Downtime (32 page)

“Calla!”
Marmion was stunned. “You can’t be serious. Not the very last source.”

“I
am completely serious. It was not the way I wanted it, but it’s just as sure.
Mahdi will be stopped.”

Marmion
turned to Jason in agitation. “There might not even be any starter seed left
anywhere. It will take a generation or more to recover.”

Jason
lowered his head, feeling very sick and shaken, just as he imagined Marmion
must be.

“You
both know she’s right,” Arria said, sounding angry. “Why do you hesitate. You
know it!”

“Yes.”
Jason paused. He looked at Arria, not certain that she had picked up the
confirmation from himself and Marmion, or if she had come to a conclusion of
her own. Her face, always sunburned in summer, looked washed in a way the
moonlight could not account for. He knew that she was speaking with sure
knowledge of all of them. “We can’t just run away. Not even knowing that Mutare
is vast enough in which to disappear . . . forever, if we wanted
to.”

“I
know you’re right,” Marmion said with sadness. He jerked. “What the hell. We
wouldn’t last long without stellerators anyhow.”

“Long
enough,” Jason said, but he regarded Arria and felt troubled.

Arria
flushed and shook her head. “I wasn’t planning to have children anyway,” she
said. “That’s what really counts, isn’t it?” She looked at Jason, trying to be
steady about it, but fresh color came up under her sunburn.

“Arria
can stay here,” Calla said, her voice unusually soft but very steady. “I will
have plenty of time to make it on my own.”

“No!”
Arria held up a restraining palm. “You’re all . . .” She shook
her head, perplexed. “Just stop. You need me. I can guide you right past their
guards, and I’m the only one who can do that. I can’t be surprised by someone
hiding behind a bush.”

“You
missed a whole contingent of Praetorians sneaking into Red Rocks, Timekeeper
knows how.”

“Through
the big acid drains in the back,” Arria said. “There were no guards to stop
them.”

Jason
frowned. “But if you knew . . .”

Arria
shook her head violently. “I was deliberately shutting out everyone except . . .”
She hesitated. “I shut out the most important one because I thought it would
please you. You were worried that D’Omaha and Stairnon were avoiding you
because of me, that like everyone else they didn’t like the idea of having a
mind-reader around. You were right, but not because they were just a little
afraid I would intrude on their private thoughts. They were terrified that I
would learn their secret.”

“What
secret?” Jason asked.

“I
don’t know. I never did intrude, because, well, I thought you would prefer it
that way. But I do know he had to be the one to tell the guards to leave their
stations. I caught that much from some of the surprise and guilt from our
people when the Praetorians came into Round House. They knew it was wrong to
leave before their reliefs were there, but they were ordered away by someone
important enough to make them do it anyway. It could only have been you, Jason,
or Calla or D’Omaha. I know it wasn’t either of you. I can tell.”

“I
know you can, Arria.” Jason tried to sound comforting, but Arria looked as if
she were going to cry. He probably had confused her a great deal by telling her
she didn’t understand what was in his mind. Either it made her doubt whatever
else she picked up from other people, or she tried to ignore every stray
thought. Whichever, he had done her a great disservice. If she felt as bitter
about him as she looked right now, he really couldn’t blame her. “Damn, what a
fool I’ve been.”

“She
could have told you long ago,” Calla said, her tone unforgiving. “If it was D’Omaha . . .”
Calla shot a glance at Arria. “It’s very hard to believe. He had no reason.”

Again
Arria shook her head. “He did have a reason, a terrible one. I just don’t know
what.”

“The
point is, that whoever it was, with your capability, you could have found him
or her for Jason.”

“Calla,”
Arria said in a very subdued voice. “Will you ever forgive us?”

“It’s
me and me alone who’s at fault,” Jason said with utmost gentleness. “And, no,
she’ll never forgive me. But she won’t hold it against me forever either. At
least, she never has in the past.”

Calla
looked at him with that directness of hers and nodded. “You never learn quickly
enough. It’s always too late.” She shrugged. “If you and Marmion don’t get
started soon, you’ll have sunlight to contend with.”

