Courageous tlf-3

by Jack Campbell

  Rione raised one eyebrow.

  “Why not? It’s a nice place. Maybe I couldn’t stay there, but I’d like to see it again.”

  “It’s changed, Captain Geary.”

  “That’s what Desjani said.” Geary shrugged. “Maybe I want to see how it’s changed, to help me absorb the fact that a century has passed since I last was there.”

  “You’d scarcely be allowed to wander around, you know.” Rione twisted her mouth. “Black Jack would be mobbed.”

  “Yeah. Desjani offered to show me around. She could help me avoid the crowds, maybe. Her parents are still alive. They’d help us keep a low profile, I think.”

  Victoria Rione stayed silent again for a moment, her face unmoving. “So,” she finally observed, “Tanya Desjani has invited you home to meet her parents.”

  It hadn’t even occurred to him that Desjani’s offer could be read that way. “What’s the matter? Are you jealous?”

  This time both of Rione’s eyebrows arched upward. “Hardly.”

  “Good. Because the last thing I want is anyone thinking I’m interested in her or vice versa.” Had Rione heard the baseless rumors about him and Desjani that Duellos had referred to? How could she not have heard them with her spies keeping track of events inside the fleet?

  This time Rione smiled slightly. “Oh, surely not, John Geary. Think of the advantages of having a woman who believes you were sent by the living stars to save us all. Many men pray for a woman who would worship them. You’ve got one ready and waiting.”

  Geary stood up, anger stirring. “I don’t find that funny at all. Tanya Desjani is a fine officer. I don’t want anyone thinking she would engage in unprofessional behavior. My enemies in this fleet are already trying to stir up trouble and undermine me by alleging that Desjani and I have an unprofessional relationship. I don’t want any more rumors that we’re involved with each other. I won’t do that to her.”

  Rione’s smile vanished, and she looked down for a moment. When she raised her head again, her face was composed. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

  “Well, damn,” Geary couldn’t help saying, “I’ve got a woman who just admitted I was right. A lot of men pray for that, too.”

  “Just because I’m being a bitch doesn’t mean you have to be a bastard.”

  It was Geary’s turn to look away and nod. “That’s true.”

  “Besides,” Rione continued, “I’m much better at it than you are.” She sagged back in her seat, her expression a mix of weariness and unhappiness.

  Geary leaned forward. “What the hell’s going on, Victoria? I can tell something is bothering you, and I don’t think it’s me. I’ve been trying to imagine why you’d neglect your duties to the Alliance and the Callas Republic and, quite frankly, I’m baffled.” She sat silent, her expression revealing nothing. “Is it me? You haven’t touched me since Ilion. We never made any promises, but I honestly don’t understand what happened to change things.”

  Rione shrugged, her face averted. “I’m a bitch. You knew that. It was only physical, anyway.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Rione didn’t look up, so Geary continued. “I said it before, and I’ll say it now. I like talking with you. I like being around you.”

  “I notice you’re not denying that I’m a bitch.”

  “And you’re trying to change the subject.” He caught her frown. “Is this related to why you and Captain Desjani are at sword’s point whenever you’re together?”

  She laughed mockingly. “Such an observant man. If Desjani and I were two formations of Syndic warships you’d have figured out what we were doing a long time ago.”

  Geary refused to rise to the bait. “I respect you both. I like you both, though in different ways. I also respect the way both of you think. That’s why it worries the hell out of me that I don’t know why you two seem to hate each other since Ilion.”

  Rione looked away for some time before answering. “Captain Tanya Desjani is afraid that I will hurt the man she idolizes.”

  “Dammit, Victoria—”

  “I’m not joking, John Geary.” She sighed heavily and finally looked back at him. “Use your head!” Rione demanded harshly. “What did we pick up at Sancere?”

  “A lot of things.”

  “Including an outdated but large listing of Alliance prisoners of war.” To Geary’s shock, Rione seemed to be trembling slightly as she spoke. “You know the Syndics stopped sharing lists of prisoners with us long ago. You know many of the names on that list were presumed dead. You should have realized that some of the names on that list would be people that were thought to be certainly dead!” She almost shouted the last.

