Matushka Page 3

  Romanova shuddered. Then she said quietly and positively, “So Dan was able to find you before someone else did. Because of what Captain Giandrea had told him.”

  “Yes. That’s how it happened.”

  Romanova closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them she asked, “Then Dan’s partners know about you?”

  The Star Service had paid out a decent severance bonus to each ejected scrambler; that much, at least, the Defense Ministry had done at Romanova’s own urging. With that bonus many of the displaced officers had been able to start new lives. Dan Archer had combined his bonus with that of his comrades Johanna Braeden, Sean Tierney, Beth Croft, and Fiona Meredith. Together the five former service people, humans all as it happened, had purchased a surplus ship and set themselves up in business. In a sense it was a come-down, to go from proud Star Service officer to interplanetary trader; but it was better, as Dan said bluntly, than going back to Sestus 4 and grubbing in the mines there as his grandparents had done. His own parents had been traders, and if they hadn’t vanished with their ship one day while he was still a child he probably would have been one, too. And clearly his partners had agreed with him; whatever lives they would have gone back to weren’t anything that would be an improvement over the free life of the trade-ship.

  But then, that was the nature of being a scrambler. They were people who had started with nothing, who had signed on as ordinaries during their youth and who had risen from there on merit alone. They hadn’t started with a Catherine Romanova’s land and money and genealogy behind them, nor with a Lincoln Casey’s highly educated (although always impoverished) parents.

  They were exemplary officers in almost every case, and being obliged to send his favorite Academy College charges home to their old lives before they had had a chance to reap any of the benefits of their new ones had been what had broken Lincoln Casey’s health. Or so Casey’s wife still firmly believed, now that they were far from the storm center that was Fleet Command on Terra and now that her lover and best friend was himself again.

  Was even a little bit bored, lately, although he hadn’t yet realized that himself. Nor had she chosen to bring that fact to his attention, there were some things you kept in your own thoughts even in the most intimate of telepathic relationships.

  “They only know he salvaged a Fleet lifeboat,” Kane said. “He didn’t retrieve me from it until just before he sold it back to the goddam Fleet. And Hansie was the only one who even knew there was a stasis tube aboard it, all the time the boat was under tow.”

  Romanova sighed, because that bit of news was a relief to her. Johanna Braeden was the only one of Dan’s partners she knew personally, and the woman could be trusted. She and Dan went back to the days of Ewan Fralick together, Hansie would die slowly before she would do anything to hurt Dan or someone Dan loved.

  Or at least cared about and felt responsible for. Did Dan love this gen, this woman who had been his bed partner and his superior officer during his final posting before the Service had thrown him out like so much garbage?

  That didn’t matter. Kane was here now, Dan had chosen to honor his obligation to her, and he had a perfect right to expect his foster parents to share that obligation with him.

  “Ad—I mean, Katy.” Rachel Kane was looking at Catherine Romanova with speculative eyes. “I’m curious. Dan calls you ‘matushka.’ What does that mean?”

  Romanova shook herself, coming back from a brief reverie. She answered with a small grin, “It’s a bad joke from my field duty days, back when Dan was a kid in his twenties and he was part of the fleet I commanded at Mistworld. I was carrying my daughter then; I was about to go on maternity leave, and I couldn’t because we were diverted for that emergency. So I acted as commodore until that engagement was over, and then I hung around and handled the peace negotiations until the Diplomatic Corps could get their people all the way out there. By that time I was wearing civvies on the bridge, because I couldn’t fit into even a maternity uniform.

  “‘Matushka’ means ‘little mother,’ in Old Earth Russian. And while I’ve never been all that interested in Terran history, so I’m just repeating what I’ve heard and not anything that I’ve bothered to verify, I’ve been told that my surname Romanov belonged to the Russian Imperial family that was last on the throne when there was a monarchy on that part of Terra. I do know that the ‘matushka’ was what those people called their empress, probably to be sarcastic; but my troops were being at least a little bit sarcastic themselves when they called me that! Anyhow, I liked it and I didn’t mind when it stuck. At least with people Dan’s age and older, with those officers who’ve been around long enough to remember Mistworld.”

  She was about to add that when Ewan had started bringing Dan Archer home with him on every leave, she had grown annoyed at being addressed by her rank in the privacy of her residence. She had asked the young man to call her something, anything, that was comfortable for him that wasn’t “commodore” or “captain” or “group leader.” She’d somehow been sure he would not be able to handle “Katy,” not when he still had to make the transition back to formality when all of them returned to duty. But Dan hadn’t come up with anything at that time, not until they were in the thick of battle at Mistworld—not until after Ewan was dead, and with him Marcus and Bryce.

  It was then that Dan had started calling her “Matushka,” and his comrades had been delighted with the nickname’s appropriateness. But no sooner did she start trying to explain all that to Rachel Kane than she realized this wasn’t the right time, that the younger woman didn’t need to hear it now and probably wouldn’t understand half of it if she did; and the front door’s gentle buzzing intervened anyway.

  That would be Cab Barrett arriving, and Linc would let her in. Good, confirming Kane’s state of health and that of her unborn children definitely needed to be the next order of business.

