When Greyson Durant returned to normal duties on the Bridge after a record-setting three day absence, everyone knew where he had been and who he had been with. Yuli, who was usually above idle gossip, pulled Emmie aside on the morning of the third day to give her the raw facts.
She listened, her heart twisting in a harsh shift. “Why are you telling me this, Yuli?” she demanded. “It’s none of our business who he cares to spend his personal time with.”
“If you were purely Bridge personnel, I would agree with you,” Yuli replied.
“But that’s all I really am. My status as his protégé doesn’t change anything. It’s still none of my business.”
Yuli looked down at his immaculate fingernails. “You forget. I was at your Emergence party, Emmie.”
She pressed her lips together. “I did forget,” she agreed as evenly as she could. “It still doesn’t make any difference.”
“There are facts, then there is gossip, then there is speculation.” Yuli straightened up. “I wanted you to have the facts. It will give you some perspective when you hear the speculation.”
“What speculation?” she demanded, puzzled.
“I don’t like gossip and speculation, so I will not indulge,” Yuli said stiffly and walked away.
Later that day, she finally understood. An image of Makara Arts was up on someone’s screen as she passed by and she found herself anchored behind the desk, staring at the screen. It was a full head to toe 3D image, one of the circular images the guards used to identify people on the ship when they needed a visual comparison. Emmie had been scanned for hers every year since she could stand on her own feet. Now she was an adult, the scan would only be done once every five years.
She stared at Makara Arts as the image turned. The scale along the side of the image told her the coder was almost the same height as her. She had small breasts and slightly bigger hips, brown hair that swung down just under her shoulder blades and blue eyes.
Emmie realized she had pulled all her own hair into one hand and was holding it back, hiding it behind her neck. Worse, everyone was looking at her. Leanne had an awkward expression in her eyes. Paulie wore a grimace.
Emmie cleared her throat. “Carry on,” she said sharply.
Everyone turned back to what they were doing and Emmie hurried out of the bullpen, her heart thundering.
When Grey appeared the next morning, Emmie found a dozen reasons to stay in her office, until he was safely in his. She buried herself in the work, for the first time grateful there was so much to do.
Around mid-morning, Yuli came in with coffee and put it on her desk. He patted her hand, yet said nothing.
Sooner or later, she would have to look Grey in the eye. Emmie knew putting it off would make it harder and harder to bring herself to it. She stayed at her desk until she heard Grey’s voice in the bullpen. Her heart leapt hard and pattered on unsteadily. She forced herself to move out into the open area beyond her office.
Grey was talking to Joeri. She watched him leaning over the younger man, pointing to something on his desk and then up at the display. Emmie waited.
Finally, Grey turned to head back to his office, which put him almost exactly in front of her. He drew in a sharp breath. She could hear it because the entire office area had fallen unnaturally still and silent. Everyone was watching them.
Grey’s gaze flickered sideways as he took in their audience. Then he looked at her once more. “Good, you’re here,” he said shortly. “There are a few things I need to go over. Yuli, could you and Emmaline step into my office, please?”
Emmie followed Yuli into the big room. Grey had moved ahead of both of them and was already settling behind his big desk. She heard the door shut behind her and glanced at Grey expectantly. Now the first moment of awkward acknowledge was over, it was easier to look at him directly.
His gaze met hers once more, then moved away again. He spoke to Yuli. “Thank you for covering for the last three days. Both of you. I needed the time. But while I was gone, the quarterly energy reports were compiled and I just finished going over them. I wanted to talk to you about them.” He ran his finger over the desk and the display sprang up.
Emmie studied him through the display. He was going to pretend nothing had happened. Makara Arts would remain an unspoken part of his so-called private life, an off-limits topic.
She wanted to be unhappy about that. She wanted to be furious he was using Makara as a shield to deflect her…if that was actually what he was doing. Maybe she had imagined that single moment. She had laid awake the last three nights wondering if she had over-interpreted the potential. Maybe she had been the only one to feel what she had felt and she was projecting hope onto Grey. He might be as unaware as he appeared and Makara showing up in his life at this moment was simply a coincidence.
