“Good.” She stared at him soberly. “I take it you already decided not to turn me in to base security. That would have been a bad mistake, Martin; if not for you, then for a lot of other people.” He lowered his gaze, staring at the place setting in front of her. Silver cutlery, linen napkin, starched tablecloth overflowing on all sides like a waterfall. And Rachel’s breasts. Her dress made it impossible to ignore them, even though he tried not to stare: woman of easy virtue, indeed. He settled for looking her in the face. “There’s something I don’t understand going on here,” he said. “What is it?”
“All will be explained. The first thing I’m going to say is, after you hear my pitch, you can walk away unless you decide to involve yourself. I mean it; I came on heavily earlier, but really, I don’t want you around unless you’re a willing participant. Right now, they think you’re just a loudmouthed engineer. If they look too closely at me—” She paused. Her lips thinned a little. “I’m female. I’ll get precious little mercy if they trip over me by accident, but they don’t really think of women as free agents, much less defense intelligence specialists, and by this time tomorrow, I should have my diplomatic credentials sorted out and be able to go public. Anyway: about what’s going on here. Are you going to get up and walk out right now, or do you want in?”
Martin thought for a moment. What should I do? The solution seemed obvious: “I’ll settle for some answers. And dinner. Anything’s better than being locked up in that pesthole of a base.”
“Okay.” She leaned back comfortably. “First.” She held up a gloved finger. “What’s going on? That’s actually a bit tricky to say. The UN has no jurisdiction here, but we’ve got enough clout to wreck the New Republic’s trade treaties with half their neighbors if the New Republic was, for instance, found to be breaking conventions on warfare or application of forbidden technologies.” Martin snorted. “Forbidden tech? Them?”
“Do you really think they’d pass up the chance to steal an edge? The royal family, that is?”
“Hmm.” Martin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Okay, so they’re pragmatic rejectionists, is that what you’re saying?”
“In a nutshell.” She shrugged. Against his better judgment, Martin found himself staring somewhere below her chin: he forced himself to look up. “Our arms limitation arrangements have no authority here, but things are different closer to home, and a lot of the New Republic’s trade flows in that direction. There’s some recognition: once I get official accreditation, I’ve got diplomatic immunity, if they catch me and I live long enough to assert it. Two”—she held up another ringer—“the arms limitation controls are to protect people from provoking intervention by the Eschaton. And they work both ways. As long as people stick to boring little things like planet-busting relativistic missiles and nerve gas or whatever, the big E doesn’t get involved. But as soon as someone starts poking around the prohibited — for her coming-out party Daddy gave her an emerald this big!” She simpered, and Martin stared back, puzzled.
Then he smiled fixedly as the waiter deposited a bowl of soup in front of him.
The waiter finished up, poured glasses of wine, and disappeared; Rachel pulled a face. “Huh, where was I? You wouldn’t believe how fast the girly-girl routine gets tiresome. Having to act like a retarded ten-year-old all the time … ah yes, the big E. The big E disapproves strongly of people who develop autonomous, self-replicating weapons, or causality-violation devices, or a whole slew of other restricted tools of mass destruction. Bacteria: out. Gray goo: out. Anything that smacks of self-modifying command software: out. Those are all category two forbidden weapons. A planetary civilization starts playing with them, sooner or later the big E comes looking, and then it’s an ex-planetary civilization.” Martin nodded, trying to look as if all this was new to him; he nipped his tongue to help resist the temptation to correct her last statement. Her engagement with the subject was infectious, and he found it hard to keep from contributing from his own knowledge of the field.
Rachel took a mouthful of soup. “The big E can be extremely brutal. We’ve got definite confirmation of at least one atypical supernova event about five hundred light-years outside our — the terrestrial — light cone. It makes sense if you’re trying to wipe out an exponentially propagating threat, so we figure that’s why the Eschaton did it. Anyway, do you agree that it’s bad policy to let the neighbor’s toddler play with strategic nukes?”
“Yeah.” Martin nodded. He took a mouthful of soup. “Something like that could really stop you getting to claim your on-time completion bonus.”
She narrowed her eyes, then nodded to him. “Sarcasm, yet. How have you kept out of trouble so far?”
“I haven’t.” He put his spoon down. “That’s why, if you don’t mind me saying so, I was worried by your approach. I can do without getting myself slung in prison.” Rachel took a breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know if that’ll go very far with you, but … I mean it.
I’d just like to put it in a bigger perspective, though. The New Republic is only 250 light-years from Earth. If the big E decided to pop the primary here, we’d need to evacuate fifty star systems.” She looked uncomfortable. “That’s what this is about. That’s why I had to drag you in.” She looked down and concentrated on her soup bowl with single-minded determination. Martin watched her fixedly; his appetite was gone. She had done a robust job of destroying it by reminding him of why he was here. His parents, he didn’t much care for, but he had a sister he was fond of on Mars, and too many friends and memories to want to hear any more about this. It was easier to watch her eat, to admire the flawless blush of the skin on her arms and her dicolletage—he blinked, picked up his wineglass, and drained it in one. She looked up, caught him watching, grinned widely — theatrically, even — and licked her lips slowly. The effect was too much; he turned away.
“Shit and corruption, man, we’re supposed to look as if you’re buying me dinner as a prelude to taking me home and fucking me senseless!” she said quietly. “Can’t you at least fake some interest?”
“Sorry,” he said, taken aback; “I’m not an actor. Is that what we’re supposed to look like we’re doing?” She raised her wineglass: it was empty. “Fill me up. Please.” She looked at him peculiarly; he twitched upright then reached out, took the wine bottle, and poured some of its contents into her glass. “I didn’t want to put you off your appetite. Besides, you’re the only civilized company for a couple of thousand miles.”
“I’m a drive engineer,” he said, wracking his brain for something else to say. What am I getting myself into? he wondered desperately. A couple of hours ago he’d been going crazy from boredom and loneliness: now an intelligent and attractive woman — who just happened to be a spy — had dragged him out to dinner. Something was bound to go wrong, wasn’t it?
“I like working with machines. I like starships. I—” He cleared his throat. “I’m not so good with people.”
“And this is a problem?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, then looked at her appraisingly. Her expression was sympathetic. “I keep misreading the locals. Not good. So I holed up in my room and tried to stay out of the way.”
“And now, let me guess, you’re going stir-crazy?”
“After four months of it, that’s one way of putting it.” He took a mouthful of wine. “How about you?” She breathed deeply. “Not quite the same, but nearly. I’ve got a job to do. I’m supposed to avoid getting into trouble. Part of the job is blending in, but it drives you nuts after a bit. Really, doing this face-to-face isn’t recommended in the rule book, you know? It’d be safer just to drop an earbug off to relay you a message.”