Empire & Ecolitan

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He nodded.

  “Every bit of it?”

  He nodded, then grinned. “I’m out of practice. I tried each course twice over the past week. This was the first time they all worked out together, and I wasn’t sure they would.” He inclined his head. “Go ahead. It’s better warm, and it won’t stay that way very long.”

  Thelina took both knife and fork and the invitation. Jimjoy followed, although eating more slowly, tasting the sauce critically, noting that it had almost separated again, although he’d gotten the taste right.

  “You really did this?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s marvelous.”

  He nodded, knowing that it was good, although not as good as he had secretly hoped.

  She stopped and looked at him, putting her utensils down. “It’s not as good as you wanted, is it?”

  He sighed. “It’s good, perhaps even a bit better. I’d really hoped it would be spectacular.”

  “I’m flattered.” She paused. “I really mean that. I am flattered. No one has ever done something like this for me. Especially not with their own hands.”

  Jimjoy couldn’t help smiling. “I’m glad. Shouldn’t say that, but I am.” He took another bite, hoping Thelina would still enjoy the remainder of her meal after his confession that it had not reached his standards.

  She did, finishing everything on her plate, and even using the remainder of her roll to catch the last of the sauce. She took another sip of the Sparsa, emptying her goblet.

  He stood, refilled it, and removed all the plates, stacking them neatly in the basket.

  “Could we just talk for a bit?”

  He closed the basket and sat down, his forearms on the table, leaning slightly, but only slightly, toward her, noticing how her hair sparkled in the afternoon light, how graceful she looked sitting there.

  “No matter how much you protest, you listen, don’t you?”

  Nodding, he waited.

  “You don’t like to ask questions, and you wait for people to talk. Sometimes, though, people won’t talk unless they’re asked.”

  “Sometimes,” he responded, “people don’t know what questions to ask, or when.”

  “You don’t like women very much. You can love them, but you don’t like them.”

  He pulled at his chin, conscious of the wind riffling the linen tablecloth and his hair, conscious that he was squinting to see as he faced the slowly lowering sun. “You may be right. And you? Do you feel that way about men?”

  “Does it show that much?”

  “I’m not sure anything shows, except I seem to bring out stronger feelings in people. Something, maybe a lot of something, hits you wrong. And I…anyway…”

  She ignored his unfinished statement, looking out beyond the lookout. “I don’t trust men. The men you trust are the ones who hurt you the most.”

  He took a deep breath, slowly. “You may be right about that, too. Except I’d say that whoever you trust can hurt you the most. It doesn’t mean they will. They can, though. Could you trust your father?” Even as he asked the question, he wondered whether he should have.

  “I don’t know. He died when I was twelve. And he was too sick to care before that.”

  Jimjoy frowned, wondering how anyone on any civilized planet would be condemned to a lingering death.

  “He was on the proscribed list.”

  Jimjoy kept his mouth in place. The proscribed list—there had been rumors of the device, how the Matriarchy had used it to punish its opponents long before the Military Directorate of Halston had fallen. He pursed his lips, then looked at Thelina, and guessed. “Didn’t they keep their word? Or was it too late?”

  She met his eyes. “When he found out, he committed suicide.”

  “And you kept your part of the bargain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “No. But I will…if you’ll tell me how you got from White Mountain to the I.S.S.”

  “All right.” Even in the sunlight he could see the tenseness that might have been caused by the cold. “I have liftea or cafe. And dessert. Would you like either?”

  “I’ll wait on the dessert, The liftea would be nice.”

  He took almost the last items out of the basket—the china cups and saucers and another thermos, from which he poured.

  “Thank you.” Thelina immediately took a sip of the liftea, without the sugar Jim joy was placing in the center of the table.

  He added sugar to his, waiting for her to begin.

