“Makes sense. As far as it goes. You want to talk about that?”
“There’s not much to say. I’ve been looking for piloting jobs…”
“You won’t get one. The RSF has contracts with most of the outfits. Those who aren’t under contract have major clients or suppliers who do.”
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing.” The newsie took another swallow of the stout. “That’s the problem. When you see things happen, and no one knows anything, when you don’t hear things, and you can’t find out why, that’s when there’s a problem.”
“Can you tell me what’s really happening here?” asked Van.
“Outside of a resurgence of the Christos Revivos? Or the new Temple of the Community of the Revealed?”
“They’ve built a temple here in Bannon?”
“Out to the southwest. On a hill where you can see it for klicks. They’re getting converts, too. I guess it’s the times. Everyone wants certainty, and the old faiths provide it. God sets the only rules. Men run things, and women follow. Marriage is only between man and woman…”
Van winced.
Ashley laughed, the sound deep with irony. “You see. Everything’s the same as it’s always been, except more so. Thought that was why you left.” He paused. “And the worst of it is that it’s better here than on Tara or in most of the other Taran systems. We’ve still got some local perquisites. Of course, that puts us on the bottom of the list for any sort of support from the Taran Parliament.”
Van sipped the pale ale. It tasted flat, but he wasn’t sure it was the ale. “That was one of the reasons. Also, I’m not logical enough to be an advocate, and not gifted enough for singing or the arts, and not tactful enough for business or anything else. I’m not exactly a multi man. That doesn’t leave much.”
“Yet you came back.”
“My family’s here.”
Ashley just looked at Van.
Finally, Van shrugged. “I guess I had to see if things had changed.”
“Have they?”
“I appreciate my fathers more, and the family, but I’m not sure anything else has changed.”
“I always liked your fathers. Still do. Heard your Dad Almaviva in the BOP production of Cesare. Last year he did Daland in Der Fliegende Holländer again. He was incredible. In a way, he reminded me of you.”
“Because I’m always back on a ship? Because in three times seven years, I’ve never found the right woman?” Van shook his head. “I don’t know. Getting to stay a pilot doesn’t look that promising. My dads have been more successful in pursuing their careers to the end.”
“You’ll do fine,” Ashley said. “Does Almaviva still cook those fantastic meals?”
Van laughed. “He does. That’s another reason why I’ve had to keep working out.” After a moment, he asked, “How about Mairee and your kids?”
“Mairee…she has her own dance studio now. She hung up the slippers about five years ago. Likes being her own boss. There’s a healthy waiting list. Marina is a junior at the Academy…”
As Ashley talked, Van listened, appreciating the moment…and still wondering why all that his friend mentioned seemed so distant. He took a long sip of the pale ale. It wasn’t flat, he decided, but it didn’t taste the way he recalled.
Was that the danger of trying to revisit the past? Was it ever as remembered?
Chapter 36
After the dinner, Aelsya had volunteered to do the dishes. Sappho and Van sat on the rear terrace of the couple’s hillside house, looking to the north at the badlands and feeling the swirling twilight breeze that mixed the hot air of the rocky wasteland with the cooler air sweeping down from the higher hills to the west.
“That was a good dinner,” Van said.
“Thank Aelsya,” Sappho replied. “I’m just the sous-chef when it comes to cooking. Our kids know that. Lesnym’s nice enough not to say anything. Farah complains if I’m cooking.”
“You’re better than you let on. You just don’t want to cook that much.”
“That just might be.” Sappho laughed softly. “Aelsya’s always said as much, but she likes to cook. So it works out—except those nights when she’s at the medcenter.”
The silence grew, punctuated by the squealing chirps of the badlands crickets that weren’t really crickets, but mutated miniature land arthropods that filled that niche.
“You still look like you’re somewhere deep in space, Van,” Sappho finally said.
“In a way, I am.” Van looked toward the apple trees, whose upper branches rose over the stone wall that separated the garden on the north side from the small orchard beyond. “I always knew what I wanted to be, and I’d never thought beyond that.”
“Can’t you still be a pilot? I know there aren’t many positions, but…with your record…?”
“That’s the problem. They all know my record. They don’t want heroes, or people who look into problems. They want an interstellar shuttle driver, one who gets passengers and cargo from orbit control alpha off planet beta to orbit control delta off planet gamma exactly on schedule with the minimum use of energy and the minimum deviation from schedule. Or they want someone to push rocks and water comets around with the least use of energy and no complaints.”
“There must be someone…”
Van didn’t reply.
“There is, isn’t there?”
“There is…but…I just don’t know.”
“They’re not renegades, are they?”
Van shook his head. “No. They’re a Coalition outfit, something called IIS—Integrated Information Systems. I ran a track on them—as well as I could. Ashley’s also looking into it for me, but I haven’t heard back from him.” Van had also asked Ashley for stories or background about the Fergus, claiming that he hadn’t seen anything because he’d been in the medcenter. “From what I could dig up, it’s an old operation, but it’s never been very big.”
“Old? How
