Empire & Ecolitan (57 page)

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

He shook his head, aware his thinking was muddy and his common sense nonexistent. “That's not what I meant. You know that.” He finally eased out the black wooden box and slid it across the table. “Lost the words. Maybe this will say it better.”

She looked at the box, then at him. “You should take it back. I'm not what you think.”

“Neither am I. But it's yours. It couldn't be anyone else's.” He lowered his ragged voice. “Go ahead. Open it.”

She fumbled with the catch, then eased open the carved cover, looking with frozen eyes at the twin green diamonds of the ring.

Jimjoy waited.

“Do you expect me to fall into your arms in abject gratitude, longing for you after days of deprivation from your masculine charms?”

Jimjoy sighed, not looking away from her. “No. I expect that you will take your physically, spiritually, and intellectually exhausted body and mind and collapse somewhere and get some well-deserved rest. I intend to do the same. Then, say in about twenty-four stans from now, I hope you'll think about what I said, and why I gave you the ring.” He looked across at the open box still sitting before Thelina, “Not an hour goes by that I don't think about you. Does that mean I love you? That I'll always love you?” He shrugged. “I don't know. I think I know. But you could be right. Perhaps all I want is your body, and the rest doesn't count. I don't think so.”

He met her eyes, ignoring the tears seeping from his own. “Until tonight—this afternoon, whatever it is—I didn't understand. Maybe I still don't. Now…I know, I think. Call the ring a courtship ring, an engagement ring, a promise that I'll do my best never to stop courting you. How can I say I may have lost you by loving you too hard too soon He shook his head, finally standing up, ignoring the lightheadedness that threatened his balance.

“You need me to love you without always physically wanting you. Until I saw you tonight—now, this afternoon, I mean—I didn't understand. For me, the two have always gone hand in hand. Right now they can't, not if I want a future with you. It's hard…hades-fired hard.”

He reached down and across, squeezing her hand, then releasing it. “Thank you…for sharing, for telling me before it was too late…and for giving me another chance to love you.” Jimjoy straightened up. “Will I see you tomorrow? Or do you have to leave immediately?”

“Tomorrow.” Her voice was a whisper.

He did not look back, but concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as he made his way off Alpha three delta and back toward the much ruder, unfinished rock walls of the tactics section of Thalos Station.

N
EW
A
UGUSTA
{14 S
IXTUS
3647} Seven black atmospheric fighters thundered over the Capitol. An honor guard of the Imperial Space Force stood watch as a black casket passed into the shuttle.

The shuttle lifted on the first stage of its mission to consign Emile Enrico N'Trosia to the flames of Sol, to the heart of the Empire he served, first as an Imperial officer, then as a Senator, and finally as Chairman of the Senate Defense Committee.

N'Trosia, always a partisan of an efficient military, was combative to the end, fighting off the effects of multiple brain aneurysms for weeks.

The Emperor proclaimed a day of official mourning….

—FaxStellar News

T
HRAP
! T
HRAP
!

Jimjoy rolled over, then automatically found himself on his feet. He stared from a half crouch at the back of the gray plastic door, shaking his head mainly to clear the remnants of an unpleasant dream sequence in which Thelina rode a blue skimmer toward a thunderspout…

“Yes…” he croaked.

“May I come in?” asked Thelina from outside.

“Hold on.” He grabbed for a thin robe he had never worn. Together with the shorts he slept in, the robe could help him pretend to be decent.

Despite his plea, the door opened about the moment he had stuffed his arms into the robe's sleeves.

Thelina, wearing a green shipsuit and carrying a small kit bag, eased the door shut and set down the bag. “Sleeping late, I see.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Didn't get to sleep very early, or for very long. How about you?”

She rubbed her arm. “Imri didn't give me much choice. She said one of us two idiots needed the rest.”

Jimjoy looked at her, not really knowing what to say, feeling grimy and disoriented.

She edged closer. “I'm sorry.”

“For what? You were right. You've always been right.”

“Not always. Not last night—or yesterday afternoon.”

He wanted to hold her, but stood there, waiting, afraid to reach for her.

“I have to go, but…not like yesterday.” She looked down. Finally, her green eyes met his. “Would you hold me? Just hold me?”

He nodded, his arms going around her as she stepped into them.

As he held her, she began to cry, softly, as if she refused to acknowledge it. His arms tightened around her, just a touch. At the same time, his composure dissolved with hers, though he did not shudder, but let his tears flow, knowing, this time at least, they were shared.

In time she cleared her throat. “I have to catch the shuttle.”

“I know.” He let go, let her step back.

“Jimjoy…it's hard for me, too…but don't stop…”

“Don't think I could.” He swallowed.

She looked deliberately down at her left hand.

His eyes followed hers.

“It's beautiful. You designed it?”

He nodded.

Her hands brushed his cheeks before their lips touched.

“I do have to go.”

“I know.”

“I'm still scared…and it's not fair…but I am. I can't help it. Please keep understanding.”

