I come awake as a reflex alarm from my external sensors sends a signal racing through my threat-assessment processors. I snap to full wakefulness and scan my environs instantly. Simon stands beside my right tread. He is involved in a discussion with three men, none of whom I recognize. All three have just entered my exclusion zone, triggering an automatic reflex through my battle-readiness circuitry. I surmise that Simon has deliberately steered them into this zone for the express purpose of triggering me awake.
One is armed, carrying a concealed handgun in a shoulder holster. Despite the presence of a concealed weapon, I hold my fire and watch closely to see what develops, since Simon has not signaled me via his commlink to take action against hostile intruders. I therefore do not react with full battlefield reflexes, but I maintain alert vigilance, as my Commander is not wearing a personal sidearm.
The three visitors in my work-bay are dressed as civilians. Two are heavily muscled with blocky, thick torsos. They look more like space-dock stevedores than executive assistants to the president of Jefferson, which is the ID code transmitted by the visitors' passes clipped to their jackets, allowing them access to restricted areas of Nineveh Base. The third armed individual holds most of my attention as I do an automatic scan of Brigade channels, seeking a passive VSR while I await developments and Simon's instructions.
This man's identification states that he is the president's chief advisor, Sar Gremian. He is taller than Simon, with dense, heavy bones that support muscles sufficiently well developed to qualify as a heavy-weight prizefighter. His skull is devoid of hair. His face is deeply pitted with scars that suggest severe adolescent acne. His expression wavers from bitter to savage and his voice is rough, reminding me of career drill sergeants I have seen drilling new recruits.
The conversation underway appears to be hostile, as stress indicators—elevated heart rate and rapid respiration, coupled with facial expression—suggest an angry argument underway. This perhaps explains Simon's action in leading these men into a zone where I would automatically resume consciousness, for the express purpose of having me listen? Simon is speaking, evidently in answer to an unknown question.
"Absolutely not. I said no when you called from Madison and my answer has not changed."
The two burly men with the president's advisor react with overt anger, faces flushing red, fingers curling into anticipatory claws, but they do not make any actual moves toward my Commander, so I bide my time and study the unfolding situation. The president's advisor merely narrows his eyes. "You're refusing a direct order from the president?"
A muscle jumps in Simon's jaw. "You are not the president of Jefferson, Sar Gremian. The president's chief advisor does not have the authority to send a Bolo anywhere."
"I'll get the authorization, then." He reaches for his comm-unit.
"Be my guest. I'll tell Gifre Zeloc the same thing I told President Andrews, when he demanded something like this. You don't use a Bolo for crowd control. Sonny isn't a police officer, he's a machine of war. There is," Simon adds with an acid bite in his voice, "a significant difference."
Sar Gremian pauses, then chooses not to complete the transmission. "Let me try to explain the situation to you, Khrustinov. That mob of protestors outside Assembly Hall has refused to disperse, despite repeated orders to disband. They've blocked Darconi Street. They've jammed every square centimeter of Lendan Park and Law Square. They've thrown up barricades across every entrance into Assembly Hall. They've trapped the whole Assembly and they're blockading President Zeloc's motorcade. He can't leave the Presidential Residence."
Simon shrugs. "That's his problem, not mine. Madison has an entire police force for this kind of work. There are five thousand police officers on this base, alone, and that doesn't include the five thousand that have graduated every year for the last five years in a row. If my math skills are up-to-date, that's twenty-five thousand federal police officers at your disposal. Given the amount of money it's costing to train, feed, and house them all, I suggest you make use of them."
Anger flickers across Sar Gremian's scarred features. "Don't play games with me, Khrustinov! President Zeloc wants that Bolo," he jabs a finger in my direction, "to clear out that pack of criminal agitators."
"Criminal agitators?" Simon asks in a soft voice I have learned to associate with profound anger. "That's an interesting choice of words, coming from a POPPA social engineer."
A dark red flush stings Sar Gremian's face. "You will regret that remark, Colonel."
"I seriously doubt it."
Sar Gremian flexes his fingers, clearly struggling to control his temper. He regains his composure sufficiently to return to his original topic of conversation. "Those lunatics are threatening the entire Assembly with violence, over a minor law bill designed to fight crime. President Zeloc has no tolerance for mob rule. That Bolo goes out there now."
"You don't get it, do you, Gremian? You don't use thirteen thousand tons of sophisticated battlefield technology to break up an inconvenient political demonstration lawfully conducted by citizens free to voice their opinions in public assemblages. Those protestors are fully within their rights to refuse to disband. Any order to disband is illegal under Jefferson's constitution. Using a Bolo to threaten and harass citizens exercising their constitutional rights is not only illegal and a bad usurpation of Concordiat property, it's a damned stupid stunt. One that will do nothing but damage the government's credibility and spark a wider surge of protests.
"It might," he adds in a voice dripping with sarcasm, "even jeopardize passage of a bill you apparently think is a good idea. God knows why, since schemes like that have proven to be totally ineffective at reducing crime on every world humanity has ever inhabited."
"I don't give a rat's ass what you think about crime or credibility! Those are our problems, not yours. You've been given an order. Send that Bolo out there. Now."
"No."
Sar Gremian breathes rapidly for two point six seconds, then his frayed temper snaps. "All right. You want to play hardball? Here's a slapshot for you. You're fired, asshole."
Simon laughs, which is not the reaction Sar Gremian expected, given the startled expression which flickers for a moment across his face. "You think you can fire me? Just like that? Nice try, my friend, but I'm afraid you don't have the authority to fire me. Neither does Gifre Zeloc. Nor anyone else on this godforsaken ball of mud. I'm deployed here under treaty. I can't be removed without a direct order from Sector Command. You're stuck with me, Gremian. Just as much as I'm stuck with you. I suggest you learn to cope." The disdain in his final words slaps the president's chief advisor like a physical blow.
"Then you'll be fired!" Gremian snarls, "and when you are, I will personally kick your carcass onto the next freighter that docks at Ziva Two. And you can forget about obtaining exit visas for your wife and kid!"
My Commander's face turns white in a single heartbeat. Not with fear. Simon is angry. Angrier than I have seen him since we entered battle on Etaine. The look he bestows upon Sar Gremian would melt steel. It sends the president's advisor backwards a single step.
"If you do anything to or against my family," my Commander says softly, his words hissing like plasma through a gun barrel, "you had better watch your back for the rest of your natural life. Never, ever fuck with a Brigade officer, Gremian."
Shock explodes through Sar Gremian's eyes. I surmise that no one in his cumulative experience of life has ever delivered such a message to him. As the shock fades, fury erupts in its place. He snarls a curse and snatches at the snub-nosed handgun concealed beneath his coat. I snap to Battle Reflex Alert before his fingers have finished closing around the grip.
Every prow-mounted weapon on my turret tracks his motion. Gun barrels spin with a blurred hiss in the echoing space of my work-bay. I lock on with systems active, all of them flashing proximity-threat alarms. Blood drains from Sar Gremian's pitted face. He freezes, involuntarily loosening his grip on the pistol. He stares up at my battle-blackened gun snouts. Sees in them his own imminent death.
I break my long silence.
"Your actions indicate an intended lethal threat to my Commander. My guns are locked and loaded. I have your brain case targeted in my fire-control center. If you draw the pistol in your hand from its shoulder holster, you will not survive to make the shot."
