Eternity's End (78 page)

Freem'n Deutsch, during the voyage back, had developed a friendship with the
Impris
riggers, and also with Pen Lee, the one-time assistant to Inspector Gloris Fandrang. Lee, having been trapped years ago in his vain effort to understand what was happening to
Impris
and her crew, now seemed trapped in another kind of incomprehensible world, inside his own mind. Deutsch had somehow made an empathic connection where others had failed. If anyone was going to be able to help Pen Lee find his way back out of that interior world, Deutsch was a good candidate, Legroeder thought.

Legroeder himself was growing increasingly anxious, waiting for departure. He had no trouble imagining all the things that might go wrong and interfere with his return to Faber Eridani. Every passing hour seemed an invitation to trouble. Tracy-Ace was extremely busy overseeing much of the activity around
Impris
, and in her absence Legroeder spent most of his time with the Narseil, or Freem'n Deutsch, or the
Impris
crew. His
H'zzarrelik
shipmates now had a certain degree of freedom to move about the outpost. An elaborate story was going around the outpost, a web of lies and truths and near-truths, about how the Narseil had come here under cover to collaborate with the Kyber in going after
Impris
, and only a terrible misunderstanding had resulted in the battle with
Flechette
. The story made Legroeder uneasy, but he wasn't about to contradict it.

As for Tracy-Ace, he was at a loss as to what to think. She remained his primary helper and guide; she was still his friend, but he wasn't sure if she was still his lover. His implants remained silent, and without the implant connection, it seemed impossible to know her mind or her desires. They hadn't made love since his return, and he felt awkward and frustrated, and even more disconnected. Half the time Legroeder felt helplessly in love with her, and half the time he feared that he had fallen into a hopeless infatuation. Could he hope to share a life, really, with a pirate? It seemed unlikely.

Over dinner in her quarters, one evening, Tracy-Ace seemed to be reading his thoughts, as she produced a bottle of wine—
real
wine, apparently—and began to open it. "Legroeder, you're tense. You've
been
tense."

"Well—"

She popped the seal and squinted at him. "Let me guess. You think there's a contradiction between the person you thought I was, and the person you're afraid I am. Is that it?"

Legroeder didn't answer. He took the wine bottle from her and studied it instead. The label was in an unfamiliar language. Where'd they get real wine here on Fortress Ivan? Did they have their own vineyards? It seemed unlikely. He handed it back and sat beside her on the edge of the bunk.

"Well, you're right," she said, pouring a glass and holding it up to the light. The wine had a robust claret color. Heaven knew what it was going to taste like, if it was home grown. She handed it to him.

Nervously, he took a sip, and at once felt depressed. It was much too good to be locally made. He was drinking the booty of piracy.

"YZ/I did all of the things you're thinking of," Tracy-Ace said. "And I'm guilty of complicity."

"Yes?" he whispered, his voice choked off by pain.

"I'm no angel," she said pointedly.

"But—" his voice caught "—you didn't order—"

"Fleets out to raid shipping? No. But I worked with him; I've sentenced people to captivity; I can't say I wasn't involved."

Guilty,
Legroeder thought silently. He stared at the floor, his heart aching. And what were
his
needs,
his
secret agendas? What would he hate to admit to her?

For a moment, he wished desperately for the implant connection, so that he could get it all over with in one big exchange of confessions. A moment later, he was deeply, fervently grateful for the lack. Bad enough this way, he thought.

"YZ/I hates to admit it, Legroeder—but he's
tired
of living this way. And I'm more than tired of it. Legroeder?
I want the raiding to stop!
YZ/I does, too—it's just that his reasons are more pragmatic." She waved her wine glass. "He'd say something like, 'It makes us lazy—we'd be stronger if we made do for ourselves.' " She sniffed, and he couldn't quite tell what emotion she was feeling.

"Do you believe that?" he asked.

"Sure, I believe it. But I also
just want out of it
. I'm sick of it." She pressed her lips together, then said more softly, "
It's wrong and I'm sick of it
. Never mind the fancy reasons." She gazed at him, and he suddenly realized that her implants were dark and her eyes were welling with tears. For a moment, she sat crying silently, her wine glass quivering in her hand. Wiping an eye on her sleeve, she whispered, "Before you came, I didn't like it—but I wasn't sure why. Then I caught a glimpse of how
you
see it, what
you
went through."

