“Do everything you can and let me know if you run into any obstacles,” Geary told him.
After Neeson’s image vanished, Tanya Desjani smiled at Geary and gave a slow clap. “Nice speech, Admiral.”
“Thank you, Captain. I was inspired by my audience.” He looked at her and smiled ruefully. “Is it wrong that with everything else going on, I wish that you and I could take a shuttle somewhere off this blasted ship and be man and wife for just a little while instead of Admiral and Captain who cannot even touch each other?”
“Good order and discipline require sacrifices, Admiral,” Desjani said. “And kindly do not refer to Dauntless as ‘this blasted ship.’ And I wish the same thing. But you and I have our jobs to do, and people to lead who would not be impressed by our taking time for ourselves when others are giving all that they have.”
“Do you always have to be right?” he asked as he opened the hatch to leave the meeting compartment.
“No. I just usually am.”
He entered his stateroom, feeling weary after the meeting, trying to decide which matter to try to tackle next, but immediately jerked to full attention at the sight of someone sitting in one of the chairs. His stateroom was guarded by a variety of security measures, including locks that were not supposed to let anyone in without Geary’s specific approval.
The seated person stood and turned toward him. “Admiral.”
Geary nodded in reply, startled and yet not surprised by who it was. “Victoria.”
“Nice speech,” Victoria Rione said. When he had first met her, she had been co-president of the Callas Republic and an Alliance senator. After losing a snap election in the aftermath of the war, she had been made an emissary of the Alliance, working for her former colleagues in the Alliance Senate. But he knew that assignment had ended, at least officially. Was she still covertly working for the likes of Senator Navarro? Or was Rione now a free agent, pursuing her own ends and dodging enemies made when she was working for the Alliance government?
“You were listening in?” Geary asked. “To a maximum-security conference?”
“Oh, you make that sound wrong.” She waved Geary to a seat as if this were her stateroom. “Relax.”
He sat down opposite her, studying Rione. She rarely revealed her inner feelings, but he could see that her eyes were slightly sunken from tiredness and her face thinner than he remembered. “You look like you’ve been under a lot of stress.”
She leaned back, shrugging. “I’m still alive and free.”
“How did you get aboard Dauntless and in here without setting off any alerts?”
“I left a few special apps in place in the systems of this ship before I left,” Rione said, her voice casual. “It’s not like enigma-stuff or that nonsense the government has been using to render ships and personnel invisible to sensors. Quite the opposite. The apps reassure anything that sees me that I am indeed authorized to be there, that I am no threat, and no reports of any kind need to be made. Being apparently authorized to be anywhere beats the hell out of hiding, let me tell you.”
“Some of the crew must have seen you,” Geary said.
“Of course they did. And they knew who I was, and that I had been aboard this ship before, and that I was a trusted ally of their beloved Black Jack. They may have their own suspicions of me, being that I am one of those horrible politicians, but they assumed I was back under authorized circumstances and all of the official t’s had been crossed and i’s dotted.” She cocked her head to one side as she regarded him. “So, how is the great hero?”
“I’ve been better,” Geary said. “Sometimes it seems that people start fires just because they know I’ll come running to put them out.”
“It is fun to watch. Nobody but you could have gotten this fleet out of Bhavan in one piece, you know.”
“Are you the same person who once thought I would lead the fleet to ruin? Don’t forget that I got the fleet to Bhavan in the first place,” he reminded her, hearing the bitterness in his voice.
“You made what seemed to be the best decision,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to blame yourself for that. Take it from me. I’m an expert at blaming myself for bad decisions.” Rione looked down, then back up at him under lowered brows. “Speaking of bad decisions that you haven’t made, you’re not going to do it, are you?”
“Do what?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure what she meant.
“Solve all of our problems by riding into Unity aboard a silver starship,” Rione said. “You can save the Alliance in a heartbeat simply by announcing that you were temporarily taking charge in order to sort things out. The vast majority of the citizens and of the military would not just accept that but celebrate it.”
“Save the Alliance?” Geary asked, his anger clear. “That sounds to me like destroying the Alliance in the name of saving it.”
“I agree with you.” She shrugged again, looking away. “That’s your dilemma. The problem can be easily solved, but the solution will be worse than the problem. And you refuse to take that simple, and destructive, course of action.”
“Dammit, isn’t there a good option left?”
“You’re asking me? The same good option there has always been. The citizens take the responsibility for voting for those who will look out for the welfare of everyone, not just their own special interests. Good luck counting on that, though. They’d prefer someone to ride in aboard that silver starship and save them the trouble.”
He started to reply, then abruptly laughed. “We always look at it backwards, don’t we?”
Rione raised an eyebrow at him. “Look at what backwards?”
“Democracies. Voting. People are always talking about demanding more and better performance from elected officials, but when you get right down to it, shouldn’t a democracy demand more and better performance from the citizens who vote? If they do their job well, then the quality of those they elect will naturally follow.”
“I suppose.” She shook her head, her expression morose. “But not entirely true. The leaders have to be worthy, have to avoid the temptations of power, have to be honest even when the people don’t want honesty. Democracy is a team sport, Admiral. If everyone doesn’t play their position well, the whole team suffers.”
He had thought himself tired out, but now stood up and began pacing restlessly. “Is that why you’re here? To tell me there’s nothing I can do that won’t make things worse?”
“No. If nothing else, what you don’t do is always important. Which means you are doing the right things. I thought you needed to hear that.” Rione looked down at her hands as she intertwined her fingers in a twisting pattern. “I couldn’t find him.”
“Your husband?”
“Not a trace. Paol has disappeared.”
Geary fought down a wave of anger. “They promised they would cure him. They promised they could lift the mental block that was put on him for security purposes, a mental block that was illegal under Alliance law, and correct the mental damage that block was causing.”
“Some of them may have been sincere in their promises. Others lied. All I know is that I cannot find any clue to my husband’s fate. Even if they had killed him, I should have been able to find some sign of that.” She clenched her hands into fists. “I’m sure it is not a coincidence that I’ve been marked for disappearance by someone or something. Some part of the government that doesn’t want questions asked or information revealed.”