Downtime

by Cynthia Felice

  Jason stiffened. “If you paid attention to the newsbean, you know that she waited until after Mahdi attempted to capture Dvalerth’s elixir garden; that act removed the last doubt that Mahdi was the traitor.”

  “Did it?” D’Omaha said. He shook his head. “How do we know that Mahdi wasn’t taking the elixir garden into protective custody, just trying to enforce council’s decision? Once he had control of Dvalerth’s garden, Cassells fleet probably would never have attacked.”

  “What are the odds on that, Praetor?” Jason asked, suddenly disliking D’Omaha’s tone. “Is that your professional opinion, or just speculation?”

  D’Omaha flushed. “You know that I don’t have sufficient information to offer a professional opinion. But given what I do have, and who I am, I’m certain to be more accurate in my opinions than anyone else on Mutare.”

  “But they are just opinions, Praetor, worth no more and no less than anyone else’s considering our circumstances. Your genes are worth no more than mine when it comes to opinions without the benefit of facts, and twenty minutes of news prepared by a trading guild service isn’t necessarily factual, and certainly not the whole story. And you have an obligation to make your limitations clear, especially to people who tend to hold all decemviri in considerable awe. Let’s go back and talk to my people, and this time let them know that you’re not infallible.”

  D’Omaha hesitated.

  “Do you think that I don’t understand your limitations?” Jason asked, amazed and angry. “If you equate lax uniform codes with ignorance, you simply haven’t checked the facts, Praetor, and facts are supposed to be your lifeblood. If you had checked, you would have known that there is greater self-discipline among my people in the work that they do because they are motivated by their own self-worth and not because of how they look. And if you had checked, you would have discovered that while I never got any medals for setting up and running model military camps, I do regularly receive commendations for getting my job done and getting it done right and on time. You’re getting careless, Praetor, or maybe it’s deliberate because you’re still angry that Calla left me in charge and not you.”

  “Easy, Jason,” Marmion said. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

  “I know exactly who I’m talking to, and that’s what makes me angry. Praetor D’Omaha should know better than to speak so carelessly to people who are starved for information and who are so essential to the successful outcome of the whole damned war.”

  “Your loyalty to Calla is admirable,” D’Omaha said, “but are you certain it stems entirely from your devotion to duty?”

  “Absolutely certain,” Jason said. “Now let’s go back and talk to the people, and this time you tell them how fallible you can be without all the facts. That’s an order, Praetor, before they have any time to stew.” He shot a parting glance at Marmion, who hung his head. Then, leaving D’Omaha to follow at his own speed, Jason walked across the staging bay. He would rather have gone to talk to Arria, but this was more important.

  Chapter 20

  D’Omaha walked behind Stairnon as she climbed the stone stairs leading to the garden lake. There was just a dusting of snow on the steps; this second winter on Mutare had not been so harsh as the last one. They’d had very little snow and even the temperatures were quite mild for the time of year. He and Stairnon were wearing parkas under their stellerators, but his was open to the knees and just a moment ago Stairnon had thrown back her hood.

  “I almost wish we would have a blizzard,” Stairnon said. “It just feels as if something should happen, and I’d rather it be a snowstorm than a war.”

  In that, Stairnon was like everyone else, always knowing that the siege might start any time, quite prepared for it, dreading it, yet ready to welcome almost anything that would bring a change to the waiting.

  She topped the stairs and ran to the crest of the ridge, leaving D’Omaha behind. He was breathless and so was she when he caught up with her. She stood on a flat rock looking out over the lake. The setting sun was at their backs, their shadows like two arrows on the water. The lake gleamed in the sunlight, as still today as a mirror, except for the little ripples on the far side where Arria was baling a bucketful into her boiling pot of cocoons. There was a danae on her shoulder, the one she and Jason called Tonto. Unlike all the other danae, it had wintered over at the garden lake, taking to the heated waters when the nights were too cold. It was always with Arria when she was outdoors, and that was almost all the time but nighttime. She had a bigger collection of cocoons than any ranger, more than probably half the miners on the planet. She always knew just where to look for them, never came back empty-handed. Marmion was building some small fortunes from nymph thread with freetraders who looked at Stairnon’s samplers with considerable awe.