Legroeder frowned. "But I didn't show...
did
I show that to you?"

"Yes, you did. I don't think you meant to. But I'm glad you did, because it showed
me
what was wrong." She seemed about to say more, then shook her head and looked away with a sigh.

Legroeder's heart ached. He took the glass from Tracy-Ace's hand and set it, with his own, on the end table. He gently enfolded her in his arms. She sat stiffly, and for the first time in a while he remembered that she was taller than he was. Finally she softened and sank against him, putting her head on his shoulder, shaking as she let her feelings tumble out with her tears. After a while, she lay down with her head in his lap. He stroked her hair, saying nothing.

Not long after, he realized she was asleep. He gently stretched her out on the bed and pulled a cover over her. He sat watching her for the better part of an hour, thinking about what she had told him. Thinking about his own actions.

He didn't know what he thought. That he had succeeded in his mission and become a hero? That he had sold out to pirates—and was now paving the way for them to colonize the stars? That he had fallen for a woman whose existence was so utterly alien that he was an idiot even to dream of a common ground between them? That he didn't care, because he loved her anyway?

He lay awake for a long time; he lay in the near darkness beside Tracy-Ace, wishing he had his old pearlgazers to use as a focus to make sense of it all. Finally he pretended that he was with Deutsch and his gazing crystals, and he carried on a long dialogue with himself on a lighted stage, imagining his implants as silent spectators. He debated the merits of collaboration with the enemy versus fighting versus fleeing, and in the end, as the curtain closed, he fell asleep, exhausted, having decided nothing.

He woke just before Tracy-Ace did. As he was attempting to sort out his blurry morning thoughts, Tracy-Ace sat up abruptly and threw off the covers. "Uh—" he said, still trying to bring last night back into focus "—Trace, you okay?"

She turned her head to gaze down at him, as if she didn't know why he was here. Her augments were flickering madly. She seemed to be light-years away. He sat up beside her. "Ace?"

"Hi," she said. The powerlessness and self-doubt were gone from her voice, but he wasn't sure what had taken their place. Her silver-green eyes were alert but distracted. She seemed to focus on him for a moment. "I have to go," she said, jumping out of bed. "Something I've got to have out with YZ/I. Right now." She glanced down, brushing at the clothes she'd slept in. She grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge, took a swallow and handed the bottle to Legroeder, then headed for the door.

"Ace, wait!"

"I'll see you la—" And then the door clicked behind her, cutting off her voice.

Legroeder stared silently after her, turning the bottle slowly in his hands.

When she hadn't called by lunchtime, Legroeder buzzed her quarters from his own, without success. He put in a general call for her on the intelnet, and got back a brusque message saying that she was in conference, and would he please get his ass to YZ/I's operations center, if he could find it. He presumed the latter was a reference to operations, not his ass, so he headed off to the flicker-tube.

He found YZ/I and Tracy-Ace in the middle of a shouting match. Tracy-Ace was doing most of the shouting; actually, all of the shouting. "You say you want to change things, but you don't have the guts to just up and
do
it, do you?" she yelled, striding back and forth like a pacing wildcat. YZ/I's face showed only a low, emberlike glimmer. "I hear all this goddamn
talk
about shaking things up, but what you mean is you want to shake up just as much as you feel
comfortable
with! You want to be comfortable in your virtue, don't you, YZ/I?"

"Hello, Legroeder," said YZ/I, nodding.

"Don't change the goddamn subject!"

"Legroeder's here," YZ/I said, pointing.

Tracy-Ace turned, startled, her temple implants going like crazy. "Legroeder. Hi."

"Hi."

"We were just—" Tracy-Ace shook an exasperated fist at YZ/I.

"So I gathered. Just out of curiosity, may I ask—"

"No," Tracy-Ace snapped.

A flicker of light went up YZ/I's face. "Why not tell him?"

"Tell me what?" Legroeder asked.