  He finally got it. “Your husband. His name was on the list?”

  Her fists were clenched, and she was visibly shaking. “Yes.”

  “But you said you knew he was dead.”

  “Those who escaped from the ship said he had died!” she yelled, though Geary somehow knew Rione wasn’t yelling at him. She calmed herself, taking long, slow breaths. “But the list we captured gives his name and identity number. It says he was badly injured but alive when captured.”

  Geary waited a moment, but she said nothing more. “That’s all?”

  “That’s all, John Geary. I know the Syndics captured him alive. I know he was seriously hurt. I don’t know if he lived for even another day. I don’t know if he survived whatever medical treatment the Syndics offered. I don’t know if he was sent to a labor camp. I don’t know if he died after that.” She paused. “I don’t know.”

  Victoria Rione, normally so in control, was radiating pain. Geary moved over and held her close, feeling the tremors inside her. “I’m sorry. Damn, I’m sorry.”

  Her voice was slightly muffled now. “I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if he’s dead. If he somehow survived, if he’s in a labor camp somewhere, the chances that I’d ever learn of it, the chances that I’d ever see him again, are so tiny as to be zero. Yet he could be alive. My husband, the man I still love.”

  And, Geary realized, she had learned this within weeks of coming into his bed for the first time. The ugly irony of it left him wondering why the living stars had done such a thing to Rione. “Okay. You don’t have to say any more.”

  “Yes, I do. After ten years of staying true to his memory, I gave myself to you, and then learned he might still live.” Rione pushed Geary away and stared off to the side. “Fate had its joke, didn’t it? I thought I had done the right thing, John Geary. I thought I had honored my dead husband and done as he would have wished. Now I find I may have dishonored him. Myself as well, but mostly him.”

  “No.” His reply came out without thinking. Geary paused to order his words. “You’ve dishonored no one. Tell me the truth. If he showed up at a labor camp in the next star system we visit, would you go with him or stay with me?”

  “Go with him,” she answered without hesitating. “I’m sorry, John Geary, but that is the truth, and it will not change. I’ve told you where my heart would forever lie.” Rione breathed deeply again, trying to control her emotions. “Desjani knows that, too. She found my husband’s name on the list and came to tell me out of a sense of duty. Your Captain Desjani is very dedicated in her sense of duty. She was also hurt for me, though I didn’t give her enough credit for that at the time, and shocked when I revealed that I already had seen the same thing and not told you.” Rione locked eyes with Geary. “She didn’t think I should keep it from you. She didn’t want you hurt when you found out.”

  There wasn’t any reason to doubt Rione. It sounded just like what Desjani would do. “And when you refused to tell me…”

  “She wouldn’t divulge my secret. Not the noble, honorable Captain Desjani.” Rione grimaced and shook her head. “She doesn’t deserve to be spoken of by me that way. She was just trying to protect you. Tanya Desjani has honor. If anyone deserves you, she does.”

  “What?” The conversation had shifted too suddenly. “Deserves me? She’s one
of my subordinates. She’s never given the slightest sign of—”

  “Nor will she,” Rione interrupted. “As I said, she has honor. Even if she was willing to compromise her own honor, she’d never compromise yours. I, on the other hand, am a politician. I use people. I used you.”

  “You gave me no promises,” Geary repeated. “Damn, Victoria, am I supposed to feel abused here? When you’re the one who’s been torn apart?”

  “You were enticed into publicly sharing your bed with a woman whose husband might still live!” Rione yelled, losing control again. “I have stained your honor and left openings for your enemies to exploit! Why can’t you get angry about that?”

  “Who else knows about this?” Geary asked, startled.

  “I…” Rione flung one hand out angrily. “You, me, and the noble Captain Desjani. For certain. Others may have found the same information and be waiting to employ it when it will harm you the most. You have to assume that’s the case. You have to assume your honor will be questioned sooner or later because of me.”

