“She is very traditional,” Chio-Chio told the admiral breathlessly. “She would not show grief, for that belittles the dead.” She shrugged, eyes down, her hands clenching and unclenching. Then she looked up, almost defiant in her anger. “She was like that. Kenjo married her because she would not question what he did. He asked me first, but I had more sense, even if he was a war ace. Oh!” She brought her arm up to hide her face. “But to die like that! Struck from behind. An ignominious death for one who had cheated it so often!” Then she turned and fled from the room, her sobbing audible as she ran out into the night.
Emily gestured for Paul to open the small note, which was well sealed by wax and stamped with some kind of marking. He broke it open and unfolded the thick, beautiful, handmade paper. Then, mystified, he handed it to Emily and Pierre.
“There were two caves cut, to judge by the amount of fuel used and rubble spilled. One cave housed the plane. I do not know where the other was,” Emily read. “So he did manage to remove some of the fuel? How much?”
“We’ll see if Ezra can figure it out—or Ongola, when he recovers. Pierre?” Paul asked the chef for a pledge of silence.
“Of course. Discretion was bred in my family for generations, Admiral.”
“Paul,” the admiral corrected him.
“For something like this, old friend, you are the admiral!” Pierre clicked his heels together and inclined his body slightly from the waist, smiling with a brief reassurance. “Emily, you are tired. You should rest now. Paul, tell her!”
Paul laid one hand on Pierre’ de Courci’s shoulder and took Emily’s arm with the other. “There is one more duty for the day, Pierre, and you’d best be with us.”
“The bonfire!” Emily pulled back against Paul’s arm. “I’m not sure I—”
“Who can?” Paul broke in when she faltered. “Tarvi has asked it.”
All three walked with reluctant steps, joining the trickle of others going in the same direction, down to the dark Bonfire Square. Each house had left one light burning. The thinly scattered stars were brilliant, and the first moon, Timor, was barely a crescent on the eastern skyline.
By the pyramid of thicket and fern, Tarvi stood, his head down, a man as gaunt as some of the branches that had been cast into the pile. Suddenly, as if he knew that all were there who would come, he lit the brand. It flared up to light a face haggard with grief, with hair that straggled across tear-wet cheeks.
Tarvi raised the brand high, turning slowly as if to place firmly in his memory the faces of all those in attendance.
“From now on,” he shouted hoarsely, “I am not Tarvi, nor Andiyar. I am Telgar, so that her name is spoken every day, so that her name is remembered by everyone for giving us her life today. Our children will now bear that name, too. Ram Telgar, Ben Telgar, Dena Telgar, and Cara Telgar, who will never know her mother.” He took a deep breath, filling his chest. “What is my name?”
“Telgar!” Paul replied as loud as he could.
“Telgar!” cried Emily beside him, Pierre’s baritone repeating it a breath behind her. “Telgar!”
“Telgar! Telgar! Telgar! Telgar! Telgar!” Nearly three thousand voices took up the shout in a chant, pumping their arms until Telgar thrust the burning torch into the bonfire. As the flame roared up through the dry wood and fern, the name crescendoed. “Telgar! Telgar! Telgar!”
Chapter 14
THE SHOCK OF Sallah Telgar’s death reverberated across the continent. She had been well known, both as shuttle pilot during debarkation and as an able manager of the Karachi camp. Her courage, however, gave an unexpected boost to, morale, almost as if, because Sallah had been willing to devote the last moments of her life to benefit the colony, everyone had to strive harder to vindicate her sacrifice. Or so it seemed for the next eight days until some disturbing rumors began to circulate.
“Look, Paul,” Joel Lilienkamp began even before he had closed the door behind him. “Everyone’s got a right to access Stores. But that Ted Tubberman’s been taking out some unusual stuff for a botanist.”
“Not Tubberman again,” Paul said, leaning back in his chair with a deep sigh of disgust. Tarv—Telgar, Paul corrected himself, had phoned the previous day, asking if Tubberman had been authorized to scrounge in the shuttle they were dismantling.
“Yes,” Joel said. “If you ask me, he’s only accessing half his chips. You’ve got enough on your plate, Paul, but you gotta know what that fool’s doing.’ I’ll bet my last bottle of brandy he’s up to something.”
“At Wind Blossom’s request, Pol has denied him further access to the biology labs,” Paul said wearily. “Seems he was acting as if he was in charge of bioengineering. Bay doesn’t like him much, either.”
“She’s not alone,” Joel replied, lowering himself to a chair and scrubbing at his face. “I want your permission to shut the shop door in his face, too. I caught him in Building G, which houses the technically sensitive stuff. I don’t want anyone in there without my authorization. And there he was, bald-faced and swaggering like he had every right, he and Bart Lemos.”
“Bart Lemos!” Paul sat up again.
“Yeah. He, Bart, and Stev Kimmer’re doing a good-old-buddy bit these days. And I don’t like the rumors my sources tell me they’re spreading.”
“Stev Kimmer’s in on it?” Paul was surprised.
Joel shrugged. “He’s mighty thick with ’em.”
Paul rubbed his knuckles thoughtfully. Bart Lemos was a gullible nonentity, but Stev Kimmer was a highly skilled technician. Paul had put a discreet monitor on the man’s activities after Avril’s departure. Stev had gone on a three-day bender and been found asleep in the dismantled shuttle. Once he had recovered from the effects of quikal, he had gone back to work. Fulmar said that other mechanics did not like pairing with him because he was taciturn, if not downright surly. The thought of Tubberman having access to Kimmer’s expertise made Paul uneasy. “What exactly have you heard, Lili?” he asked.
“A load of crap,” the little storesman said, folding his fingers across his chest. “I don’t think anyone with any sense buys the notion that Avril and Kenjo were in league. Or that Ongola killed Kenjo to keep them from taking the Mariposa to go for help. But I’ll warn you, Paul, if Kitti’s bioengineering program doesn’t show postive results, we could be down the tubes. I’ll lay odds you and Emily are going to be asked to reconsider sending off that homing capsule.”
The previous evening, Paul had discussed that expedient with Emily, Ezra, and Jim. Keroon had been the fiercest opponent of a homing-capsule Mayday, which he termed an exercise in futility. As Paul remarked, such technological help was, at the earliest, ten years away. And the chance that the FSP would move with any speed to assist them was depressingly slim. To send for help seemed not only a rejection of Sallah’s sacrifice but a cowardly admission of failure when they had not exhausted the ingenuity and resourcefulness of their community.
“What sort of material has Ted been requisitioning, Lili?” Paul asked.
Joel extracted a wad of paper from his thigh pocket and made a show of unfolding and reading from it. “Grab bag from hydroponics to insulation materials, steel mesh and posts, and some computer chips that Dieter says he couldn’t possibly need, use, or understand.”
“Did you happen to ask Tubberman what he needed them for?”