“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 singlesuit, 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