Sar Gremian stands motionless, a wise decision for a man in his situation. I detect a stream of liquid registering ninety-eight point seven degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, trickling down his left trouser leg. I surmise that he has never before been this seriously frightened.
"I would suggest," Simon tells him softly, "that you take your hand out of your coat. Very, very slowly."
The president's senior advisor complies, moving his hand in quarter-of-a-centimeter increments until it dangles, empty, at his side.
"Very good, Gremian. You may just live to see the sun go down, tonight. Now take your sorry ass out of my sight. And don't ever come back."
The look of malice he sends my Commander tempts me to fire, anyway. This man is dangerous. It would satisfy me to remove the threat he represents to my commanding officer. In the absence of a clear and immediate danger, however, my software protocols do not permit me to act. This gives Sar Gremian time to organize his retreat. He turns on his heel and stalks out of my maintenance depot, slamming the door back with the heel of one hand. An odiferous yellow puddle remains to mark where he had been standing. His lackeys scurry after him, one of them skidding through the mess. The other plows into the door frame in his zeal to exit as rapidly as possible.
Then they are gone and silence rolls like thunder through my maintenance bay.
"Sonny," my Commander says softly, "that man will not rest until he takes an ugly kind of vengeance. Lock onto the ID signals from my comm-unit and Kafari's. Yalena's, too, if you please. Those three ID signatures are the only ones authorized within one hundred meters of my residence. Until you hear differently, monitor all three data signals at all times and report any clearly lethal threat within the same one hundred meter radius."
He scowls at a blank spot on the wall that is in a direct line with the back door of his private quarters. "Like a damned fool, I gave those goons a wide-open back door to exert coercion. I will be triple-damn dipped if I tolerate it. The Concordiat can't afford it. And neither," he adds with a bleakly realistic assessment, "can I."
The shadows of Etaine will always pursue my Commander. I attempt to reassure him, in the only way I can. "I will not tolerate any threat of coercion designed to hinder my primary mission here, Simon."
A visible shudder passes through Simon Khrustinov, which puzzles me. He does not elaborate on its cause. "Sometimes," he says in an undertone that indicates he is speaking to himself, rather than to me, "you say things that scare me pissless."
"Sar Gremian is the individual I scared pissless, Simon. Shall I activate an auto-wash sprayer from my decontamination system to rinse the residue from the floor?"
A sudden grin dispels some of the darkness at the back of my Commander's eyes. "That's what I love about you, you overgrown son of a motherless battleship. Yeah, wash that filth out of here." The smile fades. "Unless I verbally authorize a visitor in advance, program your reflex sensors to snap you from inactive standby to active alert if any non-authorized intruders—with or without an ID transmission—are detected inside your hundred-meter proximity zone. If you detect any weapons system inside that perimeter or one traveling along an incoming trajectory to strike inside it, go to Battle Reflex Alert and disable the threat. And Sonny?"
"Yes, Simon?"
"You just saved my life, for which I am eternally grateful. Unfortunately, this ugly little scene may have just ended my career."
I ponder this for eight point seven seconds, considering ramifications I do not like. Simon is a fine officer. He does not deserve to be cashiered over my actions. This proves to my satisfaction that I should not be trusted to function alone, without the guidance and wisdom of a human to navigate the pitfalls of complex interpersonal relationships. I have never functioned alone. I am not designed to function alone.
Moreover, Jefferson is a long way from the nearest Brigade supply depot. If I am abandoned on a world whose elected officials had to be coerced into funding required treaty-mandated expenditures, I foresee serious difficulties should I require replacements for munitions expended or damage sustained in combat. A renewed attack by the Deng or a Melconian strike could prove disastrous.
Worse yet, given the complexities of the political climate on Jefferson, I do not believe I am capable of determining the correct operational strategy to accomplish any mission without antagonizing the politicians whose decisions would control my ability to function. My actions in preventing Sar Gremian from assassinating my Commander are a case in point. I acted in accordance with the proper military response to a lethal threat to my Commander and showed considerable restraint in exercising my options to remove that threat.
Yet my action has produced an unstable situation which may result in the termination of a fine officer's career. I do not see what alternative action I might have taken that would not have resulted in a greater difficulty for my Commander. Having to tell the president that I had reduced his chief advisor to a red haze would only have worsened the apparently serious rift between Simon and those issuing his orders. I attribute my inability to discern viable alternatives to my hard-wired inability to perform the complex logic trains required to decipher and reduce to logical predictions the wide range of potential human reactions to a complex and shifting set of variables. I am not a Bolo Mark XXIII or XXIV. I was not designed to make this kind of judgment call. The uneasiness in my personality gestalt center becomes a trickle of panic.
"Simon, I estimate a ninety-two percent likelihood that Sector Command will not dispatch a replacement commander if you are recalled. I am not designed to function without a human commander. I am not an autonomous Mark XXIII or XXIV. The Mark XX series does not have sufficiently sophisticated circuitry or programming to make battlefield decisions requiring the complex algorithms that approximate human judgment; I am not equipped to function without a commander for longer than one or two battles."
"Do I detect a hint of uneasiness, my much-decorated, valorous friend?" Simon's smile is genuine, but fleeting, altogether too characteristic of the human condition. "We haven't reached that bridge, yet, much less crossed it. We'll worry about that when—if—the time comes. Just keep in mind that you are designed for independent action, Sonny. That's the defining characteristic of the Mark XX. You've got the experience data of more than a century to rely on and you can always contact the Brigade."
I do not find this comforting, given the time lag required to send a message via SWIFT, wait for a human officer to analyze the VSR, come to a decision on an advisable course of action for a shifting situation many light-years away, and transmit the orders via return SWIFT. "It would be unwise to deprive me of the necessary discernment a human commander provides the Mark XX during ambiguous battlefield situations. I feel constrained to point out that the situation on Jefferson has been ambiguous since the death of Abraham Lendan. It appears that conditions have deteriorated considerably since I was ordered into inactive standby mode eight years and nineteen days ago."
"Lonesome, you have the gift of understatement down to an exact science." He rakes a hand through his hair in a familiar gesture of frustration. I note an increased amount of silver in that hair and mourn the fleeting impermanence of human life spans. It is difficult to watch a fine officer grow old. It is much more difficult, however, to watch one die. If Simon is removed from command, I will at least not have to witness the death of a much respected friend. "What do you want me to do, Simon?" I ask, registering a sense of misery in my personality gestalt center.
"Update yourself on the political mess. I'll have to shut you down again, dammit. I'm under standing orders from Jefferson's duly elected president." Bitterness and sarcasm turn his words black. "But not yet. I'll be dunked in poison before I shut down my own Bolo after being threatened by a thug with a gun. Take yourself a good, long look around, Sonny. Wait for my signal to send you back to sleep. Better yet, stand guard for a full twenty-five hours, just in case one of those bright boys decides to return for a little skullduggery, tonight, on behalf of their boss and his vendetta."
"Does Sar Gremian hold vendettas, Simon?" I initiate a search through the government's employee databases to locate his dossier.
Simon glances up into my nearest external camera-mounted sensor. "Oh, yes. Our violent tempered friend is a real Savonarola. Got a mad on his shoulders the size of the Silurian Nebula. And he's not inclined to share power with anything or anyone he can't crush into convenient red paste. Gifre Zeloc picked himself a real winner when he brought Sar Gremian into the game."