It was doubt that created a trickle of relief in her. If everything was to be shoved into the “not to be discussed” file, then she would never find out how foolish she was being and her idiocy would not be revealed to Grey.
Emmie was suddenly thankful Grey was avoiding the whole messy issue. She would join his conspiracy of silence and be glad of it.
* * * * *
Captain Durant and senior coder Makara Arts became an almost permanent couple. They were seen together at tankgames, public events and occasionally, just the two of them on private outings.
The Forum speculated heavily about the pair and Emmie found herself skimming the subject lines and sometimes dipping into the gossip, despite her determination to let Grey live his life however he wanted to.
Makara, she swiftly learned, was one of the brilliant intellects the ship seemed to develop at least once a generation. She was the youngest person to ever achieve senior coder status, a classification that often eluded coders their entire lives. The more Emmie read about how truly talented Makara was, the more she thought that perhaps Grey had found the perfect partner.
She told herself she was glad for him. There was a dark cloud somewhere ahead of Grey. He deserved whatever happiness he could find.
Emmie let her job take over her life, instead. Yuli was ailing and the days he couldn’t come to the Bridge occurred more frequently. No one said anything, even though everyone understood. She could see it in their eyes. Also without discussion, everyone started to come to her for decisions Yuli had once made.
Emmie had just celebrated her twenty-first birthday when Yuli died. He was found in his quarters, still in bed, curled up on his side with a hand under his cheek.
“He died the way we all hope to go,” Grey said, his eyes dark with sorrow. “Peacefully in his bed, while sleeping, with no pain and no regrets. Yuli lived a long and industrious life and he served the Endurance well. He will be remembered.”
For weeks after his death, people in the Forum continued to talk about Yuli and dig up archival notes and images. Every time another snippet surfaced, Emmie was reminded of how much she missed him.
But the work remained and she buried herself even more deeply into the intricacies of keeping the Endurance running on an even keel and the people aboard happy and unaware of the delicate, critical balance of peace and contentment that was fought for and won, every single day.
Shortly after Yuli died, Emmie moved into his quarters at the Bridge end of the Aventine. They were spacious and empty and would reduce her daily commute to the Bridge down to a few minutes. It was a decision everyone seemed to accept as perfectly sensible.
Not long after, Grey made Emmie his official Chief of Staff. On her next rare visit back home, her father and mother celebrated with mugs of hot chocolate. Her mother had to hold her father’s cup for him and wiped his mouth afterward. The glowing happiness and pride in her father’s eyes stopped Emmie from saying anything. He was at peace.
Like Yuli, her father slipped away during the night, between one breath and the other. Her mother stayed by his side and ensured there was no pain and afterward, she clung to Emmie and wept against her shoulder. They were the only tears her mother had ever shed, that Emmie was aware of.
Life went on, each day rolling furiously into the next one. Emmie’s twenty-second birthday arrived almost without her noticing. She would have let the moment pass unmentioned by anyone, except that Grey came into her office and put a steaming mug of hot chocolate on her desk.
“Happy birthday, Emma.”
She sniffed and smiled. “Palatine chocolate. You’re spoiling me.”
“I don’t think it’s possible.” He motioned to the chair in the corner where her staff sat to talk things over.
“Please, yes,” she said quickly and he sank down into the chair with a sigh. “You sound tired,” she added. Her heart sped up a little. Any symptom, any irregularity in Grey’s normally healthy state always started up the old terror. Was this to be his doom? Was he to die of some simple, overlooked health issue? Whenever Grey seemed tired or stressed, she worked twice as hard to eliminate the cause, to bring his life back to a more even tenor.
“The game went into overtime last night. It would have looked bad if I’d left before it was over. I would have been happy to go home at half-time and sleep, instead.” He grimaced. “I’m getting old.”
Emmie smiled. “You’re only thirty. When you’re over the century mark you can talk about getting old. Not before.”
“Thirty isn’t something I ever expected to reach,” he said, his voice low. “I have to make all the old man jokes now, just in case.”
This time her heart actually squeezed. She sought for something to say, sifting through the current range of problems sitting on her desk. Work was safe. Work was always there, the reliable retreat.
