Downtime

by Cynthia Felice

  D’Omaha sat back in his chair, looking thoughtful. “We have been friends for a very long time, Commander Calla. But I cannot lie for you. I told you two years ago and I repeat now, the traitor is decemvir. Only one of the Decemvirate could have authorized this establishment of an elixir fabrication facility on Mutare. Mahdi is not decemvir.”

  “As I am not,” Calla said coldly. “But Mahdi’s known now to have an active decemvir onboard his flagship, one Larz Frennz Marechal, who is new enough to the Decemvirate not to have known about the dual-approval requirement for elixir starter seed. So now we know how the traitor could simply use a decemvir, yet not be one himself. The predictions, and even the error, were all within the realm of probability. Despite popular belief to the contrary, Decemvirate probability models are not always correct in minute detail. If you correct the model to account for Marechal, you’ll find you’re back on track.” Calla sat back for a moment and watched the others watch D’Omaha shake his head sadly. “Of course,” she added, “if you do throw me into the probability model for this galactic caper, I don’t fit badly either. After all, I do have you, Decemvir D’Omaha.”

  D’Omaha looked at her sharply. “But I don’t fit, Commander, because I was completely aware of the dual-approval requirement. It was I who alerted Koh and the others to the traitor’s scheme.”

  “Well, good,” Calla said. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now let’s get back to the business of defending this facility during the siege. Mahdi’s coming, probably within hours, and I want to go over the defenses. He won’t risk heavy bombardment of any kind; he knows that if he does that he’ll destroy all the elixir and the facility. But if we’re not careful, he’ll find a weak spot and storm the gates. We can’t expect much help from Compania. There’s only three raiders left plus the one on the ground. First thing I want you to do, Jason, is to pull those cannons inside. It’s a gallant gesture, but with Mahdi’s rather extensive armory and equipment, they’ll be spotted on the first shot, destroyed before they get off the second. No sense in sacrificing lives when they can stay inside and wait with the rest of us.”

  Jason shook his head. “They are inside, Commander. We have hundreds of reflecting devices set up in the mountains. All they’ll blow up is mirrors.”

  Calla nodded approvingly. “You’ve been busy.”

  “For years,” Jason said, smiling slightly for the first time. “I believe you’ll find our fortifications are all in order. Marmion, why don’t you put in that jelly bean and show Commander Calla what we’ve done?”

  For the next two hours, Calla watched the holo-stage and flatscreen, absorbing the minute details of the underground citadel’s defenses, and she felt growing satisfaction as she saw every possible loop closed. There were even holding tanks for acids and solvents now so that if the drains were sabotaged the facility had alternatives.

  “Any more questions, Commander Calla?” Marmion said at last.

  “Not now,” Calla said. “Dismissed.” As the officers and D’Omaha started to rise, she turned to Jason. “Governor. Would you please issue a dose of elixir to everyone in Red Rocks and Round House. That includes civilians . . . Arria and Stairnon, and any miners you have inside. Here,” she said casually pulling a green jelly bean from her breast pocket, “is the authorization to do so from the Decemvirate. It’s a full-life entitlement, prepayment so to speak for saving elixir for the entire galactic Arm.”

  “Then they did know . . .” Marmion started to say. “Would you like me to verify that it’s genuine?”

  Silently Jason slipped the jelly bean into the slot on the conference table. Verification came up on the flatscreen, reverification on the holo-stage. He pulled it out and put it in his own pocket, staring at D’Omaha all the while. The Praetor’s face was flushed as he filed out the room with the others.

  “I’m going to my quarters to rest,” she said to Jason. “Contact me there if you need me.”

  But he closed the door before she could reach it, shutting out the rest of the world for a moment.

  “Did the Decemvirate really know you were going to put a little twist on the proverbial fisherman and destroy all the elixir plants instead of steal them while the water birds fought?”

