And Susan, too, he supposed.
So far, though, the three revenants had not expressed any interest in returning to Earth.
They hadn’t voiced any objections, either; they were frankly disinterested.
It was really very depressing. Pel no longer blamed the Empire; Susan assured him that she was just as changed as the others, so the delay couldn’t have been all that important.
The change was just that extra spark Shadow had referred to. Whatever it was, it was gone, irretrievably.
Pel had talked to the revenants, argued with them, studied them with all the magical resources at his disposal, and still hadn’t found anything broken that he could fix, anything missing that he could replace. All of them readily acknowledged that they were changed; they could remember thinking that things were important, they could remember laughing and crying and caring, but all that was gone. When they had first come back there’d been something, all three agreed on that, but it had faded and vanished, like a pleasant dream upon waking. It might have just been a lingering habit of caring, rather than the emotions themselves, but whatever it had been, even that was gone now.
And it didn’t matter to them. That was the worst part, Pel thought-that they didn’t care that they’d lost something. That they didn’t care about anything.
Including him.
He had asked Nancy, one night, if she still loved him. He had expected her to either say, “Yes, of course,” or to say something about how he had let her be killed, how he had let her down.
But she hadn’t said anything like that.
She had shrugged.
“Not really,” she had said.
“Not really.”
What was he supposed to do now?
How could he make her love him again?
He didn’t know; it had been eating at him for days.
So Curran’s arrival was a welcome distraction. He hoped the little diplomat would recover quickly.
* * * *
“Miletti still says there’s nothing new,” Major Johnston said, and Amy guessed what was coming.
She’d been anticipating it for the last few days, really; things had been so quiet since that one final raid, and the Empire sending an envoy.
“There’s absolutely no sign that the Empire’s taking any interest in Earth any shy;more,” Johnston continued. “They’re still involved with Faerie, more or less, but the situation has lost its criticality; Mr. Brown is no longer counter-attacking, or resisting minor Imperial incursions. Miletti says they even sent another telepath into Faerie the day before yesterday, the first one since Ms. Thorpe-they’d never have risked that when Brown was taking active counter-measures. And apparently Brown isn’t really running Faerie, anyway; he’s holed up in that fortress of his, ignoring everything.”
Amy nodded.
“My point, Ms. Jewell, Ms. Thorpe, is that there’s no longer any perceptible threat to the national security here-and it’s damned hard to convince most people that there ever was one; nobody wants to believe in invaders from another dimension, even if they’ve seen the evidence. I can’t justify my requests for funding any more consultations. I’ve managed to get Miletti into the budget as an ongoing special surveillance, which means I’ve got at least six months before they review what he’s costing us and eliminate it, but you two were outside consultants, and orders are to end the project, which means paying you your expenses and per diem to date and saying good-bye.”
“I understand, Major,” Amy said.
“We’d hoped that Miletti might want to keep Ms. Thorpe on as his guest,” Johnston added, “but he says he prefers to have her leave.”
“I’d rather stay with Amy, anyway,” Prossie said.
“If it’s any comfort, the cuts also mean pulling out our observation post at your house,” Johnston said. “We’ll be paying you a lump-sum compensation for that. It won’t be very much, but maybe it’ll tide you over for awhile.”
“Thank you,” Amy said.
For a moment, she and Johnston looked at each other, not saying anything; it had really all been said, but neither was in a hurry to cut the conversation short.
At last, Amy stood up.
“I guess that’s it, then,” she said. “Thank you for your consideration, Major.”
“You’re very welcome, Ms. Jewell, and I’m very sorry for all the inconvenience. Feel free to call me if there’s anything you need to discuss-you have the number.” He hesitated, then added, “And if we’ve misjudged, and the Galactic Empire starts dropping paratroopers in your back yard, you call me right away, any time, day or night, and then you get out of there-you’ve done more than your share.”
“Thank you,” Amy said again.
* * * *
“So what brings you here?” Pel asked, looking Curran over as he stood in his ragged shirt and leather pants, squinting against the glare of the matrix.
The last time Pel had seen the Imperial diplomat had been out in the Low Forest, in his treehouse, and it occurred to Pel that Nancy and Rachel might like that treehouse. Especially Rachel.
Or at least, they would have before they died; now they probably wouldn’t care.
“I was sent in response to your raid on the guildhall on Iota Cephus IV,” Curran said. “His Imperial Majesty wishes me-or wished me, at any rate-to extend his fondest greetings, and to inquire what prompted this unwarranted attack on his people. He believes-believed-that this must be the result of a misunderstanding, and asked what could be done to rectify the situation.” He cleared his throat. “I feel constrained to use the past tense, because of the long delay in my arrival. We regret that we have no faster way of reaching your capital.”
“My capital?” Pel looked around at the white stone columns and walls. “It’s not a capital, it’s a goddamn fortress. As for that raid, if it’s the one I think it was, it wasn’t a misunderstanding, I was just royally pissed off-imperially pissed off, in fact.” He smiled bitterly at his feeble joke.
Curran hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t recognize the idiom, but I take it to mean you were angry about something. Was it something that the Empire was responsible for?”
“No, no.” Pel waved a hand in dismissal. “Nothing like that. A personal matter. At the time I thought it was the Empire’s fault, but it wasn’t.”
“Then all is well between yourself and His Imperial Majesty, and His Majesty’s servants?”
“As far as I’m concerned, sure. I’m still pissed…still annoyed that you people took so damn long to deliver what you’d promised, but that’s all.”
“Then may I convey to His Imperial Majesty your assurances that there will be no further attacks on his dominions?”
“No,” Pel said, “because I haven’t decided about that. I may just attack again, if I feel like it. But I’m not currently planning anything.”
Curran hesitated. “His Imperial Majesty may not find that entirely reassuring.”
“Fuck His Imperial Majesty, then,” Pel said. “It’s the best answer he’s going to get.”
Curran swallowed uneasily. “There are two other matters,” he said.
“What?” Pel asked. He was getting tired of this. Curran wasn’t anywhere near as funny without his fancy costume.
Of course, not much was really funny any shy;more, with Nancy and Rachel the way they were.
“The lesser is to ask, on my own behalf as much as my government’s, if it would be possible for you to transport me back to the Empire magically, to save me the journey back to the forests of Sunderland.”
“Sure,” Pel agreed. “I can’t guarantee where in the Empire you’ll come out, though; I never learned all the place names.”
“Thank you, sir.” Curran bowed.
“What’s the other?”
“Please remember, sir, that I have been out of touch for almost a fortnight, so this may no longer be relevant, but part of my original charge was to request the return of the hostages you took in the course of the prolonged misunderstanding between yourself and certain former ministers of His Imperial Majesty’s government. It was His Imperial Majesty’s understanding, perhaps faulty, that they were to be returned when the bodies of your wife and daughter had been delivered. That was done some time ago.”