Fire On High (18 page)

For her part, Morgan's face was flaming red, as if she'd been slapped hard. "Did that make you feel better, Robin?" she asked quietly. "Did that make up for anything?"

"No," admitted Lefler, looking no less angry. "I want to know what's going on, Mother. You owe me so much. At the very least, you owe me that."

"Perhaps you're right, Robin. But we don't always get everything we want, and sometimes there are some things that remain mysteries. Believe me when I say that it's far better for all concerned if we leave it that way."

"I can't."

"Well, I can. And unfortunately, if I'm not willing to say more than I have, then you are just going to have to be prepared to live with that. You've lived
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with my death for all these years, Robin. Live with my life for all your remaining years and let it go at that.

Captain," she continued before Robin could even say anything, "it is my understanding that we will be meeting up with the transport
Seidman.
Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Very well. I am officially asking you to put me aboard her. I'll make my own way from there."

"You're intending to leave Thallonian space?" Si Cwan asked.

"Perhaps," replied Morgan. "I haven't made up my mind yet."

"You know," Shelby said, "for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on, I don't entirely believe you. I have the sneaking suspicion that you have indeed made up your mind, Morgan. Do you agree, Captain?"

"I do indeed, Number One."

Morgan did a momentary double take. Then she cleared her throat and said, "To be honest, Commander—"

"There's a change of pace," murmured Lefler.

"I do not especially care what your opinion of me is," she continued as if Lefler hadn't spoken. "What I care about is continuing about my business. I have been delayed for five years. I have certain goals, certain things I desire to accomplish, and there is no way that I can get that time back. I would ask you to cooperate with me now by not delaying me any further. Now I am asking you for, and frankly I expect to receive, a means off this ship."

"Permission to show her the back door, sir," said Robin.

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"Lefler, that's not going to accomplish anything,"

Calhoun said sharply. "Morgan—"

"Captain, if you give the matter some thought, I'm sure you'll see that you have no choice," Morgan said reasonably.

"I already have given the matter some thought, and until this situation is resolved to my satisfaction—in short, until I know why you faked your death and showed up in Thallonian space ten years later—

you're going to stay put right here on the
Excalibur."

"What?"
Morgan fairly exploded. "What did you say?"

"After all," Calhoun said, "we haven't received formal confirmation of your identity from the Terran data net. Until then, you could be anyone."

"At this distance," Morgan said grimly, "that will take . . . ?"

"At least two weeks by subspace. Not counting any bureaucratic problems on the other end."

"Robin," Morgan said, turning to her daughter,

"tell them I'm your mother."

Lieutenant Leffler replied to her mother's request with an angry glare that said "so now you want to be my mother!"

Calhoun noted that Shelby's face had gone slightly ashen, although Si Cwan, from long years of practice, kept his face properly inscrutable. "You will be treated as an honored guest, of course," he assured her. "You will not be kept under lock and key, but given free access to the ship, within the limits imposed on all guests. But I have absolutely no intention of simply turning you loose. For all I know, you had some sort of mischief planned toward the Momi-150

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diums that you would implement the moment we released you."

"Captain, I assure you, if I never see Momidium again, it will be too soon."

He came around the desk and leaned against it in an almost avuncular fashion. "Morgan, I'm sure you understand why your assurances do not mean a hell of a lot to me. Not only have you been less than forthcoming, but you're almost proud over your ability to hide the truth. That does not sit well with me.

Until such time that you are forthcoming, you can stay aboard this ship until you rot. Do I make myself clear?"

"This is extortion!"

He clapped his hands together briskly. "Yes, I'm clear, all right."

"You're blackmailing me, Captain! Blackmailing my right to privacy!"

"One person's blackmail is another person's negoti-ation," he said calmly. And then he took a step toward her and it was Calhoun whose face was darkening. The scar on his cheek stood out in sharp relief against it. "Now listen to me, lady," and his voice was low and intimidating. "I don't know you.

You're just an object to me, a body to be transported.

But Lieutenant Lefler here is a valued crewmember. I do not like the way you have treated her in her life. I do not like the aspects of her—the anger, the boiling fury—that you're bringing out in her now."

"Then let me go so I don't continue to be a bad influence," said Morgan.

He shook his head. "Ohhh no. No, Morgan. Whatever demons drove you away from her ten years ago
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don't matter to me all that much, but you don't get off that easily here. What you did to her was unjust, and there will be justice now. I will see it done."

"Captain Calhoun, trying to right wrongs and save the galaxy," Morgan asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Not the entire galaxy," he said tightly. "Just my little piece of it."

For a long moment the air between them seemed to crackle with energy and then, slowly, Morgan found she couldn't help but look away from the piercing fierceness of those stormy purple eyes of Calhoun's.

"Are we done here?" she asked, still looking away.

"It would appear that we are, yes. Ambassador . . .

Lieutenant . . . if you wouldn't mind escorting Morgan to her quarters, she can begin her stay with us."

"So I've gone from being a prisoner of the Momidiums to a prisoner of Captain Calhoun, is that how it's to be?" asked Morgan.

"You're a prisoner of your own heart and deeds, Morgan, and of your own coldness. I'm just the facilitator."

She seemed about to respond, but apparently thought better of it as she turned and walked out. Si Cwan and Lefler followed her out, and Lefler paused for a brief moment to look back at Calhoun. The captain couldn't tell whether she was looking at him in gratitude, in anger, in confusion, or perhaps a combination of all three.

Shelby was about to speak when Calhoun quickly raised a finger to silence her as he tapped his commbadge and said, "Mr. Kebron, a moment of your time, please."

"Mac, you can't be serious about this."

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"You seem to say that a lot, Commander. And you keep finding out that I'm perfectly serious. Sooner or later I think you should really stop saying that. It's making you predictable."

