The interrogation room had one-way glass, but not on the ground floor. Instead, it had two-story ceilings and the one-way glass formed a full perimeter of the rather large room. It reminded Sam Baker of a fish tank. At this point, since they had no idea who their prisoner actually was, and she wouldn't say word one to any of his people, he had pulled the MP's from the room, hoping that observing her alone would help them start to build a file that would eventually lead to a positive identification. Currently, the prisoner was dancing, very energetically. It was incredibly odd behavior, especially in the rather ugly prison-orange jumpsuit, but was more data for the file. Of course, they might not need that file after all. They'd probably know everything including what she had for breakfast by morning.
The SP detachment had arrived a few minutes ago under a lieutenant, j.g., one Wong Yan-Feng accompanied by a medic and a senior chief with very old eyes. Its presence was a calculated insult to Fleet Strike and tended to make the hair on his neck rise a bit. Still, with modern interrogation drugs, they could save a whole lot of time and the medic appeared to have a full set, including several that Fleet Strike internal regulations did not approve for use on prisoners. If Fleet's medic could get this whole mess over with so he could get back to his own cases, he didn't have a problem with it.
The whole platoon of SP's struck him as incredible overkill for one prisoner, and made him vaguely uneasy, but as soon as they shot her full of drugs it was going to all be over anyway, so it was probably just somebody with too much a sense of inter-service rivalry trying to rub their noses in the insult.
The detachment had brought their own tea along with their supplies, and the lieutenant, j.g., sat with a fresh cup while the senior chief and the SP's went in with a gurney, to strap the prisoner to it in preparation for the medic. Baker revised his opinion about the necessity for the number of men, after trank darts appeared to have no effect and given that four men were on the ground and several others appeared the worse for wear, in spite of swarming her, by the time they got her strapped down. He wouldn't have believed a woman, even a combat trained one, would be that strong. He wouldn't have expected it from most men, frankly, and he had worked beside her for weeks, besides. What in the hell was she?
Her response to the interrogation drugs, even the really nasty ones, closely resembled boredom. Good God. Maybe the Fleet team was not overkill. Finally, the medic made one last injection, not even bothering to wait for its effects, or lack of them, before leaving the room, leaving the SP's who were still standing, including the one that had finally gotten up, to drag their fellows from the room.
It was almost half an hour before the medic reappeared with the chief and a mixed squad of SP's. The chief stopped at attention in front of the lieutenant.
"We'll need another five men, sir. Two of them permanently." Senior Chief Yi Chang Ho's face was a study in impassivity.
"You will get them." The only indication of emotion in the officer's face was a few rapid blinks, quickly resolving into stillness.
"What's the last thing you gave her?" Baker just had to know.
"A little Provigil-C. If you were building super agents, would you make them immune to it? Task people to observing her overnight. If she doesn't sleep, we can keep feeding in the sleep suppressors without boosting her alertness. It may be effective. Someone will need to go in and untie her. It will make observations about her sleep or lack of it more accurate." His nametag read "PO1 Liao Chien."
Baker suppressed the surprising tendency to swallow hard. But he wasn't about to be responsible for letting Fleet Strike look bad in front of these smug Fleet bastards and the Darhel VIP. He ordered in a platoon of MP guards to loosen her bonds and make as graceful a tactical retreat with the gurney as the situation would allow.
Fortunately, she didn't seem as interested in harming men who were setting her loose as she was men who were strapping her down. No additional casualties. Just an immediate return to her dancing. He was starting to recognize it. It appeared to be the same dance, over and over. Tartaglia had joined him at the glass, taking a thoughtful sip of his coffee.
"I wonder what she's dancing to?" he said.
