by Neal Jones
"How much time do we have?"
"About half an hour."
"Then yes please." She wants to sit down but she's afraid of wrinkling her dress. "You hate opera. This is going to be torture for you."
He points to a book reader on the table next to the tickets. "I'm bringing that."
She glances at the title. " 'The Complete Tactical Strategies of General Aubern'. Oh, that sounds thrilling." Most girls would be bothered by this arrangement, but Laura doesn't care. It's an easy compromise.
Marc hands her glass back to her and then opens the fridge to retrieve a corsage. He slides it onto her wrist, and she admires the single rose, a blood red nova against a bed of pale blooms.
"It's beautiful."
"Not as beautiful as you." He kisses her again, and he's surprised by how effortlessly the lie was spoken. His fingers slip into his pocket and massage the crumpled note. He glances at the chrono on the nearby desk. "We'd better get going."
It takes them only a few minutes to walk to the transport kiosk, and Marc programs the destination while Laura nervously picks at the front of her dress one more time. Stephanie assured her that this size was perfect on her, but Laura is starting to disagree. While she's flattered by the extent to which it accentuates her curves, she can barely walk because the skirt is so damn tight.
They emerge only three blocks from the Palais Garnier, and once inside, Laura can't help but gape at the fully restored 19th century architecture. The opera house was rebuilt from scratch in the late twenty-first century, nearly seventy years after a strategically aimed nuclear warhead obliterated all of Paris and most of the surrounding countryside. The handsome couple ascend the grand staircase, and Marc hands their tickets to the usher. He leads them to their balcony seats, just in time for curtain.
The opera is as glorious and dramatic as Laura has always imagined, and she doesn't notice that Marc never glances up to see if she's having a good time, or even acknowledge her presence with a touch of his hand on hers. Only at intermission does she get his attention, when she tells him she's visiting the ladies' room. Only when the story is finished and the last curtain falls does Laura feel disappointment. The evening - morning? - is almost over, and she slips her hand into Marc's, allowing him to lead her back down the staircase, past the pair of bronze torchères, and into the crisp night air.
"Are we going somewhere to eat?" she asks.
"I reserved us a late table at Chez Pranii. We'll probably be the only ones in the whole restaurant."
Laura giggles. This whole date has been far too perfect, like something out of a corny HT romance. But it doesn't matter. This time she's the star of the film, and she allows herself to be swept up in the emotional high. She hasn't felt anything like this before, and it's making her head spin in a very pleasant way.
Marc was right. They have the place to themselves, and their table is next to the bay window where they can look out on the river. Marc orders a bottle of wine, and Laura realizes that he must have saved for months in order to pay for this date. She feels guilty for thinking him cheap when all they've done for the last several weeks is go on picnics, or order pizza and watch movies at Stephanie's house.
"Marc, this is..." She's at a loss for words. "This is incredible. All of this. I can't believe..."
"I must have done something right if you're stuttering."
They both laugh.
"Seriously, Marc, this is amazing. I've never been on a date like this. Ever."
"And exactly how many dates have you been on?"
"Oh, nice try."
"You can't have had that many boyfriends before me. Two? Three? I'm not counting high school. It has to be less than three."
Laura just smiles coyly and sips her wine.
After dinner they return to the transport kiosk and then to Marc's apartment. It's just after ten in the morning, and Laura feels like Cinderella returning from the ball. She doesn't want the date to end just yet.
"Now I know why you had me take the whole day off," she says as they walk through the front door. "But I didn't pack an overnight bag." She leans in close to nibble his ear. "Or am I going to need a change of clothes?"
Marc only smiles and backs away. He unbuttons his uniform jacket and then reaches into his pocket to retrieve the note. When he turns to Laura, his smile disappears. He holds out the wad of paper, saying nothing.
Confused, Laura reaches for it. But as she begins to unravel it, she feels her entire body go weak all at once. She forces herself to look up at Marc.
"I can see by the look on your face you know what that is," Marc says quietly. His voice is flat, distant.
