Chapter Thirteen

I walk along an empty street,
Down a boulevard of shattered dreams.
The city sleeps
As I walk alone.
My shadows are the only things who walk beside me,
A shallow heart is all that’s beating,
But I wish someone out there would find me,
Take me home to stay,
But until they do I walk alone.

— attributed to Ryland LeSarte c. 4837 PD; it is asserted by Erich Quizibian that it is, in fact, a quotation of lyric poetry from twentieth century Earth

 

26 Octem, 5249 PD

“You can’t let him do this, Marshal.”

Adam Windsor stiffened.  His back was to his door again, and he was back to looking at topographical maps of the western coast of the continent, plotting the hot spots for any potential landings that might be sourced from the new Earth congloms.  A part of him had known that Lindsay Farragut would come to him about Grace’s plan to rescue her parents.  Another part of him had hoped that she would accept it and continue with life as normal in a world and existence where nothing was normal anymore, if it had ever been normal at all.

He forced himself to relax and plot another point on the map.  “How would you propose I stop him from volunteering to do this, Miss Farragut?  Commander Cho made a choice.”  A choice that’s probably the best of a host of bad choices, but a choice nonetheless.  There’s only one thing that’s certain—Grant and America can’t be left alive in the hands of the congloms.  It was a painful but very true thought—and an inescapable one.  Rachel herself had said that her sister and brother-in-law could not be left in enemy hands alive.  They knew too much.

“Find another way.  Find someone else to go.  I don’t care how you do it or what you do.  You can’t let him go, Marshal.  You can’t.”  She closed the door behind her as she came further into the office, planting her hands on his desk and leaning against it.  He turned to look at her.  She seemed exhausted, upset, though she seemed to be struggling to mask that.

The stern expression he’d been cultivating since she’d walked into the office melted, evaporating quickly in the face of remembering her as a frightened little girl struggling to cope with the magnitude of her psychic gift.  That was the girl he was seeing before him, not the young woman who had over the years asserted herself admirably at Council meetings, defending herself from critics like D’Arcy Morgause and defending her choices—choices like moving in with Brendan Cho seven years ago, like deciding to participate in research into the origins of the conglomerate system of New Earth, the other several dozen choices that for some reason had been questioned by the Council before they began to think about the fact that it was, in fact, her life, and she was entitled to have a little happiness even though she was the Oracle.  “Linny-pie,” Adam said quietly, using the old nickname, the nickname he hadn’t used since she was a little girl, since he’d left she and her aunt alone in that house more than a decade before, “there’s no one else who can do what he’s going to have to do to make the plan work.  If I order him not to go, the whole thing falls apart.  Ezra and Alana and whoever goes instead of Brendan and your parents all die.”

She flinched, biting her lip.  “It’s not fair,” she said quietly.  “It’s just not fair, Uncle Adam.  It’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair, Linny-pie.”  He set down his stylus and moved from the maps toward where she stood leaning against his desk.  “The fact that they never made it here themselves isn’t fair.  The fact that you had to grow up without them isn’t fair.  The fact that your three closest friends are probably the only ones who can save them isn’t fair.  The galaxy isn’t a fair place, Linny-pie.  It never was and I don’t think it ever will be.  We play the hand of cards we’re dealt.  There’s not many ways to cheat at the game, and you always pay for that cheating in the end anyhow.”  He touched her arm gently.  “Why are you so afraid, Linny-pie?  Brendan’s good at what he does.  Alana Chase is good at what she does.  Everything will be okay.”

She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut.  “Because I can’t lose him, Uncle Adam.  I can’t…it’s a risk and I…I can’t let…”  She shuddered, hands curling into fists.  “I need him.  I need him with me and there’s nothing that’s going to change that.  If something happens to him—if he dies—I don’t know what I’ll do.  I don’t know if I can keep living.”

He blinked and touched her shoulder.  She straightened slowly, turning to look up at him.  She bit her lip, shook her head.

“I can’t be the Oracle alone, Uncle Adam.  I can’t.  I can’t handle these visions by myself.  I need him.  I need him with me.”

Something tugged at the back of his brain, urging him to press her for more information—urging him to find out what she wasn’t telling him.  He told it to shut up.  She needed the surrogate father he had been now, not the military commander that he was.  “If it all goes according to plan, Linny-pie, you won’t even have time to miss him.”  He smiled paternally down at her.  “It’s going to be okay.”

She shook her head a little.  “How do you know?”

“How do you know it’s not going to be?”

Lindsay bit down harder on her lip.  “I’m scared, Uncle Adam.  I’m really, really scared.”

He nodded, folding her into his arms and pinning her against his chest.  She didn’t struggle, just whimpered and hugged him back, the way she had when she was small and he’d come into her room to comfort her after she’d had a bad dream.

“I’m afraid if I let him go, I’m never going to see him again.  That they’re going to figure out how to keep him there, or that they’ll kill him.  That they’ll Sever us and make him forget that he ever lived here, that he ever had a life here, and me and all of our friends.  I’m afraid they’ll all die, that something’s going to go horribly, horribly wrong and I won’t be there to stop that.”  She shivered a little.  “I want to go with them, but I know that the Council will say no, that you’ll say no—that everyone will say no because it’d just be too damned dangerous, that I’m too valuable to risk.  But I want to be with them.  What good am I if I don’t have anything left to balance me out?”

It was a slight shock to him that she had confirmed that she and Brendan were actually Bonded.  He’d suspected as much, but neither had actually ever said that they’d gone through with it.  That they would keep it a secret made sense to him—the fallout could have been tremendous, given all the issues she’d had with the Council in the past.  He knew that Rachel must have known for certain—hell, she’d probably encouraged it.  There was probably a very, very short list of men and women who knew for certain what the pair had done.  Ezra and Kara Grace, Rachel, and probably one or two others.  That was fine.  Secrecy was a legacy they still carried back from their foundations.  Secrets kept them alive.

He gave her a squeeze, then looked down at her.  “You’re right, I wouldn’t let you go with them.  Couldn’t.  Your father would kill me when he got here if I did.”

She laughed a little at that, though she still sounded like she was on the very edge of tears.  “Would he?”

Adam nodded gravely.  “Grant was very protective of your mother and your aunt.  If he hadn’t liked me, I never would have gotten anywhere near Rachel.”  Lindsay had never asked him about her parents.  Those questions, what few of them that came, always went to Rachel.  It was as if when she was a child she’d never thought of Adam as having any answers for her about her mother and father, lost to her when she was such a young child.  “When he found out about she and I, he threatened to castrate me if I ever hurt her.  Guess I’m in for some trouble when he comes home, huh?”

She laughed a little again and squeezed him.  “I think you’ll be okay, Uncle Adam.  All of that wasn’t your fault.”

Only some of it, Linny-pie.  Only some of it.  “I suppose you’re right, and I did do a few things right.”  He rubbed her back gently.  “You know, after the war started, when your aunt and I finally managed to find your parents—and you—we didn’t know they’d had you.  You were about six months old and so, so quiet.  I wondered if you were mute, really, until that first time I heard you cry.  You were so tiny, especially when Grant held you.  He’s a big man, Linny-pie, almost as big as Aidan.

“A year later he told me that I had to take you and Rachel and leave.  He ordered me to violate every oath I’d ever taken to the Guard and to Mimir to get you and Rachel safely to this place.  I almost said no.”  It was hard to think about.  His dedication to his homeworld had warred with his love for Rachel, his loyalty to the Inner Collegium and to Grant Channing in specific.  Grant was six years his senior and had been one of his first commanders—and a dear friend, though perhaps not so dear as Frederick Rose had been.  “He wanted America to go with us.  She wouldn’t.  Rachel didn’t want to go, either, but who was going to take care of you if she didn’t?  They couldn’t keep you safe on a battlefield, and that’s what New Earth space was for us then.  The Commonwealth couldn’t protect most of the Guard refugees anyway.  It was here, hiding, or death.”

“You knew that?”

He nodded slightly.  “So did your father.  That’s why I said yes.  It was a chance for our society to survive, for our knowledge to survive.  You and Rachel and I and the other refugees who made it here, we’re almost all that’s left of the Guard.”  He sighed a little.  “And even here, in a place we helped build for ten generations, we’re still feared.  We helped make this possible, and still some people here would just as soon have us live in a commune on some island somewhere far away from them—or not on the planet at all.”

Lindsay was quiet for a long few minutes, then sighed, closing her eyes and tightening her arms around him a little.  “When did you move back in with Aunt Rachel?”  She asked after the long silence.

The change in subject almost made him laugh in relief.  “A couple of weeks ago.  It seemed like time.”

“I never understood why I had to keep it all a secret like that.  Not until Brendan and I…”  Her voice trailed away and she pressed her lips tightly together.  “It must have been hard, Uncle Adam.  To stop…feeling her.  To stop being with her.  I remember her crying some nights when I was little.”  She licked her lips.  “I don’t want to go through that.”

Adam looked down at her, lifted her chin so she would meet his gaze.  “You won’t, Linny-pie.  I promise.”

She smiled a little.  “Can I hurt you if you don’t keep it?”

He laughed, nodding.  “Of course you can, Linny-pie.  Of course you can.”

*                      *                      *

Brendan was already in bed by the time she got home.  It was dark outside and she’d spent hours with Adam, going over tactical information and Ezra’s plan to rescue her parents—all in an effort for her to become more comfortable with the situation.  She now found herself slightly more confident but still praying fervently the plan would work.

Lindsay slipped into her darkened house and made her way into the bedroom, where Brendan was sound asleep.  He lay on his side, one arm under his head, the other hand resting on her pillow.  Their bedroom window was open, the chill of impending fall filling the room.  She crawled onto the bed, knelt next to him, then leaned down and kissed him gently.  He responded drowsily.  It wasn’t until three kisses later that he opened an eye.

“Lin?” he mumbled.  “What time is it?”

“Past eight, probably after nine,” she guessed, taking off her shirt.  “How long have you been sleeping?”

“Three hours?  Maybe?”  He rubbed his eyes.  “Where were you?”

“With U—Marshal Windsor.”  I should really check with him and make sure it’s okay to tell Brendan.  The alternative will get confusing pretty quickly.  “We were talking.”

Brendan winced.  “About the plan.”

She nodded, unfastening her pants and starting to shimmy out of them.  “It’s okay, Brendan.  I’m…freaking out less now, I think.”

“Oh, good,” he mumbled, eyelids drooping again.  He was already starting to fall back to sleep.

Can’t have that.  She pushed him onto his back and straddled him—

—and almost ended up on the floor as he jerked and yelped in pain.  Lindsay clung to the edge of the bed, blinking.  “B-Brendan?”

He was half sitting up, now, propped on one elbow and clutching the back of his head with the other.  His face was colorless and his lips were moving in silent curses—in all the languages they both knew, which was not an inconsiderable number of tongues.

She inched closer and touched his arm.  “Brendan?”  It was then that she began to catch the edges of his pain.  Oh god.

“I’ll be fine,” he whispered.  “Just steer clear of the back of my head for a few days and I’ll be fine.”

“You got a new implant!”  You idiot!  Why didn’t you tell me?  Her tone sounded more angry than she felt.  It was more fear than anger that was coiling inside of her.  He’d never wanted a new implant, and she’d never wanted him to get one.  It was never an issue, not something that ever came up.  He was happy without one.  Why get one now, Brendan?  Why?

“Needed it to make the plan work, Lin,” he said in quiet answer to her unvoiced question.  “I don’t need a Corp doctor slicing my head open, now do I?”

She bit her lip, sensing a ripple of fear coming off of him.  She sat down with him on the bed, sliding her arms around his waist.  He swallowed and leaned against her.  “I guess not.”  She ran her fingers through his hair for a moment, then gave him a squeeze.  “When did you do it?”

“Ezra did it today,” he mumbled, resting his chin on her shoulder.  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.  You’d have wanted to be there and I didn’t want you there watching and worrying.”

She realized his eyes were bloodshot.  She’d never seen someone so soon after they’d had wetware put in.  He looked terrible.  “It hurts a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, hand finally dropping away from his head.  “I should have told you.  Guess I didn’t expect you to flip me onto my back when you got home.”  He straightened a little and grinned at her.  “You haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Guess I haven’t felt like I was up for it lately.”  It was true enough.  Comforting though it was, she hadn’t felt like making love to him in weeks—there was too much else going on, too much insanity, too many memories swirling around in her head that would interrupt or otherwise sour her mood.  Her fingertips traced along his hairline to his ear, then down his jaw.  “Would you rather just sleep?”

He shivered and stared at her, then smiled a little.  “You’d hate me if I said yes.”

She laughed a little.  “I wouldn’t hate you, Brendan.  You just might not get another chance before you leave.”  And I don’t want that to happen.  I know that if we don’t, though, that’s what’s going to happen.  So just be with me tonight.

“Good thing I’m not going to say no, then.”  He stretched a little, smiling wryly.  “Just be gentle with me for once, huh?”

She poked him in the ribs, laughing.  “You’re horrible.”

“You’re the one who loves me,” he said quietly, arms closing around her.

Lindsay grinned.  You’re right.  I do.  And I always will.  I promise.

Chapter Twelve

I knew I loved Sara before I ever met her.  I loved her for being the other piece of my soul, the other half of me.  I knew her in dreams and visions before I ever got to touch her, to shake her hand, to tell her, ‘Hello, my name is Ryland.  Call me Ry, everyone does.’  Of course, that’s not how we met.  She saved my life a thousand times, and I loved her for it—or perhaps in spite of if.  But she loved me back, before I ever met her.  She loved a poor boy she’d seen in passing and made it her mission to save his life.  And she did.  Thank whatever powers that be that miracles do happen.  I have seen too much evidence to the contrary to believe that they don’t.

— Journal of Ryland LeSarte, circa 4859 PD

 

25 Octem, 5249 PD

She’d barely spoken more than five words to him in the past two days.  It wasn’t that she was angry.  Upset, sure.  But not angry.  This wasn’t the angry treatment.

It was starting to make him go a little crazy.

He wanted to talk to her—almost wanted her to be angry with him.  But instead, she avoided him.  Left him to his own devices.  And it was eating him up inside.

He came home that evening tired—dog tired and wanting little more than a few kind words and a hug from her.  She was in the kitchen, staring at nothing, a mug of something long gone cold in her hands.

Brendan hung up his uniform jacket near the door and stared at her for a long moment before she looked up at him.

“I’m not mad,” she said quietly.

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Brendan?”

He grimaced.  The truth?  She’ll be angry at me and Ezra.  But…  He shook his head.  “Ezra made me promise.  He didn’t know until a couple hours before the Council meeting that I’d agreed to go because I didn’t know.  And by then there wasn’t enough time to tell you before the meeting and…”  His voice trailed away and he sighed.  “I’m sorry, Lindsay.  This wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”

“I know it wasn’t.”  She stared into the mug, then stood up and took it to the sink.  She leaned against the countertop, staring out at their garden.  “There has to be someone else who can go, Brendan.  It doesn’t have to be you, does it?”

“If you know someone else who knows the corporate and tactical languages of Chinasia Corps and can back up those languages with piloting skills, Lindsay…”  He sighed, moving up behind her and sliding his arms around her waist.  She leaned back into him as he buried his nose in her hair, kissed the back of her neck.  “It wasn’t an easy choice, Lin.”

“It couldn’t have been.  I know that.”  Her hands tightened on the rim of the counter.  “I just…there has to be another way to do this, Brendan.  There’s got to be.”

He shook his head slowly.  “I’ve looked, Lindsay.  I keep trying to figure out if there’s a better way and I can’t find one.  I just can’t.  I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but I am saying it’s beyond my grasp.”  His arms tightened around her.  “Do you want to just leave them there?”

“We can’t just leave them there, Brendan.”

The alternative to a rescue was the death of her parents.  They both knew that.  It was too dangerous to let them live.  It was a question of how long they had before that was the decision made.  Grant and America knew too much.  They just knew too much.  “You don’t want them to die, either.”

“No,” she said quietly.  She slowly turned, keeping his arms around her waist, and looked up at him.  “But I don’t want you to die, either.”

Brendan flinched.  “Did you…?”

She shook her head, resting her head against his shoulder.  “No,” she admitted quietly.  “But I’m just…I’m just so afraid, Brendan.  I can’t do this without you.”

“Can’t do what, Lin?”  What isn’t she telling me?  What did she see that…that makes her think the way she’s thinking?  That makes her worry so much, be almost…hopeless?  He rested his chin against her temple.  “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head slightly.  “I can’t keep up my life without you, Brendan.  You give me normal.  I…I need that.  More than you know, I need that.  I need that normalcy that you give me.”  She looked at him, biting her lip for a moment.  “Do you have any idea how awful my world would be if I hadn’t met you?  If you’d died in the water that day?”

He winced.  He almost had, though she’d never known how close to it he’d come.

She touched his face, traced a faint scar on his chin with her thumb.  He licked his lips a little, nervous.

Her eyes captured his, her voice soft and serious, laced with pain and fear.  “I don’t know if I’d still be alive, Brendan.  I don’t know if I’d be able to take it.  It’s so hard…it’s too hard, sometimes.  Aunt Rachel tries, but there’s no way she can really understand what it’s like.  It’s so different, the way you can comfort me and the way anyone else ever could.  I don’t think I could survive without it.”

He swallowed hard against a lump in his throat.  “You’re not going to lose me, Lin.  I’m going to bring them home, and I’m going to come home, and everything will be fine.”

“How do you know?”  She whispered.  “How can you know that for sure, Brendan?”

He shook his head a little.  “Because I don’t have another choice, Lin.  Failure isn’t an option.  Abandoning you isn’t an option.  I’ll come home.  You’ll see.”

She nodded a little and sniffled, burying her face in his neck again.  He hugged her close and sighed.  I wish there was another way I could reassure you, Lin.  I wish I did, but I don’t.  I just…know what I know and feel what I feel.  There’s nothing else to it.  He stood there and held her, knowing that it was all the comfort he could give.

Chapter Eleven

We are not angels, not saints.  We are men and women.  We all have our demons, our secrets.  Those secrets can kill.  I knew a secret like that, once.  Maybe a few secrets.  I wish I could remember which one they wanted to end me for.

— Frederick Rose, c. 5240 PD

 

23 Octem, 5249 PD

Ezra straightened from his lean as the door to the council chambers came open and Brendan emerged from the shadows of the doorway.  “I’d have thought you’d be in there with Lindsay.”

“I was,” Brendan said quietly.  “They sent me out here to get you.”

“Ah.”  Ezra swallowed, trying not to fidget.  “They’re ready for me, then?”

Brendan nodded slowly, watching his friend as he approached.  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Do you have any better ones?”  Ezra countered.  It was the same discussion they’d been having for two days.  Brendan wished he had better ideas.  Ezra nodded slightly at the sight of Brendan’s almost scowl.  “Didn’t think so.  Let’s go, then.”

