DAYS 246–251

Ky hadn’t wanted to come to Corleigh, but the Vatta tik plantation was one place the media could not easily invade, and for the sake of a little privacy she had accepted Helen’s invitation to use the new vacation home on the other side of the cove from the house she had grown up in. It looked different, for which she was grateful: an airy beach house up on stilts with a wide veranda all the way around. She and Rafe dropped their small luggage in the largest of three bedrooms, changed, then walked down to the shore. It was the middle of winter here, but a winter milder than Miksland’s summer, and as the sun set and all the colors of a tropical evening shifted in water and sky, she tried to pretend everything was the same as before she left that first time.

“We’re on a tropical island at last,” Rafe said. “Two of your moons are up.”

She had not noticed, deep in her thoughts. She stared at the night sky and felt nothing thematically related to moonlight on a tropical beach. “It’s the tropical island where my parents and brothers died.” She turned, facing the paler blur that was his face. “How comfortable were you, back in the house where you had to kill that man?”

“Not,” he said. “Not at all. We sold it—or rather, I hear from Penny that she did, for a good amount, shortly after I left. It was … eerie, when I went back there. I didn’t fit at all.”

“And you had a house,” Ky said. “I have the bare place where it was and the memory of it.” The memory of her mother’s dead face in the ash-covered pool, so vivid in her father’s implant, had faded when those memories were removed from her implant. She knew she had seen it; she just couldn’t retrieve it now.

She couldn’t see Rafe’s face, but she heard the change in his voice, the deliberate calm. “So … we should go back to the beach house. At least that’s not in your memories.” She could almost hear the unspoken We could make our own.

Ky nodded; they returned to the house in silence, and during supper talked only of inconsequential things. That set the pattern for the next five days. Avoiding the past, not discussing the future, and in that empty present feeling out whether they still had a future together without talking about it. They walked the beach from one cove to the other, swam several times a day, ate meals from the well-stocked freezer without paying much attention to them. Hours on the wide veranda that encircled the house, conversations that died away in a few minutes, leaving Ky still uncertain. The nights … the nights were good, comfort and ease and a reminder how well she and Rafe suited each other. But she woke while he slept, her mind still replaying scenes from the crash, from the lifeboats, from Miksland. Why had she done this, and not that? What else could she have done that would have had a better outcome?

She and Rafe had both brought their comunits, and they had both locked down their skullphones. The local hub at the Vatta office nearby could transmit wirelessly to the house, but Ky didn’t pick up her comunit from the table where she’d dropped it until the fourth day. If Rafe used his, he didn’t tell her about it.

Nothing from Stella or Helen or Grace: they knew she and Rafe wanted to be left alone. A query from a journalist wanting an interview. And a longer communication, via Captain Pordre in Vanguard, from Dan Pettygrew back on Greentoo. She’d known something like this might be coming, but—

“How’s the admiral business coming?” Rafe had been stirring eggs for breakfast. His expression now was wary.

Ky let out a huff of air. “It’s not. Official notice—” She calculated the date from Cascadian to Slotter Key calendar. “Three or four days ago, Cascadian.”

Rafe looked stunned, then furious. “They canned you? They canned you? It’s your fleet; you created it; you saved them—everybody—”

Ky shook her head. “They had reasons. The other governments might have let me come back, but Moscoe Confederation blames me for Commander Bentik’s death. Her family’s prominent in Cascadian politics. Dan Pettygrew sent a long apologetic letter about it. He argued but says here it was hopeless. He thought I’d want him to stay in command, so he went along. He did insist on having my back pay and severance pay deposited to my account at Crown & Spears in Cascadia and suggests I transfer it immediately to Slotter Key. They might block transfer, he said.”

“That’s disgusting!” Rafe turned back to the cooktop. “Damn. These eggs are—”

“Fine,” Ky said. “Or trash—it doesn’t matter.”

“You should—”

“I shouldn’t, whatever you’re thinking. Serve those eggs or toss them out and I’ll do the next batch.” She stood up and stretched. “I was never a very good desk admiral, you know.”

“You were. You just don’t realize your own—”

“Talents. Yes, I do. Rafe, you know—I told you—I didn’t like that part of it. I was bored; I had even thought of resigning—”

“You didn’t tell me that!”

