Yerensky munched thoughtfully on his salad for a few moments, then nodded. "I believe I could accept that arrangement, assuming we can settle the remainder of the terms to our mutual satisfaction."
"Oh, I'm certain we can, Mister Yerensky." Alicia smiled even more sweetly. "I'm a great believer in mutual satisfaction."
Alicia reclined in her command chair and chewed on a grape. She savored the sweet juice and pulp with sensual delight, and the back of her brain hummed with an odd duality as Megarea and Tisiphone shared her pleasure.
"That's nice," the AI observed. "Much sharper than your memories. Almost makes me wish I were a flesh-and-blood."
"Not I," Tisiphone disagreed. "Such moments are pleasant, yet what need have we for flesh and blood when we may share them with Alicia? And unlike her, we are not subject to the unpleasant aspects of such existence."
"Voyeurs." Alicia swallowed and examined the bunch in her lap to select a fresh grape. "You ought to experience some of the downside-maybe a nice head cold, for instance-so you could appreciate the pleasures properly."
"I have yet to observe that suffering truly makes pleasure sweeter, Little One. Bliss is not the mere absence of pain."
"Maybe." She popped the chosen grape into her mouth and turned her attention back to Megarea's sensors.
They'd left the dreary featurelessness of wormhole space an hour ago, decelerating steadily towards the heart of the Ching-Hai System, and the glory of the stars was even sweeter than the grapes. She drank it in, reveling in the reach and power of Megarea's senses, as Thierdahl's distant spark grew brighter. They were fifteen days-just over eleven days by their own clocks-out of MaGuire with their cargo of bootleg medical supplies, and she wondered again what they would discover when they reached their destination. So far, things had gone more smoothly than she had hoped.
"Of course they have, Little One. What, after all, could go wrong in wormhole space?"
"Nothing, but it's the nature of the human beast to worry. At least I don't have to feel guilty about what we're carrying."
"Do not be foolish. There is neither cause nor room for "guilt" in whatever we may do in pursuit of your vengeance."
Alicia winced at Tisiphone's absolute assurance. She could forget just how alien the Fury was for days at a stretch, but then Tisiphone came out with something like that. It wasn't posturing. It was simply the literal truth as she saw it. "I'm afraid I can't agree with you on that one. I want justice, not blind vengeance, and I'd rather not hurt anyone I don't have to."
"Justice is a delusion, Little One." The Fury's mental voice dripped scorn. "Your people have learned much, but you have forgotten much, as well."
"You might profit by a little forgetting-or learning- of your own."
"Such as?"
"Such as the fact that simple vengeance is a self-sustaining reaction. When you 'avenge' yourself on someone, you usually give someone else an excuse to seek vengeance on you.
"And you think your precious justice does not? You are wiser than that, Alicia DeVries-or would be, if you but let yourself!"
"You're missing the point. If a society settles for naked vengeance, it all comes down to who has the bigger club. Justice provides the rules that make it possible for people to live together with some semblance of decency."
"Bah! "Justice" is no more than vengeance dressed up in fine clothes! There can be no justice without punishment-or would you say that Colonel Watts was treated "justly" for the wrong he did your company?"
Alicia's lip curled in an involuntary snarl, but she closed her eyes and fought it back as she felt the Fury's amusement.
"No, I wouldn't call that justice, or disagree that punishment is a part of justice. I won't even pretend vengeance isn't exactly what I wanted from that son-of-a-bitch. But there has to be guilt-and he was guilty as sin-before punishment. A society can't just go around smashing people without determining that the one punished is actually the guilty party. That's the worst kind of capriciousness- and a damned good recipe for anarchy."
"What care I for anarchy?" Tisiphone demanded. "Nor am I "society." Nor, for that matter, are you. You are an individual, seeking redress for yourself and for others who cannot. Is that wrong?"
"I didn't say it was. I only said I don't want to hurt innocent bystanders. But whether you like it or not, justice-the rule of law, not men, if you will-is the glue that sticks human societies together. It lets human beings live together with some sense of security, and it establishes precedents. When a criminal is proven guilty and punished, it sets the parameters. It tells people what's acceptable and what isn't, and whenever we inch a few centimeters forward, justice is what keeps us from slipping back."
"So you say, Little One, but you delude yourself. It is compassion, not reason, which truly shapes your thought- misplaced compassion for those who deserve none. This is the truth of what you feel."
Alicia's face twisted as the Fury relaxed inner barriers-barriers Alicia had almost forgotten existed-and a red haze of rage boiled in the back of her brain. Her fists clenched, and she locked her teeth together, fighting the sudden need to smash something-anything-in the pure, wanton destruction her emotions craved. She felt Megarea's distress, felt the AI beating at Tisiphone in a futile effort to free Alicia from her own hate, but even that was small and faint and far, far away. . . .
The barriers snapped back, and she slumped in her chair, gasping and beaded with sweat.
"You bitch!" Megarea snarled. "If you ever try that again, I'll-!"
"Peace, Megarea," the Fury interrupted almost gently. "I will not harm her. But she must know herself if we are to succeed. There is no room for confusion or self-blindness in what we do."
Alicia trembled in the couch, nerve ends shuddering, and closed her thoughts off from the others. She needed the silence, needed a moment to breathe and recover from the side of herself she'd just seen. She believed what she'd told Tisiphone-more than believed, knew it was true- and yet …
She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were slick and wet, coated in dripping grape pulp, and she shuddered.
Chapter Nineteen
Commodore Howell sat on the freighter's bridge and told himself-again-that the ship was perfectly adequate for her mission. Compared to a warship, her command facilities were primitive, her defenses minimal, and her offensive weapons nonexistent, but if everything went right, that wouldn't matter, and so far the mission profile had been perfect. And much as he would have preferred being somewhere else, he had to be here for this one. They needed a success to blunt the sting of Elysium, and his people's morale required that he be here in person.
He watched the display, face expressionless, as the freighter and her two sister ships settled into parking orbit around Ringbolt. Control's information on the El Grecan fleet maneuvers had been right on the money, and the only ground defenses were purely anti-air weapons sited to cover Adcock Field, the main spaceport outside the city of Raphael. They had the reach to cover the city's airspace, but they wouldn't have the chance.
Howell's eyes swiveled to the reason they wouldn't. The freighters' transponders identified them as Fleet transports-courtesy of the ID codes Control had provided-escorted by a heavy cruiser. Now all four ships were in position, riding geosynchronous orbit directly above Raphael, and a signal in the commodore's synth link told him HMS Intolerant's weapons were locked in.
Captain Arlen Monkoto of the Monkoto Free Mercenaries, known less formally as "Monkoto's Maniacs," stepped out onto the hotel balcony and sucked in crisp, cool air. Ringbolt was a much nicer planet than El Greco, he mused, and wondered if he could convince Simon to relocate their home port here.