Terra. Earth. Where she could see with her own eyes the venerable cities of Byzantium, Xi’an, SaSuu. Where she could caress ancient marbles with her own hands and touch the most venerable porcelains in the empire. Where she could bathe in the oceans that had given birth to all the planet’s myriad forms of life.
Where she could walk among the carved monuments of Terra’s history, with the dust of kings clinging to the bottoms of her shoes.
And this was a punishment.
Sula could only laugh.
If Tork only knew, she thought. If he only knew.
Martinez floated through his days in a haze of calculation. Or perhaps fantasy. In the ritualized artificial worlds that were Illustrious and Confidence, it was getting hard to tell the difference.
Sula was present, and tangible, and beautiful, and he desired her. He saw her every two or three days, but they were never completely alone. If he should kiss her, or even touch her arm for too long a time, someone on the ship—Michi, Chandra, a servant—would see, and within hours everyone on board both ships would know. When they were in company, he tried to avoid looking at her, so that he would never be betrayed by a spellbound gaze.
He distrusted the sense of unreality that surrounded his current existence, and he wasn’t used to doubting himself or his senses, so his doubt made him frantic. The journey from Naxas to Zanshaa was a transition from war to peace, from fame to obscurity, from duty to irresponsibility. The temptation was to forget that there would be a landing at the end, and that the landing would be more or less hard.
In his mind, he bargained with Lord Chen. “You may have your daughter,” he said, “for use as a pawn in whatever unspeakable political games you next wish to play. In exchange you and your sister will continue to support my career in the Fleet—that’s only fair, I think you’ll agree.
“And one other thing,” he added, “I must have the child.”
This fantasy, or calculation, or whatever it was, seemed perfectly reasonable, until he found himself at his desk and looked down at the floating images of Terza and his son, and then it seemed madness.
Sula had walked out on him twice. Giving her a third chance seemed the height of lunacy.
Then he would see her at dinner or a reception, and the fever would kindle again in his blood.
Illustrious flashed through Magaria Wormhole 1 and left Tork’s isolated sphere. All the accumulated news, mail, and video communications from the outside arrived, and met the fantasy head-on.
There were dozens of messages from Terza, ranging from electronic facsimiles of brief handwritten notes to videos of herself with Young Gareth. When Terza spoke to the camera, the infant turned his head to look for the person who was so occupying his mother’s attention, and was visibly puzzled to find no one there. Martinez was completely charmed.
I must have the child.
The one non-negotiable clause in his bargain with existence.
Terza’s later messages showed her relief at the news from Magaria, and then from Naxas. “At least we know you’re all right, wherever you are, even if we won’t be seeing you right away.”
In the very latest message she was aboard a ship. “I’m traveling with my father,” she said. “The Control Board is moving from…well, one secret place to another, and I’m going along as his hostess.”
Terza was going to some new place, he thought sourly, that Michi would know about but he wouldn’t. Sometimes it was hard not to think of the entire Chen clan as a vast conspiracy designed to keep him in the dark.
The next day, Michi invited him for cocktails. The elaborate dinners that had for a month occupied the attentions of the officers and their cooks had faded, to be replaced by teas or cocktail parties or gaming functions. People were putting on too much weight, for one thing, and for another, the delicacies that had been brought aboard at Chijimo, and restocked at Zanshaa, were running low.
He found Michi in her office, not in the long dining room. A snack of flat bread, pickles, and canned fish eggs gave off a whiff of stale olive oil. Vandervalk mixed the drinks in the corner and poured them into chilled glasses. Michi gazed at hers, sipped, and gazed again.
She looked tired, and careful application of cosmetic hadn’t entirely disguised the fine new lines around her eyes and mouth. She looked at her drink as if seeing past it to the end of her active career, and Martinez suspected the view wasn’t to her liking.
