“Sorry I didn’t come earlier,” Sawyer murmured, “but I’ve been busy all afternoon.” A faint smile. “Figured you’d like to stretch your legs . . . and besides, this way we can talk without being overheard.”
“You think our rooms are bugged?”
“No, not really . . . although I wouldn’t put it past Edgar.” Sawyer glanced back the way they’d come. “Melissa is my main concern. I don’t know what her range is, but I’m not taking any chances.”
Jorge gave him a wary look. “You don’t trust her?”
Sawyer raised his jacket collar against the wind. “Oh, I trust her, all right. She’s an old friend. It’s just that . . . well, for the time being, it would be best to keep this between the two of us. There’s something I’d like to show you.”
Once they were a safe distance from Government House, he deliberately slowed their pace to a leisurely stroll. The sidewalks hadn’t been cleared; their boots crunched against the fresh powder, their voices muffled by the soft hiss of the falling snow. “I spoke with Melissa just a little while ago,” Sawyer went on. “As I suspected, she’d lied when she told Vargas that she wasn’t searching him during the meeting. She was . . . and according to her, he was telling the truth the entire time. Or least he believed that what he said was true.”
“He believed . . . ?” Jorge shook his head. “Sorry, sir, but I don’t understand.”
“Melissa says that one of the things you learn once you become a telepath is that truth is seldom an absolute value. People perceive things in different ways, so they interpret what they see and hear according to their individual mind-sets. So when Vargas says the
chaaz’maha
is a menace, that he’s become a religious tyrant, that’s the truth as he sees it . . . but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s really true.” Sawyer paused, then added, “That’s something you’ll have to find out for yourself, once you get to Earth.”
That stopped Jorge in his tracks. “Does that mean you’re not coming with us?”
“Yes, it does.” Sawyer halted to turn toward him. “I thought I was going to lead the expedition, but that changed the second Vargas told us who was responsible for the bomb being aboard the
Lee
.” Jorge couldn’t see his face clearly in the darkness, but from the tone of his voice, he knew Sawyer was angry. “Damn Edgar. He could’ve let me know about David Laird, but he didn’t. Instead, he let Vargas drop that on us while we were all in the same room. That’s why I had to leave. I was too pissed off to . . .”
“I understand.” Jorge hesitated. “Why do you think he did that? Not warn you in advance, I mean.”
“We don’t like each other very much. I think he just wanted to show me who’s in charge around here.” Sawyer stamped the soles of his boots against the snow. “I’m glad your grandfather didn’t live long enough to see someone like him become president. Your grandmother knows him, of course, but she doesn’t . . .”
His voice trailed off. Not that he needed to finish his thought. Wendy Gunther, Carlos Montero’s widow and Jorge’s grandmother, had become a recluse since her husband’s death. One of the last surviving members of the
Alabama
party, she spent her days at Traveler’s Rest, the home she and Carlos had built on the Eastern Divide just outside Bridgeton. Jorge hadn’t seen her in nearly a year, but his parents had informed him that her health was in decline. And although Wendy herself had served two terms as president, she was no longer involved in politics. If Edgar had ever met her, it was probably in the most perfunctory way: perhaps only a courtesy call after he’d been sworn in as president.
“So you’re not coming with us?” Jorge asked, trying to get the conversation back on track.
“No.” Turning away from him, Sawyer continued down the sidewalk. “First, I’m going to visit your grandmother. She deserves to know, and I don’t want her to get the news from Edgar . . . if he even bothers to tell her.” He paused. “And then I’m going to track down Laird.”
Jorge wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. “Then what? If you find him, I mean?”
Sawyer pretended as if he hadn’t heard the question. “So I’m putting the expedition under your command. Edgar won’t like it, of course . . . but the Corps is mine, and it’s my prerogative as to who gets assigned to individual missions. So I’m putting it on you to find the
chaaz’maha
and bring him home.”
“Sir?” Caught by surprise, Jorge stumbled, almost losing his footing in the snow. “Are you sure you . . . I mean, that I’m ready for this?”
“What, you think you can’t handle this?” Sawyer didn’t look around. “Lieutenant, I can make that an order . . . but if it comes to that, I’d be just as happy to find someone else to take charge and relieve you from the expedition entirely. Do you really want me to do that?”
