Elsa stared at him.
He stared back.
She grimaced. “Fold.”
“So,” he said, “what did you have?”
She tossed her cards back to the dealer, facedown. “You’ll never know,” she said.
Erik took his pot, and pushed it to the dealer. “Cash me out. I think I’ll call it an evening.”
He signed off as the winnings were credited to his account, then headed away from the table without looking back. He was almost out of the casino when Elsa, still struggling to stuff chips into her purse, caught up with him. “Quitting just when things were getting interesting?”
“No action at that table,” he said without slowing down.
“Looking for some action, are you?”
He stopped, turned, and glared at her. “I don’t have time for games, Elsa. That was an INN reporter at the table.”
“Did I say anything? Do anything? I knew who he was before you did, Erik. While you’ve been hiding in your cabin, I’ve been circulating around the ship.”
“Looking for me?”
“As a matter of a fact, yes. You’ll notice I was discreet enough not to come to your cabin.”
“How good of you,” he said sarcastically. He looked around nervously. “We can’t talk out in the open.”
She moved to a nearby door marked Sauna 2. A movable sign indicated that it was unoccupied—hardly surprising considering how empty the ship was. She poked her head inside. “It’s not even on,” she said.
He followed her inside and locked the door. The room was lined with cedar planks, and benches lined the lower and rear walls.
“So,” he said, “you are a spy.”
She laughed. “I told you what I am. My friends knew that the Duke’s forces were massing on St. Andre, and I’d hoped you’d be heading there. I used some of my connections to put myself along one possible path and waited at the jump point. I was on the lookout, and checked the passenger manifest of every other ship through.”
“And if that hadn’t worked?”
She shrugged. “I’d have gone to St. Andre and tried to contact you there, but that would have made it much more difficult to be discreet. I wanted a chance to talk to you alone, before you got stuck neck-deep in command responsibilities.”
“So you can pump me for information on our defenses?”
“Erik, I could give a dead moon about your defenses. I want you.”
“You want me, or Liao does?”
“Both, Erik.” She licked her lips. “I helped you before, and I’m going to help you again. Erik, I’m betraying my friends by telling you this, but St. Andre is going to fall.”
“You know this for a fact? If you like playing spy so much, tell me their plans. We can pay you as much as they do—maybe more.”
She laughed. “You don’t think they trust me with their battle plans, do you? They just told me that St. Andre was going to be theirs, and I believe them. They told me I could make you an offer.”
Klaxons sounded, warning that the ship would shortly be making the hyperspace jump to St. Andre. Never having been troubled by jump-sickness, he paid only passing attention. He looked at Elsa. “An offer?”
“Switch sides, Erik. Convince St. Andre to surrender. We don’t know how many of your forces are committed there, but it must be significant. At the very least, it would wound the Duke’s reputation, and demoralize the SwordSworn.
“You could do well with House Liao. Certainly, it would be no worse than being the Duke’s errand boy, and probably better. You could be an important person in your own right.”
It was actually tempting in a way. To be free of Aaron once and for all, to answer the Duke’s betrayal with one of his own. To abandon everything and seek his own destiny.
“How important? Important enough to be given my own army?”
She laughed. “Erik, you just don’t understand, do you? To be blunt, other than your name, you just aren’t considered that important. Until a few months ago, even your uncle was beneath their notice, though he’s managed to change that somewhat.
“Don’t you see, Erik? People like us, we don’t really matter much. We don’t have many choices. We have to know our place in the world, know our limitations, and make the best of it.”
Erik wiped his face with his hands. Know your place. Know your limitations. He’d heard it all before. Yet this time, he had one last chip to bargain with, and the only way to use it was to play all-in. House Liao didn’t seem to have figured out the Duke’s deception at Shensi yet, and that had value.
If Liao could make the SwordSworn coalition fall apart without landing a single ’Mech or firing a single shot, what would that be worth? If that happened, perhaps they could be persuaded to bypass St. Andre for now, saving SwordSworn lives.
Yet, when it all was said and done, once the deal was made, he would be no more important than he’d ever been. It was the information that was valuable, not Erik Sandoval-Groell. Here or with Liao, he wasn’t much—a little fish in a very big sea. But as long as he was with Aaron, he was at least swimming with a shark, and there was something to be said for that.
“I’m sorry, Elsa. I can’t do that.” He considered. “I’ll make you the same offer. Come over to our side.”
She smiled sadly. “And I can’t do that, Erik, for a lot of reasons. But most of all, what have I really got to offer? My services as your concubine? I care for you Erik, but I can’t be beholden to you that way. It would poison everything, and I’d end up hating you.” She shook her head. “No, I’ve set my course, and I’m staying with it.”
“Well then,” he said.
“Well,” she said.
He unlocked the door. “When we get to St. Andre, just stay on the ship. If you go down to the planet, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”
He considered returning to his quarters, but instead went back to the casino to ride out the jump.
He was still there, sitting at an empty poker table, half an hour later when Clayhatchee appeared. “Commander! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!
“The ship was contacted by St. Andre as soon as we jumped into the system. There isn’t going to be any defensive action, Commander. Liao forces started landing three days ago, and they’ve dug themselves in good.”
16
Xu district, New Madrid, Poznan
Prefecture V, The Republic
17 December 3134
Aaron managed not to flinch as a bottle smashed against the limousine’s ferro-glass window, a few inches from his face. He glanced at Joan Cisco, who sat on the other side of the car taking notes on a computer pad. “Well, it’s at least good to know that the cost of armor-plating this car was money well spent.”
Outside, blue-uniformed police tried to shove throngs of protesters back onto the sidewalk, and out of the motorcade’s path, with limited success. Aaron looked out dispassionately at the screaming, contorted faces—the waved signs and banners reading things like DEATH TOSANDOVAL, and LIBERATE US, LIAO!There were people spitting on his car.
He shook his head sadly. “Don’t they understand that I’m here to liberate them? Give me six months and I’d have this place cleaned up—end all this unrest.”
Cisco looked at him sideways and lifted an eyebrow. “By crushing it under your iron heel, Lord Governor?”
Aaron grinned. He had given the woman license to be frank. “If necessary. Order has its price. But my heel would fall equally on the oppressed ethnic groups and the people who oppress them. To do otherwise is to simply allow the groups to switch places, or to drag on the conflict for generations.” He saw his own reflection in the window glass. “I could restore order and purpose to the crumbling remains of The Republic,” he said in a low voice. Two hundred fifty worlds for House Davion, delivered by my hand.