Caine smiled, but was still thinking—hard. At last he looked up. “I don’t like running away from my home—it’s wrong and it pisses me off. But damn it, on Earth, or one light-second away on the Moon, Downing’s got all the advantages. So right now, I need distance.”
“That’s not exactly a sophisticated plan, Caine.”
“No, it’s not. But that’s what happens when the other guy holds almost all the cards: things get really simple, because you’ve got so few options. In this case, it’s just like Sun Tzu says: a weak force must go where its adversaries have the least power. And for me, that means Mars.”
Okay, so there’s no stopping him. Let’s see if I can hitch a ride, instead. “So: Mars. Quite the hotspot, I hear.”
Caine’s smile was more relaxed, now. “Yeah, it’s not exactly a Mecca for fun-seekers, but I just want a place where I can gather more information on those one hundred lost hours, and keep my head down while I do it.”
“Why keep your head down?”
“Downing may not be the only person monitoring web traffic for inquiries into the background of one Caine Riordan. The opposition may be looking for that, too.”
“‘Opposition’? Wasn’t the working assumption that, with Parthenon behind us, you’re safe?”
“I can’t afford to subscribe to that assumption—because if I do, and I’m wrong, then I’m dead.”
Opal had to admit that Caine’s conclusion was unassailably commonsensical. “Sounds like a pretty lonely life you’re making for yourself.”
Caine nodded, looked at her slowly, almost cautiously. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone else, that’s for sure.”
Careful now, Opal: don’t scare him off. “Oh, I don’t know: it doesn’t sound all that bad. Sometimes a bit of enforced peace and quiet is just what a person needs. Hell, since Downing gave me my honorable discharge, all I can think about is diving under a rock somewhere and trying to figure out this new world at my own pace. Maybe planet Earth has always been a madhouse, but it seems more so now.”
Caine nodded, looked forward again. After a long pause, he said: “Mars is a lot less chaotic than Earth or Luna. Not too big, not too busy.”
“See? So how bad does Mars sound when you describe it that way?”
He looked at her. “Come with me?”
She wanted to smile but stomped down on that reflex. Careful: if you say “yes” too quickly, he might become suspicious, might start wondering if this isn’t happening just a bit too easily. “Well, no offense, but I’m not in the habit of being anyone’s traveling companion.”
“Okay—then how about being my bodyguard?”
Oh, Christ: he’s offering me the job I’m already doing. “Do you really think you need a bodyguard?”
“Maybe; I don’t know. And that’s the whole problem: I don’t know much of anything just yet. I don’t even know who I can trust.” He turned to her, and after a moment, he smiled. “Except you. I trust you.”
Damn it, this just isn’t right: “Are you sure you want me tagging along?” Say “no”—for your own good.
“If you want to come, that would be, well—wonderful.” Then his eyebrows raised a little, and the corners of his eyes crinkled, the way they did when he became jocular. The cab swerved across two lanes of traffic and up onto the exit ramp for the spaceport, just as he leaned towards her. Almost nose to nose at that moment, there was mock conspiracy in his hushed voice as he asked: “Because I can trust you—can’t I?”
She looked him in the eye—and realized that, asked so directly, she could not lie to him. She also realized that, alone in the world as she was, and as he was, she could not leave him, either. And if, one day, being loyal to him meant disobeying Downing’s orders? That was merely illegal—but it sure as hell didn’t feel wrong. On the contrary: it felt—
“Right,” she breathed out through her own sudden, surprised smile, “you can trust me.” And, still smiling, leaning back to see his whole face more clearly, she realized:
You can trust me. More than you know.
BOOK TWO
CONVOCATION
PART FOUR
Mars and Deep Space
September, 2119
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MENTOR
Richard Downing waited patiently while the lieutenant—big, wide-eyed, and increasingly florid—shouted at him.
“No, sir, I don’t have to recognize your authority. And to hell with your cosmic clearance level. We’ve been on patrol in the Belt for six months now, bypassed twice for rotation off this god-forsaken boat. I’ve got a wife and kids back in Syrtis City, a mother dying on Earth—”