  D’Omaha was proud of Stairnon. She’d been a big help to Jason and Marmion in converting the miners from danae hunting to cocoon hunting. Marmion, he knew, had actually given up hunting danae in deference to Jason and Arria. Some of the others had, too, once they were convinced there was easier profit to make.

  Arria finished adding water to her pot, straightened up and waved. “She can’t really even see us,” Stairnon commented. “The sun is in her eyes.” But she waved, too, a stiff, abortive gesture. Arria’s psi awareness made Stairnon nervous. She had no confidence in her ability to discipline her thoughts sufficiently well to keep Arria out, though D’Omaha had assured her that the ability to do so had nothing at all to do with decemviral genes.

  “I think that’s Jason and Marmion down at the point,” D’Omaha said, gesturing to the little inlet that once had been a gully.

  “Shall we walk over?” Stairnon asked reaching for D’Omaha’s hand. She still hated to go to Round House because it was impossible to avoid seeing the waiting gallows. But she also refused to avoid Jason, even seemed determined at times to seek him out, as she was now. D’Omaha pulled her back to the rock. He’d never forgiven Jason for humiliating him before all the rangers that first winter.

  “Let’s wait for them to come here,” he said, certain they would, but wanting to delay the meeting as long as possible. It felt wonderful just to hold Stairnon’s hand, a gloveless hand but warm in his.

  “It’s all right,” Stairnon said. “We can walk some more. I’m not tired.”

  “I am,” D’Omaha said, and sat down. “I’ve been on my feet all day in the fab.” It was the grueling monotony that got to him. Being with Stairnon was his only respite from the pressing need to turn out even more elixir.

  She looked at him with quick concern, then apparently satisfied that there was nothing unduly wrong, she sat down beside him. Her gaze returned almost immediately to Arria and the danae, a thoughtful, almost troubled gaze that D’Omaha couldn’t understand. When they first met Arria, she was a pathetic creature, completely confused by talk of the distant war, and so obviously in love with Jason that no one could help but notice. Her being psi was off-putting to so many, but D’Omaha had not expected that to deter Stairnon. He’d half-expected and half-dreaded his wife taking the waif under her wing, for Stairnon was capable of such great understanding, enough love to spare for everyone. But that hadn’t happened, much to D’Omaha’s surprise. It made him wonder what secrets she might be trying to hide, and it amused him when she got embarrassed if he teased her about it. He also was grateful that the girl was not around much; it was hard enough to pretend to be civil to Jason when he was so at odds with him over the way the war was going. With her psi to help misinterpret, the girl could have made it worse.

  “Look at the danae,” Stairnon was saying, tugging his arm urgently. D’Omaha looked. It was still perched on Arria’s shoulder, but it was tilted so that it’s eyes were skyward. “Don’t they do that when there’s a shuttle coming?”

  D’Omaha frowned. “We would have been told if there were a freetrader in parking orbit. In any case, no one can get permission to land.”

  Stairnon turned to him, eyes wide with fear. �
��A fleet?”

  With a laugh, D’Omaha cupped her face in his hands. “They’d be ringing the alarm. We’d hear it even here. Don’t worry, my sweet. I wouldn’t take you walking in the sunshine if invasion were at hand.”

  “You get so little data,” she said worriedly. “Your probability models might not tell you.”

  “I’ll know,” he assured her, and though she didn’t press him, her worried frown didn’t disappear until Jason and Marmion arrived.

  “Now don’t tell me you two are just out for an airing,” Stairnon said to them.

  “No, ma’am,” Marmion said. “We were checking the water flow, making sure it’s moving swiftly enough so that it can’t freeze and make an ice platform for the enemy to use to walk out to that caisson.”

  “Not that we couldn’t defend it from underneath if they did,” Jason added with a reassuring smile for Stairnon.

  “Well that’s a relief, isn’t it?” she said to D’Omaha.

