JIMJOY POKED HIS head into the small office to the left of the now-empty Prime’s office. Unlike Meryl’s office, Thelina’s did not connect directly to the Prime’s. From the right-hand office, Meryl acted as Deputy Prime. Even though the Institute never had such a function, no one questioned either the title or Meryl. Not since Jimjoy’s actions with the Council.
Jimjoy’s incipient smile faded. Thelina was out.
Instead, Kerin Sommerlee was sitting there, the faint late-late afternoon winter sunlight pooling on her and the left side of the desk/console. Like Thelina, she had cut her blond hair short. She was using the console, her fingers awkwardly tapping at the keyboard studs.
“Oh…”
She looked up. “Professor…”
“Jimjoy.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know as any of us—Thelina excepted—will ever think of you that way.”
“Guess I’ll never be accepted—”
“I didn’t say that, Professor.” Her tone was tart, as was her expression.
“I know. No time for self-pity. Where is she? Thelina, I mean.”
“She didn’t tell you?”
Jimjoy swallowed. The look on Kerin’s face told him that Thelina was up to something less than perfectly safe. And after the mess with the refugees…“Where…is…she?”
“She said you’d know, that you’d agreed on certain duties…” Kerin moistened her lips.
“And she asked you to stand in for her?”
“I agreed to. It had to be someone that field three and Harmony civic would listen to.”
Jimjoy nodded. “Did she say where she was headed?”
Kerin grinned ruefully. “She said to tell anyone who asked to check with you or Meryl.”
“When did she leave?”
“Yesterday morning.”
Jimjoy nodded again. Her reluctance to come with him to deal with the scientists made a lot more sense. She still didn’t fully trust him. He sighed. “Anything else I ought to know?”
“Not really. There are a lot of details…police units all over the planet are faxing in reports about possible Impie agents. Althelm has taken over trying to locate that micromanufacturing equipment you need…has a lead from an independent out of Gersil. It’s likely to cost the equivalent of—I don’t know what…the number is enormous.”
“If it meets Jason’s specs, and if they can deliver within two tendays, pay whatever it takes.”
“It’s that important?”
“It’s that important. You might check with Meryl on how to negotiate on it. She’s far better than I’d be.”
Kerin shrugged. “We have a few merchant types around here.”
“I understand. You handle it.”
She almost grinned.
“I’m going over to see Meryl.”
Kerin nodded, took a deep breath, and looked back at the console, avoiding his eyes.
He pulled at his chin, wondering exactly what sort of danger Thelina had taken on. Then he shrugged and turned, slipping out into the corridor and walking the ten or so meters toward Meryl’s office. Currently, with Harlinn’s permanent indisposition, the Prime’s office served as a conference room and a neutral meeting ground.
Meryl’s door was closed.
Thrap!
“Yes?”
“Jimjoy…mind if I come in?”
“You will anyway.”
He opened the door and eased inside. Meryl glanced up from a stack of hard copy and a screen surrounded with amber flashing studs. Her window was firmly closed, and she wore a dark green pullover sweater.
“Where is she?”
Meryl provided him with a nervous smile, which vanished almost simultaneously with the sunlight. Symbolic or not, the sun had finally dropped behind the mountains. Now the trees on the hillside had turned even grayer.
“I understand you’ve been busy laying down the law for our poor, depressed Imperial refugees.”
Jimjoy sighed. “If getting them to understand that the Institute doesn’t provide maid and valet service and that they’d hades-fired well better act like responsible adults—yes—but some people, like the Empire, don’t understand anything but force.”
“That you can deliver.”
He took another deep breath. “When necessary…I suppose…The children bothered me. They don’t understand. Guess I didn’t, either.” He straightened. “Where’s Thelina?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
Jimjoy sighed. “She’s up to something dangerous, and she’s not about to tell me.”
“You think she should?” Meryl seemed to be wrestling with her hands.
“Yes.”
“Why? You didn’t tell her about your suicide attack on the Haversol station. She found out about that from Dr. Hyrsa, when no one was sure whether you’d even live.”
“But…” Jimjoy could almost feel the woman’s words physically piercing him. He glanced over his shoulder, as if hoping Thelina might appear. Then he looked back at Meryl, who sat in the straight-backed chair, the hard copy piled across most of the flat spaces around the console.
