“Wait a minute. I went to Haversol before Sam’s death.”
“You still didn’t want to get female approval.” Meryl sighed, then turned off the burner and poured the boiling water into the green porcelain teapot. “It should steep for a bit,” she added in almost an aside. “Why do you think we’ve tried not even to suggest your role, except when you ask?”
“Trying to tiptoe around the frail masculine ego?”
“You said that,” noted Meryl tartly. “You have no reason for a frail ego. You’ve accomplished miracles—even if some have been miracles of destruction and escape. The problem is that you don’t like yourself, deep inside.”
“So what does that have to do with my not telling Thelina and her not telling me?”
“She doesn’t trust men, and you don’t trust women. If you don’t trust her enough to tell her, how can she trust you?”
Jimjoy pulled at his chin once more. “You’re saying that I have to trust her before she’ll trust me?”
Meryl said nothing, instead poured the tea into the two cups. “Would you like sugar?”
“Did she tell you not to tell me?”
“Would you like sugar?”
Jimjoy sighed. “Yes, please. Two, please.” He felt like tapping his fingers on Sam’s desk, cursing feminine logic, and walking out. Instead, he looked at one of the hard wooden chairs, then took the heavy cup from Meryl and walked toward the middle chair. Despite the darkness outside, the flight jacket felt warm, too warm for his being inside.
Meryl stood beside the empty Prime’s desk-table, cradling her cream-and-green cup in both hands, letting the steam drift into her face, as if warming herself, despite the heavy sweater she wore.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested. “At least for a moment.”
Meryl nodded before easing herself into the chair nearest the desk.
Jimjoy sipped the liftea, too hot for more than sips. “What about trust?”
“What about it?”
“You said—”
“What I said was perfectly clear. You have to trust Thelina.”
“She doesn’t have to trust me?”
Meryl looked up from the cup she still held in both hands. “She has. She recommended the Institute accept you. She offered her whole career as hostage to developing your Special Operatives. She risked her life against Harlinn’s bodyguards. She gave herself to you—even with her background. What else do you want? Don’t you see? She had to do something without telling you, if only to deliver a message.”
Again Jimjoy was forced to look from the intensity in the woman’s eyes. What else did he want? What did he want? His eyes flicked from the floor to the window and the growing blackness of the western horizon, then back to Meryl. “Trust is a shared orbit?”
“I could almost hate your mother—and your father.” Meryl took a deep sip from the cup, then brushed a wisp of blond hair back with her left hand.
Jimjoy didn’t ask why. He knew. “Where is she? I know, based on the way I handled Haversol, you have every right to make me wait until she returns.” If she returns, he thought to himself. “But I would like to know.”
“She’s in the New Avalon system, trying to negotiate an arrangement with Tinhorn.”
Jimjoy winced. “An arrangement?”
“She thought she could use some former chips as a lever to suggest it was in the Fuards’ best interests to let Accord salvage some old destroyers—minus weaponry, of course.”
“Do they know who she is?”
“No. She has the history as an Institute operative to operate on her own.”
“But the former chips?”
“She got someone to call them in for her. And that’s all she told me.”
Jimjoy pulled at his chin, then took a long swallow of tea, almost welcoming the burning it etched down the back of his throat. “So we wait?”
“No. You keep doing what needs to be done. Just like she did, just like I’m doing.”
His eyes refocused on Meryl, her words recalling that she had been Thelina’s friend and confidant far longer than Jimjoy had known Thelina. He swallowed. “Sorry…hadn’t thought about it. Stupid, but I hadn’t. Is there anything I can do?”
Meryl finished her cup of tea, then stood. “No. But understanding late is better than not understanding at all, Professor.”
“I wonder.” He stood. “The cups? Anywhere to wash them?”
“Thanks for the offer, but I can handle one extra cup. I would have had the tea anyway. Just leave it here for now.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” She poured a second cupful from the teapot. “This goes back to the office.” Then she set her own cup down and reached for his.
