“I believe so, but it wasn’t my responsibility so I can’t be—”
“You’re the Assistant Trade Director. If not your responsibility, then whose? The Director?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, he did make several specific requests and recommendations—”
“So you were involved in preparing the guest list, since you know the details.”
“Uh…partially, as I have a number of contacts in the community, but…Mr. Volosk, I’m not sure I understand the point of all of this. Chris Candela committed the assassination. It’s undisputed at this point, isn’t it?”
Volosk tilted his head ever so slightly. “So it would appear.”
“There isn’t any other possibility, is there?”
He met Nythal’s gaze. “No, certainly not. And with the war on, it hardly matters now anyway, does it?” He stood. “Like I said, merely some clean-up questions. If I find I have any more—clean-up questions that is—I’ll just swing by for another quick visit.”
“I have an extremely busy schedule, so it might be better if you made an appointment next time.”
“Sure, sure, I’ll try to do so if I can. I have an extremely busy schedule as well—the war and all—so I can’t make any guarantees.”
Michael smiled coldly. “I’ll show myself out. Have a good day, Mr. Nythal.”
Jaron waited until the door had closed to punch the chair in frustration. The soft leather-derived material gave with his fist, but it still hurt like a bitch. He shook his hand out while pacing in agitation across an office whose walls now threatened to close in around him.
He forced himself to wait five minutes, then another five, before leaving the office. Once outside he began hurrying down the street, but slowed as he realized he may be under surveillance. It seemed impossible—or rather would have seemed impossible until this morning. Now there lurked a cop in the eyes of every pedestrian.
But he only needed to get outside any possible electronic monitoring; then whatever surveillance he had could go fuck themselves for all the good it would do them.
When he reached the riverfront he stopped to purchase a breakfast gyro. A nice touch, he thought. He wandered over and rested against the railing, for all intents and purposes enjoying the blue-tinged morning light reflecting off the rippling water.
Instead he opened a very private address and sent a very simple message.
We have a problem.
60 Earth
Vancouver, EASC Headquarters
“She did what?”
“She broke him out of the detention center. I didn’t even know until I received a message from her. I checked into it, and the records show him being released last night on a technicality. The surveillance recordings have been doctored, I assume by her.” Richard shook his head. “I didn’t realize she was capable of such a sophisticated hack.”
Miriam laughed, though it carried an almost poignant edge. She sank deeper into her chair and abandoned any pretense of formality. The door was closed, and he was her oldest friend.
“Trust me, she is. I probably don’t need to ask, but what was her justification?”
“She again said he wasn’t here to spy on us, but rather to help us and request help in return. Also that we needed to get over this war and focus on the real threat.”
“She’s gone then? I didn’t warrant a message.”
“Yeah, they’re gone—at least there’s a transponder record of the Siyane using an exit corridor early this morning. I suppose she could have hacked it as well, but it seems more likely they’re actually gone.”
“Well, that’s fantastic.” She paused to take a long sip of tea. “If she flies into the middle of this war and gets herself killed, I don’t think I…David would never forgive me, were he here.”
“It wouldn’t be your fault, Miriam. He’d realize that, better than you.”
“Maybe.” She held the teacup to her lips and breathed in the steam until the bitter pang of loss, still biting after twenty-three years, subsided back into the recesses.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I did rush to judgment with respect to her companion.”
Richard regarded her with a look of incredulity. “You think?”
She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Fine. It is possible I overreacted a small amount. She just…she somehow manages to hit all my buttons, every damn time. I get so angry at her and I’ve no idea how to make her not be angry at me. Sometimes I wish…” her eyes closed “…I wish I could start over. But it’s thirty-six years too late, isn’t it?”
“You may not be able to go back, but it doesn’t mean you can’t start over.”
“I’m not so certain…and regardless, now is hardly the ideal time for such matters.” She ran a hand along her jaw and straightened up in the chair, shocked at the sentimentality she had allowed herself to display.
She busied herself refilling her teacup. “In any event, I’ve never known her to let sex interfere with her better judgment, so perhaps she is correct about his intentions. Which introduces a whole new set of concerns.”
“You think she’s sleeping with him?”
A small, arguably devious smile ghosted across her face. “I don’t see why she wouldn’t be. Do you?”
Richard’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “Well, he’s Senecan….”
“That excuse only works until you discover the person is merely an individual like any other.”
His lips pursed together in a show of skepticism, but finally he gave up and chuckled in mild amusement. “Then no, I suppose I don’t.”
“I didn’t think so.” She sighed, and the momentary levity evaporated. “Listen, is there any way you can keep her out of trouble over this? Keep her from being implicated?”
It wasn’t the first time she had asked such a favor of a colleague, though it was the first time she had asked it of someone so high-ranking, and someone who was a personal friend. But he was a personal friend of Alexis, too, and would want to protect her for his own reasons.
