Sister Time lota-9 Page 17

  Which had made the owners of the resort grateful for the early business, which provided desperately needed funds for their ongoing repairs and restorations. Their gratitude, plus a reasonable security deposit, had been enough to make the owners more than willing to make themselves scarce while the rather eccentric “Kelley” family served themselves for the weekend. Besides, it had meant there was no need to bring in, and pay, temporary staffers to work the off-season.

  Cally was glad to be working in the kitchen with Wendy. So glad, she had volunteered for an extra shift helping cook. The huge stone fireplaces out in the hall were nice. Very pretty. And very crowded. Any heat that didn’t go up the chimney went right to the top of the beautiful vaulted ceilings. Worse, having been mured up on the island for most of the past seven years, a lot of the people she “knew,” she hadn’t seen for years. Particularly the kids, who changed so quickly, or the spouses when someone lived away. She could deal with crowds of strangers. She could deal with family. It was just putting both together at the same time that was way too weird.

  The kitchen’s more normal proportions made it the warmest room in the place. She was presently pouring a couple of jugs of cider into a large cast iron pot to hang over the fire. If they hadn’t brought the spices themselves from Edisto, and the cider from a bounty-farm orchard on the way up, the cost would have been prohibitive. There were things you didn’t want to pay the import taxes on. The O’Neals knew the fees levied by the Darhel were for missing colonists that the aliens themselves had arranged the deaths of. The knowledge neatly disposed of any guilt the the family might have felt for circumventing the levy. Yes, it left the burden for paying those fees more heavily on others, but the Bane Sidhe were shouldering their share of that burden in a far more constructive way — by trying to put an end to it.

  For one thing, it looked like the penalty fines might quit accruing if the Darhel had to strike a deal to prevent the U.S. from putting maintenance inspectors aboard the colony ships. The Darhel had long had a standard clause in the contract predicated on their long-standing control of Indowy lives. Each Indowy was kept “in line” by having to assume initial debt to buy his working tools, on terms that kept him in debt for life. Any Indowy who made waves could expect to have his debt called in, his tools repossessed, and would starve to death.

  Where an Indowy wouldn’t dare actually insist on inspecting a ship for missing spare parts, but would simply provide them unless ordered not to, making the inspection clause an empty formality, humans were insisting. A team of O’Neal Bane Sidhe was surreptitiously guarding the relevant human politicians, and another some critical engineering personnel, and it looked like the Darhel would have to either cut a deal on the fines or quit “losing” ships of colonists and turning up with the “salvaged” ships sans humans. Bane Sidhe analysts anticipated that the Darhel would choose to end the fines, figuring live humans the greater threat.

  During the war, the Galactics had needed humans to fight the Posleen. Recruiting humanity to their war had been a desperation measure because the Galactics had been losing the war and losing badly. They had needed humanity, even though they had regarded humans as carnivorous primitives only barely less dangerous than the locustlike Posleen. Well, locustlike if you discounted the differences between a flying grasshopper and a space-faring, omnivorous, six-limbed carnosaur. Calling the Posleen intelligent would be inaccurate. The hermaphroditic cannibals reproduced at an appalling rate, laying eggs that randomly hatched into hordes of moronic normals with a few sport God Kings, and immediately became food for each other and the adults. The Posleen who survived the nestling pens grew up to eat nestlings. And everything else.

  A Darhel could only kill once directly; the tremendous high they got when they did so triggered a hard-coded response that sent them into lintatai. On the other hand, they were more than capable of unlimited indirect kills by technical error and negligence, as well as by hiring human psychopaths to independently kill direct human threats for them. They just tried very hard not to get excited about it. They followed a deliberate policy of maximizing human casualties during the war, keeping just enough alive to stop the Posleen, and were, as a race, responsible for billions of needless human deaths. Most of those Asian, given the prewar planetary demographics.

  Now, in 2054, the Galactics still needed humans. They needed them to throw the Posleen off of those of the formerly-Galactic planets that were still capable of sustaining life. They needed them to protect the primarily Indowy settlers of those planets from the few remaining feral Posleen.

  Once infested by the Posleen, a planet stayed infested for a long time. Nestlings hatched with the knowledge base to survive and function; they needed no care. A single feral Posleen, left unchecked, was a planet-destroying pest problem.

  Still, while the Galactics needed humans, they no longer needed very many, and still considered the species deadly-dangerous primitives and an ongoing threat. Hence, the Darhel maintained their policy of actively but indirectly killing as many humans as possible. It was a cold war where disengagement was impossible. It would take only a single Darhel sacrificed to lintatai to fire a planet-killer into the Earth. Galactic politics prevented that, but humanity was in no position to push its luck. Hence the very long-term cold war humanity had joined in along with the very-underground resistance movement among the other Galactic races known as the Bane Sidhe.

