by Grant, Peter
“No. Parking here’s too much trouble, so I took a robocab.”
“Then let’s take another one! The sooner we get some privacy, the sooner I can answer your lovely message!”
He felt a thrill of excitement. She’d hardly call it a ‘lovely’ message if she planned to reject his proposal.
He retrieved her suitcase, and led her past the entrance to the underground mag-lev commuter station and up the escalators to the nearest exit. There was a line of people at the robocab rank, sheltering from a light rain beneath a long translucent awning. They waited in silence, holding tightly to each other, until those before them had taken vehicles. As the next cab pulled up, Steve loaded her case into the luggage compartment, then joined her in the passenger section.
“What is your destination, please?” The autopilot had a friendly feminine voice.
Steve gave his address, which the autopilot confirmed by showing it on a map display in front of them, and waved his credit chip over a reader.
“Approved. Would you like conversation or music while we drive?”
“Privacy, please.”
“Privacy noted. We are departing now.”
The robocab immediately darkened the windows, preventing others from looking inside. The autopilot waited for a gap in the traffic, then pulled smoothly out of the rank onto the road. Abha snuggled into Steve’s arms for another endless kiss that left both of them aching and eager for more.
“You made me cry,” she murmured, looking up at him, the light in her eyes so bright it awed him.
“I’m sorry – how?”
“Silly! They were happy tears, not sad ones. If you pour your heart out like that in a message, you can’t expect me to get it without reacting. You said something I hadn’t been able to put into words for myself until then. I heard about my medal before I got your message, and like you, it didn’t do much for me. It should have – everyone was congratulating me and being very nice – but I was getting more and more irritated. Even the thought of our prize money wasn’t doing anything for me anymore. It didn’t make sense, until you said that you didn’t want the medal, or the prize money, or anything else – you wanted me. That’s when I knew I wanted you in exactly the same way. You’re the most important thing in my life now. Everything and everyone else comes second.” She fell silent for a moment, looking deep into his eyes. “That’s scary, you know. I’ve never felt that way about anyone before.”
He nodded. “It scared me too. I was afraid to tell you how I was feeling. I mean… we had a few dates before I left Lancaster, and a few more snatched evenings of privacy together on Rolla. It made no sense at all to be this head-over-heels in love with you after so little time together, but I am. I couldn’t deny it to myself any longer. I was scared I’d drive you away by speaking too soon, but I figured I had to be honest with you.”
She nestled her head on his shoulder. “I needed to hear it from you before I could realize what I was feeling; but now I know I’m just as much in love with you as you are with me. I liked what you said about having a hole in your life shaped like me. I had one shaped like you, too, but you filled it even before I realized it was there.” She reached up to his lips with hers and kissed him again.
As they reluctantly drew apart to breathe, he said softly, “I was hoping you’d say something like that. So… will you marry me?”
“Of course I will! There’s no way I’m going to let you get away from me!” She kissed him again. “I do have a couple of questions. Can you handle a wife who’s going to spend the best part of a decade studying very hard, including internships at hospital that will disrupt her time at home very badly? After that, in practice or as a resident, I’ll be working just as hard. Pod gestation means we can have a family easily enough – and I want to bear your children! – but we’ll have to hire professional help to look after our kids while I study and work. Can you cope with that?”
“I can deal with that, if you can deal with a husband who’s an active-service officer. I’ll have two-year commissions aboard ships, far from home, interspersed with administrative and training assignments planetside. Will you be able to do without me for that long?”
“I think so. After all, I’m a serving officer myself, and expected to be one for many years to come, until this prize money windfall made medical studies possible for me. I always thought I’d have to find a husband who wouldn’t mind me being away from home for two-year assignments. I figured I’d have to marry another Fleet officer, because he’d understand that, and we could bear with each other’s absences.” She hesitated a moment. “That’s another point. I love you dearly, but… we’re both leaders, both strong people. Can we get along together without one of us trying to rule the roost and boss the other around?”
“We haven’t had that problem yet, have we?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll just have to work at it – make sure we find ways and means to get along. Sure, there may be friction now and then, but if we each put the other person first, and leave our pride out of the equation, we’ll work it out.”
She smiled mischievously, eyes twinkling. “I can think of one very good way to deal with friction. It involves a different kind of friction.”
He tried to look innocent. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t!” She tickled his ribs, and he squeaked as he jerked upright.
All too soon, it seemed – although the journey from the Terminal to Steve’s apartment had taken forty minutes – the robocab announced, “We are arriving at your destination.” It pulled into a taxi space at the roadside. Steve unloaded Abha’s suitcase, then they walked into the lobby hand-in-hand and took the elevator to his apartment.
Abha looked around his living-room. “This is nice – and so clean!” She grinned at him. “Anyone would think you’ve been trying to get it ready for a special guest.”
He blushed. “Er… yeah, you might say that. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No, silly!” She glided closer and slid into his embrace, pressing herself tightly against him.
