force. Carrera whispered, 'Oh, Linda… I… love… you.'
Lourdes stopped pushing back and began to cry even as Carrera's body, spent, slumped onto hers. The snoring that soon followed suggested he had never really been awake.
Interlude
2 October, 2067, UNSS Kofi Annan, alongside Colonization Ship Cheng Ho
A careful count of the bodies aboard ship revealed that twenty-nine people were missing, all of them either Atheist, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu. They, and the missing shuttle, must have gone below as neither radar nor lidar showed the slightest trace of the shuttle in the solar system. There was no distress signal from the shuttle. The technical manual said that the batteries should have lasted for decades. If the ship had not crashed, someone had deliberately turned the signal off.
The Annan 's shuttles began looking. They were few and the planet was not small. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that the survivors had landed the shuttle in a forest glade.
The continent was in the southern hemisphere of the planet. It stretched nearly ten thousand miles, east to west. On the eastern end, several geographic projections made it look something like a bull, lying on its back, with an erection. The crew named this portion of the continent 'Taurus' because of that resemblance.
To the west, the continent was mostly flat, open grasslands with occasional forests and marshes, and some impressive mountain ranges near the equator. The grasslands disappeared to the east, giving way to thick virgin woods with some open areas.
Moving west to east on a sweep, Annan 's Shuttle Number Three caught a glimpse of a flash that was unlikely to have been natural. It moved closer to investigate, finally coming to a landing a few hundred meters from the crash site.
Major Ridilla happened to be aboard that shuttle and was the first to set his feet on the ground. He wore an environmental suit, but without armor, and carried a modern rifle. Neither, as it turned out, was needed. The people, and they were fewer than the twenty-nine missing names even with the babies and young children, came out wearing badly tanned skins, thin to the point of emaciation, and ever so grateful to be rescued.
'We thought Earth had forgotten about us,' their leader said. She might once have been pretty, with her high cheekbones and off-white skin with just the hint of Vedic smokiness lying below the surface. But she was a woman aged far beyond her years. 'We thought we'd die here.' She looked skyward. 'Then again, we thought we'd die up there. I'm Marjorie Billings-Rajamana,' she said, putting out her hand.
She had a very nice, upper class British accent. Well, of course if anyone's going to survive and keep people alive that person would have a British accent, Ridilla thought. I mean… tradition and all.
'What happened?' he asked, taking the hand and shaking it. 'What happened on the Cheng Ho?'
'That's a long story,' the woman answered. 'And you'd better give me something to drink, something strong to drink, if you want to hear it.'
Assuming that the presence of people meant the absence of disease, Ridilla removed the helmet of his enviro-suit. 'I'm sorry, I don't have anything like that with me. There's some on the ship. You do want to go home, don't you?'
In answer, the woman laughed. Years fell away from her face, as if she had, perhaps, not laughed in all those years. She asked, 'Who do I have to blow? If I never see this miserable place again it will still be too soon.'
Chapter Fourteen
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
Casa Linda, 15/7/460 AC
Carrera's first words on awakening were, 'My, that was a nice…'
He was never quite sure afterwards which it was that first informed him that he had not been dreaming. Was it the mattress slumped slightly with a another human being? The scent? Some half-remembered details that were just too real to have been a dream? Or perhaps it was that all his dreams for months had been nightmares while the preceding night had definitely not been a nightmare.
How it would turn out, however…
'Lourdes?' he asked, uncertainly.
She sniffled, 'Yes?'
Oh, shit. What the hell did I do? He asked her.
'Last night,' she answered, 'while you were making love to me, you didn't even call out my name. It was like I gave myself to you and it meant nothing.' She began to cry in seriousness now.
He reached to her shoulder and pulled, rolling her over to face him. She resisted, initially, pulling her shoulder away. He was not, however, taking no for an answer. He gathered her in his arms and whispered, 'It wasn't that. I was-I'm sorry to say-asleep. I don't sleep well, usually, but when I do I could sleep through a barrage. I have. Anyway, I'm really sorry. And I'll make it up to you, as best I can.'
Lourdes said nothing. How someone was supposed to make up to her the ruination of what should have been the most special-or perhaps the second most special-event of her life was beyond her. She was angry, she was bitter. Above all, she was hurt.
Carrera continued on, despite her stony silence. 'Frankly, Lourdes, I'm glad you came to me last night. Loneliness was killing me and you are… well… simply wonderful. Thank you.'
Carrera backed off slightly to push her back onto her back. Then he proceeded to kiss her tears away and show her-without any mistakes with names, this time-that he meant what he said.
And perhaps, she thought, anger lessening, perhaps the hurt will go away if I let it.
Casa Linda, 27/6/460 AC
Carrera, Sitnikov, and half a dozen other Volgan officers sat in the conference room in the basement of the house. These half dozen Volgans had indicated that, while they could not, in good faith to their duties to the motherland, give up their Volgan citizenship, they were willing to stay on in Balboa under contract if they were wanted. They also represented another several dozen Volgans in the same straits. Another one hundred and twenty-one of the Volgan trainers had elected to take Legionary rank and eventual Balboan citizenship- and getting the legislative assembly to approve that had cost another series of bribes-and to accompany the Legio del Cid to al Jahara and Sumer-or wherever, for that matter. Legionaries take their orders and march with them. But if these men, and those they represented, remained citizens of the Volgan Republic, they could not accompany the Legion to a war to which their country was not a party.
Carrera began, 'Gentlemen, first of all let me say that I appreciate and respect your decision to remain true to the country of your birth. There is no shame in that. Your absence will be felt when the legion leaves for the desert.' Carrera passed around glasses, scotch, and ice as he spoke.
'Nonetheless, you may, if you wish, still remain here in Balboa to work on a few special projects that I have in mind. If you decide to stay, your pay will be commensurate with the LdC pay for the ranks you now hold. I can arrange some longevity increases as you spend more time here, but you will be, for all practical purposes, frozen in your current ranks for the immediately foreseeable future. Can you accept this?'
Carrera looked at the Volgans' faces for a reaction. Seeing no negative indicators from them, he continued. 'The second condition is that you must still take an oath to the LdC to give loyal and diligent service. This includes not divulging any of the nature of the work you will do to anyone, ever. This includes divulging to the Volgan Republic. Can you accept that?'
Still the Volgans gave no indication of objection. Indeed, since their whole way of life prior to this had involved the most stringent security procedures, they did not even consider any other possibility. As to whether they would honor those oaths…