They're not going to extract me. They probably won't even try. I'll die in here, under torture. The recuperative powers are great . . . usually. The only thing I can control is how long it takes—at least, so long as they're stupid enough to let me loose in here. Eventually, my body's reserves will give out and I'll die. The less reserves, the sooner that will be. Sooner is good. So here we are back to Sister Dorcas in SERE. Damn, I hated that sadistic bitch. Find an anchor. He's alive, whatever he turned out to be, he's alive. That's one. The last song we made love to. That's a good anchor. I know it by heart. I could dance forever to it, and no matter what they do to me, it reminds me of anchor number one. He's alive. Okay, something to hold onto, and a plan. Check.
And I really could dance forever to this. How could she have known, singing so long ago. Just like this. But he took the numbness away. And until now I never even realized it. How ironic. Only really alive now, when I'm about to die.
They won't be playing patty-cake with me forever. Best get as much done as I can, before they get wise. And I was frozen in my heart. So cold. At least . . . at least I had him for a little while.
Oop. Here come the bastards, and with a gurney and Fleet pukes, they mean business. Darhel goons instead of honest soldiers, would be my guess. It would take their manipulations to get Fleet involved. No reason not to take on a few just on general principles. Maybe I'll get lucky and rush somebody into killing me.
The transmission time lag between Earth and Titan Base, especially when the signal was getting encrypted, hidden underneath another transmission as static, and bounced around six ways from Sunday to hide both sender and recipient, was a pain in the ass even under normal circumstances.
As it was, Papa O'Neal was twisting a finger in his ear as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard, and Tommy was afraid he was about to be treated to the legendary temper attributed to redheads.
"Are you sitting there and telling me that this organization I just devoted thirty plus years of my considerable professional expertise to is actually refusing to even consider the practical feasibility of an extraction for my granddaughter, who has also just devoted thirty plus years of her considerable expertise to said organization? Please tell me that that is not what you're saying, O'Reilly." His teammate and mentor's eyes were cold, colder than Tommy had ever seen them. On the other hand, the way he felt right now, his own probably looked very similar.
The lag was interminable. Unfortunately, it gave both of them ample time to build up a fine head of steam. Fortunately, it also gave plenty of time to think of potential responses and counter responses and choose the ones most likely to be effective and least likely to be inflammatory and counterproductive. Every second was necessary.
"Mike, for what it's worth, and it may be worth a lot, I agree with you. This is not over. By no means. I'll be meeting with Aelool tomorrow and will see what I can do. Mike, you and Sunday are top notch operatives. None better. I'll tell you what—while discussions are still pending, run up some analyses and contingency plans. There's no sense wasting your valuable time while we work through the process from this end." Father Nathan's eyes seemed to plead for understanding and time. Tommy could feel a cold, numb rage begin to radiate out from his center. This was Iron Mike's daughter for God's sake.
"Nathan, I would strongly suggest that you remind our little green friends that humans are not Indowy, and that we're not inclined to be their water-boys anymore than we are for the Darhel. I would suggest that you put that reminder in the strongest terms possible. Loyalty down the chain to the memories of deceased agents is one thing. Loyalty down the chain to live and breathing agents had better be high on their list of priorities. And that particular principle has nothing to do with my relationship to this agent. If they're even considering that it's going to be acceptable to the human side of the organization to use denying an extraction, without even considering feasibility, as a way to get permanently rid of loyal agents they may have a problem with, then they need to know that they probably don't have two human operatives in North America who will agree to work under those conditions. Make sure they know that. From me." His tone was clipped and precise, enunciating each word carefully.
"Mike, all I can do at this point is to authorize you to work on those contingency plans and ask you to trust me. I would hope that I've earned that much over the years," he said.
"For now, Nathan, I can deal with that. You need to get back to us with an update on this. Soon. Sir. O'Neal out." As he spat into a coffee cup he'd bought on base for the purpose, his face had a bitter tinge that Tommy couldn't recall ever seeing before.
