Downtime (13 page)

“It
could still go either way, Calla.”

Was
that better or worse than knowing Jason no longer loved her, knowing that for
sure? She shook her head. “It’s been thirty years. I remind myself every day. I
am an old woman. He is a young man.”

“Keep
telling yourself that and the question will be decided for both of you.”

“Oh,
Calla, that would be so unfair to Jason,” Stairnon said suddenly. “You’ll be
denying him the opportunity for the kind of love that few people ever know.”

A
love like hers and D’Omaha’s. But Stairnon had had transplants when she needed
them and even cosmetic surgery that she didn’t need. Yes, eventually even the
transplants wouldn’t be enough, but not before she and D’Omaha had had a good
many more years together. If Calla developed circulatory or heart problems,
there was nothing to do but live with them, just like she lived with the
arthritis in her joints. And the odds were that she would develop something as
she continued aging, for everyone did. The time was probably close now, very
close. She hated knowing that her body would betray her and if she and Jason
could recapture the magic they had shared that her body would betray him, too.
She couldn’t do that to him. And wasn’t Stairnon afraid of that inevitable day
when D’Omaha’s love no longer blinded him to the signs that already were there?
Calla glanced at the tall woman beside her whose hair seemed like spun silver
in the starlight. She still walked straight, though slowly, and she could still
pretend that she could have walked faster if she wanted to. Or was she truly
content to let the Praetor slow his pace to accommodate her? In all the years
that Calla had known D’Omaha and Stairnon as friends, and it was many, many
years now, she’d never heard Stairnon speak of D’Omaha’s taking the elixir with
anything but acceptance and even relief that it was his privilege to do so. But
Calla couldn’t help wondering if deep down the ever poised Stairnon didn’t
harbor resentment and fears that were not much different from her own.

D’Omaha shivered as the dark, wet breeze off the sea
enveloped him. Every way he turned, he could see only the dull reflection of
the cloud-shrouded moon on the water. There was barely enough light for him to
make his way down from the top of the rocks to where Calla and Marmion were
waiting by the zephyr, parked in the sand.

“I
don’t see any sign of him,” D’Omaha said. “Could he have set down on the wrong
island?”

Calla
just shook her head and pulled her cape up around her neck.

“This
is the only island big enough for him to land on along the whole coast,”
Marmion said. “Don’t worry, sir. He’ll be here.”

“But
he
is
late, isn’t he?” D’Omaha asked
impatiently.

He’d
left Stairnon sleeping in the rough cubicle at Red Rocks, not realizing that
Calla’s midnight summons would take him far away from the facility. If Stairnon
awakened to find him gone, she wouldn’t sleep again until he returned and it
would take her days to recover the rest she’d lost.

“Yes,
he’s late,” Marmion said, but the chief seemed unconcerned over the delay. He
was neither concerned for the late hour nor, it seemed, worried that Singh
might have met with any harm.

“Here
he comes,” Calla said.

D’Omaha
looked up at the sky, tried to find the telltale flame of the jets, saw
nothing.

“Not
up there,” Calla said. “He’s already on the horizon, flying just above the
water. He dropped into the atmosphere on the other side of the planet so that
he wouldn’t be seen from the ranger station.”

D’Omaha
shrugged. “A shooting star falling into the sea wouldn’t be noticed.”

“Probably
not,” Calla said. “But I don’t want any more speculation about what’s hiding
behind that moon, especially from Jason. He’s surmised a lot, but not the true
scope of the mission.”

Calla
must have heard the lander, for only now could D’Omaha see it, a speck like a
firefly on the water. It rapidly grew larger, the jet-sounds changing from a
distant whine to a roar. Then noise and flame cut out and the whisper of blades
cutting air was all that he could hear until the lander set down and sprayed
sand all about. D’Omaha put his cape up before his face, and when he took it
away, Singh was standing before them saluting.

“What
news?” Calla asked.

“Aquae
Solis is gone,” Singh said dispassionately. Only after speaking did he seem to
realize that D’Omaha was with them, and then his tone became apologetic. “A
terrible forest fire, sir. It took every building and all the contents. Nothing
was saved.”

