I'll see you at the starfield in a week."
"Right. Bye."
"Bye."
She watched until his car turned a corner and vanished from sight. Then, taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and started back toward the house.
Not all the nuances of this mess were clear to her, but one of them was clear enough. The family didn't intend for her to know about Uncle Corwin's bargain; and so, as far as they were concerned, she wouldn't. She'd never had any formal acting experience, but she'd grown up with two older sisters and had long since learned how to bend the truth with a straight face.
Or even with a smiling face. She was going to a party, after all, and ought to at least try to project an image of excitement. Whether she felt that way or not.
Chapter 9
The new Cobras had a week of liberty before they were due to leave. For Jin, at least, the week went by very quickly.
"...and whatever you do, listen to Layn, okay?" Justin told his daughter as they walked arm in arm up the long ramp leading to the Southern Cross's entry-way. "I know he's a pain in the butt as an instructor, but he's a smart tactician and a crackling fighter. Stick with him and you'll be all right."
"Okay, Dad," Jin nodded. "Hey, don't worry-we'll be fine."
Justin looked down at his daughter's face as, for a brief second, an intense feeling of deja vu washed over him. "Qasama is the last place in the world to be overconfident about, Jin," he said quietly. "Everything about the planet is dangerous, from the krisjaws and spine leopards to the mojos to the Qasaman people. They're all dangerous, and they all hate you. Especially you."
Jin squeezed him a little tighter. "Don't worry, Dad, I know what I'm getting into."
"No, you don't. No one ever does. You have to-well, never mind." He took a deep breath, fighting back the urge to lecture her. "Just be careful, and come back safely. Okay?"
"Good advice," she said solemnly. "You be careful, too, huh? At least I'll be with a group of Cobras and other competent people. You'll be stuck here with
Priesly and his mob."
And under Priesly's trumped-up house arrest... Justin's jaw tightened momentarily with a freshly renewed awareness of the two guards standing a few paces behind them. "Yeah, well, it's not all that bad," he told his daughter, forcing a smile. "As long as Corwin's in there fighting for me Priesly hasn't got a chance of making this thing stick."
Something passed, too quickly to identify, across Jin's face. "Yeah," she said.
"Yeah. Well... walk me up the ramp?"
He did. At the entryway they exchanged one last hug... and as Jin's arms tightened, Cobra-strong, around him, Justin's vision blurred with moisture. A quarter century of hope and frustration was finally over. His child had succeeded him as a Cobra.
A triple tone sounded from the entryway. "I'd better get inside," Jin said into his chest. "I'll see you in a few weeks, Dad. Take care of yourself, okay?"
"Sure." Reluctantly, he released her and took half a step back. She smiled at him, blinking back tears of her own, then turned to wave one last time down the ramp to where her sisters and cousins were waiting for the Southern Cross's takeoff.
Then she was gone, and Justine found himself walking away from the ship. She'll be all right, he thought over and over to himself. She'll be all right. Really she will. She's my daughter-she has to come through it all right.
And for the first time he truly knew how his own parents must have felt on that day, so long ago, when he and Joshua had themselves lifted off for Qasama. The realization brought a half-bitter smile to his lips.
Whether there was justice in the universe he didn't know. But there did appear to be a certain symmetry.
Chapter 10
It was a two-week trip to Qasama; two weeks that went by very quickly. It was, for one thing, the first time the new Cobras had had a chance to interact with each other on anything approaching a social level. With each other, and also with the two men who would actually be leading the mission.
They were, to her mind, a study in contrasts. Both were top experts at
Aventine's Qasama Monitor Center, but at that point all similarity ended. Pash
Barynson was middle-aged and thin and short, a few centimeters shorter even than
Jin, with sparse black hair and an excruciatingly academic manner that was so stiff that it bordered on caricature. His associate, Como Raines, was almost exactly the opposite, in both manner and appearance. Tall and chubby, aged somewhere in his mid-thirties, he had red-blond hair, a perpetual smile, and an outgoing manner that enabled him to become friends with everyone on board almost before the Southern Cross had cleared Aventine's atmosphere.
It was an unlikely pairing, and it took Jin nearly a week to realize that the mission's planners hadn't simply pulled their names out of the grab-bag. Raines, with his easy friendliness, would presumably be the main contact man with the
Qasamans, while Barynson's job would be to stay in the background and analyze the data as Raines and the others pulled it in.
From the briefings, too, it was quickly clear that Barynson was the man in charge.
"We'll be making our approach along here-from the uninhabited west-making our landing about here," Barynson said, leaning over the photomap and jabbing a finger at a section of forest. "Timing the touchdown for about an hour before dawn, local time. The nearest of the villages bordering the Fertile Crescent area are about fifteen kilometers to the east and southeast-" he touched each in turn "-with what looks to be lumbering operations to the northeast here on the river at about the same distance. You'll note that the site is-theoretically, at least-a fair compromise between distance and seclusion. Whether it'll turn out that way in practice, of course, we won't know until we get there."
"Any idea what kind of undergrowth we'll have to go through?" Todor asked.
"Unfortunately, no," Barynson admitted. "Most of the data we've got on Qasaman forests comes from far to the east of this site, and infrared studies indicate that the canopy here, at any rate, is different in composition from that area."
"Of course," Raines put in, "if travel turns out to be impractical, we can always take the shuttle up to tree-top height and move it closer to the villages."
"Only if things are pretty damn difficult," Layn muttered. "We have only the
Trofts' word for it that the Qasaman observation systems won't be able to track our approach. The more we move the shuttle around, the higher the risk we'll be spotted."
"Agreed," Barynson nodded. "Though the more immediate danger will probably be the Qasaman fauna. I hope you Cobras will be up to the challenge."
"We're ready," Layn told him. "My men-people-know what they're doing."
Barynson's eyes flicked to Jin, turned quickly away. "Yes, I'm sure they do," he said, almost as if he believed it. "Well, anyway... we'll all be equipped with the best simulations of Qasaman clothing that the Center's analysis of telephotos could provide. The landing is timed so that we can get through the forest in daylight and reach one of these villages by nightfall. That'll give us the chance to make a close check of our clothing and get a first approximation of the culture before we have to tackle Azras and the main Fertile Crescent civilization. So; questions?"
Jin glanced across the table, caught Sun's eye. The other shrugged fractionally, echoing Jin's own thoughts: there wasn't a lot of point in asking questions to which there were as yet no answers.
"Very well, then." Barynson threw a look around the table. "We have three days left before planetfall, and for those three days I want all of you to do your best to become Qasamans. You'll wear our ersatz Qasaman clothing, eat our nearest approximations to the food the Qasamans were eating thirty years ago, and-most important of all-speak only Qasaman among yourselves. That rule is absolute-you aren't to speak Anglic to anyone, not even to one of the Southern