34

Alice’s eyes flew open.

A clear dome, dotted with rime, hung inches above her face. Indicator lamps of some kind glowed green.

I’m in an autodoc!

She smacked the panic button, trying to figure out how she got here. The lid was taking forever to begin moving and she was bursting with energy. She needed to move, tanj it!

At last she could sit up. She had just noticed Louis standing across the cargo hold when she realized: I’m naked. A wrinkled old crone—

Only she wasn’t old!

She grabbed the robe draped across the foot of the ’doc. “You look like shit,” she told him, slipping on the garment.

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he admitted. “What do you remember?”

Chaos and madness. “Something knocked Endurance out of hyperspace. We were under attack. So was Long Shot.”

“You were injured,” Louis said.

Obviously. “Where are we? What about Nessus and Baedeker?” Skimming the summary report on the ’doc’s main display—three crushed cervical vertebrae, a severed spinal cord, and brain damage!—she added, “How long have I been out of commission?”

He gave her a weary smile. “Way too long. Call it five weeks.”

Alice vaulted out of the ’doc, marveling: she wasn’t stiff, her knees and hips didn’t offer as much as a twinge, and she had a sense of balance. “So we got away.”

Louis’s face fell. “We did.”

“Oh, no.” She shivered. “What happened?”

He laughed bitterly. “What happened? I blew it. That’s what happened. The last thing I saw was Long Shot coming apart and a flash.”

She found herself staring, speechless.

“Yeah, I can’t believe it either.” Only his haunted expression said otherwise. “But today is a happy occasion. How are you feeling?”

“Shocked. Starved.”

“That latter I can do something about.” He offered his arm in antediluvian mock gallantry. “May I prepare your dinner?”

Brushing past him, ignoring the arm, she headed for the relax room. But Louis always could cook. “Sure.”

*   *   *

ALICE DUG INTO A HEAPING PLATE of Tex-Mex. Louis had not lost his knack over the years, and she packed away the food as she hadn’t in … centuries. From a corner of an eye, she caught him grinning at her. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.”

Whatever it was could wait till she finished dinner and got some proper clothes. She went back to eating. After a second helping and most of thirds, she pushed away her tray. “That was excellent. So tell me. How soon do we get…?”

She ground to a halt. Rebuilt to perhaps twenty years old, a treason charge and life in prison took on a new aspect.

“We aren’t going to New Terra,” Louis said.

“But Earth is more than two hundred light-years away, or so you told Julia.” With refueling stops and sanity breaks from hyperspace, call it two futzy years. “You didn’t take it on yourself again to decide—”

“Relax. We haven’t gone anywhere. Endurance is a little more than a half light-year from the Fleet of Worlds.”

“Would you care to explain?”

“I tell myself that staying here is useful, that there’s value to New Terra knowing what happens when the Fringe War arrives.”

“We all tell ourselves lots of things.”

“Yah.” He sighed. “Does returning you to New Terra mean jail? I suspect it does.”

“You’re letting me decide whether to go on the lam, to abandon my family? How uncharacteristically not arrogant of you.”

“I deserve that.” Louis took a deep breath. “The whole truth? Your injuries were pretty tanj serious, and I didn’t know how long you’d be mending. Do you think I wanted to meet the family I abandoned, the family I’ve never known, by delivering their matriarch in an autodoc?”

“I suppose not.” She stood and dumped her dishes into the recycler. “I’m not one to abandon my family, no matter the personal consequences. Let’s go home.”

“We will.” Louis hesitated. “But maybe we should stay awhile longer. Maybe there is value in reporting what’s about to happen here.”

Her family had thought her dead for five weeks. If she and Louis could learn something helpful …

Or was that her youthful, adrenaline-soaked body craving excitement?

Unsure which, she told Louis, “All right. We’ll stay.”

*   *   *

LOUIS FOUND ALICE in the relax room, working out on the weight machine. Her hair, once again lush and black as sable, was pulled back in a short ponytail. Except for the faint sheen of perspiration on her arms and face, her workout seemed effortless. He couldn’t help noticing her bright eyes, her chiseled features, the rosy glow in her cheeks—or that lithe, sensual body.

Tanj, but she was beautiful.

“What’s up?” she asked without stopping.

“It can wait. I’ll have some coffee meanwhile.” He synthed some and sat, watching her.

She dropped the weights with a clunk. “I wish you’d stop staring at me.”

“Sorry.” The mind was a wonderful thing; over the past several weeks it had integrated the downloaded engrams. From time to time the old memories still surged, but they no longer overwhelmed him. “Truthfully, it’s hard not to stare. Part of my mind insists it’s been only a few weeks since I left New Terra.”