YZ/I answered. "That we're inviting some people to leave if they want to, and sending them to Faber Eridani with you. People you might call... prisoners."

"What?"
Tracy-Ace screamed.

Legroeder looked back and forth between them in confusion.

"You mean you've been planning to do it all along? You lying, devious sonofabitch! You've been toying with me all this time, claiming you can't do it because it would be admitting guilt!"

YZ/I reached out with a hand that didn't quite touch her arm. "Let's say you made a very convincing argument."

She glared at him, temples blazing.

YZ/I shrugged. "I needed you to give me persuasive arguments to use on Lanyard and his crew."

"
Fuck
Lanyard and his crew!"

YZ/I grinned. "Not for me to do, dear. But I do have to watch my backside. If I'm not careful to justify it, he could make a move against me in the Cabinet. We're not invulnerable, you know."

"You'd annihilate him."

"Maybe. But it would be messy. And it doesn't pay to be overconfident."

Tracy-Ace snarled, "So what justification
are
you using?"

"Why, just what you said. If we want the Centrist Worlds to play ball with us, we need to make a good-faith gesture. And it'll send a signal to our own people that things are changing." YZ/I cocked his head, eyes alight. "You always say these things better than I do. That's one reason I promoted you." He grinned again. "You know, Carlotta bet me I wouldn't do it. I can't wait to hear her reaction."

Tracy-Ace turned to Legroeder. "I cannot believe this."

"Believe it," YZ/I said. "Now, both of you clear out of here and let me do my work, okay?"

As he left with Tracy-Ace, Legroeder said in puzzlement, "I don't get it. Aren't you glad he's doing it?"

"Of
course
I'm glad. But the sonofabitch was
toying
with me. I don't know how he gets away with it, honestly." Tracy-Ace paused in her stride and closed her eyes for a count of three, her lips twitching as she subvocalized. Her eyes popped open again. "I'm going to have to call him on that, sooner or later. Anyway—" she drew a breath and pursed her lips in a frown. "I'm glad we're sending some people home, I'm glad we're pressuring KM/C, I'm glad of all except one thing."

"What's that?"

She turned, her eyes dark. "You're leaving tomorrow."

They spent most of that day together, and most of it in silence. Or if not silence, then in conversation about matters technical and administrative. How to prepare and organize the
Impris
passengers and crew; how to present the Kyber bargain to the Fabri authorities, and the Narseil authorities.

Dinner was almost as silent; they hardly ate, pushing aside a savory meal ordered specially by YZ/I for them for the occasion. They sat on the edge of Tracy-Ace's bed, looking at the walls, glancing at each other, scarcely touching. Then her hand went out, and his. They clasped tentatively; then hard. He touched her hair, stroked it. They began to kiss.

They made love in a frantic, almost wordless coupling. His implants remained silent; it was just the two of them, undressing each other in awkward haste. There was so much he wanted to say—and he could only say it in whispers and sighs, with his hands on her and their bodies pressing together. Her hands were all over him, drawing out his pent-up fears and his streaming, billowing desires all at the same time; and woven through it were her desires, not through the implants but through sound and scent and touch and murmured half-words. She moaned as he touched her; she didn't want him to leave, now or tomorrow or the next day; he didn't want to leave her at all. Their desire was bubbling over; he was already inside her in a way, but it wasn't enough. He was holding her naked breasts, and her hands were moving on him, and he was breathing so fast he couldn't think.

It was fast and slow, all at the same time. He rose against her, and she pushed back, crying out; and when they came, it was with a cascade of pain and gladness and sorrow. And then they subsided into a tangled heap, whispering and murmuring without saying a word, and yet meaning everything.

She stood with him as the entire Narseil crew filed past onto
Impris
. They were the last to board, except for Legroeder. "I will come and see you," Tracy-Ace said softly. "When I can."

"How? When?" he murmured. He was having trouble talking, with the lump in his throat.

She looked away. "I can't say, exactly. When I can."

He nodded, but it was hard to believe. Node Alfa of Fortress Ivan, visiting Faber Eridani?

She grabbed his arm suddenly. "Legroeder! I almost forgot!
Rings!
"