"Marc, I can explain -"
"No. I don't want an explanation. That right there was enough for me." He turns away. "Just go. I don't want to talk to you ever again. Don't try and call, don't come to campus, just stay away. Just get your stuff and get out."
"No!" She spits out the word like a fireball, and the intensity surprises both of them. "Fuck you! I deserve a chance to explain, and you're going to listen!"
Marc faces her, and for just a moment she thinks he's going to hit her. She's never seen him this furious before, but one of the few things that they have in common is a violent temper, and she stands her ground, returning his glare. If this gets violent, she's prepared to give as good as she gets.
"Did you sleep with Casen four months ago?"
"Yes."
"Had I not found this note in your coat pocket last week, would you have ever told me about this?"
She swallows. "No."
"Then that's all the explanation I need."
"Marc, wait! It's not that simple!" When he doesn't respond, she pushes forward. "It happened the same night we had that big fight, the one where you accused me of cheating on you."
"So you slept with Casen to prove my point??"
"No! Well, maybe. I was pissed at you, and Casen has always had feelings for me, and...and it just happened." Gods, she thinks, that sounds so stupid. Maybe she deserves a punch or two after all.
Marc laughs. "I take it back. I do want to hear more. I assume this guy is in one of your classes?"
Laura suddenly feels sick to her stomach, and she stupidly realizes there's nothing more to say, except "Marc, I love you."
He shakes his head sadly, and the look in his eyes makes her gut twist. "No, you don't. People who love each other don't do this."
"I know what I did was wrong, but you had a jealousy problem."
"So you fucking Casen was my fault?"
"That's not what I said." She's having trouble fighting the tears because all she can think about is the fact that he had that note in his pocket the whole evening. He waited until after the date was over to confront her about this. "So what?" she spits back. "So what if I fucked him?"
Instead of shouting at her, Marc says quietly, "That's not what bothers me, Laur. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why does it matter?"
"Don't give me that bullshit. Answer my question."
"This whole evening...you planned this all along?"
"No. Like I said, I only found the note last week, when it fell out of your coat pocket." He pauses.
"And?"
"And what?"
"You motherfucker!" Her rage has built a new dam against her grief.
"I wanted you to know how I felt when I read that note."
"I was afraid of how you'd react. That's why I didn't tell you. I'm sorry."
Marc shakes his head and sighs. "Just go, Laura. I don't want to talk about this anymore."
She wants to scream. Curse. Rage. Punch him. And then punch herself. This is her fault. She hates him. She loves him. She hates herself for not telling him, and all the reasons that she gave herself as justification now seem trite and stupid. It wasn't supposed to be this way. She had never planned on having relationship with Marc. He's four years younger than her, and her sister had always warned her about dating military men, especially academy cadets.
Marc is drinking the champagne from the bottle. He's just staring at her from the other side of the kitchen counter, and the moment now turns absurdly comical, like actors who have run out of lines and are waiting for the curtain to drop at the end of the scene.
"I'm sorry," Laura mutters, forcing out the words around the lump in her throat. "Fuck you."
Marc takes a long swig from the emerald bottle.
Laura forces her legs to move, forces her hand to turn the knob, forces her feet down the steps. She passes the transport kiosk and makes it all the way downtown before collapsing onto a park bench.
Stephanie arrives some time later to find a disheveled, bleary-eyed woman in an evening gown sobbing hysterically while the lunch hour business crowd passes them, oblivious, as though the broken-hearted weep at this bench every day. Stephanie helps her best friend to the transport kiosk on the other side of the park and then up the stairs to her apartment. She tucks her into bed, but it's a long time before Laura drifts into sleep. She is Cinderella after the final stroke of midnight: alone, in despair, and huddled in the garden next to a pumpkin, some mice and a horse. Paris, the opera house, La Bohème, the candlelight dinner – it was all a strange and beautiful dream.
