by Tom DeMarco
“I’m delighted anyway. And I accept.”
“I thought we might better change her name, too,” Loren added.
“She shall be Veronica,” her new mother said, without hesitation. “Veronica.” She held out her hands to the child. “Come up here, my dear, and see if it pleases you to sit on my lap.”
“OK,” said Laura/Veronica. Turning to Kelly, when she was seated: “She is awfully pretty, isn’t she, Kelly?”
“Awfully.”
Maria del Sol smiled. “Thank you, Veronica. Do you think you could be happy living with me and with my man?”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, we’ll give it a try then.”
“Could Nino come too? He is my playmate.”
“I think so.”
“And Shimna, my sister?”
“Now she is your cousin. It’s very complicated, but you’ll figure it out. And yes, she can come as often as she likes.”
In the depths of his despair during captivity, Loren had come to grips with two awful truths. The first was that he would never be able to tell Kelly what had happened to him in Asheville — he would have to live alone with memory for the rest of his life. And the second was that he would never be able to make love again. He wouldn’t be able to because there would always be a haunting reminder of his violation in the mansion house.
Fortunately, both of those ‘truths’ had been disproved within a few hours of his return to Monterreal. He had blurted out everything to Kelly as soon as they were alone. And then she’d taken him straight to bed. When they finished making love quickly, they immediately began making love slowly. Kelly cleared her docket of engagements for the next few weeks, and they stole away on the Cornell to a deserted beach, for skinny-dipping and teasing each other and unteasing with long bouts of satisfying and thorough mating.
“You are spectacular,” he said, looking down at her after one such session. “You are the perfect lover: erotic and needy and flirtatious and funny and loving all at once.”
“Isn’t it odd?”
“Odd?”
“It’s an odd act we do. Our urges are odd. Like another invention of the cosmic comedian that Father McGrath mentioned. Mostly what’s odd is our image of the good wife and lover. You say I am that, and I think I may be. But how has our culture ever come to make it such a virtue to be what I am? The Ideal Sexual Creature must be eternally randy, as we are. As I am. But what a curious ideal. What I am is extraordinarily itchy.”
“Where are you itchy?”
“In the core of my body, inside from my bottom up to about the level of my waist. A huge itch. It drives me mad. And you are my relief. That’s all it is. No virtue involved at all. Just an itch.”
“Kelly’s itchy core.”
“When I indulge myself, I am like an old yellow dog, scratching at his fleas. But somehow it conforms with what we feel we ought to be. You think that. And so do I. Only it’s odd.”
“Odd but nice.”
“Are you all better, my lover?”
He knew what she meant. “I’m better, Kelly. Maybe just not so fond of the position with the woman on top as I used to be.”
“There are others, a whole matrix full. We’ll try them all.”
Loren stood on the bridge of the Ardent with Myer and Rita Bentenyev at his side. They were waiting for orders. This would be Commander Myer’s last mission on the Ardent. His captain’s papers would be waiting for him when he returned. Rita would take his place after her own promotion to Commander.
On this voyage, Loren was in charge of the Ardent himself, since Van Hooten was along to command the fleet. Kelly had felt that Loren’s emotional involvement was too great for him to have fleet authority. He was emotional about this mission; they were going back to destroy the Mansion and the seat of Jansenist strength.
“Ardent, you make take your position, now,” Van Hooten’s voice came over the light-wave radio speakers.
“Ardent, trim for speed,” Loren ordered. The sound of sail above them, being hardened up. After a moment he could feel the pavilion begin to surge forward. They were ninth and last in the line, immediately behind Tom Buxtehude’s Bellerophon. Van Hooten was in the lead in Resolute. They had waited on position over the mountains for the arrival of the dawn. And now, with the town of Asheville on the immediate horizon, they were on their way to the target.