Jimjoy handed it to her. “Thank you.”
She nodded as she set his cup beside the kettle. “What’s next for you? More persuasion on the research establishment?”
“Dr. Narlian may do that for me.”
“She could…but be careful.”
“I see you’ve met the doctor.”
“It only takes once.” Meryl shook her head slowly. “What else?”
“Work with Analitta and Gersin to see if we can complete the off-planet research production post-designs.”
“You aren’t actually doing design work?”
Jimjoy smiled briefly. “They’re better at that than I am. A whole lot better. Just give them the power and size parameters and the requirements. Plus pep talks. Then I’ll try to find some more leads on bio-weapons. And hope a lot…and try to trust.”
“Thelina should be fine.” Meryl lifted the teacup and started back toward the doorway to her office.
Jimjoy followed, not necessarily agreeing. The Fuards weren’t trustworthy, but right now there was nothing at all he could do. Except trust—and he didn’t like the feeling. “Let me know.”
“You may see her first.” Meryl’s look seemed momentarily wistful as she set her cup next to her screen, where several more lights were now flashing, two of them changing from amber to red.
“Then we’ll let you know.”
Meryl took a deep breath and settled herself behind the console, looking back up at Jimjoy as he stood there. “Please do.”
He nodded, not knowing what else he could trust himself to say, repressing a sudden shiver inside the heavy jacket that suddenly failed to warm him.
L
8 Quat 3647
New Augusta
Dear Mort:
Urgency does happen—sometimes. I took your faxes and record to Graylin (Fleet Development), and he agreed to fight if N’Trosia pushed for a black flash on your dossier, but it won’t come to that. N’Trosia doesn’t want the incident to be brought to light, other than as an unfortunate and unavoidable accident for which no one was to blame, not with his talk about the Fuards being reasonable people and with the Declaration of Secession from Accord hitting the tunnels. So it looks like you’re clear.
The manpower and operations costs for Sector Five (Accord) hit the Defense Committee, and they nearly hemorrhaged. N’Trosia was screaming, right in the hearing room, about the mismanagement of diplomacy by the I.S.S. He demanded to know how we thought we could conduct diplomacy with warships and no compassion. Then he told Fleet Admiral Helising that the Accord Secession was the direct result of the I.S.S.’s preoccupation with weapons of death and destruction.
Anyway, the long and short of it was that they scrapped the CX, at least for now, and compromised on more spare parts and limited retrofits for the Attack Corvettes. From what you said and from what I’d gathered, I wanted my new boss, the head of Plans and Programming, Admiral Edwin Yersin, to point out the problems. He declined, not because he didn’t agree, but because N’Trosia had the votes. So it goes.
I wish I could offer more hope from the capital, but now it comes out that we’ve already lost a bunch of ships to the eco-freaks. They call themselves the Coordinate of Accord, and they’re dignifying their little rebellion with the catchy ti
tle of the Ecologic Secession. Between N’Trosia’s compassion, limited budgets, and a few missing SysCons, any application of massive force—trust you know what I mean—is currently out of the question. Then, the asteroid miners out of Sligo are trying the same thing. There our supply lines are clearer, and something might happen. But who really knows these days?
The Fuards are complaining about the three-system bulge again, you know, out your way, and where that will lead is anybody’s guess.
I heard from Sandy again, last month. She left a delay cube for me, said she was on her way to Accord. Latest trend, of course, is to be fashionably ecological, but she, once more, will take it to extremes.
I shouldn’t ramble on, but sometimes you just wonder…Enough is enough. Give my love to Helen and the kids.
Blaine
LI
THE BOULEVARD WAS almost deserted in the midafternoon freezing drizzle, a few hardy individuals in waterproof parkas sloshing through the few centimeters of puddled slush that covered the precisely cut gray stone sidewalks.
