“We won’t be com—” I chopped off the thought. There might be time for him, if I planned it carefully. “Very well. If you volunteer.”
“Volunteer? Well, if I must. I’d like a shuttle rating added to my file, afterward.”
“Shuttle rati—” I saw the smile he meant to hide. The man could be infuriating. “Very well.” I would do it, if I remembered in time. Let him explain the ludicrous rating when he again met the Admiral.
Hopewell had listened to the byplay without a comment. Now he said, “I have a heli and pilot waiting for you at the Manse.”
“Thank you.” Tired beyond words, I puzzled where to go.
Tolliver prompted gently, “Your wife, sir.”
I snarled, “Of course.” The damned impudence.
Annie was asleep. I sat in the unfamiliar living room while the nurse stared into a flickering holo.
She’d told me Annie had seemed all right, the morning before. Then, when we hadn’t returned as I’d promised, her mood had changed. She began to smash chairs against the wall. When the nurse intervened Annie clawed at her, keening. The nurse had finally managed to sedate her. Annie slept the night through and into the new day.
How long had it been since I’d had sleep? I needed to say my good-byes to Annie, to Alexi. Deal with the planters. Leave instructions for—
“She’s asking for you.” The nurse.
I snapped awake. I touched my tie, ran my fingers through my hair, glad of my bath and change of clothes when at last I’d seen my apartment. I hesitated, trying to recall where the bedroom was. The nurse pointed. “There.”
“Thank you.” I peered through the door. “Annie?”
Her look was puzzled, vacant. “Nicky? You din’ come back when you say.”
“I know, hon.” I sat on the bed. “I’m sorry.”
She threw off the sheet, hugged her legs. “I waited, an’ you din’ even call.”
“We had problems, hon. The fish.”
“I don’ care ’bout no fish.” She sat up, wriggled her toes. “I wan’ get dressed. Got me a new blouse. Bet it go nice wid my jewels.” She grinned, stared at her feet until her gaze flickered to alarm. “Nicky, my jewels, they—” She stopped short.
“Oh, Annie.” Lord God, aren’t You just? How could You treat her so?
“I’ll wear my green dress.”
“I’d like to see that one, love.”
“Yeah, me too. I dunno if I wore it yet.” She scrambled out of bed. “You gotta tell me if you like it, now you be stayin’.”
It would be vile to spoil her happiness. I’d wait until tomorrow to tell her I had to go aloft. She prattled while she dressed. “I waited and waited fo’ you, den...” Her brow knitted. “I wen’ sleep, I think. Don’ be goin’ away no mo’, Nicky.”
“Hon...” I hated myself, but I couldn’t stand a lie. “The day after tomorrow. For a long time.”
It made her still. Her hand crept to her neck as if to finger the absent rubies. “I die if you be leavin’ me, Nicky.”
“You’ll be all right, hon. You won’t die.”
“Oh, yes.” Her certainty chilled me. “I be killin’ myself, you go way again. I know.”
I sat on the bed, clasped her hand. “Annie, I have to take a trip. I must.”
“Den I be goin’ wid you.” She snatched away her hand, preened her hair. She giggled.
Lamely, I changed the subject. When she was ready, we went for a walk. Later I lay down on the bed. She curled up beside me like a trusting child, but when I threw my arm around her, she flinched.
In the morning, while I dressed, I made appointments with Harmon and Emmett Branstead, and later with the shuttle mechanic. I assured Annie I’d be back within a few hours, tried not to notice her despair, and left.
I turned back before I even reached the heli waiting in the drive. “Come on, hon.” I held open the door.
Her joy melted my misgivings. I’d find someplace for her to stay while I held my meetings. Soon enough I’d have to abandon her in earnest.
I stopped first to see the civil engineers who ran Centraltown’s power grid. After, we flew to the Manse and took breakfast with Zack Hopewell. The affairs of government held no interest for me, but I made an effort to listen.
“Don’t forget tomorrow’s meeting,” he reminded me.
My blank stare told him all.
“The proposed law of inheritance. You said the planters’ vote could decide the matter.”
