Downtime (5 page)

“They
don’t. Only variations of the two alternatives. The old worlds know the
decision will go against them.”

“The
old worlds
?” And then he caught
himself. Representation on the Council of Worlds was determined by population.
He
knew
that the new worlds were no
longer the insignificant minority they had been when he left the Hub, but that
change like so many changes was not real to him. Suddenly he felt the impact of
the years he’d lost traveling to outback planets. He swallowed the rest of his
wine to brace himself for what he knew was coming. “The Decemvirate will
support the majority decision, which will go against the old worlds. They’ll
attempt to distribute the elixir according to the decision, but every world has
a military arm to throw against the Decemvirate’s imperial legions. So it will
be the old worlds against the Decemvirate.”

“Not
necessarily,” Calla said. “It’s not certain that the new worlds will carry the
decision. They say that the going rate for buying a vote in the Council of
Worlds is a fifty-year supply of elixir, most tempting to men and women in
their sixtieth standard year. Do you know how many council members are sixty or
older?”

“Just
about all of them, but I didn’t know they could be bought. Their integrity is . . .”

“.
. . questionable when it comes to doubling a lifespan. Not all of them, of
course, probably not even most. But maybe just enough to turn the favor to the
old worlds.”

“What
is the Decemvirate doing about the problem? I mean, they must have probability
models that tell them all of these things.”

Calla
drew a long, hissing breath as she got to her feet. She went to the window and
put the goblet on the sill so that she could rub her hip with her hand. She
seemed to be staring idly at the activity in the staging areas below, but Jason
knew she was thinking. She put her hands in her pockets and stood head hung,
the posture so familiar to him that it might have been only yesterday that he
had last seen it. “The Decemvirate is preparing for war. They just don’t know
which side they’ll be on until they put the alternatives before the Council of
Worlds and the decision is made.”

“Historically
the Decemvirate has always supported the majority decision. But, since they
control the timing, they’re going to be ready either way, right?” When she
looked at him strangely, he added, “They’re delaying giving council the
alternatives, delaying the vote, and using the time to get ready.”

“The
imperial legions are always ready,” she said. “Yes, they are, aren’t they. But
most of the facilities for processing the elixir are on the old worlds . . .
or are they?”

She
hesitated, then nodded. “That hasn’t changed.”

“Hasn’t
it?” he said suspiciously. “They haven’t moved any of the facilities to secret
locations while they still have control? Perhaps to planets like Mutare that no
self-respecting colonist would give a second glance? What are they calling the
new Red Rocks facility back in the Hub records? Dirty atomics research?
Volatile processing plant? Mutare is already filthy with cosmic rays that cause
mutations, and they’re all pretty proud of their genes, aren’t they. Oh, they
might tamper with them from time to time and be selective about which ones they
use for their offspring, but they won’t let nature do it, not the wild and fast
and unpredictable nature of Mutare. They’ll leave Mutare to the survey rangers
and feel content in knowing that in twenty thousand years there will be a tamed
planet ready for civilized colonization. In the meantime, if some good use
could come of it, why not make use of Mutare. What would they say, Calla, if
they knew their next supply of elixir was being manufactured here?”

“I
said nothing about elixir,” Calla said.

“You
didn’t have to,” he said, feeling grim.

Stubbornly
she shook her head. “I came here to talk Hub politics to an old friend who has
been out of contact.”

“You
didn’t have to say anything. Once I had an old friend, too, and she taught me to
hear what was not said.”

She
nodded thoughtfully, then drank the rest of her wine. “You used to serve me
rot-gut liquor out of canning jars, too. Did I teach you to appreciate leaded
Sinn Hala crystal, as well?” She held up the goblet to admire it.

“I’m
told the crafter claimed to have Picasso genes,” Jason said.

“They
all do,” she said, unimpressed. “But it’s good work, nonetheless.” She put down
the goblet. “You did earn those silver moons, didn’t you?”

Jason
scowled.

“You
pretended that playing the game their way wasn’t important, but,” she said,
fingering the goblet once again, “you were listening and learning every minute,
weren’t you?”

