Downtime (4 page)

Calla
stepped over the threshold and went directly to the only comfortable chair in
his room without waiting for an invitation or a salute. That much hadn’t
changed. When she didn’t have to, she didn’t stand on ceremony . . .
or, it seemed now, her legs. In the bright light, her hair shone like freshly
polished copper, giving her a brassy appearance that paled the gold worlds of
rank she wore on her crimson collar. A wave of dizziness provoked a feeling of
panic in Jason. Her hair should be graying, maybe solidly gray. There had been
a few, just enough to tease a young woman about, and her collar used to have a
metal bar.

“Arthritis,”
she said. He realized he had been staring at her. “I remember,” he said. “The
clinics still cannot help you?”

“I’m
still one of a kind,” she said, her hand rubbing her genetic tattoo
self-consciously. “The clinics can do nothing for me. There has not been and
will not be any new research; I’m still the only one with this combination of
autoimmunity and allergies, one not being enough to justify the expense. For
anything more serious than a clean laceration, the clinics have the same
recommendation. Euthanasia.”

“It’s
plain to see you haven’t taken their advice.” He tried to smile.

“Of
course not. We used to get along on Dovia just fine without cloned spare parts
and the combined knowledge of the known worlds to fix every ache and pain. I
don’t even consult them any more. The shamans can tell me everything I need to
know.”

He
remembered when they first discovered Calla’s genetic singularity; she hadn’t
had a tattoo then. Treatment for a broken hip, which should have resulted in a
few days’ stay in the clinic, left her near death. As the clinic became aware
of her exceptional problems, they also realized how utterly incapable they were
of dealing with them, and recommended euthanasia. Instead, Jason had found a
backworld shaman who agreed to treat her. That time she had recovered. And
every time since then, he reminded himself, though he had not been there to aid
her. Her durability was not surprising. With the possible exception of that one
time, she never had needed him for anything.

“Nothing
has changed,” he said.

“Everything
has changed,” she said, her sable eyes fixed on him before she leaned over to
push a hassock in front of her chair. She propped up her legs before sinking
back and cocking her head, looking for a moment like a quizzical spaniel. “I’m
thirty years older.”

“It’s
only fair,” he said, pulling up a chair until it was right next to hers. He
straddled it and crossed his forearms over the back, leaning close so that he
could see her hair. “I used to get angry because you were just a snot-nosed
kid, yet you were always smarter than me. Now I won’t mind. You’re the elder,
and you’re entitled to being smarter.” Her hair was solidly copper colored,
right down to the roots.

In
sudden glee, she raised her brows. Those were tinged with slate-gray. “I never
knew you admitted it, not even to yourself. I thought I would have to pull rank
to get the respect I deserve from Jason D’Estelle.” She fingered the gold
worlds on her collar, obviously proud of them.

Jason
frowned and resisted the temptation to touch the silver moons on his own
collar. She hadn’t overlooked seeing them. Not Calla. Ten years ago, or thirty
as she calculated it, she probably would not have believed he was capable of
achieving them. And maybe he wouldn’t have if he had stayed in the Decemvirate’s
Praetorian service as she had. But he was smart enough to know his limitations,
even if she did not. He had gone into the one service where his rustic
beginnings did not matter, and had come by his rank honestly, though not
without pain. Jason had always understood the entitlements of silver moons and
gold worlds, had always wanted them for himself. He wore the silver with pride.
He spoke softly, exercising a control she would know he once did not have when
she was deliberately goading him. “It’s a delicate situation, isn’t it? You
outrank me, yet I’m the Ranger-Governor of Mutare. You’re subject to all the
regulations I have established, and so are your people.”

“Governor
of a hundred bushwhackers on an outback, downtime planet like . . .
” Calla’s smile faded when she saw his face. “What’s this sudden concern with
rank? It’s not new for me to outrank you. You were always getting busted for
one reason or another . . . fighting, insubordination, fiscal
irresponsibility.”

She
had listened to the crier broadcast. He felt disadvantaged. “Ten years is not
sudden,” he said. “I thought, perhaps, some clarification of how I perceive the
situation would be helpful.”

