Elizabeth Moon: Against the Odds

She started to climb down; Oblo raised a shout himself. “To Brun!!”

“To Brun!! To the Speaker!! To the Council!!”

After that came one toast after another, until, following one offered by the senior Serrano admiral, an uneasy silence fell. Cecelia could hear the shuffling of feet, the rustle of cloth. She wondered if they were waiting for the civilian guests to make a toast.

Then Heris Serrano held her glass high. “Absent friends,” she said. And in a roar she was answered, this time with the names, a cacophony of names, and Cecelia found herself repeating her own list.

As the noise level dropped, first one voice then another began to sing, a haunting tune Cecelia had never heard before.

“My God,” the man in the yellow jacket said, loud enough for her to hear. “That’s ancient music. Parry’s setting of Blake’s lyrics. ‘Jerusalem’—the battle hymn of the Anglican Masses two centuries or more before humans left Old Earth. But the words . . .” His voice choked, and he shook his head. Cecelia had no idea what he was talking about, and decided he hadn’t taken any antox.

After a pause, some of the voices were singing again.

“That’s right,” the man said in an undertone.

“That too.”

“It’s not a ship, it’s a spear . . .”

“Shut up , stupid,” Cecelia hissed at him. He gave her a startled look over his shoulder, opened his mouth, glanced at Oblo, and turned back to his drink, mercifully silent.

The last voices died away. The man in the yellow jacket turned to her; she saw tears on his face, and felt them on her own.

“Sorry,” he said. “It was just—I’d only heard that on recordings. That music was powerful enough there . . . in real life . . . it’s overwhelming.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cecelia said.

“Civilians mostly don’t hear it,” Oblo said.

Meharry edged up to the man in the yellow jacket and tapped his arm. “My brother, now, he says you’re a professor and saved his life.”

“Meharry—that young man we pulled out of the raft? I don’t think I saved his life—”

“You did put that nasty major to sleep,” the young woman said. She grinned at Meharry and Oblo. “I’m Ensign Pardalt; I was there too. I think the professor saved him a lot of trouble, if not his life.”

“You’re from Xavier, right?” Oblo asked.

“Yes—is that Commander Serrano over there?”

“Admiral Serrano, now. But yes, if you mean the Serrano who fought at Xavier. Lieutenant Suiza’s there too.”

The younger woman’s eyes widened. “Both of them here together? I should—I should go thank them—”

“Come along, then,” Meharry said. “I’ll take you over there.” The professor sighed, then smiled ruefully when Cecelia looked at him.

“It’s not even the young and handsome who can compete with me. Alas, I am a useless old windbag—” He sighed again and grinned. “But you, another beauteous redhead—”

“No one says beauteous anymore,” Cecelia said. “And I’m not—I’m older than you are.”

“Are you sure? I’m over fifty . . .”

“My looks are deceiving,” Cecelia said. She couldn’t help it; talking to him seemed to make bad dialogue pop out of her mouth.

“Oh, well, then. Since you have stars on your shoulder, I presume you’re an admiral, and maybe you can tell me when I can get home to my wife.”

“Sorry,” Cecelia said. “I’m not in that department. It should be soon, though. I’ll be glad to get home, too.”

“She’s a very bright girl, that Margiu Pardalt,” the professor said, gazing after her, “but she’s no substitute for a wife. My wife, at least.”

A gust of icy wet wind blew in as a group in uniform threw open the doors. Cecelia squinted past the lights; she didn’t recognize any of them. But from the sudden tense hush, she knew someone did.

“Who’s that?” she asked Oblo.

“Livadhis,” Oblo said. “Lots and lots of Livadhis . . .”

“Livadhi—but wasn’t that the one who—?”

“Yes.” Cecelia could feel Oblo’s tension, and she glanced at the tableful of Serrano officers. They, too, had seen the Livadhis. “And what they’re doing here—”

“Admiral Serrano,” the man in front of the group said. He had, Cecelia noticed, stars on his shoulders. More than any of the others.

“ Which Admiral Serrano,” muttered Oblo, along with something Cecelia refused to admit she’d heard.

All the admirals Serrano stood up, and Cecelia was suddenly reminded of the confrontation scene in a bad historical drama, two rival gangs facing each other down. Sabado Serrano moved, as if to speak, but Heris put out her hand.

“We are sorry for your loss,” she said, into the silence.

“You—” that was the senior Livadhi, but his voice choked. He shook his head, then went on. “We came to apologize to you. For what he did.”

“I named him,” Heris said. “As an absent friend.”

Cecelia felt an ache in her chest; it had never occurred to her to name a traitor as an absent friend, to grieve for an enemy.

“Is it too late to sing him home?” asked the senior Livadhi.

“It is never too late,” Heris said, “to honor the good in a man’s life, or grieve his loss.” She nodded to the other Serranos and began the song; other voices joined in.