Still, Riel had to credit Hardy with a certain piranha-like honesty. He was exactly what he seemed to be, shiny scales and teeth and a voracious appetite, with the power to stuff just about anything that he chose into his maw.
General Janet Frye was a more complicated matter. And one far more likely to make Riel's lip curl. Because Frye should have been an ally and instead she'd placed herself firmly on the other side of the equation.
No matter how Frye justified herself, if she even bothered with justifications anymore. Riel hung considerable pride on her ability to read people, to understand what their prices were, what they thought their prices were, and what their pride demanded they pretend while they were selling themselves. And right now, eyeing Frye levelly over her own folded hands, leaning both elbows on her salvaged desk, Constance Riel was 70 percent certain that Frye had already sold her self-respect. She just wished she knew for what.
Riel contemplated her for several seconds, waiting to see if Frye would glance down or blush. Hardy shifted from one foot to the other, the gesture of a man who is not accustomed to being kept waiting, and so Riel gave him another fifteen seconds before she let her gaze flick to meet his. She leaned back in her chair and offered him her most professional, most soulless smile. “Mr. Hardy. You seem determined to force me to utter words I never in my wildest imagination supposed that I would say.”
The little suppressed twitch of his lips showed her that he thought he'd won a concession, even if he didn't know which one yet, and she let him coast on the assumption. “Does that mean you'll consider my offer to buy Canada out of the Vancouver?”
Riel gripped the edge of her desk and stood. “Calisse de chrisse. No, Toby. It means dealing with you makes me miss Alberta fucking Holmes. I'm not giving you the Vancouver. I'm certainly not giving you any pilots that aren't under government oversight, even when we do get some more trained.”
She came around her desk, daring Frye not to give ground before her. Frye stepped out of the way, the hunch of her shoulders ruining the line of her coat.
“The simple fact of the matter, Mr. Hardy, is that Unitek needs Canada more than Canada needs Unitek.” And thank you for that small mercy, Richard. Thank you very much.
Frye cleared her throat. “You can't run Canada like a dictatorship, Prime Minister. Parliament has a say in our course of actions. Especially when your ill-conceived meddling in international affairs has left us on the brink of war.”
“Just because we're not shooting, General, doesn't mean we're not over the brink already. I'd think that was a mistake you would be unlikely to make.” It was too early for Scotch, unfortunately, because the dusty crystal decanter on the sideboard had never looked so good. Resolutely, Riel turned her back on it. “You're right about one thing—”
Frye's head tilted, light catching on her hair.
“—I'm not a dictator. In fact, I'm not even a president. So why don't you see if you can't get with a coalition and arrange to get my ass kicked downstairs, and you can warm that chair over there yourself. And then if you want to hand PanChina the keys to the castle, you can do it on your own watch.”
Frye paused, settled back on her heels, and Riel propped her ass against the desk, crossed her ankles and her arms, and gave the opposition that smooth-faced smile one more goddamned time, thinking careful, Connie, or your face might freeze that way.
“Ma'am. You know I can't do that.”
“Yes. I know that very well.” Riel didn't look down, and neither did the general.
Hardy stood beside them, his brow furrowed at being balked. He shot Frye a glance that spoke volumes. She never flickered. Unitek — Tobias Hardy — could buy and sell Canada. Hell, could buy and sell most of the commonwealth, when it came right down to it. But, goddamn it, it was still Canada that made the laws.
“Janet.” Riel softened her voice, created a framework that brought Frye in and pushed Hardy out, even as he came forward as if to shoulder between the two women. The stare that locked them was too much for him to break, however, and he fell back.
“Prime Minister?”
“I'm going to declare war on China if they cannot be made to pay restitution and admit wrongdoing. I will give the process a chance, you understand, and I pray to God that we figure out how to talk to the Benefactors first. But I want you to understand.”
“I think I know where you're going with this, ma'am.”
Riel smiled. “Appeasement never works, Janet. And ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away. Especially when it's come hundreds of light-years to introduce itself.”
“And?”
“And if I find out that anybody — coalition or opposition — is working with PanChina to undermine Canada, there won't be a hole deep enough for him to hide in. And by ‘undermine,' I do mean anything from sharing information to passing notes under the desk. Comprenez-vous?”
Frye nodded. “Je comprends.”
Riel reached out and patted Frye's arm. “One crisis at a time,” she said. And don't think I'm ever going to trust you one inch farther than I can toss you, General. But if I can use you to distract Unitek while they're trying to play Canada and China off against each other, then you're a pawn I'm going to keep on the board until I have to sacrifice you. “One crisis at a time.”
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the critical-alert light on the corner of her interface plate began to blink.
• • •
I don't see what sets the teardrops off. It always seems to happen that way, doesn't it? You're cruising along, minding your own business, and suddenly things are blowing up to the left and to the right of you, and no matter how hard you were looking you never see where the goddamned rockets came from. And you just grab the wheel and floor it, and hope you don't wind up upside down in a crater. Richard. Richard! What the hell is going on?
“I don't know, Jenny. Something. Hell—”
Or, in this case, you're standing on the sidelines adjusting your cuff links, and the next thing you notice, everybody's shooting at each other. And you're too goddamned far away to make any difference at all, even if you tried.
So, suddenly, Charlie and Leslie are shouting over the suit radios, phrases broken by static, frantic scurrying, and I'm half a second from trying to get to them even though they're a klick away across the diameter of the birdcage and I'd just get my own fool self killed, except I remember a second before I hit my maneuvering jets that I'm hooked in to Jeremy by ten feet of carbon filament and by the time I get myself unhooked, it's over and everything's calm as a millbrook downstream of the paddles.
“Casey? Dammit, Casey!” But Captain Wainwright's voice-of-command over my suit radio isn't even enough to snap me out of it, and neither is Lieutenant Peterson tugging on my spacesuit, trying to drag me away from the birdcage, back to the shuttle.
You know those pearl necklaces, the ones where the jewel rolls around free inside a silver wire cage that hangs off a chain? Leah used to have one; she wore it to Mass sometimes. The pearl in hers was pink.
When things stop twisting in front of my eyes, all the mercury in the birdcage has gathered in an enormous blob at the center of the ship. It floats there, a spherical mirror, flawless and shivering, and Charlie and Leslie are gone.