“That’s true,” Zilwicki acknowledged. “On the other hand, according to your friend Justice, Eighth Fleet wasn’t making any effort to hide. First, I imagine, because the whole point was for the Pritchart administration to be well aware—painfully well aware, if I may be so bold — of the iron fist inside Duchess Harrington’s velvet glove. And, second, because sitting there with its stealth and EW online for such extended periods would give your Navy entirely too good a look at their capabilities under what would amount to laboratory conditions. In other words, if they were still here, we’d be able to see them even with this one-eyed bastard.”
He jerked his head at the display pretending to be a plot, and Cachat nodded. It would have taken someone who knew the Havenite spy as well as Zilwicki did to recognize the worry in his expression.
“Hey, it’s not the end of the world, Victor,” Zilwicki said more gently. “Like I said, the system’s still here. For that matter, I’m picking up Capital Fleet’s transponder beacons. If the talks had come apart spectacularly, there’d be a lot fewer ships and a lot more wreckage.”
“True enough, I suppose.” Cachat nodded brusquely, then gave himself a mental shake. “I could wish Duchess Harrington were still here, for a lot of reasons. But all we can do is the best we can do. Are we close enough for me to call in?”
“You’ll still be looking at a twenty-five minute two-way lag,” Zilwicki told him. “Do you want to send a one-way burst, or are we going to have to go through some kind of challenge-response validation?”
“Burst, I think,” Cachat said after a moment’s reflection. “We can at least get the ball started rolling.”
“Fine. In that case, you’d better get started recording it.”
* * *
The officer of the watch looked up from her own paperwork as Petty Officer Harder finished re-securing the access panel and started folding up her toolkit once more.
“Any problems, PO?”
“No, Ma’am.” Harder smiled wryly. “Matter of fact, it looks like they did catch up on the last inspection and just forgot to log it. Everything’s fine.”
“Good.” The officer smiled back and shook her head. “Sorry you had to come all the way down for something that was already done, but Captain Hershberger’s right. Everything has to be four-oh on this one.”
“You got that one right, Ma’am,” Harder agreed, and headed for the flag bridge hatch.
* * *
The uniformed four-man escort waiting dirt-side for the shuttle seemed unable to decide whether its passengers were honored guests, prisoners, or homicidal maniacs. Since the escort was meeting Victor Cachat, Zilwicki thought that wasn’t an unreasonable attitude on its part.
“Officer Cachat,” the senior man said, looking at Cachat.
“Yes,” Cachat replied tersely.
“And this would be Captain Zilwicki, then?”
“Yes, and this is Yana Tretiakovna.” Cachat’s tone had taken on a certain dangerous patience, Zilwicki noted.
“Thank you, Sir. But I don’t believe anyone’s told me who this is,” the escort commander said, twitching his head in Herlander Simões’ direction.
“No, they haven’t, have they?”
“Sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some identification.”
“No,” Cachat said flatly.
“Officer Cachat, I realize you’re senior to me, but I’m still going to have to insist. My orders are to escort you directly to Péricard Tower, and I don’t think Presidential Security’s going to be happy about admitting someone they don’t even have a name for!”
“Then they’re just going to have to be unhappy,” Cachat told him. “I’m not simply posturing, Officer…Bourchier,” he went on, reading the other man’s nameplate. “This man’s identity — for that matter, the very fact of his existence — is strictly need-to-know. Frankly, I’d be a lot happier if you’d never even seen him. But the only four people who have the authority to decide you have a need-to-know who he is are Director Trajan, Director Usher, Attorney General LePic, or President Pritchart. Now, do you want to get one of them on a secure com to get that kind of clearance, or do you want to just take my word for it?”
“Believe me,” Yana said in an exaggerated stage whisper, one hand cupped beside her mouth. “You want to just take his word for it.”
Bourchier looked at all of them for a long moment, then inhaled deeply. Obviously he’d heard the stories about Victor Cachat.
“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way. But if Agent Thiessen shoots him on sight, nobody better blame me for it.”
* * *
Approximately ninety minutes later, Cachat, Simões, and Zilwicki were escorted into a maximum security briefing room. Yana had declined Cachat’s invitation when she found out who else was going to be present. Apparently there were limits to her insouciance, after all.
Actually, Zilwicki didn’t really blame her as he surveyed the briefing room’s occupants. President Eloise Pritchart, Secretary of War Admiral Thomas Theisman, Attorney General Denis LePic, Vice Admiral Linda Trenis of the Bureau of Planning, and Rear Admiral Victor Lewis, the CO of the Office of Operational Research, sat waiting for them, along with three members of the President’s security detail. All of whom, Zilwicki noted, looked just as unhappy as Officer Bourchier had suggested they might.
Well, that was fine with him. He wasn’t especially happy himself. To Bourchier’s credit, he’d refused to allow even Victor Cachat to simply steamroller him. Instead, he’d flatly insisted on clearing Simões’ presence with some higher authority before he’d go any further. Wilhelm Trajan, the Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, hadn’t been available — he was off-planet at the moment — so Bourchier had gone directly to LePic. Who, not unreasonably, had insisted on meeting Simões himself before he’d even consider authorizing his admittance into Pritchart’s presence.
Zilwicki had no problem with that. What he did have a problem with was that their interview with the attorney general had been the first any of them had heard about what had happened — or, at least, what Mesa claimed had happened — in Green Pines. Discovering that he’d been branded as the worst mass murderer in recent memory tended to be just a tad upsetting, he’d discovered.
And thinking about how the people he loved must have responded to that lie was even more so.
“So, our wandering boy returns, I see,” Pritchart murmured. She regarded all of them for a moment, then looked directly at Zilwicki.
“I’m afraid the galaxy at large thinks you’re, well, dead, Captain Zilwicki,” she said. “I’m pleased to see the reports were in error. Although I’m sure quite a few people in Manticore are going to be just as curious to know where you’ve been for the last several months as we are about Officer Cachat’s whereabouts.”
“I’m sure they are, too, Madam President. Unfortunately, we had a little, um, engine trouble on the way home. It took us several months to make repairs.” Zilwicki grimaced. “We played a lot of cards,” he added.
“I imagine so.” The President cocked her head. “And I imagine you’ve also discovered there have been a few developments since whatever happened — and I do trust you’re going to tell us what it was that did happen — in Green Pines?”
“I’m sure that will be covered, Ma’am,” Zilwicki said grimly. “It wasn’t much like the ‘official version’ I’ve just heard, but it was bad enough.”
Pritchart gazed at him for a moment, then nodded slowly and looked at Simões.