  Everything came back to the Darhel. Cally blamed them more than the Posleen for destroying her and her children’s chances at anything like a normal life. Starting from when they sent assassins to kill her and Granpa when she was eight, and continuing on through their deliberately worsening human casualties in the war pretty much any way they could. She didn’t know for sure that Daddy wouldn’t have had to drop that antimatter bomb on Rabun Gap if the Darhel hadn’t fucked up the war, but she thought it was a good bet. And if it weren’t for the Darhel, there would be no need for the Bane Sidhe, and no need for James Stewart to be officially dead — as far as the Bane Sidhe were concerned — and separated from her and the girls. Cally O’Neal hated Darhel with a passion. She tried not to think about it. But she tried not to repress it either. Ah, stupid shrink head games. You can’t win. Best not to play.

  Shari was farther down the counter in the very large kitchen cutting up fruit for some kind of salad or desert. She was also chatting about business with one of the sisters of a Baen Sidhe newlywed, probably to look over any single O’Neal men as prospects for marriage. Or whatever. Said sister was already in on the big secret, having grown up with Bane Sidhe parents. The parents had done little more than run a safe house. Dangerous enough, but deliberately not in the know for many things, which was reflected in the knowledge base of the daughter — or lack thereof.

  Her interest seemed a bit on the serious side, because she was pumping Shari for information about DAG. If it had even occurred to Cally that eavesdropping was impolite, she would have silently laughed at herself for the qualm and done it anyway. Had she been asked, she would have been able to count on the fingers of one hand the social engagements of this size that she had attended that hadn’t either been professional or, earlier in her life, orchestrated tests of her professional skills. She was what she was — not listening in never crossed her mind.

  “I don’t understand why the government doesn’t just go ahead and admit DAG exists and end all the melodrama. It’s not as if they can keep something like that secret for long. Just about the whole country knows they’re around and what they do. There have been movies about them!” The short brunette had a tendency to squint and wrinkle her nose as if her glasses were trying to slide down it.

  “Sure, everyone knows it’s there. But it’s not the only open secret in the history of the world, you know. You aren’t the first one to have asked that question. As I understand it, the rationale is that if they don’t admit DAG exists, they have the best of both worlds. They don’t have to openly account for what it does, but they can hold it out as a t
hreat against bandits and tax revolts in the territories, as well as pirates and raiders around the city states that might interfere with the flow of strategic resources. And more than a threat, when threats aren’t enough. At the same time, the voters are reassured that their interests are being protected. And the voters subconsciously don’t worry as much about DAG turning up on their doorsteps. After all, the government is hardly going to violate the Posse Comitatus law and use DAG in the actual Core States if it would ‘expose their secret,’ are they?”

  “But it’s not really a secret,” the young lady protested.

  “It doesn’t matter. As long as the government pretends it’s a secret, the pretense, no matter how thin, gives it certain advantages. Or it thinks it does. Politics is weird that way.”

  “I still don’t understand why you guys are willing to put down tax revolts and stuff in the territories, free training or no. Sure, the Indowy had kittens whenever we tried to move resistance against the Darhel along a little faster, but most of them are gone now. It seems like the rebels are on the side of the angels to me,” the kid said.

  “You haven’t been around the operations side of things much, have you?” Wendy broke in. It wasn’t a question.

  “Not really, no.” The girl turned to the petite blonde who was somewhat dwarfed by Cally’s height. “Our family’s mostly done support services as long as I can remember. You’re one of the only people I’ve met in my life who hasn’t run me off with a ‘because’ and looked at me as if they wondered how reliable I’d be. I’m fine with just knowing I’m helping, and I understand why we compartmentalize information. I just get frustrated sometimes at how few things ever get explained. All the things I thought would be revealed when I got older, well, I guess I’m starting to wonder when I get old enough; when and what that will be.” The girl had a slight petulant pout, almost too little to be noticed unless you were looking for such things.

  “Probably not a lot. But I can tell you about the stuff in the territories and DAG in a nutshell. Random rebellion is dangerous. It’s unpredictable, it provokes unpredictable responses, and the Indowy have shared enough history with us to make it clear that the last thing in the world you want is to get the Darhel spooked enough to make them unpredictable. That tends to be a Bad Thing.” You could hear the capitals as she said it.

  “The Darhel have to be maneuvered, like a chess game. A game that does take lots patience. It’s not something that comes easily to most people. But whenever any of their opposition has moved too fast before, well, let’s just say there are good reasons not to do that and leave it there, okay? Pretty much the humans who have looked at it closely, to the best of my knowledge, have all come away with the conviction that the Indowy are not being overcautious. Whatever things the split was about, that wasn’t one of them.” Wendy was carefully looking away from the girl as she said the next bit. “And if you do get, well, close to somebody in operations, get used to having more questions than you’ve got answers, all the time. Almost all the time, we never ask. Because the quickest way in the world to kill a budding relationship is to make him say over and over again, ‘I can’t say.’ ”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” the girl protested, pushing her glasses back up on her nose with one finger. “Besides, I’ve heard they all tell their wives and girlfriends stuff anyway. So I just wouldn’t ask. I’d wait to hear.”

