Empire & Ecolitan

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  As she watched, the old system laboriously scripted the parameters.

  “EDI traces match Imperial warship configurations. Three cruisers, twelve corvettes, three scouts. EDI shifts indicate course for Sligo.”

  “Hades!” She pursed her lips.

  Finally, she tapped the comm stud.

  “All Belters! All Belters! Impie fleet en route Sligo. Impie fleet en route Sligo. Pass the word.”

  She slapped off the comm stud, not really wanting to be the target of an Impie homing torp, shaking her head again.

  Then she sighed and closed the helmet, preparing to head back out to shut down the equipment. Sligo wouldn’t be needing the metal, and she would need every erg of power she had. It would have to last for a long time. A very long time.

  LVIII

  JIMJOY REACHED FOR the door to the closet that served as his stateroom/sleep quarters when he was on Thalos. The gray plastic door set in gray rock, opening from a gray rock tunnel, depressed him. At least it did at those times when he wasn’t too exhausted to care.

  The corridor was empty, not surprising in midmorning, but the asteroid reconfiguration work didn’t exactly require rigid adherence to a planetside schedule.

  He opened the door slowly and stepped through, loosening the helmet from the shoulder straps as he did so and setting it on the shelf, also carved from the rock. Then came the suit gauntlets. Finally, he began to strip off the armored maintenance suit, all too aware of how rank he smelled, even to himself.

  Only the faint hiss of the station ventilators and the muted clicking of the suit connectors broke the silence.

  Glancing over at the narrow bunk, Jimjoy noticed a white oblong on the green blanket. His eyes widened and his hands dropped from the suit connectors. In two quick steps he had the envelope in hand.

  “James Joyson Whaler II,” read the scripted black ink.

  A sigh of relief escaped him. He’d tried to avoid thinking about where she had been and what she had been doing. He shook his head and pushed the thoughts away, concentrating instead on the envelope.

  Jimjoy smiled wryly, knowing the handwriting had to be Thelina’s, although he had only seen the crisp note she had left him in the hospital—the one suggesting he had better hades-fired become a decent ecologic scholar if he intended to join the Institute. His fingers seemed to fumble over themselves as he eased open the lightly sealed flap of the faintly greenish linen envelope.

  A second envelope rested inside the first with the single name “Jimjoy” written upon it. From the unsealed inside envelope he eased out the formal card.

  The honor of your presence is requested at an indoor luncheon for two at 1315 H.S.T. on the fourteenth of Sixtus at the look-in on Thalos Station (Alpha Three-D). Refreshments will be provided. Suitable attire is suggested.

  Thelina Xtara Andruz

  S.F.I.

  As he read the card, then reread it, his smile grew broader.

  After a moment he frowned, letting his hand with the card drop. Why now? The time to have replied to his formal luncheon invitation would have been months earlier, before they had become so intimate. Was she trying to tell him something?

  He pursed his lips, then lifted the card again, rereading each word, finding nothing beyond the words themselves.

  Finally he set it on the shelf, propped up by both envelopes, and continued to unsuit. He glanced at his wrist. Only 1043 H.S.T. That gave him time to get ready and still dash off the fax message for Jorje that he had promised himself he would send.

  As for Thelina…he was glad he had taken care of a few advance preparations of his own.

  Still…He pulled at his chin momentarily before racking the heavy suit on the wall brackets.

  LIX

  ALPHA THREE DELTA, on the station’s top level, was the end of the Ecolitan station farthest from the tactics/manufacturing section added by Jimjoy’s team.

  Jimjoy checked the time. 1313 H.S.T. Thelina had not kept him waiting, but had arrived on the minute, and he intended to return the favor. In his pocket rested the package he had brought from Harmony for her.

  As he turned into the number-three corridor, he passed through a simulated wooden archway. His eyebrows lifted. Underfoot, the laser-melted stone was covered with green carpet. Thin synthetic carpet, but carpet nonetheless.

