"Yessir. I assume you'll be commanding the tacship?"
Sten started to nod: Of course. Then he caught himself. Come on, son. You're busting common sense in the chops enough, already. Don't be a complete grandstander.
"Negative," he said, to Preston's surprise. "I want a drakh-hot pilot—And I've got just the candidate. Out."
Sten went out the door of his quarters before the com blanked.
The Gurkha sentry outside was one count into his present arms and Sten was gone, a flicker that might have been a waved return of the salute in his wake.
Sten had a helmet bag in one hand, weapons harness—pistol, ammo, cleaning kit, kukri—over one shoulder, and a daypack carrying three days' rations and toiletries in the other, three things that were never more than an arm's length from him.
Ida, unintended, had set an example.
Now was the time to scrape off some of the rust.
The three greatest talents a diplomat must have, Sr. Ecu had realized a century or so earlier, was to never take things personally, to always look pleased when served what was genetically dubbed rubberchicken on the banquet circuit, and most importantly to endure boredom.
Not just the boredom of long, droning conferences while amateur pols tried to score points as if governing were Beginning Debate, but also the boredom of endless hours traveling.
Ecu had wondered how spaceship crews, particularly on the torchships in the early days, kept from going berserk, and researched the matter. Reading of the murders, mutinies, and worse aberrancies, particularly on the pre-stardrive longliners, told him they didn't.
Now, on this long flight back from the Cal'gata worlds, especially as his ship was under enforced com blackout, he had started to feel like perhaps mutinying a little himself, even though he tried to remind himself that boredom was not an emotion the Manabi felt, and that the way he was feeling could be no more than a conditioned response from all the decades he had spent around humans.
Still, he was getting what he had heard described as the Jeabie Heabies.
He had viewed every livie aboard the small yacht, read every book available, written reports and progs beyond count, and they were still four ship-days out from Seilichi.
Finally his ennui led him back to Marr and Senn's flier.
He had wanted to look at it before, but had refrained. Thinking of the succulences that the two Milchen could concoct might be the last straw, especially considering the less-than-inspired rations the yacht's bellyrobber served up.
Ecu now thought he could tough out the four days before real nourishment would become available.
Again he touched the sensitized area, and again Marr and Senn appeared and greeted him by name. Again the wonderful scents floated toward Ecur's tendrils.
And again the two beings announced their catering service and began presenting a menu.
Ecu's senses flickered. Trouble. The menu was being presented in a perfunctory drone, as if Marr and Senn had been forced into this new business through economic desperation. But that could not be. Perhaps—
Both holographs stopped. Marr and Senn looked at each other.
"That's time enough for anyone busybodying through your mail to get bored," Marr said.
"I can only hope," Senn said. "Sr. Ecu, we need your help. I trust it is you who is viewing this, and that some others—"
He shuddered and crouched, as if an icy windblast had caught him. Marr moved closer, protecting.
"—some others," he went on, after collecting himself, "are not.
"We are in trouble. We need to contact Sten. We are not aware if you know where he is, and the only reason we are sending this is because the two of you worked on that Tribunal, back in the awful days of those five beings whose names I will not pronounce.
"This is our only hope. We need Sten to help us. And someone else. I cannot mention the being's name. But tell Sten that the being is someone he will remember. Tell Sten to remember the party and what came later. In the garden. The black ball against the moon that happens but three times a year. The being does.
"If Sten remembers, tell him that this being is in trouble. The being is being hunted by the Emperor. We—
Marr interrupted.
"We have heard where this being is," he said. "And if the Emperor learns of our knowledge, we too will be hunted. We do not know this being's exact location. We feel that even now a net is being cast, somewhere out there, by beings who intend us harm. Sooner or later, if that fisherman keeps casting, we shall be netted."
The beings moved together, finding what little love and security was left in their universe, and fell silent.
"We should say no more," Senn said finally. ‘Tell Sten of our problem. Ask him if he can help. He will know where we are. We do not have any suggestions.
"But... but tell him this. Tell him he must not chance all. We say this, and his friend says it as well. If help might risk his crusade, he must not try to help.
"Sten must not be defeated."
Drakh-hot pilot Hannelore La Ciotat had wondered—as much as anyone might wonder in a profession where two of the prerequisites were an inability to talk without moving one's hands and concern for the future a mild curiosity about what the O-club's got for its dinner special—just why she had joined the rebellion.
No one but her fellow rebels knew she had been Sten's pilot when he had ambushed Admiral Mason and the Caligula. And even if accused, she probably could have skated on that, and claimed to be in fear of her life if she disobeyed his commands. Instead, she had been one of the first of the Victory's tacship pilots to throw in on Sten's side.
She settled on three reasons: First, that the Empire to her was represented by lard-assed senior officers who never could understand the tactical importance basic to underflying every single bridge that ran through the middle of her planet's capital world at mach speed, officers who would one day insist that she park the ship and start flying a desk. Second was that Sten was a pilot too, and spoke her language. Third was that she surely would have more combat time and flight hours with the rebellion than sticking with the monolithic Imperial forces.
She shied away from the fourth reason, which was Why The Clot Not, because that might imply that pilots are frequently lacking in any sense, let alone that of the common type. Especially tacship drivers.
She listened to Sten's briefing aboard the Aoife with some degree of skepticism, which Sten noted with amusement.
"You have a question, Lieutenant? Sorry, Captain. Congrats on the promo, by the way."
La Ciotat shrugged. More stars on the shoulder meant only more credits on the O-club bar payday night since sergeant-pilots and admiral-pilots still flew the same ships—and bore in.
"Last time you had this great plan," she began as tactfully as she knew how, which meant not very, "it was, ‘Hey there, Hannelore, let's you and me ambush a battlewagon.'
"Dumb, dumb, truly dumb, but we blindsided the clot, and got away with it. Now you want to try again, except even bigger. As I understand it, my tacship, supported by one lousy non-Imperial tincan—"
Sten interrupted. "The Aoife's only there to pull our tails out of the crack. She won't be there for the binga-banga-bonga."
"Even more wonderful. One spitkit, not supported by one lousy non-Imperial DD, to jump an entire convoy, a convoy carrying what's only the most important resource the Empire's got, and you think we're gonna accomplish the mission?
"Hell, I don't think we'll limp away, let alone do what you've got in mind. Who's gonna take care of the escorts?"