The ethos effect, p.35
The Ethos Effect, page 35
“What is this project?”
Trystin tilted his head, pursed his lips. Finally, he spoke. “I’ve told you about this before. I’ve been working on this for years. It’s something I shouldn’t know, because it’s Farhkan, but I persuaded them to help me—blackmail in a way, because I pointed out that if I misapplied it, they might not like it. So now I have a prototype, and I’m hoping to use it— the prototype—as a lever to see if they’ll help.”
“What is this prototype?” Van asked.
“You might call it a new way of generating and transferring energy.”
That didn’t exactly answer the question.
“And you managed to get them to transfer the technology to you? The Farhkans haven’t been that forthcoming very often.”
“That might be because, used improperly, it could be quite dangerous. They might want to make sure I develop it correctly. I don’t want to say more. I could look very foolish if it doesn’t work out.” Trystin smiled. “Then I could look just as bad if it does. Once it’s ready to implement, I’ll brief you on it.”
“What—”
“How is the Joyau doing?” Trystin ignored Van’s attempt to ask another question.
Van let it go. He tried to find out more in three different ways, and Trystin hadn’t told him any more than he’d wanted to. The older man would tell Van when he was ready, and not before. “I’ll need to go back to Perdya. I think I have three torps left.”
“Your message hinted at that,” Trystin replied. “I brought twenty as cargo. We’ll have to handle them ourselves, but between the four of us...”
Van nodded.
“You will need to go planetside on Kush. Before I’d gotten your message, Nynca took your Winokur templates there, and they’re being stored at the IIS office. Now... we need to transfer those torps and get you on your way to Kush.”
Until Trystin’s last words, it hadn’t fully dawned on Van that he and Trystin and the techs were the ones who had to shift the torps from the Elsin to the Joyau. He didn’t care much for what the torps represented, but then, he cared even less for what would have happened without them.
Chapter 56
The templates were waiting on Kush, and Van gave Eri the day off when they were shuttled up, then loaded from Kush orbit station. Then he took the next day himself, trying not to feel too guilty about it when he took the shuttle down to meet Emily Clifton for dinner. He reminded himself that he’d paid for the shuttle trips out of his own personal account—and that he’d taken no time off in months, but he couldn’t help but worry about what might be happening in the Republic.
He reminded himself that Emily could fill him in on Republic affairs. That reminder helped with his guilt, although he knew that he shouldn’t have to find a job-related reason in order to enjoy a dinner, especially with a woman he hadn’t seen in years. Then, he couldn’t exactly justify spending tens of millions of credits to fly the Joyau to Kush just for personal reasons—and he couldn’t afford the credits it would take from his personal account.
Emily was waiting outside the truncated pyramid that was the Republic embassy, in the late afternoon heat that blanketed everything, a heat that left all the structures a brilliant white and blurred the horizon with haze. She was wearing a deep green outfit that somehow set off her gray eyes and blonde hair, although Van did notice the tiredness in her eyes.
She looked at him twice before she spoke. “Commander ... I mean, Commodore.”
“Van,” he said gently. “Just Van.” After a pause, he asked, “How far is the Markesh?”
“About half a klick, but it will be hot, even this late in the day.”
“I can manage half a klick.” Van noted that Emily’s single-suit, although dark in color, was a lightweight solar-cooling fabric that turned heat energy into cooling. “Shall we go?”
“That might be best. You aren’t dressed for this heat.”
Emily was right Van was perspiring heavily by the time they reached the restaurant.
The Markesh was cool inside, but light which Van appreciated. He disliked places that equated dimness with coolness. A woman led them to a corner table, discreetly screened on each side by low-spreading ferns in large marble pots.
“Would you like something to drink?” The woman looked at Van.
Van looked at Emily.
“Iced almaryn.”
“A pale ale. Cold.”
“Almaryn?” Van asked after the woman left them. “A local tea. I suppose it’s technically not tea, because it’s not from the tea plant but it has caffeine and tastes better.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
“The first time you came, you said you really hadn’t undertaken all your duties. What else do you do besides pilot?” A faint grin surfaced and vanished as she added, “You must have some idea after two years.”
“I’d like to have gotten back here sooner...” Van shrugged helplessly.
“We’re all at the mercy of what we do.” Emily laughed, a sound both ironic and rueful. “If I can’t manage at least another few years in the diplomatic service, I won’t qualify for immediate retirement. If my RSF time didn’t count, I couldn’t do it at all.” She looked at Van. “I’m sorry. You were saying what you do.”
“Besides being chief pilot of the Joyau, I’m also a senior director. That means a combination of charm and sales, which I need to improve on, and troubleshooting, where I need even more improvement”
“What do you do when you troubleshoot?”
“Provide advice, and hope it’s correct One office wanted me to come by. They wouldn’t say why until I got there. They were seeing enormous credit influxes, totally unanticipated. The director was doing the right thing, but she worried about where it was all leading...”
“Which was? Or is?”