  The doorway to three delta was not the standard old-fashioned doorway, but a modern, heavy portal. Jimjoy frowned as he touched the entry stud.

  Cling. The soft chime rang in the empty corridor.

  Jimjoy glanced around, but the corridor remained empty. After the portal irised open, he stepped through into a small wood-paneled foyer. On the right was a small wooden table, on which rested a simple green porcelain dish. Above the table was a half-meter-square wall-hung mirror framed in dark wood. Directly before him was a solid wood doorway—closed.

  He fingered the small black wooden box in his belt pouch again, then stepped up to the doorway. He turned the solid bronze lever and pushed. The door opened silently. As he stepped onto the heavy dark green and plush carpet, Jimjoy swallowed.

  Overhead, through a clear crystal dome covering the entire ceiling, swam the dayside of Permana. Above the planet sparked the lights of two thousand Arm stars. The combined luminescence filled the room with a summer-evening twilight. Below the planet simmered the darkness of the Rift.

  By the single table in the center of the room stood Thelina, wearing a single-piece dark green silken jumpsuit with a V neck. A silver chain glinted on the bronzed skin below her neck. She had let her hair grow, long enough to be swept back with combs that matched the dress and to impart a softly regal appearance to her face.

  A single white candle burned in the center of the table, which was covered with pale linen and set with silver, crystal, and china.

  In his clean working greens, the most formal clothing he had on station, Jimjoy felt pedestrian—extraordinarily pedestrian.

  After easing the door closed behind him, he inclined his head to Thelina. “You look…” He shook his head. “It’s…hades, I missed you…” The words seemed to catch in his throat. He wanted to hold her tight, to crush her against him—to shake her for going off where she might have gotten killed without saying a word. Instead, he just stood there, looking at her in the starlight under the crystal dome, watching the woman who looked like an ancient goddess of the night.

  “I’m glad you could make it, Professor.” Her voice was light, not sarcastic but not romantic, either.

  He swallowed, glad he wasn’t close enough for her to see how hard it was for him, and nodded again. His eyes burned momentarily. It was as if she wanted to go back to when he had started courting her. Didn’t she know how much he cared? Or did she care? He swallowed again. “The timing…was a bit close, and I am afraid…I did not have the most appropriate attire. This…” He gestured down at his working greens. “…was the best available.”

  “I had wanted to respond to your luncheon invitation in kind, but we never seemed to have the time on Accord. I’m sorry you had so little notice, but I wanted to surprise you.”

  He took another slow and deep breath before stepping toward her and the candlelit table. “You certainly did. No idea you were here…or that this…was here.” Up close, she looked even more stunning, despite the darkness under her eyes.

  “Would you like a seat, Professor?”

  Jimjoy sighed softly. “Thank you.” He took the seat and watched as Thelina slipped into the chair across from him.

  “I’m not about to try to match your abilities with cuisine. Instead, I sought a little help. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. Though you overestimate my abilities.” He glanced around the space, easily the size of a conference room.

  “Yes. It’s normally a conference room for the station commander, but Imri let me borrow it.”

  With the starlight and the candle, Jimjoy found it hard to remember that it was midday, not evening. “Hard to remember that it’s lunch.” He
glanced up at the silvery bulk of Permana.

  “It could be evening, if you wish.”

  He finally was able to smile. “Suppose I do.”

  “Would you like some Hspall? Or something else?”

  “Hspall is a little strong. I’ve been mostly awake for the past day and a half. Water until I have something to eat. What about you?”

  “Two of us, then.” Her hand reached for the crystal.

  He lifted his glass to hers. “To your return, lady.”

  “To your efforts, Professor.”

  Clink. As they sipped, Jimjoy watched Thelina’s face, noting for the first time the exhaustion in her eyes, the tension still in her body posture, as if she were for some reason on guard against him.

  A doorway to Jimjoy’s left opened, and a woman entered, carrying two plates.

  “Salad,” observed Thelina.

  “Salud, perhaps?”

  Thelina frowned.