  Calla shook her head and sank tiredly back in her chair. “No,” she said. “It was a precaution I took in demanding it. They gave me such broad powers . . . if things went badly, and they did, there would be no other way to prove that I was acting under orders, no way even for them to change them. At least, not in time.”

  “You could still hang,” Jason said. “Mahdi first, but with all the elixir in the galaxy gone except for what’s here . . . Not even the Decemvirate will be particularly understanding.”

  “At least they’ll be free to hang me if they choose to,” she said.

  “You really mean that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t changed much in thirty-two years, Calla. It’s the Dovian ideal, that . . . craving for personal freedom, applied to the very people who turned Dovia into Timekeeper’s hell.”

  “I just don’t want any more Dovias, no more dictators, tyrants, revenge.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, fisherman. You must be very tired of playing god. Let’s go down the hall to my quarters and I’ll rub your neck for you.”

  Calla looked at him quizzically. “I thought you said you wouldn’t wait?”

  Jason shrugged. “I lied to get you to stay. I knew you couldn’t and wouldn’t stay, but I had to lie to convince you I meant it. It’s no different from when you lied when I left Mercury Novus.”

  “I said nothing to you.”

  “And that was a lie. I couldn’t have stayed, and you knew it. But I wasn’t as strong as you are. I would have stayed if you had asked.”

  She nodded, remembering and knowing it was true. She had always had some power over him that manifested itself in behavior changes he would not have made on his own. But it didn’t work that way in reverse; it never had. But now, she realized, they both knew that the differences had nothing to do with how much they loved each other.

  Calla put her cheek against his hand. “I love you, Jason.”

  Chapter 23

  Mahdi’s eyes were focused on the navigator. “Not too quickly, my dear Roma. Not to become overanxious now, not after waiting so long. Give time for me get in position. You’ll have it soon enough.”

  Roma frowned and touched the holo-stage controls again. “I think they’re playing the same game. I should have their image in focus now, but there’s nothing there. I think they’ve deliberately interrupted the beam.”

  “Equipment failures,” Mahdi muttered. “Timekeeper knows they’ve precious little of it. You would think they’d keep it in good order. I hope they’re not doing as poorly with the fab.” He shook his head. The very last one. But she wouldn’t destroy it any more than he would, of that much he was sure.

  “It’s probably deliberate,” Frennz said from the far side of the dais. “She must be prepared for siege, and the longer she can delay its beginning, the more time she provides for the Council of Worlds to come to her rescue.”

  “Minutes, hours, they mean nothing,” Mahdi said. “The Council will not be here for weeks, and by then it will be too late.”

  Frennz smiled. He was a small man with large brown eyes and sallow skin that even double doses of elixir had not rosied. “Gold Commander Calla cannot know that,” Frennz said. “She’s increasing her odds as much as she can. Time is the only factor that can work in her favor.”

  The decemvir bored him. Frennz insisted on repeating what Mahdi could see for himself in the probability model. The decemvir was, he decided, an affront he would have to do away with, just as soon as he could be replaced. Quite soon. “Roma, are they receiving?”

  “If you choose to send, sir, they are receiving.”

  “I do so choose. Turn it on.” He watched Roma work the comm, and then she nodded to him. “Calla, hag of Dovia, “
he said. “I know you can hear me. Don’t risk making me more angry than I already am. Surrender now or . . . “

  “By the power vested in me by the Decemvirate, I order you to lay down your arms and surrender.” It was Calla’s unmistakable voice.

  “Don’t play with me, you wretched excuse for a woman. You are trapped and you know it. Give up now, and I’ll spare your miserable life.”

  “This is,” Frennz said with his infuriating smile, “of course . . .”

  “Predictable,” Mahdi said. “Yes, I know. Roma, bring in that signal.”

  “There’s nothing to . . . ah, here it is.”

  And then Mahdi saw his opponent for the first time in thirteen months of battle. Her ridiculous mop of hair came into focus first, then the crimson facings and cape of her full-dress uniform. He had expected her to fill the stage, just as his own imposing image would be filling hers. But she was nothing more than a tiny doll in the foreground of some kind of scaffold structure. “What’s that?” Mahdi said.