The council meeting that had deliberated the action had been split, with Loren and the Proctor and most of the air arm in favor of destruction, and Kelly and others opposed. The vote, if it had been taken, would have been very slightly in favor of Loren’s plan. Only it wasn’t taken because Kelly had said she wouldn’t allow the plan to be carried out, even if the vote was all for and only herself against. She said there needed to be no war against the Jansenists, that a peace could be forced upon them and maintained through Victoria’s strength.
There had never been a time before when the Council went one way and the Princess another, and Dean Porter’s constitution didn’t offer a way to resolve the matter. He said, when asked, that stalemate meant there was no consensus and that therefore nothing could be done. Either party had effective power of veto. They would have to compromise. The compromise that Kelly had offered was an olive branch to be extended to the Jansenists, and destruction if they did not accept it. And that was where matters stood now. The olive branch was an envelope in Loren’s diplomatic pouch. He would have it delivered, and then when Sonia rejected it, he would burn the mansion. The lens array had been deployed earlier and was now tracking some two miles above them.
“Radarman, what traffic?”
“Nothing sir. Empty. Still too early for them?”
“I wonder.”
Van Hooten’s voice on the radio called for a fleet tack. They had intercepted the river and would now beat down it to the edge of the estate. Ardent tacked in her turn. Myer was officer of the watch, and so gave the command. Loren was watching through the side ports. Van Hooten was being particularly cautious, maintaining an altitude of more than a mile. If the enemy fleet rose now to contest him, it would take them a precious twenty minutes to get up to his height. And in that time, the battle would over. Only the enemy fleet wasn’t rising.
When the mansion was in sight, it looked very quiet. There was no sign of life, no airships, no carts or wagons, no smoke at the chimneys. The rest of Ardent’s company was still tense, but Loren knew the mansion was empty.
Van Hooten sent a party down in small flyers to investigate. Loren left the bridge, leaving word to call him if there was any development. The landing party would find nothing, he knew. Sonia and her black-suits, the whole denomination, had gone, dispersed perhaps to different sites where they could hide out for years, growing in strength and plotting the final battle. It was what Loren would have done in her place, and he was sure that it was what Sonia was doing now. He lay down on his bed, depressed. The engagement that wasn’t happening this morning was something he had looked forward to and needed. So of course Sonia had denied it to him. He had a moment of despair of ever besting her. For all her madness, she was just smarter than the rest of them, certainly smarter than Loren. He could look forward to tracking her for all the rest of his life and never catching up. Never until she was ready to be caught, at which time it would be far too late.
By early afternoon the fleet had come down to a few hundred feet over the buildings. The scouts had returned, and Van Hooten passed their report on, gleaned from the townspeople: The Jansenists had left in airships days before. They had last been seen heading west.
Loren stared down through the observation well at the roofs of the mansion. There had been no one to receive Kelly’s olive branch, so in a sense it had been rejected. He could prevail upon Van Hooten to burn the buildings, as a sign of the price to be paid for challenging the might of Victoria. Burning an empty mansion was not exactly what he had come for, but it would be better than nothing. He would damn well do it. He would leave the place a smoking ruin.
“God, it’s exquisite, isn’t it.” Myer was beside him at the well. “Look at that roof line, the craftsmanship of its construction. It’s a masterpiece. It was called Biltmore, you know. I’ve all my life wanted to see it.” He looked at Loren appealingly. “The park was designed by Olmstead, Frederick Law Olmstead. It was his last great work. And the main house…Well, I guess I don’t need to tell you about it. You’ve been inside…”
Was he so transparent, Loren wondered, that even Myer could read what was on his mind?
“It’s one of those beautiful creations from a time past that the modern era will never be able to duplicate. All that we can do is preserve it for generations to come.”
Loren walked away in disgust, more frustrated than ever.
On the return they were attacked by a fleet of ten small wooden pavilions. It happened over the Gulf, just below New Orleans.
“Jesus,” the airman said, at the radar console just at Loren’s side. “Look at this, Captain.”
