Spear of Light (33 page)

“No.”

“Why should I believe you?” he said.

Nona glanced at Amanda, who was staring at her with her eyes narrowed in surprise. Behind Nona, Farro looked away, watching all of their backs. Hers was stiff, and surely she was listening closely.

Nona found her tongue. “I didn't. Don't. He's not my friend.”

“But he and Satyana . . .”

Nona cut Jean Paul off. “I don't have any idea why he's here. But he must want something. He plays games within games within games, and gets rich off of them.” She moved closer to him, so close she smelled his breath. “If I see him, I'll ask him, and he'll still lie. He might be doing good, or he might be making money. He seems to alternate between those two things. The only I'm certain of is that he's not losing money.”

Jean Paul held his hand up in surrender. “Okay. Okay.”

“Satyana didn't tell you anything?” Amanda asked.

Nona shook her head. “Not a thing. Which doesn't mean she doesn't know either.” She stopped talking and heaved in two long breaths, getting control. An ambassador didn't skewer her home. Not on purpose, not in public. “It will probably be okay. Maybe we'll learn something if we go to Entare.”

Farro turned around at the mention of Entare. Jean Paul turned a quizzical look on her. “Are we going?”

Farro looked away again and then back. “I think we have to. I'll go file a flight plan. Call me back here when Charlie comes?”

“Okay,” Jean Paul said. “Don't ask for permission.”

Farro turned back and stared up at him. “Don't tell me what to do.” With that, she walked away, head up, not looking back.

Amanda stared after the diminutive pilot until she disappeared and then turned back to the others. “I'll go find Rudolph and Eriba. I should tell them I might not make the next planned ambassadorial visits.”

“Is that wise?” Nona asked.

Amanda shrugged. “I can't very well just disappear, can I?”

She could, but it wasn't Nona's place to tell her so. “We may not have a plan until we meet with Charlie.”

Amanda nodded at Nona. “We might not. But I have my duty.” She headed off, stopped a few feet away, and looked over her shoulder. “And call me, too, when Charlie comes.”

She marched away, and Nona let out a long sigh. The stresses seemed to be getting to all of them. Charlie might not have any more of a plan than she did. Go to Entare and do what exactly? Save the day, of course. She laughed.

Jean Paul looked at her strangely.

“Sorry. Just a long, hard day.”

He looked up at the night sky, as usual, not really engaging in a conversation with her.

Somewhere not too far away, someone played a flute.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

NAYLI

The bed shook. Nayli's eyes snapped open. Not the bed. Her. Vadim was shaking her awake. She had been lost in a dream of . . . what?

It couldn't matter.

His jaw was locked in worry; his eyes alight with something deep. “Come on,” he said. “Command. Now.”

She fumbled out of bed and slid her feet into slippers. She pulled on pants, a bra, and a uniform shirt and stuck a comb and hair tie in her back pocket for later. For now, she ran her fingers through her long, loose hair and tried to wake up as she stumbled down the corridor behind him. “What happened?”

“There's an attack starting.”

“On us?”

“On the
Free Men
.”

That woke her up. A disaster. Brea and Darnal and maybe three hundred of their best officers and crew. More than usual; there was an induction and promotion ceremony tonight. She and Vadim would usually be there. Instead, they were on their way to meet a ship manufacturer to place some special orders related to the impending attack on Lym. “Is anyone hurt?”

“There's a set of unmanned attack ships inbound. The
Free Men
doesn't have to power to take them out.”

“Can they escape?”

“They can't get far enough to matter.”

The words hit her like an acceleration force, stopping her completely in the corridor. “There's nothing we can do? Nothing?”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her after him. The crew looked up when they entered, faces worried or angry or simply shocked. All of them.

Her calves and forearms shook with adrenaline jitters.

Vadim held up a hand to forestall any questions. “Go on.” He sat in his chair and pulled her down into hers. “Put on your headphones?”

She obeyed. Vadim's voice. “We're both here.”

