Mercenary (45 page)

The other officers of my staff were there. I stood beside them for the somber service, glad for their company, sad that this had to be the occasion for it. I knew they shared my emotion, and that they were crying, too.

Afterward, we were permitted a brief grace period of reacquaintance. First to come to me was Captain Phist, at long last promoted for his sterling service to the Navy, who had the privilege of rank, though he seemed almost ashamed of it. Gravely he shook my hand. “Your work will continue, sir,” he said. “And his.” His eyes flicked toward the coffin. “If we can just preserve the liaison with Straight, on whatever basis...”

Yes—here was an important element. Straight now controlled the Belt, and if Phist retained command of the unit, as seemed to be the case, he could preserve what remained of our nucleus unit and hold the loyal lower officers and enlisted men. He was not Hispanic, but they knew him and trusted him, knowing that he had done what he had done because he had had to. But only my marriage to Straight's daughter had secured our uncertain and unwritten treaty of alliance; without that, the cooperation would be lost. I knew, now, that the Navy would never let me resume command, of this unit or anything. The Navy never forgave a transgression of this nature. Only Phist, who had obeyed their directive so perfectly, could retain his power. How could he relate to Straight?

Next came Mondy. “But there is a way,” he murmured as if reading my thoughts. “You know they will never let your sister return, any more than you, sir. So Phist loses his wife, too. He loves her, but he is a realist. If Rue is willing...”

I understood him. Trust Mondy to see the vital connection!

Roulette came next, her eyes brimming with those tears she reserved for me. “They are making you the scapegoat this time, Hope,” she said. “Everyone else gets off, except The Dear, if you—”

“Yes, of course,” I agreed gently. “My sister and I are finished in the Navy. But you need not be. Rue, for the sake of the unit and the mission, will you let Old King Cole tend the garden?” Naturally the Navy guards did not grasp the significance of what I was saying; our songs became our code.

She looked startled. “ Him? After what he—?”

“He obeyed orders,” I reminded her. “By so doing, he made it possible to complete our mission, help your father, and preserve the unit. King Cole had loved The Dear, he could love the Ravished. If your father accedes to the connection—”

Her chin lifted. “Yes, of course. Now I understand. I will... facilitate the alliance. But I won't cry for Cole.”

“Don't expect him to lay waste the garden, either,” I said. “He is a gentle man.”

She smiled wanly. “I know the type. Don't worry, Hope; you tamed me. I can play the game. I will serve the post.”

“Thank you. I believe you will find the game worthwhile, for yourself and your father. You are the only way this alliance can be held. I wish I could have been the one...”

Her tears began to spill. Slowly I leaned toward her, and we kissed a chaste kiss. That was all we could get away with here.

Before we separated, she whispered: “Hope, would you—would you—one last time?”

I glanced around. The guards weren't watching us at the moment. I brought my right fist up in a short, concealed uppercut and clipped her on the chin. Somehow she bit her lip in the process, and blood welled out. She backed away, her eyes shining with more than tears.

Emerald came up, blocking the view of the nearest guard who had thought he had seen something. “That was a nice thing you did, Hope,” she murmured.

“She won't cry for any other man,” I said. “I won't strike any other woman.” No one outside this unit would grasp the significance. If I had tamed Rue, she had taught me her way, too.

“Your tactical position is better than you might think, sir,” Emerald continued. “The news had been full of the Hero of the Belt, the Hispanic Scourge of Piracy. The Navy has been stalling, waiting to bring you to trial until the notoriety dies down; they don't want to make a martyr of you. But it hasn't died down; you're becoming a cult figure. In fact, there are growing rumblings about their failure to give you a medal and promote you to admiral.”

“Admiral!” I stifled a laugh.

“Just don't give in, Hope; you can win the final battle.”

I hadn't thought of it as a battle, but perhaps it was. “Thanks, Rising Moon,” I said with feeling.

“And I bring a message from Used Maiden,” she said. She took my head in both hands, set her mouth against mine, and gave me a kiss that sent me right back to that first session in the Tail. That was from Juana, all right, who was not privileged to attend this officer's funeral. Sweet Juana!

Last came Spirit, who had just completed an impassioned parting with Captain Phist, the severance of their marriage. I held her and she held me, and we did not speak.

As I started back to my cell, an anonymous officer gave me a box. “The Deceased bequeathed this to you,” he said curtly.

Back in my cell, I opened the box. It was the structure with the five steel balls. I put my head down and cried.

In due course I resumed my narrative manuscript, feeling somewhat better. Between bouts of writing I knocked the balls about, grateful to Beautiful Dreamer for this remembrance. He had made of his life a better thing than others knew. He had understood force and counterforce.