Chapter 8
____________________
( 1 )
GALADREON-253 WAS ONE OF THOSE planets that was so densely populated and covered with so much technology that it hardly resembled a natural celestial body. It was six times the size of Saturn, and the surface was one massive, sprawling metropolis whose lights resembled large oceans of colored, twinkling gems when viewed from high orbit. Only at the extreme poles was there any absence of roads or skyscrapers, and that was just because of the frigid temperatures. The rest of the surface – with the exception of two dozen strategically placed natural gardens – was paved with multiple layers of humanoid-produced materials: highways, domed towers, transport systems, and everything in between.
The gardens were filled with trees and plants that had been created in hydroponic laboratories, and they worked in tandem with artificial atmospheric processors to maintain a mild, tropical climate for the entire planet. Like almost every other world in the Interstellar Federation, Galadreon possessed a planetary weather control grid that ensured a precise balance of precipitation and sunshine. The rainfall was collected in vast reservoirs and then purified and filtered and pumped into the planetary water supply system. Equally vast solar panels collected and stored the sun's energy – a star that was three times the size of the one at the heart of Earth's solar system. The whole enterprise was a fine example of the capabilities of modern technology when applied on a planetary scale, and as Ilkara stood at the window of her hospital room, s/he couldn't help but admire the gleaming cityscape that sprawled to the horizon and beyond.
S/he was on the sixth floor, in a secured wing of a military medical research facility at the heart of quadrant fourteen. Because the planet's surface was essentially one city, it was divided into quadrants. There were over three hundred, and quadrant fourteen was an EarthCorps military base. The DrayH'M, Ralorian, Murdohn and a dozen others also had military bases on Galadreon, but Vice Admiral Drumhold had ordered Ilkara to this one. Since it was the crew of an EarthCorps starship that had found he/r, Ilkara was in EarthCorps custody and there was nothing so territorial as governments and their military.
Ilkara turned as the door on the other side of the room hissed open to admit Doctor Childe. The older man was obviously more accustomed to working in a laboratory than with patients, because he had an awkward, sometimes gruff, manner when speaking with Ilkara. The first day he'd examined he/r, he hadn't looked up from his compad once while giving he/r a rather lengthy medical questionnaire, and when it was finished he'd simply stood and left. S/he was nothing more than an unusual specimen to him, something to put under a microscope. There was no need to bother with polite small talk or ask about he/r comfort.
"Good morning, doctor," the Erayan said pleasantly.
"Hhmmm, yes." As usual, Childe had a compad in one hand and was studying it as if it contained all the answers to every mystery currently known to medical science.
Ilkara patiently waited, hands clasped he/r back.
Childe cleared his throat and then looked at he/r. "We'll find you some permanent quarters in our housing unit. I'm sorry I couldn't have done it sooner, but I was waiting for Admiral Drumhold's decision."
Ilkara frowned. "Permanent quarters?"
"We're done with the tests for now. Doctor Rosenberg was quite thorough. Our results have corroborated his."
"Doctor," Ilkara said more forcefully. "Why am I being assigned permanent quarters?"
He blinked, confused by such a silly question. "You're remaining on Galadreon in protective custody." He turned to go. "Nurse Park will be here in a few minutes to have you sign some forms. Paperwork formality."
"Doctor, wait."
But Childe ignored he/r, and as he walked out of the room, Doctor McMullen charged in.
"Kade, what's going on?" Ilkara asked.
He waited until the door closed. "I just now received Drumhold's communiqué. Apparently I was last on his mailing list. He's keeping you here until further notice. You're not going back to Exxar-One."
"Why?"
McMullen sighed. "According to Doctor Childe's final analysis, you're a medical marvel. Your blood samples alone have provided the cure to sixteen diseases. That specialist from FCE that was here last week? He's got a dozen samples of your bio-probes that he says are going to revolutionize starship computer mechanics. The first thing he's going to do is upgrade the defense mainframe on Exxar-One as a thank-you."