“Small multilaterals and wealthy individuals fleeing systems tipping toward the Revenants and all settling into the system where the office is.” Their drinks arrived, and Van took a swallow of the ale.
“Too many credits chasing comparatively too few goods and services?”
“Exactly. We worked out a strategy, and then I left, and we both hope it works.”
“I don’t think it was that simple. I’ve gotten the feeling that little around you has ever been simple. Not from the time you were a child, although you’ve never said anything about that.”
“I had a happy childhood.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t happy. I said it wasn’t simple. I’d also wager that it got less happy as you got older.”
Van shrugged, helplessly. “You seem to know so much. Tell me more.”
Emily laughed. “I will.” Before she spoke again, she took a long swallow of the almaryn. “You don’t like it when people are deceptive, but you can use the absolute truth just as deceptively as some people use lies.”
Van offered an exaggerated wince.
“You asked me to tell you more.”
“Go ahead,” he replied with mock-resignation.
“Things nag at you, years later.” She paused. “Cordelia said you mentioned that you still had nightmares about the Regneri.”
“I do,” Van admitted. “Not often, but they’re still there.” And they probably always would be, he reflected, along with those unexplained nightmares about the Fergus.
“You’re the sort of man that can’t let a puzzle or a wrong drop easily.”
But hadn’t he? He’d never really followed up on the attacks on him. Or the puzzles of the Collyns and the Fergus.
“That might not be true when they impact you, because you’d feel self-indulgent if you spent too much time on yourself.”
Van groaned. “I think I’ve had enough honesty for the moment.” Even if Emily were right, he should have followed up on the missing ships, even if no one else cared. He should have.
“Just for the moment?”
“Let me recover.” Van noted a server hovering and glanced around.
“The green button there,” Emily said.
Van touched it and was rewarded with a menu projected before him. “What’s good?”
“Pretty much everything, but I’ve never cared for the squish.”
Van raised his eyebrows.
“An experiment when they adjusted the ecology during colonization. Squish is short for a squid fish. People here find it very tasty. To me...” Emily grimaced.
“Slimy?”
“That’s charitable.”
Van wouldn’t have ordered fish in any case, but he appreciated the information.
The server eased to the table.
“The golden gourd soup, and the rosemary-apple lamb,” ordered Emily.
“The salad emeraud, and the lamb, also.” He glanced at Emily. “Would you like anything else to drink?”
“The almaryn is fine.”
Van nodded, and the server slipped away.
“I wasn’t sure I’d hear from you again,” she said slowly. “You didn’t stay long the last time.”
“I didn’t have a choice then,” Van pointed out. “I told you that.”
“I wondered if that were just an excuse to leave.”
Van wondered if she were teasing him, just a bit. “Not at all. I’d rather not leave you.” He almost flushed at the inadvertent admission.
For a moment, Emily glanced down.
Van took the instant just to look at her. He liked what he saw, but he always had.
Emily raised her eyes. “And this time you’re just at loose ends?” Her words were definitely teasing—with an undertone.
“This trip, I made time. I still have to catch the midnight shuttle.”
“I feel flattered.”
Van wished he were more glib, but he’d never been that quick with women. “You ... let’s say, you deserve to be flattered.”
The woman he had thought of as so composed ... flushed. Then she shook her head. “I can’t believe...”
“You can’t believe what?” he asked with a smile. “You.”
“What... I didn’t mean to offend you. I hope I didn’t...”
“No ... no!” Abruptly, she laughed. “You didn’t. Not at all. I hope you don’t mind. But I have always pictured you as so calm, so collected. All your compliments at the embassy were just... so professional. Even your last visit...”
Van wished he hadn’t been quite so professional. “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so professional.”
She reached out and touched his hand, fleetingly. “You were charming... at least to me. Cordelia was scared to death of you.”
“I never—”
“She said that you’d pilot a ship through a sun to do the right thing, and she couldn’t understand that.”
Van knew he wasn’t that ethical. “I hope I’m never that foolish.”
“You know what I meant... Van.”
He smiled again. “I try, but I don’t think I’m that ethical.”
“No. You’re not ethical. Not at all. Let’s see. You risked your life to stop the Vetachi. You took on three armed men without a weapon to protect a driver you scarcely knew. You threw yourself in front of eight assassins to save the premier. And I don’t even know all the other things you’ve done.”
“Those all could be called stupidity or foolhardy.”
“They could,” Emily replied amiably.
“Thank you for agreeing.”
They both stopped as the server appeared with Emily’s soup and Van’s salad.
Emily immediately took several spoonfuls of the soup. “Pardon me. I didn’t have much to eat today.”
“You should have told me... I could have come earlier.”
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have been able to get away earlier.” After more soup, she looked at Van. “We were talking about foolhardiness and ethics, but being ethical is always being foolhardy today. It may be that way in any technological society.”
“You think so?” Van gestured to the greenery. “Good salad.”
