Downtime (29 page)

Hastily,
Jason drank.

***

Jason found Marmion in the tunnels behind Red Rocks
tallying bales of boiled cocoons that were stacked there until they could be
traded to the next freetrader. They’d exceeded what locked storage they had for
the miners’ goods, and though only guards and maintenance crews were permitted
in these tunnels, Marmion insisted on spot checking the bales to be certain
none were pilfered before he had a chance to trade them. Arria was with him,
carrying the record plat from which she read off ownership data that Marmion
compared to the tags on the bales. She touched Marmion’s arm to make him look
up from his work, then gestured toward Jason. Marmion straightened and smoothed
his hair back with his hand.

“Full
dress,” he said with approval. “Now that’s a touch I wouldn’t have thought of.
How did it go?”

“It
was bizarre,” Jason said. He sat down on one of the bales and described what
had just happened, omitting his suspicions about D’Omaha sharing his elixir
with Stairnon. It was not his concern; D’Omaha was free to do as he liked with
his allotment. And Jason found he couldn’t help drawing an uncomfortable
parallel between them and himself and Calla. If a similar gesture were within
his power, it would do him no good to offer it to Calla. It disturbed him to
know that Stairnon had accepted and that Calla never could.

Marmion
and Arria sat opposite him, she with her legs crossed under her skirt. “I never
even sat down. I think they were both very glad to see me go.”

“At
least he accepted your apology,” Marmion said. “That’s the most important
thing.”

“He
did it only to stop Stairnon, only to get me out of there. I can understand his
behavior. It’s Stairnon that has me worried. I thought she understood.”

“Understood
what? That you’re giving Calla unconditional support, even at D’Omaha’s expense?”
Marmion shook his head. “She goes to bed with him each night. D’Omaha may be
careful about what he says publicly, but I doubt that he holds back his
opinions with Stairnon. She’s a great lady, but she does have limits. She told
you that herself.”

Arria
looked up at them expectantly, and Jason knew she had picked up from one of
them that she’d been involved somehow, but she knew better than to ask
outright. She scowled at Jason, but said nothing.

“I
think I’d feel better about this if she just hated me for disagreeing with him.
That I could understand, too, but her believing I’m just deliberately
antagonizing him just isn’t like her.”

“Your
feelings are hurt!” Arria said suddenly.

Jason
started to shake his head; it was almost instinctive to disagree with Arria. “I
suppose that’s true. I expect her always to be as perceptive as the day I first
met her when she took the nymph thread. I didn’t have to explain anything to
her. She just knew what to do.” He looked at the stack of bales behind Marmion
and Arria. It almost reached the ceiling.

“It
could be that she doesn’t know what to do when the ranger-governor accuses her
husband of holding back information. He is, after all, a decemvir, the decemvir
without whom we wouldn’t be here today. Accusing him was not one of your more
inspired deeds,” Marmion said.

“I
thought it was possible,” Jason said stiffly. “His opinions are different, and
it could have been due to his having more information than me. Considering who
he is, I had to know.”

“If
you had asked me,” Arria said, “I could have told you what Tonto’s vigil
display was about.”

“I
wasn’t worried about the one I was seeing. I wondered how many I had missed,”
Jason told her sternly. “But now I’ll look at every zephyr log each morning. If
there was something incoming, like a drone-messenger, I’ll know if someone goes
to pick it up.”

“If
one comes, this time I’ll not be considerate of your rest, Ranger-Governor,”
Marmion said. “I’ll wake you and make you go with me. I wish I had done so the
last time; you wouldn’t be so suspicious now.”

That
he’d come and gone one night had been a surprise to Jason, and an unpleasant
one when he realized that if Marmion hadn’t routinely turned the message over
to him, he’d never have known about it. “We’d also have had a hole in our
security system, so it’s just as well, don’t you think?” Marmion nodded in
agreement, which gratified Jason, for he had high regard for Marmion. “Are you
finished here?”

Marmion
nodded. “Just spot checks, and everything tallies. We’ll do a full audit soon.”

“You’ve
taken a big burden from me, Marmion. And I don’t mean just keeping good
inventories. I mean the whole problem of the miners. You’re doing a great job.”