“You’re twenty-two now,” Grey said. “It’s the age I was when I first sat in the Captain’s chair.”
The air whooshed out of her lungs. “Don’t….” she breathed. If he didn’t speak of it, then she could safely pretend she was destined to be his Chief of Staff forever.
For a single moment his gaze met hers. It was rare for him to look at her so steadily. It reminded her of her Emergence and the moment that she was now absolutely sure had been purely a product of her overworked imagination. The searing, heated look in his eyes hadn’t really been there at all.
But he was looking at her now just as she remembered him looking, that night.
His gaze moved away from her eyes, dropping down. Down to her lips.
She could hear her heart, thundering in her mind and her ears. Her body came alive. Every single nerve ending tingled.
“I sometimes think there’s too much we don’t talk about.” His voice was low and rough.
“I sometimes wonder if there’s as much to talk about as I think there is.” It was raw truth, the closest she had ever come to revealing how she really felt.
There was pain in his eyes. “It’s better this way.”
She closed her eyes, deliberately looking away. Trembling started up in her middle and rapidly spread out along her limbs. It felt as though she had stepped back from a precipice.
“How is Makara?” she made herself ask, reaching for the mug of hot chocolate.
Silence.
She looked up. He was just watching her. The pain was still there. “I’m sorry, Emma. For all of it.”
Emmie blinked, as her eyes ached with the onset of tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. She would not. That would be the worst humiliation of all. “It’s not your fault.” Her voice wobbled.
“You should find someone to love. Someone you can be happy with, for a long, long time.”
A single tear escaped her control, betraying her.
Grey pushed himself to his feet, surging up from the chair as if he couldn’t remain sitting in it a moment longer. “Enjoy the chocolate.”
He shut the door, rather than let the computer do it, so no one got a glimpse of her sitting at her desk, weeping like an idiot.
Emmie gave up any pretense of a normal life and threw herself into the work. She arrived early and sometimes didn’t go home until she caught herself falling asleep at her desk. Then she would get a guard to walk her home, not for protection, not in the peaceful Bridge end of the Aventine, but because she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t fall asleep on the way home. She would drop onto her bed and sleep for a few hours, before hurrying back. There were always more challenges, more problems to deal with and she accepted them all with gratitude for the distraction.
When the call from Master Baki Hart, the Accouchement master, came through several months later, Emmie was surprised. Since her disastrous interview with him all those years ago, Master Hart tended to avoid her whenever he could. He would talk to Grey first, or Leanne if Grey couldn’t spare the time. Emmie was leaning more and more upon Leanne for assistance with more mundane work and she was carefully farming more responsibility in her direction, trying out her management skills. Even in the far recesses of her mind, Emmie could barely bring herself to acknowledge she was testing Leanne as a possible Chief of Staff for the day when Emmie sat in the captain’s chair.
Master Hart’s little pinched face looked more squeezed than usual, when Emmie accepted the call. His smile was perfunctory. “A most pleasant morning, Ms. Victore.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “What can I do for you this morning, Master Hart?”
He sighed. “This is a courtesy call, given your status on the ship, Ms. Victore. Usually this is handled via normal channels.”
“What is?”
“The AI that assigns parents has issued a new certificate.”
Emmie stared at him. “I don’t understand,” she said flatly.
“Yes, I’m quite sure this will be confusing for you. But we have checked the data and it is correct.”
“What is correct?”
“You’ve been assigned a child, Ms. Victore.”
It felt like she had been kicked in the belly by a particularly heavy foot. She gasped. “But that’s…that’s ridiculous! I’m barely twenty-two years old.”
Hart was nodding in false sympathy. She could tell he wanted to finish the call as swiftly as possible, so she could react where he didn’t have to see it. “That is one reason why we thoroughly checked the data, Ms. Victore.”
She drew in a breath that shook. “There was another reason for checking?”
Hart was still nodding. “Indeed. The selected father is…unusual.”
There was a roaring in her head, muffling noise. She knew. She already knew. “Who is the proposed father?” Her lips barely cooperated.
“Captain Durant,” Hart said with a grimace.