Chaviva Benjamin’s words had kindled something deep in Kafari’s heart, a sweet ache that was part longing, part humble gratitude that the young woman had opened the way for others to share how much she and Simon meant to them. It would be very easy, working where she did, to lose sight of the simple, forthright concern for others that was a hallmark of the world Kafari had grown up in, a world very different from the one she had found in Madison.
Simon had dinner waiting when she walked through the door. She went straight to him, put both arms around him, and just held on for a long moment.
“Rough day?” he asked, stroking her hair.
She nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“I’ve had better.”
She gave Simon a kiss. She wanted to ask him about the medal of valor, which she hadn’t known about, but remained silent. Since he hadn’t shared it with anyone on Jefferson, including her, he clearly preferred not to be reminded of the circumstances under which he’d earned it. So she contented herself with passing along the messages from Chaviva Benjamin and the others.
Simon stared down into her eyes for a long moment, then looked away and sighed. “An officer knows his actions won’t always be popular, but it’s never pleasant to be vilified.” He didn’t say anything more, however, which worried Kafari. He wasn’t telling her something. From the sound of his voice, it was an important something. Kafari understood that Simon’s job involved military secrets, things she would probably never be privy to, and doubtless wouldn’t want to know, even if he told her.
But she wanted to help him, wanted to know what to do and say that would ease the burden on his shoulders. She couldn’t do that if she didn’t know what was eating away at him like a cutworm in a healthy cabbage patch. She also wanted to know if something Nassiona Santorini had said was actually true or not.
“Simon?”
He frowned. “That sounds unhappy.”
“While I was at the clinic, I heard part of an interview with Nassiona Santorini.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “What about Ms. Santorini?”
Kafari hesitated as her gut twisted. She’d realized a few seconds too late that anything she said now would sound like she didn’t trust her husband. She swore aloud and pulled away, damning herself as she waddled into the kitchen. She cracked open a bottle of nonalcoholic beer with a savage yank and gulped half its contents in one long pull, trying to calm the sudden, painful clenching in her stomach.
“Kafari?” he asked quietly.
She turned to face him across the distance of their living room. “Why is Sonny still awake?”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see, but it wasn’t the faint smile twitched at his lips. “Is that all? I was afraid you were going to ask what ‘that machine’ and I are legally allowed to do.”
She swallowed convulsively. “And you can’t answer that?”
He sighed again. “I’d rather not.”
Which gave Kafari a fair idea about the answer, but she wasn’t about to push him. “That’s okay with me, Simon,” she said quietly. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
“No, I haven’t. Do you have to stand all the way across the room?”
She flushed and headed back for his arms, which closed around her with great tenderness. He leaned his cheek against her hair, then spoke. “There are a couple of reasons, actually. The main one is simple enough. Another breakthrough from the Void is still a very real threat. I want Sonny to stay awake. To keep track of exactly where our various defense forces have been deployed. If I shut him down and we get a breakthrough, again, he would have to spend critical time figuring out where everybody is, before the Deng or the Melconians hit us. You’ve seen how fast interstellar battle fleets can cross a star system.”
She shivered silently against his chest.
“As to the other reasons…” He sighed again. “Let’s just say that Abraham Lendan thought it was a good idea.”
She caught her breath and looked up, surprised by the hard, angry glitter in his eyes. “Why?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Because he was a very astute statesman. And a superlative judge of human character. I doubt that even one Jeffersonian in five thousand realizes just how much this world lost when he died. It’s my fervent hope,” Simon added roughly, “that he was wrong.”
A chill slithered its way down Kafari’s back. What did Simon know? What had President Lendan known? If President Lendan had known about the trouble POPPA was brewing…
“Are you afraid of Sonny?” Simon asked abruptly.
She hesitated for just a moment, then opted for the simple truth. “Yes. I am.”
“Good.” She stared up at her husband. Simon’s eyes were dark, filled with shadows of a different shape and hue than she’d seen there before. He said gently, “Only a fool isn’t afraid of a Bolo. The more you know about them, the more true that becomes. Officers assigned to the Brigade go through a whole battery of psychology courses before ever setting foot inside a Command Compartment. With Sonny, I had to take special training courses, because he won’t react the same way as Bolos with more sophisticated hardware and programming.”
He touched her cheek with a whisper-soft fingertip. “You’re my wife and Sonny knows that. He considers you a friend, which is a high compliment. But you aren’t his commander. He isn’t programmed to respond to you at a commander’s level of trust. Or, more accurately, a commander’s level of engineered obedience. His threat-level threshold can be crossed and reacted to faster than you or any human could hope to defuse the situation. Sonny’s an intelligent, self-directing machine. Anything with a mind of its own is unpredictable. With Sonny, there are landmines you could trip without even realizing it. I’d really rather not find out what would happen if you did.”
A tightly coiled tension around her bones unwound a little, hearing Simon confirm what she had known, at a deep level. Kafari nodded. “All right.”
One eyebrow twitched upwards. “All right? That’s it?”
She produced a grin that surprised him into widening his eyes. “Well, yes. There are times when Sonny is as darling as a child and times when he scares me to death. If the needle-gun I carry every day could think for itself, I’d feel a whole lot differently about it, before sticking the thing into my pocket. I like Sonny. But I’d be crazy to trust him.”
“Mrs. Khrustinova, you are a remarkable lady.”
“Then you’d better feed me, so I don’t leave you for a better short-order cook!”
Simon gave her a swift kiss, then swatted her backside and propelled her toward the table. They ate in silence, which Kafari needed, after the day she’d put in. She made only one reference to the unpleasantness in town. “Do you have anything in Sonny’s depot that would take off plasti-bond stuck to metal?”
Simon frowned. “Probably. Why?”
“Some jerk wallpapered every aircar in the lot with election slogans.”
His lips twitched. “I see. I take it, from your description of the perpetrator, that you weren’t in agreement with the sentiment it expressed?”
“Not exactly.”
“Huh. I suspect you have a gift for understatement. Yes, I think I can scrounge something that would do the trick. Will we need to have the car repainted?”
“How in the world did you know?”
Simon chuckled. “My dear, I’ve seen you attack things you don’t like.”
“Oh.” She managed a smile. “Yes, we’ll need to repaint the car.”
They lingered over dessert and washed the dishes together, then wandered into the living room. Quirking a questioning brow at Kafari, Simon nodded toward the datascreen. She sighed and nodded. As much as she hated to spoil the mood, it was time to watch the election returns. Simon switched it on and reached for Kafari’s feet, giving them a gentle and thorough rubdown that left her all but purring.