  Frennz stepped up to the stage, walked around, chin in hand, giving the matter deep thought. “It’s a gallows,” he said finally. “A rather impressive one. She’s only been down there four hours. It took a lot longer than that to build.”

  Mahdi stared, feeling the adrenaline beginning to flow for the first time since this war began. She had tricked him. She had planned this from the very beginning. She had lured him to this very spot.

  “I’ll get you,” he screamed. “You think you know it all, but you don’t. I will have your head. I will tear you apart. I will murder you. All of you will die. Don’t look at me like that, you miserable bitch.” All the anger he felt poured out of him. Oh, he would make her beg. She would plead for death, and still that would not be enough to satisfy him for this affront. “You think you’re so smart. You think you have it all figured out. Well, you don’t. Bitch!”

  Chapter 24

  For the second time that day, Jason was watching Calla sleep. He wondered how she could after Mahdi’s fearful display. The man must be mad. Someone in his ship had cut him off, but not before everyone in the citadel had seen his eyes bulging with hate, his skin gone nearly purple, and spittle flying from his mouth with every word. Mahdi’s violent display had had a subduing effect on everyone except Calla. Just as soon as she had confirmed that the signal was gone, she had returned to Jason’s quarters and to bed. That she slept fully clothed was no special concession to Mahdi, just normal practice in battle.

  “Civilian Arria Jinn requests entrance,” the comm said in a soft whisper.

  “Let her in,” Jason said, equally softly. He looked at the entranceway in curiosity. Arria never came to his rooms.

  She stepped in, glancing first at the bed.

  “She’s sleeping,” he said. “We won’t disturb her as long as we’re quiet. She can take rest at will. Always could.”

  Arria looked doubtful, but she said nothing. She came over to the desk where Jason was sitting and placed a vial of amber on the desk. “Your elixir. You’ll have to sign for it.” She handed him the bill-of-fare plate.

  He hesitated. He wasn’t certain he wanted the elixir. Calla had been gone for two years, aging only months in the process, being on the right side of the Timekeeper’s spiral for a change. It cut down the gap that she could never quite put aside. He wasn’t sure he wanted to increase it again. But he pressed his thumb against the plate anyhow, because he didn’t want to explain anything to Arria.

  “You’ll be able to go back to the Hub soon,” he said to her.

  “And you?” she said, her rainwater eyes resting easily on him.

  He shoved the vial of elixir into the drawer of his desk. “I don’t know yet.” He really did not. Calla might be hailed as a hero, or condemned as a traitor more detestable than Mahdi himself. He would be forced to protect himself from merely living in the shadow of her glory in the first case, and want to protect her in the second. He knew that he probably was not capable of succeeding in either. It was very odd to realize that he hoped that the siege would go on for a long time. He realized that Arria was looking at him strangely. “Trying to read my mind again?”

  She blushed, took the bill-of-fare from his hand, and left the room. Jason shook his head as the door slid shut behind her. He knew that she had not been especially happy these last two years, and that he was in part responsible. But he couldn’t help believing that he would just make things worse for her, and for himself, he admitted, if he encouraged her love. With Calla back, he knew he had made the right decision.

  “Jason?”

  “Calla, you’re awake.”

  “Jason, take the elixir.”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t need it.”

  Calla swung her legs over the side of the bed. “Take it, Jason. Take it or I will.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I know. But if you don’t, I will anyway.”

  “That’s melodramatic blackmail,” he said.

  “I know. But your not taking it is kind of sick, too. Please take it. I’m too young to die.”

  “Too mean to die,” he said, reaching into the desk for the vial. He stared at it a moment, then tossed it to her. She caught it deftly, got up and went over to the desk and set it down.

  “You’ll take it when you’re ready,” she said.

