Downtime Read Free Page A

falling off Mercury Novus
orbit,” Calla replied promptly.
    “Well,
that’s better use of them than shoveling snow off the walks at Aquae Solis, but
not where they were ordered to be. Why have you disobeyed the Decemvirate’s
orders?”
    “Prior
orders,” Calla said, “which included publicly appearing to accept the Aquae
Solis Honor Guard Command.”
    “Whose
orders?”
    “Decemvir
D’Omaha’s.”
    “Praetor
D’Omaha,” Macduhi corrected.
    “He
was still Decemvir D’Omaha when he gave the order.”
    “And
I suppose he also ordered you to provide transportation to only half the
Decemvirate for this little gathering.”
    “Less
than half. Originally you were excluded, too. But you couldn’t possibly be the
traitor since you were not decemvir when the plot was discovered.” Macduhi
blinked and raised her brow. Traitor? Calla
nodded. “I let Koh include you at the last minute.”
    Macduhi
looked from Calla to D’Omaha in disbelief.
    “Since
when does the Honor Guard Commander tell a decemvir elder what to do?”
    “When
she’s not merely decorating Aquae Solis with her presence these days, Raider
Commander Calla is directing a special mission for the Decemvirate. She’s
charged with identifying and stopping a traitor before he destroys the known
worlds.”
    Macduhi
put her empty mug on the mantel, turned away from the fireplace and crossed her
arms over her chest, looking too angry to ask all the questions coming to mind.
    “Decemvir
Macduhi, I owe you a briefing. Perhaps the others will excuse us for a while. Macduhi
looked up to see Commander Calla gesture toward the table. Macduhi nodded, and
the two of them went to sit down. As soon as they stepped onto the hearth rug,
they were completely protected from being overheard.
    “You
might have warned us,” Koh said to D’Omaha, her brown eyes unforgiving. “We
still have to work with her.”
    “There
wasn’t time,” D’Omaha said stiffly, “She can be impossible.”
    “I
shouldn’t have asked you to knock the snow off the trees,” Stairnon said
worriedly. “You had important things to do, and I made you go out to take care
of the trees.”
    D’Omaha
put his arm around her. She knew better. Nothing could have distracted him if
he’d been determined. Koh knew it too, but she said nothing. She might well be
wondering how she would deal with her replacement two years hence.
    D’Omaha
watched the two women under the sound shield.
    Macduhi’s
back was to him, but Calla had shoved the place setting at the head of the
table aside to make room for her elbows. She seemed dwarfed by the big chair,
but it was a mistake to think of Calla as being dwarfed by anything. She was
counting off something to Macduhi on her fingers. It took all ten; it had to be
all the warnings of war, right here in the Hub, perpetrated at least in part by
Macduhi’s own homeworld, Dvalerth. Dvalerth had put down an insurgence on a
colony world called Tagax Cassells, but they were Cassells now, not colonials.
Along with Boscan Cassells, they’d formed a fleet that was at this very moment
headed for Dvalerth, an old world Hub planet, not far in the spiral Arm from
Mercury Novus, the world on which they were standing at this very moment.
    Macduhi
shrugged, and D’Omaha could imagine that she was pointing out to Calla that war
between Cassells and Dvalerth was a local matter. The Council of Worlds refused
to consider it, which effectively kept the Decemvirate out of it, too. And
Calla, of course, nodded patiently, then began talking again. Visibly Macduhi’s
shoulders began to stiffen as Calla asked her to consider how far the
Cassells-Dvalerth war would escalate when the Decemvirate made its decision
regarding elixir reapportionment.
    Macduhi
turned slightly in her chair and stared for a moment at D’Omaha. She was, no
doubt, remembering that he had started to tell her that she had, indeed, been
manipulated into not making a decision on elixir reapportionment. Now she