“I’ve heard from Maurice,” she said after a moment. “He was as annoyed as we were that the Convocation made Lord Tork’s rank permanent. More so, perhaps—he’ll have to deal with Tork at Control Board meetings, while we won’t have to see him at all.”
Martinez very much doubted that anyone was more annoyed with Tork than he was, but he managed to make sympathetic noises anyway.
“Maurice let me know some of what’s been going on behind the scenes,” Michi said. “Did you know that the government was in touch with the Naxids almost the entire length of the war?”
“Was it like Tork and Dakzad before Second Magaria?” Martinez asked. “Arguing the finer points of the Praxis with each other?”
Michi smiled. “Probably. I imagine they mostly exchanged surrender demands. The Naxids even took ours seriously, after they lost Zanshaa.”
He looked at her, the astringent taste of the cocktail on his tongue. “Really?”
“They tried to negotiate an end to the war. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and they saw no reason to accept that while they still had a fleet in being.
“After Second Magaria the negotiations got a lot more serious. But apparently they decided to gamble on winning at Naxas, and that we’d accept more of their conditions if Chenforce sailed off into the unknown and then vanished without a trace. But it left them without a leg to stand on when we actually won.”
“They had no choice but to commit suicide,” Martinez said.
“Yes.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry.”
She gave a little shrug that said she wasn’t sorry either.
“I’ve got a video from Terza,” she said. “She seems to be thriving. And Gareth is perfectly adorable, obviously a bright child.”
“Obviously a genius,” Martinez corrected.
Michi smiled. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It’s hard being away from them at this age, isn’t it? I know.”
“Have you heard from yours?”
“Yes. James has matriculated, finally.”
“Send him my congratulations.”
“I will. He’ll be at the Cheng Ho Academy next term.”
That was the Fleet academy reserved for the highest caste of Terran Peers. Michi and Sula had attended it. Martinez had settled for the somewhat less prestigious Nelson Academy.
Michi’s face darkened. “I’m not sure it’s wise to send him into the Fleet. I don’t know what I’ll be able to do for him, with Tork hovering over our careers.”
“I’ll do what I can, of course.”
“Of course.” He was family; that sort of thing was expected. She turned to him. “What about Lady Sula?”
His heart gave a lurch. “Sorry?”
“Do you think she’d be willing to take James on as a cadet?”
There was no reason to think that Sula would be enjoying a command in a few years any more than he would, but he answered that he was reasonably sure Sula would oblige.
“Though you may not want James’s career to be entirely in the hands of those on Tork’s shit list,” Martinez said. “I’m sure we’d help, but you might want to find James a service patron who’s not in the line of fire.”
“I’ll do that, thanks.” Michi took another sip of her drink.
Martinez began to fret about his son. Young Gareth would go into the Fleet, of course, there was no doubt about that, and being a Chen, he would attend the Cheng Ho Academy. The junior officers who had thrived under Martinez would then be in a position to aid his son. A brilliant career was therefore assured.
Unl
ess some malevolent force intervened. Of course Tork would be dead by then, but Tork would no doubt pick a successor.
Martinez sipped his drink, letting the burning alcohol fire trickle down his throat, and wondered if for the sake of his son he should hope that Sula was right, that there would soon be another war.
“That rifle? That’s an improvised weapon, used in the fighting in Zanshaa City. And the other one”—Sula turned to him—“that’s PJ’s gun. He was carrying it when he died.”
Martinez looked at her for a long moment, then at the long rifle with its silver and ivory inlay. “He got what he wanted then,” he said. “He was trying to find a way to join the fighting.”
“He was in love with your sister till the end.”
She didn’t have to explain which sister PJ loved. Not Walpurga, the one he’d married, but Sempronia, who had jilted him.
Martinez had been invited to dine by Confidence’s wardroom. The frigate’s lieutenants hadn’t heard his war stories yet, and he expected to enjoy himself relating them.
He had arrived early to pay his respects to Sula.
And to talk to her.
And to see her.