He shrugged. “I don’t really need to. There’s no evidence of her involvement—or any crime at all—beyond her message to me. Frankly, I’m inclined to simply stay quiet about the situation and let the record stand. He was released due to an administrative screw-up and that’s the end of it. In the absence of a trigger it’s unlikely the falsified records will be uncovered, and technically he hadn’t committed a crime other than providing a false identification, so….”
She nodded. “Makes sense. It’s a reasonable plan.” She grimaced as a livecomm request appeared in her vision. After a pause she accepted it, but put it on broadcast.
“Admiral Solovy, apologies for disturbing you.”
She cocked an annoyed eyebrow at Richard. “Dr. LaRose, what can I do for you?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you might possess another hard copy of your daughter’s data I would be able to borrow.”
She and Richard both frowned in mild dismay. She knew Alexis had sent her Metis report to the Science Advisor; she had even greased the wheels a bit, albeit to limited avail. Since the EASC Board had a direct line to the Prime Minister she had viewed it as mildly repetitive, but most things in government were. “I’m not sure I understand the problem.”
His throat could be heard clearing over the comm. “One of my researchers took the disk home with him last night to study, and he didn’t report to work today. It…well it seems he’s gone missing, and your daughter’s data with him.”
“She has a name, Dr. LaRose, and a fair number of master’s degrees as well.”
“Apologies. Ms. Solovy’s data. Admiral, I need another copy if possible.”
Miriam frowned again. “You’ll need to be more clear, Doctor. Don’t you have her report?”
“No…I mean I have it, but I require a physical disk to move ahead with it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because I do. Regulation AAS 41767.239.0512c requires all reports be reviewed in physical form t
o verify their authenticity and—”
“Didn’t you verify the authenticity of the physical disk when it arrived?”
“Immediately upon receipt. But I must also retain it in order to advance its contents to the next level to accompany my recommendation.”
Miriam was silent a moment. She glanced out the window then at Richard. She muted the comm and laughed; it felt weary. “I must say, sometimes I can almost see where Alexis is coming from.”
He tilted his head in agreement, and she scowled as she reactivated the comm. “Doctor, are you certain, given all the material you have reviewed and requirements you have followed, you still require a physical disk of the data to proceed?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. You see the procedures are quite specific and—”
“Fine. Very well. I will send a request to the vault for our hard copy to be checked out. Of course we have our own procedures in place on this end, so it may take several days for you to receive it. In the meantime, I would highly encourage you to act on the information Alexis provided you to the greatest extent you find yourself capable of doing.”
61 Siyane
Space, North-Central Quadrant
Alex waved her palm in the direction of the cockpit to check their location. “We should be at Romane in just over an hour.”
Caleb came up behind her, one arm encircling her waist and hugging her tight against him while he reached around with the other and set her plate on the table. “Excellent, plenty of time for breakfast.”
She laughed and squeezed his hand resting on her abdomen before extricating herself and sitting down. He had snuck upstairs while she showered and cooked panbrioche and roasted potato wedges and sliced up fresh grapefruit. She kept telling him he didn’t need to do all the cooking, but he thus far was showing no indication of listening.
He retrieved his own plate from the counter and joined her at the table. She was already enthusiastically digging into what was a delicious breakfast; the panbrioche was so fluffy and tender she would have sworn he had spent the last two hours baking it if she hadn’t been curled up in his arms for much of the last two hours.
He sat down, only to stare at his food. After a few seconds he picked up his fork—then set it back on his napkin and looked up at her. “Listen…before we arrive, there’s something I need to tell you about Mia.”
“She’s your lover. I know.” She smiled over her fork and slid a potato wedge into her mouth.
“What? No—I mean, not for several years now and—” His face screwed up at her. “How did you know?”
She shrugged, a hint of a twinkle in her eye. She did enjoy confounding him, even if the topic was bound to be mildly uncomfortable. “Something in the tone of your voice when you told me about her. It implied a…familiarity beyond that of a mere friend. You, um…well, you sounded like men do when they talk about women they’ve slept with.”
“I did? Damn, I’m sorry.” He cringed and dragged a hand down his mouth to linger at his jaw. “As I was about to say, it happened several years ago, and it was never serious. We met on a mission over a decade ago. She helped me out, I helped her out, and eventually we became friends. Then a little more. But it was a…I’d drop by when I was in town kind of thing. And after a while we realized we made better friends than lovers.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. I wanted you to know, should the past come up—and because I didn’t want to hide anything from you.”
“Is she going to try to claw my eyes out?”
“No. She is not now, nor has she ever been, in love with me. She’s far too savvy for anything such as that.”
Alex nodded in acknowledgement.
He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “The important thing is, we can trust her completely. She may come off as a bit cold, but it’s a defense mechanism. Mia’s a good person.”
She nodded again. “If you say so.”
His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Because you trust me.”