“Isn’t
that what you wanted?”

“I
thought so. But I never knew I was getting results. Never mind. You know what
you know, and you didn’t hear it from me.”

“I
still don’t know where you fit in,” Jason said. “You are as unlikely a
candidate to send on a mission like this as I can think of.”

“I
earned my gold,” she snapped.

“I
never doubted that,” he said. “I was referring to your singularity. The last thing
I knew, you were confined to Mercury Novus because you were a poor health risk.”

“There’s
a risk, of course, but they don’t hold it against me any more. I haven’t been
grounded for almost twenty years.”

“Twenty . . .”
Rubbing his hand across his eyes, he fought for self-control. She
could
have come after him. There was
nothing stopping her. They would have let her transfer
twenty years ago
. He wanted to ask her why she had not, but he was
so certain that he would hate her answer that all he said was, “I see.”

“Yes,
in fact, for this mission, my singularity is in my favor.” Her expression was
serious and aloof, and it was killing him. “I cannot make any personal gain no
matter which way the decision goes, because elixir, like almost everything
else, doesn’t work for me. But they did send a backup just in case, a civilian
colleague. Praetor D’Omaha is up in
Belden
Traveler
waiting for us to settle in down here.”

“How
can they be so certain the elixir doesn’t work for you?” Jason said. “Praetorians
aren’t entitled.”

“Except
by lottery. It made me deathly ill. A second dose would probably be fatal. That’s
on my record right along with all my other achievements.”

That
must have been a terrible blow to her, Jason decided, her last hope for beating
the effects of the singularity, gone. “Don’t they worry about your new world
heritage?”

“Dovia?
Dovia can hardly be called a world any more,” Calla said. “No. They cared for
nothing except my . . . impartiality to elixir. I’m expected to carry
out my orders without fail, just like the Decemvirate.” She was grinning now,
as if war were a game to look forward to. Perhaps it was to her, Jason thought.
Perhaps this was the most exciting event in her career, and coming before she
was too old to participate had to bring her some satisfaction.

“What
kind of defense do you plan for Mutare?” he asked, trying to be equally
dispassionate. “What kind of armaments did you bring?”

“None,”
she said. “Secrecy is our best defense.”

“None?
But I saw a new star in retrograde two nights ago. It went behind the moon and
never came out. Are you going to try to tell me that really was a new star?”

Calla
shrugged and downed the last of her drink, then got to her feet with an almost
inaudible moan. “A shooting star, perhaps.”

“No,”
he said. “A ship. A very large one.”

“Why
would I send armaments to the moon?”

“Not
to it. Behind it. And I don’t know why, but I suspect I will one day.”

Calla
shook her head and walked over to the window to look at the staging area. Some
of the stevedores had arrived and were talking to the rangers. Calla’s officers
sat by themselves. “Secrecy,” she repeated. “Nothing goes off planet or arrives
without it going through my inspection team, and my guards will shuttle for us.
That includes rangers. As for your people.” She turned to look at him. “They’re
here for the duration.”

“You
can’t do that. They’re rangers, not Praetorians.”

“I
can’t. Decemvirate did. Check your orders.”

“I
haven’t had time.”

She
crossed her arms over her pendulous breasts. “But I was supposed to have had
time to read your report on danae and the rain?”

“Consistency
was never a strong point with me, which is why I prefer the rangers to the
guards.”

“We’re
all the same when it comes to war,” Calla said. “Guards and rangers alike
follow the orders of the Decemvirate.”

She
was right, but Jason didn’t like it. “There’s going to be hell to pay when the
first of them don’t get to rotate out on time.”

“You’re
due among the first of them. Set a good example,” she said, sable eyes
glinting.

Jason
sighed. “I will behave like a disciplined disciple of the Decemvirate, and I’ll
work everyone’s asses off so they don’t have time to complain. But there’s a
civilian population, too. Miners. I expect a dozen or more to achieve their
exploitation limits this summer. They won’t like it when they find out they can’t
go back to the Hub and spend their fortunes.”