"Mac, for the love of—"

Kebron entered the ready room and stood there, arms casually draped behind his back. "Yes, Captain?"

"I want a level two security watch kept on Morgan," Calhoun said.

"All security personnel to keep an eye out for her at all times," Kebron said easily. "No single team or teams to watch her, but instead to trade off in pass-the-baton fashion. Check in with security head every fifteen minutes to keep me apprised of her where-abouts."

"That's it. Inform all guards. I want it done yes-terday."

"Aye, sir." He tapped his commbadge. "All security units, this is Kebron. Security watch, level two, subject Morgan Primus, immediate institution. Go. All units confirm at security board," and he walked out of the captain's ready room with more speed than Calhoun would have given him credit for.

Calhoun then waited for Shelby to lay into him. His back was to her, but he was quite sure that it was gong to be coming any moment. When there was nothing but silence, he turned to face her on the assumption that she was waiting to be able to look straight at him.

Sure enough, there she was, her arms folded and with a neutral look on her face that could only be covering what he was certain was a sense of complete and utter exasperation.

"Go ahead," he sighed. "Say it."

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"Mac," she told him, "I think what you're doing is very sweet."

He looked at her as if she'd grown a second head.

"Pardon?"

"I said I think it's very sweet."

Slowly he walked toward her with a bit of a side-to-side motion. "You know, Eppy, somehow of all the things I expected you to say, that wasn't among them."

"Look, I know you've got your heart in the right place. You see that Lefler is suffering, you feel a degree of moral outrage at the woman who's causing it, and you feel you are obliged to do something about it."

"That's mostly it," he admitted. "Oh, sure, part of it comes from the fact that she annoyed the hell out of me. That I can deal with, though. But you saw what she did to Lefler. Lieutenant Lefler is one of my people, and I won't see any one of them being abused if I can help it."

"Within the context of the ship and her mission, Robin Lefler is one of your people, no question, Mac." She took a step closer toward him, looking sympathetic. "But when it comes to dirt done to her ten years ago, and how she chooses to deal with it now, Robin is her own person. You can't make it better for her simply because you're refusing to let her mother run away again."

"The ability of each and every crewmember to function at full capacity most certainly is my business," Calhoun pointed out. "If this business with her mother diminishes Robin Lefler's ability to function, then that makes it my concern. And I will attend to the mental welfare of my officers as I see fit."

"That's a reach, Mac, and you know it. If a couple
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of former lovers were aboard the same ship and were sick of each other, and one of them wanted a transfer off, would you refuse to do so because you wanted them to—"

He stared at his ex-fiancee incredulously.

"Okay, bad example," she admitted.

"I should say so."

"The point is, Mac, you can't force people to get along. You have this King Arthur complex. You want to come riding on your brave white horse and right all wrongs, save damsels in distress, and make the world safe for chivalry."

"You used to compare me to a cowboy. Now you say I'm a knight."

"Whatever fits the moment. Mac, Morgan is right.

You can't keep her here against her will on a tecnical-ity just because it seems like a good idea to you. She hasn't done anything. Hasn't broken any laws."

"She broke Thallonian law by coming to Sector Two twenty-one-G. Lord Si Cwan is furious over the transgression, and has demanded that justice be done.

He has requested that she be held until trial."

"Oh, he has," Shelby said skeptically. "Considering that he is a deposed lord and his empire fallen, his jurisdiction in this matter seems questionable. And when was this burst of indignation, may I ask?"

"Five minutes from now, after I tell him about it."

"This isn't a joke, Mac. Your motives are pure . . ."

"As befits the ruler of Camelot."

She nodded in acknowledgment and then continued, "But you don't have the right to do this. You're trying to twist the legitimate concerns a captain may possess about a crew's well being into a shape that will allow you to do anything you want. You can't just run
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roughshod over regulations whenever you feel like it.

The rules exist for a reason."

"I know that, Commander. And I know that you're right. I should be making more of an effort to live within them. Often I consider rules and regulations to be unworkable and, to be perfectly blunt, if I can find a way around them in order to do what's right and proper, then I'll do so."

"Right and proper by your definition."

"Yes. Because I'm the one who's out here, Eppy.

Not the paper pushers and nameless bureaucrats who made the rules that I'm supposed to follow. Something is going on with Morgan Primus, Commander.

Something that, in my opinion, goes beyond her abandonment of her daughter and husband ten years ago. I don't know if it presents a threat to Federation security, to this ship, or to the whole of Thallonian space, but until I do know to my satisfaction, then here is where she is going to stay. I'm sorry if that upsets you, Eppy."

"No, it doesn't upset me particularly. Saddens me a bit, but doesn't upset me. You could be a great officer, Mac. One of the best there ever was, if you could only learn to live within the rules that other officers do.

Mac, do you think I enjoy constantly having to be your conscience? To be the voice of reason? I knew signing on that I'd be serving that function to some degree, but I didn't quite expect it would be this much. Sometimes I think you never listen to me."

"I always listen to you, Eppy. Not necessarily doing what you say is not the same as not listening to you.

Look, when it comes down to it, and if I have to choose, I'll settle for being the best man I can be
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rather than the best officer, and let everything else sort itself out."

"You can have that attitude now, Mac. But sooner or later, there's going to be fallout over it. You're flaunting regulations and someday you're going to flaunt the wrong one. And when that happens—"

"When that happnens, then what? Tell me, Eppy, if they call you to testify, whose side are you going to be on? Would you sit there and tell a board of inquiry that you support me or that you're against me?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I'll have Captain Binky come and testify in my stead."

"I'm serious, Commander."

"So am I, Captain."

She turned to go, and he smiled wanly as he called after her, "Besides, Eppy, you shouldn't be upset. It's appropriate, really."