The men entered the room together but separated quickly once they were inside.  Brendan eased past Ezra and up the low steps to where Lindsay was seated, taking up position behind her shoulder.  A quick glance around the room revealed that she wasn’t the only one escorted today—Alana stood behind Rachel’s shoulder and D’Arcy Morgause had a woman of twenty or thirty standing behind his left shoulder.

Ezra was startled to see Field Marshal Daciana Rose in her seat in the chamber.  The last time she had appeared had been before his sister had been added to the Council—the last time Daciana had been there was probably before their father, Zephaniah Grace, had died.  Ezra couldn’t stop himself from staring at the woman, the youngest of the three Guardians, who had aged slowly and gracefully even in the face of everything that had happened to her husband.  Ezra was among the few that were aware of Frederick Rose’s survival—he had been a young doctor brought in on the case after Rose had been brought to E-557, after his supposed death in the waning days of 5237.

I wonder where he is.  I wonder if he’s still alive.  He hadn’t heard anything back since he’d sent the last samples out to Urgarthe other than a brief ‘thank you’ note, which was customary by now.  He hoped he wasn’t dead.  Frederick Rose was an interesting character of a man—especially when medicated.  Ezra rather liked the old Inspector.

Lindsay was staring at him and Ezra suppressed a wince.  Of course she was confused.  He didn’t blame her.

The Speaker cleared his throat.  “Doctor Grace, the Council is pleased that you could be in attendance this afternoon.”

Ezra bowed his head slightly.  “I am honored to be amongst you, Speaker.  It’s not every day that I get to be among the firsts among equals.”  He clasped his hands behind his back, slowly looking at the rest of the Council, each one in turn.  The Speaker cleared his throat.

“Consul Grace-Forester has brought it to our attention that you have given some thought toward a solution to a particularly thorny problem the Rose Council finds itself faced with?”

Ezra nodded slowly.  “Yes, Speaker, I have.  I have had limited consultation with the Guardians on it, and I welcome any input they may have.”  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small holographic transmitter node.  “May I?”

The Speaker nodded.  “Proceed.”

Ezra smiled briefly.  “Thank you, Speaker.”  He activated the node, which displayed images that went along with his explanation of the plan.  It took almost an hour to explain the reasoning and the proposed tactics.  He held back a few particulars—like who would be on the team heading into the lion’s den of New Earth space, who would be on that three-man crew.  By the time he’d finished, D’Arcy Morgause looked like he’d eaten a sour plum and was choking on the pit.  The girl at his shoulder was starting to look nervous.  The Speaker had leaned forward slightly by the end of Ezra’s monologue.

“Had you spoken to any particulars for the team?”  The Speaker asked.  Curiosity was evident in his tone.

Ezra nodded slowly.  “Yes, Speaker.  I have spoken with Colonel Chase and Commander Cho regarding the plan and both have agreed to assist in the physical strikes.”

Someone sucked in a breath sharply behind him.  Ezra tried not to wince, knowing that it was Lindsay.  He could already sense Brendan’s misery.  I’m sorry, Brendan, he thought.

Ezra licked his lips.  “I had intended to be the third man on the crew.”

The Speaker’s brows went up.  “Might I ask why you would make that decision, Dr. Grace?”

“You may, of course, Speaker.”  Ezra shut down the holographic projections and tucked the node back into his pocket, collecting his thoughts before he began to speak.  “It’s not in me to ask anyone to do anything I would not, given the opportunity, do myself.  I know that what I have proposed has the potential to be dangerous and ideally, whoever the third man on the team ends up being would have some, if not extensive, medical training.  We have no idea what conditions Grant Channing and America Farragut may be in when they’re found.  Further, if any of the two penetrating operatives are injured, they will require medical attention.  Given Colonel Chase’s modifications alone, whoever is sent along with medical training will also have to be capable of dealing with advanced cybertechnology.”  He spread his hands a little.  “I have that training.  Moreover, I’m able to deal with whatever difficulties might arise medically given my extensive training and work here in the colony.”  He paused for a moment, took a breath, then exhaled it before continuing on.  “Furthermore, I’m a known face in the scientific and medical communities in New Earth space.  If something, by tragic chance or misadventure, were to happen to this team and the mission, I do have some limited political and social capital to burn in order to get us out of New Earth space and home again.”  Ezra looked down at his shoes, knowing that what he was about to say next sounded like the very height of egotism.  “You can’t simply disappear a luminary of your times.  The ramifications would be staggering.  People would realize, and realize quickly.  Neither Chinasia Corp or the Eurydice Compact could afford what would come next if something were to happen to me.”

“That’s precisely why a civilian such as yourself should not be allowed to go, if this plan is by some twist of logic approved.”  D’Arcy had leaned forward, fingers steepled and elbows on the table in front of him.  “The colony can ill afford to lose a luminary such as yourself, Dr. Grace.  Your departure from E-557 is an impossibility.”

That…sounded dangerously like a threat.  Ezra stared at D’Arcy Morgause for a long moment.  “I…I’m uncertain I’ve understood your implication, Consul Morgause.  Are you saying that even if I chose to go on a research trip to the Commonwealth held-territories of New Earth space, or to Taurena Luna for a conference, you would…do what?”

D’Arcy Morgause was silent.  Ezra felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

He needs to be gone.  It was a knee-jerk, instinctive thought, triggered by a fight or flight reaction somewhere deep inside of Ezra.  He wanted to rip D’Arcy’s throat out.  He hoped that thought didn’t end up in circulation.

“Are you considering either of those trips, Dr. Grace?”  There was Kara, coming to the rescue—to his rescue, and the Council’s, but not D’Arcy’s.  D’Arcy was slowly making a bed that he’d die for lying in.  He just didn’t know it yet.  But Ezra was standing there, watching Alana’s fingers twitch, watching Rachel Farragut quell the rising fires of rage behind her eyes.  For all the small intelligence empire the man had built, he was a fool, and a large one, with an ego too large for his own good—or that of the Council at large.

Thanks, Kara.  He shook his head.  “No, Consul Grace-Forester.  That was strictly a hypothetical question posed for sake of clarification.”

She nodded and leaned back, looking toward the Speaker, who seemed to be considering what had been said—and had gone unsaid.  He slowly looked toward Marshal Windsor.  “Marshal Windsor, do you have thoughts on this plan?”

Marshal Windsor cleared his throat quietly.  “It will need some refinement,” he said carefully, “but it’s just crazy enough to work, so long as the principal actors agree to the plan unconditionally and that we can get intelligence enough to support them.”  He threw a pointed look in D’Arcy Morgause’s direction.

D’Arcy actually flinched.  “My people will have a full report on everything we have managed to gather on the subject to your desk tomorrow morning, Marshal Windsor, as we discussed before your trip to Urgathe.”  He looked toward Marshal Rose and then back toward Windsor again.  “A trip, it seems, that was successful.”  He looked at Marshal Rose.  “Tell me, Marshal, do you have any wonderful technologies cooked up that can protect this planet from the conglomerates in New Earth space that will be falling on our heads any day now?”

The sarcasm that dripped from the man’s voice turned Ezra’s stomach.  The Speaker motioned for him to have a seat with Kara.  Ezra nodded in thanks, listening to the Council’s byplay.  Faction lines were solidifying slowly in the face of a coming disaster—only D’Arcy truly seemed to think that a war might not happen, that the threat was being blown out of proportion.  Some of the consuls, however, clearly wished they could believe that—at least for a little while longer.

“I will be addressing any technological advances I may have made at Urgathe to my peers among the Guardians first, Consul Morgause, and to the Speaker himself before I grant any hope, false or otherwise, to the Council proper.”  Marshal Rose’s voice was quiet but bore the same steel that Ezra had often heard in the voices of other women who were confident of their position and authority.  “As to your allusion that the threat we face is not imminent, I wonder why you would doubt what the Oracle has seen.”

“I doubt it,” he said slowly, “because the Oracle has not told us the bulk of what she has seen.”  His gaze fastened on Lindsay.  Beneath the table, Brendan took her hand and squeezed it.  Ezra watched them.  Brendan was tamping down a surge of temper.  Lindsay managed to be the picture of poise, expression blank and her voice smooth, cool.

She held up her free hand.  “Would you like to see it, Consul Morgause?  Or do you enjoy the ability to sleep through a night unbroken by nightmares?”

D’Arcy recoiled.  Not a psychic himself, he was suspicious of those who were but had for many years tried to hide the suspicion that bordered on paranoid fear.  His family was an old one in the colony and in the Foundation, and it had been in part his name that had earned him his seat on the Council.  It was only a matter of time before he did something foolish that cost him—and potentially the whole of the colony—dearly.

I guess that’s why the Guardians have the power over our defenses.  The Guardians were drawn from the remnants of the Psychean Guard, born from Guard stock—Daciana Rose and Adam Windsor were both psychic themselves, Aidan Church was from a psychic family but had been born without ability, which had suited him well enough throughout his years of service.  When the enemy had ways to hunt psychics, sometimes it behooved them to have highly ranked officers who were blank spots to those hunters.

The Speaker cleared his throat again, drawing attention back to himself.  “Perhaps, Consul Morgause, we should direct questions regarding plans for our defense in the face of omnipresent threats from New Earth space to Marshal Windsor?”  Despite the Speaker’s mild tone, it was clearly not a question, not a request.

Marshal Windsor inclined his head to the Speaker.  “My thanks, Speaker.”

The Speaker nodded.  “Would you like to speak to the matter at hand?”

“Only at the Council’s sufferance.”

The Speaker nodded.  “Proceed, then.”

Marshal Windsor nodded slightly and leaned forward in his chair.  “Since our return from Urgathe, Marshal Rose and I have been in closed meetings with Marshal Church.  We’ve been working on a plan to heighten our ability to defend E-557 and the rest of the Foundation claim of the Eridani Trelasia system.  Some of the measure I’m about to describe have already been taken, as any of you with sons or daughters in the Service already know.

“We have increased atmospheric patrols and will be running an extensive audit of all community-based defenses within the next seven to ten days.  Volunteers are getting trained on vacuum-capable small craft and we hope to be able to begin system-wide patrols inside of the week.”

Ezra glanced toward Brendan.  No wonder he looks like something hung out to dry.  His friend nodded almost imperceptibly.  Of course.

“In eleven days, I expect to be taking an out-system trip with Consul Zenak to discuss possibilities for Mission Systems to build us some warships.  Fast.”

“Warships.  For a world dedicated to living in peace?”

Marshal Windsor glared at D’Arcy.  Marshal Church spoke before his colleague could fire off some sort of scathing retort.

“Even our predecessors in the Foundation understood that the people must be protected, hence the need for a standing military force, commanded by those not necessarily wholly bound by the Foundation’s pacifistic ideals.  Did not even the great historian of our age Quizibian say that war is always waged, whether we act or not?  I would much rather have the resources necessary to defend my home at hand than to find myself bereft of them in my time of need.  Our fear that having things like weapons and warships means that we will use them cannot be allowed to cripple our ability to defend ourselves.”  Church took a sip of water.  “I took an oath to defend this colony, this world, and its people.  I intend to honor that oath, whether you approve of our methods or not, Consul Morgause.  I suspect most of the men and women in this room would agree with me.”

“Thank you, Marshal Church,” Marshal Windsor said quietly.  “As I was saying…there’s reason to believe that Mission Systems will be able to get us at least one heavy cruiser inside a month.”

“A month?  How is that possible, Marshal Windsor?”

The Marshal smiled wryly at Arigato, who’d expressed surprise and perhaps a touch of suspicion.  “They have one mostly finished already and three other ships in various stages of completion that were ordered by the Psychean Guard twenty-nine years ago.  Mugabe and I intend to press the claim on them.”

“You honestly think they’ll take the claim of a refugee seriously?”

Mugabe Zenak stared at D’Arcy.  “They will believe the claim of the one whose signature is on the requisition forms.”  He said quietly.

“You’re not from Mimir, Mugabe.”

“It’s not my signature we’re referring to, D’Arcy.”

D’Arcy blanched.

Marshal Windsor smiled.

Well played, sir, Ezra thought.  Well played indeed.

“Do you think it will work?”  Arigato Daichi asked.  It was not an invalid question, by any means, but it was phrased more delicately and respectfully than D’Arcy’s had been.

Marshal Windsor nodded.  “Consul Zenak and I have discussed the legalities of the situation and we think it will.  It’s my signature on the forms and that can be authenticated through surviving records and recordings as well as DNA and print-tech.”  He glanced toward the Speaker, then back toward Arigato.  “We also have something to offer them in exchange.”

Arigato’s brows went up.  Kara leaned forward, as did Reine Oronoko.  The grandmotherly Amelda Watson leaned back, tilting her head to one side, though something in her look said that she had figured out what the colony had to offer Mission Systems.

“Raw materials,” Watson said, tapping a fingertip against her lips.  “You’re going to offer them raw materials.”

“We’re going to rip up mountains for four ships?”  Jensen Moore was often as quiet as Rachel Farragut, often forgotten.  Now he was almost out of his seat, staring in shock at his fellows.  “We can’t do that.”

Zenak held up a hand.  “Calm down, Jensen.  They won’t set foot on E-557 unless they want to settle here and live by our rules.”

“Then where–?”  Moore cut himself off.  Marshal Rose was grinning at him.  Moore shook his head, looking amazed and abashed at the same time.  “The asteroid ranges.”

Marshal Windsor nodded.  “Yes.  The asteroid ranges.  Specifically the range half an AU out from here.  We’ll provide the raw materials for them to finish our ships and then the materials to build several more.  Estimates put that at maybe one asteroid.”  He tapped a fingertip against the table.  “We won’t compromise our ecological integrity here to defend the planet and the system, Consul Moore.  I believe in the sustainability clauses as much as anyone in this room, if not more.”

Moore nodded slowly, having sunk back into his seat.  He was quiet, almost thoughtful.

Ezra glanced toward the Speaker.  The man’s expression was impassive, but his eyes were tired.  This experience was already beginning to age him and the war wasn’t even here yet.  Will he last to the end of the war, when it comes?  He didn’t want to think about whether or not they’d survive one when it came, which was inevitable.

“They’ll be monitored closely,” Zenak said, hands folded in front of him on the table again.  “And we will dispatch some of our own people—whomever would like to volunteer—to work with the Mission Systems people who come here.”

Arigato looked doubtful.  “This is presuming they agree?”

Zenak nodded.  “Presuming they agree.  It’s a good deal for them, though, I’m not sure why they wouldn’t.”

Reine Oronoko tilted her head to one side.  “Perhaps because they have no desire to lock horns with one of the conglomerates?  Who does Mission Systems generally supply with ships?”

Marshal Windsor glanced to Marshal Rose, gesturing for her to take that question.  Rose stood up slowly, hands clasped behind her back.

“Mission Systems tends to sell a few ships here and there to Taurena, but mostly they cater to private enterprises out of NeCom—pardon me, the New Earth Commonwealth—and the smaller space-faring or religious conglomerates like the Wanderers and Argopian LLC.  They enjoyed a positive relationship with the Psychean Guard and actually provided most of the early aircraft that were used here on E-557, before Jacob Argos and Ayo Taiye started up their shop here.”  The Argos and Taiye shop had produced and repaired most of the ships currently flying.  They were machinists of the first order and had passed their skills down to their sons and daughters.  Kimoa Taiye-Argos ran the shop now with her sons.  “We have history with them, and a good one.  They know that as long as they play by the rules set for them, we’re not going to screw them.  That’s incentive enough to keep everything on the up-and-up.  The same can’t be said for dealing with most of the conglomerates in New Earth space these days.”

D’Arcy Morgause was shaking his head but stayed quiet, apparently still smarting from both reprimand and jumping to the wrong conclusion.  Ezra watched him for a moment.

It’s only a matter of time before he stops playing by Council rules and starts being a threat.

Marshal Rose settled back down into her chair as Marshal Windsor began speaking again.  “In addition to acquiring these ships from Mission Systems, we have been in contact with the Argos and Taiye shop with regards to more aircraft and also with Deithrich and Doylen regarding new forms of body armor as developed at Urgathe by Marshal Rose.”

“It sounds as if you have preparations well in hand, Marshal Windsor.”

“Yes, Speaker, we do.  In fact, by our calculations as of last night, our largest concern will be man-power.  That problem will likely solve itself, though.”  Windsor slowly sat back down in his chair.  “Am I to assume that the Council is satisfied with the status report?”

The Speaker nodded.  “I am satisfied, at any rate.  You will make materials available to the Council if they have more questions?”

Marshal Windsor nodded.  “I will be as forthright with the Council as the Council has been with me, Speaker.”  It was a thinly veiled poke at D’Arcy Morgause.

Ezra briefly wondered how much longer the man would be the spider in the middle of E-557’s intelligence web.  His skill was questionable, at best.  I wonder how he even got that job.  The man Ezra would have asked—his father—was several years dead.  There would be no information from his old man on this one.  He glanced at Alana, wondering for half a moment if she knew how D’Arcy had gotten the job.  Her face was a blank mask.  He decided she probably wondered the same thing often enough.  I’ll have to ask Kara.  She might know—or at least know who came before him.  Rachel may know more.  Rachel probably did know more, but it had been hard to catch her the past several weeks—it was easier when Marshal Windsor was at Urgathe for three days.  Ezra was still trying to puzzle out why.

“We can ask no more than that, I suppose.”  The Speaker smiled wryly, then sighed and stood.  “I thank Dr. Grace for his forbearance and foresight.  We will make a decision on your plan, Doctor, soon enough, I hope.”  He managed another wry smile.

“Thank you, Speaker.”  Soon enough to do us all some good, I hope.  If they decide to reject the plan, I don’t know what they’ll come up with to replace it.  Something better, I hope, and something better to keep them alive.  Ezra cast another glance at D’Arcy.  We need them alive, Rachel said, or out of the picture.  I hope the Council opts for the former rather than the latter.

●   ●   ●

            “That went well enough, don’t you think?”  Rachel had forced levity into her voice as she climbed out of the skimmer in front of her cottage.

Adam grimaced.  “D’Arcy Morgause is a snake in a man’s skin.”

“No one’s arguing that point anymore, Adam.  He’s going to be trouble.”

Daciana shook her head, coming around from the back of the skimmer and scrubbing a hand over her eyes.  “There’s no way to remove him, though, and no one to replace him.  Commander Cho and I had that conversation this afternoon at the base.  He’s fairly certain that Morgause has something up his sleeve that he doesn’t want anyone to know about and is confident that he’ll be able to pull whatever it is off because there’s no one to replace him with.”

“Kara Grace circumvents him easily enough.”

