Communication with the outside went only so far and no farther. The wormhole relay station destroyed by the Orthodox Fleet, at Bachun between Magaria and Zanshaa, had not been replaced, and neither had other stations destroyed elsewhere in the empire by Chenforce and Light Squadron 14. Communication was perfect within the part of the empire formerly held by the Naxids, and that sphere was ruled absolutely by Lord Tork, from his new headquarters at Magaria. To reach any area outside that zone a courier missile was required, and the two ships generated no news of sufficient importance to justify sending one.
The halfway point was reached, and the ships spun neatly about and began the deceleration that would take them to Zanshaa. Shortly afterward they entered the Magaria system and rendered passing honors to the Supreme Commander on the Magaria ring. A staff officer sent a routine acknowledgment, and that seemed to be that.
Until, a day later, an order was flashed from Tork’s headquarters.
The message consisted of new orders for Sula. After testifying before the elite commission on Zanshaa, she was to take Fleet transport to Terra, where she would begin a term as captain of Terra’s ring.
It was intended aspunishment, Sula realized with delight. Exile for two or more years to an obscure, backwater planet, off the trade routes, which coincidentally happened to be the home of her species.
Terra. Earth. Where she could see with her own eyes the venerable cities of Byzantium, Xi’an, SaSuu. Where she could caress ancient marbles with her own hands and touch the most venerable porcelains in the empire. Where she could bathe in the oceans that had given birth to all the planet’s myriad forms of life.
Where she could walk among the carved monuments of Terra’s history, with the dust of kings clinging to the bottoms of her shoes.
And this was apunishment.
Sula could only laugh.
If Tork only knew, she thought. If he only knew.
Martinez floated through his days in a haze of calculation. Or perhaps fantasy. In the ritualized artificial worlds that wereIllustrious andConfidence, it was getting hard to tell the difference.
Sula was present, and tangible, and beautiful, and he desired her. He saw her every two or three days, but they were never completely alone. If he should kiss her, or even touch her arm for too long a time, someone on the ship—Michi, Chandra, a servant—would see, and within hours everyone on board both ships would know. When they were in company, he tried to avoid looking at her, so that he would never be betrayed by a spellbound gaze.
He distrusted the sense of unreality that surrounded his current existence, and he wasn’t used to doubting himself or his senses, so his doubt made him frantic. The journey from Naxas to Zanshaa was a transition from war to peace, from fame to obscurity, from duty to irresponsibility. The temptation was to forget that there would be a landing at the end, and that the landing would be more or less hard.
In his mind, he bargained with Lord Chen. “You may have your daughter,” he said, “for use as a pawn in whatever unspeakable political games you next wish to play. In exchange you and your sister will continue to support my career in the Fleet—that’s only fair, I think you’ll agree.
“And one other thing,” he added, “I must have the child.”
This fantasy, or calculation, or whatever it was, seemed perfectly reasonable, until he found himself at his desk and looked down at the floating images of Terza and his son, and then it seemed madness.
Sula had walked out on him twice. Giving her a third chance seemed the height of lunacy.
Then he would see her at dinner or a reception, and the fever would kindle again in his blood.
Illustriousflashed through Magaria Wormhole 1 and left Tork’s isolated sphere. All the accumulated news, mail, and video communications from the outside arrived, and met the fantasy head-on.
There were dozens of messages from Terza, ranging from electronic facsimiles of brief handwritten notes to videos of herself with Young Gareth. When Terza spoke to the camera, the infant turned his head to look for the person who was so occupying his mother’s attention, and was visibly puzzled to find no one there. Martinez was completely charmed.
I must have the child.
The one non-negotiable clause in his bargain with existence.
Terza’s later messages showed her relief at the news from Magaria, and then from Naxas. “At least we know you’re all right, wherever you are, even if we won’t be seeing you right away.”
In the very latest message she was aboard a ship. “I’m traveling with my father,” she said. “The Control Board is moving from…well, one secret place to another, and I’m going along as his hostess.”
Terza was going to some new place, he thought sourly, that Michi would know about but he wouldn’t. Sometimes it was hard not to think of the entire Chen clan as a vast conspiracy designed to keep him in the dark.
The next day, Michi invited him for cocktails. The elaborate dinners that had for a month occupied the attentions of the officers and their cooks had faded, to be replaced by teas or cocktail parties or gaming functions. People were putting on too much weight, for one thing, and for another, the delicacies that had been brought aboard at Chijimo, and restocked at Zanshaa, were running low.
He found Michi in her office, not in the long dining room. A snack of flat bread, pickles, and canned fish eggs gave off a whiff of stale olive oil. Vandervalk mixed the drinks in the corner and poured them into chilled glasses. Michi gazed at hers, sipped, and gazed again.
She looked tired, and careful application of cosmetic hadn’t entirely disguised the fine new lines around her eyes and mouth. She looked at her drink as if seeing past it to the end of her active career, and Martinez suspected the view wasn’t to her liking.
“I’ve heard from Maurice,” she said after a moment. “He was as annoyed as we were that the Convocation made Lord Tork’s rank permanent. More so, perhaps—he’ll have to deal with Tork at Control Board meetings, while we won’t have to see him at all.”
Martinez very much doubted that anyone was more annoyed with Tork than he was, but he managed to make sympathetic noises anyway.
“Maurice let me know some of what’s been going on behind the scenes,” Michi said. “Did you know that the government was in touch with the Naxids almost the entire length of the war?”
“Was it like Tork and Dakzad before Second Magaria?” Martinez asked. “Arguing the finer points of the Praxis with each other?”
Michi smiled. “Probably. I imagine they mostly exchanged surrender demands. The Naxids even took ours seriously, after they lost Zanshaa.”
He looked at her, the astringent taste of the cocktail on his tongue. “Really?”
“They tried to negotiate an end to the war. But we insisted on unconditional surrender, and they saw no reason to accept that while they still had a fleet in being.
“After Second Magaria the negotiations got a lot more serious. But apparently they decided to gamble on winning at Naxas, and that we’d accept more of their conditions if Chenforce sailed off into the unknown and then vanished without a trace. But it left them without a leg to stand on when we actually won.”
“They had no choice but to commit suicide,” Martinez said.
“Yes.”
“I can’t say I’m sorry.”
She gave a little shrug that said she wasn’t sorry either.
“I’ve got a video from Terza,” she said. “She seems to be thriving. And Gareth is perfectly adorable, obviously a bright child.”
“Obviously a genius,” Martinez corrected.
Michi smiled. “Yes.” The smile faded. “It’s hard being away from them at this age, isn’t it? I know.”