It
was according to plan, but D’Omaha was glad that Stairnon did not have to hear
how well it had gone. Singh seemed to expect some kind of acknowledgment. D’Omaha
nodded so that he would go on.

“Koh
has called an emergency session of the Decemvirate. All of them responded with
affirmative replies.”

“All
of them showed up?” D’Omaha asked in surprise.

“They
hadn’t actually met as of the last communication, but all sent word that they
were coming.”

“The
time isn’t right,” D’Omaha said thoughtfully. Mutare was only three months
downtime from the Hub, not even as far as some of the colonial worlds. “Our
traitor would want to give us a little time to get into production. He’ll
demand a recess.”

“That’s
what Koh thinks, too,” Singh said.

“What
else?” Calla asked.

“Council
of Worlds again refused to intervene with the Cassells fleet because there have
been no full-scale battles in the Hub.”

“They
didn’t attack?” D’Omaha said. Cassells Fleet’s attack on Dvalerth had been the
most likely probability when D’Omaha last examined the situation thoroughly.

“No,
sir. Dvalerth has come up with a few allies of its own, so Cassells appears
less willing to attack.”

Marmion
looked at Calla. “Your friend Jason would be interested in hearing this. His
theory is that wars are fought only when the outcome is uncertain. If he’s
right, that battle wasn’t fought because Cassells knows Dvalerth’s allies have
tipped the scales so that Cassells can’t win.”

“Well,
it won’t be long before the scales are balanced again,” Singh said. “Rumor has
it that other new worlds are readying their fleets to join Cassells. It seems
to be escalating even before any battles are fought. The council members are
very jumpy, sending almost daily demands to the Decemvirate for a decision on
reapportionment of the elixir.” Singh pulled a handful of jelly beans from his
pocket and gave them to Calla. “These are from Koh.”

Calla
stared at the jelly beans in her open palm. All save one were swirled with
silver, a distinctive characteristic of Decemvirate probability models. She
picked the solid-colored one out and handed the rest to D’Omaha. “And this one?”
she asked Singh.

“We’ve
been monitoring communications between the ranger station and the
Belden Traveler
. When I saw your request
for data on Mutare that predated the ranger station, I checked
Compania’s
jelly beans, too. There were
copies of the original orbital surveys and some sketchy data from the first
freetrader to bring a crystal back from the surface. There’s not much, but what
there was I copied for you.”

“Thanks,”
she said, and rewarded Singh with one of her rare smiles. “I’ve been curious to
learn why it waited for Jason and his rangers to make the connection between
the danae and the crystals when the planet has been open to exploitation for so
long.”

“The
cosmic radiation and lack of stellerators kept trips to the surface short,”
Singh said gesturing to the jelly bean Calla was slipping into her hip pocket. “They
sound more like raids: grab as much crystal and you can find and get off. It
took a long time before freetraders actually brought people equipped to stay for
a while. They limited their prospecting to what they called alluvial crystal,
used slash and burn techniques to clear the ground. Danae aren’t mentioned
except to note that they’re not dangerous. When the crystal trade caught on,
the freetraders started dropping off prospectors who were desperate enough to
risk exposure to the cosmic rays on downtime runs. They picked them up again on
the way back.”

“That’s
true even now,” Marmion said, “Or was until we came along. Now they can’t
leave, and with the limits Jason has imposed, we’re going to be dealing with
some very angry miners. There’s bound to be many who have bagged their limit
and will want to leave.”

Marmion,
D’Omaha was certain, had checked as thoroughly as he could into Mutare’s only
saleable resource. Even at Aquae Solis he’d organized the groundskeepers so
that they always were on the lookout for garnets exposed by spring meltwater or
heavy rains. He paid them fairly for such finds, and then used his private
resources to cut and polish the garnets. He sold them to jewelers, not on
Mercury Novus where such stones were not particularly rare, but to jewelers on
distant worlds where they might bring as much as a diamond. D’Omaha wondered if
Marmion planned to buy up crystal while he was on Mutare. Apparently Singh was
wondering the same thing.

“Have
you bought any crystal, yet?” Singh asked him.

