Walter Williams - Conventions of War

For once Martinez was happy for a delay in the fighting. When he advanced on the enemy, Tork would have to detach part of the Orthodox Fleet to guard Zanshaa, which meant he’d need enough new ships both to make up for the detachments and to match any reinforcements the Naxids had procured.

Disciplinary hearings onIllustrious demonstrated how bored the crew had become. The officers sometimes visited from ship to ship; but the enlisted were stuck with one another, and complaints of fighting, theft, and vandalism occupied an increasing amount of Martinez’s time.

He knew it wasn’t as if he hadn’t asked for it. He’d assured the crew that they could speak to him at any time, and though most had the good sense to leave him alone, some took full advantage. He not only found himself dealing with disciplinary issues, but advising crew on their investments and on matrimonial issues. He disclaimed any authority on these last, but in the end advised investment in Laredo Shipyards as well as wedlock. Weddings on the ship at least provided an excuse for a party and raised the crew’s spirits-unlike the two cases of genuine madness, crew who were actually raving and had to be subdued and tranquilized by Dr. Xi. One recovered, but the other showed every evidence of remaining a frenzied lunatic to the end of his days. He was shipped home on a courier vessel.

The days of Terza’s pregnancy slowly drew to their close. When he wrote her letters-or more properly, electronic facsimiles of letters-he found himself filled with a rising tenderness that surprised him. He hadn’t thought of himself as a sentimental person, as the sort of man who would flush with remembered affection for a woman he’d known for only a few days and who carried a child he might never see. He kept viewing Terza’s videos and had the latest playing silently in his desk display when he wasn’t using it for business.

In his dreams, however, he still burned for Sula. Perhaps the boredom and isolation were getting to him, as well as to the crew.

The time passed when he had expected to hear of the birth of his son, and he grew fretful. He snapped at Jukes during a meeting over some of the artist’s ideas for decoratingIllustrious, and gave Toutou an angry lecture about some supplies misfiled in the commissary.

The first bulletin came from his father, a video of Lord Martinez flushed with pride and bouncing in his chair with enthusiasm. “A large, lovely boy!” he boomed. “And named after the both of us-Gareth Marcus! Terza had no trouble at all-it was as if she’s been practicing in secret.” A large fist smacked into a meaty palm. “The Chen heir, born on Laredo, and with our names-I expect they’ll have to make him king, don’t you?”

Martinez was perfectly willing for his son to be proclaimed Gareth Marcus the First. He called for a bottle of champagne and shared it with Alikhan.

For once he didn’t dream of Sula. As he woke with a blurry head the next morning, he found a video from Terza waiting for him. She was propped up in bed wearing a lavender-colored nightdress buttoned to the neck. Someone had combed her hair and applied cosmetic. She held the future Lord Chen in her arms, and tilted the round face toward the camera lens. Young Gareth’s eyes were squeezed shut with stubborn determination, as if he had resolved that the outside world should not exist and he refused to contemplate any evidence to the contrary.

“Well, here he is,” Terza said. Her smile was weary but not without pride. “He’s given no trouble at all. The doctor said it was the easiest delivery he’d ever seen. We both send our love, and we hope to see you soon.”

Martinez’s heart melted. He watched the video half a dozen times more, then proclaimed a holiday on the ship, the crew excused from normal duties except for watchkeeping. He ordered Toutou to open the spirit locker and share out a drink to the crew. Again he split a bottle of champagne, this time with Michi.

Myson’s going to be the head of yourclan, he thought.

A few days later he was invited to a reception on Fleet Commander Kringan’s flagship. The invitation specified undress, so he left the Golden Orb and the white gloves in his cabin. Michi usedDaffodil to ferry all her other captains to Kringan’s flagship, so they arrived a little late. The air aboardJudge Kasapa tasted of Torminel rather than Terrans.Kasapa was a sixty-year-old ship, old enough to have gained the dignity that comes with age-the allegorical bronzes in their niches were polished smooth and bright by the hands of generations, and the geometrical tiles had lost a bit of their original brilliance and faded to a more mellow shade.

The officers were grouped in the fleetcom’s dining room, from which the long table had been removed to make room. Smaller buffet tables had been set on either end-lest Torminel eating habits spoil anyone’s appetite, the marrow bones and bloody raw meat were across the room from the food intended for other species. Tork, busy planning his next conquest, wasn’t around to spoil the party. Kringan, wearing braid-spangled viridian shorts and a vest over his gray fur, chatted amiably in his adjoining office with a group of senior officers. Martinez got a whisky from one of the orderlies and held a plate with some kind of fritter in the other hand. He was pleased to encounter a Torminel captain he had once commanded in Light Squadron 14, who had been given command of one of the new cruisers, and Martinez chatted for a moment about the new ship and its capabilities.

And then the grouping of officers shifted and a sudden awareness of Sula crawled across his skin on scuttling insect legs. She stood about five paces away, talking to a Terran elcap Martinez didn’t know. She stood straight and slim in her dark green uniform, and there was a slight smile on her face. Whatever words Martinez was about to offer his former captain died on his lips.

“Yes, my lord?” the Torminel said.

From a stiffening of Sula’s spine and the way the smile caught on her face, Martinez knew that she was aware of his presence. He tried to continue his conversation, but his mind was awhirl and his heart lurched in his chest.

This was impossible. He should at least try to be civil.

“Excuse me, my lord,” he said, and stepped toward her, awkward with the fritter sitting like an offering on his plate.

Sula likewise disposed of her companion and turned to face him. She was so lovely that her beauty struck him like a blow. Her hair was a shade more golden than he remembered, and shorter. Her scent was something muskier than the Sandama Twilight he remembered. Her green eyes examined him with something that might be calculation, or malevolence, or contempt.

“Congratulations on your promotion,” he said.

“Thank you.” She cocked her head to one side and studied him. “You deserve congratulations as well, my lord,” she said. “I hear your wife has spawned.”

A blast of furnace anger flashed through his veins, but even in his fury he felt an icy sliver of rationality amid the flame, and he clung to it.

He could hurt her now. And she had just given him the justification.

“Yes,” he said. “Terza and I are very happy. And you?”

Her mouth pressed into a firm line. Her eyes were stone. “I haven’t had the leisure,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Martinez said. “You seem to have made a wrong choice or two, somewhere in the recent past.”

He saw a shift in her eyes as the blow struck home.

“True,” she said. “I made a bad decision when I first met you, for instance.”

She turned and marched away, heels clicking on the tiles, walking away from him as she had at least twice before; and Martinez felt the tension suddenly drain from him. His knees wavered.

Honors about even, he thought. But she was the one who fled.