He looked behind him, where one of the Varkan stepped up to the white screen. Across the screen ran the shadow of one of the support struts that crisscrossed the surface of the dome. The Varkan drew a line matching the shadow and stepped away.
The feed focused on the shadow and the line. After what felt like long moments, the shadow moved away from the line, by a tiny fraction. Bedivere thought he might be imagining it, so he dipped into the digital source of the feed and measured it objectively. “It’s moving,” he said softly.
“I can see white between the shadow and the line now,” Brant said. “We really are moving.”
Apparently, so could everyone else see the growing width between the shadow and the line. They began cheering and clapping, jumping up and down and celebrating.
Nichol hugged Yennifer, who was still operating in digital mode and merely gave him a soft smile, her gaze unfocused.
The Varkan on the stage were thumping each other on the shoulders, hugging and laughing. They shook Devlin’s hand and clapped him on the back, too. Then Devlin turned to Cat, swept her up with one arm, held her against him firmly…
…and kissed her.
Bedivere froze. Even his heart stopped for one endless moment.
He heard Lilly’s gasp, because the room had become just as silent and still as he had.
Bedivere couldn’t look away from the screen. It was no light touch of the lips. Devlin was kissing Catherine with the ease and familiarity of a lover.
“Turn it off,” Brant said quickly, his voice hoarse.
“No, it’s fine,” Bedivere said.
The display fragmented as the pixels dissolved, then disappeared.
The awful quiet held, even more intense now the cheering and screaming on the feed had been silenced.
Lilly got to her feet. “Bedivere…” Her face was white.
He looked up at her. “I’m fine,” he repeated. “Really.”
Everyone was studying him now. Connell looked puzzled and Brant’s expression was thoughtful.
Bedivere shook his head. “She’s entitled to be happy. If Devlin makes her happy, then good.”
Brant stroked his throat, considering Bedivere. “Would you be saying that if it wasn’t Devlin Woodward?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Bedivere said honestly. “But it is Devlin.”
“The greatest human alive today,” Brant added. There was a very slight emphasis on the word “human”.
“Brant?” Lilly said, puzzled.
“Nothing,” Brant said. He rose and headed for the sideboard.
“I don’t want a drink, if that’s what you’re doing,” Bedivere called out.
“You may not, but I do,” Brant said and unstopped the decanter.
“Me, too,” Connell said.
Lilly was still studying him with something that looked a lot like pity in her eyes. “Don’t,” Bedivere told her.
She drew herself up straighter. “How do you stand it?” she asked quietly.
Bedivere opened his mouth to answer and realized what he was going to say and closed it again.
Lilly and Brant and Connell were in shock because they accepted it. The idea of Devlin and Cat together as a couple made sense to them. Devlin was Catherine’s match in stature, reputation, power and goodness, so they swallowed it without question.
While he couldn’t stand the idea at all. His mind had blanked out for one awful moment, then come back online in full denial mode. That was actually a good thing, because he had no intention of letting that terrible image coalesce into indisputable fact. He was going to fight it with every fiber of his rotten, undeserving soul.
* * * * *
Catherine found Devlin in the second boardroom, watching the sun through the steel glass roof. He got to his feet when she strode in and held out his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said swiftly. “I acted without thinking.”
“You’ve never put a foot wrong in public in your life,” Catherine railed. “You did that deliberately. A kiss! I’m disappointed in you, Devlin. It’s…amateurish!”
“No, it was heartfelt,” he replied flatly.
“Don’t give me that. You were in performance mode. If you think trying to seduce me will earn you some sort of public kudos then you’re making a huge mistake. I will have your balls for this, Devlin. You don’t get to use me. No one does!” Her chest was heaving with the power of her fury. “I spent centuries staying out of the public eye for this very reason. Cadfael College, the Ammonites, even the Federation, they all wanted a piece of me. They wanted to parade me out in front of everyone as their pet. The descendent of Glave himself!” She spat it out.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “If I was trying to use you as a political pawn, then you would be entitled to cut me to pieces. I’d deserve no less.”
“Then why do it?” she demanded.
He had pushed a hand deep into his pocket. She could see his fist outlined by the fabric of his trousers. She could see it tighten.
“I made a mistake. As I said.”
“You? You made a mistake?”
“I’m human. I let my emotions break through. It was an error, Catherine.”
She stared at him, still breathing hard, trying to sort out what he meant.
“I don’t mean that kissing you was a mistake,” he added. “Doing it in public like that—it was not what I had planned. The first time I kissed you was going to be far more…intimate.”
Catherine couldn’t move past the novel idea that Devlin could screw up. “What could possibly make you of all people miscalculate like that?”
Devlin let out a gusty breath. “Because I love you and have for years. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I want you in my life and I feel like I’m so close to maybe finding out what that might be like. Because how I felt, for one magical moment out there, was stronger than any self-discipline I could muster. I wanted to kiss you. I have for a very long while. And suddenly, I couldn’t wait.” He hesitated. “As I said, I’m sorry. It didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, either.”
