with Jils. Vector transit was certain and secure enough to move ships by the hundreds of thousands from one end of Jurisdiction space to the other; and yet it was never completely, absolutely, entirely, eight-and-eighty-and-another-eight certain. “Next stop Rikavie. Port Charid. Warehouse asteroids; Langsariks.”
“Spectacularly beautiful and very young women,” Jils added, unfastening the secures of her harness. “Or at least one spectacularly beautiful and very young woman. Girl. How old would she be by now? Probably married, Garol, she was a looker.”
What was she talking about?
Oh.
Modice Agenis.
Walton Agenis’s niece.
All right, so he had noticed Modice — how could anyone have failed to? But it had been so long that Garol could laugh, without resentment. Without much resentment. “Old enough to know her own mind, Jils, now as then. You’re on the wrong process branch about that. The girl was just a really sweet girl.” A really sweet and astonishingly beautiful young girl, but there’d been no mistaking her for a serious prospect of any kind.
Not really.
It had been enough of a pleasure just to sit in her company and listen to her voice, and feel fellowship with all the other men who had noticed that she filled the world with her presence and validated their entire lives by just breathing.
“That’s why you want me to go make the contacts with the Port Authority while you go straight out to the settlement. Right.” But she was just teasing him. He knew it. Wasn’t she?
“It’s the Flag Captain I really want to see. Agenis the Deep-Minded. Before everybody in Port Charid knows we’re there. She deserves to know right up front about the problem. And I want the straight story, direct from her.”
He had made the treaty with the Langsariks, and Walton Agenis was their leader, then as now. They had come to terms of mutual understanding, founded on a necessarily qualified degree of trust. She had advised her people to accept the strict terms of the amnesty that the Bench offered through Garol in part on the basis of her evaluation of his personal integrity.
It had made him uncomfortable at the time, even while the personal if unspoken understanding between them had been what made the amnesty possible. If there was a problem, she would tell him. And if something had really gone wrong, he had to let her know that amnesty violation could mean an end to the amnesty, and slavery — death, and dispersal — for the Langsariks.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jils’s singsong rejection of his claims of disinterestedness was not entirely serious, if admittedly sharp. Not because she didn’t believe him, but because if she admitted to understanding his motives, she’d have nothing to tease him about. “I’ll take the first watch, Garol. You go catch up on your fantasy life.”
He was a Bench intelligence specialist.
He didn’t even have a fantasy life.
But if he had —
If he had a fantasy, it was that the Langsarik amnesty would work. That the Langsariks would prove their merit to the Bench in Port Charid and survive the test of years to be fully integrated as respected citizens of a benevolent Bench. That Modice Agenis would marry and be happy and secure . . . and that Walton Agenis would never have cause to decide that she’d been wrong when she’d trusted him with the future of the people who looked to her for leadership.
That was his fantasy. He could never admit it, though.
If he admitted that it was a fantasy, even to himself, he would have to acknowledge the fact that he was deeply worried about them all — the brave, proud, honorable people that he, himself, Garol Vogel, had essentially forced into settlement at Port Charid.
###
Kazmer Daigule stood in front of the receiving officer’s desk at Anglace Port Authority, doing everything in his power to keep calm as she examined his forged cargo documentation. The contraband from the Tyrell Yards was fully accounted for, of course; the
“Spectacularly beautiful and very young women,” Jils added, unfastening the secures of her harness. “Or at least one spectacularly beautiful and very young woman. Girl. How old would she be by now? Probably married, Garol, she was a looker.”
What was she talking about?
Oh.
Modice Agenis.
Walton Agenis’s niece.
All right, so he had noticed Modice — how could anyone have failed to? But it had been so long that Garol could laugh, without resentment. Without much resentment. “Old enough to know her own mind, Jils, now as then. You’re on the wrong process branch about that. The girl was just a really sweet girl.” A really sweet and astonishingly beautiful young girl, but there’d been no mistaking her for a serious prospect of any kind.
Not really.
It had been enough of a pleasure just to sit in her company and listen to her voice, and feel fellowship with all the other men who had noticed that she filled the world with her presence and validated their entire lives by just breathing.
“That’s why you want me to go make the contacts with the Port Authority while you go straight out to the settlement. Right.” But she was just teasing him. He knew it. Wasn’t she?
“It’s the Flag Captain I really want to see. Agenis the Deep-Minded. Before everybody in Port Charid knows we’re there. She deserves to know right up front about the problem. And I want the straight story, direct from her.”
He had made the treaty with the Langsariks, and Walton Agenis was their leader, then as now. They had come to terms of mutual understanding, founded on a necessarily qualified degree of trust. She had advised her people to accept the strict terms of the amnesty that the Bench offered through Garol in part on the basis of her evaluation of his personal integrity.
It had made him uncomfortable at the time, even while the personal if unspoken understanding between them had been what made the amnesty possible. If there was a problem, she would tell him. And if something had really gone wrong, he had to let her know that amnesty violation could mean an end to the amnesty, and slavery — death, and dispersal — for the Langsariks.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jils’s singsong rejection of his claims of disinterestedness was not entirely serious, if admittedly sharp. Not because she didn’t believe him, but because if she admitted to understanding his motives, she’d have nothing to tease him about. “I’ll take the first watch, Garol. You go catch up on your fantasy life.”
He was a Bench intelligence specialist.
He didn’t even have a fantasy life.
But if he had —
If he had a fantasy, it was that the Langsarik amnesty would work. That the Langsariks would prove their merit to the Bench in Port Charid and survive the test of years to be fully integrated as respected citizens of a benevolent Bench. That Modice Agenis would marry and be happy and secure . . . and that Walton Agenis would never have cause to decide that she’d been wrong when she’d trusted him with the future of the people who looked to her for leadership.
That was his fantasy. He could never admit it, though.
If he admitted that it was a fantasy, even to himself, he would have to acknowledge the fact that he was deeply worried about them all — the brave, proud, honorable people that he, himself, Garol Vogel, had essentially forced into settlement at Port Charid.
###
Kazmer Daigule stood in front of the receiving officer’s desk at Anglace Port Authority, doing everything in his power to keep calm as she examined his forged cargo documentation. The contraband from the Tyrell Yards was fully accounted for, of course; the
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