves, have to use stellerators to go outside. It’s much too harsh for you.”

  “Nonsense. If they’re a ranger station, they have a full clinic. I will go with D’Omaha.”

  “But my dear Stairnon,” Bentham said. “What of the subterfuge here? We do need you. We’re counting on that steel you hide under your mild demeanor.”

  Stairnon’s voice became gentle. The effect was to still everyone and her words came across with unmistakable clarity. “Please understand that I’m going with D’Omaha. There’s no good reason for me not to go, at least, there won’t be once there is no longer an Aquae Solis to draw attention.”

  The decemviri were visibly shocked. Only Calla nodded thoughtfully. D’Omaha knew all of them realized they couldn’t simply close down Aquae Solis. Stairnon knew it, too. No one said what was really on their minds, but all of them looked at Marmion, chief of the perfection engineers, to see if it could be done. Marmion sighed and nodded.

  Only Macduhi looked pleased. She wouldn’t miss Aquae Solis, nor D’Omaha and Stairnon. “I’m curious about your plans for the rangers on Mutare,” she said to Calla. “Will you take over the governorship?”

  Calla shook her head. “I won’t have time to run the planet. There will be too much else to do. I’ll leave the ranger governor in charge.”

  “There’s a great deal of potential conflict in that,” Macduhi said. “A ranger-governor is the supreme authority.”

  Calla just smiled. “I outrank him.”

  “But not . . .”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, Decemvir Macduhi,
but I’ve been given complete authority to run the operation my way. I have my superiors’ absolute confidence.” She gestured to the decemviri at the table. “They have given me their complete cooperation in organizing the mission in a very short period of time. As much as possible, I’ve briefed Koh. There isn’t time to go through another entire briefing before I must leave.”

  “I respect their confidence, but I’m not sure I share it. There’s the matter of this downtime ranger-governor. Evaluations can’t be very current; he might be a problem.”

  “Not to me. I knew Anwar Jason D’Estelle quite well.”

  “Really?” D’Omaha said. It was news to him.

  “Really,” Calla said, her accompanying look cutting off further questions, at least for now. D’Omaha instantly decided to read this Anwar Jason D’Estelle’s personnel records thoroughly, and Calla’s, too. “Have no doubt of my ability to deal with him and anything else quite effectively.”

  But Macduhi persisted. “I know your military record, but absolute power in this matter seems extreme to me.”

  “Then take comfort in knowing that I’ll be there, too,” D’Omaha said.

  “To assist and advise, but I’m in charge,” Calla said flatly. D’Omaha thought Calla had gone too far, for even Bentham was frowning.

  Calla reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a scarlet jelly bean. “You gave me this. It’s your authority to act in your name. You gave it to me because you know I’m the best commander for this work. I cannot be bribed by elixir. Not even your imperator general is so immune.” She chuckled almost involuntarily over her choice of words. “You leave me in charge, or find someone else.”

  “An eleventh hour threat is . . .”

  “It’s not a threat, Koh. It’s the way it is. I knew the question would come up when I asked for D’Omaha. And I knew what the answer had to be to keep the probability in favor of success. And you know I’m right. I direct this operation entirely. D’Omaha assists.”