  “We lived on an out-continent in one of the ring systems. That’s where the Matriarchy has always been the strongest. They controlled the health network. My father was a magistrate, and he ordered the doctors, and they were mostly women, to abide by the Spousal Consent Laws…”

  Jimjoy shuddered. Those few systems that had given spouses the right to insist on offspring observed the practice mainly in the breach—except for the now-deposed Militarists in the Halston systems and the Fuards.

  “…and somehow he came down with Ruthemnian Fever. No one would treat him, and none of the other magistrates or enforcers would insist. They might be next. I watched my mother begin to die in her own way. She pleaded, I think. It did no good.” Thelina took another sip of the liftea.

  Jimjoy’s eyes flicked past Thelina to the jaymar climbing away from a ferrahawk. The nuisance bird avoided a stoop from the predator by darting into a saplar stand below the lookout. The ferrahawk recovered and began a circling climb away from the saplars and to regain altitude for future hunting with less troublesome prey.

  “So I went to the Temple. I wasn’t even twelve. My father’s dying was killing my mother, and I loved her. What else could a girl do?

  “They came the next day and took him to the hospital. Less than a tenday later, he was home, cured. The day after that he stepped off the Malyn Bridge. He left a note, but I never understood it. I still don’t. My mother died the next spring, I’m told, after I entered training.”

  Jimjoy could feel his hands tightening against the green linen tablecloth, wanting to strike out. He forced his muscles to relax and took a sip of his rapidly cooling liftea.

  His eyes caught hers for an instant, then dropped from the darkness he saw there.

  “Did what the note say matter? Or that he killed your mother?”

  “I remember enough…”

  Jimjoy took another sip of his tea.

  “…the part…he wrote something like ‘I cannot be bound to be enslaved and forever beholden.’ And he said that I had made my bargains for myself, not for him.”

  “They wouldn’t release you?”

  “I didn’t ask. What was left? No sisters, no cousins. My brother left before I could remember him.”

  Jimjoy drained his cup with a sudden swallow. “Feel…I don’t know…compared to you, I had no reasons.” He looked toward the west, over Thelina’s shoulder, squinting slightly as the sun eased downward. “You know my mother was a regional administrator. Her mother had been the sector chief. Two older sisters to begin with. Kaylin and Clarissa. Clarissa was the golden girl. Tops in her class, beautiful. She could sing, she could sail, she could paint, and everyone loved her. So did I. I wanted to do everything she did, Better, if I could. The singing—actually put together a band. Male bands were a real novelty, and we did all right, but my mother was smart. She left me alone, just put pressure on the parents of the three others, Pretty soon I had no one to sing with. I couldn’t paint that well, but I tried calligraphy, and Clarissa couldn’t do that. She pushed me, but it wasn’t nasty.”

  He looked down at the green linen.

  Thelina said nothing.

  “Kaylin came back from Cirque, the university. Selected as the Diplomate, and, of course, the Regional Administrator had a party, honoring the number-one graduate student in all of White Mountain. My father outdid himself with that banquet.

  “I’d graduated from Selque, the local pre-university, number one, first m
an in a generation. Also won the open skimmer title that week—we used the week system there, just like on Old Earth. Plus a few other honors here and there. Not only didn’t I get even a small dinner, I was gently reminded to make a tactful appearance at Kaylin’s festivities and then disappear.

  “Three weeks later Clarissa was killed on the lake, after I’d taken her dare. I beached the boat in our harbor and walked all the way to the Imperial Shuttleport, took the tests for a Reserve commission, and passed. They sent me to Malestra.”

  “Just passed?”

  He laughed softly. “With a perfect score…for all the good it did me. I never got a letter, a fax, or anything.”

  “A perfect score. Did you tell anyone? Even where you went?”

  “There was Christina…but her family had already shipped her off to Cirque, just like Kaylin. She never returned my faxes, but I really don’t know that she ever got them. I was too independent, unpredictable, for her family. Maybe that’s just my wanting to be that way. I faxed Kaylin once. She cut me off. I sent two hard-copy faxes. Both were refused.”

