Jimjoy stretched out on the narrow bunk, glancing at the locked door, not bothering to stand. The door had been locked when he had awakened two days earlier, after his collapse in the courier.
At regular intervals a tray of food was slipped inside. Irregularly, the trays were removed.
The former Special Operative smiled, almost a real smile, as he waited. While he could not be certain, he doubted that the Ecolitans would turn him over to the Imperial Intelligence Service. Not after two days. They might dispose of him themselves. That was not out of the question. But if that had been their intention, they could have done so without letting him regain consciousness…unless they wanted to debrief him. That certainly would have been the Imperial way.
His eyes roved over the room. Standard asteroid station quarters, except for the small adjoining room with the fresher and toilet facilities. The hard rock walls and the minute fluctuations in gravity told him he was still on Thalos, awaiting who knew what.
He stretched again. This time he swung off the narrow bunk and stood, debating whether to run through his exercises again, doing his best to stay in shape for whatever might come.
With a flicker, his eyes ran toward the locked door and back to the foot of the bunk. Had he been so determined, he could have left the makeshift cell at almost any time, but he still would have been on Thalos. On Thalos with some rather worried and scared Ecolitans, and no one was more aware than Jimjoy that he now needed all the support, or lack of opposition, possible.
Someone was at the other side of the door, but he waited, forcing himself not even to look in that direction, not until there was a noise from the old-fashioned door itself.
Click.
Turning, he watched as the door opened and a silver-haired woman stepped inside. He suppressed the smile he felt. “Good day, Ecolitan Andruz.”
“Good day, Major. I see you’re still presenting problems.” Thelina’s voice carried a mixture of resignation and amusement.
“Forget the ‘Major.’”
“I take it you are not interested in remaining on active Imperial service.” Her voice was still dry.
He looked at her, wondering how he ever could have thought the woman impersonal, not with the piercing green eyes and expressive voice. “I have no doubt that the Empire would be most anxious that I do so. Not exactly eager to pay that price.”
“I can guess why.”
Before she could continue, he interrupted. “Been patient and waited, but isn’t there somewhere else we could talk?”
“You’re still the restless type.” She paused. “You act as if it were your choice to stay here.”
“Some ways it was. Not much doubt that I could have gotten out of here without any trouble at all—or not much. Probably could have taken over a good section of the base.” He shrugged. “But that would have gotten everyone upset and given the local commander the perfect excuse to dispose of me. They weren’t exactly thrilled with my arrival anyway.”
A short laugh, half chuckled, came from Thelina. “You think you know us that well?”
“Don’t know you at all. Know something about people.” He smiled slowly. “Now…about talking somewhere else?”
“I don’t see why not. Besides, I’m not about to stand and talk while you sit.”
Jimjoy refrained from noting that the narrow bed was still wide enough for two.
She turned and walked back through the door she had never closed, speaking to someone outside. “Major Wright and I will be going to the small conference room.”
Jimjoy moved through the doorway cautiously, nodding quietly to the pair of impromptu guards standing with the strange hand weapons. Both young, the man and woman inspected him closely, as he did them.
Although they had the look of solid training, the edge of experience was missing.
Thelina watched the proceedings, then gestured. “Follow me.”
Once they were a good twenty meters down the wide corridor that had been drilled from the solid rock, she asked quietly, “And do you still believe you could have escaped?”
Jimjoy nodded. “But I’m glad I didn’t try.”
“So am I.”
Another few meters and they stepped into a small circular room with a stone table sculpted out of the original rock. Around the circular and polished surface of dark gray were six functional wooden chairs, hand-carved, with the type of design that Jimjoy had come to regard as Ecolitan.
“Take any one you please.”
Jimjoy plopped into a chair on the far side, from where he could watch both Thelina and the doorway. She made no move to close the door.
He grinned as she sat down to the side, taking a chair from where at least her peripheral vision could take in the corridor while she retained some distance from him. She pulled a small tablet from her belt, edged in dark green, as well as a stylus.
“Official record?”
“As official as we need.”
“That bad?” His voice was even.
“Depends on what you mean. You left us with a bit of a problem. Two refugees and an Imperial Lieutenant ready to kill, given half a chance. Then you pass out.” She shook her head.
He started to retort, then held his tongue and asked another question. “Can you help Kordel? Is Luren all right?”
“That’s an interesting order of questions, Major. Especially given your background.” Thelina shifted her weight in the chair, jotted something on the pad, and then pushed a strand of silver hair back over her right ear. “Space trauma can be cured. It will take time, but the Institute doesn’t see any real problem there.
“The woman still doesn’t know what to make of you. She insists that you ran the courier at multiple gees manually and that you didn’t sleep for nearly one hundred hours.”
“I had a few catnaps.”
“For a hundred hours?”
“Closer to eighty.”
“But you ran that courier single-handedly and manually under three-to-five gee loads?”
“Not exactly. First, there was the cargo flitter, and that was atmospheric. Then there was the shuttle, and that was a standard manual emergency lift. And then there was the courier. The courier was about three-quarters of the time involved.”