“No.” She nudged him away from the stove, where the pan of eggs looked like nothing she wanted to eat. She opened the recycler hatch with her foot and slid the mess out of the pan, cracked four more eggs and started again. “Get that funny-looking cheese out of the cooler.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“I do. You’ll like the result. And some chives, and a slice of last night’s ham.”

Rafe leaned on the counter while Ky put together an omelet. “Our cooks would never let any of us do anything in the kitchen.”

“We had a cook sometimes, but my parents agreed that everyone should know how to cook.” Ky cut the omelet in the pan and slid half onto each plate. “The thing is, Rafe, after the first shock I feel free. I am not going to spend my life bitter about this. And I’m not broke—that much back pay and what Pettygrew told me was the severance, what was already in my account there—and what Stella owes me now that I’ve turned over my shares to her—it’s not pebbles. I can do anything I want, with time to think about what that is.”

Rafe had started on his portion of omelet; his eyebrows had gone up. “In light of that, then,” he said, “the Board at ISC prefers Penny to me, especially because of my attachment to you. They still have ridiculous notions about Vattas. So we’re both out of a job. Same as you, I turned over my inheritance and she’s paying fair for it and says she’ll keep me on the books with a regular remittance, as before. I was getting tired of that corner office anyway.” After a moment, he went on. “So what will it be?”

“What I’d really like—” Ky paused to eat. And think. What did she really want? Not a beach house on Corleigh. Not on a planet at all. Space, then, but in what sense? When had she felt most alive? “I want excitement,” she said. “Interesting things to do, puzzles to solve, new places. I don’t care about the rank and all the attention, and I don’t want to be stuck in an office day after day, signing papers, solving squabbles.”

“Puzzles? What kind of puzzles?”

“The one I found in Miksland. That whole base the bad guys were using, that we stayed in over the winter? Spaceforce didn’t build it. It was there already when the colonists arrived, with all kinds of tech that’s sort of human and sort of not. Labs full of what I think are templates for different kinds of animals and plants. Our history doesn’t go that far back. They came, they messed with the planet, moved things around, left and came back time and again to add to the life-forms, or maybe other things. And then left. They’d have had to start long before we think humans left Old Earth. Unless Old Earth was one of their other projects, not the original at all.”

“And you want to chase that down? You don’t want to figure out who was behind the trouble here? It’s your home world, and it affects your family.”

“No.” She could hear the tension in her voice. “I don’t want to stay here one day longer than I have to; I want to get off this planet and never come back. It’s their problem; let them deal with it.”

Rafe sighed. “Ky, I know you’ve had a shock—more than one—on this planet and about this planet, but this does not sound like you. You don’t run away from problems—”

“This is different—”

“Hear me out. It’s not like you. It may be you need more time, or better therapy than a rakehell lover can give … have you ever checked into your implant to see if that medical team at Moray left you any guidance?”

“No.”

“Would you look at the indices and see if they did?”

“Why? I didn’t want to come in the first place, and I want to leave—” She heard the rising tone in her voice, and stopped there.

Rafe said nothing for a long moment. “Then—if that’s what you really want, I have a business proposition.”

“A business proposition.” She had her voice under control, but her neck hurt and she had to unclench her hands finger by finger.

“Yes. You have money in the bank. I have money in the bank—same as you. Let’s buy a ship and go.”

“Just like that?” She could not believe he’d given in so quickly; the argument she’d feared wasn’t going to happen. Self-doubt vanished; she felt light as a balloon.

“Yes. Well, after we’ve lolled on the tropical sands another week or so maybe.”

“Now,” Ky said. She pushed back her chair. “Can you think of a better time?”

“I could,” Rafe said, finishing his omelet. “But there’s always another day. Frankly I think starting tomorrow is better than starting at lunchtime. Or the day after?”

“Tomorrow,” Ky said. “I am capable of compromise.”

Rafe laughed. “Fine, then. You cooked; I’ll do the heavy labor of putting stuff in the cleaner.”

A last walk on the beach, a last swim. Clothes in the ’fresher, bags open—everything was ready to go before they slept. Ky woke early, padded out to the main room, and called over to the local office to be sure the plane was ready for them.

“It’s not here, Admiral,” a pleasant female voice said. “It was called back to Port Major overnight.” No strain in that voice; the reason had not been anything dire.

There were other planes on Corleigh, charter craft in town. She had money. “What’s the current charter service’s contact?”