Ilkara nodded. S/he could see where this was headed. "I'm too much of a security risk, especially on a deep space outpost like Exxar-One. They feel that Galadreon will be safer for me - and them."
"That's the gist of it, yeah."
"No. I need to get back to Exxar-One. That is where I belong."
McMullen wasn't about to argue with he/r, but the way s/he said it puzzled him. "Why?"
Ilkara took a moment before s/he responded. "I don't know why. I just know."
"Well, all that aside, I can understand Drumhold's position. But we need your help with the hypergate. I received another communiqué from Doctor Rosenberg yesterday morning, and he said that Doctor Sysko and her team are very close to a breakthrough in their analysis of the hypergate's security network."
"So how do we challenge his decision?"
"I already tried. Drumhold wouldn't give me an explanation, and he told me that my presence was no longer needed here. I'm supposed to report to Doctor Perry on the ECS Victory tomorrow morning at oh-nine-hundred."
Ilkara shook he/r head as s/he paced to the window and watched a delivery shuttle docking on the rooftop of a skyscraper several kilometers away. McMullen plopped into the chair next to the nightstand, and the two of them brooded in silence for several minutes. Short of challenging the admiral directly, there didn't appear to be any options available to them.
And then McMullen smiled as he jumped to his feet. "Wait here. I'll be back in an hour."
He left before Ilkara could ask him where he was going, but the look on his face gave he/r some relief. S/he switched on the computer terminal as s/he sat at the desk. There was no time like the present to do more studying on the history of the Federation.
( 2 )
Edmond Brouchard, vice president of the Interstellar Federation of Peace, sipped his coffee and bourbon as he watched the night. Because his office was deep inside the presidential dome, there was no actual windows. Instead, large holo-screens provided a view from several of the security vids attached at various levels on the dome's exterior. On a planet like Galadreon-253, the only difference between day and night was the lack of sunlight. There was always some activity in all quadrants – the nightclubs, the factory graveyard shifts, the sex theaters, the hospitals, the law enforcement stations, the restaurants, the brothels. No lack of light – or exci
tement - here.
Brouchard glanced at the chrono display in the corner of his computer screen as he sat behind his desk. Senior Director Caine was running late, and the vice president tried not to jump to conclusions. As much as he hated to admit it, Nicholas was right. Edmond tended to think the worst and go into panic mode whenever some small aspect of his plans went awry. In this case, the revelation that a lifeform had been discovered by the Dauntless crew almost four months ago on Gateway Prime had been enough to keep the vice president's thoughts tangled and preoccupied for the last couple weeks.
He had just finished reviewing Doctor Childe's final analysis. The hundred-and-twenty page brief had taken up most of Brouchard's afternoon, and now he was waiting to discuss the matter with Caine. It was almost twenty-six hundred hours – Galadreon's day being made up of thirty-seven – and while it was well past dinner time, it wasn't too late in the evening for any of the Dome's janitorial staff to think it odd that Edmond was still here. His chief of staff, Henri Comstock, had already left, as was customary on these nights when Caine and Brouchard held their private conference.
Edmond walked to the bar to pour himself another coffee and bourbon just as the door to his office opened to admit Caine. To the untrained eye, the senior director of Federation Central Intelligence looked calm and controlled. But Brouchard noticed the slightly rushed gait and the mouth that was pursed into an unusually taut line.
"Is everything all right, Nicholas?"
"Yes, yes, I'm fine. I've just had a very busy day." He accepted the tumbler of Scotch from the vice president and then sat in one of the comfortable chairs in front of the desk.
Edmond took his own seat and activated his office's anti-surveillance security network while he waited for the senior director to access his notes.
"Doctor Childe's brief was...interesting, to say the least," Caine began.
"Yes," Brouchard agreed. "I found section twelve particularly fascinating. The Chimera project is going to benefit immensely from this."
Caine nodded. "I've already begun revamping several of the projects. My team leaders weren't happy at first, but as soon as I placed copies of this brief in their hands, they got very excited."