  He caught her around the waist and pulled her down to his lap, wanting to hold her for a while and to feel her arms around him. But it was not to be.

  “Timekeeper’s hell,” she said, leaping to her feet to lean over the desk and stare through the window at the scene spreading below them in the staging area. A full platoon of Praetorian troopers had already poured from the tunnel to Red Rocks, lasers cutting down the rangers before they could draw their weapons.

  “There’s no way . . .” Jason started to say, but obviously there was. And just as obvious was that Red Rocks must have fallen already. He grabbed his holster and slung it over his shoulder, tossed Calla’s to her. “Open,” he shouted to the door. He peered out cautiously; there was no one except Arria far down the hall.

  “The alarm doesn’t work,” Calla said coming up behind him. “Can we get out?”

  Arria had turned just as Jason was about to shout. She hadn’t gotten as far as the balcony, couldn’t have seen what was going on below, but now she was running in fear. She stopped at a door and pounded a few times, and in a moment Marmion was following her down the hall.

  “We’re done for,” Marmion said, already breathless. “We can’t get out from up here.”

  “The sewers,” Jason said. “They’re big enough to crawl in.”

  “Lead the way,” Marmion said.

  Jason started running down the hall, calling to Arria as he went. “Is there anyone else up here?”

  “No,” she said, half wailing. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. I should have known.” She seemed terrified, and Jason wondered what kind of thoughts she might be picking up now.

  There were guardsmen coming into the corridor now, but Marmion and Calla were quick to shoot and the guardsmen were ducking back. By this time the attackers must have realized how successful they had been, and they would risk little for a few odd stragglers when they had hundreds dead or secure below. They stayed back long enough for Jason to open the vent in the back of a storage room. “It’s about fifteen meters down,” Jason said. “Then a long crawl.”

  “How long?” Calla said.

  “A few kilometers.”

  She shook her head as if to indicate that she couldn’t make it, but said simply, “I’ll go last.”

  Marmion was already in the hole, climbing down the ladder rungs. Arria followed, and Jason followed her. He didn’t go far until he saw that Calla was coming, too. He wouldn’t leave her behind.

  Below, the sewer wasn’t even crawl-space high. They scraped their backs and heads on the rough-carved ceiling, and their hands and legs quickly became numb with cold.

  “They’ll be waiting for us a
t the other end,” Marmion said.

  “There’s a natural cave where the rock turns to limestone,” Jason said. “The opening is up. We can get out through there. They won’t know about it. It’s not in any of the surveys.”

  “How far?” Marmion said. “And does anyone have a lamp?”

  “Half a klick,” Jason said, “and we can use our handguns on low, if we have to.”

  “If we can stay out of each other’s way, you mean. Third degree burns kill just as thoroughly as char-holes.”

  “We’ll just have to be careful until you come up with a better idea,” Jason said. “Calla, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “She has hurt her knee,” Arria said. “She thinks it must be bleeding.”

  Jason cursed. It couldn’t be an arterial wound or she would have collapsed by now, but the exposure to the filth in the sewers might be just as deadly for Calla. He reached forward and patted Arria’s rump to let her know he appreciated the information.

  They crawled, seemingly forever, and Jason was beginning to think they had passed the cave opening without detecting it. “Keep your back arched, Marmion,” he said.

  “No skin left on it now,” the engineer said.

  “There should be a breeze,” Jason said. “The cave breathes, and we should feel a breeze.”

  “Then why do you want me to keep my back up?”

  “Because it’s a shallow breather. We’ll be going through some dead pockets . . . if we can find it.”

  Jason bumped into Arria as she slowed down. “I feel it,” she said. “I can feel a bit of breeze.”

  “Yes,” Marmion said. “I’ve found it. Hold up a second while I take a look.”

  He heard Marmion’s boots scrape against the rock, and saw light come streaming down from the hole. In reality, the glow of the handgun on very low power didn’t give off as much light as a candle, but it seemed very bright in comparison to the absolute blackness.