Simon exits my work-bay without speaking again. The door slams in an echo of Sar Gremian's abrupt exodus. I hear a fainter crash as he yanks open the door to his private quarters. Seventy-three seconds later, my Commander sends a single, coded burst on a frequency that matches Kafari's wrist-comm. I surmise that he is stealing a march on them, contacting Kafari with a pre-agreed-upon code that will signal her that trouble is brewing. Simon remains in his quarters. I turn my attention to his orders.
Given what I begin uncovering about Sar Gremian, I consider the possibility that I erred seriously in permitting him to leave the premises alive. My search has, admittedly, only begun, but it is clear from reading his official dossier that he is politically ambitious, abuses power in legal but questionably ethical ways, is loyal to the highest bidder, and possesses a psych-profile clinically definable as sociopathic.
His function in the president's office appears to be creating propaganda-based social movements that become legislation, introduced by a groundswell of popular ranting. He engineered something called the Child Protection Act, which grants self-determination and voting rights to children age ten and over. Among other things, it tightens POPPA's choke-hold on elections, since giving children the right to vote greatly increases the population of people who support POPPA's social agenda. It also slows down the exodus of farm families seeking to escape a deteriorating social milieu, by the simple expediency of granting children the right to refuse to leave. Given the number of emigration applications received in the past twelve point three months, this measure was essential to preventing the complete loss of everyone on Jefferson who knows how to farm. I surmise that POPPA's leadership does not enjoy the spectre of hunger, applied to themselves.
Sar Gremian has also been involved heavily in the campaign to whip up anti-crime frenzy in Madison and other large cities. The weapons-registration legislation being protested today is the culmination of several months' effort to sway public opinion via inflammatory rhetoric and egregious manipulation of facts. He is evidently as cautious as he is unpleasant, as there is no evidence that he has broken any laws or policy rulings that I can determine. Conversely, there is a massive amount of datachat traffic indicating a widespread dissatisfaction with his actions, fear of his tactics, and hearsay evidence about his violent temper, which I have witnessed firsthand.
If Simon is removed from command and Sector abandons me without a replacement commander, it is highly probable that I shall be carrying out instructions relayed through Sar Gremian by Jefferson's president. This sets up a skittering harmonic through my logic processors that I suppress immediately, not wishing to tip myself over the edge and activate the Resartus Protocol that automatically takes control of a Bolo whose programming has gone unstable. This world cannot afford my loss to insanity.
I therefore focus on scanning governmental computer archives, the datanet, and news broadcasts, trying to ascertain what is happening that has put Simon in this untenable situation before circumstances force him to shut me down, again. Sar Gremian and his associates know that I am awake. I anticipate a presidential order to go inactive from moment to moment and wonder how long the president's chief advisor will delay before recovering his composure and wounded machismo enough to admit what transpired in my work-bay. I must make the greatest possible use of my brief reprieve from unconsciousness.
Ongoing and skillfully edited "live" news coverage of the political protest underway, which has evidently dominated the commercial programming stations for six hours and twenty-three point nine minutes, sheds murky light on the political demonstration in Law Square. Field reporters are speaking rapidly, using political jargon I barely recognize, filled with references to events I know nothing about and do not have time to investigate.
Eighty-seven point six percent of the rhetoric being broadcast is emotionally inflammatory, filled with innuendo I do not have the referents to understand, and clearly designed to engender an emotional response unfavorable to the cause of the demonstrators, whom the broadcasters apparently hold in cold contempt bordering on demonization. Why, I cannot determine. It requires an unprecedented sixty-two point three seconds just to discover the cause of the demonstration, which I finally unearth by searching Granger-dominated datachats.
I do not immediately understand why Jefferson's House of Law finds it advisable to propose weapons licensing regulations as part of a comprehensive program to reduce crime. The emphasis Jefferson's constitution places on private ownership and use of weapons should prevent such a bill from reaching the Assembly Floor, but both the House of Law and Senate are seriously determined to introduce and vote into law this bill's contradictory provisions.
I spend an additional five minutes, nineteen point two-seven puzzled seconds conducting high-speed scans of debate transcripts in the Senate and House of Law, cross-referencing with the constitution and its seventeen amendments, then begin checking datachat activity and recent media coverage, seeking further clarifications.
My search reveals a hot debate centering on a sharp rise in crime rates. Forcible home invasions and attacks against retail stores by gangs of criminals have killed fifty-three home and business owners in Madison during the last three months alone. Similar brutal assaults have occurred in the heavy-industry region near Anyon where unemployment amongst manufacturing labor runs fifty to sixty percent and in the mining cities of Cadellton and Dunham, where whole industries have mysteriously ceased to function. Factory closings have thrown approximately five million people out of work. These industries are critical to Jefferson's economic survival and should have weathered the post-war financial difficulties with great resilience.
Yet smelting plants, refineries, and manufacturing plants sit idle, their power plants cold and their warehouses empty. I do not understand how thirty point zero-seven percent of Jefferson's heavy industry—critical to the rebuilding efforts undertaken by any human world damaged by war—has simply ceased to function in only eight years. Have the Deng attacked again while I was asleep? Mystified, I send subprotocol tendrils searching through news-feed archives while focusing my main processors on the demonstration currently underway.
POPPA activists are demanding regulations that trace ownership and sales of weapons as a way to halt home- and retail-business invasions and other violent crimes. I do not immediately see the connection between licensure of weapons and cessation of criminal activity, since police records indicate that ninety-two point eight percent of lawbreakers using weapons to commit crimes obtain them—through their own admission—via theft.
Even more puzzling to me is the clearly documented fact that eighty-nine point nine-three percent of all privately held weapons on Jefferson are held in rural regions where Jefferson's unfriendly wildlife remains a serious threat and where self-sufficiency philosophies apparently hold their strongest sway. Yet according to police and justice department databases, ninety-seven point three percent of all violent crime on Jefferson occurs in urban areas, where weapons ownership is vanishingly small in comparison to rural areas.
I cannot make the correlations between glaringly contradictory data sets resolve themselves into an algorithm that logically computes. I do not understand the reasoning which insists that an ineffective measure based on demonstrably false data is the only salvation for a world rocked by an admittedly serious wave of violent criminal attacks. Are my heuristics so seriously inadequate that I cannot see a critical piece of the equation that would explain this attitude?
I am still trying to find information that will resolve this conundrum when Simon receives an incoming communication from Jefferson's Presidential Residence, in voice-only mode. I route the message to Simon's quarters. Judging by the anger in his voice, Gifre Zeloc is unhappy with the current state of affairs.
"Just what the hell do you think you're doing, Khrustinov? That monstrous machine of yours damn near murdered my chief advisor!"
Simon's voice sounds like cut granite sliding off the side of a volcanic massif, a sound I have occasionally heard during my long service. "Sar Gremian attempted to draw a weapon in a lethally threatening manner within Unit SOL-0045's proximity-alert zone. Sonny reacted appropriately and with great restraint."
"Restraint? You call that restraint?" The president abruptly activates the visual portion of his transmission. He is glaring, goggle-eyed—as a long-ago commander once called such an expression—into his datascreen. An interesting tint of purple has appeared in the veins at his temples.
Simon, angry but controlled, says in clipped tones, "Mr. Gremian is still alive. The only thing injured was his dignity. When an armed individual attempts to shoot a Bolo's commander, I assure you most seriously that letting that individual leave the altercation alive is the utmost definition of restraint I have ever seen any Bolo demonstrate."