  Thelina pursed her lips. “Did you tell any of this to Dr. Militro?”

  “Some. Not all. Not about Kaylin’s party. Not about Anita.”

  “Anita?”

  “After Clarissa’s death, Lerra—she wouldn’t let me call her mother—decided to have another child. That was Anita. What she probably had to live up to…”

  Another set of clouds, grayer, thicker, passed over the sun, and a colder wind whipped the linens. Jimjoy stood up and reached for the basket, bringing out the last items, setting one before Thelina and one at his place. “Crème D’mont. Try it before we both freeze.” He seated himself.

  He wasn’t freezing, but even with the thermals under her greens Thelina was drawing into herself.

  She took a small bite, then another. “How many times for this?”

  “Actually…none. I fix it for myself on and off.” He took a bite twice the size of hers. “Just not too often.”

  “If this is any sample of how you cook, you’re a far better cook than I am. Or than Meryl.”

  Her eyes met his, and their green, for once, seemed less piercing, not as if he were facing another challenge.

  Even so, he wanted to look away. Instead, he answered. “This is about the best I’ve done. Too lazy most of the time.”

  “Too lazy?” Her voice sounded puzzled, and as if her teeth were about to chatter.

  He reached for the thermos and refilled her cup. “Finish that while I pack this up. If I make you stay here any longer, you’ll turn into a block of ice.” He eased back his chair and began to replace the remaining utensils in the first basket. “Lazy?” he reflected as he removed his dessert plate. “By the time I’m in my quarters, fixing anything feels like a chore. Then again, some days everything feels like a chore.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the Special Operative who ran himself almost to death on at least two occasions.”

  He smiled wryly, briefly, as he finished packing up everything except the cloth and her cup and saucer. “Suppose not. Would you believe that I’m also a coward at heart?”

  “No. Not a coward. A man who could never afford to show fear, I think.” She emptied the cup and set it down.

  Jimjoy retrieved her cup and saucer and packed them, along with the green linen that flapped in the stiffening breeze. “Knew that anyone who wasn’t afraid was a damned fool, but I couldn’t ever believe it.” He glanced up. Except for the far west, the entire sky was cloudy, hours ahead of the forecast. “I’m afraid I’ll have to reveal some of my secrets, since we’re going to have to cut this short. The weather didn’t follow the forecast.”

  “It doesn’t, not on Accord.” She stood up. “What can I do?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind…there’s a pack stashed behind that boulder—” He gestured to a point behind her left shoulder. While she hurried toward the rock, he began to break down the chairs, then the table. By the time she had returned, he was tying three bundles of wood together.

  “You asked me to get that just so I wouldn’t see how you took those apart.” Her tone was mock accusing. She handed him the pack and watched as he fitted the two baskets and the bundles together. “Ingenious.”

  “It is. Not my idea, but I remembered it from New Avalon. They like elegant picnics there, I’m told. Waltar’s made it for me. I guessed some on the design, but Geoff helped me out.”

  Thelina shook her head as he slipped the pack on. “Are you sure I couldn’t carry something?”

  “No. It all fits together. Bulky, but it’s not even as heavy as a standard field pack, especially now. Shall we go?”

  Thelina opened her mouth, then closed it for a moment, before finally nodding.

  Jimjoy, conscious of her walking beside him, forced himself to concentrate on the path. The wind tugged at his tunic, and he could sense the chill in the coming storm. Snow—or freezing rain—but not for a few hours, he guessed.

  “You’ve made things even more complicated now,” she said as they passed the curve in the path below the saplar forest. Ahead lay the Institute.

  “Suppose so. Nothing’s ever turned out simple. But how do you mean it?” He could sense her shrug.

  “You’re no longer just the cold and efficient Special Operative or the brilliant Professor Whaler who leaves his students’ preconceptions in tatters. You’re not just a soulless killer.”

  “So what am I?”

  The silence was punctuated only by two sets of steps, one heavy, one light, and underscored by the whistling of the wind.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you do, either.”