Obviously that last shot had been Provigil-C. Felt like a quarter-dose. She knew what would come next. The "R" in SERE training was finally making itself useful after all. Forcible sleep deprivation to induce hallucinations and sleep-dep psychosis. No problem. Oh, she'd go just as loopy as anybody, but what she wouldn't do was give up information. Now, as to what else she would do, that was anybody's guess. She wouldn't want to be the poor schmuck who walked into a room with her in that condition.
Meanwhile, they'd done her a tremendous unintentional favor by giving her an unmolested night to work with and the energy to use it effectively. Yeah, baby, go ahead and wake me up. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight! Nice, clean jazz hands, and a stretch up to the sky and spin and down, push up to stand, hip walk to stage left, then round-off into a back handspring into a back flip half-twist, into a front handspring, and strut back towards center stage and turn, hands back feet spread, roll the head across the front and up and spin and spin and spin and stop and kick up into a vertical split, back down. . . .
It was going to be a long night but she was up for it.
"Are we at a stalemate here?" Nathan O'Reilly clearly was not talking about the chessboard, which had at least five moves to mate, if the Indowy across from him made a particular mistake. And that was one of the shorter options.
"I do not know. Possibly. And it gives me grief to admit it. You humans cannot, or will not be other than what you are. And I have observed enough humans and read enough of your history to know that human organizations without what you call down chain loyalty simply do not work. They collapse of their own weight, as a tower whose antigrav fails." His hands crossed briefly in the equivalent of a shrug.
"I understand why loyalty that only goes up the chain, Your Loolnieth, works for the Indowy. But don't you have true reciprocal obligations in arrangements between clans? Can't your people be persuaded to see the analogy?"
"I truly do not think relations between the Indowy of the Bane Sidhe and our human friends can go on as they have been. But your analogy interests me. Would it be possible for me to ask for some time to contemplate it without offending you? I do not know what may be done with it, but there is a leaf just beyond the reach of my hand. Alone, perhaps my thoughts can climb the tree." He stood and almost turned, stopping and putting a hand on O'Reilly's arm, instead.
"You do realize that I do not turn away from you or your species, that my need for contemplation is genuine, do you not?" The slight tilt of his head evinced concern.
"You don't have to prove yourself to me, old friend. I trust you." The priest withdrew and was gone.
General James Stewart's doctors were none too happy to have him up and about the morning after being gut-shot. He had given them little choice. When they had waked him briefly to ask about certain necessary arrangements while he was undergoing regen, he had instead ordered them to stitch what could be stitched, and use surgical synthetics for what had to be patched. While true regen on the stitched parts could be continued with injections, the synthetics would have to be removed and would cause the regeneration process to ultimately take twice as long as it should.
The doctors had been even more unhappy when General Vanderberg had refused to allow them to overrule the general on medical grounds. But then, the military medical profession was pretty much agreed that general officers made lousy patients.
So here he was this morning, looking down at Sind. . . . Sometime in the night Mata Hari had been abbreviated by the watchers to Mahri. He supposed there was some logic to having something to call her. For him, it only underscored the pain of not even knowing her name.
Two tall robed figures trailed by a couple of Indowy—strange sometimes how quickly humanity had gotten used to little green men—were approaching him, or the line of seats placed near him. Apparently, they had some interest in him, since they were stopping by his wheelchair, ignoring the medic hovering behind him with syringes full of medical nannites.
The Tir Dol Ron, and the Tir Dad Lin, according to his AID. He knew enough not to laugh or smirk or even show surprise at the Darhel with the funny name. One was the trade minister and the other the minister of education, who actually handled propaganda and public relations, such as it was. What they really were were cabinet level officials of a Galactic Federation where the Cabinet ran the show. In the words of Sergeant Franks, to whom he owed at least a mental apology, the V-est of IP's.