Darnal's voice crackled into her ear, an edge to it, but eerily calm. “You have to take over.”

Nayli could barely speak past the quick-rising lump in her throat. “You're giving up?”

“Of course not. But we're outnumbered by far and won't go alive.”

She understood. Darnal's worst nightmare would be getting forced into a metal body. “I understand.”

“There's no time. You two will keep going, take over for us?”

Vadim said, “I told Nayli I would.” He looked at Nayli, waiting for an answer.

It had been talked about, perhaps even agreed on. But it had never seemed real. The small muscles in her jaw tightened and jumped. She swallowed and took a deep breath. He leaned toward her, reaching across the space between chairs. He touched her cheek, his fingers rough and promising. A request. She managed to say, “Of course.”

“We're going to release the announcement.”

So they had anticipated she would agree. “Thank you. Take care.” What did you say to someone who knew they were about to die? She couldn't say she loved them; they knew better. Thankfully she couldn't see Darnal. “Thanks.”

No answer. Maybe Darnal had gone just after she agreed. Her thoughts raced. They would be the only obvious targets now. Her and Vadim. How long had the connection been open? Who had the lists? What would happen to Brea and Darnal? Would it be fast and painless? How would she and Vadim manage all that communication? How would they know what to do? How could they be in charge?”

“We need to prepare,” he said.

“Already?”

He stood up and held a hand out. “Now, for sure. We need to send out our own message.”

She wanted to just sit and watch the horror unfold, to absorb it. But she took his hand.

He pulled her up. “Let's go into the office.”

A quiet place, shielded. They could talk together without being overheard. Nayli let him pull her up and found she was dizzy. She hadn't been able to show weakness for years, and now it would be worse. She straightened. “Alright.”

He gave a command to one of the crewmen in the room. “If we're not out before it happens, be sure to tell us.”

When he got her in the room, he whispered in her ear, “Take a deep breath. We've thought of this.”

They had. They'd talked about it over dinner once a year or so. “But I never wanted it.” In a world without the founders, who would tell them what to do? Who would say no, and yes, and force Vadim to slow down and think? Who would she fight? She shook her head, pacing, swallowing hard, wringing her hands to dump extra adrenaline.

“I know you didn't want this.” The look in his eyes told her something she had suspected. He did. She liked being the mouthpiece, being the visible leader, being one of the two who called the shots in the biggest battles. But he wanted to make the big decisions, the ones that drove thousands of people to life or death, that drew thousands more to the cause. The hard, hard choices. She turned her back to him for a second, still breathing it in.

He started rambling. “We deeply regret the loss of Brea and Darnal. They were an invaluable part of our leadership team for decades, and the Shining Revolution will miss their steady hands.”

She picked it up. “But we will not let them die for nothing. We will continue to press our case until we win. We will guarantee that the soul of humanity shines through this tragedy, and all tragedies to come, and we will win.”

“Good,” he said. “Make it shorter.”

“We will avenge their deaths.”

He laughed, the emotion feeling off at this moment. “Not that short.”

“These deaths will make us fight harder and stronger and in their names.”

“Good.”

She searched his face. If anyone, ever, could read Vadim, she could. He felt resolute, he felt the impending loss, and he would work tirelessly. He smelled faintly of fear, although it wouldn't do for him to see that she'd noticed. “I love you,” she said. “That's good enough to use. Code it.”

While he fussed with the equipment she took her comb out of her back pocket and methodically smoothed all of the tangles out of her long, glossy black hair. She started at the top and braided it precisely, a set of movements she'd done over ten thousand times by now, almost every day for more than forty years. It soothed her. She took out a small bottle of eyeliner and painted her warrior eyes, and kissed the four small roses on her wrist.

Vadim came up behind her back, wrapping his arms over her shoulders and down her stomach, pulling her so close they were nearly one. “Ready?”

“Yes.”