Catherine pressed her fingers into the padded back of the nearest chair. Her anger had evaporated. Fear had replaced it. “Devlin, I….”
He shook his head. “Don’t say anything. Not now. The only reason I told you that is because it is the truth, and you would not settle for an explanation that was anything less that raw truth. So now you have it.” He gave her a small smile. “I’m a patient man. Most of the time. I can wait forever, if you’ll just agree to give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking from you, Catherine. A skerrick of hope.”
She swallowed. “I agreed to think about it.”
“Are you? Thinking about it?”
The surprising heat and strength in his arm. His scent. Black eyes, up close, watching her. “Yes,” she said honestly.
Devlin drew in a deep, deep breath and let it out slowly. He was smiling. “Good.” He nodded toward the glare of the sun shining through the filtered glass. “They’re saying that the spin will create a rotation that lasts around sixteen hours. That means there will be two days and a night, then two nights and a day, for every standard galactic day. This is a unique opportunity to party for days on end and live to tell the tale.”
“The party has already started,” Catherine pointed out. By the time she had extricated herself from the Central City, the bars and restaurants were already in full swing, with music drifting out from many of them. People were walking around with drinks in their hands, or standing and watching the novelty of the sun move across the dome and the shadows crossing their hands.
She had been too angry to even consider having a drink with any of the endless number of people who had begged her to stay and drink with them. There were so many people she knew here in Charlton, still. She had refused all the invitations, intent on catching up with Devlin, who had returned to the Hana as soon as the formalities had ended.
“I’m not in the mood for drinking,” she added and straighten
ed up. She made herself look at Devlin directly. “Thank you for your honesty.”
His gaze was steady. “You prefer the truth, no matter how it hurts. I’ve learned that much about you, at least.”
“I do,” she agreed. “Which is why I’ve been able to stay on the Hana for ten years.”
His smile faded. “I take your warning to heart. It won’t happen again, Catherine. Not until you want it, too.”
She repressed her instinctive response. “Well…”
“Good night, Catherine,” he said quietly.
She got herself out of the boardroom and to her quarters and the door locked before she let herself think. She sat on the bed and looked at the bare walls. Despite threatening to do something with them, weeks ago, she still had not brought herself around to even consulting with the environmental AI.
Now she was glad of the bareness. It wasn’t raw plasteel, but it was blank bulkhead and just as barren.
* * * * *
Yennifer sipped at the last of the Soward champagne at the bottom of her glass and hid her grimace. She had taken so long to empty the glass that the last dregs were warm and flat.
Nichol dropped into the chair beside her and gripped her hand. His eyes were shining and his face glowing with the joy of victory. He had been publically vindicated today, as the man who had campaigned for daylight for everyone and had won. He had been drinking, which was only natural.
“We’re going to have dinner with Symon and Levi,” he told her. “They say the sun will set in about thirty minutes and it will be dark across Central City for the first time. Symon has a table at Vivaldi’s, on the balcony. We can watch the sun set from there.”
Vivaldi’s was on the top tier of Central City, one of the upmarket dining locations in the city. She could see the balcony from the window of the bar they were in. The view of the dome from Vivaldi’s was unobstructed.
Symon and Levi were the mayor of Beltane and the Reeve of Gantry, respectively. They were also heavy drinkers and Levi had a wandering hand.
“I was thinking I would go home,” Yennifer said, picking her words with care. “I’m very tired.” Which was perfectly true. Coordinating city-wide processes while staying in her human mind was draining. Normally, for such a complicated project, she would have withdrawn into the city systems and used purely digital processes, while letting her body rest. Yet it had been important to Devlin that she be seen on the stage while she did the work. She had understood the reasoning and even agreed with it, but now she was exhausted.
“Home?” Nichol said sharply. “You’re joking, right? You’re going to bale on me, on this, the most important night of my career?”
She swallowed. “I have a headache. A bad one. Bedivere explained that if I stress myself too much right now, I could cause more blow-outs. I have to pace myself.”
His hand clamped around her fingers painfully. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t give a sweet damn credit for your headaches or your pacing or whatever excuse you can come up with. You are going to come to dinner with me, sit by my side, smile and laugh and be charming. Do you hear me?”
“Nichol, you’re hurting me,” Yennifer said, wincing. His fingers were crushing hers.
“You’re not listening to me,” he said, very quietly.
Yennifer froze. You’re not listening to me. They were danger words. She had heard them many time before and understood exactly what would happen next. Sometimes, though, if she acted swiftly and most contritely, she could deflect him.
So she gave him as bright a smile as she could. “I’m so sorry, Nichol. I’m being completely selfish. And tonight, of all nights. Of course I will come and help you celebrate. You deserve every accolade they can dream up, tonight. You’ve saved this city.”
His anger held for a moment more and she sat, keeping her smile in place, waiting to see if she had defused him.
Then he smiled fondly at her. He let go of her fingers and cupped her face. “You are a little darling, Yennifer my sweet. Now, go and put on your best dress. I want you looking spectacular.”