“She’s too young.  Inexperienced.”  She’s crafty, for certain, but she grew up here, spent no time off-world.  D’Arcy has the same problem, but at least he traveled a little.  Kara’s not prevaricating enough, which is probably a good thing.  “Wouldn’t ask her to do that, anyway.  Not when there are more qualified people to do the job.”

Rachel hadn’t been home since he’d brought Frederick and Daciana back with him.  She’d been busy with Brendan and Lindsay, or with Ezra, or Alana.  She’d been out.  It was strange.  It was her house—their house again, now, but it had been hers alone for years—and she didn’t know who was inside, or that anyone was inside.

“I’m not really sure who,” Rachel said as she opened the side door, the one that led into the kitchen.  “Especially if we’re talking about someone who’s never worked for him.”

Adam shook his head a little.  “I’m sure a candidate will present himself or herself soon enough when we start investigating the possibilities, Rachel.”  He smiled and kissed her cheek as they moved into the house.  “Want me to put on some water?”

She nodded.  “Please.  I’ll make cookies or something in a little while, I think.”

“Hope you’re not going through all this because I’m here, Rachel,” Daciana said as she closed the door behind her.  She hung up her uniform jacket on one of the hooks near the door.  “You shouldn’t bother, if you are.”

Rachel snorted.  “It’s an excuse to bake cookies I don’t need to be eating, Daci.  Don’t worry about it.”  She hung up her coat and Adam’s before moving into the living room.  At least, she started to.  She paused in the doorway, tilting her head to one side.  Her tone was warning and curious all at once.  “Adam…who is sleeping on our couch?”

Daciana blinked, then glared at Adam.  “You didn’t tell her?”

He winced.  “I didn’t tell a lot of people.  Go wake him while I explain myself.”  It wasn’t going to necessarily be a pleasant explanation, either, from the look Rachel was giving him.  He winced again.  I’m in deep this time.

“Yes,” Rachel said tartly.  “You certainly are, sir.  You certainly are.”  She stepped clear of the doorway, letting Daciana head into the living room.  Rachel almost mechanically pulled out a chair at the table and sat down, eyes never leaving Adam’s.  “What, exactly, did you fail to tell me?”

Adam licked his lips.  He was unable to keep the litany of please don’t kill me out of his thoughts as Rachel stared daggers at him.  “That Freder Rose is still alive?”  Rachel’s stare, the anger, evaporated with those words and she went pale.

“Alive?  Is that who—?”

Adam nodded, slowly sitting down at the table with her.  “Doesn’t quite look the same, does he?”

“No,” she said quietly.  “No, Adam, he doesn’t.  What…I mean…how…?”

He shrugged.  “We were careful.”

“Who…who else knows?”  There was some pain in her voice, as if she was wondering why she hadn’t been told, what had made her so untrustworthy.

“Ezra Grace,” Adam said quietly.

“That’s all?”

He nodded.  “Everyone else is dead.”

A shiver ran through her.  He leaned forward and took her hands.  She shook her head, looking like she was a thousand miles away.  “Why didn’t you tell me?”  She asked after a long silence.  Her voice was small.

Adam winced.  There had been a lot of reasons that he’d chosen not to tell her—the least of which had been her thirst for vengeance against the people who had bombed Mimir.  That anger and hate had later bled into malice for the people who had supposedly killed Frederick, but that had been after she thought he’d died.  Adam shook his head slowly.  “There were a lot of reasons, Rachel.  A lot of reasons.”  He squeezed her hands.  “I was trying to protect both of you.  From each other, I guess.”

She blinked, looking surprised.  “What do you mean?”

Adam licked his lips, shaking his head slightly.  “Freder doesn’t remember whatever they were trying to kill him for, Rachel.  If he ever knew what happened to Mimir, if he ever knew who did it—and he thinks he might have—he doesn’t know now and might never know.”

“Oh.”  The word was almost a sigh.  “Poor Freder…”  Rachel shook her head, leaning forward.  “It’s one thing to not remember, but to know that’s probably what you don’t remember…”  Her hands tightened in his.  She looked up at Adam.  “You didn’t need me asking him questions.”

“Or going off after the people who hurt him, either,” Adam said quietly.  “That would’ve gotten you killed.  I…I couldn’t sit still and let that happen.”

She leaned forward and hugged him.  He exhaled, the tension in the muscles of his back—the tension he hadn’t noticed—suddenly easing.  He slid his arms around her and held her for a few long moments.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a while.  He just nodded, finding himself unable to speak.  His arms tightened around her, then loosened as she pulled away and smiled at him.  “I mean it,” she said.

Adam nodded.  “I know you do.”  I know you do.  But back then?  You never would have forgiven me for it.  Not ever.

Frederick cleared his throat in the doorway.  He was leaning on the cane and looked maybe a little bleary-eyed from having been awakened early.  He smiled at Rachel.  “Hello, Rachel.”

She stood up, shaking her head slowly.  “Frederick…I didn’t…”

“I know,” he said, limping into the kitchen and toward the table.  “They did a number on me before Daci and Grumpy managed to get to me.”  His smile was self-depreciating.  “Though as to whom they were, I haven’t the foggiest clue.”

Rachel approached him haltingly, as if she was still convinced that he wasn’t real, that he was some ghost, a figment of her imagination.  Her fingers trembled as she touched the fabric of his sleeve.  Then she hugged him so tightly he winced.

“Oof.”  Frederick leaned against Rachel to keep from toppling, wrapping one arm around her and squeezing gently.  “Rachel, I didn’t know you cared.”

She laughed almost to the point of tears.  “You idiot.  I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Rumors of that have been greatly, exaggerated, I’ve heard.”  He winked at her.  “Have it on good authority that I was only mostly dead.”  He let go as she loosened her grip, leaning more on his cane and less on her.  “Do you mind if I sit down?”

She shook her head quickly, staring at him.  “I can’t believe it.”

“Believe what?”  Frederick fumbled his way into a chair.  Daciana watched him from the doorway, exchanging a look with Adam, who smiled wryly and shrugged.

“Believe that you’ve…you’ve been alive all this time and he managed to not tell me.”

Frederick laughed.  “Somewhere along the line, he’s apparently managed to learn how to keep secrets.”  He glanced at Adam and grinned, the grin of the old Frederick, the same gotcha! smile of when they’d been teenagers on Mimir.  Frederick winked at Rachel.  “He probably learned that from you, Miss Farragut.”

She laughed.  “Maybe, Freder.  Maybe.”

“He said your sister and Grant are still alive.”   Frederick had known Grant Channing and America Farragut on Mimir, same as Adam had.  Though while Adam had worked under Grant’s father, Frederick had worked a little under America and Rachel’s mother, Arianna, before he’d made the decision to leave Mimir—a decision that had probably saved his life.  He’d nudged Adam toward Rachel in the first place—they’d grown up together, sure, but Adam had never looked at Rachel that way—and never would have if not for his friend’s intervention.

Rachel’s mirth faded.  She bit her lip and for a moment looked as vulnerable as Adam had ever seen her.  She knelt down on the floor in front of Frederick, shaking her head a little.  “That’s what it looks like.  There’s…a plan to go and get them out of the congloms, but I don’t know if it’s going to work.  I don’t…I don’t know that anything could bring them back to us.  To me.”

Adam winced.  Now’s not exactly the best time to be losing faith in a plan that you helped them with, Rachel.  He exchanged another look with Daciana, who rolled her eyes, then shrugged.  Neither of the pair were paying attention to them.

“Try not to underestimate Dr. Grace, Squeak.  He’s a bright young man.”

She deadpanned, sitting back on her heels.  “You just called me Squeak.”

Frederick raised a brow.  “Of course I called you Squeak.”

Rachel smiled, tears coming to her eyes again.  “No one’s called me Squeak since the last time I saw you.  When you promised me that you’d figure out what happened to our homeworld.”  She wiped her eyes with her palm.  “You said ‘Don’t worry, Squeak.  We’ll get the bastards.  I’ll get to the bottom of it if it’s the last thing I do in this life.’”

He winced and Daciana winced with him.  “It almost was the last thing I did.  I’m almost positive.”  He reached in with a thumb and wiped the tears from her eyes.  “As I understand it, we have bigger problems, now, don’t we?”

Rachel smiled lopsidedly, almost laughing a bitter laugh.  “That’s an understatement.  How much did Adam tell you?”

“Probably not all there is to know.  Going to fill me in?”

Rachel laughed.  “After I put some water on.  Are you comfortable there?”

He nodded.  “I’ll be more comfortable when my wife joins me.”  He looked at Daciana, who shook her head.

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she said, irony laced through her voice.  She moved to the table and took the seat next to him.

Adam went to get out some tea and the mugs, glancing at Rachel.  She smiled at him just a little and paused a moment, taking his hand and squeezing it.  He squeezed back.

As soon as they got Grant and America back, it would be like old times again.

Chapter Ten

Chief Commonwealth inspector Frederick Rose, in charge of investigating the unsolicited attacks on Mimir sixteen years ago, was killed today when the Aral-class transport he was aboard exploded on lifting from Eldas.  He was thirty-six years old.  He is survived by his wife, Daciana Mason Rose.  They had no children.  Officials say there is no reason to suspect foul play in Rose’s death.  The Aral class of transports has been under investigation recently due to a flaw discovered in the design of fuel lines.

— Newswire, 23 Duodecem 5237 PD

20 Octem, 5249 PD

“It’s good to see you again, Freder.”  Adam Windsor extended his hand to the other man, who leaned heavily on a cane even after all these years.

At least he can walk again, Adam thought.  That was a distinct improvement over the last time he’d seen Frederick Rose, when he’d helped Daci smuggle him here, telling everyone that he’d died.  He’d owed Daciana that much—and it wasn’t all that much, in the grand scheme of things.  Help her smuggle her husband to safety?  Child’s play after he’d done the same thing with Rachel and her niece so many years before.

Frederick Rose still looked frail, though.  It was clear his health had been permanently affected by the poisons that his pursuers had tried to use to kill him—and when those hadn’t done the job quickly enough, they’d resorted to other methods that had similarly left their mark on the man.  When he smiled, though, he was the same Freder Rose that he’d grown up with.  “It’s good to be alive to be seen, Adam.  What’s brought you out this far?”

“Your wife.  I need Daci.  Where is she?”

“Uh-oh.”  He glanced over his shoulder, down the corridor, then back at Adam.  “She’s in the lab, taking a look at some of the latest samples that Dr. Grace sent across, I think.  I’ve finished with them already, but she wanted to have a look herself.”  He shook his head slightly.  “You can take the soldier out of the scientist…”  His voice trailed away.

Adam’s brow furrowed.  Back to playing with her test-tubes, then.  Wonderful.  Hopefully she’s come up with something useful.  “How is she?”

Frederick shrugged.  “Day to day, mostly, like me.  Some days are better than other days.”  He leaned heavily against the cane.  “You didn’t come to take her back to Nova Spexi, did you?”

Adam winced.  “There’s a war coming, Freder.  We need her.”

He blinked a little.  “How do you know?  The communications taps haven’t…haven’t yielded…”  His eyes widened.  “The Oracle.”

Adam just nodded.

“What did she see?”

“War, Freder.  Do I have to say more than that?”  He scrubbed a hand over his face.  “There’s more to it than that, too, but that’s the more important part.”

Frederick frowned.  “What’s the other important part?  I can tell there’s another one.  It’s all over your face.”

Two people in the galaxy that can read me.  Rachel, and him.  Adam sighed.  “America and Grant are still alive.  They’re somewhere in N-E space, as prisoners, but D’Arcy says we’re not sure where.”

“Your tone suggests otherwise.”

He shook his head.  “The Oracle had a vision about that, too.  Thought it was some kind of nightmare.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No.  Rachel and I don’t think so, and neither does the rest of the Council.”  Adam watched his friend’s arm begin to tremble.  “Do you need to sit down?”

He waved his free hand.  “In a minute.  I’ll be fine another minute.”  He smiled a little.  “It’s much better than it used to be, anyway.  Hope you’re not still losing sleep worrying.”

Adam shook his head slowly.  “Not since the last time you wrote, no.  I’m losing sleep for other reasons these days.”

“The war?”

Adam shook his head again.  “No.  Something more pleasant, mercifully.”  He smiled wryly.  Frederick looked confused for a moment, then began to laugh.

“You old bastard.  You’re back with her.”

“I never really left her.  Severing probably would have killed us both.”  He smiled a boyish, almost embarrassed smile.  “I moved back in a couple weeks ago.  No one knows yet.”

“No one’s noticed, you mean.”

He shrugged.  “The same thing, really.”  He grasped the wiry man by the arm.  “You need to sit, Freder.  The strain’s starting to show.”

Frederick smiled ruefully.  “Can’t even let me impress you just a little, huh, Grumpy?”  He leaned into Adam’s shoulder, the limp more pronounced as Frederick led him toward a lounge just down the corridor.  “Wanted you to see how much better I am these days.”

“I noticed, Freder.  Believe me, I noticed.”  Last time I saw you, you still had a hard time sitting up on your own, let alone walking.  Adam suppressed a wince.  He needed to visit more often.  But how?  That would raise suspicion.  The Guardians were expected to maintain a working relationship, nothing more.  The general view of Daciana Rose was that she was very hard to get along with, especially in the wake of Frederick’s supposed death.  They had staged a rather public falling-out to emphasize the point and at least partially explain her very prolonged absence from Nova Spexi, her supposed exile to Urgathe.  “How’s the research going?”

Frederick eased himself slowly down into a plush chair and put one leg up on a nearby ottoman.  It was a neatly appointed room, one that he and Daci clearly spent some time in, given the comfortable seating and a wood-burning stove in the corner, composite logs neatly stacked nearby.  “You don’t really want to listen to the technobabble, Adam.”

He smiled wryly.  “It seemed polite to ask.”

“Grumpy, polite?  I think the world is coming to an end.”  Frederick leaned back, expression slowly smoothing out, most of the pain etched there erasing itself.  “It’s going well enough.”  He adjusted himself in the chair, looking up at his friend.  “Why did you come all the way out here to talk to Daci?  You could have just called.”

“She probably needs to come back with me, Freder.”  He tried to quell the guilt that brought bile into his throat.  “What she and Aidan and I are going to have to do to get this planet—this system—ready for war isn’t really conducive to the distance and…well, insanity of getting in and out of here.”  Urgarthe was mountainous and the complex Daci and Frederick lived in here was set into a deep valley with narrow access.  Daci had insisted that the lab be in a place that could be easily buried or otherwise disposed of if something went wrong there.  Frederick had been in no position to disagree.

Frederick sat very still, staring at Adam even as the Guardian looked away.  “That’s why you didn’t say why you were coming.”

Adam just nodded, unable to speak.

“I…”  Frederick’s voice broke.  “I need her, Adam.  You can’t just take her away from me like this.  Not after…no.  Adam.”  His friend’s voice broke in the middle.

Adam tried not to sound desperate.  Desperation was weakness.  That wasn’t him.  Unless it’s Rachel or Freder.  God.  “I don’t have much choice, Freder.”  He finally met Frederick’s gaze again.  “We’re going to need ships, orbital defenses, all of that.  She’s an expert when it comes to defenses that are costly to the aggressors.  She knows what we need and she’ll know how to deploy what we’ll manage to get.  The colony needs her, Freder.”

Frederick shook his head slowly, voice quiet, broken.  “We were never supposed to have to worry about this.  E-557—the colony—it was supposed to be a safe haven.  The rest of the galaxy was supposed to leave us alone.  I was dead.  She was doing research.  Guarding the planet.  Doing a job.  Like I was doing a job.”  He swallowed, stared at his hands.  He didn’t mention that more than a few people had tried to kill him for doing a job, the particulars of which he couldn’t even remember, thanks to the supposed accident that should have taken his life.  “Was supposed to be a new life.  A safe life.”

“Was supposed to be the same with Mimir, Freder.  The rest of humanity really doesn’t seem to care what we want.”

Frederick nodded, then leaned forward and buried his face in his hands.  Adam winced and moved to the chair.  He put his hand on Frederick’s shoulder and squeezed.  Despite how frail he looked, there was muscle corded like steel beneath the surface.  Frederick shook his head slowly.  “I can’t stay here.  I can’t go anywhere else.  And now I have to give up one of the very few things I do have that make my life bearable.”

“I’m sorry, Freder.”

“I know,” Frederick whispered.  “I know, Adam.  I wish I could say that helped.”  He straightened, leaning back against and looking up at Adam.  “Don’t stand there and watch me cry, Grumpy.  Go tell Daci her exile is over.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “She won’t want to leave me here alone.  She’ll refuse to leave, I’m sure.  Tell her…”  his voice trailed away for a moment, then returned, ragged but still strong.  “Tell her I said to go.  She has my blessing.”

“She won’t believe it if it’s not true, Freder.”  And I’m not going to lie to her for you, either.

“She’ll believe you because it’s true, and she’ll hate us both for a while because of it.”  Frederick sighed.  “I always knew it could come to this.  I just never thought it would.”

“We were all in denial.  Me included, most days.”

Frederick nodded, closing his eyes.  “I wish it wasn’t going to happen.”

“We all wish that, Freder.”  Adam squeezed his shoulder again.  “You going to be okay?”

Frederick nodded slowly.  “I’m going to have to be.  Go talk to Daci.  I’ll…make some lunch or something.”  He smiled wryly up at Adam.  “After I rest for a few minutes, anyway.”

I’m sorry, Freder.  Adam nodded a little and eased away, already mentally preparing himself for the talk he was going to have with Daciana and the impending explosion of the former ordinance expert’s rage.

Daciana Mason Rose was in a laboratory, though she wasn’t playing with any test tubes.  She was watching a holographic representation of a ballistics test that must have been going on somewhere in New Earth space, from the looks of things.  Her once-short dark brown hair was woven into a messy braid that started at her brow and then fell down her back to between her shoulder blades.  She looked like she was still in her pajamas.  She turned at the sound of his entry, her expression like a storm coming in off the water.

“Why is Frederick so upset, Adam?  Tell me you didn’t come all the way out here to make him upset.”

He kept his own expression a mask of stone.  “Because I told him the truth.  You don’t answer your comms anymore.  If you had, then you’d know why I was here and why he’s upset.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “I don’t like your tone, Adam.”

Don’t play those games with me, Daci.  Your husband may be the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother, but my affection doesn’t necessarily have to extend to you, too.  It just tends to out of concern for him.  “Daci, there’s a war coming.  I need you back in Nova Spexi and I need you there now.  Aidan and I can’t get this planet defensible against a large-scale attack without your help.”

“I’m not leaving Frederick.  You can’t ask me to.”

“No.  I can only ask him to let you leave.”  Adam shook his head slowly.  “You have a job to do, Daci.  He knows that.  You know that.  I know that.  That job has to come first.  There’s thousands upon thousands of lives depending on that.”