An occasional groundcar whined to or from Government Square, hissing across and through the combination of ice and rain that covered the roadway.
Jimjoy, his parka collar turned up, paused to look at the display in Waltar’s, then smiled.
“Think Spring!” proclaimed the graceful script in the window. There, for all Accord to see, underneath an open umbrella, was a copy of the formal picnic set he and Jurdin Waltar had designed. As he studied it, he realized that Jurdin had simplified the set and improved the design in several minor ways, allowing the final backpack design to be even more compact.
On a whim, he pushed open the door.
Cling. A gentle bell rang as he stepped inside.
“May I help you, ser?” asked a young man, a youngster still of school age, with slicked-back black hair and a fresh-scrubbed and clean-shaven face.
“Is Jurdin in?”
“No, ser. He’s out at the workshop. He said he wouldn’t be back until late. Is there anything I can help you with? Or Dorthea? She’s in back.”
Jimjoy shook his head. “No, thank you. I just wanted to compliment him on the picnic set in the window. You could tell him I stopped by, if you would.”
“Ser? You are…?”
“Oh, sorry. Just tell him Jimjoy Whaler, and the picnic set.”
“Whaler…yes, ser! I didn’t recognize you. That was some talk you gave, ser. Are you going to run for Council? My whole family thinks you should.”
“Run for Council? No, that should be somebody like Jurdin. I wouldn’t make a good Council member.”
“You aren’t going to run?” The boy’s tone was almost hurt.
Jimjoy smiled gently. “Young man, politicians have to make people happy. Spent my life doing things that made people unhappy, telling them things they didn’t want to hear. Somebody has to but people would be unhappy hearing from me all the time. Better I stay with the Institute.”
“You could still be an Ecolitan, Professor.”
“No, I don’t think so. Ecolitans should stay out of politics. All we did was make sure that the people get to choose their own politicians. We’re idealists, most of us, and idealists make poor politicians.” He shrugged. “I appreciate your support. Just make sure you choose an honest Council.”
“Are you sure you won’t run?”
“I’m sure. I may not even be planetside for the election. How could I be a Council member when I’m not here?”
Cling. The bell signaled the arrival of a figure in a hooded coat.
“Do you have any snigglers?”
Jimjoy nodded at the youngster. “Just tell Jurdin I was here.”
“Yes, ser.” All seriousness, the boy turned to the woman who had arrived. “Yes, sher. We have two, four, and eight meters. They’re racked in the third aisle at the end…”
Jimjoy stepped out into the rain, heading uphill to Daniella’s. With the intricate silvered spiral over the door, the stop stood out from the others.
Whssssttttt…splattt…
Slush from a passing groundcar sprayed on the stone centimeters from Jimjoy’s boots as he pulled open the heavy wooden door. Inside stood a single, heavy display case, unattended, as it had been the last time he had come.
Jimjoy swallowed, then stepped up to the case. No one was at the jeweler’s bench, but he could see Daniella’s broad back through the open door to the supply room.
“Daniella?”
“Be there in just a moment.” Her head, covered with a thatch of thick and short gray-streaked brown hair, did not move.
Jimjoy waited.
“All right—oh, Professor! I think you’ll be pleased.” The near-elfin voice failed to match the solid and muscular body to which it was attached.
Jimjoy smiled back at the jeweler. “You’re the one who looks pleased.”
“I am. You will be, too.” She went to the heavy metal case, more like an antique safe, and, after easing out a metal shelf, extracted a small box. “Here you are.” Daniella laid out a soft black cloth, then, after opening the box, laid the ring on the cloth.
Jimjoy nodded, trying to keep the grin from his face. Thelina would have thought he was totally insane.
The ring was simple—two green diamonds, large enough to be noticed, not large enough to be called rocks, set in a platinum silvered to the shade Jimjoy had specified. The two stones flowed into each other, yet remained separate.
