"Ms. Ortega?"
"Yes. You must be Admiral Trevayne. Your yeoman called earlier today. Won't you come in?" Her voice was husky but firm. Though she seemed somber, there was no quaver.
She led him down a short hallway to a sitting room whose large, many-paned window overlooked the street. Though not messy, the room looked very lived-in. It was lined with old-style bookshelves, and an easel with paints and brushes stood near the window. A desk sat to one side, built around a functional data terminal and utilitarian tape and data chip racks.
"Do you paint, Ms. Ortega?" He gestured briefly at the easel.
"Only as an off-and-on hobby. No real talent, I'm afraid." They sat down and she lit a cigarette. "I'm going to give it up this summer-smoking, that is, not painting. Right now, though, I seem to need all the bad habits I've got to see me through."
Trevayne was uncomfortably reminded of his reason for coming. He cleared his throat.
"Ms. Ortega, the last time I talked to your father, he spoke of you. He said he wanted me to meet you. I deeply regret that we're finally meeting under these circumstances. But please accept my condolences for your loss. Believe me, I share it. Your father was, in many ways, one of the finest officers I've ever served under."
God, he thought. I didn't intend to sound so formal; it's almost stilted. But what can one say? I've never been at my best dealing with human tragedy. Including my own.
Miriam Ortega inhaled smoke and let it trickle out.
"You know, Admiral, I think Dad was a bit disappointed to have produced possibly the most unmilitary offspring in the Federation, but I managed to soak up enough of his attitudes to understand him. However easygoing he sometimes seemed, he felt very strongly about certain things. One of them was the Federation, and another was his concept of what TFN service meant. He used to quote some ancient saying about placing your body in harm's way, between the horror of war and those you're sworn to protect. He could imagine no higher calling."
Her face had worn an inward look, but now she looked up at Trevayne and he could almost feel the unconquerable vitality she radiated. When she spoke again, her voice was still controlled, but the words were vibrant.
"Dad died the way he would have wanted to. I can't deny I'm grieving for him, but at the risk of seeming callous, I can't honestly say I feel sorrow. Sorrow isn't big enough . . . there's no room for pride in it!"
Trevayne was startled by how closely she'd paralleled his own earlier thoughts. But beyond that, he suddenly wondered how he could have thought this woman unexceptional-looking even for a moment. She wasn't conventionally pretty, no; but her face was a strikingly vivid and expressive one, uniquely her own. She was like no one else.
For an instant he wanted to reach out to her and tell her of his own loss. She was the sort of person who inspired confidences. But no, he had no right to burden her with his problems. And he wasn't sure he was ready to expose his own wounds.
"I know you were close to your father," he said. "I recall him mentioning that you moved out here when he was first posted to Zephrain."
"I suppose my closeness to him was a form of overcompensation. I didn't see much of him when I was young-he was in space a lot, and Mother played a much bigger role in raising me. Whenever he was around, he did his best to turn me into a tomboy." Her mobile features formed a rueful smile. "Some would say it took. Anyway, you're right about my coming out here. It was just after my divorce. I was in the mood for a change of scenery, and Mother had died just before he was out-posted; he was still taking it pretty hard."
She broke off for a moment, drawing on her cigarette. Her face was briefly thoughtful before she shrugged and looked up again.
"I had a law degree from New Athens and reasonably good references, so I was able to establish myself here on Xanadu. I found I liked it here. What started as a 'stay close to Dad' sort of thing turned into something else entirely, in a sense. I landed a position with one of the better firms-Bernbach, de Parma, and Leong-and suddenly I was one of the old hands. That doesn't take long here in the Rim, you know. And our firm's always been heavily into local politics, which is how I ended up involved in the formation of the provisional government."
Trevayne nodded, though he suspected that wasn't the half of it. Suddenly she looked self-deprecating and waved her cigarette dismissively.
"Here I am running off at the mouth about myself when I've got the most famous man in the Rim sitting in my living room! Just bringing your battlegroup all the way out here made you a hero to these people, you know. Since the battle, you've become even more of one, if that's possible! I'm probably boring you stiff. . . ."
"No, no," Trevayne denied. "Far from it. In fact, you were just coming to something I need to know more about. I'm still not too clear about the origins of your provisional government."
"No?" She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. "How much do you know about Xanadu's history, Admiral?"
"Only the bare-bones outline from the handbook, I'm afraid."
"Then you know Xanadu was settled during the Fourth Interstellar War when the Navy built the Fleet base. What you may not realize is just what that meant for the makeup of our population. There was a tremendous amount of military construction going on eighty years ago, and that required a large labor force. People came from all over the Federation, and today's population is about as racially mixed as you'll find anywhere. Which-" a sudden smile "-is probably one reason I fit in so well! Anyway, the point is that this isn't one of the planets settled by closeknit ethnic or national groups. To govern themselves, this polyglot crew needed a simple pyramidal structure to interact on. Xanadu is divided into prefectures, which are grouped into districts, above which are provinces. Each prefecture elects a representative to the district assembly. The district assemblies each select one representative to the provincial assemblies, which each send one member to the Planetary Council. There's also a popularly elected president, who appoints the judiciary. There's a lot more to it, of course, but that's the basic idea."
As democratic systems went, Trevayne reflected, it owed more to the French than to the American model.
"Actually, it's worked pretty well," she said. "The planet has taken on a sort of uniformity in diversity. The Xandies are probably on the way to developing what the anthropologists call a 'planetary ethnicity.' " Seeing his puzzled look, she elaborated. "People from Xanadu are called 'Xandies.' It's not a slur," she added quickly. "We call ourselves that." He noted the shift from third to first person.
"Anyway," she continued, "the pro-rebel party here was extremely small and-partly as a result of being so alienated from the Xandy mainstream, I suppose-extremely militant. Right after word of the mutinies arrived, a gang of fanatics tossed a bomb which killed the President and several high-ranking members of the government . . . not to mention a good number of innocent bystanders." She grimaced. "The chief conspirators fled off-planet and got as far as Aotearoa. I was a member of the delegation sent to arrange their extradition, and, in the course of the discussions, it became clear that we needed some sort of inter-system authority to deal with any further terrorist acts locally, since we were completely isolated from Old Terra. The result was the provisional government, which includes Zephrain and several of the nearer systems-the most populous and highly developed ones in the Rim. Brilliant improvisation!" She beamed at him in mock self-satisfaction. "Dad's support gave it some teeth, but it's still pretty chaotic."