“If you had intended to deceive me, you would have simply promised the ship would be safe on Seneca. There’s no reason I can think of for you to go to all this trouble other than my peace of mind.”
He sighed, let go of her hand and returned his gaze to his plate. “Right. As long as it’s logical.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you trust me.”
Her gazed dropped to her own plate. “I told you, I trust—”
“Did you think I sleep with all the women and half the men on every mission?”
She swallowed a groan. Were they really going to do this? “The possibility had occurred to me.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“Are you saying you never…?”
“No, I’m not. But I don’t make a habit of it, and…frankly, I’ve rarely been in enough of a relationship for it to matter to anyone.”
She leapt out of the chair and snatched her plate up to carry it to the sink. “Well I wouldn’t want to start cramping your style now—” She cut herself off, wincing at how biting it sounded.
He appeared at her side an instant later. “No. You don’t get to do that.”
She didn’t look at him. “Do what?”
“Project your worst fears about what I could be onto me as though they were somehow real.”
Was he right? Was that what she was doing? The day before—and night—had been near to magical. Comfortable and romantic and affectionate and most decidedly hot. Despite the alien threat hanging over them, she had slept more soundly and peacefully entwined in his arms than she had in months. Now she was behaving like a drama queen, all bitchy and possessive?
She paused, her plate halfway to the washer rack; she set it in the sink and faced him. “You’re right. And I don’t care who you slept with, I truly don’t. I’m glad you did—I’m getting to reap the considerable benefits of you honing your skills.” She tried a little half-grin, but his expression refused to lighten.
“I’m sorry I snapped. You didn’t deserve it. I’m merely on edge because of everything going on and, well, because I’m not entirely in control of my situation. I don’t like being dependent on you—on anyone. But I’m not…you don’t need to explain yourself to me. Really.”
He reached up to run fingertips along the curve of her face. Damn but his touch still sent shivers up her spine. “What if I need to explain myself? I find I don’t want you to think ill of me.”
She shifted her head and placed a soft kiss on his wrist. “I don’t. Promise. Now go get showered. We’ll be there soon.”
He regarded her for another moment, his expression unreadable, then nodded and headed down the stairs.
She sank against the counter and let her head drop to her chest. What was she doing? Jealousy and possessiveness weren’t like her at all. They were both adults, and neither of them was coming into this without baggage.
Yes, she was edgy from not being absolutely and unquestionably in total control of her situation. But that was her problem, not his. If she didn’t get her act together she was liable to run him off before whatever this might be between them had even gotten started good.
She took a deep breath and let it out, long and slow. Then she pushed off the counter and went downstairs, dropped her clothes on the floor, joined him in the shower and proceeded to make it very clear just how much she didn’t think ill of him.
62 Earth
Vancouver
“Gold doubloon for your thoughts.”
Richard smiled in response to the voice at his ear, relaxing momentarily against the arms at his shoulders. “Tell you what. Buy me lunch and I’ll bare my soul.”
“It’s a deal.”
He laughed a little as he turned from the window. “I should warn you, I’m a married man.”
Will glanced over his shoulder as they followed the maître-d’ to the table. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
After they had been seated and their glasses filled, Richard exhaled and lean
ed back in the chair. “Thanks for meeting me for lunch. It’s a welcome respite.”
Will shrugged while he studied the menu. “Well, since the Demeter project is on hold due to the war I find I have a bit of free time at the moment.”
“Have you remodeled our house yet?”
“Not yet, but if I don’t have a paying project by next week I’m not making any promises. I’ve been thinking the wall between the kitchen and the dining area is totally unnecessary.”
“Fair enough.” He paused. “You know, they’re going to have to rebuild the base on Arcadia. Not that I’m eager to have you so far away, but if you’re interested I can—”
“No.” Will’s head shook emphatically. “For one, I never want to trade on your name or position. For another, I would go insane inside of a week from the ridiculous bureaucratic entanglements and regulations and procedures of working for the military. I appreciate the thought, but no.”
“Money isn’t a concern. You could simply take it easy and relax for once. Radical idea, I realize.”
The waiter interrupted them to place bread on the table and take their orders. The restaurant was fancy enough to eschew automated ordering for old-fashioned personal service. It was the sort of thing you didn’t realize you missed until you encountered it again.
When the waiter had departed Will raised an eyebrow. “With a war on, soldiers dying, you working sixteen-hour days and aliens on the horizon? The guilt would be suffocating.”
“Fine, I recognize when I’m fighting a losing battle.” His voice trailed off as he studied his salad. He had told Will about Alex’s troubling discovery, despite the fact it was classified information, because it’s what married couples did—share things which truly mattered.
“So what is on your mind? Other than the obvious.”
Richard blew out a breath through pursed lips. “The damned assassination. The Palluda attack. The war. I know, everyone else has moved on, but I’ve been in this line of work almost forty years now and nothing about any of it makes a lick of sense.”
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