Trejo’s effort to hold his temper was visible. “Before we move on to that, if we could address the health of the high consul?”
“He’s stable,” Cortázar said. “Very stable. Perfectly fine.”
“Improving?”
“No.”
Ilich broke in, his voice tense. “Is there no way we can get him back?”
Elvi wasn’t going to let Cortázar bullshit this one anymore. Either he had a plan he’d been holding back for his own reasons or he didn’t. She leaned forward and put her hands on the desk, palms down, like she was revealing a hand at a poker table. “I don’t see any realistic path toward returning him to his previous state.”
Trejo nodded to her and shifted to Cortázar. “Do you disagree?”
Cortázar squirmed. “His previous state? Probably not. But moving him forward into a new state is much more plausible. Easy, even. And more than that, instructive.”
Trejo went terribly still. A soft tapping came at the door, and the servant came in with Elvi’s snack. She’d forgotten all about it. When the door was closed again and privacy restored, Trejo hadn’t moved. His eyes weren’t focused on anything in the room, and his skin was pale. It took Elvi a moment to understand what she was seeing.
All this time, Trejo had hoped. He’d believed that his leader would return, that the righteous king would rise and retake his throne. Despite everything Elvi had said, the admiral had believed Cortázar could Merlin his Arthur back from madness. She was watching Trejo realize he had just been letting someone play with the corpse. She was someplace between horrified for him and relieved that he’d finally heard what she’d been saying all along.
“All right,” Trejo said. And then again, more slowly, “All right. The high consul is going to have to make a statement all the same. We’ll draft something.”
“We can say that the event was a test,” Ilich said. “The high consul’s elite team has made a breakthrough. A new weapon against the enemy.”
“Or we could tell them the truth,” Elvi said.
Trejo stood, his hands clasped behind his back. The anger and irrationality in his expression were grief. Grief made people crazy. When he spoke, his voice buzzed with barely controlled rage. Not at Cortázar either. At her.
“I don’t think you understand exactly how precarious our situation is here, Dr. Okoye. I have a two-front war with no fronts. This is not a moment to undermine and degrade the confidence of our troops or embolden separatist terror. You have just outlined war on a cosmic scale. I can’t prosecute a battle against your dark gods while guerrillas degrade our forces. We have to unify humanity for this. We have to strike with one will. We can’t afford to fuck around knocking each other’s comm relays down anymore. That is going to get us all killed. Do you hear what I am saying?”
“I do,” Elvi said, and she was surprised by the steel in her own voice. Trejo heard it too. “I’m hearing you say you can’t handle this. You want the fight with the underground over with? Easy to do. Surrender.”
“Your jokes aren’t funny,” he said.
“They aren’t when they’re not jokes.”
Chapter Forty: Teresa
Every night she went to sleep, Teresa thought that maybe the next day would be the one that brought her father back. Like with the story of Pandora’s box, all the other fears and nightmares were made bearable by that one hope. Every morning that she woke, there was that sense of possibility that stayed bright as long as she could keep herself from checking in. And then Kelly, her father’s personal valet, would tell her that nothing had changed because of course it hadn’t. She’d feel let down again, and still, idiotically, stupidly, like a cartoon character with an empty grin, the thought would come up. Maybe tomorrow. Always maybe tomorrow.
His rooms weren’t grand. They never had been. A bed frame of natural wood and a thin mattress that he would rest on, even after he’d outgrown sleep. A desk with metal, locking drawers and a screen built into its surface. The only decorations in the place were a picture of her as a child, one of her mother from when she’d been alive, and a simple glass vase big enough for a single flower that Kelly replaced every day. Winston Duarte, high consul and architect of the Laconian Empire, had taken pride in having a simple man’s quarters. The greatness of Laconia wasn’t in its gaudiness, but in its works. The vastness of the empire’s ambition would have made any man seem small. Even him. That was how she thought of it, anyway. What she’d believed.
Now he sat at his desk, his head shifting as if he were trying to follow the flight of insects that only he could see. His hands rose sometimes and then drifted back down like he’d started to reach for something and then forgotten what he meant to do. Kelly had brought her a wicker chair to put beside him. Teresa sat on it, her hands clasped on her knees, watching him for any sign of improvement. Any hope that today might be the tomorrow she kept herself alive for.
“Daddy?” she said, and he seemed to react to the sound. He turned a degree toward her, and even though his eyes didn’t meet hers, something like a smile touched his lips. Kelly kept her father’s hair well combed, but it seemed thinner than she remembered it. Grayer. Greasier. The ancient acne scars on her father’s cheeks made him seem rougher, more worn than he actually was. There was an amazement in his expression, like he was constantly discovering wonders that commanded his attention more than she did.
“Daddy,” she said again, “he’s going to kill me. Dr. Cortázar? He’s going to kill me.”
He turned toward her more, his brow taking on a gentle furrow. Maybe he’d heard her, maybe it was coincidence. He reached out his hands to pat at the air around her head the way he did sometimes, only this time she took his fingers in hers, pulling his hands down, pulling his face toward hers. “Are you there? Do you understand what I’m telling you? He wants to kill me. He wants to pin me down and cut me up like those frogs. And no one’s helping. No one even cares.”
She was weeping now, and she hated that she was.
“Come back,” she whispered. “Daddy, come back to me.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak, but only made wet clicking noises. Like meat being moved by a butcher. He frowned for a moment, then looked away toward the window.
“Daddy,” she said again. And then, “Daddy!”
He flinched at the sound.