  “Sorry. Ancient pun, meaning greetings, health, something like that.” He paused. “When did you get back?”

  “Ten stans ago. With the Vruss—Halstani independent. I used your shuttle service from orbit control.” She put down the glass, let both hands rest in her lap.

  “Do they know who you are? Or were? The Halstanis?”

  “They know who I am. I doubt they know who I was. That person is officially dead, like a certain Imperial Major. But you never know.”

  “Must have been quite a strain on you.”

  “How are the destroyers?”

  “From what we can see, two of them can be beefed up almost to light cruisers. Jason thinks the Fuards don’t really understand ship interconnectivity. The ships could make the difference.”

  “Will anything? Honestly?” Her voice was flat.

  Jimjoy shrugged. “Thought this was supposed to be a relaxing time.”

  “Sorry. I’ll try.”

  “Thelina…you don’t have to force anything, or try anything…”

  A faint smile crossed her lips. “Remind me of that in—say—five years.”

  Not catching the implications he knew were there, Jimjoy smiled in return, faintly. “We’ve diverted most of the needleboat crews to get all four back in shape. How did you manage it?”

  “Negotiating was the easy part.” Thelina took a bite of the salad. “Setting up the negotiations wasn’t.”

  Jimjoy lifted his fork and speared a section of the crisp, almost purplish greenery.

  Crunnchhh…

  “It’s priolet, very crunchy,” noted Thelina with a smile. “It’s also tart, but that should make it more appealing to you.”

  Ignoring the innuendo, he managed to swallow the first chunk of tangy greenery without further sounds like a rock-crusher, but used his knife to cut the remaining salad into smaller bits, following Thelina’s example.

  “How do you like it?”

  “Taste is good, but it makes me feel like mining machinery. Who eats this? Hard-rock miners?”

  “No. It’s a delicacy in Parundia. Originally came from Cansab. No miner could possibly afford it.”

  Jimjoy pulled at his chin, then took another bite. The second tasted better than the first. “It does grow on you,” he admitted.

  “That’s appropriate.” For the first time, her voice held a touch of music.

  He smiled, sneaking another glance at her as he finished off the salad, and realizing exactly how hungry he had been.

  Thelina set her fork aside without quite finishing the salad, tilting her head to the side almost quizzically. She said nothing.

  For a time neither did Jimjoy; he studied her face and tried not to look below the necklace that glittered on her skin. Something about the lunch…he couldn’t quite finger it. He took a sip from the goblet instead, noting absently the seal of the Institute etched into the crystal. “Are you all right?”

  Thelina shrugged. “It’s always a strain, and I worry about what I’m going back to.”

  “Meryl and Kerin seem to have things pretty well in hand.”

  “I talked to Meryl on the tight-beam a while ago.” She smiled again. “She said the same thing about you.”

  Jimjoy pulled at his chin, then sipped from the goblet. “I’ve managed, with a lot of help.”

  “Meryl said you were working on something new—called sharp stones?”

  Jimjoy laughed. “Another pun. I got the idea from reading the Sligo reports.”

  Thelina shook her head. “Poor people. I suppose that is our fault.”

  “They’ve been looking for a reason to hit the Empire for years. They finally did, and that gave the Impies an easy way out.” He took another sip from the glass. “In another four or five days we have to meet on that at the Institute, Meryl says. Figure out how to brief all the new delegates and Council members.”

  “Has the Empire made any demands?”

  Jimjoy shook his head. “Just a general announcement regretting the necessity, but reminding all the colonies that the great and mighty Empire does indeed collect its debts—one way or another. Not phrased that bluntly.”

  “Of course. Let’s talk about something else.”

  “All right. The view is lovely, and the stars are spectacular, though not as spectacular as you.”

  “That sounds a bit too practiced…”

  “You’ve caught me out again, dear lady.” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “What can I say?”

  The woman who acted as the waitress appeared and removed the salad plates, returning immediately with two dinner plates.

  Jimjoy did not recognize the entrée, except that it appeared to be some sort of fish, garnished with fruit. He glanced at Thelina.

