"You'd have a right," she said.
"Well . . . yes. In one way, I do. In another, I don't." He looked into her eyes. "I think you want your scolding, is that it?"
Tears burned her eyes. "I—don't know. I want—what happened to be different. For it to have worked the way it was supposed to. You safe—"
Anger roughened his voice. "By the gods, Heris, do you think we'd have joined the Regs if we'd wanted to be safe? And safe at the cost of the best commander we ever had? Keep us from being butchered by that fool and his stupid tactics, yes—but not ruin yourself, and us, into the bargain."
"You're right," she said. No use denying it. "I was wrong." The rest of the pain she had put off feeling stabbed her, the thought of her crew, from that scrawny new kid in Power Systems, who had burst into tears with the first mail from home, to the wizened old senior medical mate, finishing out her last tour before retirement. What had happened to them? Tears spilled over; she could feel the wind chilling them as they ran down her cheeks; she struggled to control her breathing.
Petris moved close, and put his arm around her, a firm but gentle hold.
"You should have trusted us," he said, his breath stirring her hair. "Did you think we'd fail you?" She could hear in that the pain she had dealt them—worse for some than the pain of court-martial and public dishonor.
"I had failed you," Heris said. "The scan data were all lost—they told me you'd all be court-martialed along with me, risk discharge at least and probably time in prison."
"So you resigned. Walked out."
"Yes." It all came back, the nightmare she'd relived so often these past months. The Board behind their polished table, the familiar faces as strange as masks, the feel of her dress uniform collar tabs on her throat, a blade no less dangerous for being fabric and not steel. "I was told," she went on, careful to withhold all emotion, "that if I resigned immediately, they would take no action against you—the crew. They would hush it up; it would not have happened. Sorkangh—my father's friend, one I'd counted on to help me argue my case—he said that. And if Sorkangh was against me—" She shook her head. She had said this already; it made no difference. She had had her reasons, she had fought herself to make that decision, and none of her reasons mattered. It had been wrong, as wrong as not anticipating any enemy's position and firepower.
"Well," he said, squeezing her shoulders, "if it helps, not all your crew was as loyal as they should have been. Lepescu had a ringer in, and that's what happened to the scan data."
"How'd you find that out?" She had wondered, but could not have proven her suspicions.
"First transit brig. Friend of a friend of a friend—couldn't do much for us, but did tell us who did it and on whose orders. We took care of him."
Heris shuddered; she didn't want to understand, although she did. "How many . . ."
"I'm not sure. They split us up, early on—we were tried in different groups, supposedly determined by our level of responsibility. Some weren't formally charged, I heard—but I couldn't tell you what happened to them. Of those brought to court, the scuttlebutt is that all but three were convicted. Some were discharged, and some had the usual loss of rank, or pay, but no brig time. They decided to make an example of about fifty of us, the senior NCOs and officers, and from that about thirty were brought here. The others are in the prison system somewhere."
"I'll have to do something about that," Heris muttered.
Petris shifted beside her. "I don't see how you can, now," he said. "Maybe if this comes out, their cases can be reevaluated, but whatever Lepescu was up to, the original charges are still there."
"I'll think of something," she said. "Maybe Lady Cecelia—"
"Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "But I had something else to say to you." She braced herself, but he didn't go on for a long time. Then he sighed. "I wish it was darker. Thing is . . . you're not my commander now, right?"
"Right." Heris picked up something—it was dark enough she could hardly see the food—and stuffed it in her mouth. Cheese and pastry and something; she nearly choked.
"You were always professional . . . you know . . . but I used to wonder if you felt something . . . something like I did." He wasn't looking at her, but at the last fading purple glow in the west. Then up at the stars. Heris had time to remember times she had not wanted to be professional; she choked down the food in her mouth.
"Mmm. Yes. Something . . ." How could she have known it was a mutual feeling? They had both understood professional etiquette; nothing must come of any feelings, and thus better to leave them unfelt—or at least unsaid.
"So?" The flat, gray light, all that was left of sunset, caught in his eyes. Heris opened her mouth to say how impossible it was, then realized it wasn't. Not any more.
"So . . ." She still could not say it. She moved, instead, into the arc of his arm.
"You should have trusted me," he said again, but without heat. "It hurt, when you went away like that, without a word."
"Yes. It did." She leaned against him; his arm felt good against her back. Better than good. "It hurt a lot. But I'm here now, and I'm trusting you."
"About time." Then his grip tightened. She had never allowed herself to imagine—really imagine—what embracing him would be like. It would have been too difficult to go through everyday shipboard life, if she had. Now she was glad of her former discipline. She had no nagging comparisons to make, just the experience to savor.
* * *
"I fixed it," Cecelia said. She sounded smug. Bright morning light gilded her hair, and she looked crisp and refreshed by ample sleep and good food.
