Downtime (28 page)

“I
think that’s Jason and Marmion down at the point,” D’Omaha said, gesturing to
the little inlet that once had been a gully.

“Shall
we walk over?” Stairnon asked reaching for D’Omaha’s hand. She still hated to
go to Round House because it was impossible to avoid seeing the waiting
gallows. But she also refused to avoid Jason, even seemed determined at times
to seek him out, as she was now. D’Omaha pulled her back to the rock. He’d
never forgiven Jason for humiliating him before all the rangers that first
winter.

“Let’s
wait for them to come here,” he said, certain they would, but wanting to delay
the meeting as long as possible. It felt wonderful just to hold Stairnon’s
hand, a gloveless hand but warm in his.

“It’s
all right,” Stairnon said. “We can walk some more. I’m not tired.”

“I
am,” D’Omaha said, and sat down. “I’ve been on my feet all day in the fab.” It
was the grueling monotony that got to him. Being with Stairnon was his only
respite from the pressing need to turn out even more elixir.

She
looked at him with quick concern, then apparently satisfied that there was
nothing unduly wrong, she sat down beside him. Her gaze returned almost
immediately to Arria and the danae, a thoughtful, almost troubled gaze that D’Omaha
couldn’t understand. When they first met Arria, she was a pathetic creature,
completely confused by talk of the distant war, and so obviously in love with
Jason that no one could help but notice. Her being psi was off-putting to so
many, but D’Omaha had not expected that to deter Stairnon. He’d half-expected
and half-dreaded his wife taking the waif under her wing, for Stairnon was
capable of such great understanding, enough love to spare for everyone. But
that hadn’t happened, much to D’Omaha’s surprise. It made him wonder what
secrets she might be trying to hide, and it amused him when she got embarrassed
if he teased her about it. He also was grateful that the girl was not around
much; it was hard enough to pretend to be civil to Jason when he was so at odds
with him over the way the war was going. With her psi to help misinterpret, the
girl could have made it worse.

“Look
at the danae,” Stairnon was saying, tugging his arm urgently. D’Omaha looked.
It was still perched on Arria’s shoulder, but it was tilted so that it’s eyes
were skyward. “Don’t they do that when there’s a shuttle coming?”

D’Omaha
frowned. “We would have been told if there were a freetrader in parking orbit.
In any case, no one can get permission to land.”

Stairnon
turned to him, eyes wide with fear. “A fleet?”

With
a laugh, D’Omaha cupped her face in his hands. “They’d be ringing the alarm. We’d
hear it even here. Don’t worry, my sweet. I wouldn’t take you walking in the
sunshine if invasion were at hand.”

“You
get so little data,” she said worriedly. “Your probability models might not
tell you.”

“I’ll
know,” he assured her, and though she didn’t press him, her worried frown didn’t
disappear until Jason and Marmion arrived.

“Now
don’t tell me you two are just out for an airing,” Stairnon said to them.

“No,
ma’am,” Marmion said. “We were checking the water flow, making sure it’s moving
swiftly enough so that it can’t freeze and make an ice platform for the enemy
to use to walk out to that caisson.”

“Not
that we couldn’t defend it from underneath if they did,” Jason added with a
reassuring smile for Stairnon.

“Well
that’s a relief, isn’t it?” she said to D’Omaha.

He
never knew what to say anymore. Jason had all but forbidden him to defend Mahdi
over Calla, and Stairnon knew it. D’Omaha was half-sure that only Stairnon’s
platitudes stood between him and the full wrath of the ranger-governor’s
temper. She believed his pride was wounded because he felt he should be in
charge of Mutare, not Jason. But she comforted him with reminders of how he
must let go of his decemvir conditioning to always be right. He and Jason had
agreed to disagree, and that was sufficient in her opinion to protect everyone’s
honor. D’Omaha had let it go at that because for all his training and
experience in finding alternatives, this time he couldn’t find one.

“I
see Arria is busy boiling up more cocoons,” Stairnon said, picking up the
conversation for him. “I was weaving some into cloth on that little loom you
made for me, Marmion. It’s just the thing, but it breaks the thread. Except not
Arria’s thread. I wonder what she does to make it stronger than everyone else’s?”

“Why
don’t you ask her?” Jason interjected before Marmion could reply.