She was silent for a moment, just staring at him.  That stare hardened into a glare.  Her words were a stiletto carved from ice.  “You lost Rachel because of that kind of attitude.”

Adam closed his eyes and tamped down his temper.  Rachel and I did what was best for the colony at the time, what was best for Lindsay, what was best for a future here.  That’s in the past, now.  “You need to come back to Nova Spexi with me, Daciana.”

“I’m not leaving Frederick.”

Adam kept his tone gentle, voice mild.  “He says you are, Daci.”

Her gaze was colder than the depths of space.  “I can’t believe you asked him to let me leave.”

“He asked why I was here.  I told him.”  I owe him that much.  And more, but there’s not much more I can do.  I wish there was.  Adam’s voice was still quiet, gentle but firm.  “Daci, you knew that once Mimir and the Guard were gone that there would come the day that we’d have to fight for our survival.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen until after I was dead,” she muttered, turning and stalking away from him.  She paced, arms crossed tightly, shoulders hunched.  “He can’t have said to go.”

“Would he be this upset if he hadn’t said that, Daci?”

She flinched.  She turned away from him again, stared at the frozen hologram.  “I can’t leave him here alone,” she repeated.

Adam tried not to sigh.  His voice came sternly, now, with the undercurrent of command that was more natural than its absence was these days.  “Daciana.”

She held up a hand, then covered her face with it.  Her shoulders shook for a moment, then she took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “I can’t resign, can I?”

“No.  You can’t.”  She can’t possibly be considering that as a viable solution anyhow.

“I didn’t think so.”  She sighed and stared at the hologram for a few more long moments.  “How do we know that there’s a war coming?  I haven’t heard any reports about that.”

“The Oracle.”

She flinched again.  Her resolve was ebbing.  “How do we know the report is authentic?”

“Because it happened in full view of the Council.”

“Oh.”  Her shoulders slumped even more.  She turned back toward Adam.  “I…I have to go to Frederick.  He’s…”

Adam just nodded, not making her lie about why she needed to leave the room.  He already knew why.  “Go on.  I’ll find somewhere to wait for you.”

“Wait for me?”

He nodded.  “I’m taking you with me, Daci.  Today, if possible.”

She winced.  “Not today, Adam.  Tomorrow, maybe, or the next day.”

“Tomorrow, Daci.”

She bit her lip, then nodded.  She fled the room.  He turned toward the hologram and stared at it for a moment, then exhaled.

Sometimes, I hate this job.

 

•          •          •

 

He and Frederick were sitting on the roof that night, staring at the stars like they had when they were kids on Mimir.  The stars were different, and they’d become different men, but the moment was the same as all the others.  It was somehow comforting that no matter how much things changed, some things stayed the same.

The chill had settled in early in the mountains, a promise of a frigid winter to come.  Adam wore his jacket and a pair of gloves.  Frederick wore the same plus a stocking cap and had a blanket pulled around himself besides.  Their breath steamed in the nighttime chill.  Daciana was somewhere below, packing her things to leave in the morning.

They’d been quiet for a long while, just sitting up there, when Frederick broke the silence.  “I’m not staying here when you two leave, Adam.”

He stiffened and slowly looked over toward his friend, who was looking at him with that same serious expression that he’d worn when he’d told Adam some thirty years before that he wasn’t staying on Mimir.

“What do you mean?  Where are you going to go?”

“Back to civilization, I guess.”  Frederick looked away, up toward the sky.  “Where can we stay in Nova Spexi until we can build a house or something?”

What the hell is he talking about?  Adam blinked.  “But you’re dead.”  It was the only thing he could think to say in response and it was hardly the most intelligent thing he could have said.  He kicked himself for it as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

Frederick laughed weakly.  “Not for too much longer, Adam.”

His mind raced.  What if word gets out that he’s still alive?  Whoever was trying to kill him the first time isn’t going to have quit because it’s been twelve years.  You don’t try that hard to kill someone and then just give up on it.  The only reason they stopped hunting him was because they thought he was dead.  Even if he doesn’t know now what he knew then, before that explosion, they’re not going to care.  There’s always a chance he’ll remember.  Whatever knowledge had put Frederick in danger was knowledge that he still seemed to be trying to recover.  Twenty-eight years after the attacks on Mimir, he was still trying to figure out who was responsible.  Maybe he’d known twelve years ago, when those attempts on his life had begun.  But Frederick didn’t know anymore.  They’d known that within days of him coming out of his coma, here on E-557, when they’d decided that it was best that no one know he was still alive, much less on the isolated world.

Frederick looked at him and smiled weakly.  “You’re worrying about it.”

“Your wife is going to kill you.”  She’ll kill you before anyone else has a chance to.  “Does she know?  Did you tell her?”

He shook his head.  “No.  But I’ve been thinking about it all day.  Since you and I talked.  It’d be hell on both of us to be apart.  I don’t know how you and Rachel managed.”  He looked down and sighed.  “‘course, there’s more to it than that.”

Adam eyed him.  Frederick was uncomfortable, and the discomfort was written all over his face.  It wasn’t pain, but something else.  “What is it?”

“I think she’s pregnant.  She doesn’t think I know, but I’m pretty sure.”  Frederick rubbed his face and sighed.  “We’d talked about it on and off for years and it never…never really happened for us.  And now, with whatever’s coming, and the stress, I…”  His voice trailed away as he stared up at the sky.  “I need to be there.  I need to be with her.  The last thing she’s going to need on top of everything else is worrying about me.”

Adam’s throat swelled and he nodded a little.  He could sympathize with that.  If I was in his place, and it was Rachel in her place, I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing.  “She’s going to worry either way, Freder.”

“I know,” he said quietly.  “But at least I’ll be able to be there and able to tell her to stop worrying, right?”  He smiled wryly.  “Six years of trying, and it happens now.”

Adam shook his head.  “Do you think she’s sure?”

“I think she’s positive.  She just hasn’t found the right way to tell me yet.”  Frederick smiled a little.  “I think she was waiting to tell me next week.”

“On your birthday.”

He nodded.  “Could you think of a better gift than that, Adam?  Finding out that you’re going to be a father?  When you’ve talked about it and tried and tried?”  Frederick shook his head a little, still smiling a little.  “I can’t think of anything better.”

Adam found his eyes stinging as he thought about some of the talks he and Rachel had had on the subject.  He sighed a little and lay back, stretching.  “I envy you, Freder.  I really do.”

“There’s still time for you and Rachel, Grumpy.”

Adam shook his head a little, staring at the stars.  “Not too much of it, I’m afraid.”

“There’s enough.”

“Maybe,” Adam murmured.  There was still another few years for he and Rachel before that door closed to them.  The older they got, though, the slimmer the chance that they would be able to start a family of their own became.  He didn’t have the luxury of twelve years’ age difference between he and Rachel like Frederick and Daciana did.  “I’ll call Rachel,” he said finally.  “You two can probably stay with us for a few days, at least, until we find someplace better for you both.”  He thought for a moment, staring at the stars.  “I don’t think Ezra Grace uses the house his parents built up in the hills.  I’ll talk to him and see if I can set you up there.”

Frederick nodded.  “He’s a smart guy, that Grace.”

Adam nodded.  “Too smart for his own good sometimes, I think.  But incredibly dumb about some things, too.”  He shook his head a little, smiling ruefully.  “He wants to fly into N-E space with an ex-Compact ex-black ops agent and an ex-Chinasia pilot to rescue America and Grant.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Adam shook his head.  “Not one bit.  And the plan is just about crazy enough to work, too.”

Frederick shook his head.  “Are you going to approve it?”

“Depends on what changes they’ve made and whether they’ve convinced the pilot to come along.  Rachel said that she thinks I should order him along if he balks.  I’d rather not.  He’s more valuable when he decides he wants to do something.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“Well, yes.”  Adam grinned.  “That’s par for the course.”  He pushed himself up on an elbow and winced as his shoulder creaked.  I’m getting old.  “I have to track down D’Arcy Morgause tomorrow and ring his bell unless he’s got something useful to tell me.”

Frederick winced.  “You’re allowed to do that?”

“Who’s going to stop me from doing it, Freder?  The Council?  They’re as annoyed with him as I am, for better or worse.”  He shrugged a little, sitting up fully.  “He’s holding back information and that’s just…well, to quote Dr. Grace and his sister, not kosher.  Not when it’s a matter of life and death for two of the Inner Collegium.”

“Daciana’s always said the man lives and breathes secrets, Grumpy.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to deny information to anyone who could use that information for the good of the colony, Freder, which is exactly what he’s doing.”  Adam frowned.  “And it could be his downfall, this time.”

“Really?”

Adam nodded.  “Council’s getting fed up with his shenanigans.  But they don’t have anyone just yet who can take his place.  But that’s only a matter of time and of finding someone.”  There’s a few men and women I could think of that might be good for that job.  He looked at Frederick for a long moment.  Like you, old friend.

“You’ve got that look, you old bastard.”

Adam grinned.

“Whatever it is, I think I’m going to say no.”

“We’ll see, Freder.  We’ll see.”

Chapter Nine

The Rose Foundation membership ascribes to various creeds and beliefs.  Some are pacifists, believing that if they harm no one, no one will harm them.  Unfortunately for these men and women, for all of their great knowledge, they fail to realize one thing: pacifism is a myth.  One way or another, war is always waged, whether from action or inaction, and someone always gets hurt.  This is a universal constant throughout history, a thing that can be traced back to our earliest recorded origins on Old Earth.   We, like most species, seem to be hard-wired for violence.

— Erich Quizibian, Roots of Disaster: Predicting the Death of the Human Race, c. 5073 PD

 

19 Octem, 5249 PD

Brendan scrubbed a hand over his eyes, feeling like he looked more tired than he actually was.  At least his cadets were showing some improvement in the simulators, though not nearly as much as he would have hoped.

Maybe I should give them a day off, let them recover a little before throwing even harder simulations at them.  To his surprise, Marshal Windsor had said nothing negative about how hard he was pushing his students.  In fact, he’d given tacit approval for Brendan’s activities.  Brendan wasn’t sure if he should be unnerved by that or impressed by Rachel’s apparent powers of persuasion.

“Brendan!”

He turned quickly on his heel and tried not to regret it as he over-spun and struggled to balance himself.  I’ve been spending too much time in the simulators.  The mess his equilibrium was becoming was a certain sign of that.  “Hey Ezra.  Someone having a bad reaction to their implant or something?”

The doctor shook his head.  “Nah.”

“Then why are you here?  You never come to base.  You’re a freaking pacifist.”

Ezra rolled his eyes.  “Says the combat pilot that’s my best friend.  I came to find you, snarky bastard.”  He straightened from his lean against one of the thicker saplings that dotted the base grounds, dressed casually in pants and an open button-down shirt, ID clipped firmly to his breast pocket—mostly for the benefit of the newest group of cadets, who wouldn’t know who he was until he came in to give the lecture on wetware implantation and maintenance.  “Want to take a walk?  Got some stuff I need to talk to you about.”

Brendan arched a brow, then shrugged.  “Yeah, let me get out of the flightsuit.  Meet you at the gate in ten.”

Ezra nodded, seeming a little distracted.

What’s in his shorts?  Brendan wondered as he walked away.  He shook his head.  Either Ezra was going to tell him, or he wouldn’t.  That was just the way it was.

He took a quick shower and changed his clothes, then met Ezra at the gates to the base a little over ten minutes later, hair still damp and feeling more human than he had when he’d climbed out of the simulator—though only a little less worn.

“You look like you feel better.”  Ezra shoved his hands into his pockets.

Brendan shrugged.  “Maybe a little.  Better than the alternatives, anyway.  I forgot how much aerial combat takes out of you.”

Ezra smiled wryly.  “I wouldn’t know.  Rough stuff?”

Brendan nodded.  “Hate to see what some of the cadets look like by the time they make it back to their barracks.  One of them was telling me that she practically needed a spatula to scrape her bunkmate out of bed this morning.  They’re starting to call me a slave-driver.  Waiting for the nicknames to start up behind my back.”  He rubbed at an eye.  “Some of them have figured out why I’m doing it, though.  Pretty sure some of them have, anyway.”

“Because there’s a war coming.”

Brendan nodded.  “I think some of them got a clue when Windsor kicked three of them out of his office when they showed up to complain about how hard I was working them.  I think maybe I’ll give them tomorrow off, though.  No sense in their being exhausted every day of their lives before the war even starts.  Time enough to be tired then.”

“Do you want me to give any of them stim-packs?”

Brendan winced.  “No.  Never.  I can’t believe you’d ask.”

Ezra shrugged.  “They’ve gotten me through a long night or two.”

“I didn’t realize that.”

“Never had a reason to mention it, Brendan.”  Ezra raked a hand through his dark curls.  “Usually when I’m trying to finish some research that’s got me in a time-crunch.  Haven’t done it in years, though, thank god.”  He smiled wryly.  “Figure I’m getting old enough that I can covet my sleep and finish it in the morning.”

Brendan shook his head.  “You’re something else, Ez.  You really are.”  He tucked his hands into his pockets.  “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Gabe has a table set for us at the café.”

Brendan shot Ezra a suspicious look.  “What do you want, Ez?”

“Because my brother-in-law has a table waiting for us at the café, you automatically assume I want something.  Why?”

“Because you’ve been my best friend for ten years and I think by now I know you.”  Brendan shook his head.  “I’m not angry, I’m just curious now.”  And god knows I won’t turn down something Gabriel Forester cooks.

Ezra shook his head, wrinkling his nose.  “Let’s just say that there’s something pretty big we need to talk about.  Couple—well, no, more than a couple—lives hang in the balance on this one.”

Okay, now I’m really curious.  What’s going on in that head of yours, Ez?  What have you applied your genius to this time?  It clearly wasn’t something medical.  Something medical wasn’t anything that Ezra would come to him about.  He had plenty of colleagues networked across E-557 for those sorts of discussions and debates.  “Are you going to keep me in suspense until we’re sitting down, then?”

“I figured I’d start getting to the meat of the discussion after you had something to drink, yes.  Gabe got some early wine from the Allegheri’s vineyard.  He said it was pretty good.  You’re off-duty, right?”

Brendan nodded, and some white from the Allegheri vineyard made his mouth begin to water a little.  “Going to give me a taste?”

“I was going to let you have a whole glass.”

“Not that.  Of what you’re going to talk at me about.”

“Oh.”  Ezra’s brow furrowed a moment and he looked around, almost furtively, then shrugged.  He dropped his voice lower.  “It’s about America Farragut and Grant Channing.”

Brendan blinked.  This is going to get interesting.  “What about them?”

“That…”  Ezra’s voice trailed away.  “That, I think, you’ll have to wait a little longer to find out, Brendan.”

At least until we get to the café and I’ve got a glass of wine in front of me, no doubt.  Brendan just nodded, not arguing.  Sometimes, it was safer that way.  It wasn’t a long walk, anyway.  He’d know what Ezra was dancing around soon enough.  The question was really about whether or not he’d like what he heard.

They walked down the edge of the wooded roadway that led from the base into Nova Spexi proper, down one of the byways that wended its way through a series of homes and shops on a journey toward the coast.  Most of the roads in Nova Spexi that headed in that direction met up with one main drag that headed out toward the water but ended well before the beach.  The café Gabriel Forester ran was at the seaward side of town—on very quiet mornings and nights, you could almost hear the water a few kilometers away.

The table set for them was a small one on the corner of the deck outside of the café itself, one tucked away from the street and away from most of the other tables.  It was a quiet day, though not chilly like the past few days had been.  This one only had the barest hints that autumn was coming, and coming fast.  Brendan took the chair that left his back to the wall, stretching as he settled in.  Ezra paused and exchanged a few words with Gabriel before joining him.

“Gabe’s going to bring out some bread and the wine in a minute.”

Brendan nodded.  “So what’s going on, Ezra?  What about Lin’s parents?”

Gabriel dropped off the wine and the bread.  He said nothing, just left the goods and made a quick getaway.

Brendan was starting to get nervous.  The hell is going on here?  “Ez?”

Ezra broke off a piece of bread before beginning to talk, slowly at first.  “What would you do if you could help Lindsay get her parents back?”

I already don’t like where this is going.  He reached for his glass of wine, though he didn’t raise his glass just yet.  “Why are you asking that question, Ez?”

“Just answer, Brendan.”

He sighed, rubbing his forehead between his eyes.  “Just about anything, and you know it.  I love her, and she deserves to have her parents here, with her, safe.  It would make her happy.  Well.  Happier.”

Ezra nodded slowly.  “We have a plan.”

That should not be causing the dread coiling in my innards, Ez.  “All right.”  He drew out the words, making his hesitation and discomfort clear.

Ezra looked like he’d just barely suppressed a wince.  He reached for his wineglass.  “We’re thinking that a small team going in under cover can probably get her parents out of the facilities where they’re being held with no casualties and a minimum amount of collateral damage.”

I’m really starting to not like this plan.  “Do we even know where they’re being held?”  Of course, I probably know where one of those facilities is.  It’s the other one that’s the question. Not that I want to go back ever again.  I never want to see New Earth space again.  Ever.

“We’re waiting on confirmations.  Rachel is working on that.”

“You brought Rachel into this?  How many people are in on whatever plan you’ve come up with, Ez?”  If he’s been talking to Lindsay about this, I might have to hurt him.  Brendan leaned forward slightly, cradling his wineglass between both hands.  “You still haven’t told me what it has to do with me, either.”

He deadpanned.  “I think you can guess on that, Brendan.”

“Of course I can guess.  You want me to go back there and possibly get myself killed.  Who else is in on this?”

“Me, Kara, a little Gabe, Rachel.”  Ezra frowned into his glass.  “And Alana.”

“Alana.”

He nodded.

“And she knows you want me to do…something.  And she still wants to be involved?”  It can’t be something that involves me dying for sure.  Ezra wouldn’t go for a plan that involved that.

Ezra nodded.  “She’s the one who said we can’t pull it off without you.”

Oh god.  This just gets worse and worse.  He exhaled through his teeth.  “None of this is making any sense to me, Ezra.  What do you guys think you need me to do?”

He leaned forward even more, voice very quiet, barely above a whisper.  “We take a small ship, you, me, and her and fake it.  We bluff our way into the Chinasia Corp facility and then we bluff our way out.  Then we do the same thing at the Compact facility.  That’s why it’s you and her.”

You want to come along, Ezra?  The hell is with that?  “And what about you?  Why are you coming along?”

“Someone’s got to take care of America and Grant when they’re sprung.”

“That doesn’t have to be you, Ezra.”

He looked down at his hands.  “Call it a feeling, then.  I need to be there.  I need to be a part of this.  Besides, I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t take the risk with you two and something went wrong.”  He raked a hand back through his hair.  “So I have to go.  I have to go with and be there to help if someone gets hurt or something goes wrong or any other number of things that won’t happen because this plan is a good plan and it’s going to work.”  He looked Brendan in the eye.  “But only if you say you’ll come.”