"Fixed what?" Heris had bathed and changed, when she and Petris got back to the Lodge shortly before dawn, but inside her clothes her body felt lush and relaxed. She wondered if Cecelia could tell. She had her own list of things for Cecelia to fix, and hoped her employer hadn't used up her energy on something minor.
"Your resignation," Cecelia said, as if continuing a conversation in progress. "I hate to lose you, but I know how you've grieved. And the evidence is clear. So I just argued my way along, and they've agreed to take you back. Quite willingly, in fact. Everyone knows that George's father will sue Lepescu and his cronies, and the Regular Space Service is anxious to dissociate themselves from any of that."
Heris stared, her brain racing. Cecelia had fixed that, in a few hours, from an obscure planet with no real-time communications beyond its own system? Then: Go back? Retrieve her command, her career? She felt her heart begin to hammer, the racing pulse pounding her body, making her hands shake. Exultation flooded her; she could see the look on her father's face, on her mother's. . . . She could imagine how her younger brother, still in the Academy, would react. Yes, she thought. Yes.
"How?" got out of her mouth first.
Cecelia beamed, clearly glad to be asked. "I'd been afraid it would take weeks, but you remember Bunny said a Crown Minister was here hunting? Bunny asked me to speak to him about Mr. Smith, and of course I told him about you. I pointed out that going through the usual channels would require your complete explanation, and you, as an honest person, could hardly fail to mention Mr. Smith when you justified the killing of Admiral Lepescu."
"Mr. Smith," said Heris blankly. She had almost forgotten that mysterious young man. Then her brain snapped back into focus. "A . . . royal, you said, about the boots." Which, given his age, meant . . . "Not the one Ronnie was in trouble for—"
Cecelia grinned. "Quite so. The Minister saw my point, of course, and assured me that no statement from you would be required, under the circumstances. Enough evidence of Lepescu's unfitness existed to overturn the judgment without recalling whatever court or board it was. You can trust him," Cecelia went on, as if anticipating Heris's doubts. "With Mr. Smith's reputation at stake, he would do more than this. Luckily for us, the Minister requires a special communications link—I don't know what you call it, but it's almost instantaneous through some kind of relay back to Court. He was able to contact the ne
cessary officials, and—"
"And the surviving crew?" Heris asked. She felt already like a Spacefleet officer, the purple uniform forgotten along with the past several hours.
Cecelia nodded briskly. "Oh, yes. All rehabilitated, as they called it. I knew you would want that, so I insisted. Wherever they are, if some of them were not on that abominable island." When Heris didn't answer at once she went on. "I do understand, you know. We are both aristocrats, even if we aren't in the same aristocracy."
"I—thank you, milady." Only that formality would serve, could possibly express her gratitude.
"I will hate losing you," Cecelia said, more softly. "Not only as a captain, and student of equitation, but as a friend. I like you, and I don't like many people." Then her voice firmed again. "Will it be difficult, for you and Petris?"
Heris stared at her, disoriented by the double-change of direction. "Petris . . . ? Oh." So Cecelia had noticed. At once the exaltation left her, as quickly as if someone had pulled a plug in her heart. She could go back, and he could go back, and they might serve on the same ship . . . but they could not go back to the past hours. Not ever. She tried to imagine him as a civilian . . . husband . . . but that would destroy him. "Oh, my," she said, hardly hearing her own voice. "I didn't think."
"Most people don't, in your position," Cecelia said. "That's why I mentioned it, before you go and tell the others. You can go back . . . but you don't have to."
Didn't she? She could hardly breathe for a moment, in the alternation of possibility and impossibility. She could not give up her chance in the R.S.S. again—she could not give up Petris. She could not ask him to give up his career, as miraculously restored as her own, but if either of them . . .
"Damn," she said. It was all she could say. She sat down suddenly, and Cecelia made a show of turning away, preparing something to drink, offering her a steaming cup of some brown liquid. . . . She should know what it was, but she couldn't recognize anything.
"As a classical maiden aunt," Cecelia said, not looking at her, "I am qualified to give useless advice, which you are free to ignore. You love that man, and he loves you; that was obvious when I first saw you two together. You can't be together in the Service, and neither of you will be happy as a civilian partnering the one who stays in. If you do go back, Heris, be sure you're never on the same ship . . . You know that."
"I know that." Her lips felt numb—was it the drink? Was she going to faint? She never fainted; it was ridiculous. But her skin remembered his touch; her ears remembered his voice, the sound of his breathing, the beat of his heart when her head lay on his chest. She wanted that, wanted it more than anything . . . except her commission, her ship, her crew . . . which she couldn't have, if it meant him.
"I still need a captain," Cecelia went on. "I need new crew members—you told me that. If you choose not to reenter the Service, you would have a place with me."
And Petris would become just a crew member on a rich old lady's yacht—she could not see him being happy with that. He had taken as much pride in his career as she in hers. He would not settle for less.
"You ought to ask him," Cecelia said, as if reading her face. "You didn't ask before, and look where that got you. Give him the chance, now, while you have the chance . . . while you are, for the moment, free."