“We’ll
all hang,” Marmion said, but he was already started for the opening. Then he
turned back. “I have my jelly roller.” He pulled the little computer out of his
breast pocket. “If anything happens to . . . well, to any of us,
we should record that we’re all in agreement on this thing, that we’ve each
volunteered and not been coerced in any way.”

“It’s
not necessary,” Calla said. “It’s me who will be held responsible.”

“Ah,
but you shouldn’t have all the credit, Calla,” Marmion said, his eyes sparkling.
“I’ve always fancied myself a hero.”

Jason
nodded, and reached for the jelly roller. Such a record could minimize Calla’s
role in this final effort if she were court-martialed or brought to trial for
war crimes. And if she were not, truly Marmion did deserve credit as a hero, if
that’s what he wanted. Besides, Calla couldn’t really believe that anyone could
be ordered to embark on a mission like this. He talked into the jelly roller,
trying not to see the incredulity on Arria’s face and trying not to wonder what
she knew that he did not know.

Calla had determined that she and Arria should remain in the
cave until the following night and rest, since they did not have too far to
travel and would have several nights to do it in. Calla’s body required the
rest, though the results were questionable. The gash on her leg made her knee
stiff, and the hip, of course, always hurt, so when they did set forth she
could not cover much ground at a stretch. Still, there was no doubt in her mind
that they would make it, and well within the time frame she had established
with Jason and Marmion. But she wished she could move quickly and lithely as
Arria did, for then she would be able to assess the situation at Red Rocks
sooner. How many ground troops had Mahdi brought? Enough to make sabotage
impossible? Or was he relying on near-orbit weaponry, which was not as
effective against a few determined guerillas.

“I
can go ahead,” Arria suggested when Calla called a halt to their trek while it
was still several hours before dawn.

“No,”
Calla said, keeping her voice low even though she was certain Arria would have
known if anyone were near. “Use the time to find us a good shelter from the
cosmic rays and the enemy. Do that, and we will have done well enough for one
night.”

Arria
left her for less than an hour, then returned to lead her to a fall of boulders
overgrown by thick-branched, small, hardy shrubs with large green foliage that
shimmered in the moonlight. A cleft in the rocks formed a suitable cave, and there
was a trickle of water, just a small natural runoff from higher ground that had
not yet dried up in the summer’s heat.

“Are
you hungry?” Arria asked her when they had settled into the niche.

“Yes,
but it can wait. The loss of a little mass won’t hurt me.”

Arria
pulled up some roots with greens still attached from under her shirt. “It’s too
early for berries, but these are pretty good,” she said handing half to Calla. “It’s
all right,” she said when she saw Calla hesitate. “I’ve eaten them many times.”

Calla
smiled. Arria hadn’t quite understood her thoughts. “I cannot always eat what
other people eat.”

“Suit
yourself,” Arria said, biting into one of the roots.

Calla
sniffed the roots in her hand, smelled nothing but fresh dirt, and decided that
she was hungry enough at least to taste them. An agreeable flavor was no
guarantee, but she knew from experience that bland foods tended to be less
difficult to digest. One of the shamans on Mercury Novus had even told her to
eat more fresh-grown foods and to stay away from processed and imported goods,
thus reducing her exposure to chemicals that had no nutritional value but which
made the food taste good. She had followed his advice for almost a year, and
while it did her no harm she couldn’t discern any special good, and it
certainly was inconvenient. She had earned a reputation for having peculiar
eating habits, which except for that single year of her long life was untrue.
Some foods made her bilious, just as they did other people. The difference was
that she could not take drugs to relieve the condition.

“You’re
like me,” Arria said, almost peeping at her with a sudden shyness.

“How
so?” Calla looked at her with interest. “I can’t read minds. I’m not the
slightest bit psi.”

“Different.
Not like anyone else.” She flicked a tendril of hair that had strayed too close
to her mouth. “They look at you, and they wonder what it’s like. Sometimes they’re . . .
“

“Repulsed?”
Calla sighed. “It doesn’t matter, not unless you let it. I’ve learned to ignore
it.”

“But
not entirely.”

