by David Weber
Just a little time.
"You seem pretty tense," Despreaux said as she slid onto Roger's arm and rested her head on his shoulder.
"Uh-huh."
"It's going well," she added. "The Association, the supplies. This is as good as its looked in a long time."
"Uh-huh."
"So why in hell are you answering me in monosyllables? Something I don't know?"
"More like something I think you do know and didn't tell me," Roger said, jaw muscles clenching. "Something about my mother?"
"Shit." Despreaux sat up and eyed him warily. "The Association knew?"
"Catrone, at least. He assumed my so-capable sources had already informed me. I think he was wondering why I was so... calm about it."
"Why are you so calm about it?" she asked.
"I'm not," he replied. "I'm what you might call livid about what's been happening to my mother. And I'm almost as livid about the discovery that nobody told me about it. It wasn't like I wasn't going to find out. And if I'd first found out when New Madrid or Adoula were in reach—" He shook his head. "I don't want to think about what I might have done."
"I know," she said unhappily. "We've been discussing it."
"Yeah? Well, you were discussing it with the wrong person." He looked at her finally, and his eyes were hard. "You were supposed to discuss it with me. Remember me? The Prince? Boss-man? The Heir? The guy who's killed people for a whole hell of a lot less than torturing and raping his mother for months at a time? The guy who really needs to not start his reign by chopping off the heads of major political players out-of-hand? Roger? Me? Remember me, Nimashet?!"
"Okay, we pocked up!" She threw her arms up. "Maybe we're not as strong morally as we are physically! Do you really think we wanted to tell you? The Phaenurs werequite clear that they did not want to be around you when you found out. Neither did I, okay?"
"No, it's not 'okay.' The purpose of a staff is to manage the information so that the boss gets the information he or she needs. I needed that information. I needed to not be blindsided by it—not when we finally got my mother out, nor in negotiations with a still not particularly trustworthy ally!"
"You don't trust the Association?"
"I don't trust anyone but us and the Mardukans. And now I'm wondering if I should trust you."
"That's not fair!" she said angrily.
"Why is it not fair? Hello! You kind of forgot to tell me something very important about the operation, about postoperation conditions, about my responses... Why is it not fair?"
Her face worked, and it was obvious she was fighting not to cry.
"Damn it, Roger," she said quietly. "Don't do this. Don't pound me for this. Okay, we pocked up. We should have told you. But do not pound on me to get your mad out."
"Shit." He slid down and wrapped his head in a pillow. "Shit." He paused and shook his head, voice still muffled. "I'm sorry."
"I am, too," she said, openly crying.
"You're right," he said, still with his face in the pillow. "I did need to bring it up, but this wasn't the time or the place. I'm sorry. How the hell do you put up with me?"
"Well," she said lightly, even while tears still choked her voice, "you're good-looking. And you're rich..."
"God."
"Why didn't you bring this up earlier today?" she asked after a moment.
"The time wasn't right." Roger shrugged. "Too much going on. We sure as hell didn't need a big internal fight in front of the Association guys. But I couldn't keep it in once we got to bed. And I'm still angry, but now I'm angry at myself, too. Christ."
"Roger," Despreaux said quietly, "this is what's called a pillow-fight. There are rules for those."
"One of them being don't bring up business to beat up on your girlfriend?" he asked, finally pulling his head out of the pillow.
"No, the rules don't work that way. Not about what we fight about, so much as how we fight about it. And this is the rule you need to keep in mind—either we work it out while we're still awake, or you go sleep on a couch."
"Why do I have to sleep on the couch? I'm the prince. For that matter, this is my room."
"You sleep on the couch because you're the guy," she said, batting her eyelashes at him. "Those are the rules. It doesn't matter if this is your room or my room—this is my bed. And you can't use one of the other bedrooms. You have to sleep on a couch. With a blanket."
"Do I get a pillow?" he asked plaintively.
"Only if you're good. Otherwise, I get all of them."
"I... I don't like these rules."
"Too bad. Them's the rules."
"When I'm Emperor, I'm going to change them," Roger said, then shook his head. "God, that brings it up again."