“Oh….” She looked down at the evening gown she was already wearing, then up at him and made herself smile. “I’ll go straight away. Should I meet you at the restaurant?”
“Here,” he said, standing up. “There’s some Varkan at the back of the bar that want to buy me a drink.”
Another drink.
She got to her feet. “I’ll be as quick as I can,” she told him.
“Of course you will,” he said over his shoulder as he headed back to the bar.
Chapter Sixteen
Charlton Space City, New Cathay (Ji Xiu Prime), Ji Xiu System, Perseus Arm. FY 10.187
Pure data. The streams of information slid past him at ever growing rates, essentially endless. He could make sense of this. It wasn’t like reading. It wasn’t even like watching a feed. He could swim in the ocean of data and absorb the facts it imparted. Like Interspace, it was a representation—not of space-time, but of knowledge. Facts.
From there, understanding could be reached.
Over here, Connell’s digital voice directed him.
Bedivere let his consciousness drift to where Connell had called him and settled into the datastream.
Connell was directing, aligning him.
There.
They were raw facts, stripped of color and emotion. Yet he was so used to seeing/feeling/interpreting them, he built them into blocks of knowledge without thinking about it.
Flashes of memory stirred.
A molten river of ore flowing past his feet. Too close for comfort and safety. The heat eating into his flesh through the protective suite…the sound of his breathing loud in his own ears because of the full isolation suit he was wearing. The clumsy movements as he shifted equipment with his shielded hands. The blast of unprotected sunlight on his visor…the wild scream of radiation counters blaring at him…the cool press of a medic’s scanner against his flesh…dispassionate language…sweat…heat…the blessed release of pain as the serum raced through his veins….
Bedivere wrenched himself up off the sofa and onto his feet in one convulsive movement. He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. He was breathing hard.
Connell blinked and focused on him. “What happened?” he asked. “We were down the hole. You saw it.”
Bedivere cleared his throat. “I saw it.” His voice was strangled. He went over to the kitchen panel and punched in an order. His hand was shaking. Well, so was the rest of him and the sweat was cold on his back and under his arms.
Connell came up behind him. “It happened again?”
“Worse, this time.” Bedivere grabbed the big glass when it appeared and drank the cold water in three huge gulps. He put the glass back and repeated the order.
Connell leaned against the counter, looking at him. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Every time you get near something related to your missing memories, this happens.”
Bedivere nodded.
“How bad are the cravings?” Connell asked. “If you keep prodding at your memories, will they get too bad…?”
Bedivere drank some of the second glass, considering the question carefully. “Possibly,” he said at last. “Probably,” he amended reluctantly. “It’s all wrapped up together.”
“That’s why you’re going at it digitally,” Connell pointed out. “There’s no emotion there.”
“There is for me,” Bedivere said simply. “I’ve been in this body too long. I automatically translate now. I can’t help it.”
Connell crossed his arms and sighed. His clear eyes were troubled. “Should you even do this, then?”
Bedivere stretched and rolled his head on his neck, trying to make the taut muscles relax. “I have to,” he said. “I’ve explained why.”
Connell glanced around the room. There was no one there but the two of them. Lilly and Brant were enjoying a rare day off. Because Lilly was not here, Yennifer was working from her own office. They had sealed the room befo
re digging into the files, so no one could track their digital footsteps. They were secure.
“You want to know that it was just bad luck, or if someone really did push you into the no-ask contracts and the Darzi. And you want to find out more about Devlin…if he really is Varkan.” Connell repeated the words by rote, recalling them from previous conversations. Then his gaze refocused on Bedivere. “I still can’t believe he might be. Why would someone like Devlin lie about something like that?”
“That’s what I want to find out,” Bedivere replied. “Only, I’m not going to be able to do a digital dive like you can.”
“So what will you do?”
“I’m going to do it the old-fashioned human way. I’m going to read and infer.” Bedivere grinned. “You, though, can chase down that rabbit hole as deep as you want.”
“Which one?”
Bedivere’s grin faded. “You find out where I went and why. You started that particular burrow, so you should finish it. I’m going to find out everything I can about where Devlin came from.”
Connell drew in a deep breath and let it out on a gusty sigh. “Devlin Woodward, a Varkan,” he repeated with awe. “How important is it that you find out, Bedivere? Seriously? Because the storm it will cause if you’re right will make a supernova look tame in comparison.”
“In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter a single iota. Brant had it right—no one will care if he’s really a Varkan or not. Not these days. For me, though, the only thing more important than learning about Devlin is Catherine herself…and he’s got her in his life and in his sights.” Bedivere put the glass down. “I have to know the truth. It matters, Connell. More than life itself.”
Connell nodded. “So, let’s find out.”
* * * * *
Connell reached ahead through the system to ping Yennifer’s presence and let her know he was coming, so when he reached the office with the glass doors and walls and the pretty AIs running around everywhere, Yennifer was already standing and waiting for him.
“A formal appointment, Connell?” she asked, giving him a small smile. “We could have discussed this within the system, in a fraction of the time.”
Cat and Company Page 14