“I know. I’ve had it before.” She paused, then continued, “I can’t give you reasons or even a good argument. I just have that feeling. Maybe it’s because technology speeds up information and the ability to make decisions, and when people act quickly, they don’t have to think too long about whether something’s right.”
“There are still moral people,” Van pointed out.
“That’s true. How about this? There’s a small group of people in any society who are instinctively ethical, and another group that’s instinctively unethical, but most people are in the middle. With technology, it’s easier to focus on self-interest and what you can do, rather than what you should do, and that pushes all the people in the middle away from being as ethical as they might have been.”
“You have a point there. A good point. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Do you miss the RSF?” Emily asked.
“Why?”
“You seem happier in a way, and yet... wistful.” She shook her head. “It’s not that. Like something’s missing.”
Van knew what was missing, or part of what was missing, and that was the woman across the table from him. “It’s a rewarding position, in most ways.” He tilted his head, trying to figure out exactly how to say what he wanted, without being either obscure or forward. “Effectively, it’s so highly integrated—the ship is—that it takes a crew of two.”
“You and a tech?”
“Eri’s very good, but she’s almost old enough to be my mother.” Van laughed. “I’m exaggerating. She’s older, but more like an aunt, I’d guess.”
“Aunt is definitely better than mother.” Emily watched as the server took her empty tureen and replaced it with a platter piled with spiced lamb and surrounded by apples that looked neither stewed, nor dried, nor fried, but somehow embodying features of each of those preparations. Then the server took Van’s empty salad plate and presented his lamb.
Van hadn’t realized how much he’d tired of the limited, if good, food prepared by the formulators in the Joyau until he tasted the lamb. “Very good. Excellent.”
“It is,” mumbled Emily.
They ate in silence for several minutes.
“What’s happening with the great and glorious Republic of Tara? There’s not been much news about it where I’ve been.”
“You haven’t heard?” Emily frowned, an expression that Van disliked on her face. Some people could frown and express mild displeasure. Emily’s frown always suggested extreme displeasure, even when she was not that displeased. He didn’t like the idea that she might be displeased with him.
“Heard what?” Van took the smallest sip of ale.
“Marshal Eamon is the acting prime minister. There was an attack on Founder’s Day ... at the big celebration. It might even have been like what happened on Scandya. The entire cabinet was killed, including the minister of defense—”
Van repressed a shiver. Like the Scandyan incident? “Did they ever discover who was behind it?”
“They found three of the attackers, but they were killed. They were Republic citizens ... two with strong Keltyr ties... and one from Sulyn.”
“That bothers me. I can’t imagine a Keltyr tie,” Van admitted. “I can’t imagine someone from Sulyn, at all, even given the way things have been going, because that’s just not...”
“Not what?”
“Not the Sulynese way. We learned a long time ago that direct confrontation doesn’t work unless you’re the one with the power, and Sulyn certainly doesn’t have that now.” He pursed his lips. “Blaming it on Sulyn bothers me. A great deal.”
“It seemed strange. I can’t see what either the Keltyr or, now, the Sulynese, had to gain. Neither could the ambassador here, nor Commander McIlhenny.”
“I can’t either.” Van wondered if the Revenants were involved and trying to pit the two smaller powers against each other. “So the RSF is running the Republic?”
“The marshal claims it’s temporary.” She glanced around and lowered her voice. “I’ve been looking into establishing residence here. I can’t yet, not and claim retirement, and it’s too hot, but...”
Van understood. “The marshal hasn’t scheduled new elections?”
“Before next year, they say.”
“Are any of the systems unhappy ... protesting?”
“From what we hear, most are accepting it, reluctantly. There were some protests on Sulyn.” She stopped. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. I’d rather know.”
“They were peaceful, but the RSF still sent in a peacekeeping unit, but no one was hurt. That’s what we got. Some systems, the more militant ones, like Gaerloch and Coole, passed resolutions asking Marshal Eamon to run for prime minister.”
“That’s ...” Van wasn’t quite sure what to say. Emily looked down, and, for a long moment, there was silence.
“You once started to say something about RSF officers,” Van offered, with a smile. “A long time back. I’ve always wondered what it might have been.”
“You remembered that?” Her voice was not quite disbelieving. “From more than three years ago?”
“What were you going to say?” Van pressed.
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me. After all, I am a retired RSF officer, even if I’m only just commander of a private foundation ship. Now.... about what you almost said?”
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“Not about some things.” Van grinned.
“Let’s just say that, unlike some techs, I enjoyed working on ships and seeing new planets. My early experience with RSF officers ... well, that wasn’t as favorable as it could have been. My later experiences, especially some of my very later experiences, have been more favorable.”
“You saw officers from a less than flattering position.”
“The least flattering position is from below. You see the underside of things. You know that.” She smiled.
Van just took in her smile, enjoying it.
For a while, he could forget that he had to leave for Korkenny the next day. It had been his choice, but he wasn’t looking forward to it. Then, perhaps he could link into a Republic database and find out more about the Fergus and the Collyns. Maybe.
