Rione didn’t worship Geary and would probably be unsurprised to hear Geary’s worries. She might even have good advice, since so far Geary had been impressed by the quality of her thinking. But he still didn’t know how much he could trust the Co-President of the Callas Republic. The last thing he needed was a politician knowing his secrets and capable of trading them to his enemies for whatever political advantage they might bring.
No one he could talk to, no one he could share the burden of command with.
No, that wasn’t true. As a matter of fact, there was someone he was overdue for a conversation with. Fine one I am to talk about honoring our ancestors when I haven’t even paid my formal respects to them since I was woken up out of survival sleep.
He called up directions to the right area of Dauntless, certain that despite everything else that might’ve changed there would still be the place he was looking for on the ship. And there was. Checking the time to make sure the area wouldn’t be crowded at the moment, Geary pulled himself out of the chair, straightened his uniform, took a deep breath, then headed for the ancestral area.
Two decks down and near the Dauntless’s centerline, the place Geary was heading for was located in one of the most protected areas of the ship. Geary paused outside the hatch leading into the ancestral area, grateful for the lack of anyone else present to see him entering, then pushed through, finding himself facing a comfortingly familiar series of small rooms. He picked an unoccupied one at random, closing the soundproofed door carefully, then taking a seat on the traditional wooden bench facing the small shelf on which a single candle rested. Picking up the lighter on the shelf, he lit the candle, then sat watching it silently for a while.
Finally, he sighed. “Honored ancestors. Sorry I’ve taken so long,” Geary apologized, speaking to the spirits who’d supposedly been drawn by the candle’s light and warmth. “I should’ve rendered honors to my ancestors some time ago, but as I’m sure you know, things have been busy. And I’ve been dealing with many things I never expected to have to face. That’s no excuse, but I hope you’ll accept my apologies.”
He paused. “Maybe you’ve been wondering where I was all this time. Maybe you knew. Maybe Michael Geary has filled you in by now, if, as I fear, he died on his ship. Let me tell you, he did you proud. Please tell him I wish we’d had more time together.
“A lot of time has passed since I last spoke to you. There’ve been a lot of changes. Most if not all of those changes seem to have been for the worse. That’s what I believe, anyway. I can’t pretend I don’t need all the guidance and reassurance I can get these days. Whatever you can provide, I’ll be grateful for. Thanks for whatever help you’ve provided in getting us this far.”
Geary paused again, wondering not for the first time why speaking to his ancestors almost always brought comfort. He wouldn’t have described himself as a deep believer of any kind, but nonetheless always felt that someone was listening at such times. And if a man couldn’t trust his ancestors with confidences, who could he trust? “This is very difficult. I’m doing my best, but I’m not at all sure my best will be good enough. There’s a lot of people depending on me. Some of them are going to die. I can’t pretend that won’t happen. Even if I somehow do absolutely everything just right, some ships are going to be lost before this fleet gets home. If I make mistakes-” He stopped, thinking of Repulse. “If I make more mistakes, a lot of these people could die.
“It’s a long way back to Alliance space. I can’t even be sure what we’ll find if we get there. Hopefully I can tie up enough of the Syndicate Worlds fleet trying to catch us that they won’t be able to exploit our defeat at the Syndicate home world. But we’ll have no way of knowing whether the Syndics have gone after the Alliance using the advantage gained by their victory and by us being trapped out here, not until we get close enough to home to have a chance of getting fairly recent intelligence.”
He paused again. “It’s not that I’m worried about what’ll happen to me. I feel like I should’ve died a century ago. But I can’t give in to that feeling because I do care about what happens to the people who’ve placed so much trust in me. Please help me make the right decisions and do the right things, so I lose as few ships and sailors as possible. I swear I’ll try my best to do right by you and by the living.”
Geary sat for a while longer, watching the candle burn, then reached out, snuffed the flame, stood, and walked out of the room.
As he left the area, several sailors saw him. He nodded in greeting while they watched him with awed expressions. Hell, I ought to be one of the dead ancestors people are talking to, instead of walking these decks. They know that.
But the sailors didn’t act like they’d seen someone who didn’t belong here. A couple of them saluted with the stiff awkwardness of someone who’d recently learned the gesture. Geary found himself smiling as he returned the salutes. Then he caught a flash of wariness in the eyes of two other sailors and his smile vanished. His own people shouldn’t be afraid of him. “Is something wrong?”
The sailor he’d addressed went white. “N-no, sir.”
Geary eyed the man for a moment. “Are you sure? You seem to have concerns. If you need to discuss them privately, I’ve got some time.”
The sailor was still groping for a reply when his companion cleared her throat. “Sir, it’s none of our business.”
“Really?” Geary looked around, reading the disquiet in the others. “I’d like to know what’s bothering you anyway.”
The woman paled slightly as well, then spoke haltingly. “It’s just, seeing you here. There’d been some talk.”
“Talk?” Geary tried to keep from frowning. He didn’t like making a public spectacle of his belief, but this seemed to be something beyond that. “About what?”
One of the sailors who’d saluted answered while he gave the worried ones an annoyed glance. “Sir, nobody’d seen you here since, uh, since we picked you up. And since we left the Syndic home system, well, sir, some people thought maybe what happened there had something to do with that.”
Geary hoped he didn’t look as annoyed as felt by the vagueness of the statement. “What in particular?” Then it struck him. “You mean Repulse, don’t you?” The expressions on the sailors answered his question better than words could have. “You mean because my grandnephew probably died on Repulse.”
He looked down, momentarily not wishing to look at the others, and shook his head. “Did you think I was afraid to come here and deal with him? Deal with that?” Geary raised his head and once again read the answer in their expressions. “I don’t know how much you all know, but Captain Michael J. Geary volunteered to keep Repulse back and hold off the Syndics. If he hadn’t done that, I might’ve had to order it, because that would’ve been my responsibility, but I didn’t order it. I didn’t have to. He and his crew voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the rest of us.”
Their faces told Geary they hadn’t known that. Great. They’ve been thinking that I’d ordered my grandnephew to his death. The hell of it is that I might’ve really had to do that. “I have nothing to fear facing my ancestors. No more than anyone else, I guess. There’s just been a lot going on. That’s why I haven’t been down here before.”
“Of course, sir,” one sailor replied quickly.
“You’re not afraid of anything, are you, sir?” another asked in a rush.
One of my worshippers, Geary thought. How do I answer that? “Like anyone else, I’m worried about doing my best. It keeps me on my toes.” He grinned to show it was meant to be a joke, and the sailors laughed on cue. Now all he had to do was get out of this conversation as quickly as possible without being too obvious about it. “I’m sorry to have kept you from your own observances.”
The sailors offered a chorus of replies indicating the fault was theirs and then made way for Geary. He noted as he passed that the two worried sailors seemed much more comfortable around him now. To his own surprise, he realized he felt a little more comfortable around them. Perhaps, in his own way, he had been shying away from dealing with what had happened to Repulse, but by openly stating his feelings to others, he’d come to accept it somewhat.
He walked on toward his stateroom, feeling that the burdens on him were, for the moment, a bit lighter.