“I need to think about it.”  Think of a way to tell him to come up with a new plan.  I don’t want to go back there.  I don’t want to leave Lindsay.  They’ll kill me if I go back there.  I failed my mission.  I don’t want to leave Lindsay alone.  I don’t want her to feel me die.  I can’t take that chance.  I just…I can’t take that chance.  The cost is just too high.

“Brendan, we can’t do this without you.”

“I didn’t say no, Ez,” Brendan said evenly.  “I said I need to think about it.  And I do.  This isn’t the kind of thing you immediately say yes to.”

“Alana did.”

“Alana’s crazy.  That’s why she did.”

“She’s not crazy, Brendan.”

“Prove it.”  He took a long swallow of the wine.  It was good, but he suddenly found himself not in the mood to finish it.  “I should go home.”

Ezra waved a hand.  “Stay.  I can go.”

“Ez…”

“Really, Brendan.  Stay.  Eat.  Drink the wine.  It’s good wine, isn’t it?”

Brendan sighed, looking away, in the direction of the water so far away.  The view had no answers for him.  “Sorry, Ez.”

“You need to think about it.  I understand that.”  He paused.  “Do me a favor, though?”

“What?”  Something tells me I’m not going to like this, either.

“Don’t talk to Lindsay about it before you decide what you’re going to do.”

Brendan just stared at him.  Did he actually just ask me to not talk to my wife about something that’s going to affect both of our lives in a very, very real sense?  He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.  “How could you ask that, Ez?”

“I want the decision to be yours, Brendan.  You have to be right with this before she has to be right with this.”

“You say that like I’m not going to get a choice.”

Ezra shook his head a little, staring at his half-eaten piece of bread.  “I’m beginning to wonder how much choice any of us have anymore, Brendan.  Kara’s told me what’s been going on at the meetings.  She’s told me how high the stakes are.  Rachel has told me how high the stakes are.  Alana’s informed me in intricate detail how dangerous this plan will be if we don’t do it right.  But I still feel like it’s the right thing to do.  It’s the right move to make.  It’s just…just…right.”  He shook his head again.  “I can’t explain it, Brendan.  That’s just how it feels.”

Brendan nodded mutely, lips pressed together in a tight line.  He finally sighed and took another sip of wine.  “I won’t tell her,” he said at last.  “Not yet, anyway.”  But at some point, I’m going to have to.  That goes without saying.  I’ll have to tell her.  I can’t keep this from her forever.  I think she’d notice that I was gone.

“Thanks, Brendan.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Ez,” Brendan warned.  “I haven’t said yes.”

“You haven’t said no, either.”

“No.  Not yet.”  Not yet.  Part of me wants to go with my gut and say no right away.  What’s stopping me?  He knew the answer.  Lindsay, and the parents she’d barely known, the parents she hadn’t seen since they gave her to her aunt when she was a toddler.  Two years old.

“You won’t say no.”

I don’t like how sure he sounds.  Brendan stared at his friend.  “You sound very sure of that.”

Ezra just shrugged.  Brendan sighed.

Where’s the harm?  Might as well know what I’d be walking into.  Get all the details before I say no.  He suppressed another sigh.  If I end up saying no.  He’s pretty sure I’m going to say yes“All right.  Let’s hear the details.”

Ezra grinned and started talking.

Chapter Eight

Sometimes you come up with these insane ideas.  Most of those ideas never end up being put into practice—they’re just too out there.  But sometimes, with a little work, those ideas become so crazy they just might work.  That’s the feeling we got when we started to talk about Operation: Quebec.  Rescuing Grant Channing and America Farragut was something that needed to happen.  Sending three men in to do the job?  That was the crazy part.  We had no idea if it would work or not.  All we could do was hope.

— Kara Grace-Forester, member of the Rose Council (5245-5250)

17 Octem, 5249 PD

“Rachel, I need your help.”

Ezra Grace was standing at the edge of her garden, where Rachel was elbow-deep in the dirt, potting some of her plants to start the process of slowly moving them inside for the winter—though there were a few she was probably planning to give away, lined up at the far end of the garden, near her small skimmer.  She raised an eyebrow at him, not bothering to stand.  “Shouldn’t you be helping other people right about now?”

He shook his head.  “I don’t have any appointments today and if base needs me, they know how to find me fast.”  He gestured vaguely to the headset dangling around his neck.  “I need your help with something.”

The older woman stared at him for a moment, then nodded, going back to her work in the garden.  “What’s up?”

“Alana and Kara and I have been working on something.  A plan.  But I’m going to need your help convincing a couple of the principals it’s a good idea.”

“A plan for what, Ezra?”  Rachel frowned at the stalk between her hands and gestured.  “Hand me that pot, would you?”

Ezra scooped up the pot that looked like it had been made by one of the other Consuls—Yvgeny Tarasavich was a potter of no small skill—and eased between the wild tangles of greenery to hand her the pot, being careful to not step on the tomato plant especially, spidery and sprawling as it was.  It was full of small green tomatoes, each about the size of the last joint of his thumb.  “To rescue your sister and her husband from the congloms.”

Rachel almost dropped the pot but recovered quickly, scooping some dirt into it and giving him a hard look.  “You’re being proactive about that, are you?”

Ezra frowned.  “Kara told me about what happened at the meeting a couple weeks ago.  Brendan’s been worried about Lindsay ever since.  There’s pretty much nothing I can do about that other than try to solve one problem by solving a related problem.  Kara said the Council agreed that Grant and America can’t be left in enemy hands.”

“Enemy hands.” Rachel murmured, almost to herself.  “We never really talked about them that way before, did we?  Not here.  Not since before…”  She stared at her dirty hands for a long moment, seeing a time other than the moment they were living in.  She sighed quietly and looked at him.  “You said you needed my help.”

He nodded.  “I think I’m going to.  D’Arcy hasn’t come up with any bright ideas, has he?  For how to get them out of where they are alive?”

Rachel shook her head.  “No.  He’s dragging his feet a little.”  She glanced toward the house briefly.  “Adam is going to pay him an unpleasant visit sometime today.”

Adam?  Who’s Adam?  He decided not to ask.  It was probably safer that way.  “Well, then, it’s even better that we’ve come up with the plan we’ve started to come up with.”  He almost moved toward her, but then remembered the tomato plant practically tangled around his feet and held still.  “We think that one ship, with a three-man team, might have a shot at pulling them out.  It’s really cloak and dagger special ops kind of stuff, but Alana’s been helping me hammer out the details and we think it’ll work.”

Rachel sat back against her heels.  “And what, exactly, is this amazing plan of yours?  And what part of it do you need my help with?”

“We need Brendan.”

Rachel arched a brow.  “Why do you need Brendan?”

“Chinasia Corp and the Eurydice Compact have them, right?  And Brendan knows the facility where one of them is being held, right?”

Rachel frowned.  “How did you—did Brendan?—oh.  Kara.”

He nodded.  “We wouldn’t have about half the intelligence we have on the situation without her.  She’s been keeping me abreast of what goes on at Council meetings.”  He scratched his nose a little, nervously.  “We need someone who speaks the corporate and tactical languages of Chinasia Corp.  He’s the only one on the freaking planet who does.”

She didn’t disagree.  She looked back to the pot, scooped some more dirt into it, then started to settle the plant she’d been preparing to pot into the loose soil.  “How are you going to handle the Compact end of it?”

“That’s where Alana comes in.”

Rachel arched a brow, looking up at Ezra.  “She agreed to go?”

“She’s been helping me plan.  It took me two days to convince her that I should be the third person on the team going in.”

“I’m shocked you talked her into leaving the planet.  She hasn’t been off-world in eighteen years.”

Ezra licked his lips.  “She said she’d do anything to help Lindsay’s parents, Rachel.  Anything.”

She sat back against her heels, looking distant for a moment, brow furrowing.  “That’s interesting,” she murmured softly.

He raised a brow at her.  What’s interesting?

She shook her head slightly.  “Brendan and I had been talking about Alana’s attachment to Lindsay.  I haven’t shared my theories on it with him yet.”

“Are you going to share them with me?”  I knew she was very attached to Lindsay.  But if even Rachel doesn’t know why…  The mystery that was Alana Chase had suddenly deepened.

Rachel smiled wryly up at him, then went back to potting the vegetable plant she’d dug up out of her garden.  “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

She shook her head a little.  “Just checking.”  She scooped another handful of dirt into the pot.  “I think she may somehow be connected to Grant.”

“Lindsay’s father Grant?”

Rachel nodded, staring at the plant under her hands.  “I would know if she was connected to my sister, which she isn’t.  A connection to Grant—to the Channing family—is the only thing that I can think of to explain her devotion to Lindsay.  She’s been taking orders from her since Lindsay was eight.”  Rachel snorted humorlessly.  “That’s how Brendan’s still alive.”

Ezra raised a brow.  He’d never gotten a straight answer out of Brendan, how he’d managed to be the only survivor of his dropship.  “Really.”

Rachel did laugh this time.  “Lindsay told her not to kill him.  She was about to pull the trigger on him, too.”  She shook her head slightly.  “She gave him a concussion instead.  That’s why he doesn’t remember the particulars of those last few moments before he woke up at the base hospital.”

Ezra shook his head.  Never imagined the reason he didn’t tell me was because he didn’t remember what happened to him.  “That why she hates him?”

Rachel winced.  “I don’t think she actually hates him, Ezra.  I really don’t.”  She exhaled, standing up and handing the pot to him.  She dusted off her hands, her knees.  “I think she pretends she hates him because she doesn’t think that he and Lindsay were a good match.  Or something like that.”  She smiled wryly.  “Of course, it didn’t matter what she thought about the match, because they’re the ones that get to choose.”  She shooed him out of the garden.  He stumbled back, narrowly avoiding crushing something that might have been a carrot, back into the grass.  She followed him out of the garden, picking her way carefully but easily.  She took the pot from him and set it down in the grass.

“So let me make sure I’m clear on this.  You need my help convincing Brendan that this plan is a good idea and that he should come along.  Yes?”

“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”

Rachel nodded.  “Have you given any thought as to how you’re going to convince Lindsay to let him go?”  She dusted a little more dirt off her pants and then headed for the house.

Ezra blinked, following her toward the house.  “…it’s her parents.  We’d be going out to rescue her parents.  Why would that take a lot of convincing?”

“You’re the one that’s asking for my help talking Brendan into this.  Why do you think he’d say no?”

“Because he wouldn’t want to leave Lindsay alone.  He worries.”

“And you think that Lindsay would worry any less about him if he went flying back into New Earth space with you and Alana?”  Rachel turned toward him, leaning in the doorframe of the exterior side door that led into her kitchen.  “First of all, she’d worry about Alana deciding to kill Brendan by tossing him out an airlock or something.”

“You said that Alana didn’t actually hate Brendan.”

“I did say that.  But that’s not necessarily what they think, or what they fear.”  Rachel rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.  She left a bit of dirt on the tip.  “Second, Brendan is the only person that can help her control her visions right now.  Contact with him is the only thing that’s been anchoring her lately, I think.  It could be dangerous for them to be apart for very long, especially in the face of an impending war, which is going to make her abilities go a little haywire.”

Ezra frowned.  How does she know all this?  Or is she guessing?

Rachel shook her head at his puzzled look.  If she was doing a surface read of his thoughts, he didn’t notice it.  “I’m writing a book on Ryland LeSarte, Ezra.  When war broke out during his lifetime between the Guard and the Compact, it almost killed him, and not because he saw any sort of military action.  His oracular ability threatened to completely overwhelm his senses.  Journals and reports say that the only reason he didn’t end up in some sort of vegetative state was because of Sara Farragut and later their son, Ian.”

“…I didn’t know that.”

“Nobody outside the family knows that, Ezra.  Not yet, anyway.”  Rachel shook her head slightly.  “There are some…things…in place that make me think that she’ll be all right if he goes—if you and I and possibly Adam can convince him to go of his own free will.  If the Guardians like the plan, they’ll order him to go even if he doesn’t want to.  That’s the way these things work.”

“But it’d be better if he agrees to go on his own.”

She nodded.  “Much better, don’t you think?”

He nodded in agreement.  “I think so.  That’s why I came to you.  You…helped raise him.”

“I did raise him, after he came here.”  She smiled wryly.  “I’d like to think he looks at me like a second mother.  Or at least a favorite aunt.  It took a lot of work to unknot him, after what Chinasia Corp did to him for sixteen years.”  She leaned against the door, now.  “I’ll talk to him for you, Ezra.  You should try to talk to him yourself, first.  See how he reacts.”

“Alone, you think?”

“Definitely alone.”  Rachel frowned, shaking her head.  “I don’t think that Lindsay’s going to like the idea at all.”  There was a voice calling Rachel’s name from inside.  A man’s voice.  “Keep me posted on how it’s coming together—and when you’re going to present it to the Council.”

Ezra nodded, brow furrowing even as he tried to smother the curiosity suddenly rising.  Who’s in there calling for her?  “I guess I’ll go, then, since you’re not going to invite me in for tea.”  He smiled wryly.

She laughed.  “Don’t think ill of me for it, Ezra.  We’ve both got our work to do.  Take one of the pots of beans to your sister and Gabriel, will you?”

“Snap peas?”

Rachel nodded.  “I didn’t think you knew the difference.”

Ezra blushed.  “Just because I don’t have a big garden doesn’t mean I don’t know what snap peas look like on the vine, Rachel.  The pot on the end okay?”

She nodded.  “We’ll talk more later.”  The voice inside was still calling for her, starting to get a little insistent.  Ezra thought maybe it was familiar.

“Sure.”  He backed away, waved a little, then went and got the indicated pot.  For a moment, he regretted walking rather than taking a skimmer up.

The exercise will do me good, I guess, he thought.  Kara and Gabe didn’t live that far away, anyway.  It wouldn’t take long to bring them the peas.  Maybe he and Gabe would play some checkers while he and Kara discussed the plan further.  Of course, they’d have to round up Alana.  That shouldn’t be too hard.  She’s probably at home, or lurking around Lindsay and Brendan’s.  One or the other.  Either way…easy to find.

Chapter Seven

If there is one thing that can be said of the Rose Foundation, like its ally the Psychean Guard, it is that it breeds dreamers—ones who dream dangerously, desperately, out of desire and necessity.  That is why we fear it.  That is why it must die.

— Hans Trepanning (Eurydice Compact), Memoirs of a CEO, 5215 PD

 

11 Octem, 5249 PD

She sat quietly out on the front lawn, watching the fog drift amongst the trees.  Brendan was still asleep inside—she’d tried hard not to wake him, to let him get another precious few hours of sleep.  The rest of the world—or at least Nova Spexi—was still largely asleep on the gray, foggy morning.  It was chilly, and the fog promised to turn to misty rain later, but for the moment, it was just a fog, drifting through trees that were old when she was born.

Was this what Old Earth had looked like, thousands of years ago, before humanity had killed it?  Was this what it smelled like—wet grass, the salt of the sea that lay only a few dozen kilometers away, and the fog?

Sometimes, only sometimes, she wondered.  Wondered about Old Earth, wondered what it was like.  Usually when she was alone, while he was still asleep some mornings.  She wondered if she was the only one that imagined what it had been like.  She couldn’t possibly be the only one—intellectually, she knew that.  But sometimes she wondered how many other people thought those same thoughts, and how often they thought them, and where.  It was a little exercise she ran through sometimes—not often, but sometimes.

She had a blanket loosely clasped around her shoulders to ward off the early morning chill.  She glanced toward the side of the house and the garden that wrapped around from near the kitchen door.  They’d have to bring in some of the herbs soon.  They were ready for harvest.

Before the Council meeting, I’ll do that.  Harvest and bundle.  Start drying them.  She rubbed her face and sighed.  The Council meeting…  She wasn’t sure that she wanted to go, but she knew she had to.  She’d been absent too often lately, and they needed her there.  There was no denying it.

I hope what happened the last time doesn’t happen again.  There were no guarantees—but then, what was there a guarantee in?

“You’re up early.”

She hadn’t heard him approach, and she looked up at Brendan now as he settled down next to her in the grass.  “Only a little.  Did you sleep okay?”

He still looked exhausted, but he nodded.  “Yeah, I slept okay.  Got worried when I woke up and you weren’t there.”

She winced.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t want to wake you.  You just seemed so tired.”  She kissed his cheek gently.  “Go back to bed.  I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m up, now.”  He stared out at the trees.  “What’re you doing out here?”

“Thinking,” she said quietly, hugging a knee against her chest.  “Looking.  It’s pretty out here.”

“It is,” he agreed, raking a hand back through his short dark hair.  He paused, then looked at her.  “Thinking about what?”

She smiled wryly.  “If this was what Old Earth looked like, before humans ruined it.”

“Oh.”  He eased an arm around her, drawing her close to him.  She smiled a little.  “I guess I’d never thought about that.”

“I’m not sure why I do, sometimes.”  Lindsay smiled a little and leaned into his chest, watching the mists drift in an unfelt breeze as he held her.  She counted his heartbeats in the silence before she broke it.  “You have to go in today.”  It wasn’t a question.

Brendan nodded.  “Yeah.  Going to start putting some of the cadets through their paces in simulators a week early.  One or two of them might have a prayer.”

“Full-on combat maneuvers?”  She’d seen his notes, though she wasn’t sure exactly how much of what he’d scribbled down he was planning on putting into practice.  There had been a lot of notes.

He nodded a little.  “Quentin James and I are the closest they’ll get to enemy combatants.  He said he’d play wingman to me in the simulators.  I have to go in early to help him tweak the simulations.  I just wish we had better intelligence on what sort of fighters the Compact and Chinasia are using these days.”

“You’re really worried.”

“Your aunt is really worried.  Blame her for encouraging paranoia.”  He squeezed her, staring off toward the woods.  “I’m not sure if she’s more worried about you or the colony’s survival.  Could be both.”

“She hasn’t been by in a couple days.  I keep thinking I should go down and see her.”  Then I end up thinking that it’d be a total role reversal for me to go down and see her rather than the opposite and I decide not to bother.  She’s fine.  She’s just busy.  That happens.  I get busy.  Of course, I almost never leave the house.  But Alana hasn’t been hanging around as much.  That can’t be a bad thing.  Maybe Aunt Rachel’s been dragging her all over the place.  Maybe?  Possibly?

“Why don’t you do that today while I’m down on the base?”

Lindsay shrugged.  “Because I’ll see her at the Council meeting anyway.  What’s the point?  I’ll stay home and get some of the herbs bundled.”

Brendan stiffened at the mention of the Council meeting.  His brow furrowed, hazel eyes suddenly troubled.  “You’re going to go?”

