“In another fifty minutes,” she replied, pushing aside her daily report. Washen knew the rime, but the habit of her hands was to open her silver watch, eyes glancing at the slow hands. “Forty-nine minutes, and a few seconds.”
“No, madam.” Nervous fingers tugged at the dangling Gordian braids, then attempted to smooth the crisp blue fabric of his uniform. “I was just told, madam. Everyone is to leave the bridge immediately, using every tube but the Primary.”
Washen looked at her displays. “I don’t see orders.”
“I know—”
“Is this a drill?” Drills happened from time to time. If the crust beneath them subsided, they might have only moments to evacuate. “Because if it’s an exercise, we need a better system than having you wandering about, tapping people on their shoulders.”
“No, madam. It’s not that.”
“Then what-?”
“Miocene,” he blurted. “She contacted me personally. On a secure line. Following her instructions, I’ve dismissed our construction crews, and I’ve placed our robots into their sleep mode.”
Washen said nothing, thinking hard.
With a barely restrained frustration, he added, “This is very mysterious. Everyone agrees. But the Submaster is fond of her secrets, so I’m assuming—”
“Why didn’t she talk to me?” asked Washen.
The assistant gave a big lost shrug.
“Is she coming here?” she asked. “Is she using the Primary?”
A quick nod.
“Who’s with her?”
“I don’t know if there’s anyone else, madam.”
The Primary tube was the largest. Fifty captains could ascend inside one of its cars, never brushing elbows with each other.
“I already looked,” he confessed. “It’s not a normal car.”
Washen found the rising car on her monitors, then tried to wake a platoon of cameras. But none of them would respond to her commands.
“The Submaster asked me to take the cameras off-line, madam. But I happened to get a glimpse of the car first, by accident.” The assistant grimaced as he made his confession.’It’s a massive object, judging by the energy demands. With an extra-thick hull, I would surmise. And there are some embellishments that I can’t quite decipher.”
“Embellishments?”
He glanced at his own clock, pretending that he was anxious to leave. But he was also proud of his courage, smiling when he explained, “The car is dressed up inside pipelike devices. They make it look like someone’s ball of rope.”
“Rope?”
With a dose of humility, he admitted, “I don’t quite understand that apparatus.”
In plain words, “Please explain it to me, madam.”
But Washen explained nothing. Looking at her assistant—one of the most loyal of the captains’ loyal oflsping; a man who had proved himself on every occasion—she shrugged her shoulders, took a secret breath, then lied.
She said, “I don’t understand it, either.”
Then, as an afterthought, she inquired, “Was my name mentioned, by any chance? While you and Miocene were chatting, I mean.”
“Yes, madam. She wanted me to tell you to stay here, and wait.”
Washen took a little breath, saying nothing.
“I’m supposed to leave you here,” he whined.
“Well, then, do what our Submaster wants,” was Washen’s advice. “Leave right now. If she finds you here, I guarantee she’ll throw you down the shaft herself.”
Twenty-three
For centuries, virtue had proved himself with his genius and his passion for the work. On all occasions, contrived or genuine, he had acted with as much loyalty as anyone born into the Loyalist nation. Yet even now—particularly now—Miocene couldn’t make herself completely trust the little man.
“It might not work,” he warned her, again.
She said, “It will,” and looked past him, watching the sealed and simple mechanical door, imagining it opening and her stepping that much closer to the end. Another barrier crossed, if only a small one. Then she reminded Virtue, “In your simulations, success is a ninety percent event. And we both appreciate how difficult you make your simulations.”
The Wayward scalp had grown hair. A Gordian bun and implanted gemstones made him look like any Loyalist, while the busy gray eyes had acquired a fondness for the Submaster, deeply felt and surprising to both of them.
Quietly, angrily, Virtue told her, “This is too soon.”
She said nothing.
“Another two years, and I can improve the odds—”
“One or two percent,” she quoted. Then staring at the fond eyes, Miocene wondered why she didn’t trust him. Was she that suspicious, or that girted? Either way, she would feel better if she could find a fair reason to send him home again. “Miocene.”
He said her name tenderly, hopefully. Fondness dissolved into a stew of deeper emotions, and where the voice stopped, a small tidy hand reached out, reached up, grabbing hold of her right breast.
After so long, a Wayward gesture.
She said, “No,” to him, or to herself.
Again, he said, “Miocene.”
The Submaster removed his hand with one of hers, bending back two of his fingers until his face filled with a pained surprise.
“That little quake helped the alignment,” she reminded him. “ ‘By nearly half a meter,’ you said. ‘But the next quake or two could steal our advantage.’ ”
“I said it,” he agreed. “I remember.”
“Besides,” she whispered. “If we wait, we’ll likely lose the gift of surprise.”
“But we’ve kept our work secret for this long.” When determined. Virtue could look like his father. Like Till. The narrow face was full of emotions, and you were never sure which emotion would bubble out next. “What would it injure? Give me another full day, and I’ll recheck every system and recalibrate the guidance system, plus both backups—”
“But,” Miocene interrupted, “this is the day. This is.”
He had no choice but to sigh and shake his empty hands, and surrender. And just like that, he suddenly looked nothing at all like Till.
“Don’t you believe in destinies?” she asked. “You’re a Wayward, after all.”
“Not now,” he grumbled, hurt by the insult. “If I ever was.”
“Destinies,” she repeated. “I woke this morning knowing that this was the morning. I understood that fully, and I have no idea why.” She felt herself smiling, looking through him as she explained, “I’m not superstitious.You know that much about my character. And that’s why I know that this is the right, perfect moment. Intuition is instructing me. Every day that I make ready is another opportunity to be found out, and why would I want that? My Loyalists. Your Way wards. Let’s allow both our peoples as much ignorance as they can possibly cherish. Isn’t that what we agreed?”
Virtue nodded helplessly.
As a lover, he reached for the comforting curve of her breast, and Miocene intercepted the hand, lowering it and holding tight to the fingers, gazing into the warm and caring steel-gray eyes.
From the charred remains of his mind, she had resurrected him—never letting him forget on whose charity his existence was perched. But even with that intimacy, and after living for centuries in her private compound, surrounded by luxuries and every research toy that Marrow could provide—not to mention her own compliant body—the little man insisted on surprising her. That’s why she could only trust him to a point. She didn’t know him perfectly, and now, at this point, she never would.
Tenderly, he said, “Darling.”
He confessed, “I don’t want to lose you, darling.”
Quietly and fiercely, Miocene promised, “If you don’t do this one thing for me, you’ll most assuredly lose me. I won’t see you to shit on you. And you know I mean it.”