And to feel his blood blaze at the sight.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “I can have Rizal boil water.”
“No thanks.” The fewer interruptions by servants, he thought, the better.
“Sit down then.”
He sat in a straight-backed metal-framed chair acquired on the cheap by some government purchaser. Sula’s bare, small, functional quarters were far removed from his own luxurious, art-filled suite.
“Are guns your only ornament?” he asked. “I’d send you some pictures, but I don’t think Fletcher’s estate would approve.”
“You’ve got an artist, don’t you?” Sula said. “Maybe I could commission something from him.”
“Perhaps a full-length portrait,” Martinez said.
Sula grinned. “I couldn’t put up with looking at myself hours on end, especially in a tiny place like this. I don’t know how you stand it.”
Martinez felt an implied criticism in this statement.
“I admire the artistry of it. The sfumato, for example.” It was one of the technical words he’d learned from Jukes while he sat for the painting. “The balance of light and shade, the arrangement of objects on the table that helps to bring the image into the third dimension—”
There was a knock on the door, and Martinez turned to see Haz, Confidence’s premiere.
“Beg pardon,” Haz told Sula, “but the wardroom is happy to offer Captain Martinez its hospitality.”
“I’ll see you another time, Captain,” Sula said, rising smoothly.
As Martinez took her hand to say farewell, his mind finally received the message that his senses had been trying to send him for some time.
Sula’s scent had changed. Instead of the musky scent she had worn since she’d joined the Orthodox Fleet, she was now wearing Sandama Twilight, the perfume that he had tasted on her flesh as, over a year ago now, they lay in the vast, hideous canopied bed in her rented apartment.
He looked down at her in shock, his hand still wrapped around hers. She gazed back, her face deliberately incurious.
He dropped her hand, turned to follow Haz to the wardroom, and felt a flow of sheer emotion as it rolled like a slow, implacable tide through his blood.
She’s mine, he thought.
Sula had decided to roll the dice again, three nights earlier when she’d returned from a cocktail party Michi had given for the officers of her sadly reduced squadron. She’d stepped into her little office, her skin still tingling with the awareness of Martinez that she’d felt during the last few hours, and paused to look at the wall behind her desk, the wall with the two rifles.
There was the keepsake of PJ, she and the keepsake of Sidney.
It was only then that she realized that she had no keepsake of Casimir, nothing but memories of frantic nights filled with the sting of adrenaline, the tang of sweat, and the sound of weapons fire. She had put Casimir in his tomb, and sacrificed the ju yao pot to his memory. She had intended to join him, to seek her oblivion in a brilliant, clarifying, annihilating blast at Magaria, but pride had intervened.
Very well, she would let pride dictate her course. She would roll the dice on life, not death. She would roll the dice on love, not exile.
She would let Casimir stay buried, and hope that the fantastic Martinez luck would overcome the curse she carried with her.
In her mind, she bargained with Lord Chen. “I can arrange for the return of your daughter,” she said. “Captain Martinez and I were in love before the marriage was arranged. I can arrange for that love to blossom again. The marriage will end, and you will not be blamed by Clan Martinez.
“In return I require your patronage of myself, and your continued patronage of Captain Martinez. And of course Martinez and I will raise the child, who I don’t imagine you’d care to have around anyway.”
And who I need as a hostage to guarantee your cooperation.
She looked at the matter from Lord Chen’s point of view, and saw nothing to object to.
She knew better than to strike any fantasy bargains with Lady Terza Chen. The Chen heir had been born under circumstances that valued her womb over any other part. She was a bearer of precious Chen genetics, to be mixed with other valuable genetics as her family dictated. That Chen genes had been debased by Martinez plasma was, as far as Clan Chen was concerned, a misfortune of history.