“Thanks.
It varies the routine, gives me something to look forward to.” He got up, ready
to leave. Arria handed him the plat and followed. “I imagine you feel the same
kind of relief when you look at the danae reports.”

“Yes.”

“Are
they done well?” Marmion asked. An innocent sounding question, but he knew
quite well that all the reports came from Arria these days. Marmion hadn’t
stopped hinting on Arria’s behalf, wouldn’t cease making excuses to bring them
together. Jason hadn’t tried to put a stop to it. One sharp word would have
ended it, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“Yes.
Quite well.”

Arria
turned to smile at Marmion. She was especially pretty when she smiled, and
Jason realized suddenly that she smiled infrequently, and never at him. The
state of things saddened him, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped. He thrust
his hands in his pockets and walked on, less aware of the clicking of Marmion’s
boots than of Arria walking soundlessly next him.

They
passed a guard post, and the woman on duty diligently ticked them off on the
counter hooked to her belt. Jason turned to Arria. “What was Tonto’s vigil
display all about?”

“I
was wondering when you’d ask,” she said, looking pleased with herself for
waiting. “I think it was a comet.”

“In
the daytime?” Jason said doubtfully.

“A
prominent one on the nightside, nothing he could see himself. A song he was
catching from others.”

“Comet
songs,” Jason said.

“An
away
song,” Arria corrected. “At any
rate, it was receding, not approaching, and I could have told you that if you’d
asked.”

“I
wasn’t worried about what I already had under control. Only what I might have
missed.”

“I
could tell you that, too,” Arria said flippantly.

Jason
grabbed her hand and stopped her. “What have I missed?” he asked.

She
looked nervously at Marmion. The perfectionist was standing with his hands on
his hips, looking at Arria as intensively as Jason. She’d intended to tease,
Jason realized, and got more than she bargained for.

“It
was nothing, right?” Jason said, trying to make sense of the flash in her gray
eyes. “You’re playing games with me again. Trying to get my attention.”

“I
have no difficulty getting your attention, Jason Anwar D’Estelle,” she said
breaking her hand away from his grip. “You like to watch me move, so I need
only come into your field of view if I want your attention.” Deliberately she
hiked her skirt to her knees.

Jason
rolled his eyes in despair.

“All
right, all right. I won’t remind you of that. But no, I wasn’t playing games
with you. You’ve missed lots of danae vigil displays.”

“You
didn’t mention them in the reports,” Jason said.

“I
didn’t know they were important. I didn’t think meteorites counted, only
freetrader shuttles.”

Jason
sighed. “Meteorites?” He shook his head. “You
were
trying to get my attention.” She looked as if he’d slapped
her, and he wished he’d let the matter pass.

“Are
you certain they were meteorites?” Marmion asked. “All steadily accelerating
trajectories, usually winking out before they reach the horizon. Were there any
that seemed very long in duration? Maybe too long by comparison?”

Arria
was silent for a moment, thinking. “Yes, there were some too long,” she said. “Two,
maybe three.”

“Do
you remember when?”

Arria
nodded, then shook her head in disappointment. “Not like you mean, not to the
very night. One last month when there were no moons up. Another last summer,
and maybe one last winter.”

Marmion
was looking at him. It wasn’t enough to tell them anything, only enough to
worry about. At last Marmion put his arms around Arria. “If it happens again
you must tell us.”

“You
wouldn’t have had to say that even if I weren’t psi,” Arria said dejectedly. “I’m
so sorry. I didn’t know it was important.”

“It’s
my fault, Arria. Not yours,” Jason said. “If I’d told you how the danae’s vigil
display tipped me off to
Compania
being behind the moon even before Calla set foot on Mutare, you might have
realized what it could mean.”

“You
knew about
Compania
?” Marmion asked,
obviously surprised.

“Not
her name, but I knew Calla had stashed another ship up there. And I knew it
sent shuttles down. Either you or Calla had checked out a zephyr whenever it
happened. Secret orders I wasn’t privy to, I assumed. That’s why I got so angry
with you for not telling me right away when the drone-messenger arrived. Still
a bit paranoid that maybe I wasn’t really in charge, that you or D’Omaha were
still getting messages from the Decemvirate that I didn’t know about.”