She sighed a little.  “They’re right—all of them are right—I’ve been gone too much lately.  I’ll just have to find a way to make it work, that’s all.  One way or another, I’ll have to find a way to make it work.”  She rubbed at a temple a little.  “I’ll take a pill or something.  I’ll be fine.”

“You hate those things.  I hate those things and I don’t even have to take them.”

I’m glad you don’t have to take them.  Hopefully, you never will.  I’ll just have to figure out a better way to handle the ruckus that goes on in my head so I don’t have to take them, either.  “It’s either that or not go, and if half of what I saw was real, Brendan, they need me.”

“Half,” he said hollowly.  “You know more than half of it’s real.”

“It’s all real,” she agreed, “but how much of it can be prevented is the bigger question.  I’m hoping more than half.”  She settled in against his chest again.  His arm tightened around her.  “I just hope we’re not too late to stop the worst of it all.”

“Do you think we are?”

She shook her head slightly.  “I don’t know, Brendan.  I don’t know.”

He nodded slowly.  “Do you want me to come straight from base to the Council chambers?”

She looked up at him, smiling faintly.  “Would you?”

He laughed a little, looking down toward her.  “You have to ask?  Of course I will.  I’ll be there as soon as I can this afternoon.”

“It’s an evening meeting.”

“Do you want me to come pick you up here, then?”

She shook her head a little.  “I’ll go down to Aunt Rachel’s.  Drive in with her.”

“You sure?”

She nodded.  “I’m sure.  You can just meet us there, and then maybe if things go well, we can have dinner in town.  Maybe.  Depending on my headache and how many people I want to hurt.”

He laughed.  “If you want to, sure.  We’ll play it by ear, okay?”

Lindsay smiled, nodding.  “That sounds good.  We haven’t been out in a long time, have we?”

“More than a year,” he admitted.  “Just hasn’t been an occasion or anything, or an opportunity.”

“We’ll make one,” she said, looking back to the mists.

He nodded.  “Tonight.”

“Tonight.”

●   ●   ●

            Someone rapped on the doorframe of his office.  The door stood ajar, so he could hear when people were approaching, but this time there had been no sound to herald any arrival.  That meant it could only be one from a bare handful of people.

Ezra pushed away from his desk where he’d been reading over some of the latest medical studies to come out of New Earth space in the last several months—they’d arrived in hardcopy on the last cargo hauler coming to pick up a shipment of wheat to the Whispers.  He tilted his head, wearing a quizzical expression as he realized who his visitor was.

“Alana, what’re you doing here?”  Thought for sure you’d be attached to Lindsay at the hip for the next month and a half, after what happened at the Council meeting.  How’d someone pry you loose?  He leaned back in his chair, looking at her.  She was dressed in baggy pants and a tightly-fitted sleeveless top, despite the morning’s chill.  She looked like she’d been out running.  She only ran in the morning, before most children were up and around—she was convinced that the sight of her heavily cybered arm would frighten them.

She was probably right.  It was a frightening sight, that arm.  The Eurydice Compact designed it as much for effect as it did for function.  Easily hidden beneath a sport coat of some kind or a uniform jacket, bared it was a silver-gray color, servos and polymer muscle-augments set tightly against pale flesh.  Wires connected different components, clustering up at the shoulder, then down at the elbow cap and again down her forearm to her wrist and hand.  The hand was perhaps the most remarkable—it was sheathed in a silver-gray metal.  Tiny holes in the fingertips concealed hollow injector needles that were now empty, but during her service to both the Eurydice Compact had held a neurotoxin.  During her service to E-557’s military, Ezra had been told, the injectors had been loaded with sedatives.

As frightening as it was, it didn’t scare him.  He knew how to take it apart and rebuild the muscle, flesh, and bone underneath to give her a natural, functioning arm again.  Further, he knew that a tap here, a pulled wire there would prevent it from functioning.  Most people didn’t know that.  He’d spent most of his life fixing things like that, though, studying cyberware for the sole purpose of taking it off and out of people and giving them what many of them had craved since they were children—a normal life, free from the trappings of the old life.  That was his job.  That was what he did.

But she wasn’t here for that, was she?

Alana shrugged awkwardly.  He rocked back in his chair.  Alana was never awkward, she was always in control.  “I came to make an appointment,” she said, licking her lips.

“For that?”  He pointed to her arm.  Now?  She comes now?  After the Council meeting, after—hell.  After everything?  Of all times, she picks now?

She shrugged again.  “I’m retired.  It’s time.  Everyone else thinks it’s time.  They’re right.  It is.  I’m never going back to that life.”  She meant a soldier’s life.

She’s going to tear me limb from limb.  “Hold off,” he said carefully.

“Hold off.”  She deadpanned, ice-blue gaze pinning his heart against his spine.  “What do you mean, ‘hold of’?  Half the planet is asking me if they’re going to have to make the appointment to have this done for me, and now you’re telling me to hold off on having it done?  Have you suddenly lost your bloody mind?”  She was fully in the office now, well clear of the doorway.

He winced and put up his hands in a gesture for her to back off.  “Close the door and let me explain, Alana.  I haven’t lost my mind yet.  At least I don’t think I have.”  He moved some of the papers on his desk out of the way and opened a drawer, pulling out some notes he’d scribbled out in the previous day and a half.

Alana shut the door and appropriated a chair from behind it, turning it backwards and sinking down into it.  She watched him for a moment, brow furrowing, then shook her head.  “Start explaining or I’m going to start thinking you’re completely cracked, Ezra.”

He frowned, staring at her for a moment.  “You know that Lin saw something, right?  About her parents?  And the Council confirmed that they’re still alive somewhere in New Earth space, right?”

Alana looked annoyed, by only for a moment.  She smothered the expression quickly.

Ezra winced again.  I’d better make the pitch fast or else she might decide to disembowel me.  “I’ve been talking to my sister, and she says that D’Arcy Morgause and his people aren’t one hundred percent sure yet, but it looks like Chinasia and the Compact really do have her parents.  One has one, the other has the other.”

“What does this have to do with me, Ezra?”  Her voice was flat, monotone.  “Right now, you’re not doing a very good job at coming to a point, and quickly.”

“Sorry, sorry.”  He shuffled through his notes, more of a nervous gesture than anything.  He knew what he was pitching to her.  They were more a prop to keep his thoughts in order.  Paper did that.  It was soothing.  “I think if we can plan it right, we can rescue her parents and be gone before either of the congloms know what hit them.”

She just stared at him like he was crazy.  He winced.

“Don’t give me that look, Alana.  I’ve been thinking about this since Kara told me what happened.  I’m still…working on the details, but I think that with a little more time I can come up with something that’s going to work, and work well.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Ezra.”  She made no moves to leave his office, though.

Is she giving me a chance to talk her into this?  He leaned forward slightly, running a hand through his hair.  “I don’t have my hands on D’Arcy’s documents—Kara’s going to try to wrest those away from him today at the Council meeting—but like I said, what Lindsay’s seen in visions pretty much confirms who’s got them.  I figure the smaller team that goes in the better—three men, I hope, and sneak them out from under Chinasia and the Compact’s noses without much trouble.”

“All right.  You’ve got my attention, Ezra.  Keep talking.”

Keep talking, huh?  “I was thinking you, Brendan Cho, and I would make up that three-man team.”

The air in the room thickened.  She stared at him, almost through him, for a long moment before she leaned back slightly.  “You’re serious.”

“Of course I’m serious.”

“You have,” she paused, as if fighting to put it delicately, “no military training.”

He blushed.  “I know how to use a gun.”

“That’s not exactly what I’m talking about Ezra.”  Alana rubbed her forehead with her flesh and blood hand.  “I think that you’ll need to rethink who you want to send.  Why me?  Why Commander Cho?”

She hasn’t said no outright, yet.  Is that a good sign?  “You’re from the Compact—and you look like you’re from the Compact, and unless I miss my guess, you still speak their language and know how to walk that walk and talk that talk.  You’re also probably the most deadly person I know.”  Is that how I should have phrased it?  Bah.  Too late now, I guess.  “I’d tap Brendan for the same reason—and moreover, there’s no one on this planet that speaks the Chinasia corporate language.  He’s the only one, and without that sort of knowledge, the kind of operation I’m thinking of would crash and burn in a heartbeat.  There’d be no hope of rescuing Channing and Farragut.  We’d have to do something drastic to make sure what they know doesn’t end up killing us all.”

“Only you could use the term ‘moreover’ in casual conversation and not flinch, Ezra.”  Alana stood up, stretched, started to pace.  Ezra felt ill at ease.

It’s like being in a cage with an agitated wild cat.

“They have a tactical language, too.”

He blinked.  “Who has a tactical language?”

“Chinasia Corp.  They have a tactical language, too.  You’re lucky Commander Cho is probably more than fluent in that as well.”  Alana smiled wryly at him, pausing in her pacing.  “When you’re going to come up with a plan, Ezra, make sure you’ve got all the intelligence you can possibly get to back it up before you pitch it to someone.  D’Arcy Morgause would be ripping you apart right now.  He has enough brain cells for that, at least.”

He almost laughed in relief.  “I knew there was a reason I was pitching this at you first.”

Alana shook her head, expression grim.  “I’d do anything to bring her parents home, Ezra.  But I’m not going to walk into a suicide mission.  The plan has holes, big ones, and you need to fill those with intelligence before we can move on this.  And you still have to convince me that you should be the third to come along.”  She rolled her shoulder, stretching a little.  “Where does your sister stand with all of this?”

“Kara knows I was going to try to come up with something, but I haven’t given her any details.  She’s setting me up with the recordings of the Council meetings for the past month.”  The transcripts would be more useful, but she said those would be missed more than the recordings.  Go figure.  Our love affair with things on paper, I guess.  His own collection of printed journals and handwritten notes spoke to his own love affair with things on paper.  It was something that had arisen at the beginnings of the Rose Foundation, he was convinced, something about getting back to humanity’s roots, and that included a movement away from digitization of knowledge back toward the printed word, the printed page.

Ezra leaned back in his chair.  “I think she realizes that anything that D’Arcy’s people come up with will be something that’s too little and too late.”

“What D’Arcy’s people will come up with is either a full scale invasion or assassination, plain and simple, if he deigns to put any thought to this at all.”  There was malice in Alana’s voice, mingled with annoyance.  She’d never cared for D’Arcy Morgause, but no one really seemed to know why.  Ezra was willing to bet that if anyone did, it was Rachel Farragut, but he’d never bothered to ask her.  What was the point of asking, anyway?

“Do you really think he’d send people in to kill them?”

“If he decided it was too risky or otherwise too dangerous to try to extract them, yes.  He would.  He’s actually the most likely to because he’s lazy.  But any of them would order their deaths if the lives of everyone here depended on it.”  Alana winced.  “Even Rachel and Lindsay would.  That’s the reality of the situation.  Thanks be to whatever powers might exist out there that we’ve been beneath everyone’s notice until recently.  I’m afraid time’s running out, now, and the Compact and Chinasia will be working on finding out exactly what Commander Channing and Ms. Farragut know.”

Which means the clock’s already started, and rescuing them is a priority—but not for long.  Ezra nodded slowly.  “I guess we’ve got some holes to plug, then.”

“We?”

“You did say you were in.”

Alana frowned, thinking for a moment, then sighed and shook her head.  “I guess I did.”  She moved to the door, locked it, then squared her shoulders as she turned back to him.  “We need to get to work.  When will Kara get those files to you?”

“Soon, I’d think.”  It’d better be soon.  Hopefully there’ll be more information available after tonight’s meeting—something to help with this plan.  Maybe I should talk to Lindsay about what she saw…  He discarded the idea quickly.  There had to be another way to get information about what she’d seen in her visions.  He looked at Alana.  “What about Lindsay’s visions?”

Her expression was impassive.  “I’ll tell you what I know.”

Chapter Six

The claim was made ad infinitas, to infinity, though no one thought that it was necessary to do that.  But Erich insisted on it when we staked the claim, and who would debate the great historian’s assertion?  So the Foundation staked its claim.  We thought we would only need it for a couple hundred years—we’d outlive New Earth, and the best estimates from our scientists said they had maybe that long left.  They were probably already looking for another series of systems, light-years away, like they had when Telluria died.  They’d leave us alone.  Besides, the Colonial Office had always done right by claimants, and we had the Guard to protect our claim if something should happen.

— Katina Mason-Grace, early settler of E-557, c. 5090 PD

 

8 Octem, 5249 PD

Miriam Jacobi had worked for theNewEarthCommonwealth’s Colonial Office for six years.  She liked her job.  It was perhaps one of the few places left in New Earth space where you could afford to be openly sympathetic—even agree with—the mission of the Rose Foundation on E-557.  She even worked with a few psychics, former members of the now all but dead Psychean Guard, who were protected under the laws of the Commonwealth.  Of course, they rarely left their homes except to come to work and then go home again.  For all the protection the Commonwealth offered, it was hardly enough, one had told her recently.  You can’t help what happens in the streets after dark, she’d said.  Miriam had supposed that was true.

She was sifting through some files that morning and had come across a request for a claim in the same system as E-557, to a handful of asteroids that were already claimed by the Rose Foundation and the colony on E-557 under the charter for the colony.  The new claim was close to getting approved, despite the conflict with the previous claim.  She frowned, flagging it, and called her supervisor.

Padraig Danson had worked for the New Earth Commonwealth’s Colonial Office for nearly ten years and in that time he’d always claimed he’d seen everything—twice.  It was the middle of the afternoon by the time he made it to Miriam’s desk to talk about the claim she’d flagged, looking harried and hassled, as usual.  The Colonial Office’s work was never done, apparently, and he was the picture of that motto.  Briefly, Miriam wondered if he’d slept in his shirt as she looked up over her shoulder at him as he leaned over her to get a look at the files on her screens.

“You flagged something that we needed to talk about?”  He rubbed at an eye and the dark circle beneath it.

Miriam nodded and pulled up the file.  “There’s a file thatAndersonis processing through for approval higher up that’s a conflicting claim.”

“Conflicting with who?  How far back?”  He seemed slightly more awake now—and slightly more interested.  Usually, flagging a file just meant that there had been some sort of error in the renderings of data, or the fair use of the claim.

“Rose Foundation claim on the Eridani Trelasia system, designated four four seven niner E.  Dated from 5090 PD ad infinitas.  They hold the claim into infinity, Padraig.  Why isn’t this other claim being laughed off the map?”

Padraig deadpanned, staring at the screen.  “When I joined the Colonial Office, it would have been.  There’s a problem with that, these days, though.”  He pressed his lips together, hard.  “There’s no teeth to back up the Foundation claim.  The Guard is gone.”

Miriam blinked, confused.  What does that have to do with anything?  A claim’s a claim.  “But the Foundation made the claim, Padraig.  What do you mean there’s nothing to back it up?  We have all the documentation that supports their claim.  It’s theirs.  Forever.  That’s what ad infinitas means.”

He shook his head slowly.  “Ad infinitas only means infinity when the claim can be defended militarily, Miriam—especially right now.  Politics…politics isn’t going to save the Foundation this time, and there’s no Psychean Guard left to be afraid of.  I don’t know how we can block the secondary claim.”

“What do you mean?  It’s their claim!”

“That doesn’t matter to the Compact,” Padraig said, looking grim.  “They couldn’t give a damn who’s got prior claim to those asteroids. They’ll take them if they want them, even if we deny their claim.”

“So you’re saying we’re not going to deny their claim?”

“I’m not saying that at all,” he said carefully.  “What I’m saying is that we have to be careful, and fully aware that no matter whether we deny their claim or not, they’re going to take it unless someone with teeth stops them.  And there’s no one with teeth left to stop them, unless they’re just going to seize those asteroids for themselves.”

“You mean like Chinasia or Taurena.”

“Taurena isn’t strong enough or stable enough for that,” Padraig said, staring at the screen still.  “The only people that would dispute the asteroid claim militarily is Chinasia.  The Commonwealth doesn’t have the manpower or the ships to do it.”

“And neither does E-557 is what you’re telling me.”

“Unless you know something I don’t, Mir, yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”  He straightened.  “I’ll erase the claim the Compact put in.  That should buy us some time if you and I pretend we never saw it.”

“Buy us some time?  To do what?”

He smiled grimly.  “Find a way to do what we’re supposed to do in the Colonial Office—keep a promise to protect a claim made a hundred and fifty years ago.”

●   ●   ●

            Later that night, someone knocked on her door.  Miriam frowned, looking up from the book she was reading, setting her table aside and standing.  It was after nine—who could be at her door?  She hit the button to activate the small vidscreen next to the door, brow furrowing more as she saw who was on the other side.  She opened the door.  “Amie?  What are you doing here?”

The other woman, still in her work clothes, glanced furtively over her shoulder, back toward the street.  “I’ll tell you in a minute.  Can I come in, Mir?”

“Of course!”  Miriam stepped clear of the doorway, letting her colleague in and closing the door behind her.  “Do you want something hot to drink?”

Amie Kaspersy nodded, shrugging slowly out of her coat.  “Please.  It’s cold out there.”

Miriam nodded and headed to the kitchen.  Amie followed, perched on a stool by the island while Miriam got down an array of options.  “So what’s going on?  Did you work late?”

“I did,” she admitted, “But not that late.”  She bit her lip.  “Someone vandalized my house, Mir.”

“What?”

Amie’s hands twisted and she shook her head.  “Someone vandalized my house.  Maybe even broke in.”

“You didn’t call security services?”

“Not when I knew someone was watching me, no.”  Amie swallowed hard.  “Someone started following me about half a block out of work.  I lost him on the way here.  I didn’t know where else to go to feel safe.”

“We have to call security services for your house, Amie.”

“I know, I know,” she said quietly.  “But I couldn’t stay there and do it!  Whoever was following me…”

Miriam’s stomach twisted as Amie’s voice trailed away.  “They wanted to hurt you?  You sensed it?”

“His surface thoughts were really bad,” Amie whispered.  “Especially when I got close to my house.”  Tears sparkled in her dark eyes and she bit her lip.  “It took everything I had not to run all the way here.”

“Oh, Amie.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head.  “I can deal with the hate.  Really, I can.  It’s everything else that’s starting to scare me.  What if he’d been better at guarding his thoughts, Mir?  What if I hadn’t sensed him?”  Her face went pale.  “What if he’d been inside my house instead of following me?”

Miriam came around the center and wrapped her arms around Amie.  “Don’t think about that, Amie.  You’re safe.”

“But for how long?”  Amie whispered, hugging Miriam back.  “Time was working for the Commonwealth kept you safe.  Now even that’s changing.  I can’t afford to pick up and leave—and even if I could, where could I go?  Mimir’s dead and I’m not religious.  There’s just no place to go but here.  At least the laws here try to protect us.”

