Part 47 (1/2)
”That's Diplo, then,” Sa.s.sinak gave a final minute shrug, and went on to the other problems. ”You're going off. And you don't know how long that will take, either, do you? I thought not. You're going off for a refresher course and a visit to Diplo, and that leaves us with digging to be done among the suspect commercial combines, the Seti, and the inner workings of EEC, Fleet, and the Council. It would be handy if we had our own private counterintelligence network, but...”
Lunzie interrupted, feeling smug. ”You know Admiral Coromell, don't know?”
Sa.s.sinak's jaw did not drop because she would not let it, but Lunzie could tell she was surprised. ”Do you know Admiral Coromell?”
”Quite well, yes.” Lunzie watched Sa.s.sinak struggle with the obvious implications, and decide not to ask. Or perhaps the implications weren't obvious to her. By now Coromell would be as old as his father had been; 5.
Sa.s.sinak would have known him as an old man. Lunzie fought off yet another pang of sorrow, and concentrated on the present moment. ”Coromell actually recruited me, temporarily, back before the Ambrosia thing.”
”Recruited you!” Was that approval or resentment? Lunzie did not ask, but gave as brief a synopsis as possible of the circ.u.mstances of that recruitment, and what followed. Sa.s.sinak listened without interrupting, her eyes focussed on some distant vision, and shook her head slightly when Lunzie finished.
”My dear, I have the feeling we could talk for weeks and you'd still surprise me.” There was nothing in the tone to indicate whether this most recent surprise had been pleasant or not; Lunzie suspected that respect for Coromell's stars might be part of Sa.s.sinak's reticence. To underscore that reticence, Sa.s.sinak pushed away from her desk. ”I feel like stretching my legs, and you haven't really seen the s.h.i.+p yet. Want a tour?”
”Of course.” Lunzie was as glad to take a break from their intense conversation. She followed Sa.s.sinak out into the pa.s.sage that led nearly the length of Main Deck.
”It's so different,” Lunzie said, as Sa.s.s led her down the aft ladder to Troop Deck. She wondered why the walls-bulkheads, she reminded herself-were green here, and gray above.
”Different?”
”I hadn't had time to mention it, but when we were rescued from Ambrosia that time, the Fleet cruiser that came was this one. The Zaid-Dayan. I never saw the captain, but it was a woman. That's why I used the name in the cover I gave Varian and the others back on Ireta. It was a deja-vtt situation, you and this s.h.i.+p ...”
Sa.s.sinak grunted. ”Couldn't have been this s.h.i.+p. Wasn't the Ambrosia rescue before Ireta and your cold-sleep? Forty years or so back? That must have been the '43 version . . . that s.h.i.+p was lost in combat the year I graduated from the Academy.” She nodded to the squad of marines that had flattened themselves along the bulkhead to let her by, and waited for Lunzie to catch up.
Lunzie felt cold all over. Another reminder that she 6.
had not grown naturally older, when she would know things, but had simply skipped decades. ”Are you sure? When I heard this was the Zaid-Dayan, with a woman captain, I thought maybe ...”
Sa.s.sinak shook her head. ”I'm not that much older than you. No-the Ambrosia rescue-we were taught that battle, in TacSim II. That was Graciela Vinish-Martinez, her first command and a new s.h.i.+p. She caught h.e.l.l from a Board of Inquiry at first, bringing it back needing repairs like that, but someone on Ambrosia, some scout captain or something ...”
”Zebara,” said Lunzie, hardly breathing.