Perhaps a week later I had a visitor: Reba Ward of QYV. “The forces are finely balanced at the moment, Captain,” she said, setting on the table a device I knew was there to guarantee security from electronic surveillance. “A small nudge at the correct nexus can change history. Will you deal now?”

“You!” I exclaimed with angry revelation. “You had me deposed and recalled, just when victory was at hand!”

She shook her head in negation. “A natural suspicion, Hubris, but unfounded. We oppose the drug trade as strongly as you do.”

“You tried to addict me!”

“I do not condone my predecessor's acts. The end does not justify the means. Otherwise I would have had your item long ago.”

I saw that she was speaking truly. “Kife did not—?”

“We hoped you would succeed. The Navy acceded to our nudge and gave you the command because it thought you would fail. We protected you as long as we could, but in the end your success was too great and we could not act without exposing our interest. But we did do this: We had one of your officers assume the command, instead of the martinet they planned to appoint. That enabled you to do what you did to the Samoans, and to avoid a mutiny by your loyalists.”

Still she spoke truth. QYV was on my side now. “Go on.”

“We can't restore your command, but we can engineer a compromise. If you will agree to resign from the Navy, with your sister, with no adverse publicity, you will be granted a medal, full Jupiter citizenship, and a perfect military record. You will retire a documented hero.”

I did not quite trust this. “And my unit?”

“Captain Phist will retain command. But there will be no more pirate fighting; he will have a mission elsewhere.”

I realized that it would indeed be expecting too much to have my unit returned to the Belt. “And the Solomons?”

“They have delegated the chief's daughter, Roulette Phist, to be liaison to Jupiter. The Navy is interested in peace in the Belt. As long as no outbreaks of violence against Jupiter interests occur, the existing order will not be challenged.”

It seemed a fair offer. Slowly I reached down to my left shin, where flesh tape bound the key invisibly.

As a ranking officer I had never been subjected to a physical shakedown. I separated the key and handed it to her. The terms of this deal had been set before I went to the Belt; now I had to accept them.

Reba smiled as if this were a routine formality. “When you arrive at Jupiter, our representative will provide you with the background on Megan. She is, at this point, exactly what you need.”

“Need for what?”

“To become a politician.”

“Why would I want to go into politics?”

“That is the only way to pursue your life mission. We want you to succeed.”

So it seemed I had gained an ally in QYV. But I had lost my last physical memento of Helse, my love.

That cut me deeply. Yet I knew that loss had been replaced by the prospect of finding new love, in the form of the one woman in the Solar System who could replace the old one. My emotions were mixed.

This manuscript, unlike the prior one, titled Refugee , survived complete. Perhaps Hope Hubris intended to write a few more paragraphs, since he never quite caught up to the present tense, but he did not.

As is, of course, well known to history, he did resign from the Navy, together with his sister Spirit, and came to the planet Jupiter as a hero. That is just about the only particular in which the official Navy record of the event coincides with the presentation by this manuscript. Readers are now free to choose which version to credit. Certainly this manuscript helps clarify the passion and determination with which the Tyrant pursued piracy and drug dealing throughout his later career, and the unfailing support he received from the rising echelons of the Jupiter Navy. Probably never in history have these evils been as thoroughly suppressed as during the Tyrancy. But as the following manuscript shows, Hope Hubris had an extraordinary account to settle with these forces.

Note the continuing influence of the Tyrant's sister Spirit. Hope himself was courageous in his dealings with others, whether they were his erring superior officers or fleets of pirates, and he had more personal magnetism than he credits himself with. His men respected him, and his women loved him. But when Spirit was not with him, he had very little initiative; he simply survived, taking things as they came, responding to the passions of the moment. But once he discovered that Spirit was alive, his whole ambition was to recover her. That, rather than any initial interest in ascending the military ladder, was what caused him to cooperate with Commander Repro's grand design. Once Hope had Spirit, who sometimes seems more like a lover than a sister, he pursued other interests, but she was always there to implement them. She was in many respects the true leader of his outfit, having subtle but enormous power. He gives credit freely to the other officers of his staff, and certainly they deserve it, but it is literally true that he could not have run the unit without Spirit. He needed her, in both the business and emotional senses; she was his better half, the competent reality behind his figurehead. The failure of others properly to appreciate this reality turned out to be critical to the Tyrant's career, as will be seen. It was to Spirit's wordless embrace that Hope went last, at the funeral; no words were needed.

Hope Hubris, at the age of thirty, professed to have only two loves: Helse in the past and Megan in the future—but, in fact, he had one: Spirit in the present.

Hopie Megan Hubris, daughter of the Tyrant

January 4, 2671