  “Go ahead.” She laughed. “With your connoisseur’s palate, you should like it.”

  “I might,” he acknowledged, taking a small morsel of the fish that appeared almond-colored in the light from the stars and the solitary candle.

  Thelina followed his example.

  The taste was a lemon-electric shock, tempered with plum fire.

  “Ansellin…” he murmured after savoring that single morsel. He looked at Thelina. “How…” The two fish on the table represented as much credit as…

  “Don’t worry. They were a gift from the past.”

  Jimjoy wondered who would make that kind of gift, either so casually or from such deep feeling. He put down his fork, his stomach suddenly churning, the corners of his eyes threatening to burn again.

  Rather than look at Thelina, he studied the ansellin in the dim light, noting the uniform texture, the even color. In time he took another sip of water from the nearly empty goblet.

  “Your family was from Anarra?”

  Thelina nodded.

  Jimjoy shivered. Anarra—most fanatical of the stronghold planets of the Matriarchy. Anarra—whose Eastern Sea was the sole provider of ansellin. Anarra—founding chapter of the Hands of the Mother. He shivered again.

  “Don’t you like it?”

  Jimjoy wanted to let go of the tears he held in. Instead, he raised his eyes to the shadowed face across the table from him. “It’s…Thelina, there aren’t any words…never taste anything like it again.”

  “I doubt either one of us will.”

  Silently, Jimjoy took another morsel, trying to savor the lemon-electric tingle basted with plum fire, wondering again at the prices she had paid, wondering how he could ever have thought he had suffered.

  Wordlessly, he put down the fork.

  “You don’t like it?”

  He said nothing, afraid his voice would break, his fingers twisting around the bottom of the crystal goblet as he swallowed nothing, and swallowed again.

  “The price…perhaps too high…too rich…”

  Thelina’s lips pursed, tightly. “It wasn’t that kind of gift, Professor.”

  “I knew that, Thelina. That just made the price a whole lot higher.”

  Her lips relaxed, but her eyes never left his. “How would you know?”

  He swallowed, concen
trating on the technical reasons. “Spent some time in the Institute archives. Trying to find out more about the culture and background of a lady. In addition to everything else, ran across something called The Anarra Complex. Very detailed…” He took a deep breath.

  This time, Thelina’s eyes rested on her plate.

  Jimjoy used the silence to regain his composure, trying not to think beyond the moment.

  “Do you think it’s accurate?”

  “The tone was so understated, so clinical, so dispassionate. Yes, I’d say it was probably a living hades for anyone with sensitivity and intelligence.” Like you, he wanted to add.

  “You can’t love someone because you pity them.”

  “Someone told me I had to get to know them, and that I couldn’t possibly love without knowing them. I’ve tried, even when you haven’t been around.”

  “You’ve shown more overt emotions, compassion, sympathy, understanding, even tears, in the last stan than the universe has seen for you in thirty-odd years. I do love you, in spite of myself, but please pardon me if I’m just a little skeptical of this gush of emotionalism.”

  Jimjoy shrugged. “Can’t say I blame you. Can’t even say I understand it myself.” He used the linen napkin to blot his forehead, catching the remnants of his own tears under that cover. “All I know is that you’ve turned everything upside down. Until I saw you tonight—this afternoon, I mean—I didn’t even realize it. Not fully,” he amended, thinking of the black wooden box.

  Thelina arched her eyebrows. “Do you want to explain?”

  “No. I can’t explain. In between each project, on each solo flight, before I collapse every night, I’ve been going over what’s happened…I’ve wanted you, for you, not for Dr. Hyrsa’s artistry, since the first time we talked in the formal garden more than two years ago. Yes, I know. You were only doing your duty. But I think I’ve just about reordered a section of the Galaxy because of you. Hades, neither Helen nor Jaqlin nor Terrisa had anything on you…”

  “For me…you committed mass murders, insurrection, and plot genocide and rebellion? What an incredibly touching thought.”