"Sar Gremian did not try to shoot you, Khrustinov! He has two witnesses to back him up. I don't know what you think you're trying to pull—"
"Spare me the bullshit! I'm not a provincial rube you can bully, bamboozle, or bribe. A full report of this incident will be filed with Sector Command. The Concordiat takes a dim view of attempted assassination of one of its officers."
For one point zero-nine seconds, Gifre Zeloc resembles a fish drowning in oxygen. The purple in his blood vessels spreads out, until his face has assumed an intriguing shade of maroon that matches his formal cravat with surprising accuracy. Clearly, Gifre Zeloc is no more accustomed to being addressed in such terms than Sar Gremian. Then he then narrows his eyes, telegraphing a threat that tempts me to assume Battle Reflex Alert. "And how will you explain to Sector that a Bolo I ordered you to deactivate was somehow conscious? In defiance of a direct presidential order to the contrary?"
"No Bolo is ever 'deactivated' until and unless it is killed. Even badly damaged Bolos can survive literally for a century or more and return to full awareness in less than a single pico-second. Sar Gremian, himself, is responsible for Sonny's awake status. He carried a concealed firearm into a restricted military zone with a Class One-Alpha weapons system inside it. Given his status as your chief advisor, he was permitted to retain that weapon, as a courtesy to his position on your personal staff. But anyone who enters a Bolo's reflex-alarm zone triggers a return to consciousness. Anyone carrying a weapon into that zone triggers an active-alert status. If that weapon is handled in a threatening manner, that action will set off an automatic Battle Reflex action. You can," Simon adds with an elegant touch of sarcasm, "send a query to Sector Command, requesting verification of these facts. Be sure to attach a copy of the recording Sonny made, showing Sar Gremian trying to shoot me."
President Zeloc's coloration once again resembles his maroon cravat.
"That won't be necessary! Very well, I will take your explanation under advisement. What I want from you—the only thing I want from you—is to send that Bolo into town and clean out that pack of rabble-rousing protestors."
"As I explained to Sar Gremian," Simon replies coldly, "Sonny stays where he is. In your haste to disperse your political opposition by using a mobile nuclear weapons platform, did you bother to consider the size of Unit-0045's warhull and treads, as compared with the size of Jefferson's streets?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sonny," Simon speaks as though addressing a small and none-too-bright child, "is a big-ass, honking war machine. His treads alone are wider than all but two or three streets anywhere in Madison. Darconi Street is just barely wide enough, if you don't mind losing the decorative stonework, wrought-iron balconies, doorways, news kiosks, or vehicles lining the sidewalks. Not to mention the building fronts he'd have to demolish along the five kilometers of city streets he would have to navigate just to reach the area where the protestors are gathered.
"And that's just his treads. Sonny's warhull and the weapons projecting out from it are wider than the treads. Considerably wider. If you really want Sonny to drive protestors out of Law Square, you'll have to decide which corner of Assembly Hall you would like him to flatten, trying to get there. Or, if you like, he could always flatten the concert hall in Lendan Park, instead. Or the southeast corner of the Museum of Science and Industry, or maybe the northern wing of the Planetary Justice Hall? Take my word for it, the only time you're likely to want that Bolo in downtown Madison is if the Deng or Melconians are throwing weapons at you. At which point, collateral damage from knocking down part of a building will be the least of your concerns."
Gifre Zeloc evidently likes the color maroon. He sputters for three point two seconds, then says in a squeaking voice, "He won't fit?"
"No, he won't. You were," Simon finishes with sweet derision, "briefed on Unit 0045's major operational specs when you assumed office. I do assume you actually read them?"
"I read what I goddamned well have time to read! Fine, the fucking thing won't fit! So what are you going to do about all these protestors?"
"Me?" Simon queries, lifting one brow. "I'm not doing anything. Handling a lawfully conducted political rally is your problem, not mine. Of course, it might become my problem, if you turn loose an unholy jihad of P-Squadrons against a crowd of unarmed civilians. The Concordiat's not real fond of slavery and ethnic cleansing, either, and speaking as an outside observer, you're skatin' on mighty thin and spidery ice, mister. You might just want to chew on that for a bit, before you decide to start slinging around more orders."
"I see." Clipped. Angry. Dangerous. "Very well, Colonel, have it your way. For now," he adds ominously.
The transmision ends. I have taken the precaution of recording every millisecond of the exchange in my archival databanks. Simon has done what he can. Now, all he can do is wait.
Kafari was nearly frantic with worry, but she did exactly what she and Simon had agreed upon when they'd worked out that emergency code. She picked up their daughter, dragging her out of class, and headed for home. She maintained radio silence the whole way and switched off the AirDart's auto-signal broadcast, in an effort to remain relatively invisible until they reached the safety of their quarters on Nineveh Base. She gripped the controls so tightly, her fingers ached. At least the need to concentrate on flying helped tune out Yalena's scowl. Her daughter had spent the entire flight from her school to their home in a deep, adolescent sulk, which did not improve Kafari's temper one jot.
When they finally got home, Kafari took one look at Simon's face and realized that however bad she'd feared it might be, it was worse. Far worse. So much so, her whole body went cold and scared. Simon was seated at his datascreen, staring blankly at something, a message she abruptly realized she didn't want to know. She'd never seen that look on her husband's face. A caved-in look, part horror, part defeat, all of it wrenching to witness.
"Simon?" she whispered.
He turned to look at her. Noticed Yalena. Brought his gaze back to Kafari.
"Close the door, please."
Kafari did so, hand trembling. She locked it, carefully. When she turned around again, Simon was still looking at her. "I have just been notified," he said, voice hoarse, "by Sector Command that Gifre Zeloc has invoked treaty provisions, demanding my removal from command or he will pull Jefferson out of the Concordiat."
Kafari's knees turned to rubber. She groped for the sofa. "Can he do that?"
"Oh, yes. With a vote of agreement from the Senate and House of Law. And we know only too well how such a vote would turn out, don't we?"
"What—" She had to stop and start again. "What in God's name happened, Simon?"
"Sar Gremian paid me a visit. There's a demonstration underway in Law Square. President Zeloc wanted me to use Sonny to drive the protestors out. I said no. So Gremian and a couple of his goons showed up, to insist. When I refused, Gremian tried to pull a gun on me. Sonny responded." A mirthless laugh sent chills down her back. "It might've been better if Sonny'd shot him. But he didn't. Commendable restraint, at the time. Gifre Zeloc was not amused. I've sent a copy of the recording Sonny made to Sector, with a formal protest. This," he gestured at the datascreen, the motion abrupt, bitter, "was their reply. I have never," he added, "seen Brigade move so fast in my career, which tells me everything I need to know."
Kafari made herself cross the room. Made herself read the message.
The Brigade supports your actions, which appear to have been proper and appropriate, but the Concordiat cannot afford to lose an allied world at this time, with a multi-system crisis of unprecedented proportions facing us. As Unit SOL-0045 is capable of independent battlefield action and given the low threat of invasion in the Silurian Void at this time, Sector has decided to reassign you to another Bolo in the Hakkor region, where three allied worlds are expected to come under heavy bombardment within a matter of weeks. A naval scout ship will be dispatched to take you to the Hakkor region to assume your new command. The scout will arrive in Jeffersonian space in three days. Your family will doubtless wish to emigrate. Quarters will be reserved for them at Sector Command.