He held her close. “The ancient marriage vow went, ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow’. I haven’t bought you the ring yet, but all the rest is a given. As far as I’m concerned, we’re married as of now, darling – and this is the start of our honeymoon.”
“And that goes for me, too – so what are we waiting for?”
~ ~ ~
They didn’t leave the apartment for two days. They ignored messages on their comm units, left their mail queues untended, and shut out the entire world, lost in each other. They loved, talked, showered, ate, and loved again.
At last, late on the second afternoon, he said reluctantly, “I guess we’ve got to get back to reality, if only because we’re running out of fresh food!”
She giggled. “That’s your fault. You should have provided more emergency rations!”
“Oh, I have some, but they taste like what they are – emergency rations, not real food. Care to come shopping with me? There’s a fine foods store down the road. I prefer going there to ordering a delivery.”
“You mean I’ve got to put clothes on?”
“Well, I think you’re utterly beautiful naked, but I’d rather keep you to myself when you’re like that. Besides, it might shock the neighbors.”
She stuck out her tongue at him, and he tickled her… which led to another mutually enjoyable interlude before they showered – again – and put on casual clothes.
As he was about to open the door, she stopped him, nestling into his arms. “You’re scaring me again, making me feel like this,” she said softly, looking up at him. “I don’t want to go out, because that means I have to share you with other people. I want you all to myself.”
He choked up as he hugged her. “I… I don’t know what to say, except that I feel that way about you, too.”
She nodded. “We haven’t spoken of any sort of ceremony yet. I was raised as a Hindu, although I don’t practice it much. Losing my parents like that, and everything that followed, made me think nasty thoughts about anything or anyone ‘up there’. Besides, there aren’t many temples near the military bases where I’ve lived. Still, I’d like to have a Hindu ceremony to honor my parents and my roots. That’s important in our culture. Do you have a religious ritual you’d like to observe?”
“My parents were Reformed Catholic, and I was raised in a Church orphanage, but I haven’t practiced it in years. I’m not sure there’s any reality to religion, but I’m not sure there isn’t, either! We’ll sign the usual legal contract, of course, but over and above that, I’ll do whatever you want, darling.”
“Thanks. I think we should have a Christian ceremony, too, for your parents’ sake. If I’m going to honor the tradition in which I was raised, you should, too – and we probably need to think about how we want to handle that side of our lives together. I’d like to have some sort of formal ceremony as soon as possible, to mark the change for both of us. Brooks and the instructors will be here next week. Do you think we could hold a military wedding after they all get back from leave?”
“We’ll have a week together preparing for the next part of the mission before we leave for Rolla. I’ll see if a chaplain is available through the Service Corps during that time – perhaps two of them, one Hindu, one Christian. I’d like Brooks to be my best man.”
“Of course. I’m going to ask Carol to be my bridesmaid. Other than her and a few Marine friends, I don’t have anyone I really want to invite. And you?”
“Just a few people – maybe a dozen, all told. We’ll make it small and intimate. By the way, I found a very good jeweler’s shop in town while I was waiting for you to arrive. May I take you there tomorrow? I want you to have a really nice engagement ring, even if you won’t be able to wear it in uniform.”
“Thanks, darling. I’d love one – and I’ll wear it, even in uniform. I’ll get a chain to go with it, a long one, so I can hang it between my breasts under my uniform shirt.”
~ ~ ~
Later that night he took an object from his safe, wrapped in a linen cloth. He brought it back to the sofa and sat down next to Abha.
“It’s time I told you about something that’s been a burden to me for more than a decade. I can’t stress too strongly that this is utterly secret, strictly between the two of us. No-one else in the world knows I have this, and no-one else must ever learn about it. It’s literally a matter of life or death. I need you to know about it before we’re married, in case it makes you hesitate.”
She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “It sounds terribly ominous. What is it?”
“Take a look, then I’ll tell you about it.” He handed her the package.
She turned back the folds of cloth, revealing a wooden knife scabbard from which rose a stone hilt. Frowning, she drew the knife.
“The whole thing’s made of stone, even the blade.”
“Yes. That’s white jade, the sort they call ‘mutton-fat’ jade.”
She turned the knife over and over in her hands, examining it closely. “This is obviously for decoration rather than use – it’s pretty blunt. It looks very old, too. There are nicks out of the edge of the blade, and several cracks. This one runs more than halfway up the blade from the edge. It must be quite fragile.”
“Right on all counts. It’s a ceremonial knife. It’s also extremely valuable. The last I heard, there was a reward offered for it of ten thousand taels in gold - that’s about twelve and a half million Lancastrian Commonwealth credits. The reward may be higher by now.”
She gasped. “That’s incredible! Why don’t you hand it over and claim the reward?”
“Because to do so in the wrong way would be an instant death sentence for me. It’s a hell of a story. Let me start at the beginning.”
He began with the legend of Lei Sik Hoi, one of the Five Founders of the original Triads, criminal gangs in pre-space-age China. “According to tradition, he owned this knife. It’s said to have been passed down among his spiritual – not to mention criminal – descendants as a symbol of authority. It vanished during the mid-twentieth century, and ever since then every Triad and Tong has been looking for it.”