”Whoever it was wrote a report that got the Board off her neck. I thought of that when I had to go before a Board. I saw her.” Sa.s.sinak's expression was strange, almost bemused. She punched a b.u.t.ton on the bulkhead, and a hatch slid open: a lift. They entered, and Sa.s.sinak pushed another b.u.t.ton inside before she said more. Lunzie waited. ”She gave us-the female cadets-a lecture on command presence for women officers. We all thought that was a stupid topic. We were muttering about it, going in; the room was empty except for this little old lady in the corner, looked like the kind of retirement-age warrant officers that swarmed all around the Academy, doing various jobs no one ever explained. I hardly glanced at her. She had an old-fas.h.i.+oned clipboard and a marker. We sat down, wondering how late Admiral Vinish-Martinez was going to be. We knew better than to chatter, but I have to admit there was a lot of quiet murmuring going on, and some of it was mine.” Sa.s.sinak grinned reminiscently. ”Then this little old lady gets up. n.o.body saw that; we figured she was taking roll. Walks around to the front, and we thought maybe she was going to tell us the Admiral was late or not coming. And then-I swear, Lunzie, not one of us saw her stars until she wanted us to, when she changed right there in front of us without moving a muscle. Didn't say a word. Didn't have to. We were out of our seats and saluting before we realized what had happened.”
”And then?” Lunzie couldn't help asking; she was fascinated.
7.
”And then she gave us a big bright smile, and said That, ladies, was a demonstration of command presence.' And then she walked out, while we were still breathless.”
”Mullah!”
”Right. The whole lecture in one demonstration. We never forgot that one, I can tell you, and we spent hours trying it on each other to see if we'd learned anything yet. She said it all: it's not your size or your looks or your strength or how loud you can yell-it's something else, inside, and if you don't have that, no amount of size, strength, beauty, or bellowing will do instead.” The lift opened onto a tiny s.p.a.ce surrounded by differently colored pipes that gurgled and hissed. A Sign said ”ENVIRONMENTAL LEVEL ONE.”
”Adept Discipline?” asked Lunzie, curious to know what Sa.s.s thought.
”Maybe. For some. You know we have basic cla.s.ses in it in Fleet. But there has to be a certain potential or something has to happen later. Certainly the element of focus is the same ...” Sa.s.sinak's voice trailed away; her brow furrowed.
”You have it,” said Lunzie. She had seen the crew's response to Sa.s.sinak, and felt her own-an almost automatic respect and desire to please her.
”Oh . . . well, yes. Some, at least; I can put the fear of reality into wild young ensigns. But not like that.” She laughed, putting the memory aside. ”For years I wanted to do that ... to be that ...”
”Was she your childhood idol, then? Were you dreaming about Fleet even before you were captured?” Was that what had kept her sane?
”Oh, no. I wanted to be Carin Coldae.” Lunzie must have looked as blank as she felt, for Sa.s.sinak said, ”I'm sorry-I didn't realize. Forty-three years-she must not have been a vid star when you were last-I mean ...”
”Don't worry.” Another example of what she'd missed. She hadn't been one to follow the popularity of vid stars at any time, but the way Sa.s.sinak had said the name, Coldae must have been a household word.
8.
”Just an adventure star,” Sa.s.sinak was explaining. ”Had fan clubs, posters, all that. My best friend and I dreamed of having adventures all over the galaxy, men at our feet...”
”Well, you seem to have made it,” said Lunzie dryly. ”Or so your crew let me know.”
Sa.s.sinak actually blushed; the effect was startling. ”It's not much like the daydreams, though. Carin never got a scratch on her, only a few artistically placed streaks of soot. Sometimes that soot was all she had on, but mostly it was silver or gold snugsuits, open halfway down her perfect front. She could toss twenty pirates over her head with one hand, gun down another ten villains with the other, and belt out her themesong without missing a beat. When I was a child, it never dawned on me that someone supposedly being starved and beaten in a thorium mine shouldn't have all those luscious curves. Or that climbing naked up a volcanic cliff does bad things to long scarlet fingernails.”
”Mmm. Is she still popular?”
”Not so much. Re-runs will go on forever, at least the cla.s.sics like Dark of the Moon and The Iron Chain. She's doing straight dramas now, and politics.” Sa.s.sinak grimaced, remembering Dupaynil's revelations about her former idol. ”I've been told she's behind some subversive groups, has been for years.” Then she sighed, and said, ”And I dragged you through Troop Deck without showing you much . . . well This is Environmental, that keeps us alive.”
”I saw the sign,” said Lunzie. She could hear the distant rhythmic throbbing of pumps. Sa.s.sinak patted a plump beige pipe with surprising affection.