“He was in love with your sister till the end.”
She didn’t have to explain which sister PJ loved. Not Walpurga, the one he’d married, but Sempronia, who had jilted him.
Martinez had been invited to dine byConfidence ‘s wardroom. The frigate’s lieutenants hadn’t heard his war stories yet, and he expected to enjoy himself relating them.
He had arrived early to pay his respects to Sula.
And to talk to her.
And to see her.
And to feel his blood blaze at the sight.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked. “I can have Rizal boil water.”
“No thanks.” The fewer interruptions by servants, he thought, the better.
“Sit down then.”
He sat in a straight-backed metal-framed chair acquired on the cheap by some government purchaser. Sula’s bare, small, functional quarters were far removed from his own luxurious, art-filled suite.
“Are guns your only ornament?” he asked. “I’d send you some pictures, but I don’t think Fletcher’s estate would approve.”
“You’ve got an artist, don’t you?” Sula said. “Maybe I could commission something from him.”
“Perhaps a full-length portrait,” Martinez said.
Sula grinned. “I couldn’t put up with looking at myself hours on end, especially in a tiny place like this. I don’t know how you stand it.”
Martinez felt an implied criticism in this statement.
“I admire the artistry of it. The sfumato, for example.” It was one of the technical words he’d learned from Jukes while he sat for the painting. “The balance of light and shade, the arrangement of objects on the table that helps to bring the image into the third dimension—”
There was a knock on the door, and Martinez turned to see Haz,Confidence ‘s premiere.
“Beg pardon,” Haz told Sula, “but the wardroom is happy to offer Captain Martinez its hospitality.”
“I’ll see you another time, Captain,” Sula said, rising smoothly.
As Martinez took her hand to say farewell, his mind finally received the message that his senses had been trying to send him for some time.
Sula’s scent had changed. Instead of the musky scent she had worn since she’d joined the Orthodox Fleet, she was now wearing Sandama Twilight, the perfume that he had tasted on her flesh as, over a year ago now, they lay in the vast, hideous canopied bed in her rented apartment.
He looked down at her in shock, his hand still wrapped around hers. She gazed back, her face deliberately incurious.
He dropped her hand, turned to follow Haz to the wardroom, and felt a flow of sheer emotion as it rolled like a slow, implacable tide through his blood.
She’s mine,he thought.
Sula had decided to roll the dice again, three nights earlier when she’d returned from a cocktail party Michi had given for the officers of her sadly reduced squadron. She’d stepped into her little office, her skin still tingling with the awareness of Martinez that she’d felt during the last few hours, and paused to look at the wall behind her desk, the wall with the two rifles.
There was the keepsake of PJ, she and the keepsake of Sidney.
It was only then that she realized that she had no keepsake of Casimir, nothing but memories of frantic nights filled with the sting of adrenaline, the tang of sweat, and the sound of weapons fire. She had put Casimir in his tomb, and sacrificed theju yao pot to his memory. She had intended to join him, to seek her oblivion in a brilliant, clarifying, annihilating blast at Magaria, but pride had intervened.
Very well, she would let pride dictate her course. She would roll the dice on life, not death. She would roll the dice on love, not exile.
She would let Casimir stay buried, and hope that the fantastic Martinez luck would overcome the curse she carried with her.
In her mind, she bargained with Lord Chen. “I can arrange for the return of your daughter,” she said. “Captain Martinez and I were in love before the marriage was arranged. I can arrange for that love to blossom again. The marriage will end, and you will not be blamed by Clan Martinez.
“In return I require your patronage of myself, and your continued patronage of Captain Martinez. And of course Martinez and I will raise the child, who I don’t imagine you’d care to have around anyway.”
And who I need as a hostage to guarantee your cooperation.
She looked at the matter from Lord Chen’s point of view, and saw nothing to object to.
She knew better than to strike any fantasy bargains with Lady Terza Chen. The Chen heir had been born under circumstances that valued her womb over any other part. She was a bearer of precious Chen genetics, to be mixed with other valuable genetics as her family dictated. That Chen genes had been debased by Martinez plasma was, as far as Clan Chen was concerned, a misfortune of history.
Terza had been born a mere carrier of genes, but marriage had turned her into something more formidable. Her social standing was higher than that of her husband, which made her valuable to the wealthy, ambitious clan into which she had married, and who would be inclined to defer to her. In fact—as Sula was inclined to read the situation—it was Lord Chen who was the pawn now, a pawn both of Martinez interests and of his newly empowered daughter, the mother of the new clan heir.
It was unlikely that Terza would wish to return to her earlier role as a mere breeder-in-waiting. Any such change would have to be decided elsewhere. Her husband and her father would have to be in agreement on these basics.
With these thoughts in mind, Sula shaped her new program. Her policy of pride demanded that she not cheapen herself in any way. She did not pursue Martinez.
Instead, she drew him a map. She gave up the Sengra perfume that Casimir had given her and returned to her earlier scent, Sandama Twilight. This, she noticed, seemed to produce an effect—Martinez looked as if she’d hit him between the eyes with a hammer.
Detail was added to the map. WhenConfidence was still two wormhole jumps from Zanshaa, she arranged to rent a spacious apartment in the Petty Mount, in the shadow of the High City. To give herself privacy she made Macnamara and Spence the present of a twenty-nine-day vacation at a resort on Lake Tranimo, two hours from Zanshaa City by supersonic train. “You’re sick of the sight of me after all this time,” she told them over their protests. “And though I love you both, I will be happy not to have to look at you for a while.”
Her cook, Rizal, was given a discharge and permission to return home, though she kept him on retainer in case she needed to produce a meal.
She made certain that Martinez knew of all these arrangements, knew that she would be alone in a comfortable apartment away from the close confines and spying eyes of the High City. She wouldn’t even have any servants around.
She drew the map, but it was up to Martinez to follow it. Pride demanded that, at least.
She received few messages once communication with Zanshaa was restored. The news programs from the capital consisted in large part of executions. She didn’t watch them—she’d seen quite enough of that—but took note of the names.
With the peace, the information possessed by the enemy prisoners was no longer of any value, and batches of them were being flung from the High City every day. All the members of the government, both Naxids and others, officers of the security services, and the members of the ration authority whose lives Sula had spared so the planet would not starve. Now they were all condemned, their lives forfeit, their fortunes confiscated, their clans decimated.
Good,Sula thought.
The tiny revenant of Chenforce flew into Zanshaa’s system, braked, fell into orbit around Zanshaa. Between the ships and the blue and white planet curved a vast section of the broken accelerator ring, a section so huge that it was impossible to tell from close up that it was a mere fragment of what had once been the greatest monument of interstellar civilization. The ring’s smooth flank was studded with antennae, receiver dishes, and vast solar arrays.