David Weber - Path of the Fury

Their experiments had combined dismay and excitement in almost equal measure, yet neither Tisiphone's own sense of discovery and rediscovery nor Alicia's amazement at what she still could accomplish had been sufficient to banish her boredom. She was a being of fire and passion, the hunger and destruction of her triumvirate of selves. Alecto had been the methodical one, the inescapable stalker patient as the stones themselves, and Megarea had been the thinker who analyzed and pondered with a mind of ice and steel. Tisiphone was the weapon, unleashed only when her targets had been clearly identified, her objectives precisely defined. Now she could not even know who her targets were, much less where to find them, and she felt … lost. Ignorance added to her sense of frustration, for if she had no doubt of her ultimate success, she was unused to delays and puzzles. It had turned her surly and snappish (not, she admitted privately, an unusual state for such as she) with her host until a fresh revelation diverted them both.

Tisiphone had discovered computers. More to the point, she had encountered the processors built into Alicia's augmentation, and had she been the sort of being who possessed eyes, they would have opened wide in surprise.

The data storage of Alicia's processors was little more than a few dozen terabytes, for bioimplants simply couldn't rival the memories of full-sized units, yet they were the first computers Tisiphone had ever met, and she had been amazed by how easy they were to access. It had taken no effort at all, for they were designed and programmed for neural linkage; the same technique which slipped into a mortal's thoughts through his nerves and brain worked just as well with them, and the vistas that opened were dazzling.

It was almost like finding the ghost of one of her sister selves. A weak and pallid revenant, without the rich awareness which had textured that forever-lost link, yet one which expanded her own abilities many-fold. Tisiphone had only the vaguest grasp of what Alicia called "programming" or "machine language," but those concepts were immaterial to her. A being crafted to interface with human minds had no use or need for such things; anything structured to link with those same minds became an extension of them and so an instinctive part of herself.

She had scared Alicia half to death, and felt uncharacteristically penitent for it afterward, the first time she activated her host's main processor and walked her body across the room without consulting her. Their security codes meant nothing to Tisiphone, and she unlocked them effortlessly, exploring the labyrinthine marvels of logic trees and data flows with sheer delight. Their molycirc wonders had become a vast, marvelous toy, and she flowed through them like the wind, recognizing the way in which she might use them, in an emergency, as both capacitor and amplifier. They restored something she had lost, restored a bit of what she once had been, and she had sensed Alicia's amusement as she chattered away about her finds.

Yet it was past time for them to be about their mission, and she wondered if Alicia's meeting with Sir Arthur Keita would bring the moment closer or send it receding even further into the future.

Alicia's spine stiffened against her will as she stepped into the sparsely appointed conference room. A small, spruce man in the crimson tunic and blue trousers of the Ministry of Justice's uniformed branches stood looking out a window. He didn't turn as she and Tannis entered, and she was just as happy. Her eyes were on the square, powerful man seated at the table.

He still refused to wear his ribbons, she noted. Well, no one was likely to pester him about proper uniform. She came to attention before him, clasping her hands behind her, and stared three inches over his head.

"Captain Alicia DeVries, reporting as ordered, sir!" she barked, and Sir Arthur Keita, Knight Grand Commander of the Order of Terra, Solarian Grand Cross, Medal of Valor with diamonds and clasp, and second in command of the Personal Cadre of His Imperial Majesty Seamus II, studied her calmly.

"Cut the kay-det crap, Alley," he rumbled in a gravel-crusher voice, and her lips quirked involuntarily. Her eyes met his. He smiled. It was a small smile, but a real one, easing a bit of the tightness in her chest.

"Yes, Uncle Arthur," she said.

The shoulders of the man looking out the window twitched. He turned just a tad quickly, and her lips quirked again at his reaction to her lese majeste. So he hadn't known how the troops referred to Keita, had he?

"That's better." Keita pointed at a chair. "Sit."

She obeyed without comment, clasping her hands loosely in her lap, and returned his searching gaze. He hadn't changed much. He never did.

"It's good to see you," he resumed after a moment. "I wish it could be under different circumstances, but-" A raised hand tipped, as if pouring something from a cupped palm. She nodded, but her eyes burned with sudden memory. Not of Mathison's World, but of another time, after Shallingsport. He'd known the uselessness of words then, too, when she'd learned of her promotion and medal and he'd shared her grief. A time, she thought, when she'd actually believed she would remain in the Cadre and not just of it.

"I know I promised we'd never reactivate you," he continued, "but it wasn't my decision." She nodded again. She'd known that, for if Sir Arthur Keita seldom gave his word, that was only because he never broke it.

"However," he went on, "we're both here now, and I've postponed this debrief as long as I could. The relief force pulls out for Soissons day after tomorrow; I'll have to make my report- and my recommendations-to Governor Treadwell and Countess Miller when we arrive, and I won't do that without speaking personally to you first. Fair?"

"Fair." Alicia's contralto was deeper than usual, but her eyes were steady, and it was his turn to nod.

"I've already viewed your statement to Colonel McIlheny, so I've got a pretty fair notion of what happened in the fire fight. It's what happened after it that bothers me. Are you prepared to tell me more about it now?"

The deep voice was unusually gentle, and Alicia felt an almost unbearable temptation to tell him everything. Every single impossible word. If anyone in the galaxy would have believed her it was Uncle Arthur. Unfortunately, no one could believe her, not even him, and they weren't alone. Her eyes nipped to the Justice man, and an eyebrow arched.

"Inspector Ferhat Ben Belkassem, Intelligence Branch," Keita said. "You may speak freely in front of him."

"In front of a spook?" Alicia's eyes snapped back to Keita's face, suddenly hard, and the temptation to openness faded.

"In case you've forgotten, I'm a spook," he replied quietly.

"No, sir, I haven't forgotten. And, sir, I respectfully decline to be debriefed by Intelligence personnel." It came out clipped and colder than she'd intended, and Ben Belkassem's eyebrows rose in surprise.

Keita sighed, but he didn't retreat. His eyes bored into her across the table, and there was no yield in his voice.

"That isn't an option, Alley. You're going to have to talk to me." "Sir, I decline."

"Oh, come on, Alley! You've already spoken to McIlheny!"

"I have, sir, when under the impression that he remained a combat branch officer. And-" her voice turned even colder "-Colonel McIlheny is neither Cadre nor a representative of the Ministry of Justice. As such, he may in fact be an honorable man."

She felt Cateau flinch behind her, but Tannis held her tongue and Ben Belkassem stepped back half a pace. It wasn't a retreat; he was simply giving her room, declaring his neutrality in whatever lay between her and Keita.

The brigadier leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose.