"Not that he would really enjoy conducting such a fixed defense even if it were possible," Kthaara opined. "The prospect of a war of movement should reconcile him to continuing to mount guard against a possible Bahg attack on Shanak. But at any rate," he continued, turning back to Murakuma, "Fifth Fleet's destiny is otherwise. And when it assumes the offensive, I cannot imagine anyone but yourself in command of it. Fifth Fleet is your farshatok." The Orion word had no precise Standard English translation; it encased the term "command," but like so many other Orion words, it implied considerably more. "So, to repeat, I need you where you are. The Alliance needs you there."
What an old smoothie, Murakuma thought. But she was smiling as she thought it.
For a split second, Murakuma wondered who the no-longer-really-young commander was who stood up as she entered the room. Where's Nobiki? She was supposed to meet me here, and she knows we've only got a few minutes.
But then the commander turned to face her, and it crashed into her.
My God! It can't be! But, came the small, hurt thought, it's been so long. . . .
"Hello . . . Sir." Nobiki Murakuma gave a smile that was too much like Tadeoshi's.
"Hello, Nobiki." Yes, she's always looked more like Tadeoshi than . . . The thought broke off, flinching away in familiar pain from a name she dared not let herself think of overmuch. Once again, she felt the ambiguity that shouldn't have been there, not when setting eyes on her older daughter for the first time in years. But how are we going to get through this conversation? How do we dance around the subject of Fujiko?
They hugged-this was a small private meeting room Murakuma had managed to reserve, and formality could be discarded.
"I can't stay," she began, a shade too chattily. "The final conference has been moved up, and afterwards I have to leave at once. I'm just glad you were able to get in from Skywatch without any delays."
"Yes, I was lucky." The smile grew tremulous. "This is always the way it seems to be, isn't it?"
"Well, at least this time we're able to . . ." Murakuma's voice trailed off. She began to feel a little desperate, but Nobiki drew a deep breath and faced her squarely.
"I don't suppose you've heard anything new? I mean, anything you can tell me."
She's braver than I am, Murakuma thought. She felt ashamed because her daughter had been the one to broach the subject, and even more ashamed for being relieved by it.
"No, Nobiki. You know I'd tell you anything I knew. But no, there's absolutely nothing. And there won't be, either. We can't let ourselves cherish any false hopes in that regard, and I think we both know it. It's been well over a year now-and SF 19 departed through a warp point that was almost certainly one the Bugs came through to trap Second Fleet. It must have been like running into an avalanche. And even if they'd somehow survived that, or evaded the attack force by hiding in cloak, the Bugs still hold that warp point." She shook her head, and her nostrils flared as it was her turn to inhale deeply. "No," she repeated very, very quietly. "Even if they'd survived, there's no road home."
"They could have pressed on, and tried to find another way back to Alliance space," Nobiki said, as though fulfilling a duty to say it.
"The odds against that are incalculable." Murakuma drew another breath and closed her eyes briefly, fiercely against the pain. "And even if that was what they tried, they must have run out of supplies by now. No. If that's the alternative, I hope they . . . I hope Fujiko found a clean death instead." There, I've spoken the name. And it doesn't help. "We have to go on with our lives."
"Whatever that means, nowadays." Nobiki wasn't going to cry-Murakuma was certain of that. But, looking at her daughter's face, she was certain the tears would come later. "What kind of lives are we-are any humans-looking at?"
"No lives at all-if the Bugs win!" Murakuma stopped and reined herself in. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you. But we've got to carry on as if this war is going to have an end. Otherwise, Fujiko's-" She caught herself. "Otherwise, what happened to Fujiko will have no meaning."
"Meaning? I'm not even sure what that is anymore."
For an instant, the barrier of years wavered and Murakuma glimpsed the girl Nobiki had been. And, with renewed sadness, she knew she was having trouble calling to mind all the details of that girl's face, because she'd never seen enough of it at any one given age.
"I wasn't much of a mother to you, Nobiki," she said softly. "And it's too late now."
As though with one will, they embraced, and held each other tightly for a long time. And still neither mother nor daughter could let herself weep.
The weather was a little better, but otherwise the terrace overlooking the Cerulean Ocean was unchanged since the other time they'd stood at the balustrade, as though the intervening weeks had never happened.
"Where did all the time go?" Vanessa Murakuma wondered aloud.
The round of conferences and briefings was over, the concluding session had just broken up in the same hall where the opening one had taken place, and a line of skimmers waited outside to take the various commanders to the spacefield. Murakuma really had no business pausing to step through the French doors. But she'd known who would be there.
"It wasn't long enough, was it?" Marcus LeBlanc's question was as rhetorical as hers had been, and he interposed his body between her and any prying eyes that might still be lingering inside the doors as he took her hands in his.
"How many years will it be this time?" he asked.
"I don't know." She drew a deep, unsteady breath. "I've got to go."
"Yes, I suppose you do." But he made no move to release her hands, even though they'd said the real goodbyes the previous night, in his quarters. "Vanessa, someday this will all be over. And then-"
"No, Marcus." Her headshake sent her red hair swirling, and she withdrew her hands. "We can't talk about it now. The war's going to last for a long time, and a lot more people are going to be killed, and neither of us is immune, any more than-" She jarred to a halt.
"Any more than Tadeoshi was," LeBlanc finished for her quietly, and she dropped her eyes.
"I've been through it once, Marcus," she said in a voice the wind almost carried away into inaudibility. "Twice now, with Fujiko, and this time there's not even the closure of a confirmed death. And Nobiki. All the years, all the wasted, empty years when she-and Fujiko-were little girls, growing into wonderful young women my career never gave me time to know."
She gazed out over the wind-whipped ocean, and more than the wind alone put tears in the corners of her eyes.
"I've lost too much, failed too many people," she told the man who knew she loved him. "I can't risk it again. Oh, I suppose you're risking it any time you let yourself care about someone. But now, with what's coming in this war . . . No, I can't take that kind of risk again. And I won't let you take it, either."
She took his hands once more, with a grip stronger than she looked capable of, then released them and was gone.
CHAPTER THREE: "I am become Death . . ."
There was a long moment of brittle tension on the flag bridge after TFNS Dnepr emerged from the indescribable grav surge of warp transit. But then surrounding space began to crackle with tight-beam communications, and Commander Amos Chung, the staff intelligence officer, turned eagerly to Raymond Prescott. His face, despite its Eurasian features, was light-complexioned-his homeworld of Ragnarok had a dim sun-and now it was flushed with excitement.