Loren followed his pointing finger toward the display. There was a tight grouping of spots approaching from the west. Loren snatched up the radio, but Van Hooten’s voice was already coming over the speakers.
“Possible enemy pavilions at degrees two-seven-five. Distance forty miles. Maintain your heading. Resolute has deployed the lens array.”
But too late, Loren thought. The lenses needed to be miles up in the air to be be of any use. They had to lie between the sun and their targets. It would take hours for them to gain that altitude. Of course, they would have hours, if only Van Hooten thought to proceed away from the attackers for a while, and then engage them only after the array had clawed its way up to its operating altitude. He wished now that he had argued harder for command. He knew what had to be done. If only Van Hooten did too. If only he knew enough to maximize speed away from the enemy, and above all not to climb.
“All vessels begin climbing to five thousand feet.”
Loren tried not to show his dismay. He heard Myer pass the order and Ardent began angling upward, climbing and therefore losing speed. That would only hurry the time of engagement. Rita at his side was giving orders to arm the projectile weapons. The spring-loaded missile launchers could be effective at close quarters, but they would then have to be re-cocked with human muscle power, and so would be slow and cumbersome after the first round was fired. The main thing now was to play for time. In time, they could increase their own altitude and manage to get their principal weapon, the lens array on its station. Loren picked up the light radio microphone. “Ardent to Resolute.”
“Go ahead, Ardent.”
“Permission to alter course, sir, to one-four-five, square to the wind for maximum sailing speed.” It will also point us away from the attackers, Admiral, in case you hadn’t considered that.
A long silence from the radio. At last, Van Hooten gave the orders for the fleet to turn south of east. Now level off, please, Loren thought at him. But again the radio was silent.
“Distance,” he snapped to the radarman
“Twenty six miles, and still closing.”
“Get a fix on their altitude.” They would be high, he knew. Every advantage went to being above your adversary. The only thing that would have kept them from approaching at two miles altitude was the cold. In their open pavilions, they would freeze to death at that height. But there was no excuse for the enclosed pavilions of the Victorian fleet to be caught at this low altitude. Again, it was something Van Hooten hadn’t thought of, that had been on Loren’s mind the whole trip. If the enemy had airships, then Victoria had to move at maximum altitude, something over ten thousand feet. Underneath him he could feel Ardent leveling as she attained her altitude. But she felt sluggish to Loren. She’d lost half her speed in the climb.
“Enemy altitude, six thousand feet.”
“Enemy altitude, six thousand feet,” Loren repeated over the light radio. Even Van Hooten, bless his desk-bound heart, would have to realize what that dictated. It would be idiocy to engage an enemy with a thousand foot altitude advantage. The longer and faster Victorian pavilions could regain their speed and then keep their distance from the enemy on this course and still climb slowly, gaining a thousand feet every quarter of an hour, more or less. All they had to do was run away from the enemy for a while. Of course that was just what poor Van Hooten didn’t want to do. He wanted to turn around and fight. At their current speed, they could index upward and simply coast up the incline to six thousand feet to meet the enemy, but only by giving up all their forward velocity. And then their attackers would have the advantage of their greater momentum to control the engagement. Loren looked up at the clock mounted on the overhead. Hold on for forty minutes, Van Hooten, he thought. In forty minutes, or better yet an hour, they would be above the enemy and firmly in charge. They might even have the lens array in place. Loren looked at the sun which was already low in the sky. That was another consideration. The lenses would be useless if they waited till too late in the day. It hardly mattered, though, because the lenses were going to be useless anyway. Loren stared at the clock. Hold on, Admiral.
At twenty five minutes, Van Hooten gave the order to climb to six thousand feet and engage the enemy. The Ardent climbed, more and more sluggishly. By the time she reached her altitude, she was nearly stalled, and the attackers were gaining swiftly.
“I wonder what they’re attacking with,” said Myer, by his side.