Calla
bit into the root. “No. Not entirely.” She chewed the root pulp and found it
slightly sweet. “It only matters when it seems to get in they way of having
something you want very much.”

“You
have everything.”

Calla
laughed. Here she was out in the bush with only the clothes on her back, and
Arria thought she had everything.

“You
do,” Arria said, frowning seriously. “You’re a leader and people trust you,
despite your being different. They respect you and they care for you.”

“I
earned it,” Calla said, deciding that modesty had absolutely no part in this
conversation, for Arria might not understand the difference between demurring
and lying.

“It’s
what I need to do. I’ve tried, Timekeeper knows. But I haven’t succeeded.”

“It
would be difficult if people were uncertain of how extensive your psi abilities
were and what you could do with them. Perhaps you just haven’t found the right
way, yet. I know it’s no consolation, but some of it simply comes with age . . .
no. With experience. You’ve had precious little experience with people.”

“Two
years,” Arria said, sounding exasperated. “I did everything he asked me. I kept
up his studies on the danae while he was busy with the tunnel, the defense
lines, and even those constant inspections he was always doing. The danae
studies were good. Jason even said so. He thought that maybe my father had been
a scholar of some kind instead of a soldier, and that that’s why I did so well.
But, it didn’t do any good.”

“I
suspect it would have been just fine and very satisfying if what you wanted out
of it was credibility as a danae expert. But that isn’t what you were looking
for, was it?”

Arria
said nothing, but sat looking at the half-eaten root in her hand.

“Arria,”
Calla said, suddenly feeling exasperated herself. “You know that I know you
love Jason. You fell in love with him on sight, almost as I did when I was even
younger than you. You must also know that I don’t hold that against you.”

The
rainwater eyes looked at her strangely.

No,
Calla thought. She can’t tell for sure. “I’m sorry, Arria. I am the wrong
person to ask about love. I know now I love him and that I always have. But do
you realize that I didn’t know, even tried to deny it for thirty years? And I’m
still not certain that he really loves me. I mean, I want to believe it. I
always did. But I’m too smart to feel absolutely confident that he just . . .
does.”

“I
don’t understand,” Arria said. “I mean, I know what you’re thinking, but I don’t
understand it. You’re sure that he loves you because you are smart and he can
trust you. But you seem to think he doesn’t love you because of the same
reasons, and that doesn’t make sense.”

“Only
because you weren’t there in the beginning. He needed me then. He was burning
with ambition, but he had a quick temper and was used to the rough justice of
the Dovian mountains. They don’t tolerate his kind at the academy. They focused
on him and tried to break him. He wouldn’t break. He learned to be just enough
like them to get by . . . or at least to get through the ten
years of the academy. But he was going down the tubes until I started to help
him.”

Arria
was nodding now, smiling slightly. “He doesn’t feel gratitude when he thinks of
you, Calla. He gets warm inside and yearns so much it makes my knees tremble.”

Calla
stared at her, then looked away, knowing that her eyes were beginning to water.
“Thank you for telling me that,” she whispered, “but I swear to you that I don’t
know why Anwar Jason D’Estelle loves me.”

“But
at least you believe it now,” Arria said softly.

For
a while, Calla thought, but not forever. The doubts always creep in. She busied
herself with clearing away tiny stones and bits of rubble from a flat place on
the ground so she could lay down and sleep, but she couldn’t lay down and rest
when it was done. She turned back to Arria. “I think that Jason . . .
well, that perhaps he has loved other . . . “ She stopped. She
wanted to be of some comfort to Arria, but it hurt too much to say.

“You
don’t have to worry, Calla. I understand now. He won’t risk what he has with
you. No other love means as much to him. That’s what I didn’t understand.”

“He
is strong enough, but I am not?”

Arria
shrugged and pretended to be concentrating on nibbling the last morsel of root
from the leafy stems.

***

Near dawn the next day, Calla and Arria had made it to a
vantage point above Red Rocks. They could see the terrace lake and the
still-blockaded entrance to the underground, and had a clear view of the small
landing pad, on which there were six shuttles, and the meadows beyond where
dozens more were idle.