There’s always other options.  Ones we don’t think about.  Miriam frowned.  “What about E-557?”

“The Foundation’s pipe dream?”  Amie laughed a bitter laugh.  “I’m not sure I could sew my own clothes and make my own cheese, Mir.”

Miriam blushed, holding her friend at arms’ length.  “I’m sure it’s not quite like that.  I mean they say that’s where the Psychean Guard went, after Mimir.  They wouldn’t have headed there if it wasn’t a good place to be.”

Amie shook her head.  “I don’t think that I could do it.”

“If it’s either that or staying here?”

“It could get better.”

“And if it doesn’t, Amie?  If it gets worse?”

She sighed.  “Then I’ll have a decision to make.  And it won’t be an easy one.”

Miriam sighed, shaking her head a little.  “All right.  I’ll make the drinks and then we’ll call security services, okay?  You’ll stay here tonight and we’ll call Padraig in the morning and he’ll take us to work.  Okay?”

Amie hesitated.  “Mir…this could put you in a lot of danger, if whoever did that to my place is really out to get psychics.  There’ve been rumors.”

“I’ve heard them, Amie.  I don’t care.  You’re my friend and you’re not any different from anyone else except for the fact that you can occasionally read minds.”  It’d take a lot of balls to attack a house that belonged to a non-psychic to get to a psychic.  They may think they can get away with vandalizing her place—and they might, if they can find a sympathetic ear—but they wouldn’t get away with doing the same here.  Not yet.  The yet worried her, though.  Was that what things were coming to?  Padraig’s comment about no more teeth for protection drifted back to her.  She tried not to sigh.

“You’re a good friend, Mir,” Amie said quietly and squeezed her hand.  “Thanks.”

Miriam shook her head.  “You’re never going to have to thank me for giving you a place to crash, Amie.  This shouldn’t have happened.  Twenty years ago, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“A lot’s changed in twenty years,” Amie said quietly, watching as Miriam started to make some tea.  She wet her lips before she spoke again.  “Chinasia put in another conflicting claim.”
“Another?”

Amie sighed, nodding.  “They’ve been doing that a lot lately.  Testing the limits of the claim system.  They tried to claim the Whispers.”

“The Whispers?  Really?”  Miriam frowned, getting down a pair of mugs.  Why would they try to do that?  It’s not much more than a rallying point for the Wanderers.  A trading post.  A tourist attraction for folks interested in celestial phenomenon.  “That doesn’t make any sense.  There’s nothing there.”

“I know.  We rejected the claim.  The Wanders still hold the claim for the next century and a half.”  Amie rubbed her face, shaking her head.  “But they’re testing their limits anyway.  I don’t know why.  Maybe they’re running out of space again.”

“Or resources.  Or both.”  Miriam sighed.  “Everyone is.  There’s three more cylinders almost ready to go operational.”

Amie shook her head.  “It’s not so bad here, but I hear it’s getting really bad in some places, and in some of the conglom-held areas you can’t even go near the water anymore.”

“History repeats itself,” Miriam murmured, shaking her head as she poured the tea.

“What do you mean?”

Miriam shook her head.  “I’ve just been reading a lot lately.  My father’s history collections, mostly.  Some of the new social commentary pieces here and there, but they’re not really saying anything that hasn’t been said and ignored before.”  She slid one of the mugs across the island to Amie.  “New Earth is going to die sooner rather than later, y’know?  The congloms mostly moving off world hasn’t stopped that.  The regulations the Commonwealth enacted forty years ago are helping, but they’re not going to stop the inevitable.”

“The hunt’s already on for another homeworld, isn’t it?”

Miriam shrugged.  “I wouldn’t know.  Don’t pay attention to stuff like that.  I figure by the time humanity moves, I’ll be dead.  I don’t have any kids.  I don’t have anyone that’s going to have to move…”  She shrugged again, almost helplessly.  “It’s not a good situation for the planet, but I won’t live to reap the consequences.”

“Seems like people have been taking that sort of view for generations.”

“They have been,” Miriam murmured, then sighed.  “I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Rose Foundation was onto something when they started talking about ecological sustainability.  I know here we think about it as sewing our own clothes and making our own cheese but I think there’s got to be more to it than that.  Have you heard of Tavelian and Ives?”

“They make soap, right?”

“Soap and personal care items, yeah.  But they’re based out of a facility at E-557 and they’re huge.  Now you tell me that they’re making all of that by hand as a small-scale operation.”

Amie frowned.  “It could be.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it.”  Miriam took a long swallow from her mug.  “I’ve been reading Erich Quizibian.  A lot.”

“He was Foundation hardcore.”

“I know.  But he was also one of the most respected historians and social scientists of his age.  And he didn’t start out as Foundation, either.”

“Psychean Guard?”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?”  Miriam grinned.  “He was Guard-educated.  His parents were mid-level management at Casearras.”

“Really?  And they had him Guard-educated?  Casearras allowed that?”

“According toWindsor’s biography of him, it seems they almost encouraged it.  He just wasn’t cut out for corp life, so they sent him on scholarship to Andrewsbury on Mimir.  His senior thesis was on kinship in the Casearras Conglomerate.”

“I never knew that.”

“Neither did I until I read the book.”  Miriam smiled wryly.  “Amazing what you learn from reading books, right?”  She set down her mug.  “Enough, though.  We need to call security services for your house.”

“I can do it,” Amie said.  “Where’s your comm?”

Miriam pointed to the closest unit, the one there in the kitchen, then took her mug of tea back to her couch to give Amie a little privacy to talk with security services.  She picked up her reader again, to get a little more reading in while she waited.  Amie eventually joined her, cradling her mug in both hands.

“They’re sending a patrol to check it out.  Said they’d secure the place and I could call them tomorrow for an update.  I’ll call them from work tomorrow.”

Miriam nodded.  “Until you feel safe, you’ll stay here with me.”

Amie frowned a little, starting to shake her head.  “I can get a hotel room, Mir.”

“Why?  I have a perfectly good spare bedroom.  You’ll stay here.”

She smiled.  “You’re a good friend, Mir.”

Miriam laughed.  “I try.  Sometimes I succeed.”

Twenty minutes later, they heard a boom and a rattle, saw a flash of light to the north.  Miriam frowned, starting to get up to walk to the window.

“What was that?  Sounded like a transformer blew.”

Amie’s face was sheet white when Miriam turned to looked back.  “I think it was my house.”

Miriam’s arms went around her friend as she began to weep.

Chapter Five

Somewhere in a time long-forgotten, now, psychics began a practice known colloquially as Bonding.  It is a marriage, but it is also more than that.  It is a binding together of two minds and two souls.  It is for some the fusion of a soul with its better half.  The practice, however, is never undertaken lightly.  That is because Bonding, for better or worse, is for life.

— Robert Channing, Customs of the Psychean Guard c. 5072 PD

 

7 Octem, 5249 PD

“I gave one of your subordinates a direct order a couple days ago.  I hope you don’t mind.”

Her voice still made his skin prickle, even after all these years.  It still caused a physical reaction, even though it had been easily ten years since they’d been together—ten years and more.  Adam Windsor swallowed quietly, trying not to betray what he was feeling as he slowly turned away from the holographic topographical maps he was studying to look at Rachel Farragut.  For a moment, he wondered who’d let her in here, then remembered that she could get anywhere she set her mind to getting to.  For a heartbeat, he considered giving orders to the people who watched the front to not let her back here again without telling him.  Another look at her dispelled all notion of that.

“That depends, Rachel,” he said carefully.  His eyes drank in the sight of her.  Had she worn those tight pants because she somehow knew how much he still wanted her?  God, she’s still beautiful.  Age had only heightened the attributes she’d been born with, the ones that had drawn him to her like a moth to a flame.  “What order did you give and who did you give it to?”

“I told Brendan to start teaching his cadets like the war Lindsay saw starts tomorrow.”

So she did see a war in our future.  It must be imminent, then.  He licked his lips.  “Is that what she saw?”

Rachel inclined her head, a dark curl brushing her cheek.  His hand ached to brush that curl back behind her ear.  “That’s what she told me she saw, anyway.”  She moved to his desk and perched on the corner.  “Brendan was worried you’d tell him to go easier on the kids.”

“If there’s a war coming, I’d rather he run them ragged and get them the training they need to survive the war.”  He rubbed his jaw, then exhaled, shaking his head.  “How bad, Rachel?”

She shrugged.  “I didn’t want to push her for too much detail.  You saw her after the swarm.  Would you have pushed her?”

He held his tongue, only because he knew that Rachel wouldn’t have liked the answer he gave.  He would have pushed her niece—their niece—for more information.  Maybe it’s better that she and I never…  He suppressed a sigh, convincing himself yet one more time that it was better that he and Rachel hadn’t stayed together the way they’d planned all those years ago.

She sighed and looked away from him, at the maps.  Adam swallowed, knowing that she’d read him like a book again, with a look rather than ability.  She’d always been able to.  It was foolish to try to stop her, to try to trick her.

“I’m sorry,” he tried quietly.  “But you know what I’m about, Rachel.”

“Yes,” she said quietly, forestalling further explanation.  “I know what you’re about, Adam.”  She looked up at him, eyes hard, expression cold.  “She’s my niece, Adam.”

“I know,” he said hoarsely, wondering why he felt choked up all of a sudden.  Could it be that her disapproval still cut him to the bone?  “And you love her.  I love that girl, too, Rachel.  But she…we…”  He broke off, thoughts in a tangle, shame only growing.  Hellfire and damnation, she’s mine, too.  “I’m sorry.”  It was all he could think to say.

“You should be.”  Her eyes were still on the maps, but he knew the look in them without a glance.  She was ice again, ice hiding the fire.

By god, did he want her.  “Commander Cho has my blessing in busting tail,” he said finally, coming up with no better option, no other way to try to melt the ice, to break down the wall that had suddenly sprung up between them—again, for perhaps the hundred thousandth time.  “You’re right.  It’s necessary to get those kids trained up for whatever may or may not happen.”

Her voice was deceptively quiet.  “It’s going to happen, Adam.”

“I know.”  It’s a matter of when, and how.  And who’s going to hit us.  He exhaled, moving slowly toward her.  “Rachel, I…”

She finally looked at him.  The ice was gone, but so was the fire.  She looked tired.  Lost.  “I’m sorry, too, Adam,” she said softly.  She took his hand.  He squeezed it, feeling lightheaded for a moment.  “Neither of our lives are easy.”

He shook his head.  “I think they’re both about to get harder.”

She just nodded, closing her eyes.  “I think you’re right.”

He wanted to hold her, wanted it so badly he could taste it.  He could still taste the tears on her face when she’d curled against his chest ten years ago, telling him it wouldn’t work, that they couldn’t keep living the way they were living.  He could feel her nervousness and his that first time they’d been together, the night before Mimir fell, in her apartment in the capital.  He loved her still, the same way he loved her then.

“She’s a grown woman, now, Rachel,” he whispered, one hand drifting toward her arm.  “We don’t have to…to worry about what anyone’s going to think.  What she’s going to think.”

“It was never just about Lindsay, Adam.”

“I know that.”  It had been about a lot of things, including having a family together, about his work, about her stubborn refusal to give up on impossible revenge on whichever conglom had attacked Mimir first.  They still didn’t know.  He was convinced that not even the conglom responsible knew anymore, given the chaos of the wars that hadn’t ended until only a short while ago.

“This is a terrible time to think about it.”

“Eaglet, when is there going to be another time?”  He squeezed her arm.  She didn’t pull away, just looked down toward the floor.”

“You haven’t called me that in eleven years.”  Her voice was quiet, almost broken.

It was true.  He’d almost forgotten.  He tucked fingers under her chin, tilting her face up so he could take a long look into her eyes.  “I don’t want to suddenly turn around and figure out that it’s too late to be with you, Rachel.  We’ve been apart for so long, people don’t remember us ever being together.”

She flinched.  “That was by design, Adam.  If they didn’t know we’d ever been together, no one would ever accuse you of any impropriety.  It was for your career.”  She bit her lip.  “You couldn’t give it up and I…I know I shouldn’t have asked for that.  But I did.  And you said no.  You were right to say no, as right as I was wrong to ask.”

He felt a pang of regret.  Part of him would’ve given it up for her, if not for the fact that he was terrified that he would have walked away from his calling only to lose her anyway.  “You wouldn’t give up revenge.”

A weak, wry smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.  “I wouldn’t have, either, if Aidan hadn’t managed to convince me we’d never figure out who did it.”

I don’t know that Aidan will ever realize how big a favor he did me when he managed that.  Adam tucked a curl out of her face, behind her ear.  She blushed a little, smiling.

“You always used to do that.”

He smiled weakly.  “I knew you meant it when you said we couldn’t keep going the way we were because you cut your hair.”  She’d gone military short with that cut—no more curls.  It had signaled their end as a couple.  He’d been sick at heart for days.  They’d fought about it.  He’d left, gone to set up a base across Oceana, Fort Solace.  He’d moved into the barracks when he came back, four weeks later, and left Rachel alone with Lindsay.  He still regretted it.

He was afraid he’d always regret it.

“It was the only thing I could do.  If I hadn’t, I’d have kept feeling…”  She broke off, looking away again.

His heart wrenched, twisting into a knot.  “Rachel…”  His hand fell away from her face.  She was crying.  He knew she was crying, even though there was no sound, no change in her posture, nothing.  But still he knew.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He gathered her into his arms, holding her against his chest.  Brick by brick, the wall that had separated them for the past decade and more began to come apart, to crumble.  He could feel her again.

“I missed you,” was all that she said.

He laughed as his own tears gathered in his eyes.  “I missed you, too, Eaglet.  I missed you, too.”

●   ●   ●

            Somehow, they ended up tangled together on the floor behind his desk, as furtive and giggling as they’d been almost thirty years before, when he’d been a young officer on Mimir and she a wild-eyed diplomat’s daughter, a teenager cut loose and out for a good time.  He’d loved her then and still loved her now—more than anything.

She grinned at him a little.  “What are you thinking?”  She whispered.  She was half on top of him, one leg draped over one of his, her knee against the soft part of his thigh.

He grinned, almost boyishly.  “That I was a fool to let you walk away.  This takes me back a few dozen years.”

“Me too.”  She smiled, nuzzling his cheek.  “Except we’ll scare the living crap out of anyone who comes looking for you.  It’ll be terrible for your image.”

Adam laughed, realizing he didn’t care.  “Let the tongues wag!  Who cares what anyone else thinks now?  We’re adults.  You’re a big girl.  I’m a big boy.  We’re both capable of making rational decisions on our own.”

“And we’ve been Bonded for almost thirty years.”

Even if for the past ten no one would’ve suspected it.  He smiled wryly, brushing stray curls out of her face again.  “There’s that.”  He stretched, one hand resting against the small of her back.  “Besides, I’d be more worried about your career, were I you.”

She arched a brow.  He smiled wryly.

“The Speaker is looking to retire from public life soon, Rachel.  Go back to his farm and enjoy his grandkids for the rest of his life.  Word around the Council is that he’s eyeing you to replace him.”

Rachel laughed at that.  “You can’t be serious, Adam.”

He blinked.  “Why not?  That’s what’s been said.  Almost everyone’s said it.”  He frowned.  “Except for D’Arcy, but I’m not sure he really likes you that much.”

“He doesn’t, but the feeling is mutual.”  She rested her head on his shoulder.  “I can’t be Speaker, Adam.  I’d muck too much up.  It’s the same reason why I refused to play ambassador to NeCom.”

“The New Earth Commonwealth is a joke, Rachel.  It has no teeth to keep the peace.  It’s not going to last.”  They had, for a time, wished and hoped it would.  A futile hope, a wasted wish.

“They said four hundred years ago that the Foundation was a joke, that it couldn’t possibly succeed.  Look at us now.”

Adam grimaced.  “Yeah.  Relying on NeCom’s Colonial Office to make sure no one tries to claim anything in this system.”

She smiled wryly.  “Well, that’s why we’ve got our military, right?”

“Such as it is.”  He stretched, then sighed.  “If anyone shows up in major force, we could be in deep trouble, Rachel.”

“I know,” she sighed.  “But what can we do about it, Adam?  You and the other Guardians have never…don’t look at me like that!  You’ve never made noises about needing more than what we have.”

He sighed, thumping his head slightly against the floor.  “We’d always talked about it in private, behind closed doors.  The Council…most of them are pacifists, Rachel.  They put up with us because we keep their precious dreams safe and keep the world ‘pure.’  There’s a bare handful that would agree to what we’d ask for if we could.  So why create the ruckus?  We haven’t really needed much more than what we have, no, not until someone, someday shows up in-system with a couple of frigates and a carrier, maybe a few troop transports.  The day that happens is the day we’re in some very, very serious trouble.  It’ll be too late.”

“So what do we do?”

He frowned.  “I don’t know,” he said finally.  “But we’ll figure it out.  We always do.”  Aidan and I will have to talk.  We’ll come up with something.

She was quiet for a long moment.  “We should get off the floor, Adam.”

He laughed.  “Suddenly uncomfortable?”

“I think my hip fell asleep.”

“I wasn’t aware hips could do that.”

She punched him, gently, then grinned as she started to untangle herself.  He chuckled and started to get up off the floor, offering her a hand up after getting to his feet.

“One big difference between then and now,” he said, pulling her up to her feet.

“What’s that?”  She leaned into his chest for a moment, smiling wryly.  He grinned back.

“My joints creak now when I stand up.”

She laughed and poked him in the belly.  “They do not, you big ox.  Now where’s my shirt?”

“Probably under the desk with my shoes.  Want me to help you get it?”  He leered at her a little.  She swatted him again.

“Awful,” she murmured, crouching to retrieve her shirt.  “You have work to do, Adam.  Do you want me to call Aidan, or are you going to do that?”

“I’ll call Aidan and Daciana myself.”  Daci won’t be happy to get the call, but it’s high time she pry herself away from her secret projects to come up here and have a good, long chat with Aidan and I.  Hopefully she’s come up with something down there at Urgathe that’ll help us fend off an attack—or twelve.

“Oh, so she’s still alive?”

Adam winced and nodded.  “No one actually thought she was dead, did they?”

Rachel shrugged.  “I’m sure more than one or two did, to be honest.  There was some question about her sanity, too, when Frederick died.”

He held his tongue and kept a tight rein on his thoughts.  That was the larger secret, in fact, and he was shocked that it had been kept for this long.  Frederick Rose wasn’t dead.  He was hiding at Urgathe and letting his supposed non-existence shield him from the hunters he most assuredly would have brought to E-557 from New Earth space had his survival even been rumored.  If there was anything that was a bigger , more closely guarded secret than Lindsay’s status as the Oracle, it wasFrederick’s survival of the several attempts on his life that supposedly killed him—and very nearly succeeded in doing so.

