“Thanks, I’ll join you in the dressing room in a few moments.” Marabell smiled and turned away with the other couple. As she did, Adela noted the similarity between the two women.
“They seem very close,” she said. “Have they become friends?”
Niles smiled. “They’re sisters. Kip Salera is my brother-in-law.”
The shimmering globe that was Pallatin began to dwindle in the display as the Levant picked up speed. Their mission here a success, they were leaving, heading “home” for Luna.
She would miss Billy Woorunmarra. He had stayed behind, along with several other Imperial officers, to help the Joint Dominion as they set about the task of rebuilding the Pallatin government and economy. He and the others would then become the first crew of one of the first starships to be produced in the new shipyards, and would follow Levant back to Sol system, arriving a few years later. His expertise at negotiations, not to mention his warmth and good humor, had made this trip bearable for her.
Alone again in her private suite, the planet glowing in the holographic display in the corner the only light in the room, she sat in silence.
The quiet was at once calming after the wearying ordeal on Pallatin, and frightening for the thoughts it now allowed to come creeping back into her consciousness after so long an absence. During the long months here she had managed, with varying degrees of success, to put Javas’ message out of her mind. But now, alone, with little left to be done before returning to the tank for the long voyage home, she found the image of his message playing over and over in her mind.
“System,” she said. There was an edge to her soft voice that she heard immediately. An edge that asked, what are you afraid of?
I’m afraid because I finally have to deal with this, she answered inwardly, and I still don’t know what I’m going to say to him.
“Ma’am?” the room system responded.
“Please cancel the current display and retrieve my personal file.” The image of Pallatin dissolved, leaving the room in near darkness.
“Personal files are ready for playback.”
“Display personal string one-A, message one.”
The corner of the room brightened, and coalesced into Javas’ study at Woodsgate on Earth. Just as the first time she’d viewed this file upon waking from the long voyage from Luna, Javas sat in the leather chair, the blanket-wrapped bundle cradled gently in his strong arms.
“Adela, my love, we have a son…”
“Cancel playback.” The image froze, and dissolved. “System.”
“Ma’am?”
“Retrieve edited file of personal string one-A, message one.”
“Ready.”
“Playback.”
Javas stood before her in the looped edit she had made of his message, smiling down at the infant in his arms. As she had before, she approached the image and looked into the eyes of her son.
He’s sixteen now, she thought. Almost a man. He’ll be thirty-six by the time I return.
She turned away from the image and went to a mirror, palming the light plate as she did. She brushed her long hair—lightened from spending so much time in the Pallatin sun—and noticed how it stood out against her darkly tanned skin. She considered changing from the hot-weather uniform she still wore, but decided against it and returned to the display area of her suite.
The edit loop was still running and she lingered a few moments in loving awe of the beautiful child in Javas’ arms that was her son. Their son.
“Cancel playback and prepare to record outgoing message.” Father and son disappeared and the room lights came up enough to make a clear recording.
“Ready.”
Adela sat in the chair, then changed her mind and decided to stand instead as she spoke. Before starting the recording, however, she changed her mind again and went back to the chair. She remained seated for a full minute before doing anything further and breathed in deeply, then exhaled, then breathed in again, forcing herself to relax.
“Ready,” the system repeated.
At the sound, she looked up into the recorder. “Record.” A red light glowed above the lens.
“Hello, my love,” she began.
“I’m coming home.”
PART FIVE
Test
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Continue with the tests, then,” said Javas, Emperor of the Hundred Worlds. “In the meantime…” He turned away for a moment, as if listening to an unseen speaker. As he paused, his image on the screen stretched and distorted. His movements slowed, even froze for several seconds, before the computer reassigned the transmission matrix and brought the visual portion back up to normal speed. Unlike the recorded tachyon transmissions, which were computer-corrected before playback and could be viewed normally without undue visual or audio distortion, the realtime FTL transmissions were subject to the vagaries of the tachyons that carried the signal itself.
Even when the picture on the screen had settled into normalcy, Bomeer had to look at the image carefully to tell if the image was still frozen, or if Javas was merely holding still. Even after more than forty years, he reflected as he studied the Emperor’s face, you still have difficulty hiding your link to the Imperial computer net. Your father never had that problem.
Emperor Nicholas had been adept at hiding the fact that he was consulting the Imperial computers through his integrator, often pulling pertinent information from the data banks with ease even as he spoke to someone. But not Javas. While Bomeer had seen Nicholas’ son occasionally use the link unobtrusively during pauses in a conversation, he invariably stopped a conversation when something important was being relayed to him. Bomeer tilted his head as he regarded the Emperor, then shot a glance to Supreme Commander Fain, seated at his side. The man sat quietly, patiently; he seemed to sense he was being stared at, and turned his head toward Bomeer, a faint smile crossing his lips for just the briefest of moments.
And in that moment, something became suddenly clear to the academician; something that Fain had apparently known for some time: Javas wasn’t hiding the fact that he was accessing the Imperial computer through his integrator for the simple reason that he’d chosen not to.
Bomeer turned quickly away from Fain and searched his memory. He had been in attendance at hundreds, perhaps thousands, of meetings and discussions with Javas; meetings that involved dozens of attendees—and intimate chats with only the two of them present. But it occurred to him that he could recall no time during a meeting with anyone but Fain and himself when Javas had been so open with the integrator.
It’s respect, he realized as he turned back to the screen to study the unmoving image of the Emperor once more. You respect us more than I realized. The revelation carried with it an uneasiness; although whether his sudden discomfort was caused by the fact that Javas held him in higher esteem than he’d thought, or by his own inability to recognize what now seemed abundantly obvious, Bomeer couldn’t be certain. He was grateful to be spared any further introspection when Javas turned back to them.
“I’ve just been informed that the Levant is decelerating toward Sol system. Commander Montero believes he’ll arrive in fewer than four months.”