“Oh, yes. That.”
“I know it seems odd, with our world crashing around us, but we—they’re determined to establish a just plantation code.”
“I suppose.”
“Would you rather the meeting was canceled?”
“No. In fact, the timing will work well. Where’s it to be held?”
“At the spaceport terminal.”
“Fitting.” I gave him my instructions. He was puzzled, but agreed without protest.
His aide knocked. “The Bransteads, sir.”
“Show them in.”
Hopewell stood. “You’ll want to see them alone.”
“It’s all right, really. I—”
“I don’t mind.” He left.
Harmon and his brother Emmett entered the Manse. I crossed the room. “It’s good to see you. Truly.” I offered my hand. Harmon took it automatically, Emmett more shyly. After all, he’d served in the Navy. I took the sofa; they settled in chairs opposite.
“You’re going to the Station?” Harmon.
“Yes.” It was no secret, given my frantic orders for repair of the shuttle.
“Can we be of help?”
“No. I wanted to say good-bye.” At Harmon’s raised eyebrow I added, “You’ve been a good friend.”
“As I’ll continue to be.”
“Lord God willing.” I would return if I could, but I knew better than to delude myself. It was unlikely.
“I remember when I first met you, Captain.” Harmon’s voice was soft.
“My long-leave.”
“With your friend, Mr. Carr. You stayed overnight.”
“And we deceived you.” My eyes suddenly filled. “You were a good man then, Harmon. As you are now.”
He left his chair, crossed to my sofa, sat at my side. “What’s wrong, Nicholas?”
For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then, “Have you ever done a terrible thing, to prevent a worse?”
He shook his head. “Thank Lord God, He hasn’t tested me so.”
I stared at the carpet. “I feel...alone.”
“Let us help you.”
“No. You cannot.” I took a deep breath, then another. “Thank you both for everything. I owe you my life, and more.” I got to my feet; I had to put an end to the interview.
They stood with me. Emmett spoke quietly. “Godspeed.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow before I go aloft.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll be notified,” I said.
“I see.” Mystified, they left.
I flew with Tolliver and Bezrel to Admiralty House. I glanced at a few files, read William’s reports on the recent attack. Shortly after the Station had gone over the horizon, the aliens’ ranks had thinned, and for the moment no more fish were to be seen.
I asked the two middies to escort Annie to dinner, and settled myself alone with the regs. I read for hours, until I found what I wanted.
Afterward, there was nothing but to go to bed.
At the relief offices, Alexi Tamarov sat in his cubicle, biting his thumbnail, his full attention on the map in front of him.
“Am I interrupting?”
He looked up, startled. “Of course not, Mr. Seafort. Thank God you made it home.”
“How’ve you been?”
He grimaced. “As always. I make myself useful, but a native could do the job better. I think they’re only using me as a favor to you.” I wondered how he’d guessed.
I peered at his map. “What are you doing?”
&
nbsp; “Devising new bus schedules. Half the streets are gone, but so are half the buses.” He rested his head on his hand, stared at me. “You didn’t come to talk about buses.”
“No.”
He waited.
“I’d like to show you something.”
“Could I finish what—”
“Now.” He thought to protest, saw my look, quieted. “Do you have a uniform, Alexi?”
“I’ve worn civvies since I left the hospital. Do I need one?”
“It would be appropriate. We’ll find you something.” We went out to the heli where Annie waited. I had the pilot drop us at Admiralty House, and I asked Tolliver to lend Alexi one of his old uniforms. It wouldn’t fit well, but no matter.
I paced the reception room. “They’re all coming? Harmon and Emmett too?”
Hopewell nodded. “Yes. And the Volksteader clan, and Palabee, and the others. Even if you hadn’t called them, they wouldn’t miss the vote on inheritance.”
I checked my watch. My mouth was dry.
At two o’clock Bezrel, Tolliver, and Alexi arrived. Alexi’s uniform, ill-fitting or no, almost broke my heart. He belonged to the Navy.