"We wish to express our appreciation and approval for the apprehension of this person. We would like to assure you that you have greatly enhanced the interests of Galactic Security. We are certain that you have a bright future within the Fleet Strike Organization." The voice was so beautiful he barely restrained the urge to vomit. The Tirs appeared to be waiting for something from him. When he merely nodded silently, the Tir Dol Ron started to lift one corner of his lip, revealing the edge of a very pointed tooth, but his eyes flickered to Stewart's injuries and he appeared to relax. The two turned abruptly and proceeded to a pair of the seats, hesitating for a moment while the Indowy with them moved the seats closer to the glass.
Below, "Mahri" was still dancing frantically, nonstop, in the fluorescent orange jumpsuit that had replaced her grays. It made his chest hurt.
When the Fleet team came trooping back in, Stewart watched them from behind his best poker face—and his best was very good indeed. Tartaglia, perhaps anticipating his new CO's likely needs, had sent Baker home for sleep around zero hundred, electing to stay in command of observation through the night. Consequently, when the medic wheeled him in this morning, Baker had been here, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to brief him in person. Experientially, Beed's paranoia hadn't been a total loss. Following Baker's lead, Stewart had handed his AID to the Medic and ordered the visibly unhappy man to take a walk.
At that point, Baker had been free to fill Stewart in with a complete no-shitter on each of the Fleet personnel, the Darhel delegation, and events of the night before. Which meant that when the Fleet platoon, plus fresh meat and Dr. Mengele, came trooping in, he knew who was who.
Baker was in his forties. Old enough to think he'd seen the world and be mostly right, but remarkably sheltered in some ways. In Baker's world the MP's and the good soldiers were the good guys, and the tongs and the scumbags were the bad guys. You prosecuted one, and the other helped you. Well, more or less.
Baker had no idea what was coming. Or if he did, it was just at the level of a slight foreboding that he shrugged off. Stewart, with his considerably more complex understanding of the world knew exactly what was going to happen, and exactly how little power he had to stop it.
He was also going to have to watch Baker and protect his ass. Underneath an agent's gruff exterior, Baker really was the boyscout Pryce had pretended to be. It had been an asset in his work with the tongs, rendering him amazingly incorruptible. In the present situation, it was more likely than not to get him killed or at least ruin his career when he decided he needed to Do Something.
Preventing that from happening was just one of the extra little complications life just loved to throw his way. In this case, he welcomed the distraction. He'd been sent to catch the spy, and he'd caught her. What he hadn't expected was to be involved. On the other hand, getting involved with anybody in the office, in the circumstances, had been damned stupid and his current feelings were his own damned fault. Including the guilt. The girl had sacrificed herself to save his hide, and wasn't that a fine thing for a man to have to live with.
He couldn't help swallowing heavily as the goon squad disappeared around the corner towards the lifts, reappearing shortly in the room below.
He saw immediately why the SP's had one in the infirmary and two in the morgue already. Whether she'd heard them coming or was just in a favorable position, her departure from the dance was so fluid and seamless, there were two SP's on the floor before his brain had even registered that she'd stopped dancing. Well, sort of stopped.
This time one of the SP's was either a bit smarter or a bit quicker and managed to club her over the head, dropping her so they could strap her to the gurney while she was still groggy from the knockout.
It meant the guy hanging his head and taking a few sharp words from the chief, presumably for endangering her life.
Stewart didn't realize his hand had curled into white-knuckled claws against the arms of the chair until he felt his babysitter jab him with a hypo.
"General Stewart, sir, if you don't tell me when you're in pain I won't be able to manage it properly. Please tell me next time before it gets that bad," the medic said.
"Do you have something in that pack to counteract the wooziness, son? You'd better." Great. All I need is to have my inhibitions to saying something indiscreet, stupid, and entirely truthful dropped in this political minefield. The ache in his gut disappeared. The one in his chest didn't, but then, it had damn-all to do with his physical injuries.
The medic stuck something else in his arm and his head cleared almost immediately.
"Thank you. Son, if you ever again stick a mind altering drug in my conscious body without my permission, you can be prepared to receive your hypodermic as an enema. Sideways. Are we clear on that."
