Downtime Read Online Free Page B

“Have no doubt of my ability to deal with
him and anything else quite effectively.”
    But
Macduhi persisted. “I know your military record, but absolute power in this
matter seems extreme to me.”
    “Then
take comfort in knowing that I’ll be there, too,” D’Omaha said.
    “To
assist and advise, but I’m in charge,” Calla said flatly. D’Omaha thought Calla
had gone too far, for even Bentham was frowning.
    Calla
reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a scarlet jelly bean. “You gave
me this. It’s your authority to act in your name. You gave it to me because you
know I’m the best commander for this work. I cannot be bribed by elixir. Not
even your imperator general is so immune.” She chuckled almost involuntarily over
her choice of words. “You leave me in charge, or find someone else.”
    “An
eleventh hour threat is . . .”
    “It’s
not a threat, Koh. It’s the way it is. I knew the question would come up when I
asked for D’Omaha. And I knew what the answer had to be to keep the probability
in favor of success. And you know I’m right. I direct this operation entirely.
D’Omaha assists.”
    Koh
rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Stairnon, D’Omaha, you’d better pack right away. The
mission commander has planned a tight schedule.”
    D’Omaha
felt Stairnon take his hand underneath the table and give it a squeeze. There
was a touch of color in her cheeks, a trace of a smile. She was probably the
only person at the table who was completely happy with the evening’s outcome.
Not even Calla or her lieutenants could be said to look happy. Leave it to
Stairnon to take one look at these people and know that the obliteration of her
life’s work was nothing compared to what they faced.

Chapter 1
    The comm wasn’t on in Jason’s room, but he sensed the hush
that came over his rangers down in the staging area. He looked away from the
work on his desk, his glance skipping over the familiar forms of his rangers to
three khaki-clad people as they stepped off the ramp-tunnel. Each wore a
Praetorian crimson stole draped over the left shoulder, arms bare in
shipboard-style shirts that revealed their genetic tattoos. Two of them were
tall and lithe, the body style still in fashion after nearly a century of
made-to-order babies on civilized worlds. The third was remarkably short and
Rubenesque. It was Calla.
    Hastily
Jason brightened the lights in his room and stood up so she could see him
easily through the window if she was looking. Apparently she was, for she
stopped, letting her officers walk on, and then she put her hands on her hips
and looked up at his balcony window. Nervously he gestured to the green spiral
staircase that led to the upper-level rooms. Calla nodded, then began walking
again in short, brisk steps.
    She
was limping, he noticed with concern, more than the slight unevenness he
remembered as being her normal gait. He watched her pause at the base of the
stairs, as if contemplating their length and height before she put one hand on
the rail and the other on her thigh, then she climbed.
    Ten
years since he had seen her, ten years since they had been lovers. She limped
now. What else had changed?
    When
she reached the top of the stairs, Jason thought that Calla’s teeth were
gritted in pain, but she disappeared into the shadows of the corridor before he
could be sure.
    “Open
the door,” Jason said, turning his back to the window. The room-tender jelly
bean, a light blue one lying on top of the heap in the transparent liquid
nitrogen-filled tank, glowed briefly, and the mitered panel of glass was sucked
into a slot in the green shale wall, opening his room to the corridor. He heard
the pronounced echo of her uneven step. Her hip had deteriorated so much in the
ten years since he’d last seen her that she limped. But what else? So much
could have happened in the thirty years since she had last seen him.
    “Gold
Commander Eudoxia Calla Dovia is approaching your open door from the