"Oh, God," Kafari whispered. She looked up, read pain in Simon's ravaged eyes.
"You don't want to go, do you?" he asked.
"I go where you do!"
It came out fierce, protective.
"Where are we going?" Yalena demanded, jarring Kafari's attention from Simon to their child, who was glaring up at them.
"Your father has been reassigned off-world. We're going to live at Sector Command."
Yalena's eyes blazed. "You're going to Sector Command! I'm not going anywhere!"
Kafari started to snap a tart rejoinder when a sinking, cold terror hit her gut. Yalena was thirteen years old. She had reached the "right of self-determination" age, under POPPA-mandated child-protection law. They literally could not force her to leave. She looked at Simon, saw the bleakness there, realized he'd already foreseen this turn of events. Kafari ripped herself for ten kinds of blind folly and sat down abruptly, staring utter disaster in the face.
Her husband was being forced off-world by a regime ruthless enough to want a Bolo to disperse a few protestors. Her daughter was refusing to go. She knew Yalena, knew the stubborn core of that child, an unyielding determination that was, thanks to years of POPPA indoctrination, entirely misguided. There had to be a way! Some way out, something she could say or do to persuade her daughter to leave.
The prospect of a life without Simon, wondering day to day, hour to hour, if he'd been killed on some far-off world, while coping with a home-front situation that looked more frightening with every passing week, left her winded, unable to think clearly. Her mind whirled, frantic to find some reassurance that her life had not just shattered to pieces. Simon, cold and silent, offered no reassurance because there was none to offer. Their life together was over, along with nearly everything she valued in the world. Taken from her by idiots.
"Yalena," she said in a hoarse voice that seemed disembodied, with no connection to her, "please go into your room."
Her daughter scowled, but did so, closing the door on her way.
Simon looked at Kafari. She looked at him. "I can't go with you," she finally whispered.
"I know."
"I can't leave her here, alone. They've got her, Simon, they've got her heart and her mind, her very soul. I have to fight to get her back, somehow. I've got to break through all the crap she's been force-fed and make her see the truth. I can't just abandon her. If I did . . . If I left with you and ended up alone on some strange military base on a world where I don't know anyone, I would go mad. . . ."
"I know."
There didn't seem to be much else to say. He knew. Had known her well enough to realize what her choice must be. Had accepted it, even before she had walked through the front door. Kafari crossed the intervening space between them, knelt down beside his chair, and wrapped both arms around him. She just held on. Simon was trembling. So was she. He slid out of the chair, stood up with her, held onto her tightly enough to make breathing difficult. They stayed that way a long time, long enough to develop an ache in her ribs from the pressure. "Do you have any idea," Simon whispered roughly, "how much I need you?"
She shook her head, realizing in that moment that she could never know the answer to that agonized question. His heart thundered against hers. Tears blinded her. In this single, wrenching moment, the ache in her heart left no room for anything else, not even hatred of POPPA for doing this to them. That would come later. She was terrified for him. How could he go into battle, give his attention to the job of waging war, with thoughts of her and Yalena intruding, breaking his concentration? He needed her too much. She had jeopardized his effectiveness as an officer, without even realizing it.
He finally let go a deep and shuddering sigh, relaxed his death-hold on her ribs, and pulled back enough to peer down into her wet eyes. He managed a tender smile and used gentle fingertips to dry her cheeks. "Here, now, what's this? Don't you know the first rule of being a colonel's lady?"
She shook her head.
"Never send a man into combat with tears. Or curlers in your hair. Who wants to remember a woman with red eyes and hair wound up around plastic tubes?"
A strangled sound, half hiccough, half laughter, broke loose. "Oh, Simon. You always know just what to say." She blinked furiously, determined to get her fractured emotions under control. "Whatever are we going to do?"
"Our duty," he said with a rough burr in his voice. "You're the strongest person I have ever known, Kafari Khrustinova. Do you have any idea how remarkable you are, dear lady?"
She shook her head again. "I don't feel very remarkable Simon. And I probably look like a drowned cat."
He smiled. "I've seen worse." A sigh gusted loose. "I have a lot to do, if I'm leaving in three days. That," he gestured at the datascreen again, "doesn't become completely official until I set foot on the scoutship, at least, so I have some time to work with Sonny before I go. They may be harried and desperate at Sector, but they're not entirely blind, either. That recording of Sar Gremian was enough to convince somebody that I'd better not be relieved of command over him instantly, no matter how much Gifre Zeloc threatens. He will doubtless be so delighted at getting his way, he won't quibble about three days."
"And you can do a lot with him in three days?"
"Oh, yes," he said, voice dangerous. "Oh, yes, indeed."
Kafari shivered. And hoped Simon knew what he was doing.
"I'm going into Madison," he said at length. "I've got to see the bank manager, among other things. You," he said, placing both hands on her shoulders, "keep yourself and Yalena inside the house. Don't open the door to anyone but me. And keep your gun within easy reach. Sonny's on Active Standby Alert with orders to stop any attack on my quarters, but I believe in being prepared."
Kafari nodded. "Do you want me to start packing for you?" Her voice didn't quite hold steady.
Pain skittered through his eyes. "Yes, I think that would help. It would give you something to do. All the uniforms, please. And the personal sidearms. Besides the one I'll be carrying, of course. Personal sundries, toiletries. A few changes of civilian clothing. I'll be traveling light."
"I'll make two piles. The definites and the maybes."
He kissed her, very gently.
Then headed for the door. She wanted to run after him, tell him to be careful, tell him everything in her bursting heart, but she let him go. No tears. Nor anything like them. She was a colonel's wife. She realized fully, for the first time, what that really entailed. She lifted her chin, stiffened her resolve, and marched into the bedroom to sort her husband's things in preparation for his new war.
And hers.
Yalena threw herself onto her bed and cried for a solid, miserable hour.
It wasn't fair! The very thought of going somewhere else, leaving her friends, her home, going to another star system where she would never see Ami-Lynn again, left her shaken so deeply, she couldn't do anything but cry, muffling the sound in her pillow so her parents wouldn't hear. She hated the Brigade, had never hated anyone or anything so much in her life. She had tried to love her father, but she just couldn't. Her mother . . . sometimes, she felt very close to her mother. And other times, they were like strangers, unable to talk to one another through the glass walls between them, so thick Yalena despaired of ever truly getting through and making her mother understand.
And now they wanted her to just go with them, just pack up her things and go away to a place where she wouldn't know anybody or anything. The very thought of having to start over at a new school, where nobody understood anything really important, like saving the oceans or making sure that every child had legal rights to protect them, where nobody would like her because she was the new girl, different, with a father who killed for a living . . .
Panic rose up and choked her until she couldn't breathe, because there wasn't room for the air inside a chest too full of terror and humiliation to take in anything else. Yalena had thought she'd long outgrown that kindergarten terror, but it was still there, down inside, where nobody could see it. She lay shaking for a long time, soaking the bedspread with tears and a streaming nose. When the worst of the storm had finally passed, she sat up, feeling shaky and light-headed. It was awfully quiet, out there. Yalena crept to the door and listened, but there were no voices outside. She heard someone in her parents' room, opening and closing drawers, it sounded like.