"And so on, and so forth," she said. "Until one of us gets tired enough for you to go to the couch."
"Don't hide important things from me," Roger said quietly, "and I'll try not to use business to beat up on you. Okay?"
"Fair." Despreaux lay back down and leaned her head on his arm once more. "We'll discuss the more advanced techniques for quarreling another time. What's allowed, what's not, what works, what just makes things worse."
She yawned and snuggled closer.
"I get to sleep here?"
"Are we done?"
"I guess so," he said. "I'll take out the rest of the mad on Adoula."
"Do that."
"Hey, we just had a lovers' quarrel, right?"
"Don't go there..." she muttered, then yawned again. "So, other than that, is it working?"
"Too soon to tell. Too many things that can go wrong." It was his turn to yawn, and he pulled her closer to him. "For now, all we can do is keep to the path and hope nobody notices."
"Ms. Subianto," Roger said, stopping by the woman's table. "A pleasure to have you in Marduk House. I hope you're enjoying the basik."
"Lovely," Subianto replied, touching her lips with a napkin. "A truly new taste sensation. That's so rare these days."
"And this atul is great," Tebic said, cutting off another bite. "I can't believe it's so tender."
"We use a special tenderizer," Roger said with a quiet smile. "The rarest ingredients. Marinated for thirty-six hours."
Said ingredients consisted of killerpillar flesh-dissolving enzymes, diluted a hundred-to-one. One of Kostas' discoveries on the long march. The prince forbore to elaborate, however.
"You certainly got this restaurant up and running very quickly," Subianto said. "And in such a... prime location."
"Hardly prime," Roger demurred. "But the neighborhood does seem to be improving. Probably by example."
"Yes," she said dryly. "The physicians at Imperial General have noticed some of the... examples."
"I hope that's not an official complaint?" Roger raised one eyebrow. "Surely a lonely extraterrestrial has the right to self-defense?"
"It was not, in fact, a complaint at all," Subianto said. "The local PD's gang team thinks you're the best thing since... roast basik." She smiled. "And many of Parliament's staffers appreciate a restaurant with such... elaborate, if quiet, electronic security."
"The privacy of my guests is important," Roger said, smiling in turn. "As much a part of Marduk House's services as anything on the menu, as a matter of fact After all, this is a town with many secrets. Many of them are ones that you're supposed toprotect, right?"
"Of course," she said smoothly, "others are ones we're supposed to penetrate. Such as who Augustus Chung really is? Why certain of his associates are meeting with an admiral who's been... remiss about responding to orders from central command? Why one Augustus Chung has been receiving heavy weaponry and armor from an off-planet source? What Mardukans are doing training in stingship operations? Why Mr. Chung has been meeting with representatives from the Empress' Own Association? Why, in fact, such representatives—who are notoriously loyal to the Empress—are meeting with him at all?"
"I suppose I could say I have no idea what you're talking about," Roger replied, still smiling f
aintly. "But that would be a rather transparent, and pointless, lie. I guess the only answer is another question. Why haven't you reported this to Prince Jackson? Or, more to the point, to your superiors, which we both know would be the same thing."
"Because, whatever his current unusual position," Subianto said, "the IBI is in the service of the Empire, not Prince Jackson or his cronies. The evidence we have all points in one direction, Mr. Chung. So I'm here, sampling your excellent basik, and wondering what in the hell you think you're doing. And who you really are. Because simply capturing the Palace isn't going to help the Empire one bit, and if you have nothing more in your head than that—rescuing Her Majesty from her current admittedly horrible conditions—then... other arrangements will have to be made. For the Empire."
She smiled brightly at him.
"The IBI is a department of the executive branch of government, correct?" Roger asked carefully.
"Correct." Subianto eyed her host warily. She'd already noted that her normal charms seemed to slide right off of him. He'd noticed her as a woman, and she was sure he wasn't gay, but beyond that he seemed totally immune.
"And the Empress is the head of the executive branch, your ultimate boss, also correct?"
"Yes."
"And we might as well drop the pretense that the Empress is not under duress," Roger pointed out. "Which means the control of the executive branch goes to... whom?"