“I see. But you did them all manually, and finished up in high gee with the courier?”
Jimjoy nodded.
Thelina made more notes. “Why?”
“To escape.” He was afraid she didn’t understand, that she thought he’d done it all because he was paranoid or macho-psycho, or both. “Look. Imperial ships are idiotproof. Can’t drop the shields and screens except on manual control. Without diverting power from screens and shields, you can’t build in enough acceleration and variation from predicted course patterns to escape torps and other couriers or scouts.”
Thelina continued to shake her head. “So you ran on manual for what…sixty hours?”
“No. Hardly. I told you. First I had to get from the rebel base to the Imperial Base. Then I had to divert their shuttle. Boosted nearly through the center of orbit control while we used suits to take the shuttle. Had to drag Kordel through open space without brace or brief. That’s where he went catatonic.”
Jimjoy took a breath before continuing. “After that I used a few techniques I know to get into the Darmetier through the emergency lock. From there it was maybe ten hours through the jumps till breakout. After we started in-system here I took a few catnaps. I did a minimum-power approach until I was shielded from Accord orbit control, then did a real abrupt decel. EDI probably registered, and might have caused them to ask a question or two, but I doubt it would have been a traceable course line.”
“So she was right…” mused Thelina.
“Who? What? Was it traceable?”
“No, you were right. The Impies screamed about our covert activities, but didn’t connect you to that EDI blast.” Thelina looked into the distance that was not there in the small conference room.
“Who was right?”
“Oh, that woman. Luren. I’ve already talked to her. She’s afraid of you and probably worships the ground she insists your feet never touch.”
“For what?” Jimjoy shifted his weight. For some reason, the chair wasn’t totally comfortable. “Just did what had to be done.”
“I know. I know. That’s why you’re a problem.” The Ecolitan looked at Jimjoy, and her voice was even as she asked, “Is there anything else we should know?”
“Probably a lot. Don’t know what you know. Someone never wanted me to leave New Kansaw. Empire is scared to death of Accord. Couldn’t prove it, but it’s there. Guess is that they can’t understand you. As for me…” Jimjoy shrugged.
“What is that supposed to mean? That we ought to take you in, like every other lost ecological nut or misfit?”
Jimjoy flushed slowly, but said nothing as he considered what the silver-haired Ecolitan had said.
After a few moments, he commented slowly. “So you’re judge and jury, all rolled into one.”
“For all practical purposes…yes.”
Jimjoy continued to think, struggling to put into words what he had felt all along.
Thelina looked at the gray stone wall over his left shoulder.
The pair of de facto guards edged closer and stationed themselves within easy range of the conference table. A single female Ecolitan strode past, apparently oblivious to the drama taking place.
“You know,” said Jimjoy, “from your point of view, it really might be best to dispose of me. Especially if you intend to knuckle under to the Empire. You could plant me back in the courier, drive it right into Thalos, and report the tragedy to the Empire. They wouldn’t believe it, of course. But they’d accept it, and they’d believe that you were at least as cold-blooded as they were, and they’d wonder what you’d gotten from me before disposing of me.
“And you could take Kordel and Luren. Intelligence would figure they were deep plants they couldn’t identify. But the Imperial Lieutenant would have to go down in flames with me.”
“Do you think we could do that?”
“You’re all quite capable of that. You, especially.” Jimjoy shrugged again. “Besides, there’s not that much I can do for you. I could destroy the Empire’s control over Accord, I think, but it wouldn’t be pretty, and the price would be higher than a lot of your idealists would be willing to pay. Loads of innocent people would die, just about everywhere.”
He did not look at Thelina, much as he wanted to, but continued to talk to the gray stone walls. “Not much good at talking, but there’s a solution to almost any problem. Most technically good solutions never get adopted because of political problems. But everyone calls the objections ‘practical.’”
“Political problems?” asked Thelina, as if the question had been dragged from her.
“People refuse to set their priorities. If liberty is the most important principle, then all others should be secondary. If they are not, then, whatever you say, liberty isn’t the most important. The others are just as important.”
Thelina’s mouth dropped open. “You really believe that?”
Jimjoy shrugged his shoulders without directly looking at her. “Try to. Haven’t always succeeded.”
“You’re…you’re…mad…”
“Could be. Never said I wasn’t. But I try not to fool myself. Like you and your guards there.” He gestured toward the pair in the corridor. “Reason why I could escape is simple. If I choose to escape, that becomes the most important item. No hesitations, no worrying. I don’t like killing, and I won’t if I don’t have to. But if it’s necessary, I will. Means you don’t commit to things wholeheartedly unless they mean a lot. In anything important, you have to make your decisions first. Not as you go along, but first.”
“So you think that the end justifies the means? Like every dictator in history?” She pushed back her chair and stood.