Yalena stepped to the window and peered outside, across the small yard to the landing pad. Her father's aircar was gone. She clenched the curtains in one hand. He was gone! He hadn't even said goodbye! Tears threatened again. Then reason reasserted itself. He couldn't be gone, yet, because there weren't any ships docked at Ziva Two, right now. Not even the Brigade could get a ship here that fast, could it? No. He must've gone into town. She finally realized what she was hearing, from her parents' room. Her mother was packing.
Yalena swallowed hard. Was her mother going to leave, too? Where would Yalena go? She had the right to stay, but she wasn't sure where that would be. Could she move in with somebody like Ami-Lynn's parents? Or would she have to go out to Klameth Canyon and live with her grandparents. Yuck. That would be dire. Almost as bad as going with her parents. She'd have to start a new school in that case, too, and if she went to school in Klameth Canyon, it would be full of farmers who would hate her as much as her cousins hated her.
Panic threatened again.
Yalena finally thought to check on the datanet, to see what her rights actually were and what would happen to her if her mother insisted on leaving Jefferson, too. What she found wasn't entirely reassuring, but if she had to live in a state-run dormitory, at least she could stay in her same school. That would help. If she lost her friends, she really didn't know what she would do. She sighed, then decided to send Ami-Lynn a long chat message, to let her know what was happening. She knew Ami-Lynn had been scared, too, when Yalena's mother had showed up at the classroom and yanked her out the door with a brief apology to her teacher for the inconvenience.
Yalena scowled. She didn't understand why her parents had forced her to leave school just because her father was being fired from a job he hated and had to go off and be a soldier somewhere else. They could've left her in school while he went running off to town and her mother packed suitcases, instead of dragging her all the way out here, to do nothing at all. She pulled up her chat account and started the message.
"I'm okay," she said, "and I don't see why I had to leave school. I mean, it's big news and all, my dad has to leave the planet and I don't know if my mom is going with him. He has to go fight a war . . ." Her voice wavered unsteadily. Fight a war. She had never seen the Bolo in the back yard move. She'd talked to the machine a few times, but it scared her. It was huge, bigger than their whole house, and it had all those horrid guns and things on it. Her imagination failed, trying to picture what that thing must look like when it was moving and shooting at things.
She scowled again. Mrs. Gould, that horrible harpy, had lied to them about her father and his Bolo, all those years ago. She still hated her kindergarten teacher for making her miserable and sick, for saying things about her father that weren't true, for making her feel like a dirty criminal. But Cadence had made everything all right again and she really hadn't thought there would ever be another war, because they were so far away from all those other worlds that were fighting.
It didn't seem real, that machines like the one in the back yard were shooting at living creatures who just wanted a safe place to live, when all was said and done. That was what her social dynamics teacher said, anyway, and Mr. Bryant was the smartest teacher she had ever had. She didn't hate the Deng or the Melconians and didn't understand why everybody in the Brigade thought the Deng and the Melconians hated them.
She backed up the recording to Ami-Lynn and started over. "Hi, it's Yalena. I don't know why Mom dragged me out of school, just to tell me Dad's been fired from his job. President Zeloc is making the Brigade reassign him to another planet. He has to go off-world and command a different Bolo. He's in town, I think, doing stuff at the bank, probably, a whole bunch of things before he leaves. I don't want to get dragged off someplace horrible where I don't know anybody. I won't go. They can't make me and I won't. If my Mom goes, too, I'll have to live in a government dorm somewhere in Madison, but I'll get to stay at the Riverside Junior Academy and that's the most important thing. So don't worry about all the fuss, today. I'll see you at school tomorrow, for sure, and I'll send another message tonight, after Dad gets home and I find out for sure what's going to happen with everybody."
She pressed "send" and sat back as the message spun its way through the data-net to Ami-Lynn's account. Her friend wouldn't be home from school for another three hours, but Yalena felt better, having sent the message out. It steadied her and reminded her that even if she lost both parents to her father's horrid war, she wouldn't lose friends like Ami-Lynn, because POPPA cared enough to protect her from things like this off-world war that no sane person would want to fight in. Yalena sighed and stared through her window, not really looking at the landing pad or the police training center beyond the fence that surrounded their house and the Bolo's maintenance depot.
She wished, for at least the millionth time, that her father was just an ordinary person, so they wouldn't always be disagreeing on everything. She had tried so hard to tell him why POPPA was so important to her home-world, but he never understood and just got angry, so she'd finally stopped trying. This wasn't her father's home-world. He just didn't understand how it was, to belong to a place the way Yalena belonged here. He didn't know what it meant, to belong to a group of people the way she belonged with the people in POPPA, who were the nicest, gentlest people in the world, people who cared about everything and everyone. The only people POPPA didn't like were the ones that made trouble for everybody else. Like the Grangers.
Her cheeks stung with an embarrassment she was afraid she would never outgrow. Her whole family was full of Grangers. People who wanted to keep guns in their houses, people who made trouble every time the Senate and House of Law tried to pass a law that everybody with any intelligence knew was a good idea. She didn't talk about her family at school, or with her friends. If the subject came up, she just rolled her eyes and shrugged, writing them off as the crazies they were. Yalena would never understand them. And they would never understand her. And that made her so sad and so miserable, she laid back down on her bed, again, and cried some more, very quietly, this time.
It was sheer hell, being thirteen and all alone in a family that didn't want her.
Simon was gone for five hours before he checked in by radio. "Kafari, I've got the banking affairs settled, updated my will, set up a power of attorney for you, a whole host of details nailed down. I'm headed home."
"We'll be waiting."
No tears, no hint of the grief in her heart that tore loose in a flood the moment he signed off. She wiped her face with brusque, angry gestures. No tears, Kafari, she ordered her obstinate heart. You don't greet a soldier with tears, either, not when he's going away in three days . . . Oh, God, how could she bear to face the long, empty months and years ahead, without him by her side every night or smiling into her eyes every morning? She sank down onto the bed, helpless to stop the flood pouring loose, then rolled over and cried into the pillow so Yalena wouldn't hear.
Ten minutes later, a metallic voice boomed through the speakers on Simon's datascreen. "Kafari. Simon's aircar is losing power. It is unstable and going down."
Time—and the breath in her lungs—froze, like the sudden cold sweat on her skin. For long, horrifying seconds, she was pinned in place. She couldn't breathe. Almost couldn't see. Then Sonny spoke again, a construct of flintsteel and electrons that contrived, somehow, to sound terrified.
"Simon has crashed. His forward speed was sufficient to sustain serious injury. I am picking up life-signs from his comm-unit. The likelihood of sabotage to his aircar is extreme. I have gone to Battle Reflex Alert. I am contacting emergency medical response teams in Madison. They have scrambled an air rescue team. ETA three minutes to Simon's location."
Kafari found herself stumbling toward the door, snatching up purse, keys, shoes.
"Yalena!" she screamed. "Yalena, get out here now! Your father's aircar has crashed!"
The door to her daughter's room swung open. Yalena, face white with abrupt shock, stood staring at her. "Is he—is he—d-dead?"
"No. Sonny says not . . . yet. They've scrambled an air rescue medical team. Get your shoes! We're going to the hospital."
Yalena ran, grabbing up the shoes she'd kicked off at the foot of her bed. Two minutes later they were airborne, in Kafari's Airdart, which was fast and maneuverable. Once aloft, she hit full throttle and flew like a demon, screaming across the fences around Nineveh Base and roaring toward Madison. She fumbled with her wrist-comm.
"Sonny, talk to me. Is he still alive?"
"Yes."
"Feed me coordinates. Where did he go down?"