“Admiral—” What might have been a gulp; the voice now sounded strained. “Um—you don’t want to leave. The others are coming; they’ll be here by noon. You could fly back then.” A pause, then, “The plane can be serviced and ready to take off again in a half hour.”

She did want to leave. If wishes grew wings … “Who exactly is coming?”

“Your aunt and your cousin, Admiral. I thought they would have notified you.”

“All they told me was that I could have the house for a while and would not be disturbed.” She could hear the edge in her own voice and softened it deliberately. “Perhaps they will call before they arrive. I hope nothing has happened.”

“Nothing on the news summary,” the voice said.

“Thank you,” Ky said. When she turned, Rafe was watching her from the doorway. “Best-laid plans,” she said. “We’re stranded, and the next arrival is Stella, Helen, and the twins.”

“That’s an odd definition of you won’t be disturbed.”

“My thought exactly. We could call town for transportation and charter a flight out, but I expect they’ll call here and panic if we don’t answer.”

She and Rafe had just time to eat breakfast before the house phone rang again.

Five hours later, the little electric podcar rolled up to the back of the house. Stella and Helen climbed out, and then the twins erupted, shrill voices sending every bird in the trees rocketing away as they ran toward the house.

“Were you like that?” Rafe murmured in Ky’s ear.

“Probably,” Ky said. “But there was only one of me. We’d better help.”

“Not much in this load,” Helen said. “The rest will come later.” She looked around, her expression tense. “Where are the—Oh.” The twins appeared around the corner of the house, one chasing the other, both shrieking, and disappeared again around the next corner.

“We need to tire them out,” Stella said, pulling a couple of insulated cases from the podcar. “Here—this one’s food, Ky. Rafe, the other is your black bag from Aunt Grace’s.”

Once everything was out of the podcar, Stella reset its instructions and it trundled back toward the airstrip. Ky, Rafe, and Stella moved everything inside.

“What’s going on?” Ky asked. Her duffel and Rafe’s were still by the door.

“Problems,” Helen said. “You know that flight recorder you brought back?”

“Yes. What about it?”

“It’s gone missing. And someone broke into our house yesterday when Stella and I had taken the children for their yearly checkups. Nothing was taken, but the alarm didn’t go off and nobody noticed anything wrong until we got back and the side door had been kicked right off the hinges. I’m sorry we interrupted you, but—”

“You didn’t, really,” Ky said. “We were going to leave this morning. New plans, Rafe and I. If you hadn’t arrived, we’d have been in Port Major by now—”

“What plans?” Stella asked, stacking fruit from the cooler onto a platter.

“Well—we’re both at loose ends, so we’re going to buy a ship and go—do things. Explore. Learn new things. Have smaller adventures.” She didn’t want to explain what she’d thought of. This morning it sounded less rational than it had the day before.

“Just how do you plan to finance this?”

Ky grinned. “Space Defense is giving me severance pay and back pay; you owe me for my shares in Vatta, and Rafe’s got money coming from the same kind of sources, since his sister’s taking over as CEO. We realized we could buy a reasonably sized ship, and decided to grab it while we could.”

“Well, you can’t,” Stella said. She glanced sideways at Helen. “Moscoe Confederation has slapped a lien on your Cascadian accounts, pending a court hearing on damages due the family of your aide. I had a call from the local branch of Crown & Spears. Since you’re still a Slotter Key citizen, they won’t allow a foreign government to seize the funds you have here, but they can’t guarantee it’s safe to transfer them to other branches in other jurisdictions. More than that, because I transferred my permanent residence to Cascadia, if your account there isn’t enough to cover whatever a court decides, I’ll have to pay it out of Vatta funds there. My accounts aren’t frozen, but I’ve been served notice of intent to collect on your behalf.”

“That’s—ridiculous.”

“It’s their laws. You’ve been there; you know what they’re like. And Slotter Key’s Budget Director has declined to pay Mackensee’s fee for their contract here—claiming Grace had no right to make such a contract without prior approval, and she can just pony up the money on her own. Which means, of course, Vatta has to pay it, and that means—I’m sorry to say—that I don’t have the money I owe you for your shares. Because I don’t want to go to jail and don’t want Grace to go to jail and don’t want Helen to lose her house.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m very serious. There’s a fight in the legislature right now whether to try to assign us damages for the people who died on Miksland, because you didn’t get them all out alive and well. Besides the money problem, which Rafe perhaps could solve, the government won’t let you leave until they’ve satisfied all their legal wrangling.” She wiped out the cooler, set it back on the floor, and turned back to Ky.

