“It’s a long way back to Alliance space. I can’t even be sure what we’ll find if we get there. Hopefully I can tie up enough of the Syndicate Worlds fleet trying to catch us that they won’t be able to exploit our defeat at the Syndicate home world. But we’ll have no way of knowing whether the Syndics have gone after the Alliance using the advantage gained by their victory and by us being trapped out here, not until we get close enough to home to have a chance of getting fairly recent intelligence.”
He paused again. “It’s not that I’m worried about what’ll happen to me. I feel like I should’ve died a century ago. But I can’t give in to that feeling because I do care about what happens to the people who’ve placed so much trust in me. Please help me make the right decisions and do the right things, so I lose as few ships and sailors as possible. I swear I’ll try my best to do right by you and by the living.”
Geary sat for a while longer, watching the candle burn, then reached out, snuffed the flame, stood, and walked out of the room.
As he left the area, several sailors saw him. He nodded in greeting while they watched him with awed expressions. Hell, I ought to be one of the dead ancestors people are talking to, instead of walking these decks. They know that.
But the sailors didn’t act like they’d seen someone who didn’t belong here. A couple of them saluted with the stiff awkwardness of someone who’d recently learned the gesture. Geary found himself smiling as he returned the salutes. Then he caught a flash of wariness in the eyes of two other sailors and his smile vanished. His own people shouldn’t be afraid of him. “Is something wrong?”
The sailor he’d addressed went white. “N-no, sir.”
Geary eyed the man for a moment. “Are you sure? You seem to have concerns. If you need to discuss them privately, I’ve got some time.”
The sailor was still groping for a reply when his companion cleared her throat. “Sir, it’s none of our business.”
“Really?” Geary looked around, reading the disquiet in the others. “I’d like to know what’s bothering you anyway.”
The woman paled slightly as well, then spoke haltingly. “It’s just, seeing you here. There’d been some talk.”
“Talk?” Geary tried to keep from frowning. He didn’t like making a public spectacle of his belief, but this seemed to be something beyond that. “About what?”
One of the sailors who’d saluted answered while he gave the worried ones an annoyed glance. “Sir, nobody’d seen you here since, uh, since we picked you up. And since we left the Syndic home system, well, sir, some people thought maybe what happened there had something to do with that.”
Geary hoped he didn’t look as annoyed as felt by the vagueness of the statement. “What in particular?” Then it struck him. “You mean Repulse, don’t you?” The expressions on the sailors answered his question better than words could have. “You mean because my grandnephew probably died on Repulse.”
He looked down, momentarily not wishing to look at the others, and shook his head. “Did you think I was afraid to come here and deal with him? Deal with that?” Geary raised his head and once again read the answer in their expressions. “I don’t know how much you all know, but Captain Michael J. Geary volunteered to keep Repulse back and hold off the Syndics. If he hadn’t done that, I might’ve had to order it, because that would’ve been my responsibility, but I didn’t order it. I didn’t have to. He and his crew voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the rest of us.”
Their faces told Geary they hadn’t known that. Great. They’ve been thinking that I’d ordered my grandnephew to his death. The hell of it is that I might’ve really had to do that. “I have nothing to fear facing my ancestors. No more than anyone else, I guess. There’s just been a lot going on. That’s why I haven’t been down here before.”
“Of course, sir,” one sailor replied quickly.
“You’re not afraid of anything, are you, sir?” another asked in a rush.
One of my worshippers, Geary thought. How do I answer that? “Like anyone else, I’m worried about doing my best. It keeps me on my toes.” He grinned to show it was meant to be a joke, and the sailors laughed on cue. Now all he had to do was get out of this conversation as quickly as possible without being too obvious about it. “I’m sorry to have kept you from your own observances.”
The sailors offered a chorus of replies indicating the fault was theirs and then made way for Geary. He noted as he passed that the two worried sailors seemed much more comfortable around him now. To his own surprise, he realized he felt a little more comfortable around them. Perhaps, in his own way, he had been shying away from dealing with what had happened to Repulse, but by openly stating his feelings to others, he’d come to accept it somewhat.
He walked on toward his stateroom, feeling that the burdens on him were, for the moment, a bit lighter.
“Captain Geary, may I speak privately with you?”
Geary closed out the item he’d been working on, one of the simulations he wanted the fleet to use in practice for battle once it arrived at Kaliban. It was an older program, one whose ancestral forerunner he’d been familiar with a long time ago, but even this much newer version hadn’t been updated for a while. He wanted the simulation parameters to match the state of this fleet and what he’d seen of Syndic capabilities nowadays. But there was still plenty of time to get that done before the fleet reached Kaliban, whereas Captain Desjani was doubtless stealing time from her duties as Dauntless’s commanding officer in order to talk to him now. “Of course.”
Desjani paused as if ordering her thoughts. “I know this happened almost a week ago, but I was hoping you would tell me why you chose to send the crews of the Syndic merchant ships to safety. I understand your feelings regarding treatment of prisoners, but those individuals were not in uniform. They were in civilian garb. That made them saboteurs at best, and such people are not covered by the laws of war.” She seemed done, but hastily added one more sentence. “I’m not questioning your decision, of course.”
“Captain Desjani, I count on you to question me when you don’t understand why I’m doing something. You may know something I need to know.” Geary screwed his eyes shut for a moment and kneaded his forehead in an attempt to relieve the tension that had sprung up inside. “You’re right, of course, that we weren’t obligated to try to save the lives of those people. In fact, we could’ve executed the lot of them and not be held at fault.” He grinned crookedly. “You didn’t ask this directly, but I’ll answer it anyway. I’m certain that your ancestors and mine wouldn’t have looked askance at us if those Syndics had been dealt with in a much harsher and more permanent manner.”
He could see the puzzlement in Desjani’s eyes. “Then, why, sir? They were planning to kill many of our sailors, and destroy or disable some of our ships, in a sneak attack under the guise of civilians. Why show them mercy?”
“That’s a valid question.” Geary sighed and waved toward the starscape still displayed on one bulkhead. “I could say that sometimes it’s good for the soul to show mercy when none is required or expected. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I think my soul needs all the help it can get.” Desjani looked momentarily startled, then smiled as if she’d decided Geary was joking. “But that’s far from the only reason,” Geary continued. “I had some very practical grounds for letting them go.”