  “Uh-huh.” Cally suppressed a grin. Wendy was getting her “patient” tone of voice. This one would be a daughter-in-law when hell froze over. Shari was covering her mouth with one hand, but her eyes were twinkling.

  “Let me tell you a little bit about that,” Wendy said. “Yes, they all tell more than they should. And you can kill your husband’s career in a heartbeat, or worse, if you ever let the tiniest bit of it slip. What they don’t tell you is always lots more than what they do. What they do tell you is designed to reassure you and usually has the exact opposite effect. So you smile when they leave and hug them and pretend to be as reassured as they think you are. Then you wait. And you wait. Knowing that you don’t know what they’re doing, or when or if they’ll be back, with just enough information to paint about a bazillion different disasters in your head. Then when, and if, they do come back, you smile and you rub their shoulders and you patch them up until they go back out to do it all over again. Because you don’t want him worrying about anything that might distract him at a crucial time and keep him from coming home, and asking too many questions will worry him, you take what he volunteers and you just don’t ask.”

  The brunette girl did the first smart thing Cally had seen her do since she came into the kitchen. She shut up.

  Anyway, it was getting time to brave the crowd and handle one of the things on her do-list for the weekend. Cally excused herself and grabbed her jacket, trudging across the parking lot to a dilapidated gym where the guys were playing basketball. The floor was a freshly laid Galplas slab. She was surprised the owners had sprung for it, but it might actually have been cheaper than hardwood, if they had lucked into the right supplier. It didn’t have the lines painted on it yet, so someone had patiently drawn them on with chalk. The chalk lines showed signs of having been touched up already, and needing fresh touch-ups soon. The hoops were old, having survived the years, though one of the backboards was missing.

  She watched the game for a bit, looking down at the picture she’d called up on the buckley. It had been so long since she’d seen the kid she was looking for, since he’d grown up off the island. Only he wasn’t a kid anymore. She finally picked him out, waiting until he rotated out of the game to let someone else in and get some water. She walked over close enough to wave and get his attention, motioning for him to follow her. He pointed to his own chest questioningly, unsure if he was the one she was looking at. When she nodded, he looked her up and down and got a goofy grin, amiably following her out of the gym. Ye gods, he’s checking me out. Ick. Okay, he’s cute, but ick.

  She kept a bit ahead of him as she led him back to the hotel-like section of the retreat and down the hall to her room, inserting the card key and suppressing her comments as he surreptitiously tried to wipe sweat off with his towel. His T-shirt had dark, damp patches, and she was not looking at his sweat pants.

  Cally heard the hotel room door close behind him.

  “Don’t even think about it. I’m your aunt,” she said.

  “Aunt Cally?” he squeaked, putting two and two together far faster than she would have expected.

  “Hi.” She turned and smiled at him. “I guess I haven’t seen you since you were, what, five? How’d you know it was me?”

  “Uh, yeah. About five. I’d say you’ve changed, but it’s obvious, and uh, well, there was kind of a mention…” he said, raising his eyebrows as she set a sound damper on the table and flipped it on.

  “I’m really just here to pay allegiance to Mr. Murphy. There is the barest chance that DAG’s Atlantic Company could end up dragged into one of our ops if it really goes to hell,” she said. “Briefly, because I think your CO is going to want some background, our target is owned and run by a Darhel group. For various reasons, he may get nervous about the time we’re getting ourselves inside. Nervous Darhel try to cover their asses, and you guys are kinda notorious right now.”

  The young man rolled his eyes, but she continued, “I know, I know. A nervous Darhel might see adding some flashy security to be career insurance, and for various reasons, could set his eyes on you guys and pull some strings.

  “Anyway, if someone tries to drag you guys into a ‘black’ furball near the Fleet Base around Christmas, avoid it if you can, if you can’t, you need to know it’ll probably be us on the other side,” she finished.

  “Avoid? With Posse Comitatus we don’t do domestic shi — stuff. We’re authorized to operate in the territories, but there are federal laws against DAG operating in the states. Second, it’s kinda hard to ‘avoid’ being sent on a particular mission. I appreciate the need for a go to hell plan,
but this time you may be going beyond benefits versus costs to your OpSec. I don’t know what you’ve been told about DAG, but we really don’t operate in the States, no matter what the conspiracy guys say. Even the Darhel don’t have that much pull.”

  “Yes, they do. Trust us, we’ve been doing this a looong time. He can do it.” She fixed him with the kind of stare schoolteachers reserve for young boys to make sure he got it. “It’s very, very unlikely that he will. And we probably are being too paranoid. But just as Murphy insurance, one guy in your company needs to know, and that gets to be you. Obviously, don’t share the information unless it becomes necessary.”

  “Okay.” He rubbed his chin with one hand before looking back up at her. “Aunt Cally, it’s not my ass on the line, but how do you guys decide need to know on an operation? Of course I can and will keep my mouth shut, I’m an O’Neal. Not my business, just curious.”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about you running your mouth, Mauldin. If you did, and anything happened to Tommy or Papa, you’d have Momma Wendy and Momma Shari on your ass.”