The man's lips tightened and it appeared he only just restrained himself from rolling his eyes, but he said, "Yes, sir," and his eyes dropped before Stewart's did.
When he noticed that her legs were strapped to the corners of the gurney, and they cut her prison jumpsuit off and removed it from under the straps in pieces, he broke out in a cold sweat.
The medic bent close to her ear, but the pickups in the room caught his voice clearly, playing it into the observation area.
"Why don't we avoid this part? What's your name?"
She tilted her head slightly away from him, staring up at the ceiling. She looked . . . bored.
Her expression didn't change when the chief motioned the first man on top of her.
Stewart started making a list of people he really needed to kill. The first man seemed to be having some sort of trouble. In any case, he was swearing in one of the Asian languages. The automatic, literal translation from the AIDs was fairly colorful. Something about monkey vomit.
The medic finally waved him off and moved between her legs, checking something before injecting a local of something into her thigh, checking his watch, waiting a few moments, reaching between her legs.
"Obviously, miss, you are not immune to muscle relaxants. What's your name?" he said.
After a few seconds of silence, he motioned the hapless sailor back into place.
The prisoner made eye contact with him and spoke.
"Sorry this is going to be about as exciting for you as screwing a soggy washcloth," she said.
"I like blondes." He grabbed a breast crudely.
"If you ate strong mint gelatin after the kimchee, you might meet more of them." The boredom on her face was absolute. He stilled suddenly, swearing again before backhanding her, scrambling off and back, his face flushed as he zipped and turned away. Her cheek reddened, but her head had never moved.
She laughed.
"Aw, too bad! Next?" If her sarcasm had been a liquid, it would have eaten a hole in the floor.
To say that the next sailor singled out by the chief looked unenthusiastic would have been an understatement.
"You'll need rape survivor therapy after this. The tongs can put you in touch with someone discreet," her voice was clinical.
"Chief, make her stop!" He looked to his NCO in rather embarrassed desperation.
Above, in the observation lounge, Baker spluttered into his coffee. Stewart had so far managed to keep him under control with a hand on his arm whenever he looked in danger of losing it.
The Darhel were virtually panting like overheated dogs, over by the glass. Stewart was glad he'd elected not to wear a sidearm.
The chief grabbed her chin and wrenched it around by main force. "You're being raped, you stupid bitch, don't you get that?! What's your name!"
"I'm not being raped. He's being raped. I'm just lying here watching amateur night."
In the lounge, one of the Darhel twitched suddenly, towards the glass, before rising and withdrawing smoothly from the room.
Below, the goon squad was withdrawing from the room, leaving "Mahri" where she was. Obviously, they were reevaluating their tactics. Poor hapless bastards. His heart just bled for them. Not.
Tommy was smacking his head against the heel of his palm, repeatedly, when Papa O'Neal came up for air from the Detention Center blueprints.
"Sunday, what in the hell is your problem?" The older man patted his pockets and finally came up with an empty pouch, sighed, and began digging through his backpack.
"Papa, I fucked up. I fucked up big time. It's been so long, I just never recognized him." His skin had gone a strange, sick shade of gray.
"Recognized who? Run it back to start, I'm not tracking it." He found a fresh pouch and absentmindedly cut himself a plug, turning and regarding his teammate with a patient expression.
"I should have known it was a setup. We would have known, if I'd been on the ball. Oh my God, did I ever fuck up."
"Son, if you don't start from the beginning, I'm gonna have to hurt you. Come on, take a deep breath and tell me about it."
"The beginning. Okay. Sarah, display the hologram of Lieutenant Joshua Pryce from our initial briefing." The AID obediently put the requested image in the air in front of them.
"So?" O'Neal's hands motioned for more.
"So I know the sonofabitch. Served with him in ACS forty-some years ago. It's just, after forty years . . . We were both in the Triple-Nickle with Mike Junior. He was the S-2 of the battalion in Rabun. If I had recognized him, we wouldn't have lost Cally."