“Increase
the limits, Governor. That’s well within your powers.”

“You
don’t understand.”

“About
planetary exploitation and greed? I’m a Dovian, remember? I understand only too
well. Give them the chance to double their fortunes, and they’ll take it.”

“Over
my dead body,” he said angrily. “There will be no increase in the exploitation
limits while I’m governor.”

She
looked at him sharply. “That’s fine, Governor, as long as you can find some
other way to carry out your orders. I suggest that you check them before we
discuss this matter any further. Perhaps next time you won’t go charging off
with your foot in your mouth.”

Jason
clamped his jaw to stop a torrent of angry words. She couldn’t have changed so
much in the intervening years that she would encourage the sacrifice of
innocent lives. She just hadn’t read the reports, and she didn’t know what she
was saying. Or were the gold worlds on her collar proof of just how much she
really had changed.

“Goodnight,”
she said. She turned her back on him and started for the door. Loose flesh hung
along biceps that once were firm, and her skin looked dry and crepey. She
walked as if her boots were too heavy, her left toe dragging slightly along the
ramped floor.

He
opened the door with a switch on his desk. Calla left, and he went to read his
orders.

The first rays of sunlight were just breaking the horizon,
glinting silver and gold on Mer Sal, as Calla picked her way over fallen rock.
She had a map in hand, taken from one of Jason’s early reports, but she needn’t
have bothered. The way to what Jason called the terrace garden was serpentine,
but the path was well marked by scuffed rocks and trampled vegetation after
three years of Jason’s daily treks. She topped the limestone ridge and paused
to rest her aching hip. Below was the garden, a natural valley of vegetation-loaded
loam nestled between a hogback of limestone and another of red sandstone. She
looked from the garden out to the forested plain that sloped gently to the sea.
From Jason’s reports, she knew that she was standing on the meeting ground of
two continental plates, one sunken now and nearly covered by the inland sea
called Mer Sal, the other twisted and faulted so badly that the layers of
sedimentary rock were thrust perpendicular, the harder layers poking through
the surface like planetary bones.

Calla
heard a rock fall behind her. She turned to see Jason coming up the trail from
Round House, dark curls glistening reddish in the sunlight. She had hoped to
find him here.

While
she waited for him, she watched the sun climb. Its rays lit the conifer forest
still sparkling with rainwater until it touched Sylvan Amber. Sunlight flashed
like flame as it slid along the wet resins. Calla’s nomenclator started
whispering the introductory announcement of Anwar Jason D‘Estelle, picked up
from the regulation-required nonpareil implanted in a tooth, and she knew Jason
was less than meters away. With her tongue, she flicked off the switch mounted
on one of her own back molars. She knew more about Jason than a nomenclator
file could divulge. Then Jason was beside her.

“The
Amber Forest?” she asked, even though she was already certain it was.

He
nodded. “It’s even more beautiful up close. The conifers’ sap runs like water
in the spring, and veils of it spread from the branches to the ground. Doesn’t
run from the trunks at all. Eventually it oxidizes; the cosmic rays speed the
process. When the trees die, they leave behind kiosks of amber. We have a group
of danae living in them.”

“I
know,” Calla said. “I read the reports last night. You said they take wing with
the first touch of sunlight. I came to see.”

“Any
moment now,” he assured her. “Now.”

By squinting
against the sun, Calla could just see the movement where Jason was pointing.
Then the forest seemed to lift in a rainbow of color; a thousand of them must
have taken wing.

They
could glide on thermals or beat the air like swallows. This morning their wings
beat strongly, swiftly covering the kilometers between Sylvan Amber and the
terrace garden. As they approached, the shimmer of their translucent wings
looked like ghostly apparitions around their streamlined bodies. A few dozen
circled the terrace garden, then half that number broke off and flew beyond the
sandstone ridge. Most of the remaining danae circled the garden a few more
times before cautiously settling on high perches in the far side. Only two came
near, perching on trees thirty meters from the limestone ridge. With their
wings furled, they looked like they were carrying large and lovely scrolls.