Cordelia wrinkled her nose in doubt. “Is this overrun likely to prove fatal?”
“Not…really. I expect we’ll endure much worse before we’re done, unavoidably. And I’m fairly sure Plas-Dan realizes that as well as we do. It’s the sly calculation of this one that ticks me off.” He scowled.
“Is there any way you can recycle that stuff into some earlier project? At least recover some of your costs. Or break ground early?” She gave a frugal housewifely sniff. “Build the runway right now?”
“I wish. It’s not just materials, it’s labor.”
“You have an army. Of sorts.”
“And we’ll be using them, but untrained or trained-for-something-else grunt labor isn’t as useful as one would think. You still need experienced people to supervise, and to drill the crews to keep them from killing each other with the machinery. If you think safety is expensive, try pricing an accident, as the sign says. And it’s a multi-part puzzle much of which has to be assembled in strict order, and if a critical piece or person goes missing the whole parade grinds to a halt.” He pursed his lips in reflection. “And this is a relatively forgiving project, if a large one, in a forgiving environment. All my career I’ve ridden in jumpships, trusting them. And their manufacturers. I’m glad I didn’t know then what I know now. I’d have been paralyzed with terror.”
This won a laugh from her. “An empire built by the lowest bidders? I suppose that explains much.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful. If I get any clever ideas, I’ll let you know.” She gave him a half-salute and cut the com.
He blew out his breath and sat back. He’d almost wished for some clever evil plot, which they could then engage to out-clever. It could be surprisingly hard to counter Plain Stupid. Even by heroic measures.
As he tapped open his calendar to make a note, his eye fell on a familiar date coming up next week, and his heart seemed to clench cold to half its size. Three whole years already? Of course Cordelia would have seen it coming too; of course she would not have mentioned it aloud. As far as he knew there weren’t any further formal civic observances planned, thankfully. On that first mortal anniversary there had been a dedication and a speech, which he had attended in support of the widowed Vicereine, but they’d had no chance to get drunk together afterward. Last year, they’d been running on separate tracks—he’d been off on the scheduled inspection tour of the military wormhole stations out toward Escobar, she’d been downside dealing with the colony crisis du jour. There was no tradition for this, either public or private, between them. That makes us free, doesn’t it?
Perhaps, on that day, he might try to take her sailing…? No. Not on that day. He wanted a day where forgetting was possible. This weekend? That might not be too close.
And just what exactly do you mean by sailing, Oliver? Half his mouth tried to smile. Comfort sex, they had once proved, was no comfort at all; they’d just distressed each other to breaking. And for all of the too-rare-in-retrospect extraordinary experiences they’d shared with Aral—the unholy scheduling they had required!—sharing Aral, had they ever really made love to each other? Had she ever once indicated that might be her desire? Had that strange, subliminal, never-spoken-aloud little distance she’d always kept even when they had touched skin-to-skin been for her sake, or his, or his?
And if he dared ask for more now, would he be putting their long friendship to the test, or to the torch? His lips quirked. No, that was too melodramatic for his downright Cordelia, wasn’t it? She’d just say no, or, more probably, No, thank you, and if he was particularly unlucky that hour, treat him to one of her hilariously dreadful Betan-style psychological cold-packs for his bruises. His ridiculous sense of risk was not for the degree of danger, just for the weight of the bet.
He reached for his comconsole and tapped into his address file. He hadn’t used this one for several years, but there it still was…his fingers seemed to move of their own accord, the assured, easy phrases falling from them quite as if his small, cold heart were not pushing into his throat.
Hello, Sergeant Penney. Do you still have your place, and do you still rent your boats? If so, I’d like to book an exclusive for this weekend, as I would have a special guest…
Chapter Six
Cordelia pressed her face eagerly to the aircar’s canopy as Lake Serena swung into view. Serena was the smallest, shallowest, and most biologically interesting of the chain of lakes skipping sporadically down the long rift valley south of Kareenburg. The fact that it was only the third-closest to the town-and-base had preserved it from development so far, and she rather selfishly hoped would do so for a while yet. It reminded her of Sergyar as she had first seen it forty-five years ago, wide and empty and inviting, except, as it had turned out, for a few (hundred) biological booby-traps. She doubted the scattered colonists had found and sprung them all yet, though they were certainly working on it steadily. She considered a pitch for medical school grads on the neighboring Nexus worlds: Come practice in beautiful Kareenburg, where you will never be bored! Or entirely sure what you’re doing! And didn’t that go for everyone here, all the way to the top…
“This was a good idea,” she said to Oliver, likewise craning his neck beside her, and he smiled a bit smugly.
“I was very glad to find Sergeant Penney was still out here. I’d got rather out of touch with him, after I’d traded up for my second boat.”
Oliver’s second sailboat had been a larger craft, suitable for ferrying less nautically inclined—or more creakily aging—guests in comfort on the bigger lake closest to town. He’d scarcely had it out since Aral’s death, and had finally sold it off to an enthusiastic civilian shuttle pilot who had spotted it gathering dust on its storage skid at the marina. Cordelia was glad for this renewed spurt of interest—getting outdoors was good for Oliver, not to mention getting away from a workload that would swallow him alive if he let it. He’d always been a detail-man, which was good up to a point—during that whole state-funeral circus, the five-ship cortege convoy had moved like clockwork under his personal command, and she’d have been ready to kiss his feet if she hadn’t been so numb—but without someone around to order him to stop, she wasn’t sure he ever would.
As the aircar banked, the homestead on the western shore peeked through Sergyar’s version of trees, echoes of their Earth counterparts despite their distinct biochemistry. Penney’s Place had started as a plank dock floating on old barrels and a jerry-built shack on a shady bluff above the water. A couple of larger and better shacks had not so much replaced as been added to them, marching up the shoreline like a hermit crab’s abandoned shells to climax, for the moment, in a low rambling house with a wide verandah lovingly hand-built out of local materials; the latter marking the arrival of Ma Penney in the retired twenty-year-man’s life. Camp cuisine had also taken a marked turn for the better about then, as Cordelia understood it. The couple now eked out a pleasant existence on Penney’s modest pension, Ma Penney’s garden, and holiday rentals of the old shacks and Penney’s boats to unfussy Kareenburg proles willing to, mostly, do for themselves.