Loren hadn’t even stopped to wonder. Of course they must have some weapon, or they wouldn’t be attacking. Well it would soon be evident. He could see the black pavilions now clearly in the starboard side observation ports. Rita was preparing to fire the projection missiles. The Ardent shook lightly as the first was released. A moment later, one of the black pavilions was lit up in orange flame.
“My god, Rita, what did you shoot at him?”
“A lead projectile. Whatever caused the flame was something he was carrying, not what I shot.”
“One on the bow,” Myer’s voice said evenly. “He’s coming right at us.”
Suddenly so obvious what their weapon was. “Coxswain!” Loren shouted. “Dive.”
The airman pushed the vertical index downward and Ardent began to drop suddenly from her position.
“Come left hard.” Loren had his hand on the coxswain’s shoulder. “Harder.” Ardent was whirling downward. The black pavilion had corrected and was hurtling after them, aiming directly for the control room side ports.
“Watch your eyes!” Myer shouted.
Loren stood, perplexed for a moment at the curious English syntax. How do you watch your eyes? Then he threw himself downward as the black wooden attacker crashed into the Ardent’s side.
He was on his feet immediately. There was wood and plastic and glass everywhere, but the Ardent was intact. The attacker had been too light to do great damage just by its impact. Part of the mid-section of the control room had carried away. The deck of the little black flyer had entered on one side and passed all the way through and out the other. There was a heavy smell of gasoline everywhere, but no fire. He grabbed for the light radio mike.
“Dive away,” he shouted. “They’re suicide attackers. Dive, Van. Give the order for the whole fleet.”
“What?”
“Dive. Dive down to right over the waves.”
The Ardent had leveled off, waiting for the order. But again, Van Hooten hesitated. And as he deliberated the Swiftsure was hit.
In all the engagements they had fought, Victoria had not lost a single life. In one moment that was all over. A black pavilion angled in over the Swiftsure and struck her amidships. The reservoir of gasoline on the attacker’s deck spilled into its target and was ignited by the impact or by a fuse on the black flyer, by some ignition mechanism that had failed to function when the Ardent was hit earlier. Within seconds, Swiftsure was ablaze.
“Dive,” Van Hooten said.
Jared Williams’ voice came over the speaker. “This is Superb. There ar
e four attackers left and they are circling now. It will be minutes before they come back. Permission to render assistance to Swiftsure.”
Above him, Loren could see crewmen leaping off the decks of the burning pavilion. Superb was approaching slowly from her side, maneuvering to get just beneath her.
“Jared,” Loren spoke into the mike. “Make sure you’re facing them when they come back. Hold on as long as you can and then dive sharply. You’ll be at terminal velocity in thirty seconds and they won’t be able to dive any faster than that. As long as you start your dive more than thirty seconds before they’re on you, you’ll be OK.”
“Got you, Loren.”
Crewmen were pouring over the sides of the Swiftsure and onto Superb’s deck. Back on the Ardent, Rita was directing two airmen with fire extinguishers to lay down a bed of foam on the gasoline soaked floors. The coxswain was again at his station. “Come about, coxswain,” Loren ordered. He wasn’t sure how much sail there was left above him, but the Ardent pushed her nose into the wind handily and spun around. “Trim for speed. Pass right under Superb. We’ll try to draw off one or more of the attackers.” He could see them now, turned around and swinging down at them from the east. “Lieutenant Bentenyev, is your projectile weapon functional?”
“The control is working. God knows if there is anything left to fire. It might have carried away in the impact. But we can aim.”
“Pick me off one of those flyers, whichever one.”
“Yes sir.”
Ardent shuddered twice as two more missiles were launched. One of them hit its target and left it in flames. Two of the remaining attackers, banked down toward the Ardent. The coxswain’s eyes were locked on the enemy flyers, fascinated.
“Hold your course, coxswain. Hold on. We won’t dive away until they’re committed.” He used all his will to keep his voice deadly calm. “Till it’s too late for them to turn back and target Superb. Hold on. Now…Dive!”