“I had to modify that design, Professor, just a touch. Here…” She pointed. “And there. Otherwise, a hard knock at the wrong angle and you could lose the stone.”
“That’s fine. Looks better that way, anyway.”
“Thought so myself.”
“You’re the expert.”
“Mind if I use the idea again?”
“Could you wait a while?”
Daniella grinned, wide white teeth sparkling. “You want her to know how special it is?”
Jimjoy nodded. “Spacer…”
Daniella shook her head. “Got to watch those women spacers, Professor.”
“That’s what she’d say about me.” Jimjoy handed over a stack of notes, the total nearly depleting the funds remaining from his few Imperial assets.
“Thank you.” Daniella carefully replaced the ring in the hand-carved black wooden box and handed it to him.
“Thank you.” He nodded and slipped the box into an inside pocket of the parka, making sure it was securely sealed before stepping back into the wind and freezing rain outside the jeweler’s.
His steps were quick and light as he made his way toward the port to catch the afternoon shuttle back to orbit control.
LII
JIMJOY SCANNED THE controls, checking the EDIs and the far-screens yet another time. Theoretically, they were not in Imperial space, but the last thing they needed was for an Impie ship to see the distinct energy signatures of the Roosveldt and the Causto three sectors away from the Rift.
He looked at the representative screen again, wishing Broward would hurry in closing with the Causto. He hated to ask, even with tight beam laser comm. His fingers drummed on the edge of the finger control panel.
Mera Lilkovie grimaced as she looked pointedly at his left hand.
“All right. All right. Just wish Broward would move that tub.”
She shrugged, as if to ask whether impatience would speed the transport.
Jimjoy watched the Roosveldt’s image cross the dashed green of the congruency perimeter on the representational screen.
Cling. His eyes flashed to the farscreen, noting the EDI entry. The system was supposedly uninhabited, like the one for which they were heading, and the presence of another ship was a definite warning—either military or an independent.
His fingers scripted the inquiry, even as he watched the Roosveldt close up to his ship.
“Incoming ship is Imperial scout. Probability ninety-five percent,” the screen answered.
Jimjoy touched the laser comm stud. “Bell
war one, interrogative jump to salvage one. Interrogative jump.”
From the copilot’s couch, Mera Lilkovie again glanced at him and his finger tapping.
He kept his eyes on the screens. He also ignored Athos and Swersa in their crew seats. The incoming scout was too far away to track the two Accord ships, and near positive identification limits—possibly just on a border recon run. But the coincidence bothered him.
“Black control, one ready.”
“Jump at my mark.” He paused. “Now…MARK!” As soon as he saw the shimmer on the screen, he pressed the jump control, hoping he had not waited too long.
The blackness of the jump was as instantaneously endless as ever before the Causto dropped out at the edge of the target system—containing only three gas giants and two undeveloped rock balls.
Cling.
Jimjoy pointed the Roosveldt, well behind the beefed-up needleboat, then scanned the entire system.
One brightly pulsing blue dot and four fainter dots appeared at the orbit line of the fifth planet, right where they were supposed to be.
2214 Universal—leaving nearly two standard hours until the rendezvous target time. That the Fuards were already there indicated how successful Thelina had been, or how badly they wanted the Empire overextended on the Rift.
“Bellwar one, interrogative estimated closure.”
As he waited for Broward’s response, Jimjoy tried to keep a frown from his face. Having allies, hidden or otherwise, like the Fuards was not his preference. Bad as the Empire was, the Fuards were worse. But without the Fuards, the Empire would already be down on Accord. He pursed his lips and took another deep breath.
He hadn’t liked the Fuards. He hadn’t liked Thelina’s negotiating the “salvage” arrangement with them, and he still didn’t. They were perfectly capable of potting both the Roosveldt and the Causto—and not even worrying about it. But they wouldn’t have offered four obsolescent ships as bait. For the fledgling Coordinate of Accord, one or two military ships would have provided plenty of bait.
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