“No, sir, I don’t. It’s just that . . . are you sure I’m capable of . . . ?”
“You’re a Montero.” Sawyer’s voice was gruff, almost threatening. “Get used to it.”
There it was again, the same thing Jorge had heard all his life: the Montero legacy, and how he was expected to continue it. His great-grandfather, one of the so-called dissident intellectuals who’d helped steal the
Alabama
from the Western Hemisphere Union, only to become the first colonist to die on Coyote. His grandfather, explorer and war hero, the first president of the Coyote Federation. His parents, instigators of the rebellion that had sealed Coyote’s independence from Earth, and later the leaders of the First Exploratory Expedition.
A family history of pioneer fortitude and bravery. It had always been assumed that Jorge would carry on the tradition. There was never any question that he would join the Corps of Exploration or that he’d be groomed for a leadership role, yet no one ever asked him what he wanted out of life, nor was he ever given a choice to find his own destiny. He was a Montero, and he had to get used to it . . . whether he liked it or not.
“Sure,” Jorge muttered. “That’s what I always do.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Again, Jorge changed the subject. “How are we . . . how am
I
. . . going to get back to Earth? We could use KX-1, but that’s . . .”
“Seventy AUs from Earth,” Sawyer said, finishing his thought. “A long way to travel, yes, even if you use one of our own ships and not that beat-up wreck Vargas used to get here. But if he’s right, and Starbridge Earth is still active, then you can use it instead. It’ll save you a lot of time.”
“It would . . . but won’t the Talus object?”
“Edgar says he’s going to take it up with the
hjadd
ambassador, see if they’d be willing to make an exception. After all, your cousin is the
chaaz’maha
. . . they’ll probably want to have him returned to Coyote just as much as we do.” Again, Sawyer looked at him askance. “Don’t be surprised, though, if you have to first make a trip to Rho Coronae Borealis and plead your case before the High Council. They’ll have the final say, y’know.”
Hearing this, Jorge took a deep breath. “So now I’m going to have to play diplomat, too.”
This is getting worse all the time,
he silently added.
“No . . . no, you’re going to have a little help there. We’ll probably send the diplomatic liaison with you.” Sawyer grinned. “Quite a unique individual. I think you’ll be interested to meet him.” His grin faded. “I hate to say it, but you’re going to have Vargas along for the ride as well.”
“But he said he wasn’t . . .”
“I know what he said. But he’s been told that, unless he wants to be put on trial for piracy, he’s going with you back to Earth.” Sawyer gave Jorge an apologetic glance. “That’s just an excuse, of course. I don’t like him very much either. I’m not even sure how much we can trust him. But you’re going to need a native guide, and since he’s the only person around who’s been on Earth in the last nineteen years . . . ah, here we are.”
By then, they’d reached the Grange, the two-story wood-frame building that had been Liberty’s town hall during colonial times. Jorge was surprised when Sawyer began heading toward its entrance. As they tramped up the snow-covered front steps, the general reached into his parka and pulled out a key ring.
“Borrowed this from the curator,” Sawyer said quietly as he picked out a key. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching them. “So long as we lock up on the way out and turn off the lights, she doesn’t mind if we sneak in for a peek.”
“Why?” Like everyone else in Liberty, Jorge had visited the Grange dozens of times. “Nothing here I haven’t seen before.”
“I’m sure there isn’t.” Sawyer selected a key and fitted it into the front door. “But there’s still something I’d like to show you.”
Sawyer unlocked the door and pushed it open. The place was dark save for the cold radiance of streetlights, filtered by snowflakes, that slanted in through the tall windows. He fumbled along the wall for a few seconds until he located the switch for the ceiling lights that had been retrofitted into the building, replacing the fish-oil lanterns that once hung from the rafters. Fluorescent panels glowed to life, illuminating the large main room where colonists had convened for town meetings.