We all flew together in the large Navy heli. I brooded in the front seat, hardly bothering to answer those who spoke. We set down at the spaceport. I took Annie’s hand as we went in.
The terminal looked as it had for Triforth’s declaration. The dais remained. I sat in the front of the hall, with my officers. My interest was not in this part of the meeting.
Zack Hopewell brought the session to order. “If it pleases Lord God that we survive and prosper, our society requires clear and simple laws of inheritance.” He seemed a biblical figure, his stern visage unwavering. “The plantations must never again be subject to laws devised by strangers in a far town.” That was stretching it; Centraltown wasn’t that distant from the plantation zone. And if he meant Earth, his remarks skirted treason.
The audience made no such distinction; his speech was greeted with loud approval. I scrutinized the rows of seats; as far as I could tell, every plantation was represented. Harmon and Emmett sat nearby with Jerence.
One after another, a number of questions were debated and put to the vote. The law of primogeniture was universally supported. It was primogeniture that prevented the division of the plantations into smaller and smaller parcels as generations passed.
Frederick Mantiet brought up a more difficult point. “Primogeniture settles matters when there is a next generation. But what if there isn’t? Should a plantation go to distant relatives who know nothing about planting or be divided among its neighbors who do?”
“Family!” Calls echoed through the audience.
“That’s easy to proclaim, in the abstract. But when ‘family’ turns out to be a hotel clerk or a maiden schoolteacher—”
“Let me speak.” Lawrence Plumwell, manager of Carr Plantation, got to his feet.
“You’re not one of us, Lawrence. You’re just—”
“That’s my point.” The force of his anger gave Mantiet pause. He shrugged, stood aside.
Plumwell strode to the front of the room. “You all know me. I’ve spent thirty years managing Carr Plantation for old Randolph Senior, then on behalf of young Randolph and his son. Now the Carrs are dead, and I claim my right.”
“Your right!” Mantiet was scandalized.
“My right. Hear me out. Assume for a moment that young Carr hadn’t died, but remained in the Navy. Should that make a difference?”
He studied the sea of faces. “What is a plantation? Raw acreage or the knowledge to cultivate it?” Behind me, the door creaked as a latecomer arrived. I strained to hear the debate amid angry calls from the audience.
“Family is what counts!”
“Yes. But on Carr, there’s been no family for two generations. How long should the land sit in memorial? Even if Derek Carr had lived, he should have been present today! I propose that no man may own a Hope Nation plantation unless he himself holds it to till the soil, to harvest his crops, to live himself in his Manse, or else—”
Cries of outrage. He overrode them all with the passion of his cause. “Or else we become nothing more than the laborers and clerks we despise!”
That gave them pause. He pressed on, “What are we, after all? We are planters. I’m one as much as you are. I’ve spent my life on the soil, devoting myself to the good of Carr Plantation. You, your sons, if they haven’t that dedication, should they hold their lands in absentia, while others do the work? Who are we then?”
A long silence. Mantiet said quietly, in a tone filled with wonderment, “You know, he’s right.” He walked back to his seat. “A plantation isn’t acreage, and it isn’t just family. It’s family working the land. When the family abandons it, they abandon our way of life.” He sat.
Plumwell said firmly, “I demand we set forth now that whosoever shall work the land, shall own it, and that no planter shall separate himself from his land without losing it. I claim Carr Plantation by right of my life spent in its behalf.”
Zack Hopewell stood, pounded his gavel. “Carr Plantation will serve as our precedent. I call the vote. If anyone opposes, let him now speak or forever—”
“I oppose!” A voice rang from the back of the hall. The hair on my neck rose. I craned, saw nothing. Slowly, not daring to hope, I got to my feet.
“By right of primogeniture, I claim my own!” A haggard figure strode toward the dais.
Zack Hopewell squinted at the slim young man in the ragged jacket. “Who are you, sir?”
The newcomer drew himself up. “Derek Anthony Carr, grandson of Randolph, son of Randolph, homesteader and proprietor of Carr Plantation. I claim my land, to work and to hold, to sow and to reap!”
Utter silence.