Terza had been born a mere carrier of genes, but marriage had turned her into something more formidable. Her social standing was higher than that of her husband, which made her valuable to the wealthy, ambitious clan into which she had married, and who would be inclined to defer to her. In fact—as Sula was inclined to read the situation—it was Lord Chen who was the pawn now, a pawn both of Martinez interests and of his newly empowered daughter, the mother of the new clan heir.
It was unlikely that Terza would wish to return to her earlier role as a mere breeder-in-waiting. Any such change would have to be decided elsewhere. Her husband and her father would have to be in agreement on these basics.
With these thoughts in mind, Sula shaped her new program. Her policy of pride demanded that she not cheapen herself in any way. She did not pursue Martinez.
Instead, she drew him a map. She gave up the Sengra perfume that Casimir had given her and returned to her earlier scent, Sandama Twilight. This, she noticed, seemed to produce an effect—Martinez looked as if she’d hit him between the eyes with a hammer.
Detail was added to the map. When Confidence was still two wormhole jumps from Zanshaa, she arranged to rent a spacious apartment in the Petty Mount, in the shadow of the High City. To give herself privacy she made Macnamara and Spence the present of a twenty-nine-day vacation at a resort on Lake Tranimo, two hours from Zanshaa City by supersonic train. “You’re sick of the sight of me after all this time,” she told them over their protests. “And though I love you both, I will be happy not to have to look at you for a while.”
Her cook, Rizal, was given a discharge and permission to return home, though she kept him on retainer in case she needed to produce a meal.
She made certain that Martinez knew of all these arrangements, knew that she would be alone in a comfortable apartment away from the close confines and spying eyes of the High City. She wouldn’t even have any servants around.
She drew the map, but it was up to Martinez to follow it. Pride demanded that, at least.
She received few messages once communication with Zanshaa was restored. The news programs from the capital consisted in large part of executions. She didn’t watch them—she’d seen quite enough of that—but took note of the names.
With the peace, the information possessed by the enemy prisoners was no longer of any value, and batches of them were being flung from the High City every day. All the members of the government, both Naxids and others, officers of t
he security services, and the members of the ration authority whose lives Sula had spared so the planet would not starve. Now they were all condemned, their lives forfeit, their fortunes confiscated, their clans decimated.
Good, Sula thought.
The tiny revenant of Chenforce flew into Zanshaa’s system, braked, fell into orbit around Zanshaa. Between the ships and the blue and white planet curved a vast section of the broken accelerator ring, a section so huge that it was impossible to tell from close up that it was a mere fragment of what had once been the greatest monument of interstellar civilization. The ring’s smooth flank was studded with antennae, receiver dishes, and vast solar arrays.
In time, fragments of the broken ring would be nudged down to a lower orbit, reconnected to the elevator tethers, then stitched back together. Several large asteroids would be sacrificed to provide enough mass to replace the segments that had been vaporized in the antimatter explosions that had separated the ring sections.
For the moment, though, the ring was still a wreck. Tugs nudged the two warships to bays in the Fleet docks, where they would remain for months, perhaps years, awaiting their overhaul. The ring wasn’t spinning, so there was no gravity, and the crew floated weightless as soon as they released their webbing.
There was no accommodation for officers or crew on the ring. Not only was there no gravity, but the vast empty tube had not yet been pumped full of air. A series of atmosphere shuttles approached the warships and hovered a short distance away while lifelines were rigged. The crew formed in their divisions, donned vac suits, and moved in small groups into the main cargo airlock, where they crawled hand over hand along the lifelines till they reached their shuttles. Their baggage came after them on lines.
Sula waited in the airlock atrium to wish them all goodbye. She stood before the doors, wearing her vac suit but without her helmet, and shook the hand of each of the crew as they passed.
It was harder than she’d expected. Building the secret army and seizing the High City had been her greatest accomplishment, but it had never been her ambition, and she had never trained for such a task. The covert war and the battle for the High City had been a frantic improvisation, and though she was proud of her decisions, it had been too much like a plunge into unknown territory for her to feel comfortable with the memory.
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