"The Heir," Tebic said with a frown. "Except that there isn't one. John and Alexandra, and John's children, are all dead, and Roger is reported to be at large and to have been instrumental in the supposed coup. But he's not. Adoula had him killed. The ship was sabotaged and lost in deep space. We know that."
"I hope like hell you found out after it happened," "Chung" said, showing signs of emotion for the first time.
"Afterward." Subianto frowned at the intensity of the reaction. "We found out through information received after Adoula took control, but we have three confirmations."
"In that case, Ms. Subianto, I will leave you," Roger said, smiling again, if somewhat tightly. "But in parting, I wish you would join Mr. Tebic in trying the atul. It really is as tender as... a fatted calf. Please ponder that. Silently." He smiled again. "Have a nice meal."
As their host walked away, Tebic looked at his boss and frowned.
"Fat—" he began. He could recognize a code phrase when he heard it, but this one made no sense to him.
"Don't," Subianto said, picking at the remaining bits of basik on her plate. "Don't say it."
"What... ?"
"Not here. I'm not sure where. I don't trust our secure rooms to not be monitored by us. You're a Christian, aren't you, Tebic?"
"Um." Tebic shrugged at the apparently total non sequitur. "Sort of. I was raised Armenian Orthodox. My dad was Reform Islam, but he never went to mosque, and I haven't been to church since I was a kid."
"I'm not sure it's translated into Armenian the same way," Subianto said, "and I'm Zoroastrian. But I recognize it. It's a phrase from the Bible—Emperor Talbot version, I think. That's still the most common Imperial translation."
"I can run a data search—" Tebic started to say, looking inward to activate his toot.
"Don't!" Subianto said, more sharply than she'd intended. Panicked might have been a better word. "Don't even think about it. Don't write it down, don't put it on the net, don't say it in public. Nothing. Understand?"
"No," Tebic said, going gray. "But if you say so..."
"I do," Subianto said. "Get the check."
* * *
The next day, late in the morning, Subianto walked into Tebic's office with a book in her hand. An actual, honest-to-God paper book. Tebic couldn't remember seeing more than half a dozen of them in his life. She set it on the desk and opened it to a marked page, pointing to a line of text.
"And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
At the top of the page was the title: "The Parable of the Prodigal Son."
"Holy..." Tebic's voice trailed off as his eyes widened.
"Yes." Subianto picked up the book, took out the marker, and closed it. "All that's holy. Let's hope it stays holy. And very, very quiet."
"You told her?" Catrone yelled.
"There wasn't much she didn't already know." Roger shrugged. "If they'd wanted to arrest us, we'd already be taken down or in a firefight."
"The Bureau won't be monolithic in these circumstances," Temu Jin said with a frown. The IBI agent had been managing the electronic and physical security aspects of the mission, keeping out of sight in the Greenbrier bunker. Of them all, he was the only one whohadn't had a body-mod. No one could possibly discover his connection to Roger without actually going to Marduk and piecing things together, and any attempt to do that would run into major resistance from the locals who were the prince's partisans. Those who'd been his enemies were no longer around to be interviewed.
There wasn't even much danger of Jin being noticed as "out of cover" by the IBI if that organization should happen to spot him. He was openly listed as a communications technician on the staff of the restaurant, and if the IBI used the right protocols, they might spot him as one of their own and realize they already had an agent in place. In which case he was in position to file a wholly false report on a minor money-trafficking operation, with no clue as to where the money was coming from.
Then again, he'd been a Counterintelligence and Imperial Security operative, and the head of that division had vanished under mysterious circumstances. He'd also sent out codes telling "his" agents they were in the cold, which meant, in all probability, that the records of one Temu Jin had been electronically flushed. So as long as no one who might recognize him by sight actually saw him, he was probably clean. But Buseh Subianto—who'd been in the same department, if not in his chain of command—might just possibly have been able to do exactly that. He'd certainly recognized the video of her and her companion, Tebic.