  “I seem to recall you once telling me that you could look out for your own honor. I can do the same.”

  “Can you?” Rione took a long, deep breath. “If I’m supposed to be your example, you’re not very convincing. Why are you trying to defend me?”

  “Because any man worth anything wouldn’t fault you for an honest mistake—”

  “Any man? Will you speak for my husband now, John Geary?” Rione glared at him. “What would I tell him? What should I tell my ancestors? I haven’t spoken with them since I learned of this. How can I?”

  Geary looked silently back at her for a moment. “Do you want me to speak honestly?”

  “Oh, why not? One of us should be honest,” Rione answered bitterly.

  “Then I’ll tell you a few things.” Geary kept his voice firm, speaking as if giving commands on the bridge. “First, my honor isn’t stained. Neither is your honor. A stain requires knowingly doing a dishonorable thing.”

  “That is not—”

  “I don’t care how people see things now! A hundred years ago people understood that! Aren’t your lives hard enough after a century of war? Do you need to make them even harder by holding yourselves to impossible standards?” Rione stared at him. “I don’t have the right to tell you how to feel, but I’m telling you that’s how I feel. Secondly,” Geary continued, “you’re not helping anyone by flaying yourself this way. Yes, in a perfect, ideal universe you could be held to some impossible standard of loyalty. Not here.”

  She shook her head. “That’s unlikely to bring comfort to my husband or to my ancestors.”

  “What would you have wanted to happen if the situation were reversed?” Geary demanded. “If you’d been badly hurt, taken for dead, and perhaps forever separated from your husband? What would you have wanted?”

  Rione spent a long time with her eyes lowered, saying nothing. Finally, she raised her gaze again and spoke calmly. “I would want him to be happy.”

  “Even if that meant finding someone else if he thought you were dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if he then learned you could still be alive but still possibly forever lost to him? Would you want him to blame himself?”

  “Do not use my husband against me, John Geary,” Rione spat. “You don’t have the right.”

  He sat back and nodded, trying to stay calm. “That’s so. Why not talk to your ancestors? Maybe they’ll give you some sign of how they feel.”

  “Such as the word adulteress appearing on my forehead?” Rione asked, still angry.

  “Since you already think it’s there, why not?” Geary shot back. “But maybe they won’t condemn you. They’re your ancestors, Victoria. They were human, too. They lived imperfect lives. That’s why we talk to them, because they can remember and understand and maybe, just maybe, they can show us some wisdom that we’ve not yet learned.”

  She shook her head, looking away again. “I can’t.”

  “Even the most dishonorable can talk to their ancestors! No one can take that from you!”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Rione stared stubbornly toward the opposite bulkhead.

  He studied her profile, the set of her jaw, and slowly began to understand. “You’re afraid to talk to them? Afraid of how they might react?”

  “Does that surprise you, John Geary? Of course I’m afraid. I’ve done many things I’m not particularly proud of, but I’ve never done anything that I thought would shame my ancestors.”

  He considered that for a while. “You don’t have to face them alone. There are—”

  “I will not share my shame with another!”

  “You’ve already shared it with Desjani and now me!” Geary yelled back.

  “And that is where it will end,” Rione muttered, her face grim and stubborn.

  “I could—”

  “No!” Rione visibly tried to calm herself again. “That would have been my husband’s role. I won’t have you beside me when I face my ancestors.”

  That left only one option. “How about Desjani? Could you ask her to accompany you?”

  Rione stared at him, plainly shocked.

  “She already knows.”

  “And she detests me.”

  “Because you wouldn’t tell me. Now you have.” Rione’s eyes wavered. “You said it yourself. Desjani has honor. Your ancestors can’t object to her.”

  Rione shook her head, avoiding Geary’s gaze again. “Why would she do that for me?”

  “I could ask her.” Wrong answer, as Rione’s eyes blazed. “Or you could. Do you think Desjani would deny you that?”

  She finally sighed. “Oh, no. Not the noble Captain Desjani. She’d even stand beside a politician if that person needed her, wouldn’t she? Especially if she thought the great Captain Geary wanted her to do it.”