Papa O'Neal was silent for a few seconds.
"That's a big one." He was silent for a long moment. "But after forty years . . . Besides, if you had recognized him, we wouldn't have pulled Jay out into the open. Then we would have lost no telling how many other people, possibly the whole ball game, with whoever else Jay gave up," he reminded quietly. "So, who the hell is he, really? Obviously a juv, of course."
"He's Major General James Stewart, now. He just took command of the Third MP Brigade. He's the bastard who caught her, and he's the bastard who's in charge of whatever they're doing to her. And Mike is a fucking father to him!"
O'Neal stared coldly into the distance for a few minutes, jaw working. He took a long breath and released it slowly.
"That's mostly right. Don't tell me you don't know by now that the Darhel are in charge of whatever they're doing to her. Stewart is probably just now experiencing for the very first time how very closely they're pulling his strings. I mean, he has to have known it. But knowing it and experiencing it are two different things." He spat into his cup, tilting his head a bit as if something had just occurred to him.
"Don't beat yourself up, Sunday. You may have just handed us the break that's gonna get her out of there. Just . . . give me a few minutes, okay? And I mean that, no more beating yourself up." As the older man walked aft and began to pace, Tommy could actually hear him begin to hum tunelessly.
James Stewart had long since numbed out to the additional indignities being visited on Sinda. He supposed the numbness was composed of equal parts shock, rage, and the necessity of keeping a poker face if he was ever to get the opportunity of avenging Sinda. He wouldn't call her "Mahri"—that was the name they were using. Sinda wasn't her name, but it was what she had called herself to him, and that was the best he had.
He had seen some indescribably horrible things as an ACS trooper, things done by Posleen to humans, things done by humans to Posleen. In the gang, he thought he had seen some pretty horrible things done to humans by humans. A few murders, anyway.
But he had never seen anything like this done by a group of humans to another human being. He had thought he was hardened to anything. He was wrong. Still, without the ability to click on and move his mind to that cold, efficient place that built a temporary barrier against the horror, he probably would be in a cell now, or shot—well, shot again—and no use to anybody.
The Fleet chief, Yi, was currently giving an end-of-day report on the status of the prisoner. The list of injuries—smashed and "merely" broken bones, cuts, bruises, and burns replayed vivid images in his head. The first thing they had done, of course, had been to finish gang-raping her after resorting to the simple expedient of an improvised gag. It rendered her incapable of providing information, but the bastards had apparently decided it would have been bad form to let her win that psychological battle. And in a total bastard kind of way, he could see their point. He was still going to kill every last one of them, but he could see why they did it.
The hardest thing he'd done in years, next to calling the MPs on her in the first place, was leaving at the end of the day to go home, looking perfectly normal. He had watched them turn out the lights and run the gravity down to zero for the night, leaving her strapped down and injected with Galactic Decameth—the C part in Provigil-C, minus the Provigil. And then he'd had to turn and wheel himself out the door, trailed by his own medic, who looked like a saint next to Fleet's pet monster.
In the small room, Tommy sat on the bed, waiting, a white container the size of a cigar box in his hands, open at one end. A clean AID was clipped to his belt. It looked just like any other AID. Tonight, that was its most important job. He wore gray silks with the insignia and unit identification of long ago. If any of the surviving members of the triple nickel ACS saw him, it would look to them like they were seeing a ghost. He had gone back to his original hair and eye color, and he had never needed as much facial alteration as Cally or Papa, anyway. Oh, he was different—but not that different unless he wanted to be. And, of course, his frame was pretty hard to camouflage.
Out of the two vacant rooms on the hall with the quarters formerly occupied by lowly Lieutenant Pryce, and now occupied by a general the system had not yet had the opportunity to reassign, he and Papa had chosen the one closest to the transit car. Not that it mattered. One was as good as the other. A very small sticky camera sat in the slight shadow cast by the door jamb.