"Subianto is one of the really straight players," he continued. "Apolitical as anyone in Counter-Intel can get. It's why she's been in her current position so long; go higher, and you're dealing with policy, and policy means politics."
"She's playing policy now," Catrone muttered. "If she'd filed a report, we'd have Marines or IBI tac-teams swarming all over us. But that doesn't mean she's on our side, Roger."
"She was going to keep pushing," Roger said calmly. "She's an IBI agent, even if she doesn't work the streets anymore, and curiosity is what they're all about. But if I'm the Heir, then any decision she makes is policy. My estimate, based on her questions and the manner in which they were presented, was that she'd just keep her head down if she knew who I was. And I was the person handling it; I had to decide how I was going to handle it right then. It was my decision to handle it in that way."
"There's another aspect to consider," Eleanora said. "One of our big weaknesses is current intelligence. Up to date intel, especially on Adoula's actions and movements. If we had a contact in the IBI—"
"Too risky." Catrone shook his head. "She might be willing to keep her head down and ignore us. For that matter, I think Roger's probably right, that she is. But we can't risk bringing her in, or trying to pump her for information."
"Agreed," Roger said. "And if that's settled, let's move on. Are we agreed on the plan?"
"Home Fleet is still the big question," Catrone said with a frown.
"I know," Roger replied. "Macek and Bebi are in position, but we need a read on Kjerulf."
"Contacting him would tip our hand." Catrone was shaking his head again.
"That depends on Kjerulf," Roger pointed out. "And we're finding friends in the oddest places."
"I know him," Marinau said suddenly. "He was my CO when I was on Tetri." He shrugged. "I'd say he's probably more likely to be a friend than an enemy."
"You can't contact him, though," Catrone objected. "You're needed to arrange t
he rehearsals. Besides, we can be damned well certain Adoula's keeping an eye on you."
"Eleanora could do it," Roger said. "He's stationed on Moonbase. That's only a six-hour hop."
"Contacting him for a meet would be... difficult," Marinau pointed out.
"Is there some code he'd recognize as coming from you?" Roger asked. "Something that's innocuous otherwise?"
"Maybe." Marinau rubbed one ear lobe. "I can think of a couple of things."
"Well, even after everything else I've done, I never thought I'd stoop to this," Roger said, "but we'll send out a spam message, with your code in the header. He'll get at least one of the messages and recognize the header. I hope."
"I can set that up." Catrone grimaced. "The software's out there. Makes me sick, though."
"We've done worse, and we'll do it again," Roger said dryly. "I know that's hard to believe when we're talking about spam, but there it is. Are we in agreement otherwise?"
"Yes," Marinau replied. "It looks like the best we can cobble together to me. I'm still not happy about the fact that there's no reserve to speak of, though. You want a reserve for more than just somebody to retreat on."
"Agreed, and if I could provide one, I would," Roger said. "At least there's the Cheyenne stingship and shuttle force. If they can get here in time. And if it runs long, we can probably call on the Sixth Fleet Marines."
"How's the training on your Mardukans coming?" Catrone asked.
"From what I hear," Roger said with a grin, "the biggest problem is shoehorning them into the cockpits."
"This is pocking cramped," Honal complained.
The bay under the main Cheyenne facility was much larger than the one at Greenbrier... and even more packed with equipment. There were fifteen of the later and considerably nastier Bearkiller stingships, four Velociraptor assault shuttles, ten light hovertanks, and a series of simulators for all of them. Honal was currently stuffed into one such simulator, trying out the new seat.
"It's not my fault you guys are oversized," Paul McMahon said.
The stingship engineer had been between jobs when Rosenberg shanghaied him—hiring him off the net for "secure work at a remote location without the opportunity for outside contact." The salary offered had been twice his normal pay rate, but when he found out who'd hired him, there'd been a near mutiny, despite the fact that Rosenberg had been his CO before he retired from the Imperial Marines. He'd only agreed to help under duress and after receiving a sworn statement that he was not a voluntary participant. Rosenberg's recorded, legally attested statement probably wouldn't keep him out of jail, but it might let him at least keep his head, although he wasn't wildly enthusiastic about his prospects under any circumstances.