THE MAN WHO NEVER RAISED his voice was shouting.
“Mission protocol calls for at least three on the surface at all times, and together! At least three! Never one alone! Never!”
Light-years apart, they paced.
“You know I meant to take Joseph and Bella,” she said. “It’s not my decision to go alone. The decision belongs to these beings.”
“It does not. That’s the demand they made. The decision, in fact, Hanna, the decision whether or not to acquiesce, is mine!”
“And that’s exactly the trouble, isn’t it? I’ve never, ever seen you lose your temper before! I’ve never seen a decision do this to you! What is wrong with you?” Hanna yelled, realized she was yelling, and shut up.
In the silence, across the gulf, they stared at each other.
After a minute Hanna sat down. “I see,” she said.
Jameson was shaking his head. At himself, possibly. He sat down too, his control back as fast as he had lost it and locked in place. He said, “What do you see?”
“Would you amend mission protocol to send Dema or Arch alone? To send anyone but me?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The same reservations would hold.”
“But maybe not as strongly?”
She didn’t mention his guilt.
He didn’t mention her ghost.
She said, “None of the New Earth colonists ever felt threatened. Certainly none of them was hurt.”
“Individual lives mean nothing here, Hanna. You’ve had a concrete illustration of that.”
The spacious room behind him, in his personal suite at Admin, was dark. The contact teams on Endeavor had shifted to the Holy Man’s time (or maybe the Demon’s) and it was not in synch with Standard. He did look tired, now; maybe he hadn’t taken up the old habits after all.
He said abruptly, “I would rather send someone else. Your own people don’t let parents of young children take hazardous duty. You ought to be spared this mission on that basis alone.”
“My people aren’t yours. Listen.” She sat forward, as if it would actually bring them closer together. “I’ve seen you torn before, between me and what’s—expedient. It cannot have escaped your attention that in matters of first contact you and I are perceived as a unit. That my credibility rests on my willingness to take risks—and yours on your willingness to put me at risk.”
He said quietly, “No. It hasn’t escaped my attention.”
“What do you think these important people on Heartworld will say if you send one of my students to Battleground instead of me? They will say that your most vicious critics are right about you and me. That you can’t be objective where I’m concerned, that your emotions override your judgment.”
He was silent.
She said, “And I have a stake in appearances, too. If I don’t prove myself of continuing value to the Polity, if I stay safely on Endeavor and let Bella go in my place, how long will it be before the restrictions on my freedom are softened? I hope for amnesty, and the Commission can give it to me, but not even Andrella would support it only as a favor to you. All of them have others to answer to. As will you. There will have to be justification, something to point at to prove I’ve earned it. This—” She fumbled for words. “I know you want to protect me. It’s been a conflict for you since we met. But this time protection could harm me. It could harm both of us.” Transcripts, she thought suddenly, and said, “My God, how many people are hearing this?”
“None,” he said. “The appointment hasn’t been confirmed, and if there were a Commission vote I couldn’t cast a ballot, but in most matters I can do as I like. That includes restricting access to my communications. No one’s listening, no one’s recording.”
He looked at her for what seemed a long while, eyes unreadable. A subtle change came finally over his face. Resignation, Hanna thought.
He took a deep breath and said, “I’ll put it on record that your request to go alone is approved.”