“Yes,”
she said, “it would be — if you would say it straight out. Are you trying to
tell me that I should not have chewed out the smartass on the comm this
afternoon?”

He
was too taken aback to ask what smartass. He saw all the old signs of her
anger, the unflinching stare and thinning lips, signs that only he was privy to
ten years ago, for she never showed them in public. What was he to her now? Was
her anger still just between them? Or in thirty years had she found some value
in public anger and learned to exploit it?

“I
wanted a damn weather report,” she said, still glaring, “and he tells me the
danae have gone home. What the hell kind of answer is that when I’ve got forty
people outdoors wearing stellerators and I can see clouds with lightning
streaks on the horizon?”

“He
gave you the same answer he would have given me,” Jason said sharply. His
careful control was gone, his own anger rising because he hadn’t known she’d
dressed down one of his people and didn’t like it that she had. “This post is
only three years old. Rangers don’t get the kind of support Praetorian guards
do, no weather satellites for instance. Today we knew there were spiral cloud
bands off the coast of Mer Sal because your
Belden
Traveler
told us they were there, but it doesn’t mean a hell of a lot
because there’s no storm pattern data in the plotter’s jelly beans. We couldn’t
tell which way the storm would go any more than you could. We do know that the
danae seem to have a feel for the weather. They don’t like to be out in the
rain. We keep a relay camera up in the terrace garden where the danae come to
feed. If it’s daytime and there are no danae, chances are good that it’s going
to rain.”

“Danae
are one of the indigenes, right? I’d forgotten.” She seemed mollified by his
explanation, her anger gone. “You mentioned them in your reports. Had you said
anything about their connection with the rain, or didn’t I read the right one?”

Jason’s
anger, as always, did not cool as quickly and now he felt slighted, as well.
Had their positions been reversed, he would have studied every word of Calla’s
reports. He knew she had to have had access to them, and with a three-month
trip from Mercury Novus in the Hub to Mutare, she had to have had plenty of
time. He tried to remember which report described the danae’s behavior before
rainstorms, then said, “Maybe it’s only mentioned in the last report, and that
one’s enroute to the Hub.”

Calla
shook her head. “That’s the only one I did read. We intercepted the drone
messenger three weeks back.”

“You
intercepted it? What does that mean?”

“It
means that Mutare is very special to the Decemvirate, and that news and reports
will go off planet only by special messenger.”

“Does
it also mean that we’re under martial law?” he asked, suddenly feeling tired
and wary of the power represented by the gold worlds on her collar.

“Not
yet, Governor.” Calla put her elbows on the chair arms and shifted her hips. “Have
anything to drink?”

“Of
course,” he said. The old awe was back; Calla knew something he did not, but
this time he couldn’t expect to hear the answers to his questions whispered
over the pillow. He went to his liquor cabinet and selected a bottle at random.
Only after he had decanted it did he realize it was his last flask from the
Hub, and not the stuff the kitchen had brewed from local fruits. Resigned, he
took out the two quartzware goblets he had bought from a freetrader the year
before. He filled the rose-colored goblets with deeper colored wine and handed
one to Calla. He was sure she had noticed the fine acid etching under her
fingers, for Calla noticed everything, but she did not comment. She sipped
thoughtfully, silently.

“It’s
war, Jason,” she said finally, then shook her head. “It’s a revolution.”

“There
are no rebels in the Mercurian Sway, not since Dovia. The Decemvirate is too
accurate in their predictions and very swift to intervene when the Sway is
threatened.” Jason sat down again. “Which world would risk Decemvirate
sanctions?”

“Not
one world. The entire Council of Worlds,” she said, finally looking up.

Her
answer made no sense to him. The Council of Worlds was the Mercurian Sway, its
governing and judicial body. The Decemvirate regulated trade, distributed
elixir, and deployed legions in council’s name, but it did not act without
orders, nor could it without council’s funds. Council depended on the
Decemvirate to provide alternative solutions to problems, complete with
predictions on the benefits and consequences of each alternative. Being
comprised of genetically special men and women who had nearly prescient ability
to anticipate and understand trends, they were masters of probability. But it
was the Council of Worlds that decided which probability to pursue.