“Or
worse,” Arria said. And when Marmion looked at her blankly, she added: “A
message from Calla that he didn’t know about.”

“Same
thing,” Jason said.

“Hardly,”
Arria said.

“You’re
misinterpreting,” Jason said sharply. “I know what I’m thinking and you do not.
You don’t have full background to understand. Calla may be the woman I love and
I may, indeed, wish there were some word from her, some special words for me.
But dammit, she’s also the gold commander the Decemvirate sent on a special
mission, the same one who charged me with defending Mutare while she’s gone.
She’s the one on the battlefront, not the Decemvirate, so of course I’d rather
hear from her.”

Arria
nodded glumly, but Jason had the feeling she’d never understand.

“I’m
sorry I raised my voice,” he said. “I guess it wouldn’t bother me half so much
if I didn’t care at all about you. You need help that we can’t give you here on
Mutare and I just want you to come out of this damn war all right.”

“And
the danae,” she added sincerely. “It’s not fair to them either.”

“No,
it’s not. But I can’t help that. Timekeeper knows I can’t help any of it.” And
that was the worst of it, that he had no control at all over the destiny of
anything he cared about. The war was still very far away, and yet it was here,
too, in his every thought and deed. Even the danae had an active part in it
now; he’d be scrutinizing every vigil display Arria reported, fearing an
overlooked log entry that might indicate a drone messenger had been intercepted
by someone on Mutare, someone who might be keeping Mahdi posted on the complex’s
fortifications. Precious little to tell about, nothing worth mentioning unless
the complex really were the last elixir garden in the known worlds and
therefore too precious to risk. But what if it were only the second to the
last? Would Mahdi hesitate to blast a hole in the mountain? Would Calla think
twice before destroying it altogether?

Dear Timekeeper, I don’t
believe I’m having such thoughts, not about Calla.

When Calla opened the raider’s hatch, planetary gases and
vapors rushed up the access tube into the cockpit. She gasped involuntarily. It
was nothing more than warm summery air, but the resinous odors from the distant
Amber Forest mixed with spicy flower perfumes emanating from the nearby meadows
were shockingly overpowering after thirteen months of canned and recycled air
onboard
Compania
. Beside her, Tam
Singh Amritsar sneezed and coughed, but he was grinning, too. With the
exception of the brief touchdown when he had come to ferry her from Mutare to
Compania
, it had been even longer since
Singh had smelled fresh air. He and her other officers and crew had stayed
onboard
Compania
, hiding in far-orbit
from the then unknown traitor. Before that, they had been enroute to Mutare’s
star system, and before that on maneuvers in the Hub, continually between
planets.

A
squad of Jason’s rangers waited at the bottom of the ladder, long lasers in
hand, spare stellerators at their feet. While she and Singh donned the
stellerators, she saw the ruby-red target-finder beam of a laser cannon on the
hull of the raider. Though she looked, she could not see the cannon nor its
operators anywhere in the rocks or trees above the landing pad. Perhaps Jason
had placed them on the mountain behind. She knew they were not real cannons
from the Hub; she was completely aware of what was and was not in Jason’s
armory. But it didn’t take much to convert jack-lights into cannons, and she
knew that in the right hands they could cripple even a raider.

“They
won’t have time to get through the hull,” Singh said, seeing what she saw.

The
chief ranger blinked but didn’t comment. His squad flanked them and they
started walking toward Red Rock’s ramp-tunnel. The way was well guarded, and no
less steep than it had been before. Silently Singh and the rangers slowed down
to accommodate Calla’s slower pace. Calla walked faster, trying to ignore the
increasing pain in her hip.

The
entrance to the big ramp-tunnel had been fortified and sealed with sheets of
shale and metal. It wouldn’t stop Mahdi’s weaponry, but if he punched a hole
through it, the force required would also begin to destroy the elixir
fabrication area behind it. If he came close enough to do a careful job of it,
Jason’s rangers would pick them off, one by one. Calla nodded with approval.