“What’s a Triad, or a Tong?” she asked, fascinated.
“Tongs started out as social and self-help cultural societies, unlike the Triads which were criminal organizations – gangs, if you like – from the get-go. A lot of the Tongs ended up as criminal organizations too, either because the Triads infiltrated them, or because their members joined both organizations.”
He described the two encounters with thugs of the Lotus Tong on Earth’s Cargo Terminal that had brought the knife into his hands. “I didn’t know what it was at the time. I simply searched the man carrying it, disarmed him, and tucked it into my belt. It was Bosun Vince Cardle who told me more about the Tongs and Triads, recognized the stone as jade, and advised me to find out more about it. He took me to see a jade dealer on Vesta, telling him the knife was his, in case of complications. It was a good thing he did, because the dealer identified it at once. He wanted the Bosun to apply for a reward that was being offered for it. Vince refused, and later told me to hide it somewhere secret, for fear that the dealer might talk about us. If the Tongs and Triads found out I had it, they’d all come after it at once, and they wouldn’t be particular how they got it from me.”
She shivered. “I don’t know much about them, but that sounds like an incredibly dangerous situation! Why didn’t he just tell you to get rid of it or destroy it? If they never found it, they wouldn’t be able to associate you with it.”
“We thought about that; but if word got out that he’d claimed to have it, and that I’d been there when he did so, there would have been questions asked. There were, later – I’ll come to that. He reckoned the best thing to do was to keep it out of sight while we tried to figure out how to get rid of it at minimum risk to ourselves. Unfortunately, a few months later he was killed in a fight with de Bouff’s pirates. That left me holding the baby, so to speak.”
He described how the jade dealer had been unable to resist temptation, and had sent a message to the contact address on the reward flyer, trying to obtain part of it in return for telling them about his meeting with Bosun Cardle. It had proved to be offered by the Crane Triad, which had sent investigators to try to torture the information out of him. They’d miscalculated, and killed him instead. They’d then looked for Vince, only to learn of his death. That had set them after Steve, posing as police officers, to see whether he knew anything. He’d drawn on his past contacts with the Dragon Tong to approach its Vesta branch, asking for assistance to deal with the fake cops.
“The Dragon Tong’s the most powerful, most feared criminal organization of its kind in the settled galaxy. They came through for me, and dealt with the investigators and the thugs they’d hired to help them kidnap me. In return for their help, I spun them a yarn about helping them locate the knife by tracing and approaching Vince’s friends. I had to buy time, first to get away from Vesta where questions were more likely to be asked, and then to establish a convincing back trail to ‘prove’ to them that I’ve been working hard on their behalf. I needed an unshakeable cover story to explain how I’d been able to ‘find’ the knife in due course.”
“But haven’t they pressed you for more information, or wanted you to hurry up?”
Steve grimaced. “They sure have! I’ve been stalling them for almost a decade, reporting to them annually about my ‘progress’. Early last year I told them I’d traced the knife to one of Vince’s friends, who’d buried it on a remote planet out of fear of the consequences of it being traced. I promised I’d try to obtain it from him. I plan to wait until my next regular shipboard assignment, then use that as a cover story to explain how I met up with him and recovered the knife. I can then hand it over to the Tong, an
d get this monkey off my back at last.
“I’ve had to set this up very carefully. If the Dragon Tong had known I had the knife when I first approached them, they’d have killed me right away. They’d never have believed that when I took it from the Lotus Tong man, I didn’t know what it was. They’d have been convinced I was trying to screw them over. That’s why I’ve taken so long to arrange everything, and been so cautious about covering my tracks, and tried to invent excuses that’ll stand up to any checks they run on me. I’ve even installed the best anti-listening-device masking electronics I could afford in this apartment – without them I wouldn’t feel safe talking to you about it like this. I asked a commander at BuIntel, whom I met last year, to recommend what I should buy.”
She nodded slowly, eyes locked on his. “So, with luck, the Dragon Tong will simply be grateful for your help, and won’t suspect that you’ve had it all along?”
“That’s the idea.”
She heaved a long sigh. “Under the circumstances I don’t see how you could have done anything different. Just one thing, lover. When you eventually hand this over, I’ve got your back, OK? It’s no good you marrying a trained fighting woman if you don’t give her the chance to defend her man when necessary!”
He grinned. “If it happens when you’re around, that’s a promise, darling. Of course, I don’t know when or how we’ll set up the eventual exchange. That’ll have to wait on events.”
“I understand. Do you plan to claim the reward?”
He made a sour face. “That thing’s got an awful lot of blood in its past, including that of the man from whom I took it, and the guys who tried to kidnap and interrogate me. A Dragon Tong boss told me later they’d killed all of them. I don’t want blood money for it. I think I’ll just give it to them. If I have to accept the reward in order not to appear suspicious, I’ll try to find somewhere to donate it anonymously. Let the knife do some good for once, even if only indirectly!”