Papa O'Neal was in the chair, watching the hall on the screen of his PDA. He was actually watching a fast-forward of the past five minutes, since the camera only squealed its encrypted transmission when pinged, and they didn't need particularly high resolution.
"Fuck."
"What?" Tommy's eyes locked with the older man's.
"He's in a wheelchair and has someone with him. Looks like a medic." He patted his pockets absently before frowning and rubbing his chin.
"Uh . . . if Cally did that to him, he may not be all that sympathetic." Tommy looked over his shoulder and winced slightly. "He doesn't look so good."
"If you've got a better card to play, I'd be glad to hear it," he said, setting the PDA down on the desk for a second to get up and pace. "We may not be able to get to him tonight."
"He never did like doctors much," Tommy mused. "He might kick him out. I don't see any reason not to give it at least until midnight."
"Agreed." He stopped pacing and sat down, tapping a foot in uncharacteristic nervousness.
As it turned out, they didn't have to wait long at all, as the medic left and disappeared through the transit car doors almost immediately.
"Tommy?"
"Yeah?"
"Never would have guessed that he doesn't like doctors. Let's go." The red-haired man pocketed his PDA and left without looking back.
"Right. This is gonna be so weird." Tommy rubbed his hands on his silks and cleared his throat, following him out. This was the first time in twenty-five years that he was going to have to go see an old friend who was sure he was dead. Don't overthink it. Just do it.
He rang the doorbell and waited for the intercom light to come on, clearing his throat again.
"Triple nickel pizza delivery. Got a large with fajita beef and extra refried beans for Manuel," he said.
"What?"
As the door slid open, Tommy took his own AID off his belt, holding it over the box. He caught Stewart's eye and put the AID in the box, handing the box to Stewart. His old buddy's face paled and scrunched up in some strange mix of shock and bewilderment, but he accepted the box, putting his own AID in and sealing the lid. He didn't hand it back.
"We need to talk, Stewart. In private. Can we come in?"
"Yeah, I guess you'd better." He sighed and wheeled back from the door, letting them in and waiting while it closed behind them.
"You're the healthiest looking dead guy I've ever seen. And someone obviously changed your face just enough to fool software scans. So. You wanna tell me what's going on?" He wheeled around to a table, picking up a pack of cigarettes and offering them around before lighting one.
"That part's a long story. Introductions first. Stewart, Mike O'Neal, Sr. Papa O'Neal, General James Stewart. As you know, we served together under your son in the war," he said.
"That's a big claim. And even if it's true, you'd have to have a damned good excuse for letting Mike think his dad's been dead all these years. I don't think that's possible." He took a long drag and waited.
"Oh, I've had rejuv. And more extensive cosmetic work than Tommy, here. There's no point in doing much to someone his size—you just keep him out of sight as much as you can and use him other ways. On the other, Mike would be the first to agree with the necessity if he knew."
"Look, I've had a long day, can you cut the cryptic bullshit?"
"Okay. I've known O'Neal, Senior, for twenty-five years. There is a damned good reason, but whether you hear it depends on the next part of this conversation. Trust me for a minute, okay? You've got a prisoner in your detention center." He gestured at the chair and Stewart's obvious injuries. "She do that?"
"No. What do you know about her?" He leaned forward too quickly and winced, clapping a hand to his gut.
"She's Iron Mike's daughter." Tommy appreciated that Papa was letting him do the talking. It was going to take more information before Stewart would trust either of them, and they couldn't give him that information until they had a better idea of how he was reacting.
"What the fu—you're shitting me." It was obviously another shock. Tommy hoped he wasn't really in a bad way. Then again, if he had been, the medic wouldn't have left.
"Cally O'Neal. She's not dead either." Papa had leaned back against the wall and was obviously trying to wait patiently.
"Cally. Wait a minute. You're trying to get me to believe that the old man's dad and his daughter have both let him eat his heart out thinking they're dead for forty years? I think you'd better cut the bullshit and talk, because my patience is going fast," he said.
