Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [181]
"Don't we always?" But the little group of pompous Charonese officials that surrounded Forister was moving off now, leaving the spacefield clear for Nancia's liftoff.
"It's just that I like to feel we've accomplished something," she lamented as Caleb strapped down for liftoff, "and I do feel this Charonese situation calls for somebody a bit more . . . more forceful." Somebody like Daddy, for instance. With his brisk, no-nonsense manner and willingness to enforce his decisions, Javier Perez y de Gras would have made short work of Charon's seven feuding factions, the continual war between the Tran Phon guerrillas and all seven provisional governments, and the consequent destruction of Charon's vital quinobark forests. He'd have been using Nancia's comm facilities and working the Net every minute they weren't in Singularity, preparing for his descent on the Charonese, arming himself with every last detail of the conflict, softening up the principal offenders with stern warning messages.
This Forister had spent the three days of the voyage reading ancient books—not even disks, but some account of an Old Earth war too minor to have been transcribed to computer-readable format. And when he wasn't reading about this place called Viet Nam, he wasted his time in relaxed, casual conversation with her and Caleb, chatting about their families and upbringing, their hopes and dreams. Too soft to stop a war, Nancia thought contemptuously. Oh, well, Caleb was right—the results were none of their business. They were Courier Service; they went where they were sent, quickly and efficiently. Sticking around to report on the failure of the resulting mission was not in the CS job description.
Bahati, Central Date 2753:
Fassa
"You can't just leave me like this!"
Fassa del Parma y Polo paused at the door and blew a mocking kiss at the gray-faced, potbellied man who was looking at her with such pain in his eyes. "Watch me, darling. Just watch me." She touched her left index finger to the charm bracelet on her wrist. There'd been an empty prismawood heart there, just the right size to hold the minihedron recording this stupid bureaucrat's sign-off on the Nyota ya Jaha Space Station contract. "Our business is done." All their business, including those boring maneuvers on the man's synthofur rug. At least it hadn't taken too long. These old guys had dreams of grandeur, but they really couldn't do much when they did get the chance. You're past it, sweetheart, and the future belongs to me. Something uncomfortable writhed under the triumphant thought, some question as to why she exulted so much in the moral destruction of a small-time civil servant old enough to be her father; but Fassa pushed the question away with the ease of long practice. She had got what she wanted. It was as simple as that.
"But we were going to live together. You were going to quit this messy, unfeminine job, now that you've got enough money to pay for your sister's metachip prosthesis, and we were going to retire to Summerlands . . ."
Fassa laughed out loud. "What, me? Spend my last hundred years tending to some old man in a Summerlands retirement cottage? You've been popping too much Blissto, my friend." She paused to let the rejection sink in before delivering her final warning. "And don't even think about blowing the whistle on me. Remember, you've got more to lose than I have." She always set it up that way.
There was an unwelcome surprise waiting for her when she reached her offices. Two, in fact. One was minor; some kid was slumped in the corner sackback chair in the outer office, fiddling with forms. Employment applications were supposed to be handled in a different office; the kid should have been sent there to begin with.
Before she had time to point this out, her secretary lowered his head and apologetically informed her that Bahati CreditLin insisted on one more palmprint before