Jason
drank half the goblet’s contents. The wine was dry, but not much to his liking
tonight. “I think you’d better explain,” he said. “I can’t pretend to have kept
up with thirty years of events in the Hub while having acquired only ten years
of age. I don’t understand how the Council of Worlds can rebel against the
Decemvirate, let alone why.”

“Why
is easy. Every world in the Arm wants a larger supply of Decemviral elixir.”

Jason
nodded sourly. “Now tell me something new. Elixir demand has exceeded the
supply since before we were born. Has some special interest group been
qualified as indispensable to the Mercurian Sway, like the decemviri?”

The
decemviri were guaranteed supplies, even after retirement. But it was a
decemvir who had developed the elixir and subjected it and the entire
Decemvirate to the Council of Worlds’ rule. That the decemviri personally
benefited was a tiny price to pay for having all the rest of the elixir
available to the known worlds, even though there wasn’t enough for everyone.
But one group or another was always trying to justify themselves to the Council
of Worlds as being essential to the Mercurian Sway. Some petitions caused
unrest.

Jason
tried to think of who that might be now. “Old royalty? Praetorian officers?” He
looked at her, and shook his head. Calla had not had any elixir that
forestalled aging. She frowned and he looked away, embarrassed. At forty, as
his body counted years, he’d acquired creases here and there. He didn’t care
that Calla had more and that hers were more pronounced. He did care about
knowing that if he didn’t like his wrinkles, he had only to check into the
clinic for a few hours. Calla had no such options.

“No,”
she said stiffly. “Not the Praetorians, nor even council members. Everyone
except the decemviri take their chances in the lotteries, or they go to the
clinics.”

Except you
, he thought. And that had
separated him from Calla because the survey rangers would not risk sending an
officer to an outback world where every minor injury put the officer’s life at
peril. Her request for transfer had been denied. Jason’s was accepted. He could
have turned it down, would have if she had asked him to stay with her. But she
had said nothing. She never expressed any anger over knowing that she couldn’t
have what her peers took for granted, and even the memory of knowing it caused
their parting didn’t seem to stir her now.

“It’s
the matter of reapportionment of the existing supply. The Council of Worlds
rejected the Decemvirate’s recommendation for population control; too many economic
reasons not to on the local world level.”

“Also
old news,” Jason said, sipping his wine. “They chose the other alternative the
Decemvirate gave them, and that was to improve the elixir yields. That way they
didn’t have to decide how to apportion the supplies to the new worlds. All were
treated equally.”

“Except
that the yield increases were modest, and new elixir gardens fail more often
than they succeed. They’re only now realizing that for a new plant to succeed,
it required a generous supply of starter seed, skilled people, and equipment
brains that have at least ten years of experience.”

“Green
thumb effect for jelly beans? People, yes, but not jelly beans. You take an
experienced one from a successful environment, duplicate it, and then you have
hundreds of experienced jelly beans. What’s so hard about that?”

“Something
doesn’t transfer. The Decemvirate calls it jelly bean intuition, which in their
opinion will never be reproduced uniformly. There will never be enough elixir
for everyone. The Council of Worlds knows that now, and so they’ve put the
reapportionment question before the Decemvirate again. People on old worlds
where the population is stable are starting to lose their supplies because
population on the new worlds is expanding faster than the elixir supply. The
one-in-ten ratio is now one-in-twelve. Old worlds want elixir to be supplied
based on population counts of thirty years ago.”

“Which
gives the old worlds a disproportionately large share, and that would make the
new worlds unhappy.” Now Jason began to understand how the Council of Worlds
might be said to be on the brink of a revolution against its own advisors.
Regardless of how the elixir was reapportioned, either old worlds or new worlds
would feel cheated. Yet once the decision was made, the Decemvirate was bound
to enforce the decision, even to the extent of using the legions to do it. He
reached for the wine flask to refill Calla’s glass, and added some to his own. “The
Decemvirate better have a third alternative, one that all of them can accept.”