“I’ll
just have to do that one day,” she replied easily, but D’Omaha knew she would
not. After seeing Stairnon avoid Arria these past two years, Jason knew it,
too.

“I
can call her over here right now,” Jason said. It was a challenge he’d issued
before, one Stairnon always turned aside with some ready excuse. But this time
words failed her, as if this time, finally there were none to say. A look of
pain and regret paled her as she turned away. Jason saw the look and
immediately kneeled at Stairnon’s side. D’Omaha expected him to beg
forgiveness; for all his trouble with D’Omaha, Jason seemed genuinely fond of
Stairnon. But Jason persisted. “She needs a wise friend,” he said softly,
almost pleadingly. “Someone to counsel her. You are the perfect person.”

Stairnon
took a deep breath. “But I’m not, Jason. No one is perfect. Don’t you
understand that I’m too old not to pretend I’m not? That child can see . . .
“ D’Omaha froze. She couldn’t finish, and D’Omaha dared not think of what she
might have said.

“But
she can’t,” Jason said. “She has no idea of how to interpret what she learns
from the psi. She pulls back from us more every day. She needs you.”

But
Stairnon shook her head. “She needs someone who can be honest with her.”

“You!”
Jason said.

Again
Stairnon shook her head, and she would not meet Jason’s eyes. D’Omaha stepped
past Jason to take Stairnon’s hand and help her up, leaving Jason kneeling
beside the rock, and quite ready to knock him aside if he persisted. It was
rare for Stairnon’s aplomb to give way under any circumstances, so rare for D’Omaha
to have to rescue her. But he knew her limitations, and would not hesitate to
protect her. He felt her take another deep breath, and she smiled feebly,
nodded even less well to him in thanks.

“Is
there a ship coming?” Stairnon said to Marmion as she regained her poise.

“Freetrader?
No, ma’am,” he said.

“I
think perhaps there is,” Stairnon said with false gaiety, “and if I hurry, I
may be able to have a length of nymph-silk made up for you to trade.”

“Yes,
ma’am,” Marmion said, looking at her strangely. Then the perfectionist shot an
angry glance at Jason, clearly letting him know he held Jason responsible for
distressing Stairnon.

Jason,
however, did not display any regret. He got to his feet while looking from
Stairnon to the danae perched on Arria’s shoulder. It was staring up into the
sky. Suddenly he whirled on D’Omaha and Marmion, not at all interested in
Stairnon anymore. “Have either of you had some kind of word from Calla that I’ve
not seen? Drone drops?”

“Nothing
from Calla,” Marmion said. “I showed you the single message that came from Koh.
The one that implicated Decemvir Larz Frennz Marechal.” The decemvir had
volunteered to go to Mahdi for the duration. Koh had been unable to dissuade
him. It was damning, but not, D’Omaha had pointed out, conclusive. Indeed, the
man just might feel compelled by duty to join Mahdi; no matter that the others
did not feel likewise. Predicting the behavior of any individual, especially
under such circumstances, was all but impossible.

“Nothing
else?” He was staring at D’Omaha.

It
took a moment for D’Omaha to realize Jason’s stare was an accusation; it was
too audacious to believe, even of Jason. Angry, he almost didn’t answer at all.
But he felt Stairnon squeeze his hand, urging him to. “How would I pick up a
drone drop?” he said, all the reasons why he should be above suspicion welling
up in him. Jason knew them all. “I resent . . .”

“Like
Marmion did,” Jason said, cutting him off. “In the dead of night. I might not
have known if he hadn’t told me.”

“I’d
have had to ask you for a zephyr,” D’Omaha said, “which you know perfectly well
I have not.”

“I
can audit the zephyrs’ fuel consumption to make certain all is accounted for in
the logbooks.”

“Dear
Timekeeper,” D’Omaha said, feeling rage surge.

Stairnon’s
fingers had gone cold as stone.

“Jason,”
Marmion said warningly. The perfectionist was definitely Calla’s man, but he
always stayed on the better side of decorum with D’Omaha.

“Jason,
audit the zephyrs,” D’Omaha said with deadly quiet. “When you’re finished, come
to my quarters with your personal apology.” He put his arm around Stairnon to
steer her away.

“I’ll
do that,” Jason said.

“You
damn well better,” D’Omaha said.