Had Thelina really taken it that way? “Wait—she wasn’t even talking to me at that point!”
“That doesn’t mean she didn’t care, or wouldn’t have liked a little notice. You effectively declared war on the Empire. As you have told more than a few people with pride.”
Jimjoy winced at the coolness of her last words.
“You have trouble treating her as an equal,” continued Meryl. “Yet she’s saved your life at least twice. All the professed love in the world won’t be enough unless you really change.”
“Change?” Jimjoy looked at Meryl. “I wanted to know where she was, and you talk about my needing to change. Change more?”
The slender blond woman stacked the small pile of paper on the console and stood up. “Would you like some tea? If I have to explain this, I need something warm. My throat’s sore. There’s a kettle set up in Sam’s office.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I still think of it as his.”
“Suppose I do, too.” Jimjoy also shrugged. Meryl was going to take her time, for whatever reason. Was she stalling to keep him from stopping Thelina?
“No, I’m not stalling. She’s well off Accord. So relax, if you can.”
Women! Besides reading minds, they were always suggesting that he consider something else. That was why he had left White Mountain. Or was it? “Liftea would be fine, if you have it.”
“Either old-fashioned tea or liftea. Sam didn’t like cafe.”
“Liftea.” He followed her toward the Prime’s office and watched as she turned on the gas on the single burner.
Outside, the light dimmed further, leaving the Institute in darkness, with scattered lights appearing in the twilight. Meryl touched a plate and the soft ceiling lights came on in the almost stark office, empty now of most of the books and all the memorabilia. The table that had served Sam as a desk was bare except for a crystal paperweight with the green Imperial seal caught within it and an empty wooden tray that had contained papers.
Clink. Meryl took two cups from the shelf and set them beside the burner. “Did you expect to find Thelina dutifully waiting for you?”
Jimjoy swallowed, looking away from Meryl’s directness to the dark outline of the upper hills. “Not dutifully. Surprised that she hadn’t even told me.”
“I asked you before, but you didn’t answer. Did you tell her about your Haversol operation?”
“No. She would have stopped me.”
Meryl snorted. “How? How could anyone really have stopped you? You had Sam’s backing. You could have told her as you were leaving. Why didn’t you?”
Jimjoy frowned. Unfortunately, Meryl’s question made sense. Why hadn’t he wanted to tell Thelina? He did not meet Meryl’s eyes, instead focused on the crystal paperweight with the symbol of the Institute within it.
“When you put it that way…I’m not certain.” He looked at the blond woman. “What do you think?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“No.” He forced a short laugh. “But I’d better.”
Meryl favored him with the faintest of smiles, then glanced at the wisp of steam beginning to escape the kettle. “It’s only what I think—”
“Which is usually pretty close to target,” interrupted Jimjoy.
“—but you try to avoid any advance approval, particularly from women. Sam’s death really hurt that way. He wasn’t a threat to you. You know Thelina, Kerin, and I have to run the Institute right now, and subconsciously you’re back working for women—for your mother or your sisters. You chose it this time. It wasn’t an accident of birth. And it’s tearing you up—”
“Wait a minute. I went to Haversol before Sam’s death.”
“You still didn’t want to get female approval.” Meryl sighed, then turned off the burner and poured the boiling water into the green porcelain teapot. “It should steep for a bit,” she added in almost an aside. “Why do you think we’ve tried not even to suggest your role, except when you ask?”
“Trying to tiptoe around the frail masculine ego?”
“You said that,” noted Meryl tartly. “You have no reason for a frail ego. You’ve accomplished miracles—even if some have been miracles of destruction and escape. The problem is that you don’t like yourself, deep inside.”
“So what does that have to do with my not telling Thelina and her not telling me?”
“She doesn’t trust men, and you don’t trust women. If you don’t trust her enough to tell her, how can she trust you?”
Jimjoy pulled at his chin once more. “You’re saying that I have to trust her before she’ll trust me?”
Meryl said nothing, instead poured the tea into the two cups. “Would you like sugar?”
“Did she tell you not to tell me?”
“Would you like sugar?”
