‘Like Hama.’
‘As the yacht conies out of port, you get a flotilla riding along with it, civilian ships as well as Navy, just to see the pilot go. When the pilot comes aboard the whole crew lines the passageways, chanting his or her name.’ She smiled. ‘Your heart will burst when you see Hama.’
I struggled to focus. ‘So the pilots are idolised. We aren’t supposed to have heroes.’
‘Lethe, I never knew I was such a prig! Kid, there is more to war than doctrinal observance. Anyhow what are the Sunrise pilots but the highest exemplars of the ideals of the Expansion? A brief life burns brightly, remember – Druz said it himself – and a Sunrise pilot puts that into practice in the brightest, bravest way possible.’
‘And,’ I said carefully, ‘are you a hero to your crew?’
She scowled at me. Her face was a mask of lines, grooves carved by years into my own flesh. She had never looked less like me. ‘I know what you’re thinking. I’m too old, I should be ashamed even to be alive. Listen to me. Ten years after this meeting, you will take part in a battle around a neutron star called Kepler’s. Look it up. That’s why your crew will respect you, for what you will achieve that day – even though you won’t be lucky enough to die. And as for the chop line, I don’t have a single regret. We struck a blow, damn it. I’m talking about hope. That’s what those fucking Commissaries never understand. Hope, and the needs of the human heart. That’s what I was trying to deliver…’ Something seemed to go out of her. ‘But none of that matters now. I’ve come through another chop line, haven’t I? Through a chop line in time, into the past, where I face judgement.’
‘I’m not assigned to judge you.’
‘No. You do that for fun, don’t you?’
I didn’t know what to say. I felt pinned. I loved her, and I hated her, all at the same time. She must have felt the same way about me. But we knew we couldn’t get away from each other. Perhaps it is never possible for copies of the same person from two time slices ever to get along. After all it’s not something we’ve evolved for.
In silence we made our way back to Dakk’s wardroom. There, Tarco was waiting for us.
‘Buttface,’ he said formally.
‘Lard bucket,’ I replied.
On that ship from the future, in my own future wardroom, we stared at each other, each of us baffled, maybe frightened. We hadn’t been alone together, not once, since the news that we were to have a child together. And even now Captain Dakk was sitting there like the embodiment of destiny.
Under the Druz Doctrines, love isn’t forbidden. But it’s not the point. But then, I was learning, out here on the frontier, where people died far from home, things were a little more complex than my training and conditioning had indicated.
I asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘You sent for me. Your future, smarter, better-looking self.’
Captain Dakk said dryly, ‘Obviously you two have – issues – to discuss. But I’m afraid I can’t give you the time. Events are pressing.’
Tarco turned to face her. ‘Then let’s get on with it, sir. Why did you ask for me?’
Dakk said, ‘Navy intelligence have been analysing the records from the Torch. They have begun the process of contacting those who will serve on the ship – or their cadres, if they are infants or not yet born – to inform them of their future assignments. It’s the policy.’
Tarco looked apprehensive. ‘And that applies to me?’
Dakk didn’t answer directly. ‘There are protocols. When a ship returns from action, it’s customary for the captain or senior surviving officer to send letters of condolence to cadres who have lost loved ones, or visit them.’
Tarco nodded. ‘I once accompanied Captain Iana on a series of visits like that.’
I said carefully, ‘But in this case the action hasn’t happened yet. Those who will die haven’t yet been assigned to the ship. Some haven’t even been born.’
‘Yes,’ Dakk said gently. ‘But I have to write my letters even so.’
That was incomprehensible to me. ‘Why? Nobody’s dead yet.’
‘Because everybody wants to know, as much as we can tell them. Would it be better to lie to them, or keep secrets?’
‘How do they react?’
‘How do you think? Ensign Tarco, what happened when you did the rounds with Iana?’
Tarco shrugged. ‘Some took it as closure, I think. Some wept. Some were angry, even threw us out. Others denied it was real … They all wanted more information. How it happened, what it was for. Everyone seemed to have a need to be told that those who had died had given their lives for something worthwhile.’
Dakk nodded. ‘After a time hop you see all those reactions too. Some won’t open the messages. They put them in time capsules, as if putting history back in order. Others take a look, find other ways to cope with the news. We don’t tell people how to react. But we don’t keep anything from them; that’s the policy,’ She studied me. ‘This is a time-travellers’ war, ensign. A war like none we’ve fought before. We are stretching our procedures, even our humanity, to cope with the consequences. But you get used to it.’
Tarco said apprehensively, ‘Sir, please – what about me?’
Gravely, Dakk handed him a data desk.
‘Hey, buttface,’ he said, reading. ‘You make me your exec. How about that. Maybe it was a bad year in the draft.’
I didn’t feel like laughing. ‘Read it all.’
‘I know what it says.’ His broad face was relaxed.
‘You don’t make it home. That’s what it says, doesn’t it? You’re going to die out there, in the Fog.’
He actually smiled. ‘I’ve been anticipating this since the Torch came into port. Haven’t you?’
My mouth opened and closed, as if I was a swordtail fish in the belly of a Spline. ‘Call me unimaginative,’ I said. ‘How can you accept this assignment, knowing it’s going to kill you?’
He seemed puzzled. ‘What else would I do?’
‘Yes,’ the captain said. ‘It is your duty. Can’t you see how noble this is, Dakk? Isn’t it right that he should know – that he should live his life with full foreknowledge of the circumstances of his death, and do his duty even so, right up to the final foretold instant?’
Tarco grabbed my hand. ‘Hey. It’s years off. We’ll see our baby grow.’
I said dismally, ‘Some love story this is turning out to be.’
‘Yes.’
Commissary Varcin’s Virtual head coalesced in the air. Without preamble he said, ‘Change of plan. Ensign, it’s becoming clear that the evidence to hand will not be sufficient to establish the charges. Specifically it’s impossible to say whether Dakk’s actions hindered the overall war aims. To establish that we’ll have to go to the Libraries, at the Commission’s central headquarters.’
I did a double-take. ‘Sir, that’s on Earth.’
The disembodied head snapped, ‘I’m aware of that.’
I had no idea how bookworm Commissaries on Earth, ten thousand light years away, could possibly have evidence to bear on this front-line incident. But the Commissary explained, and I learned there was more to this messages-from-the-future industry than I had yet imagined. On Earth, the Commission for Historical Truth had been mapping the future. For fifteen thousand years.