“Is there none who recognizes me? I was young when I left, but I am returned to stay.”
My voice was hoarse. “I do.”
He spun. “Oh, my God. Captain!” He ran to me. I took a step, opened my arms. He buried himself in them. “Oh, Lord God, you’re alive!”
“And you.” I held him close, loathe to release him. “Derek...” I drew back. “What happened to you?” The remains of his uniform were matted with dirt.
“Our lifepod crashed about a hundred miles south. We had no caller. We’ve walked in forest, and slid in the mud, and hacked our way through ever since.”
I asked, “How many survived?”
“Five. Jessen—he was a cook—he didn’t make it past the first day. We reached town only a couple of hours ago; someone said everyone in Government had come here. I, ah, commandeered a car.”
Zack Hopewell cleared his throat. I. realized that the entire hall hung on our every word. Zack said, “Mr. Plumwell, the matter of Carr Plantation is set aside for the time. I declare a fifteen-minute recess.” He banged his gavel.
I stood close while Derek received the accolades of his fellow planters. I hugged Annie. “Do you remember him, hon? From Portia?”
She snorted with derision. “Your ol’ middy? Yo’ friend? Course I do. Was the only nice one.”
I slumped in my seat. My old middy. My friend. Nearby, Derek grinned with delight as he shook hands with well-wishers, unaware of my impending betrayal.
I stood again. “Mr. Carr, a word with you.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Of course.”
“Outside.”
Stung by my curtness, he followed quickly, but his grin returned before he reached the door. “God, it’s good to see you!”
“Yes.” I hated myself. “Derek, what you said in there...” I paused, almost relented, forced myself onward. “Renounce it.”
Puzzled, he studied me. “I don’t understand.”
“You said that you’ve returned to stay.”
“I have!”
“No.”
“But where would I go?”
I said, “Where you’re sent.”
Appalled, he stared at my face. “You can’t be
serious!”
“It’s two years before your enlistment runs out.” I ought to know; I’d given him the oath myself, on Hibernia’s bridge, in the forever-lost days of my youth. “Stand by your oath.”
“To what? The Navy? Look around you!”
“I am the lawful representative of the Gov—”
“Goofjuice! There’s nothing left, and even if there is, let it go! I’m home to stay!”
“You’re a midshipman and I’m Captain. Remember that when you speak.”
His eyes mirrored his dismay. “After all we’ve gone through, you think of that?”
I was failing. So much depended on reaching him. “Derek...”
“Captain, this is my home. Carr is my plantation; it’s been ours for generations. If I leave now, Plumwell will steal it. But for God’s grace, I’d be hacking my way through the brush still, while he took my family’s home! Do you think an oath of enlistment stands against that? Could I face my father after I die, and tell him I gave it all up?”
I seized his arm. “Derek, hear me. I beg you. Just listen.”
He turned away. After a moment, he turned back, his eyes cold. “To think how I worshiped you. I was a fool.”
“Derek—”
“I’ll listen. I won’t speak until you’re done. Then we’re through with each other. Forevermore.”
If that were the cost...even so. My voice was husky. “Derek, I’m not a good person. You know that more than I. In all my life, I’ve had but three friends. Jason, when I was a boy. He...died. Alexi. And you.” I halted, groping. “Because I’ve had few friends, they’ve meant much to me. I want to save you.”
“My life isn’t in danger here. In fact—”
“You said you’d listen.” I waited for his reluctant nod. “Come.” Without waiting I walked around the end of the terminal, toward the tarmac. Automatically I checked the runway for incoming traffic; of course, there was none.
I stopped, faced him once more. “I told you I’m not a good person. The truth is much worse. After you left with Tremaine, I deliberately broke my sworn oath.”
“There must have been—”
“I’m damned, irredeemably. Nothing I do can save me. I will suffer the fires of eternal hell.”
“Whatever you did, you—”
I whispered, “Derek, I burn in them now!” It silenced him. I groped through tears. “Please! As you love me, as you love yourself, don’t betray Lord God! Nothing is worth that. Adhere to your oath!”
Prisoner's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 3) Page 39