The mood around the table had sobered, and she looked up to meet her friends' eyes.
"When they detailed Guthrie and me—and Lazarus and Mickey—to this duty, I think we both felt almost as guilty as we felt grateful. Don't get me wrong. I know why the Concordiat and the Brigade assigned both of us here. Letting some preventable external threat destroy this colony when a couple of Bolos old enough to make them second-tier assets at the front could have prevented it would have been criminally negligent. And it's an important assignment, even if—as we all hope—neither Lazarus nor Mickey ever has to fire another shot in anger. But it gave us an out. It was a way for us to have a damned good chance at survival, and because we were selected for the assignment rather than seeking it, we can even tell ourselves that we never tried to save our own skins.
"It's one I'm sure we all share, in our own ways," Allison told her gently. "You Brigade officers—and Navy officers, like Ed—were more in the line of fire. Targeted, I suppose you might say, because it was your job to go where the fighting was. But it's been obvious for years now that eventually the fighting was going to come to all of us. That's why Bill and I—" her voice faltered only slightly as she spoke her dead husband's name "—had decided against having children. We both wanted them, and I know Dad wanted grandchildren." She gave her father a slightly misty smile. "But we weren't going to bring children into a galaxy which seemed intent on stamping them out of existence before they ever reached adulthood."
She paused for a moment, then looked directly into Maneka's eyes in the gathering darkness.
"You and Lieutenant Chin and Ed were assigned to this, just as Dad was. I wasn't. Dad didn't give me any details when they chose him for this. He's always taken security classifications seriously, and I can understand why the government wouldn't want news of Seed Corn to get out. Even if the Melconians didn't hear about it, the effect on civilian morale would be devastating.
"But I've known him all my life, and I knew he'd been in line for a colonial governorship for at least two years before the war started. So when he suddenly couldn't talk to me anymore about where he might be sent, or what he might be doing, it wasn't all that hard to figure out what was going on. And when Fred Staunton, Dad's boss at the Office of Colonization, turned up at the hospital asking for volunteers for an unspecified 'special mission,' I volunteered on the spot, for Bill as well as for me. So unlike you, I did 'try to save my own skin.' I'm not ashamed that I did. And I would far rather be sitting here, with my father and with the rest of you, than still waiting for the Melconians to reach Schilling's World. But that doesn't mean I don't feel guilty about all the millions upon millions of other civilians, other Allison Agnellis, who will never have the opportunity to do the same thing."
Silence hovered around the table for almost a full minute, and then the Governor reached out and patted his daughter's hand gently.
"I wanted to tell you," he said softly. "And I'm not at all sure I wouldn't have broken down and done just that, security or no. But I didn't have to, because you were sharp enough to put two and two together on your own. And unlike you, I don't feel a trace of guilt at having you sitting here. I only regret that Bill isn't sitting here with us. And that the two of you will never have those grandkids of mine after all."
She turned her hand palm-up under his, catching his fingers and squeezing them tightly.
"I miss him, too," she half-whispered, blinking back tears. But then she smiled. She gave her father's hand one last squeeze, then sat back and picked up her wine glass once again.
"I miss him," she said, her slightly tremulous voice almost normal. "And I wish he were here, and I wish the two of us together would be raising our children. But we will give you those grandchildren, Dad.
Both of us made deposits to the gene bank. Priority for the artificial wombs is going to be hard to come by until we can replace everything we lost with Kuan Yin, but assisted pregnancies are well within our present capabilities. Which is why in about another thirty-four Standard Weeks you're going to be a grandfather after all."
Deep, incandescent joy blazed in Agnelli's eyes, and he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
His voice was deep and husky, and he cleared his throat, then took a sip of wine.
"Congratulations, Allison," Maneka said, raising her own glass in salute, and other glasses rose all around the table.
"Thank you." Allison might actually have blushed just a bit—it was difficult to tell in the gathering darkness—but her voice was completely back to normal, and she pointed a finger at Maneka.
"And what about you, young lady?" she demanded.
"Me?" Maneka blinked.
"This colony is going to need as much genetic diversity as it can get. And people acceptable for duty with the Dinochrome Brigade tend to be the sort of people whose genes you'd like to conserve in the population."
"I ... really hadn't thought about it," Maneka said, not entirely honestly. In fact, not even mostly honestly, she told herself sternly.
"Well, start thinking about it," Allison commanded. "And if you can't think of a genetic partner you'd like to share the experience with," she looked rather pointedly at Hawthorne, "I'm sure someone on the medical staff would be able to arrange a blind match for you."
"If—all right, when—it's time for that decision to be made, I'll make it myself, thank you," Maneka told her firmly, glad the fading light hid the blush she felt warming her face.
"Just don't let the grass grow under you," Allison said, a touch of seriousness coloring her voice and expression once more. "I think Bill and I made the right decision, back before this opportunity—" she waved at the newborn colony's rising buildings "—presented itself. But if we hadn't waited, if we'd gone ahead and had children anyway, then I'd have at least some memory of him with them, and they might have some memory of him, as well. We're out from under the Melconian threat out here, but that doesn't make any of us immortal, Maneka."
"Is the Brigade ready, Colonel Na-Salth?" Ka-Frahkan asked formally.
"Yes, sir," Jesmahr Na-Salth replied. The colonel was the 3172nd Heavy Assault Brigade's executive officer, and Ka-Frahkan's deputy commander. It was his job to hand the Brigade over to Ka-Frahkan as a smoothly functioning machine, ready for instant action, and he was good at his job.
"I'll let Colonel Na-Lythan begin the briefing, if you permit, sir," Na-Salth continued, and Ka-Frahkan's ears flicked agreement.
"Colonel?" Na-Salth said then, turning to the officer who commanded the armored regiment which was the true heart of the Brigade's combat power.
"I have the readiness reports on our combat mechs for your perusal, General," Na-Lythan said. "The fact that Major Na-Huryin didn't survive cryo sleep has created some problems in the Reconnaissance Battalion, but otherwise our table of organization is actually in excellent shape. We're understrength, of course, but not sufficiently to compromise our combat worthiness. And the latest report from our medical officers confirms that all personnel are fully recovered from cryo and fit for action."
"Excellent," Ka-Frahkan said heartily. The loss rate Na-Tharla had predicted if he used the emergency cryo facilities had actually been low. Almost twelve percent of his Brigade's personnel had never waked up again. He was fortunate that Na-Huryin was the only really critical officer Na-Lythan had lost, but despite Na-Lythan's confident assessment, Ka-Frahkan knew the missing links in all of his units' chains of command had to have at least some consequences for their combat readiness.