Marmion
sighed. “I can’t buy any. The ranger-governor has made it illegal to speculate
in crystal on Mutare. It keeps organized dealings off the planet, mainly back
in the Hub.”

“You’ll
find a loophole,” Singh said with a good-natured laugh.

But
Marmion shook his head. “The man knew what he was doing when he wrote the
regulations. He had the authority to write them in such a way that he could
have had his pick of the best crystal, and he could have retired forever. But
he didn’t. I don’t understand what he has against getting rich.”

“Probably
nothing,” Calla said. “But Jason thinks the danae may be sentient. He needs
time to find out. He doesn’t want the entire species becoming extinct while he
does.”

Singh
stared at her a moment. “Wouldn’t that be interesting? To find out they’re
sentient, I mean, while knowing they have this extraordinarily valuable organ.
Imagine how difficult it would be to protect them.”

“Impossible,
I’d say,” Marmion said. “But I don’t think we’ll have to worry about it. I’ve
read every word of Jason’s reports, and I’ve been through some of the raw data,
too. There’s no evidence that they’re sentient. They don’t even have enough
sense to keep their numbers up. Jason’s data indicates that they may already be
dying out. I just hope Calla can convince him to increase the bagging limits
before there are none left. I’d sure like to take more than three crystals with
me when we leave.”

“No,”
Calla said. “You’ll have to find some other way to make your fortune on Mutare.
I won’t insist that he increase the limits.”

Marmion
looked like a stoic, but D’Omaha sensed he was dismayed. “It’s not what you
think, sir,” Marmion said when he realized D’Omaha was looking at him. “It’s
the miners. It’s going to be extremely hard to keep them in line when they hear
the news.”

“Maybe
not,” D’Omaha said, thinking back to their dinner with Jason earlier in the
evening. “Do you know how to weave?”

“Weave?
As in textiles?” Marmion said. “No, sir. I know nothing about weaving.”

“Stairnon
does,” Calla said jerking her head around to look up at him. D’Omaha nodded. “Now
how do you suppose he knew that?”

D’Omaha
shrugged. “Lucky guess?”

“Not
damn likely, but what a good idea . . . if it works.”

“What
are you talking about?” Marmion said, completely puzzled.

“Our
friend the ranger-governor gave Stairnon a skein of thread that he said was
from the nymph cocoons. Stairnon was in raptures over it because it was so
fine, and it had a lovely aroma. She told Jason she was going to work it into
lace trim for her handkerchiefs so she could enjoy the perfume until they were
laundered. Jason said that while the scent molecules were soluble in hot water,
cold water or sonic cleaning didn’t affect them, so she could enjoy the scent
forever. Then Stairnon lamented that there wasn’t more thread to make something
more substantial than handkerchief lace. Jason promised to get her all she
wanted.”

“I
think,” Calla said smiling brightly, “that you should talk to Stairnon about
the possibilities. From what Jason said, the nymph thread is abundant, and if
you could turn the miners from hunting to weaving . . .”

“It
would be pure speculation,” D’Omaha said, “and turning people who came to hunt
into weavers . . .” He shrugged.

But
Marmion’s eyes were already gleaming. “To that kind of person, profit is
profit. And if Stairnon, a lady who understands quality goods liked it, others
will, too.”

Calla
looked at D’Omaha with a glint of pride in her eyes that he suspected was just
like the one in his own. Stairnon, he was certain, would cooperate with
Marmion; she’d been doing
things
with
thread and yarn since a holy man taught her to weave when they were on holiday
many years ago. Stairnon’s visit with the holy man had been well-publicized,
though by the time such news reached a downtime planet it couldn’t have been
more than a line or two. Still, it was possible that Calla was right, that
giving Stairnon the thread wasn’t just good fortune.

“Bring
me some of this thread next time,” Singh said.

“Someone
aboard
Compania
must know how to do
something with it, and we have little else to do. It doesn’t take many to keep
the watch or to pick up the messenger drones.”

“Be
careful what you bring them,” Calla said to Marmion.

“I
don’t want
Compania
smelling like
that shuttle after you finished cleaning up in the sonics.”

“I’ll
research it thoroughly before I bring any,” Marmion said looking embarrassed.