Jimjoy sighed. “Yes, please. Two, please.” He felt like tapping his fingers on Sam’s desk, cursing feminine logic, and walking out. Instead, he looked at one of the hard wooden chairs, then took the heavy cup from Meryl and walked toward the middle chair. Despite the darkness outside, the flight jacket felt warm, too warm for his being inside.
Meryl stood beside the empty Prime’s desk-table, cradling her cream-and-green cup in both hands, letting the steam drift into her face, as if warming herself, despite the heavy sweater she wore.
“Why don’t you sit down?” he suggested. “At least for a moment.”
Meryl nodded before easing herself into the chair nearest the desk.
Jimjoy sipped the liftea, too hot for more than sips. “What about trust?”
“What about it?”
“You said—”
“What I said was perfectly clear. You have to trust Thelina.”
“She doesn’t have to trust me?”
Meryl looked up from the cup she still held in both hands. “She has. She recommended the Institute accept you. She offered her whole career as hostage to developing your Special Operatives. She risked her life against Harlinn’s bodyguards. She gave herself to you—even with her background. What else do you want? Don’t you see? She had to do something without telling you, if only to deliver a message.”
Again Jimjoy was forced to look from the intensity in the woman’s eyes. What else did he want? What did he want? His eyes flicked from the floor to the window and the growing blackness of the western horizon, then back to Meryl. “Trust is a shared orbit?”
“I could almost hate your mother—and your father.” Meryl took a deep sip from the cup, then brushed a wisp of blond hair back with her left hand.
Jimjoy didn’t ask why. He knew. “Where is she? I know, based on the way I handled Haversol, you have every right to make me wait until she returns.” If she returns, he thought to himself. “But I would like to know.”
“She’s in the New Avalon system, trying to negotiate an arrangement with Tinhorn.”
Jimjoy winced. “An arrangement?”
“She thought she could use some former chips as a lever to suggest it was in the Fuards’ best interests to let Accord salvage some old destroyers—minus weaponry, of course.”
“Do they know who she is?”
“No. She has the history as an Institute operative to operate on her own.”
“But the former chips?”
“She got someone to call them in for her. And that’s all she told me.”
Jimjoy pulled at his chin, then took a long swallow of tea, almost welcoming the burning it etched down the back of his throat. “So we wait?”
“No. You keep doing what needs to be done. Just like she did, just like I’m doing.”
His eyes refocused on Meryl, her words recalling that she had been Thelina’s friend and confidant far longer than Jimjoy had known Thelina. He swallowed. “Sorry…hadn’t thought about it. Stupid, but I hadn’t. Is there anything I can do?”
Meryl finished her cup of tea, then stood. “No. But understanding late is better than not understanding at all, Professor.”
“I wonder.” He stood. “The cups? Anywhere to wash them?”
“Thanks for the offer, but I can handle one extra cup. I would have had the tea anyway. Just leave it here for now.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” She poured a second cupful from the teapot. “This goes back to the office.” Then she set her own cup down and reached for his.
Jimjoy handed it to her. “Thank you.”
She nodded as she set his cup beside the kettle. “What’s next for you? More persuasion on the research establishment?”
“Dr. Narlian may do that for me.”
“She could…but be careful.”
“I see you’ve met the doctor.”
“It only takes once.” Meryl shook her head slowly. “What else?”
“Work with Analitta and Gersin to see if we can complete the off-planet research production post-designs.”
“You aren’t actually doing design work?”
Jimjoy smiled briefly. “They’re better at that than I am. A whole lot better. Just give them the power and size parameters and the requirements. Plus pep talks. Then I’ll try to find some more leads on bio-weapons. And hope a lot…and try to trust.”
“Thelina should be fine.” Meryl lifted the teacup and started back toward the doorway to her office.
Jimjoy followed, not necessarily agreeing. The Fuards weren’t trustworthy, but right now there was nothing at all he could do. Except trust—and he didn’t like the feeling. “Let me know.”
“You may see her first.” Meryl’s look seemed momentarily wistful as she set her cup next to her screen, where several more lights were now flashing, two of them changing from amber to red.
“Then we’ll let you know.”
Meryl took a deep breath and settled herself behind the console, looking back up at Jimjoy as he stood there. “Please do.”
He nodded, not knowing what else he could trust himself to say, repressing a sudden shiver inside the heavy jacket that suddenly failed to warm him.