“No. I don’t have her now. Not like that.” He shrugged, hoping he wasn’t sounding callous. “We’re using each other. I need someone who is skeptical of me and willing to speak openly her every doubt to me, and she needs… I’m not sure what she needs.”
Desjani spoke in a very low voice. “It seems that you’re giving her what she wants.”
Geary barely managed not to flinch. Desjani had a point. A very good point. Why was he having sex with a woman when he wasn’t even remotely sure of his feelings about her? “Not lately. But maybe that should stop completely.”
“If the fleet needs it-”
“That’s a fine justification for me to use, isn’t it? Just the sort of abuse of power I’m supposed to be avoiding.”
She smiled slightly. “Yes.”
“It’s not like Rione and I get along that well. Especially when-” He broke off, suddenly realizing that he’d been about to say “when she acts jealous of you.”
But Desjani looked even farther away for a moment, as if she’d actually heard those words. “I’ve given her no grounds for that. Nor have you.”
“She seems to think so,” he noted in frustration. “So does most of the fleet, apparently. What the hell are we going to do, Tanya?”
She knew that he wasn’t referring to the Syndics or the fleet this time. Desjani gazed toward a corner of the room for a while before answering in a calm and controlled voice. “We can’t do anything. Sir.”
“No. We can’t.” The carefully emphasized “sir” was meant to remind him of their relative positions. She was his subordinate, he was her commander, and nothing could be done about either of those things. He looked down, trying to understand the feelings inside himself and wishing Desjani hadn’t gotten dragged into the politics surrounding him. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m sorry, too.”
It was only after she left that it occurred to him to wonder exactly what she felt sorry for, and only then because he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d meant it the way he’d thought he had.
“CAPTAIN Geary, this is Captain Desjani. The accounting of prisoners liberated from Audacious was scrambled by the subsequent engagement and the losses of some of the ships involved in the recovery, but a preliminary list is now available. They’re working on verifying it and hope to have a finalized list before we reach the jump point for Branwyn.”
Geary felt a sense of satisfaction at the news, a reminder that he had succeeded in liberating some of the Alliance sailors captured during the first battles in Lakota Star System, as he reached out and tapped the comm unit in his stateroom. “Thank you, Captain Desjani. You didn’t need to track that for me. You’re not my chief of staff.” He didn’t have a chief of staff, of course. Admiral Bloch’s had died along with Admiral Bloch in the Syndic home system, and Geary hadn’t wanted to pull any officers out of badly needed primary duties on any of his ships. The automated systems available could do most of the work staffs used to do, anyway.
“I’m happy to help however I can, sir.”
Geary smiled and broke the connection, then turned to see Victoria Rione glowering at him. She’d come here to discuss the fleet conference she had observed but not attended, but had been interrupted by Desjani’s call. “Now what?” he asked. “That was good news.”
“Yes,” Rione agreed in an icy voice, “eagerly delivered by your happy little helper.”
He felt heat rising to match her coldness. “Are you talking about Captain Desjani?”
“Who else? Everyone in this fleet knows how she feels about you. You don’t have to flaunt it in front of me.”
“Those are rumors, and you know it! I’ve never seen her act that way, and I don’t act that way with her,” Geary objected. “No one I meet in the passageways of Dauntless gives me looks of disapproval. If the crew of this ship thought Captain Desjani and I were even thinking of that, they’d-”
“No, they wouldn’t!” Rione gave him a look mixing anger and exasperation. “If you and that woman were screwing on the bridge of this ship, the watch-standers would politely look away and joyfully approve that their respected captain and their legendary hero had found happiness together! How can you not know that?”
“That’s ridiculous. They know you and I are together.”
“We may walk together at times, but anyone can see that we’re no more emotionally tied to each other than we were the day you were defrosted from survival sleep!”
He started to object, then thought better of it. Rione was right about that. Even when their bodies were joined, their spirits were separate. Lust and love were two different things. He knew which of those motivated him to desire Victoria Rione, and he couldn’t pretend otherwise. “We’ve still publicly been companions. If I left you for Desjani-”
“They’d applaud! I’m a civilian and a politician! They don’t trust me, they don’t think I’m one of them, and I’m not!”
“That doesn’t mean-”
“Yes, it does! If an election on the matter were held tomorrow in this fleet, the officers and sailors would overwhelmingly vote to shove me into an escape pod and eject it in the direction of the nearest Syndic labor camp, and for her to move into this stateroom to warm your bed and body for the foreseeable future and fleet regulations be damned! She knows that! Why do you think she’s so uncomfortable when the subject is raised?”
“She has every right to feel uncomfortable!” Geary shot back heatedly. “She’s never done anything to justify the impression that she’d want that.”
Rione stared at him for a long moment. “Of course she hasn’t done anything. Neither have you.”
“What? Are you implying something about my feelings for her?”
“No, I’m not implying anything, I’m stating it! It’s clear you prefer her company to mine or anyone else’s. Moreover, she returns the feeling, and you know it!”
“I know nothing of the kind!” Geary roared. “We have to work together! She has a good military mind and good instincts, so of course I want to consult with her! Why the hell are you so jealous of Desjani anyway?”
“Because you like her better than me, you idiot! If not for your honor and her honor, which I will freely admit are impeccable, and both of your refusals to violate regulations because you’re both so damned dedicated to your duties and responsibilities as officers, you and she would be spending every waking moment together! And every sleeping moment, too! And if it came to that, she would feel the kind of bliss she’s previously only gained from destroying Syndic warships! And if you don’t know all of that, then you’re even more oblivious than I thought any human male could ever possibly be!” Rione glared at him as if trying to decide whether to say anything else, then threw up her hands in apparently total frustration and stormed out.
The obvious reply came to Geary right after the hatch shut. Maybe I like her better because she doesn’t yell at me as much as you do! But there wasn’t much sense in wasting the comeback by saying it to an empty room, and there was no way he was going to chase her down the passageway to deliver it, and in any event he didn’t think he’d believe the retort nearly so wise once his own anger had cooled.
Besides, he knew a totally honest answer would be different. I like Desjani because she understands me. Even though she thinks I’m some great hero on a great mission, she seems to know who I really am, too. And because we work so well together, like we just instinctively know what the other needs. We like the same things, we can talk, I can relax with her in ways I can’t with anyone else. Which made Desjani a great captain for his flagship, a great companion to discuss things with, a great person to be around, a great-
Damn.
Rione’s right.
He sat there a while, trying to figure out what to do. In a way, though, he and Desjani had already discussed it. They couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do anything that wasn’t appropriate for a commander and one of his subordinate officers. That didn’t mean they couldn’t have a close working relationship, and indeed, recent events had emphasized how important her assistance was to him during critical situations. But he’d have to make sure not to push beyond that, not to seem to pressure her in any way that wasn’t professional. She hadn’t invited his feelings for her, and he had no right to even state them to her.