"Well, you see, there's this problem with the Darhel . . ."
After they had gone, Stewart sat in the chair staring at the wall. On some level he knew he was probably in something close to shock.
Usually he had the vidscreen on, if only displaying a still holo. It was the first thing he slapped to life coming in the door.
Pattern broken by the interruption, he sat staring. The blank bareness of the walls, hardly improved by the gray rectangle of the dead screen, closed in on him like one of the cells over at the prison.
God, Cally, what a fucking mess! Okay, Tommy was a replacement troop, but dammit, he was one of us! Even if civilian control at the top of the chain of command was going all to hell by then, how could I—he—make himself a traitor? All right, so it was a hard call. Maybe he was even right. There sure as hell is no more effective civil control—human, anyway—of the military. I thought working within the system . . . even after it had gone to hell. But good God, we won the war and lost the peace, and there's no bringing it back. Fuck. Maybe he's right.
No! How the hell could he leave the Old Man thinking his daughter was dead? And his father? How the fuck could they? Cally couldn't have done anything, she was just a kid then. Okay, so she had to go along. Fuck, she was just a kid. What the hell else could she do? But his own father. His own damn father!
And now I'm supposed to do it, too. Turn my coat, join up, don't ask questions. Yeah, right.
But what the hell else could I do? All I know is the military—unless you count gang leading. Yeah, right. Not much call for either outside the control of the fucking Darhel Federation. It might as well be, anyway. Not like the other bunch looks much better.
How can I be a traitor? How could anyone leave the people who love them most thinking they're just dead?
What a fucking mess! Cally, what the fuck am I gonna do?
The walls had no answer for him.
"We've got something." Papa O'Neal's face was uncharacteristically closed in addressing his old friend.
"Do I want to know the details?" Father O'Reilly hadn't lived as long as he had without learning when not to ask too many questions. The Indowy Aelool stood quietly at his side.
"Probably not." His jaw worked and he looked around for a cup for a moment before nodding gratefully as Tommy pressed one into his hand. He spat neatly.
"Might it be possible for us to hear the broadest outline of this plan?" The Indowy's facial expression was earnest.
"We found some help I don't want to compromise even over a probably secure channel." He emphasized the word probably slightly, in an attempt to appeal to traditional Indowy paranoia about exchanging information outside of a face-to-face meeting.
"Yes. Good communications discipline. We can certainly understand that. Can you give us an estimate of your chances of success? What you would call a ballpark estimate will suffice." The little green guy actually looked happy, which was odd given their earlier conversation with O'Reilly.
"Ballpark. Okay." O'Neal scratched his chin for a moment. "Call it reasonable to high."
"And how would you rate the chances of success if you had to wait, for example, an extra day to carry out this plan?" Aelool was looking at him very strangely—almost as if he was hoping for a particular—
"It would substantially reduce the chances of success." Did I guess right?
"And would your plan require the emplacement of additional organization resources beyond those currently deployed in the field with you?" Father O'Reilly asked conversationally.
"No, it would not," he said.
"Then since you say that is the case, a decision by us at headquarters is certainly something that cannot wait until morning. Father O'Reilly, do you concur?"
"Oh, most certainly." There was an odd twinkle in the old priest's eye.
"I recommend this mission be approved. Do you concur, Father?" Only someone very familiar with Indowy would have recognized the particular treble tone as formal, even businesslike.
"That does seem wise. I do concur, Indowy Aelool." He nodded. "The mission not requiring the emplacement of additional resources and being time critical, the mission is approved. Now if you'll please excuse us—" He cut the transmission without giving either of them time to say another word.
"Did I just imagine that conversation?" Tommy rubbed his eyes tiredly.
"Nope." O'Neal spat again, contemplatively, "But it certainly suggests that parts of things back home are less fucked up, and parts more fucked up, than we thought. Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over it. Tomorrow's gonna be a long day."