  He had to shrug, though the gesture was restrained by the picnic pack. “You’re right. I don’t. Once I thought I did.” He took several more long steps, which she matched, as she had all along, before he added, “I’ve thought so more than once. I was always wrong.”

  The path branched in front of them, and they took the left-hand branch, the narrower one that led to the cluster of housing where Thelina lived.

  “I almost didn’t come.”

  “I worried whether you would.”

  “I know. I saw you checking the time. Twice.”

  Her tone said she was smiling, but he wasn’t sure whether he should look. Finally, after an instant that seemed like eternity, he did. She was.

  He couldn’t help grinning, and she smiled even more knowingly.

  “You’re blushing” she observed, still smiling.

  “…know…can’t help it…” He stopped at the steps up to her front deck.

  Thelina turned to face him.

  Jimjoy realized he hadn’t said what he really wanted to say. Yet he had said all he could. Finally, after holding her eyes, as the wind whistled around them, as he could see her repress a shiver, he moistened his suddenly very dry lips. “Thank you.”

  “You won’t—no, you’re right For just an instant, she looked as bewildered as he felt. Then she was back in control. “I had a wonderful time, and I won’t try to spoil it by trying to drag it out. Thank you.”

  “So did I.”

  “Next time will be my treat.” She put one foot on the first wooden step, her eyes still on him.

  He nodded. There would be a next time, at least. “Go get warm.”

  “I will. Thank you. I mean it. Freezing or not, I enjoyed every minute.”

  He didn’t know what to say, except “So did I” again. So he just looked, waiting for her to go up the four steps to the deck.

  She took the steps deliberately, then stopped and turned at the top. “Thank you.”

  Her voice was soft, slightly more than a whisper, but each word lingered in his ears.

  He watched the door close before he turned to carry the picnic pack back. He had some cleaning up to do, and then some. Not that he minded, not at all. Not at all.

  XXVII

  JIMJOY STRAIGHTENED THE quilted martial arts jacket and brushed his short hair back. Why he bothered
he didn’t know, since the next set of exercises would only disarrange both.

  “…two, three…uhhh…two, three…” The improvements in his shoulders and the slight addition to his height, even with Dr. Hyrsa’s work on his muscles, hadn’t improved the overall muscular tightness he’d inherited, or diminished his need for stretching exercises.

  He took a deep breath, ignoring the subdued scents of sweat, steam, and pine resin that seemed to characterize every exercise facility on Accord.

  “Watching you makes me glad my parents were relaxed.” Geoff Aspan grinned at the taller Ecolitan.

  “Relaxed, hades. If they were that relaxed, you wouldn’t be here.” Jimjoy took a deep breath and went back to work.

  Geoff grinned, then wiped the smile from his face.

  “…two, three…unhhhh…two, three…”

  “We’ve got problems.”

  Jimjoy, catching the seriousness in the other’s voice, stopped and looked up from his stretched-out position on the mat. “Why?”

  “Here comes Kerin, and she’s ready to kill.”

  “Your problem, Geoff. I only work here part-time.” Jim joy was grinning as he kept working on stretching out his back and leg muscles.

  “This look’s for both of us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You obviously haven’t been contracted or married. All women have that look, and you’d better learn to recognize it. Worse yet, there’s enough time before my next group.”

  “Mmm…” Jimjoy kept stretching. Thelina had such a look, except that she still didn’t feel he was worth wasting it on.

  “We’ve got troubles.” Kerin Sommerlee’s voice was low, but at the tone, Jimjoy got up, straightened his jacket. She turned and walked back toward the staff office.

  Geoff looked at Jimjoy, who returned the look.

  “We’ve got problems,” repeated Geoff.

  Jimjoy just nodded as the two of them followed her.

  Kerin just stood inside the office, empty except for the three of them. “Two Impie agents, snoops, not Special Ops, hit orbit control on the way down. Same pair that were here and left right before Sam’s murder.”