Although the Grange Hall had been restored to its original appearance, most of the faux-birch benches and tables were gone. In their place stood glass-covered shelves and tables, holding artifacts university historians had recovered from attics, basements, and storage sheds throughout the provinces. On display were handmade farm tools, ceramic goat’s-milk jugs, and homespun garments, along with fléchette rifles and ancient datapads brought from Earth. Handwritten journals lay open for public view; Jorge spotted his grandmother’s original diary, the basis for the memoirs she’d later write. Dominating one wall was an enormous watercolor mural depicting the
Alabama
, hand-painted by some forgotten artist just before the Union occupation. Below it, sealed inside a glass sarcophagus, was the single-masted cat-skin kayak that Carlos Montero had used to sail alone down the Great Equatorial River.
Yet Sawyer ignored most of the items. Instead, he sauntered across the bare wooden floor to the elevated stage at the far end of the room. “There,” he said, pointing to the wall above the stage. “Here’s what I want you to see.”
Within an airtight frame was one of the museum’s oldest and most valuable artifacts: a large flag, thirteen horizontal red and white stripes next to a blue field containing a single white star.
“You know what that is, don’t you?” Sawyer asked.
“Sure.” Jorge shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”
It was the flag of the United Republic of America, presented to Captain Robert Lee the day the
Alabama
left Earth. A placard affixed to the wall at eye level told the story that every schoolchild knew by heart: Lee refused to let it be flown above the colony, but he’d also resisted demands from some of the colonists to burn it. Instead, he had it displayed in the meeting room of the original Colonial Council as a reminder of the totalitarian government from which they had fled.
Sawyer gazed up at the flag. “When Melissa probed Vargas’s mind, trying to discover whether he was telling the truth, she kept finding this image. Particularly when he was talking about your cousin. She couldn’t get anything more than that, though, and she thinks maybe he figured she was searching him and was deliberately blocking the thoughts from his mind.” He was quiet for a moment. “Strange thing to find in someone’s head, isn’t it? After all, the URA has been dead and gone for . . . how long? Three hundred years?”
“Something like that.” Jorge swallowed what felt like a stone. “Yes, sir, it is strange. Think it means anything?”
Sawyer said nothing for a moment. “I think it means you better be careful,” he said at last. “There’s something going on back there that we don’t know about.”
Then he turned and began walking back toward the front door. “Come on. You’ve got a lot to do before you leave for Earth.”
Part 2
TRAVELER’S REST
(from the memoirs of Sawyer Lee)
On occasion, there comes a time in a man’s life when—suddenly,
without warning—the road ahead becomes clear. In that instant, his mind is focused upon achieving a single objective; all other considerations are secondary at best. When that happens, a man knows he must do this one thing, or else risk losing his honor and self-respect, perhaps even his soul.
The Corps of Exploration gyro circled the Eastern Divide before the pilot found a place where we could safely touch down. It wasn’t easy; when Carlos and Wendy built Traveler’s Rest, they made sure it would be as inaccessible as possible, and that included not furnishing an aircraft landing pad. I’d been there before, though, so I knew that the ridge wasn’t completely covered by trees; about a hundred yards from the manor was a level spot suitable for a small, two-man gyro, and that was where I told the pilot to put us down. He clenched his teeth, but he knew better than to argue with me. The rotor nacelles swiveled to horizontal position, and we managed to land without colliding with one of the stunted faux-birch trees clinging to the snow-covered granite bluff.
My arrival wasn’t unexpected—I knew better than to pay a visit without first calling ahead—but that didn’t mean I was welcome. Susan Montero had seen us coming, and even before the pilot lowered the landing gear, she’d left the house and walked down to meet us. The rotors had barely stopped spinning before she marched out to the gyro. One look at her face, and I knew that I was the last person she wanted to see, that day or any day.
“Morning, Susan,” I said, once I’d opened the side hatch and climbed out. “Good to see you again.”
That was a lie, of course. We’d never gotten along very well. Her husband was my chief of staff, so she had to put up with me. This was her family home, though, and my coming there constituted a breach of privacy that she could barely tolerate.
“Hello, General.” Her arms were folded across her chest, her gaze as cold as the Gabriel winds buffeting the ridgeline. She glanced past me; the pilot was climbing out of the gyro, buttoning up his parka with one hand as he removed his helmet. “Sorry,” she added, “but he can’t come in.”