The crew, he found, were remarkably quiet: it was as if they werelistening, going about their duties but extruding invisible antennae that strained the aether for information from the officers, from each other, from the vacuum beyond the cruiser’s hull. Even after the captain ordered the spirit locker opened and the crew served a ration of liquor with their supper, the good cheer was subdued and the drinking thoughtful.
Walking in his stiff-collared dress tunic to the squadcom’s suite, Martinez encountered Chandra Prasad, dressed with equal formality, on her way to a private supper with the captain. She braced at the salute, but then a broad smile broke out on her face and her stiff posture softened.
“Three years ago,” she said, “who’d have guessed?”
He looked at her. Apparently they were going to have the conversation that he had been doing his best to avoid.
The moment awkward, he thought.
Chandra shook her head, a disbelieving smile spreading across her face. “Golden Orb,” she said. “Hero of the empire. Marriage to the Chen heir…” Amusement flashed in her eyes. “The captain thinks you’re a freak of nature, you know that?”
The feeling’s mutual, then, Martinez thought.
“It’s a violation of Fletcher’s aesthetic to hear clever ideas spoken in your accent,” Chandra said. Then, as annoyance raced along his nerves, she reached out and patted his arm. “But hedoes believe you’re clever. He thinks it’s a shame you weren’t born to the right family.”
“He should know the right family,” Martinez said, “if anyone should.”
Chandra offered a cynical smile. She spread her hands and glanced down at herself. “And look at me. Nothing’s changed. Still scraping along looking for a patron.”
You haven’t found one?Martinez wondered. What was Fletcher, then?
She looked at him. “There wouldn’t be a Chen to spare, would there?”
“Lady Michi has a boy at school, but you’d have to wait.” He tried to make a joke out of it, but there wasn’t any laughter in Chandra’s dark eyes.
“Really, Gareth,” she said. “I’m desperate. I could use some help.”
“I can’t promote you, Chandra,” Martinez said. “Not till I get flag rank, and I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”
“But you’re going to get command of a ship before long. And that ship will need a first lieutenant. And if you do something brilliant with your ship, the way you do, your premiere’s going to get a promotion.” She folded her arms and gave him a searching look. “I’m putting my money on you, Gareth. You always seem to come out on top.”
Frantic alarm bounded like a rubber ball along the inside of Martinez’s skull. He really didn’t want Chandra as a first lieutenant. It wasn’t that he minded her ambition, but he’d want a premiere less tumultuous, and besides he didn’t want her close to him. Yet he felt sympathy for her position—eight months ago, he’d been in the same situation, a provincial officer with no patronage and scant chance for promotion.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “But look—we’re going to beat the Naxids here. And that will mean notice for everybody on the flagship.”
Disdain curled her lip. “It’ll mean notice foryou. And for Chen, and the captain, and promotion for Kazakov—and isn’t she smug about it, the bitch!” She shook her head. “There isn’t going to be much notice left over for the little provincial who’s been waiting for seven years for her next step.”
Martinez found whatever sympathy he’d retained oozing away. “There’s nothing I can do now,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do”—he gave a hopeless shrug—“when circumstances change.”
“I know you will.” She put a hand on his arm again, then leaned forward to softly kiss his cheek. Her scent whirled in his senses. “I’m counting on you, Gareth.”
She turned from Martinez and went to her meeting with the captain. His head spun left and right, like that of a frantic puppet, until he made certain that the kiss had been unobserved.
This is going to be trouble, he thought.
Supper with the squadcom was surprisingly relaxed. He presented the latest version of his plan, and received her approval.
“I’m going to head for the wormhole gate, by the way,” she said. “I agree with your analysis of Bleskoth’s character.”
Martinez felt a little tug of pleasure somewhere in his mind. “Have you told Lord Captain Fletcher?” he asked.
“I will in the morning.”
That night he might have managed a few hours’ sleep. He was up well before his usual time, walking about the ship, nodding to any crew he encountered but not speaking. He tried to make the nods brisk and confident. He hoped the thought,We’re going to thrash the enemy was shining out of his eyes.
When he found himself nodding, brisk and confident, to the same crewman for the third time, he realized how absurd was this behavior and he returned to his cabin. Silence grew around him as he sat at his desk. In the semidarkness the faces of the winged children seemed unusually grave.
He looked down at the surface of the desk and saw Terza, the image he’d installed there on his arrival, and the sight reminded him that he hadn’t written her since leaving Seizho. He picked up a stylus and began.
In a few hours we’re going into battle. You can spare yourself any suspense in regard to the outcome, because you won’t be receiving this unless we win.
And then the words stalled. After that opening sentence, his usual queries about her health and the memories of his boyhood on Laredo were going to seem banal. Going into mortal action alongside thousands of comrades seemed to call for some degree of profundity and introspection.
The problem was that introspection was not his strong point, and Martinez knew it.
He began by describing the silence of the ship, the way the vibration and rumble of the engines seemed to fade into white noise…how the crew were dutiful but quiet, waiting and watching…how he thought the battle would go well, and that he was hoping to win it without Chenforce taking any casualties.
I was called ‘clever’ the other day,he wrote.It’s a word people use to describe a kind of intelligence of which they do not entirely approve, and I have been called clever before. I am inclined to resent it, but suppose I should take whatever compliments come my way. At least they don’t call me stupid.
Martinez looked at the lines and thought that, before he sent the words onward, he should find out whether it was Michi or the captain who censored his correspondence.
His stylus hovered over his desk as he wondered what to write next.An old lover kissed me yesterday, but I didn’t want her.
Not the most reassuring of sentiments. His stylus didn’t move.
He looked at Terza’s picture, and he tried to remember her voice, the way she moved. Only vague memories came to him. The time they’d spent together seemed like a half-remembered dream.
Without invitation, pictures of Sula came to his mind. He remembered the flash of her emerald eyes, the silken weight of her golden hair on his palm, the taste of her flesh on his lips. It was as if he could reach out and touch her.
The scent of Sandama Twilight stung his sinus. He felt the weight and thrust and agony of a long steel sword as it drove through his heart.
An old lover kissed me yesterday,he thought,but she was the wrong old lover.
The pain will go, he told himself.
I delight in your letters,he wrote,but send a little video with your next message, so that I can see what you look like now.
And then he signed,Love, Gareth.
He didn’t send the letter on to whoever would censor it, but instead saved it in memory, and then blanked the desktop.