  “I think so, but you can leave the ‘great Captain Geary’ crap out of it. I’m trying to help you here, and Captain Desjani will help you if you ask, so you don’t need to keep throwing verbal missiles at either of us.”

  Rione stood up, gazing down at Geary with a searching expression. “You won’t be in command of this fleet forever. Someday you’ll get it home. The living stars alone know how, but somehow you’ll do it. You can retire the day after that if you want. No one in the Alliance would deny you that. On that day, when you no longer have the responsibilities of command, when regulations and honor no longer keep you from personal relationships with any other officers, would you want to be tied to someone like me, or would you like the freedom to learn the heart of someone like Tanya Desjani?”

  “I’ve never—”

  “No. And you won’t. Damn you.” Rione spun around and left.

  Geary started awake as his stateroom door opened, then closed. He slapped the light control, bringing the dim night lighting to life, and saw Victoria Rione standing there, watching him silently.

  “Hello, John Geary.” She walked a bit unsteadily toward him, then sat down on the end of the bed, staring at him. “Aren’t you going to ask?”

  He could easily smell the wine on her breath even across the distance still separating them. “About what?”

  “How it went.” Rione waved one hand grandly. “Me, my ancestors, and Captain Desjani. Surely you want to know.”

  “Victoria—”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head, slightly wobbly, her voice thick. “I explained what had happened. I expressed my remorse. I asked for guidance. Nothing. I felt nothing. They sent me nothing. My ancestors don’t even want to acknowledge me anymore, John Geary.”

  He sat up finally. “That can’t be true.”

  “Ask the noble Captain Desjani! Damn her and damn you.” Rione shoved herself to her feet and started pulling off her clothes.

  Geary got up, too. “What are you doing?”

  “Being what I am.” She dropped the last garment and half fell onto the bed, gazing up at him. “Go ahead.”

  “You must be crazy
if you think I’d take advantage of you right now.”

  “Too honorable? Don’t fool yourself. Just be Black Jack for a while. Do whatever you want.”

  He stared down at her, trying to find words.

  Rione spoke again, her eyes looking past Geary now as if seeing other things. “I’ll kill him if I have to, you know. If Black Jack tries to harm the Alliance and there’s no other way to stop him, I’ll kill him. Too many others have died to let their sacrifices be lost. Maybe that’s when my honor disappeared, when I vowed to do anything it took to stop Black Jack.” Her eyes focused back on him with some difficulty. “Anything.”

  It wasn’t easy to say, but he had to speak the thought that came to him. “Is that why you started sleeping with me in the first place?”

  Her mouth worked; then she shook her head slightly. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t think even I would do that.”

  “Even you? At one point you spoke of things even I wouldn’t do, and now you’re being just as hard on yourself.” Geary reached down to pull the sheet over her while she watched, unmoving. “I will not treat you badly, Victoria. You deserve much better, whether you believe that or not.”

  He sat down nearby, his eyes on the starscape glowing softly on one wall. “You’re a hard person, a tough person, but you’re just as hard on yourself as you are on others. Maybe harder. I don’t think it’s possible for your ancestors to forgive you when you refuse to forgive yourself.”

  A long time went by in silence, then he looked over and saw that Rione had passed out. Even now, dead to the world, her face was lined with distress.

  When Geary had first been awakened on Dauntless, he’d been too stunned to really pay attention to the people in the fleet, the descendants of the people he’d once known and lived among. After assuming command, he’d quickly learned about some of the changes that a century of time and ugly warfare had wrought, and he had been left believing that he was among strangers who no longer felt or thought like he did. As the weeks went by and he learned more about them, Geary had decided he’d too harshly judged these people and had begun to feel as if he and they shared fundamental things. But now he felt doubt again. Honor could be a burden and a sword. It could be too easily misused. And it seemed the people of the Alliance in this time a hundred years from his own used honor as a weapon against themselves, making honor so unyielding and unreasonable that it could just as easily harm them as their enemies, just as easily endorse injustice as integrity.