  He never knew what to say anymore. Jason had all but forbidden him to defend Mahdi over Calla, and Stairnon knew it. D’Omaha was half-sure that only Stairnon’s platitudes stood between him and the full wrath of the ranger-governor’s temper. She believed his pride was wounded because he felt he should be in charge of Mutare, not Jason. But she comforted him with reminders of how he must let go of his decemvir conditioning to always be right. He and Jason had agreed to disagree, and that was sufficient in her opinion to protect everyone’s honor. D’Omaha had let it go at that because for all his training and experience in finding alternatives, this time he couldn’t find one.

  “I see Arria is busy boiling up more cocoons,” Stairnon said, picking up the conversation for him. “I was weaving some into cloth on that little loom you made for me, Marmion. It’s just the thing, but it breaks the thread. Except not Arria’s thread. I wonder what she does to make it stronger than everyone else’s?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Jason interjected before Marmion could reply.

  “I’ll just have to do that one day,” she replied easily, but D’Omaha knew she would not. After seeing Stairnon avoid Arria these past two years, Jason knew it, too.

  “I can call her over here right now,” Jason said. It was a challenge he’d issued before, one Stairnon always turned aside with some ready excuse. But this time words failed her, as if this time, finally there were none to say. A look of pain and regret paled her as she turned away. Jason saw the look and immediately kneeled at Stairnon’s side. D’Omaha expected him to beg forgiveness; for all his trouble with D’Omaha, Jason seemed genuinely fond of Stairnon. But Jason persisted. “She needs a wise friend,” he said softly, almost pleadingly. “Someone to counsel her. You are the perfect person.”

  Stairnon took a deep breath. “But I’m not, Jason. No one is perfect. Don’t you understand that I’m too old not to pretend I’m not? That child can see . . . “ D’Omaha froze. She couldn’t finish, and D’Omaha dared not think of what she might have said.

  “But she can’t,” Jason said. “She has no idea of how to interpret what she learns from the psi. She pulls back from us more every day. She needs you.”

  But Stairnon shook her head. “She needs someone who can be honest with her.”

  “You!” Jason said.

  Again Stairnon shook her head, and she would not meet Jason’s eyes. D’Omaha stepped past Jason to take Stairnon’s hand and help her up, leaving Jason kneeling beside the rock, and quite ready to knock him aside if he persisted. It was rare for Stairnon’s aplomb to give way under any circumstances, so rare for D’Omaha to have to rescue her. But he knew her limitations, and would not hesitate to protect her. He felt her take another deep breath, and she smiled feebly, nodded even less well to him in thanks.

  “Is there a ship coming?” Stairnon said to Marmion as she regained her poise.

  “Freetrader? No, ma’am,” he said.

  “I think perhaps there is,” Stairnon said with false gaiety, “and if I hurry, I may be able to have a length of nymph-silk made up for you to trade.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Marmion said, looking at her strangely. Then the perfectionist shot an angry glance at Jason, clearly letting him know he held Jason responsible for distressing Stairnon.

  Jason, however, did not display any regret. He got to his feet while looking from Stairnon to the danae perched on Arria’s shoulder. It was staring up into the sky. Suddenly he whirled on D’Omaha and Marmion, not at all interested in Stairnon anymore. “Have either of you had some kind of word from Calla that I’ve not seen? Drone drops?”

  “Nothing from Calla,” Marmion said. “I showed you the single message that came from Koh. The one that implicated Decemvir Larz Frennz Marechal.” The decemvir had volunteered to go to Mahdi for the duration. Koh had been unable to dissuade him. It was damning, but not, D’Omaha had pointed out, conclusive. Indeed, the man just might feel compelled by duty to join Mahdi; no matter that the others did not feel likewise. Predicting the behavior of any individual, especially under such circumstances, was all but impossible.

  “Nothing else?” He was staring at D’Omaha.

  It took a moment for D’Omaha to realize Jason’s stare was an accusation; it was too audacious to believe, even of Jason. Angry, he almost didn’t answer at all. But he felt Stairnon squeeze his hand, urging him to. “How would I pick up a drone drop?” he said, all the reasons why he should be above suspicion welling up in him. Jason knew them all. “I resent . . .”