The nav-system screen flashed to life, with a blip showing Simon's location. The med-team would arrive before she did. "Find out which hospital they're taking him to. University? Or General?"
A fractional pause ensued. "University has better emergency facilities. The rescue pilot has logged his intention to transport Simon to University Hospital. The medical crew is airlifting him now. His life-signs are weak."
Terror trembled on her eyelashes, made it hard to see where she was going. She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of one hand. Tears were spilling down Yalena's cheeks, as well, silent tears of fright and something else, something too deep to fathom, yet. Sonny spoke again from the speaker, causing Yalena to jump. "Simon's airlift has arrived at University Hospital. He is still alive. I am monitoring."
"Yalena. Call your grandparents."
Her daughter reached for the controls, fingers trembling. "Grandma? Are you there? Grandma, it's Yalena . . ."
"Hello? Yalena? What are you doing, calling from school?"
"It's Daddy," she said, voice breaking. She started to sob. Kafari said, "Mom, Simon's aircar has crashed. He's at University Hospital. I'm on my way there with Yalena."
"Oh, dear God . . . We're on the way."
Ten minutes later, Kafari set down in the University Hospital parking lot. They ran for the wide double doors of the emergency room, silent and scared. Kafari fetched up against the receptionist's desk. "I'm Mrs. Khrustinova. Where's my husband?"
"They've rushed him into emergency surgery, Mrs. Khrustinova. Let me call someone to take you up to the surgical suite's waiting room."
A hospitality agent appeared, escorting them down a long, antiseptic hallway, into an elevator, and up to the third floor. They were shown into a waiting lounge that was, for the moment, empty. Kafari yanked down the volume on the datascreen, unable to bear the sound of the stupid game show in progress. Yalena sat down on one of the chairs, scared and very pale.
Kafari couldn't sit down. She wanted to collapse, but terror was a goad that wouldn't let her rest. She paced, frantic, staring at her chrono every few seconds until the ritual became so painful, she unbuckled the thing and shoved it into her pocket. She walked, ravaging her lower lip with her teeth, rubbing the empty place on her arm where the chrono had been. The volunteer brought them a hospitality tray, with cold drinks, cookies, comfort foods. Kafari couldn't choke anything down.
When her parents arrived, half an hour later, Kafari broke down in her mother's arms, weeping with exhaustion and fright. Her father took charge of Yalena, speaking quietly with her, reassuring her that the doctors were doing everything humanly possible to save her father's life. More relatives arrived, not enough of them to be an abrasion against her raw nerves, but lending silent support at a time she needed it desperately. Surrounded by her loving family, all Kafari could do was wait. The volunteer returned periodically to update them, although the "updates" consisted of the same news again and again.
"Your husband is still alive, Mrs. Khrustinova. The surgeons are working to stabilize him."
Yalena went for a walk with her grandfather, out into the hallway, then came back and curled up against Kafari's side, shivering. Kafari wrapped one arm around her daughter. At length, Yalena whispered, "I didn't mean to be rude, Mommy. When we got home. I just can't leave home and go somewhere strange. All my friends are here." Her voice was breaking in a plea for understanding.
"I know, sweetheart. I know."
"Did—did the president's advisor really try to kill Daddy? I can't believe it. I can't. Everybody at school says he's a wonderful person. I just can't believe that, Mommy."
"You have no idea how much I wish you were right."
Yalena bit one lip and fell silent again. Neither Kafari's parents nor the other family members sitting vigil with them commented on the brief exchange, but knowing glances ran like spiders around the room. They were still sitting there, nerves jangled and eyes puffy, when the soft ping! of the elevators announced the arrival of what sounded like an entire army. The footsteps and voices heading their way were shocking in the hospital's relative quiet. Kafari realized what that tidal wave of sound was seconds before the camera crews and reporters burst into the room. Bright lights half-blinded them. People were shouting questions at them, so many at once, she couldn't even sort out individual voices, let alone questions. Yalena shrank closer to Kafari's side. Her father and several uncles interposed themselves between Kafari and the news people choking the room.
Then one of the featureless faces resolved itself into a familiar pattern. A man Kafari recognized from datacasts strode forward, his acne-pitted face mirroring concern and sympathy. Sar Gremian! Kafari's father and uncles exchanged distressed glances, then let him through the barricade they'd formed, not wanting to provoke a scene in front of half the press-corps in Madison.
When she realized that Sar Gremian was reaching out to touch her shoulder, making a show—a mockery—of offering comfort, Kafari went rigid. Then she jerked to her feet. "Don't you dare touch me!" she hissed.
He checked slightly. "Mrs. Khrustinova, you have no idea how distressed I was to learn—"
"Get out!" Kafari snarled. "I have nothing to say to you! And if you ever come near me and mine again, I'll by God finish the job Sonny left undone!"
The force of her rage—and his abrupt realization that she meant every syllable uttered before God and the planetary press—left him one shade paler than when he'd glided into the room. She could almost see the thought forming behind those cold shark's eyes. Oh, hell, I forgot this is the woman who brought Abraham Lendan out of battle alive. I may have underestimated her . . .
You're goddamned right, you have! And don't ever forget it.
He recovered his poise quickly. So quickly, Kafari doubted the reporters had even noticed the silent exchange of threat and counterthreat between them, too delighted by the overt conflict to notice the deeper and far more dangerous one. "You're overwrought, Mrs. Khrustinova, and little wonder. I simply wanted to convey my heartfelt well-wishes and those of President Zeloc."
"You have conveyed them," she said coldly. "You are doubtless more urgently needed elsewhere." Kafari knew her anger was a reckless, dangerous thing to display so openly. But she could not just stand there and let him offer unctuous condolences when he had tried to murder her husband. Twice.
She was rescued from worse folly when a doctor in surgical scrubs shoved through the throng of reporters, demanding in angry tones that the waiting room be cleared. "Who let you in here? This is a hospital surgical ward, not a press briefing. Out! All of you, out!"
Orderlies were appearing, escorting camera crews into the corridor and back toward the elevators. Kafari—with her family standing beside her in a silent show of solidarity—stood her ground while Sar Gremian watched the exodus through narrowed eyes. He turned abruptly, gave Kafari a mocking little bow, and said, "My condolences, Mrs. Khrustinova, and those of the president. Miss Khrustinova," he turned to Yalena, who was clinging to her, "I hope very sincerely that your father will pull through this dreadful accident."
Then he strode out, nodding to the reporters with a dignity and concern he had pasted on like thin varnish for the benefit of the cameras. Kafari hated him with an ice-cold loathing that frightened her, it was so intense. Then he was gone and the reporters with him, and Kafari stumbled slightly, groping for the nearest chair as her knees buckled. Her father caught her and helped her down.
The surgeon tested her pulse, frowning with worry.
"Simon?" she whispered, finding and holding Yalena's hand.
"He's out of danger, Mrs. Khrustinova."
Her eyelids sagged close and her bones turned to rubber. The surgeon's voice reached down a very deep well, echoing strangely in her ears.
"He is still in grave condition, I'm afraid. We've stabilized the internal injuries and broken bones. The airlift crew said his aircar was built like a Bolo. Thank God it was or he'd have been killed on impact."
She managed to open her eyes and focused with difficulty on the man's face, which had gone unsteady and full of blurred edges. He managed a warm and gentle smile. "Hello," he added with just a touch of wry humor. "I'm Dr. Zarek, by the way."
