“I don’t understand the penalty,” Naomi said. “Seems harsh.”
“Drummer’s been waiting for this one, I’d guess,” Holden said. He didn’t look happy. “The first colony to really test how far the union will go to protect its monopoly on gate usage. And she’s going to crush this first example so hard that no one else will even try. She’s killing one colony now so she doesn’t have to kill thirteen hundred colonies later.”
The idea hung in the air like smoke over a poker game. Naomi’s expression mirrored Bobbie’s concern. Holden had the inward focus he got when he was thinking about something too hard for safety. A three-year timeout was rough. A three-year timeout when you’d start starving in less than one was something worse. Motive enough for violence, at least. Maybe something more.
“So,” Bobbie said, “this is going to be interesting.”
Chapter Three: Santiago Jilie Singh
Singh felt a tingle on his wrist and slid back his sleeve. The monitor wrapped around his forearm saw him look and displayed a notification of his most urgent task: the upcoming audience with the high consul.
He reset the notification timer to one-half hour before the meeting itself. His data pad had been riding on his arm or in his pocket for nearly five years. It knew everything there was to know about him. It was treating his upcoming audience with the high consul as if it were the single most important event of his life.
It wasn’t wrong.
He pulled the sleeve back into place, giving it one sharp tug to smooth out any new wrinkles, and inspected himself in his mirror. His blue-and-white dress uniform fit him like a glove, emphasizing the muscular frame he spent an hour every day sculpting in the gym. The newly acquired captain’s stars glittered on his collar, polished to a golden gleam. His chin and scalp were freshly shaved, and he imagined it gave him the feral, predatory quality that befit a military man.
“Still preening?” Natalia said from the bathroom. She opened the door and came out in a cloud of steam, her hair dripping wet. “A man so handsome needs to be groped, I think.”
“No,” Singh said, backing away. “If you get water on me—”
“Too late,” his wife laughed, darting forward to grab him. She hugged him tight around the waist, her wet hair on his shoulder.
“Nat,” he said, meaning to complain but finding himself unable to. Her towel had come loose when she grabbed him, and in the mirror he could see the gentle curve of her hip. He put a hand on it and squeezed. “I’m all wet now.”
“You’ll dry,” she said, reaching behind him to pinch his butt. The newly promoted captain in the Laconian navy gave an undignified yelp. He felt another buzz in his wrist, and for a moment Singh thought the pad on his arm was disapproving of all this tomfoolery.
He pushed his sleeve back again, and saw that it was just a notification that his car would arrive in twenty minutes.
“Car will be here soon,” he said with regret, burying his nose in his wife’s wet hair for a moment.
“And it’s time to get Elsa up,” Natalia agreed. “It’s your big day. You pick: wake the monster, or make breakfast?”
“I’ll take monster duty this morning.”
“Be careful. She’ll care even less about not messing up your clean new uniform,” Natalia said as she pulled on a robe. “Breakfast in ten, sailor.”
But it took nearly fifteen minutes to drag Elsa out of her crib, change her diaper, get her dressed, and carry her into their kitchen. Natalia had already put plates piled high with pancakes and fresh apples on the table, and the smell of chai filled the air.
Singh’s wrist buzzed, and he didn’t n
eed to look to know it was the five-minute warning for his car. He strapped Elsa into her high chair and put the smallest plate of apple slices in front of her. She chortled and smacked her palm down onto them, spraying droplets of juice everywhere.
“Will you have time to eat?” Natalia asked.
“I’m afraid I won’t,” Singh said, pulling up his sleeve and scrolling through the day’s schedule. “Monster just did not want to put pants on today.”
“I think her single biggest disagreement with preschool is their pants requirement,” Natalia said with a smile. Then she glanced down at the meeting schedule on his arm and sobered. “What time should we expect you?”
“My meeting is scheduled for fifteen minutes at nine a.m., and I don’t have anything else today, so …” Singh said. He did not say, but I’m meeting with High Consul Winston Duarte, so I control nothing about when the meeting begins or ends.
“All right,” Natalia said, then kissed his cheek. “I’ll be at the lab today until at least six, but your father agreed to monster duty if you can’t pick her up from school.”
“Fine, fine,” Singh said. “Until then.”
The dark naval staff car pulled up outside. Singh paused at the mirror by the door to give himself one final inspection, and wipe away an errant bit of Monster’s breakfast shrapnel. Natalia was at the table now, trying to eat and also get some of Monster’s own food in her mouth and off her shirt.
Dread welled up from his belly, swamping his heart. He had to swallow half a dozen times before he could speak. He loved his wife and their child more than he could say, and leaving them was always a little difficult. This was different. Generations of navy men had faced mornings like this. Meetings with superiors that heralded change. Surely, if they’d faced it, he could too.