“And I was middle-aged then.” Alice grabbed the towel from a nearby hook and blotted her face. “I didn’t ask to be rejuvenated.”

He was young. She was young. Once they had loved each other—but to her that was ancient history.

The problem was, he still loved her. No, he loved her again.

“Did you come for anything other than coffee?” she asked.

“To talk.” Louis hesitated. “No, to apologize.

“The first time I let Nessus recruit me, it was about me saving my own hide. When I left New Terra—and you—agreeing to have my memory wiped, I thought I had grown up. I was making a hard decision. I was acting for your safety, not my own.”

“You just don’t get—”

“You’re right. I’m past trying to justify my actions. I think I’ve finally matured enough not to try making choices for other people. If I haven’t screwed things up beyond redemption, if you can forgive me, I’d like to try us again.”

The silence stretched awkwardly.

“Thanks for hearing me out.” He turned to leave.

“Wait.”

Louis turned back.

“I don’t know about ‘us,’ but I appreciate the apology. That’s the best I can give you right now.”

The knot in his heart loosened, just a bit. It was a start.

*   *   *

“THERE IS ACTIVITY AT THE FLEET,” Jeeves announced.

Louis backed out of the supply closet he had been inventorying. “Let Alice know.”

“She’s already on the bridge.”

“On my way.” So he wasn’t the only one unable to sleep. In thirty seconds, he was on the bridge. Alice glanced around at the sound of his footsteps.

“What’s going on,” he asked.

“A go-away message on hyperwave,” Jeeves said.

Louis had a flashback of hurtling drones. “Us?”

“Not us,” Jeeves said. “The broadcast is in Kzinti. Curiously, it’s in the clear.”

A hissing, spitting yowl burst from the speaker.

“I don’t speak Hero’s Tongue,” Louis admitted. “I can only read it.”

“I can translate,” Jeeves offered.

“Courtesy of our brief sojourn with the ARM,” Alice explained. “Go ahead.”

Jeeves changed intonations. “We address the leader of Patriarchy forces in and near the Fleet of Worlds.”

“Finagle!” In his restored memories, Louis knew that voice all too well. “You’re speaking with Achilles’ voice.”

“Because it is Achilles speaking,” Jeeves said. “Or as he styles himself, the Minister of Fleet Defense.”

“Go on,” Alice said.

“Our investigation of a recent incident reveals that Patriarchy ships tried to steal one of our defensive drones. The attempt failed, of course, but this gutless and unprovoked deed cannot go unaddressed.

“Your actions violated the understandings between our governments. The Concordance hereby withdraws diplomatic recognition of the Patriarchy. Your embassy will close. All Kzinti personnel on Nature Preserve Three will leave within one Hearth day. Until departure, all personnel are confined to the embassy grounds. One day thereafter, all Patriarchy ships are to have withdrawn to a distance of…”

“Pause,” Louis said. “This is bizarre. Puppeteers calling Kzinti gutless? Insulting them in the futzy clear, for everyone to hear? There’s no way the Kzinti will put up with such an affront.”

“So? The Kzinti already planned to invade. We knew that.” Staring into the main tactical display, Alice rubbed the back of her neck. “The local Kzinti will have seen what happened to us and Long Shot.”

Louis thought about Chmeee, who once told Louis the proper Kzinti response to an insult: “You scream and leap.” He thought about Acolyte, Chmeee’s son, also vanished with the Ringworld. He thought about every Kzin he had ever met and how they would take Achilles’ words.

Louis said, “The local Patriarchy forces won’t take abuse from those they disdain as leaf-eaters, let alone slink away on a Puppeteer’s order. Kzinti warriors won’t wait months for reinforcements. They can’t. To attack in their present small numbers is merely to die. To run away, tails tucked between their legs, summarily dismissed by prey? That would shame family and clan for generations.

“I’ve seen this movie before. Achilles is following his old playbook, fomenting a foreign war to panic the population on Hearth and force out the current Hindmost.”

Alice said, “Resume translation, Jeeves.”

“A day thereafter, all Patriarchy ships must be withdrawn at least to a distance of a Hearth light-year. Any Patriarchy vessel found not in compliance will be destroyed. You have been warned.”

“Finagle,” Louis repeated. “It’s only a matter of time until—”

“I see lens-shaped ships moving. Kzinti.” Something flared in the tactical display, and Alice started. “What was that?”

“A gamma-ray burst, rendered into light waves you can see,” Jeeves said. “I believe a drone intercepted an antimatter warhead.”

Like so many fireflies, lights winked across the display. Louis watched in fascinated horror. In little more than a minute the light show fizzled.

Achilles had his war.