Jimjoy swallowed and drew her to him, trying to hold her tightly enough to reassure her, not tightly enough for their closeness to lead beyond reassurance, yet being all too aware of how little clothing lay between them.

“You have to go…” His voice was husky.

“Yes…oh, I really do…”

He shook his head as she grabbed for the kit bag, then almost smiled as she bestowed a quick kiss on him and opened the door. “Let me know when…”

“Next tenday…the delegates…”

He watched, a bemused look on his face, from halfway out his door as Thelina ran down the corridor toward a shuttle that would certainly have waited for her.

20 Sept 3647
Somewhere

J
IMJOY LOOKED AT
the flat card, reading again what he had written.

The calligraphy was good, but he wished the words were better. The three words which summed up his feelings had been so overused for so long they would have been meaningless. He pulled at his chin and slipped the card into the envelope bearing her name.

He was due at the meeting to discuss what the Institute should say to the recently elected delegates and Council members. His recommendation was likely to be too blunt to be accepted. Shrugging, he pocketed the envelope and stepped out the doorway into the early winter drizzle.

Glancing uphill and to the left, toward the other complex where Thelina and Meryl lived, he descended from the front deck slowly, deliberately. No one else moved in the morning chill. After clicking up the collar of his foul-weather jacket, he turned his steps toward the Administration building.

What else could he say to Thelina? What else could he do? A romantic he was not, nor was he someone who gloried in the company of people. He moistened his lips and took a deep breath, smiling faintly at the cloud of steam he exhaled.

As he reached the crest of the path, the one spot from where he could see both his quarters and the main Institute complex, he looked back again through the shifting drizzle. No one was out around the quarters complex.

Ahead, a scattering of student Ecolitans, all in forest-green foul-weather jackets, followed the walkways between the buildings. For all the crises, the normal life of the Institute continued for most.

“Good morning, Professor.”

“Good morning,” he responded to the youngster who dashed past him toward the teaching labs.

His steps carried him past the history/philosophy/tactics classrooms.

“Professor Whaler?”

He stopped, not recognizing the student, dark-haired, thin, male. “Yes.” His voice was casual.

“Ser…is there any possibility you will be teaching the theories course next term?”

Jimjoy shrugged. “I don't know. I probably won't teach that course until next fall, but that's…still up in the air.”

“Oh. Really wanted to take it…”

“Professor Mardian is quite good, and he'll be handling it if I don't.”

“He is good, but I've already had him for the basics course…”

Jimjoy smiled at the student. “I'd like to, but there are a few other…commitments.”

“Were you really an Imperial agent, ser?”

Jimjoy forced a laugh. “Don't believe everything you hear.”

The student looked away, almost as if embarrassed.

“Son, let's put it another way. If I had once been an Imperial agent, I'd probably be embarrassed about it and wouldn't want to talk about it. If I hadn't been one, I'd also have to deny it. And if I had been an agent for another government, I certainly wouldn't volunteer that. More important, what's past is past. You can't deny what you are or what you've done, but you don't have to be bound by it, either. What I do now is what's important.”

“You believe that.” It was a flat statement, almost unbelieving.

Jimjoy laughed softly. “Most of the time, at least.”

“Thanks, Professor.”

Jimjoy wiped the drizzle off his forehead and away from his eyes as he watched the youngster dash off. He nodded absently to several more students as he made his way to the Administration building.

Once inside the main doors, he shook his coat and tried to get most of the moisture out of his hair. He took the inside working stairs to the second floor, which allowed him to reach Thelina's office without passing by the main conference room across from the Prime's office.

Thelina's door was ajar. He stopped, listened. Silence.

He stepped up to the door, rapped softly, and slipped inside. As he had thought, the office was empty. In a quick motion, he took out the envelope and placed it on her chair. As he straightened up, a brownish-tinged and ragged-edged paper half under another sheet caught his eye. The paper shade screamed of out system origin.

The covering sheet was a brief notice of schedule changes, signed by Meryl. Scrawled across the upper left-hand corner were the words. “Thel—see any problem here? M.”

Jimjoy glanced back at the door, feeling guilty, and eased the second sheet out from underneath. His eyes flicked through the fax copy, picking out the key phrases quickly.

“[Anarra, 20 Julia 3647]…untimely death of Matriarch K'trina Veluz…poisoned ansellin…traditional Bremudoes method of assassination…likely to shift foreign policy…successor in State Counselate…K'rin Forsos…considered a pragmatist…”

He slipped the copy back in place, replacing the covering sheet. No wonder orchestrating the diplomatic relations with Halston had been a strain on Thelina. He wondered what other extremes had been required.

Poisoned ansellin. He couldn't repress a shudder, thinking about their starlit luncheon/dinner.

Clunk
. Through the half-open doorway he heard the conference room door close.

He eased out from behind the desk and from Thelina's office. The corridor was vacant, except for a figure walking along at the far end of the building. Jimjoy replaced the door in the ajar position in which he had found it, then turned and headed down the hall.

He could hear voices, some of them already heated, from ten meters away through the closed doors.