They went back out into the command room and stood in the doorway until all eyes were on them. Then they walked to their chairs and ordered stim. She set Stupid up to watch and record as many angles of the battle a possible, and since she couldn't think of how to dress the AI, she left it nearly invisible and naked.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

NONA

Half an hour after Farro and Amanda stalked off to different errands, Jean Paul stood beside Nona on the edge of the night gardens, waiting for Charlie.

He said nothing, standing stiffly and not meeting her eyes. But then, he had been saying nothing for the entire half hour. Strong but silent, as usual. She ran out of patience. “You could have told me about Gunnar in private,” she whispered.

“I had to see if you knew.”

“And you needed a crowd for that?”

“I wanted to catch you off guard. That seemed like a good moment.”

“I'm trying very hard to like you,” she said. “Charlie clearly thinks the world of you. And so does Manny. But you're not easy to like. You're stiff and a little rude.” She stared into the darkness, hoping to see Charlie coming to save her from this difficult man. “Why don't you like me?”

He shifted on his feet, and it took him a while to respond at all. “I like you as much as anyone. But I don't trust you.”

“Is it just because I'm not from here?”

“I never trusted the Deep, or anybody from space. You destroyed Lym once. I have always been afraid that you would come and destroy her again.”

“I'm trying to help.”

“I never liked the robots as much as Charlie did, either. I don't trust them.” He paused. “You were best friends with one.”

She struggled not to let him make her angry. “And that friendship was forged in all of the many years she was a human. That it endured a year of her being—something else—wasn't a surprise.” She paused, thinking. “Are there people in Manna Springs you trust?”

“Of course.”

“And some you don't trust?”

“Of course.”

“It's like that.”

“No. It's not. They're more all of a kind than we are.”

She laughed. “I'm not completely sure about that. I do know there's a vast gulf between a Jhailing Jim and Yi or Jason.” She paused. “Or Chrystal.”

“They brought a Chrystal back, though. See. That shows they're not us.”

“You're right. They're not us.” To her relief, the pale light of the stars showed the shape of Charlie walking toward them. Funny how she could so easily recognize him from his gait alone.

The look of deliverance and . . . more . . . on Jean Paul's face gave her a deeper clue about why he might not like her. She stepped back and watched the two men greet each other. They looked incredibly pleased to be in each other's company, but it was Jean Paul who leaned in for physical contact. Charlie slapped him on the back. “How are you?”

“Good. Better, now. It's tough out here.”

“It is,” Charlie agreed. He looked around, finding her, meeting her eyes with his broad smile.

In spite of how awkward Jean Paul's body language made her feel, she stepped forward into Charlie's arms and drank in the feel of him, strong and certain and sweet. “I missed you,” escaped her lips.

He kissed her forehead and then her cheek and then, finally, her lips.

Eventually, she pushed him gently away, conscious of Jean Paul. Surely his regard was no secret to Charlie. He had handled it just right, and the men had been living together for decades.

Love was so damned complicated.

She realized she'd used the word in her head, and changed the subject. “Thanks for coming. There's a lot to tell you.”

“Walk with me?”

She glanced at Jean Paul. “Do you mind getting the other two?”

He glared at her. “Happy to.”

“We'll meet you back where we were talking in half an hour or a little more.”

Jean Paul nodded and walked away.

Charlie smiled and took her arm, and they set out along the lighted paths. “What was that about?” Charlie asked.

“We need to plan an assault on Entare.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that all?”

“Yes. But later. First, we should catch up.” She filled Charlie in on all they had learned, and when he told her about seeing the robots, and how they seemed to be interested in a cave, she pulled him to a stop and looked into his eyes. “Chrystal's out? Isn't that dangerous?”

“They seem to know it. Do you want to see her?”

She fell silent for a moment, surprised at her own reticence to answer him. “I think I do. But in a way it feels disloyal. I was so convinced that Chrystal was herself, and that she died horribly, and I mourned her so hard it hurt. I cried for days. So it seems like betraying the first Chrystal to try to be friends with this one.”