“I apologize,” Jason said looking straight into D’Omaha’s
eyes. “I jumped to conclusions, and I am truly sorry you were offended.” Jason
was wearing his dress khakis blazoned with a simple green sash. He carried his
only bottle of Hub wine, acquired last summer from a freetrader in exchange for
an equal mass of nymph thread. He stood at D’Omaha’s threshold.

“All
the zephyrs’ fuel was accounted for?” D’Omaha said.

He
wore a fine dressing robe, his hair still damp from a recent shower. His eyes
were cold.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Every
flight checked out?”

Jason
squirmed. D’Omaha wasn’t going to make it easy for him. “Yes, every one.”

“And
you’re ready to take my word over the vigil display of your danae pet?”

Jason
sighed. Marmion had talked him into delivering the bottle of wine in person
despite Jason’s reservations. Yes, he’d been wrong in this instance, but he was
not wrong in investigating the slightest irregularity. After almost two years
of
nothing
, it was hard to sustain a
battle-alert frame of mind, but Jason was determined to do just that. He could
do no less for Calla. “I came out of respect for your position. I thought you
would accept my apology out of respect for mine. I see now that I was wrong. I
shouldn’t have come.”

“Of
course you should,” he heard Stairnon say from inside, and then she appeared in
the doorway to draw him inside. She was wearing a long shawl of knotted nymph
thread over a woolen dress that fell straight from her neck to her ankles. Her
white hair was caught in a halo of nymph thread around her face. She looked
radiant, so lovely in this house gown that he couldn’t help wondering what he
had interrupted. “Please come in, Jason.”

D’Omaha
stepped aside, his face impassive as Stairnon tucked her arm in Jason’s and
walked him over to the big cushions that served for seating. They were arranged
around an amber-topped table on which were two goblets filled with deep red
wine and an empty vial of elixir. Jason picked up the vial and looked at the
broken seal. The stylized limbs of the tree of life were waxy to the touch,
likewise the Seydlitz crest, and the vial itself the most expensive glassteel,
more clear than crystal.

“The
serial number is on the bottom. You’ll find its match in my personal supply
list,” D’Omaha said folding his arms over his chest.

“I
wasn’t checking it,” Jason said. “I know you have a supply of your own. The
vial is exquisite, not at all like the ones we use. I never saw one before.”
But he turned the vial bottom-up and stared at the serial number, more out of
perversity now than for any good reason.

“That’s
enough, both of you,” Stairnon said sharply. She took the vial from Jason and
slipped it in her pocket. “Surely you both realize that you’re antagonizing
each other out of boredom. We’ve been here too long with nothing to do, and
neither of you abides gracefully. I think it’s time you put aside these petty
differences and got on with your work.”

Jason
was too dismayed to laugh or frown, for there were tears in Stairnon’s eyes.
She’d surprised him yesterday, too, when she’d neither fended him off
gracefully nor given in but instead had seemed to crumble before his eyes. “You
think I’m amusing myself at your husband’s expense?” he said, appalled.

“What
else can it possibly be?” she said with helpless sincerity.

“My
duty,” Jason stammered. But she didn’t look as if she believed him, and he
couldn’t understand why. He looked at D’Omaha. The man was staring at him,
deadpan, then he bowed his head and shook it.

“Give
me the wine, Jason,” D’Omaha said finally. “I’ll pour you a drink.”

“He
can have mine,” Stairnon said reaching over to the table to pick up one of the
glasses. But D’Omaha stayed her offer by taking the glass from her. He looked
grim. She looked grimmer. D’Omaha gestured with his empty hand for the wine.

Jason
handed over the bottle and watched while D’Omaha took the remaining goblet from
the table then set them carefully on the sideboard. He fetched fresh goblets
from the cabinet. Stairnon pulled her shawl tightly across her shoulders, as if
to ward off the exaggerated echo of every sound: D’Omaha decanting the wine,
pouring it, placing the goblets on a tray, his footsteps. The goblets were
brimming. Stairnon was staring at the two on the sideboard.

“Apology
accepted,” D’ Omaha said, raising his goblet. A few drops of wine spilled over.
Stairnon, still looking grim, touched the rim of her goblet to Jason’s. Grim,
but her hand didn’t tremble, and she might be pale just now and looking so
guilty that Jason knew with certainty that he had interrupted some intimate
ritual. But she also looked strong and robust.
Dear Timekeeper. She’s finally sharing his elixir, and she feels
ashamed
.