“You said that. Not me.” Jimjoy stood and stretched, but was careful to circle away from Thelina, staying in full view of the guards. “If you don’t decide how to balance the ends and means before you start, you don’t have a prayer, not in anything important. You decide your ultimate goal first. Then you adopt a strategy that goes with your principles. Then you plan tactics. If it won’t work, you either abandon the goal or decide that it’s more important than one of the principles getting in the way.
“In an action profession, you make the hard decisions first, if you want to stay alive. Sometimes you make mistakes, and in the end you’re dead. But that’s what it takes. And that’s why your guards can’t hold me if I choose not to be held. They may kill me, but they won’t hold me.”
Thelina looked down at the table.
“No wonder they want you so badly…”
“Have they actually said so?”
“This morning’s message-torp runs contained an All Points Bulletin. It had a holo and your description, and said you were the most dangerous fugitive ever.”
“I doubt that. They just don’t like the idea I might escape their tender mercies. Hurt their egos.”
“Major…let’s cut the rhetoric and self-deprecation. You are a borderline sociopath with more blood on your hands than men and women who still live in infamy. You are damned close to the ultimate weapon. I have to recommend whether we pick up or destroy that weapon. You might represent survival or total destruction of everything we hold dear. And my problem is that I’m not sure whether your survival guarantees our survival or our destruction.”
“Both, probably. Any decision you make will probably turn Accord upside down.” He tried to keep his voice even, but could not keep the bitterness from it as he continued. “So what’s the verdict, judge? String me along until I’m not looking, or use me until the cost gets too high, and then zap me? Or trade me in for credit to buy time?”
“Why did you come to us?” Her voice was flat.
“Not sure. Suppose it was because the Empire is dead. The future’s here, so far as I can see. Here, or with Halston or the Fuards. I’m not much for single-sex politics or for tinhorn dictators. That left you.” And you, he almost added, but choked back the words.
“For that slender a…hope…you left that trail of destruction?”
“Hope is all you ever have, Thelina.” He turned toward the wall. If they wanted to shoot, they might as well have the opportunity.
The silence drew out as he tried to pick out the veins in the barely smooth rock wall.
“Major…”
He turned slowly. “Jimjoy…if you please. Never was a very good Major.”
Thelina pulled out the chair and eased into it. Her hands were on the table.
“Sit down…please.”
He sat, quietly, but remained on the edge of the blond wood chair, his forearms resting lightly on the table.
“I am not the final arbiter. I make the recommendations. Usually they are taken.” She wiped her forehead with a green square of cloth, which she replaced out of sight. “Let me ask you another question. What could you do for the Institute?”
“Besides the inside information on the Imperial Intelligence Service? Not anything planet-shaking. Could design and run a better training course for any agents you have. Know a bit about small spacecraft and their design, and could probably help you improve couriers or scouts for your special needs.
“Don’t know anything about ecology, biology, and all your specialties. Know a lot about killing and destruction, and when to use it, and when not to.”
“Are you firmly wedded to your present appearance?”
Jimjoy refused to let himself hope. “Sort of like the way I look, but some changes wouldn’t bother me. Prefer to keep Jimjoy as a nickname, since I’d find it hard not to answer to it.”
“That might be possible.” She added some notes to the tablet. “How would you handle your disappearance? And what would you do about the Darmetier?”
Jimjoy wanted to relax, but waited, still on the edge of the chair. “Wouldn’t try to explain anything. I’d crash it somewhere where it would be found. I’d blank the last month or so from the Lieutenant’s mind, if you can, and have her turn up in plain sight somewhere. And if I had a convenient body or three, I’d fry them in the wreck.”
“Would you keep the ship if you could?”
“No.”
“What if we can’t, as you put it, mindblank the Lieutenant?”
“Drop her on some outback on a colony planet. That assumes that you haven’t let her know where she is. By the time she gets anywhere, everything will be confused enough that it wouldn’t matter.”
“What about you?”
“All I have to offer is experience. You park me or eliminate me, and you lose it all.”
One corner of Thelina’s mouth quirked upward. “That was not what I meant. What would you do, given a free choice on Accord?”
“Not much doubt. Work for the Institute, however I could.”
“What if the Institute wouldn’t take you?”
“Try to find my own school to teach something. Work electronics on the side, I suppose.”
Thelina stood. “That’s that. You should be hearing shortly.”
“Hearing what?”
“When you report to the Institute. What else could we do with you?”
Jimjoy’s hands tightened around the edge of the table. He stood slowly, forcing his fingers to release their grip on the stone, transferring the anger and his grip to the back of the chair as he moved behind it.
Thelina looked at his face and took a sudden step backward.
His words came slowly. “Do you always play with people like this?”
“You were a little…unusual…”
He forced himself to relax, going through the mental patterns to loosen muscles and thoughts, taking one deep breath, then another.
“I see,” he said. “I see. I think…could be interesting…”
“What? The Institute?”
“No…the wars…” He chuckled, but it was a forced chuckle, although he could feel the tension ebbing.
“What wars?”
Jimjoy took a long look at the silver-haired woman, but refrained from shaking his head. “All of them,” he answered. “All of them.”