  “Like Marmion did,” Jason said, cutting him off. “In the dead of night. I might not have known if he hadn’t told me.”

  “I’d have had to ask you for a zephyr,” D’Omaha said, “which you know perfectly well I have not.”

  “I can audit the zephyrs’ fuel consumption to make certain all is accounted for in the logbooks.”

  “Dear Timekeeper,” D’Omaha said, feeling rage surge.

  Stairnon’s fingers had gone cold as stone.

  “Jason,” Marmion said warningly. The perfectionist was definitely Calla’s man, but he always stayed on the better side of decorum with D’Omaha.

  “Jason, audit the zephyrs,” D’Omaha said with deadly quiet. “When you’re finished, come to my quarters with your personal apology.” He put his arm around Stairnon to steer her away.

  “I’ll do that,” Jason said.

  “You damn well better,” D’Omaha said.

  Chapter 21

  “I apologize,” Jason said looking straight into D’Omaha’s eyes. “I jumped to conclusions, and I am truly sorry you were offended.” Jason was wearing his dress khakis blazoned with a simple green sash. He carried his only bottle of Hub wine, acquired last summer from a freetrader in exchange for an equal mass of nymph thread. He stood at D’Omaha’s threshold.

  “All the zephyrs’ fuel was accounted for?” D’Omaha said.

  He wore a fine dressing robe, his hair still damp from a recent shower. His eyes were cold.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Every flight checked out?”

  Jason squirmed. D’Omaha wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “Yes, every one.”

  “And you’re ready to take my word over the vigil display of your danae pet?”

  Jason sighed. Marmion had talked him into delivering the bottle of wine in person despite Jason’s reservations. Yes, he’d been wrong in this instance, but he was not wrong in investigating the slightest irregularity. After almost two years of nothing, it was hard to sustain a battle-alert frame of mind, but Jason was determined to do just that. He could do no less for Calla. “I came out of respect for your position. I thought you would accept my apology out of respect for mine. I see now that I was wrong. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “Of course you should,” he heard Stairnon say from inside, and then she appeared in the doorway to draw him inside. She was wearing a long shawl of knotted nymph thread over a woolen dress that fell straight from her neck to her ankles. Her white hair was caught in a halo of nymph thread around her fac
e. She looked radiant, so lovely in this house gown that he couldn’t help wondering what he had interrupted. “Please come in, Jason.”

  D’Omaha stepped aside, his face impassive as Stairnon tucked her arm in Jason’s and walked him over to the big cushions that served for seating. They were arranged around an amber-topped table on which were two goblets filled with deep red wine and an empty vial of elixir. Jason picked up the vial and looked at the broken seal. The stylized limbs of the tree of life were waxy to the touch, likewise the Seydlitz crest, and the vial itself the most expensive glassteel, more clear than crystal.

  “The serial number is on the bottom. You’ll find its match in my personal supply list,” D’Omaha said folding his arms over his chest.

  “I wasn’t checking it,” Jason said. “I know you have a supply of your own. The vial is exquisite, not at all like the ones we use. I never saw one before.” But he turned the vial bottom-up and stared at the serial number, more out of perversity now than for any good reason.

  “That’s enough, both of you,” Stairnon said sharply. She took the vial from Jason and slipped it in her pocket. “Surely you both realize that you’re antagonizing each other out of boredom. We’ve been here too long with nothing to do, and neither of you abides gracefully. I think it’s time you put aside these petty differences and got on with your work.”

  Jason was too dismayed to laugh or frown, for there were tears in Stairnon’s eyes. She’d surprised him yesterday, too, when she’d neither fended him off gracefully nor given in but instead had seemed to crumble before his eyes. “You think I’m amusing myself at your husband’s expense?” he said, appalled.

  “What else can it possibly be?” she said with helpless sincerity.

  “My duty,” Jason stammered. But she didn’t look as if she believed him, and he couldn’t understand why. He looked at D’Omaha. The man was staring at him, deadpan, then he bowed his head and shook it.