“And what time would that have been?”
“Ten-thirty.”
“Trask, please note that Mr. and Mrs. Khrustinov keep a two-year-old child awake far past the hour at which a child that age should be in bed.”
“That’s when Simon and I went to bed!” Kafari snapped. “Yalena was in bed by seven-thirty.”
“So you say.” The derision and disbelief beggared the limits of Kafari’s patience.
Simon spoke just behind her shoulder in a voice as cold and alien as the day of Abraham Lendan’s death. “Get off my property. Now.”
“Are you threatening me?” the woman snarled.
Kafari’s husband was holding Yalena on one hip. His smile was a lethal baring of fangs. “Oh, no. Not yet. If you refuse to leave, however, things could get very interesting. Somehow, I doubt the Brigade would take kindly to having an officer’s home invaded by petty officials attempting to enforce a dubious rule that I haven’t even seen, let alone determined the legality of. This house,” he added in a deceptively gentle voice, “is the property of the Concordiat. Its computer terminals are connected to military technology that is classified as sufficiently secret, no one on Jefferson has the clearance to access it. That includes any so-called home inspection team. You, dear lady, do not have a military clearance to come within a hundred meters of my computer terminal.
“If I were you, I would seriously reconsider the wisdom of trying to force the issue. I am a Bolo commander. In the building next door, a thirteen-thousand ton sentient war machine is listening to this conversation. That machine is judging how much of a threat you are to its commander. If that Bolo decides you are a threat to me, it will act. Probably before I can stop it. So have Trask, there, jot down this little note: the home-inspection provisions of the Child Protection Act do not — and never will — apply to this household. So kindly take your emaciated carcass and your large friend off the Concordiat’s property. Oh, one last thing. If you value your sorry little lives, do not attempt to snoop into the Bolo’s maintenance depot. I’d hate to have to clean up the mess if Sonny shoots you for trespassing into a Class One Alpha restricted military zone.”
The woman’s face went from paper-white to malevolent-red and her mouth opened and closed several times without sound. She finally snarled, “Trask! Please note that Mr. and Mrs. Khrustinov—”
“That’s Colonel Khrustinov, you insolent trollop!”
Kafari blanched. She’d never heard that tone in Simon’s voice.
The woman in their doorway actually recoiled a step. Then hissed, “Trask! Please note that Colonel Khrustinov and his wife maintain a lethal hazard that could kill their child at any moment—”
“Correction,” Simon snarled. “Sonny has standing orders never to fire at my wife or my child. Those orders do not apply to you. Get the hell off my front porch.”
He moved Kafari gently aside, then slammed the door and twisted the lock.
“Kafari. Take Yalena. And get your gun. Now. That lout looks stupid enough to try kicking the door in.”
She snatched Yalena and ran for the bedroom. Her daughter was whimpering, having caught the emotional whiplash from her parents and the intruders trying to force their way into the house. She heard the sound of the gun cabinet in the living room opening and closing, heard the snick of the safety on Simon’s sidearm as he prepared to do whatever became necessary. Kafari wrenched open the nightstand, shoved her thumb against the identi-plate, and clicked open the gun box inside. Kafari snatched up the pistol, barricading herself in the closet with Yalena.
“Shh,” she whispered, rocking the frightened toddler. “You’re just fine, baby.” She hummed a tune low enough to calm her daughter, without blocking the sounds from the living room. She could hear angry voices outside as the woman and her accomplice argued in strident tones. After several tense moments, she heard the snarl of a groundcar’s engine as it gunned its way down the driveway toward the street.
Simon appeared in the bedroom doorway, every muscle in his lean frame taut with battle tension. “They’re gone. For now.”
“And when they come back?” she whispered.
“They won’t come back. Not yet.”
“Not until they persuade the House of Law to pass an exception that covers us. Or get a presidential ruling from Gifre Zeloc that does the same thing. We have enough enemies to pass something like that in a heartbeat.” She added bitterly, “It might’ve been easier just to send her to their stinking daycare.”
“Liberty is never easy.”
“Yes,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “I know.”
Some of the grim tension relented. “I know you know. It’s one of the reasons I love you. You can stare something horrible in the eye and fight it to the death. And sometimes, that scares me senseless.”
He was staring, bleakly now, at Yalena, who was sitting in Kafari’s lap, playing with a strand of her hair. “Oh, Simon, what are we going to do?”
“Survive,” he said, voice harsh with strain. “And,” he added, forcing his voice into a more pleasant register, “eat breakfast. Nobody can fight a war effectively on an empty stomach.”
Kafari couldn’t help it. Her husband’s tone was so droll, his suggestion so eminently practical, tension leached out in a semihysterical bubble of laughter. “There speaks the seasoned veteran. All right, let’s go fry some eggs or something.”
He gave her a hand up and took charge of Yalena, handing over his gun — and handing her, as well, the responsibility for first-strike should those two goons decide to swing back for another go at it. Kafari slid her own gun into a capacious pocket, being careful to engage the safety first, and tucked Simon’s gun into a second pocket.
She paused long enough to call up their datanet account, where she found the notice in question. It had been sent at one-thirty a.m., a decidedly odd hour to be posting notices of this magnitude. It was short and pungent.
All parents are hereby notified that per administrative ruling 11249966-83e-1, the in-home inspections and daycare provisions mandated by the Childhood Protection Act have been expanded to cover every child on Jefferson, regardless of the employment status of the parents.
Somebody, Kafari realized with a cold chill, had been watching them. Closely enough to notice when she resigned her position at Port Abraham. Noticed and acted, with frightening speed. Had everyone else on Jefferson actually received this notice or had it been crafted especially for them, to force the issue of home inspections that POPPA clearly wanted to conduct in Simon’s quarters? Gaining access to their quarters must be high on somebody’s list of priorities. Simon’s enemies wanted either revenge or his military information, or both. In an equally plausible alternative, they might be trying to score a public relations coup by forcing the “hated foreign tyrant” to surrender custody of his child in obedience to the will of the people.
The speed at which the Santorinis engineered massive changes in public opinion continued to terrify Kafari. She printed the message and carried it into the kitchen, where Simon had already put Yalena back into the toddler seat and was busy at the stove with eggs and a frying pan.
He glanced at the message, grunted once, and shrugged. “They can try. Easy over or sunny-side up?”
Well, if Simon could set it aside for the moment, so could she. “Sunny sounds good to me.”
He smiled at the double-entendre contained in that answer. “Me, too.”
By the time she had the ham and juice ready, the worst of the shakes had gone and the cold knot of fear in her middle had begun the thaw. They had gained a breathing space, for today, at least. For now, for this morning and this meal, she was at home with her husband and her daughter. She would allow nothing to intrude deeply enough to spoil the moment. Time enough for worry, tomorrow.