"Pleased to meet you." Kafari barely recognized the croaking of her own voice. "What else? What aren't you telling us?"
"He is still in grave condition. To be frank, he needs to be transferred to a much better facility than University Hospital."
"But—" She swallowed. "University Hospital is the best medical center on Jefferson." Blood drained, leaving her dizzy. "Oh, God . . ."
"Easy, now, steady." She felt someone's hand on her shoulder. She felt like she was falling off a cliff or out the airlock of a freighter in free-fall. Then a sharp, pungent smell brought her out of a downward spiral. She coughed and the world firmed up again. Dr. Zarek was seated beside her, testing her pulse. A nurse was busy attaching some kind of skin patch to her wrist, probably an antishock treatment. Her family hovered close-by, stricken. When the doctor was satisfied that she wasn't going to faint, he spoke again, very gently.
"He's at the ragged edge of critical, but his condition is not life-threatening. That much, at least, I can swear to you." A look of profound respect came into his long, kindly face as he added, "I have not forgotten what you did in Klameth Canyon, Mrs. Khrustinova. It was one of the greatest privileges of my life, serving as a junior member of Abraham Lendan's medical team. You may not remember me, but I administered one of your earliest antiradiation treatments. I had a little more hair, then, and a few less wrinkles."
His smile, his genuine warmth, helped steady her. "I'm sorry," she murmured, "I really don't remember you."
He patted her hand. "Not to worry. I wouldn't have expected you to, Mrs. Khrustinova. Now, then. Simon is going to need specialized recovery therapy of a kind that isn't available on Jefferson. We don't have nerve regeneration clinics or cellular reconstruction technologies."
That sounded bad. Desperately so.
"As an officer of the Dinochrome Brigade, your husband is entitled, by mandate of the treaty, to emergency medical transportation and full access to the best medical care available. I would suggest," and something in his manner shifted, subtly, taking on a subdued yet intense note of warning, "that we send him off-world immediately." He glanced at the doorway Sar Gremian and that unholy mob of reporters had departed through, then met and held Kafari's eyes. "There's a Malinese freighter coming in tonight, I'm told. It's due for departure tomorrow. I strongly recommend transferring your husband to Ziva Two's infirmary the moment that freighter makes space-dock. We'll send an attending physician and trauma nurse with him. What you cannot—dare not—do is wait."
"I see," Kafari whispered, feeling as young and scared as her daughter looked.
Then she thought of Sonny, realized with a shock of fear that a Bolo Mark XX was sitting in her back yard, at full Battle Reflex Alert, listening to this conversation and drawing its own conclusions—and it already suspected sabotage and attempted murder.
"Oh, shit—" She slapped her wrist-comm. "Sonny. Sonny, are you there? Can you hear me?"
"Yes, Kafari. I have been monitoring your wrist-comm since your departure from home."
The surgeon's brow furrowed, then his eyes opened wide as he realized who Kafari was talking to—and why.
She cleared her throat. "Who do we need to notify? How do we notify them?"
"I have already contacted Sector Command, apprising them of my Commander's medical status. I am filing updated VSR now, based on the medical recommendations I just heard. I am forwarding a voice copy of the conversation you just held with Simon's attending physician. I will relay Sector's instructions once I receive VSR from Brigade.
"I will need the registry information for the Malinese freighter, to remain in contact with my Commander and his medical team. Sector has already diverted the scoutship, which is needed elsewhere, now that Simon is incapable of transfer to Hakkor. When Simon regains consciousness, please tell him that I am at fault for having failed him. I was scanning for overt threats. Missiles, artillery, energy weapons. I did not anticipate an enemy action based on subterfuge and sabotage of his transport vehicle. That failure has nearly taken my Commander's life. It may end the career of the finest officer it has been my privilege to serve. Please tell him I am sorry."
Kafari was staring at her wrist-comm. She had known, at a superficial level, that Sonny was the most sophisticated psychotronic system she had ever seen, or ever would see. She had not realized, even after nearly fourteen years of interactions with him, just how complex his programming really was. The machine speaking to them via her wrist-comm had a metallic voice unlike any real person's, yet it was full of anguish and regret.
She didn't know what to say. Neither, evidently, did Dr. Zarek. Yalena was crying again. Kafari finally broke her silence. "Thank you, Sonny. I'll . . ." She had to stop and start over. "I'll do that, for you. I'll tell him. That's a promise. A vow." In the awkward silence that followed, it occurred to Kafari to wonder who would be issuing Sonny's orders, now. She didn't want to think about it. Couldn't stop thinking about it. Was terrified by the answers occurring to her.
A Mark XX Bolo was capable of independent action. She knew that much, but somebody would have to issue instructions to Sonny. Those instructions couldn't come from Sector, so they had to come from somebody on Jefferson. She didn't know which was more frightening. The idea of Sonny acting on his own, at a Battle Reflex Alert that even Simon walked cautiously around, or someone like Gifre Zeloc, who took his orders directly from Vittori Santorini.
We're in trouble. Oh, Christ, Simon, we're in deep, horrible trouble. I need you . . . More than she had ever needed anyone or anything else. The lack of his arms around her, his steady voice, the absence of his rock-solid courage and strength of character were a physical ache in her flesh, more wrenching than the pain of childbirth.
Someone was saying her name. Kafari blinked against the weight of terror and focused on the surgeon's worried face. "What?" she managed to croak.
"You'll need to fill out a great deal of paperwork, Mrs. Khrustinova, signing as next-of-kin, authorizing us to bill the Concordiat on his behalf. No, don't worry about money, our admissions and billing office has already determined that the Brigade will be paying for all treatment rendered. We just need signatures on the requisite forms to submit the charges to the planetary purser's office rather than the health management plan you carry through your job at the spaceport. You'll need to file emigration paperwork, as well, for you and Yalena."
Kafari held her breath. Then turned to look at her daughter. Yalena shook her head. "No. I don't want to leave Jefferson. I just can't."
"Your father needs medical care we can't get here."
"I know. But they're sending a doctor with him. He can come home when he's well. I won't go live somewhere else, where I don't have any friends or anything. You can go, Mom, I understand that, but I'm not leaving."
Kafari's father spoke sharply. "And just where do you intend to live?"
"POPPA will put me in a state dormitory, same as they do orphans. I can even stay in my school."
"That won't be necessary," Kafari said, weary to the bone. "I want to go, Yalena, more than you can ever understand. But I won't leave you here alone and I certainly won't let you go live in some horrible dormitory." She cupped her daughter's wet cheek in one hand. "And your father would want me to stay. It's what we'd already decided, before . . ." Her voice wobbled.
Yalena started crying again.
The surgeon spoke very quietly. "I'll send the hospital volunteer with the paperwork you'll need to sign. And I'll let you know when he's awake."
She nodded and he left. The volunteer arrived a few moments later with an appalling stack of forms to fill out and sign. Kafari wondered how she could possibly face the years that lay ahead, while Simon struggled through rehabilitation alone, without anyone who loved him there to help. In the grim and ghastly silence that had fallen across the room, Kafari made a steel-cold vow to her unconscious husband.
I will stay here, Simon, as long as it takes. I'll fight them for her. I'm sorry, my dearest love, but I can't just leave her with the bastards who did this to you. And one day, she added, eyes narrowing with hatred she could neither deny nor contain, one day, they will regret it.
Bitterly.