It was true. She had not thought she had a chance, before; she had taken the commander's way, the solitary way, and had not asked anyone, and because of that Lepescu had been able to ruin her and her crew. This time she could ask him. She stood up, nodding to Cecelia without saying a word—she could not have said a word—and went to find Petris.
He was staring out to sea, staring at the island on which he had been hunted. "Looks pretty from here," he said as she came up.
"Yes," she said. Her throat closed on more. He looked at her closely.
"What's happened?"
She couldn't answer; tears flooded her eyes. He reached for her, hugged her close, his lips in her hair. "Heris . . . Heris . . ." he breathed. She gulped, tried to calm herself, and finally choked the lump down.
"Lady Cecelia has intervened," she said finally. Her voice came out thin, unlike herself. "With the Service."
"You're getting your commission? Good." His arms loosened, and she heard the effort in his voice. "I hoped you would—they ought to have that much sense."
"They're reversing all the disciplinary actions," she said. "All the survivors will be reinstated, with all records cleared. It would probably have happened anyway, but Lady Cecelia—"
"Has connections. I'm glad she cares that much—you must have impressed her." His arms dropped from her shoulders, and he stretched. "Well. Back into harness for us, eh? And—"
Heris stared at the sand. "We don't have to go."
"Eh? Of course you'll go—you're not meant to be a yacht captain."
"She said I should give you the chance. The chance I didn't give you before."
He stared at her; when she looked up, his gaze was fixed on her face. "What do you mean? Are you saying—?"
"Petris—" She used his first name deliberately. "Petris, there is a choice. If we go back, you know—you know it would be best if we never serve together. But if we don't go back—"
"You love it," he said. "Your family—the Serrano Admiralty—" She had heard that phrase before; it was inevitable for a family that had produced admiral after admiral through many generations. She had never considered how they might look from underneath—from out to sea, like a great cliff wall made of stars and flags, with no safe beach to land on. She felt herself a rock loosed from that cliff, now rolling in the surf, being broken into fragments the cliff would no longer recognize.
"My family," she said slowly, "have already endured the worst: a Serrano resigning under a cloud rather than face a court. They will abide my decision, one way or the other . . . or they will not, and I will abide their decision. I don't know what they'll do, but I don't fear it. Your family?"
"Mine." He stared past her now, at the island again. "Farmers and small merchants on Vonnegar's World; I was the outlaw there, too. Ran off to join the military, like kids have always done. . . . Wouldn't walk behind a plow or pull onions if I could see stars. They wouldn't mind—they gave me up for lost when I told my uncle Eth what I thought of farming. I couldn't go back and ask for land, that's sure. But away—I can do what I want." A quick glance to her, then away again. "I liked my work."
"I know that. You can have it back; that's what Cecelia told me. She's got you all cleared."
"Ah . . . yes, but it can't be the same. Not just us, the whole thing. Some of 'em died, through this; I can't forget that."
Heris felt cold. They had died because of her, because she had left; she already knew that. If he couldn't forget, he probably couldn't forgive either, and last night had been . . . last night.
But he was looking at her again, this time steadily, eye to eye. "But what did you offer as an alternative? You said if we don't go back—"
"We could both work for Lady Cecelia. On her yacht." Of course he had already said she wasn't meant to be a yacht captain, and of course he wasn't meant to be on a yacht's crew either, but she had to ask.
"You must like her a lot," he said, "even to consider it. What do you . . . do?"
She could tell he was avoiding the familiar terms, like "mission." "Lady Cecelia travels," she said. "From the existing records of past voyages, she travels widely, and from the events of the first weeks I worked for her, her yacht has harbored smugglers . . . without her knowledge, of course."
"You're sure of that." It was not quite a question.
"Yes. She's stubborn, opinionated, and all the other things you expect from a rich old lady, but she's honest."
"Like you," Petris said, without a smile. "No wonder you get along. So—you'll continue?"
"It depends." Even as she said it, she wondered if it did depend on his decision. Oddly, she now thought of going back to the Service as a kind of defeat. Someone else had
fought her battle for her; someone else had bought her commission back. She hated that. Bad as Lepescu was, some would always mistrust her loyalty; she would never be the unflawed Serrano in clear line of succession to an admiralty. Even her family would have reservations. She did not realize she had said some of this aloud until the end. . . . "—and I would rather take an honest salary from her than a commission restored with her influence. So . . . it's either stay with her, or look for something else, and I have no reason now to leave her. At least not until I've straightened out that crew."
Petris chuckled. "I know that tone. All right, then—I think all of us will have the same problems. Those who don't think so are welcome to go back, but as for me . . . no. D'you think your Lady Cecelia will hire more than one of us, and will we have to bow as she sweeps by?"
"Are you saying yes?"
"No . . . I'm saying yes, ma'am . . . since I believe that's the correct civilian usage." The end of that was smothered in a hug, out of which he said finally, "I gather the restriction on fraternization doesn't apply either?"