“But I want to get away from Slotter Key!” And never come back, not ever.

Rafe stepped to her side, put an arm around her. “If you’re broke, I can’t buy us a spaceship. I could buy us tickets offplanet, but if you can’t leave, I’m staying, too. And if we’re stuck here, we might as well amuse ourselves.”

“It’s not funny!”

“No, but it’s interesting.”

“I’m not interested—”

“I am. I am because it affects you, and because I am a shameless meddler who can’t pass up a good mystery. Tell you what. Why don’t we take the children for a swim, let Stella and Helen cook us all a good supper—” He stopped, swung her around, looked at her. “You aren’t buying this.”

“No.” She felt petulant. She felt the way she had as a child, unfairly manipulated by adults who refused to understand how important something was, and how right she was—she felt the corner of her mouth twitch before she recognized the change of mood. “It’s not funny,” she said again, daring him to argue. “It may be funny later; it may be interesting later, but right now—”

“You want to hit somebody. I understand. We’ll take the children swimming. Maybe you can hit a shark.”

When they came back inside, the children far less worn out than any of the adults had hoped, Ky had in fact thumped a small shark for swimming too close. She came back up through the gritty broken shells fringing the high-tide line, brushing the sand off her feet on the way up the steps to the veranda. The smells from the house were meat and spices and something sweet in the oven.

After supper the twins were handed books and papers to work on at the table; the adults left them complaining about homework and adjourned to the seaward side of the veranda with a plate of cookies.

“Our investigations while you were missing didn’t get as far as we’d hoped—as we were closing in, we realized someone had called in mercs, and they were going to land on Miksland earlier,” Stella said.

“Right,” Rafe said. “And we thought blowing the server farm—”

“You blew a server farm?” Ky turned to him.

“Yes. Thought it would slow them down, disrupt the attack, but it didn’t. We hadn’t been able to penetrate far enough. Mackensee was due to arrive any day, but we didn’t know if they’d get here in time, which is why I sounded so frantic that time.”

“And right now,” Stella said, “the important thing is that evidence has disappeared—in the hands of Spaceforce and civilian law enforcement both—so we know both are involved. All Vatta facilities are buttoned up as tight as possible and still carry on the business—though we hope the enemies are all here on Slotter Key.”

“Do you think it connects with the earlier attack?” Ky looked from Rafe to Stella and back.

Rafe tipped his hand from side to side. “Maybe. It’s tempting to think so, but there’s been no sign so far of any action off this planet.”

“Aunt Grace and MacRobert are holed up in her office at the Defense Department. Grace is positive that no one mined Vatta’s headquarters this time, so my department heads are staying in the building. Teague’s guarding Grace’s house.” Stella reached for a cookie.

“How long will you stay here?” Ky asked Stella. Despite herself, she felt curiosity and determination both rising. She and Rafe could stay in Helen’s house, guarding that property, and be close enough to work with Grace.

“I’m heading back tomorrow morning, now that I’m sure you’re safe. That’s why I brought Rafe’s other kit; you and he can safely work from here—”

“No!”

“Ky, be reasonable. You can’t leave the planet.”

“I am not going to stay here, lolling around at a beach house, with nothing much to do but stare at a screen. I’m coming back with you. Rafe and I can stay in Grace’s house or Helen’s.”

“But that leaves Helen and the twins—”

“I’m not a babysitter.” One swim with the twins had convinced her of that.

“Fine, then.” Stella gave her the familiar I’m the grown-up cousin look. “You can come with me in the morning. Someone in the office here can help Helen with the twins until I can locate reliable staff. Can they use your house, Helen?”

“Of course. Though it’s already been broken into—”

“It won’t be once I upgrade the security,” Rafe said. “So—that’s settled.” He turned to Ky. “I told you another day would be better timing for going back to the mainland.”

“For buying a spaceship,” Ky said. She glared at him, no longer angry, but hoping to seem ferocious.

Rafe laughed. “For catching bad guys. Perfect timing for that.”

Ky grinned at him; she couldn’t help it. “Bad guys it is, then. But later, there’d better be a spaceship.”