“You’ve got that look, Adam.”

He tried not to look sheepish.  “I have it for a good reason, Rachel.”

“It’s need-to-know and I don’t need to know?  I would’ve thought we’d outgrown that.”

“I wish we had,” he sighed, sliding his arms around her waist and kissing her jaw, then her cheek, then her eyes.  “You said you had work to do.”

“I do,” she admitted, looking up at him as she straightened her shirt.  “More than I’d like to think about.”  She kissed him gently, then stepped back from him.  “When do you want to move back in?”

His brows went up.  “What?  That fast?”

She shrugged.  “No reason for you not to, Adam, and I’m tired of living alone.  And it’s bloody hard cooking for one.”

He smiled at her.  “I’ll bring the first load over tonight.  Do you want me to bring dinner, too?”

“That depends.  Are you cooking, or is someone else cooking?”

“I’ll cook.”

She grinned.  “Then you’re bringing dinner.”

He grinned back.  “Good.”  He kissed her again.  “Go on, get out of here.  We’ve both got work to do.”  He watched her go, unable to wipe the smile off his face, even as he turned back to his desk to start figuring out how he was going to pry Daciana Rose away from her projects and her husband.

Chapter Four

The Compact started out as something that seemed like a good idea.  It didn’t take long for the solidarity to turn into something alien, something monstrous.  No one within the Eurydice Compact will admit to that, though.  Everyone who managed to escape, however, tells a different, perhaps more true story.

— Erich Quizibian, Foundations of the Congloms of New Earth, c. 5070 PD

 

6 Octem, 5249 PD

 

Alana sat with her chin propped up on her hand, watching Rachel make eggs.  Why’d I let her talk me into leaving them last night?  She tried not to sigh.  She tapped the fingers of her metal-sheathed right hand against the tabletop, more out of habit than real irritation.

Rachel glared at her over her shoulder, spatula poised over the eggs sizzling away in the pan.  “Stop that, Alana.  Do you have any idea how annoying that sound is?”

Alana smiled sweetly.  “That’s why I do it, Rachel.”

The older woman shook the spatula at her.  “You can be miffed with me for dragging you down here all you want, Alana.  There’s no way, however, that you’re going to convince me that I did the wrong thing.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Of course not, Rachel.  Once you’ve made up your mind, there’s no changing it.  Ever.”  That’s how Brendan and Lindsay ended up Bonded.  There was no way I could convince you that it shouldn’t happen once you decided that it should.  Alana suppressed a sigh, fingers stilling against the table.  She stared at her hand for a long moment.

It had been a sore point between her and a lot of people the past few years, since she retired from working with the defense forces.  If she was retired, why not take the final step away from what the Compact had done to her as a child and have the cybernetics removed and her arm rebuilt?

She stared at her hand for another long moment, the hand that had killed more men and women than she could count.  Should I do it?  Finally get it done?  Dr. Grace had been after her for months to have her right arm decybered, the latest in the long line.  It was more than certainly time.  The servos up near her shoulder seized up when the weather got cold, and she didn’t carry neurotoxins anymore to fuel the injectors.  It would be strange, though.  Her hand hadn’t been fully flesh and blood since she was fifteen years old.  Twenty-three years was a long time to live with cybernetics coating a primary limb.

Rachel noticed her look.  “Have you made the appointment with Ezra, yet, or am I going to have to do that for you, too?”

Alana glared at her, blue eyes narrowed at the slender, dark-haired woman.  “If you do, I’ll find some neurotoxin to load and you’ll be the last victim of this hand, Rachel.”  She slumped back in the chair, not really angry despite her words and the glare.  “I’ll make the appointment when I have the time to have it done.  He said my recovery time could be as long as three weeks.”

“That depends on how atrophied the synapses are.  If they’re in good shape, it won’t be nearly as long.”  Rachel turned back to the eggs.  Alana sighed.

“Twenty-three years says my synapses are probably fried, which means he has to rebuild them, which means three weeks.  I can’t afford to leave the Oracle unguarded for that long.”

Rachel got down some plates.  “Lindsay’s a big girl, Alana.  She can take care of herself.”

“What happened yesterday would suggest otherwise.”

Rachel took the eggs off the burner and scraped some onto one plate, then the rest onto the other.  She brought both plates to the table, setting one down in front of Alana.  “You couldn’t have stopped what happened to her yesterday, Alana.  That was beyond anyone’s control.”

“Commander Cho seemed to have matters fairly well in hand.”

Rachel ignored the baleful look Alana was giving her, shoveling a mouthful of eggs in before carefully phrasing a response.  “Brendan and Lindsay are Bonded, Alana.  They have a connection that goes in both directions.  Of course he was able to anchor her and draw her out of the fugue.”

“Are you certain he didn’t plunge her into it?”  Alana savagely stabbed at her eggs, glaring at her plate.  The vitriol toward Brendan was irrational and she knew it, but it was hard to shake, even after eleven years.

“That’s cruel, Alana.  I’m not even sure how you could begin to suggest something like that.”

Alana drummed her metal fingers against the table again.  Rachel looked like she was about to stab her with her fork.  She stopped with a sigh.  “I swore I’d protect her, Rachel.  From anything and everything.  Especially when I retired.”

“Maybe you should unretire.”

Alana just stared at her.  “Unretire?  What’s that supposed to mean?”  She leaned closer, brow furrowing, eyes narrowing.  “What did she see, Rachel?  Did she tell you?”

“There’s a war coming, Alana.  Recruits could use your expertise in making things dead.”

Alana shook her head firmly.  “I’m retired.  I’m too old for the soldiering crap.”

“And yet you still haven’t gotten fully decybered.”

Shut up, Rachel.  She bit her tongue and shoveled in some more eggs, chewing and swallowing before even daring to respond.  “Someone has to keep an eye on your niece.”

“Like I said, Alana, Lindsay is more than capable of taking care of herself.”

Alana tried not to sigh.  “I don’t want to go back to that, Rachel.”  It wasn’t entirely a lie.  While part of her liked being deadly, the ability to kill so easily, the rest of her was afraid of that part of herself.  The only thing that let her sleep at night was the knowledge that she’d turned what the Eurydice Compact had done to her toward good use when she’d come to E-557 and found Rachel and Lindsay here.  Protecting the girl was her life’s work, and her greatest work.  She owed her benefactor that much, at the very least—perhaps more.

“If the survival of everyone here depended on it, Alana?”

The former soldier looked down at her half-eaten plate.  “I’d do what I had to do.”

●   ●   ●

            Brendan filled both mugs with the herbal brew that had been marked “tea” in Lindsay’s handwriting, assuming that it was the latest attempt at coming up with something like what Madeline Potter mixed up on the east side of Nova Spexi.  It smelled good, in any case.  He just hoped it would taste as good as it smelled.

He had a patrol in a few hours and had been considering seeing if someone else could cover it, mostly so he could stay home with Lindsay.  He was fairly certain she wasn’t going to let him get away with that, though.  She usually didn’t.  She’d been convinced for a long time that his work with the air corps was more important than anything she did at home, or anything she needed him for at home.

Of course, with any luck, Ezra Grace would convince her to take a sedative and sleep through most of the day.  Whether Brendan stayed or went, at least he wouldn’t be fighting with her about the decision.

Brendan settled down with his mug at the kitchen table, glancing back through the wood-and-glass back door at the herb garden outside.  He’d have to take a couple days off to help her pot some of them, soon, so they could bring them inside through the winter.  They’d done it the past few years and it had worked well—they’d had enough to cook with and then had enough to replant after the thaw.  Those days off would be a welcome break, quiet time together when they wouldn’t have to talk about her visions or about anything at all.  They’d just work, side-by-side, and be together in an ordinary way that felt painfully rare these days.

He took a sip of the brew and blinked at it, staring at the mug.  It was very good, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed.  He smiled, glancing toward the bedroom.  Good call, Lin.  This one’s a keeper.  He’d have to tell her later, when she woke up.

Ezra slipped into the kitchen not a minute later, setting his kit down next to the doorframe.  Dark-haired, he was taller than either Brendan or Lindsay with pale skin and light eyes.  He shared his older sister’s statuesque nature, with a chiseled jaw and aquiline nose, though the severity of his features was often softened by a faint smile.

“I gave her a sedative,” he said quietly, sitting down at the table with Brendan.  He pointed to the extra mug.  “That for me?”

Brendan nodded.  “She going to be okay?”

Ezra frowned for a moment, then nodded.  “I think so.  It’s not really my area of expertise, Brendan.  Elbridge didn’t recommend anyone?”

Brendan shook his head.  “If he did, I never knew about it.  I really don’t think he expected to die so quickly.”  Elbridge Baxter had been ancient—at least ninety, probably a decade or more older still—but he’d been Lindsay’s doctor for years, and had been a leading expert on psychic medicine.  He’d died the month before, somewhat unexpectedly, though he’d been sick on and off for the past year.  “I’ll have to do some homework.  See if there’s anyone whose research is on par with his.”

Ezra nodded, taking another gulp of tea.  “I don’t think there’s going to be any ill effects beyond the occasional nightmare.  Have you been sleeping okay?”

Brendan shrugged.  “When she’s been sleeping, I’ve been sleeping.  I usually wake up when she does.”  He rubbed his eyes.  “It’s been a long summer, Ezra.”

“I wish I could say it was going to get better.”

He swallowed hard.  “I know.  If what she’s seen is right, it’s only going to get worse.”  He squeezed his eyes shut, leaning back in his chair.  “I just wish there was more I could do.”

“We all wish that for the people we love, Brendan.  Sometimes there’s just not anything else we can do for them.”  Ezra leaned back in his chair.  “Kara told me something interesting at dinner last night.”

Brendan made a face.  “You had dinner with her and Gabe last night?”

“You sound surprised by this, Brendan.  She’s my sister.”

“I know, I know.”  He leaned back in his chair, scrubbing his hands over his eyes.  “I just…I don’t know.  I guess I didn’t think that she’d talk about what went down at the meeting, I guess.  I’m assuming that’s what you’re talking about.”  The look on Ezra’s face confirmed it.  “What’d she tell you?”

He swirled tea around in his mug.  “Said they called the Council meeting early because of Lindsay’s visions, for one.  They only kept talking for about fifteen minutes after you and Alana took her out of there.  She was pretty sure Alana was going to snap someone’s neck.  Kara laid odds on D’Arcy being a likely target, but she wasn’t going to take chances, either.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”  Brendan stared down into his mug.

“Neither would I,” Ezra admitted.  “Every time she whines about getting old, I should start reminding her that she could still snap someone’s neck with a couple of fingers.”

Brendan shuddered.  “Do me a favor and don’t.  She’ll start trying to find ways to snap my neck and make it look like an accident.”

Ezra rolled his eyes.   “She cannot possibly hate you that much, Brendan.”

“You’d be surprised, Ez.”  Brendan leaned against the table.  “So when’s she getting her arm fixed?”

He groaned.  “It’s looking like as soon as I strap her down to a table and sedate her.  I keep telling her it’s no big deal, I’ve done it a thousand times—well, maybe not a thousand, but enough times—nothing’s going to go wrong.  She’ll be able to actually feel things with that hand again.”

“Like what?  The blood of her enemies as she rips their hearts out of their chests?”

“Good god, Brendan.  You’re morbid today.”

Brendan sighed, massaging a temple.  “If you’d seen what I saw last night…”

“She showed you?”

Brendan winced.  “She didn’t have a choice.  I touched her and got flooded.”

His friend’s brows went up.  “You what?”

He swallowed, feeling suddenly uncomfortable, as if this was something he maybe shouldn’t have told him—and Ezra was his closest friend.  “I grabbed her.  I wasn’t thinking.  I just grabbed her.  I had to snap her out of it, out of the fugue.  I had to snap her out of it.  So I jumped the wall and grabbed her.  When I touched her, I started seeing what she was seeing.”  He swallowed again, trying to force down bile.  “I don’t know how she handles it sometimes, Ez.  I just…I don’t.  I couldn’t do it.”

Ezra shook his head, frowning.  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything quite like that, but a Seer and psychic of her magnitude…”  His voice trailed away as he tapped a fingertip against the side of his mug.  “Is it true that they think her parents are still alive out there somewhere?”

“They’ve got intelligence that says they’re alive out there somewhere.”  Brendan rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand.  “It’s her visions that’re telling us exactly where, but intelligence can’t confirm what she’s seen yet.”  Supposedly.  He sighed.  “We thought it was just a dream, when she saw what she saw about them.  A nightmare.”

“A nightmare?  I’d have thought seeing her parents would make it a good dream.”

Brendan licked his lips.  “Not when you’re seeing your parents being tortured.”

Ezra winced.  “Is that what she saw?”

“That’s what she told me she saw, anyway.”  He sighed, taking a long swallow of his tea.  “She didn’t want to describe too many details.  I made her describe one of the rooms to me, though.  Well, she asked me if it sounded familiar.  And it did.  I swear, I was in the room she described to me.”

“Before you came here.”

Right before I cam here, Ez.  Right before I came here.”  Brendan rubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands.  “Except for the slab she described, it was exactly the same.  We thought she’d gleaned it from my mind or something and created the nightmare out of that.”

“Man.”  Ezra drew the word out, shaking his head slowly.  “Kara said something about her parents being alive.  She also said that Rachel was about to tear D’Arcy a few new holes.”  He frowned.  “Not that I’d blame her for doing it.  He needs to be taken down a few pegs.  He asked me once if I’d studied any of the technology I’ve taken out of refugees.  I wanted to know why he was asking and he had the nerve to tell me it was none of my business.  Because it doesn’t matter that I’m their doctor and it could possibly be unethical for me to tell him anything that could be used to do violence against anyone with implants or cyberware, since I’m pretty damn sure that’s where he wanted to go with it.”

Brendan winced, bracing for the tirade.  Ezra was perhaps the most brilliant man he’d ever known—which probably didn’t say much, since Brendan didn’t get out that often.  They’d met when Ezra was a very young doctor and Brendan was still recovering from having his implant removed after his somewhat inauspicious arrival on E-557.  The doctor had a tendency to go on rants about ethics and what he should do with the research he did.  Brendan didn’t care either way.  The advances his friend had made in his research on various forms of cyberware had helped more than a few people, and that was important above everything else.

Ezra watched his face and shook his head.  “You don’t want to listen to me go off again, do you?”

“Not really.  Is it one I haven’t heard yet?”

“I think you’ve heard them all.”

“Then definitely not.”  Brendan smiled.  “No offense.”

He smiled wryly.  “None taken.  I know I probably do it too much.”

“Maybe go overboard a little.”  Brendan leaned back in his chair.  “What’re you doing this afternoon?”

“My schedule’s clear.  Why?  You want me to stay?”

Brendan winced.  “Am I transparent or something?”

He shrugged.  “You mentioned that you had a patrol, and I’m sure Rachel’s busy.  She’s always busy these days.”

Doing what?  God only knows.  Brendan shook his head, smiling sheepishly.  “I’d just feel better if someone was here with Lindsay, y’know?”

“What about Alana?”

Brendan shook his head.  “Don’t ask.”

Ezra shrugged again.  “Sure, I can stay.  We’ll play cards or something and swap stories about stupid things you do.”

“I’m not leaving you here so you can conspire against me with my wife.”

He laughed.  “Oh, I know you’re not, Brendan.  It’s not like it’s going to amount to anything, anyway.  She’ll probably sleep most of the day and I’ll read one of your books and that’ll be that.”

“Which one?  Quizibian’s Foundations of the Congloms of New Earth is a particular favorite of mine.”  Lindsay slumped into the chair between them unexpectedly, rubbing her eyes and looking like several miles of rough roadway.  “What are we talking about?”  She reached over and stole Brendan’s mug.  She was in her pajamas, a tank top and knit pants that tied with a drawstring at her waist, and hunched over the cup as she took a long swallow.  Brendan blinked.

Then he looked at Ezra.  “I thought you said you gave her a sedative.”

“I did.”

“It wore off.”  Lindsay rubbed her eyes and scooted her chair closer to Brendan’s.  She looked at him, still a little bleary-eyed.  “So you’re going on patrol today after all?”

He winced.  Was hoping I wouldn’t?  “I can find someone to cover it if you want me to stay home, Lin.”

She shook her head.  “No, it’s okay.  It’s your job.  Someone’s got to do it.  Go out there and make sure that no one shows up down here to hurt anyone.”  Her smile was watery, though, and it put to lie the sentiment of her words.

“This is my job, too.”  His fingers brushed along the curve of her jaw.  “Do you need me to stay home?”  He emphasized ‘need.’  It was an out, and she’d recognize that.  No guilt attached if she fibbed and said she needed him.  He’d believe her.

She smiled, leaning into his fingers.  “I love you,” she murmured.

Ezra leaned back in his chair.  “Should I go?”

Lindsay kissed Brendan’s fingertips.  “No, Ezra, stay.  Brendan’s got a job outside of this house, and he’s going.  He won’t be gone that long, anyway, and if I’m making sense out of anything that I saw, I’m going to have to get used to him not being around.”

He felt cold, pressing his lips together tightly as he stood, mechanically moving to get a third mug and fill it with some of the now-cooling tea.  He went to reheat it.  “Lin…”

“Brendan, I’m not going to tell you to stay home.  If you feel like you need to stay here with me, then stay.  I’m not going to back you into it.”

He sat down heavily, staring at her, then looked at Ezra.  Ezra shrugged.  “Don’t look at me, Brendan.  I told you she’d live, but it’s not my specialty.”

Lindsay smiled lopsidedly at Ezra.  “Then why’d you come?”

Ezra pointed at Brendan, as if that answered the question completely.  Lindsay laughed a little.  Brendan’s face flamed.

“I asked him to,” he said quietly.  “It made me feel better to have you checked out, y’know?”

She took his hand and squeezed it.  “I know.  And I love you for it.”

He sighed a little.  “I guess you’ll be okay without me, right?”

She looked away, blushing a little.  “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love for you to stay home and play hooky with me.  I’m just not sure that it’s justifiable.”

Brendan shook his head a little.  “You almost collapsed at a Council meeting.”  It sounded more like a protest than he’d intended.  “My boss was there.  I think that it’s understandable.”

Lindsay smiled faintly.  “Then stay home with me today?”

“Gladly.”  He kissed her forehead.

Ezra’s chair scraped a little against the slate floor.  “Well.  I think I’ll leave you two lovebirds to nest, then.”

She grinned.  “Beautiful analogy, Ezra.”

He smiled.  “I like to think so.  Call if you need anything, Brendan.”

“I will.  Thanks, Ez.”

“Pfft.  No problem.  I’ll see you for cards this weekend.  Assuming a war doesn’t break out between then and now.”

Lindsay shivered and Brendan shook his head.  “I hope not.  But if it does, I’m sure we’ll be the first to know.”