  CHAPTER 3

  Whether to stay in the bedroom like a hovering mother once she had introduced her personal physician to Rachel Kane, or to leave doctor and patient discreetly alone, was a question Romanova didn’t have to answer. She knew before Casey rapped at the door that he was coming to get her, and why. But she pretended, from long habit when others were present who might not understand the nature of the bond between them, that his summons was news to her when he said, “Katy, I’ve got two calls for you. If they can spare you in there…”

  “They can,” Romanova decided, as soon as both Kane and Barrett gave her nods. The young Star Service officer (or former officer that would be, now) looked apprehensive, which was understandable; after all, it was unnerving enough to be pregnant for the first time even when a woman had expected and wanted that all her life. Under Kane’s circumstances it must be—Romanova honestly could not imagine how it must be, and admitted that to herself. And of course Barrett wanted the third person out of the way, physicians usually preferred that even when the third person had a clear right to be there. Which Romanova did not.

  One of the calls she wanted, it was her cousin Johnnie out on the Romanov Farmstead. The other was from someone she didn’t particularly care to hear from at the best of times, and that he had picked now to bother her was typical even though of course he couldn’t know how annoying his timing was.

  Her ex-husband, blast and damn the man she once had loved so passionately and so tenderly.

  She said, “Linc, make George wait. He hates talking to you, but that’s what he’s going to do if he wants to stay on comm instead of hold until I’m ready for him. I won’t make Johnnie wait, not for that bastard!”

  “Understood,” Casey answered, in a deliberate echo of his manner from the days when he had been her executive officer and George Fralick had been her husband; and none of the three of them had been able to imagine that those familiar relationships could be anything but permanent. But he grinned as he moved toward one of their home’s two communications screens while his wife moved toward the other. Plainly his usual compassion didn’t exten
d to feeling sorry for the man who long ago had hurt Katy so brutally, and then had left Linc to pick her up and put her back together.

  Romanova watched as her cousin’s familiar image formed in the holoscreen, and she smiled at him. “Hello, Johnnie,” she said, in a gentle tone that she didn’t realize she never used with anyone else.

  Not far away her husband realized it, but didn’t mind a bit. Katy’s early love for her cousin had become something else entirely during the first few years Casey had known her, and he understood just how it was between them now.

  “Hi, Katy-love,” Ivan Romanov said in a similar tone, within his own wife’s hearing and without the least self-consciousness about using that endearment. “What’s going on with you? Linc made it sound urgent.”

  “It could be,” Katy answered. “But it’s not going to be too difficult for you, not unless Reen has an objection to company right now.”

  “I think she’d be happy to have company,” her cousin observed. “Tena and her husband finished their visit with us yesterday, and Farren’s gone back to university. That leaves Reen stuck here with just me. Are you coming out, Katy? I hope?”

  “I wish.” Romanova’s sigh was honestly rueful. She had grown up in the capital city/university town where she lived now, but she had spent long stretches of both her childhood and her adolescence at the farmstead that was both the source of the Romanov family’s wealth and her cousin’s first love. His love even ahead of Katy, something she had understood and had accepted when she was a romantic adolescent girl and Johnnie was both her lover and her intended husband.

  She loved the farmstead, too. It wasn’t Johnnie’s fault that she hadn’t been able to reconcile herself to living there with him all their days, that she had been a curious young woman and had insisted on going to Terra for her education. Her parents had been more indulgent than most guardians of Narsatian land heirs. Probably because they were both professors and themselves had enjoyed the advantages of off-world university experiences, they had agreed to let Katy put off formalizing her union with Ivan Romanov—he the primary heir to the farmstead, she the secondary heir, in their common generation in spite of the considerable gap between their ages. And with that permission in hand Katy had acted with the combination of cunning and decisiveness that would one day make her first a starship captain, then a battle group leader, and finally the commanding officer of the Star Service itself.

  She had made her application to the Star Service Academy in secret, at the same time she had made an open application to the Sorbonne. That hadn’t been a problem at all, because the Academy was supported by public funds. She didn’t have to come up with fees; and since any Commonwealth citizen eighteen years old or of equivalent maturity could apply for admission there without a guardian’s consent, she hadn’t had to deceive anyone except her parents to complete the process. The only tricky part had been taking the personal interview while the admissions team was on Narsai without anyone Katy knew finding out she had met with them, and she had actually enjoyed arranging that small intrigue.

  Once she arrived on Terra, of course, the rest had been easy. After she took the oath, no one could interfere between her and the organization she had joined.

  Her parents hadn’t spoken to her for years after that, not until she had unfairly put one twin into her mother’s arms while George had put the second twin into her father’s arms—while small Ewan had clung to her trouser-leg, and regarded his grandparents with curious dark eyes. Although her defection from her duty hadn’t impoverished anyone in her birth family because the farmstead’s income was handled with great fairness, she had caused them terrible embarrassment. Even after they had allowed her back into their lives when she enticed them with the chance to know their grandsons, the old easy affection between Katy and her parents had never quite been restored.

  But Johnnie had forgiven her, promptly if not easily. In his way Johnnie really had loved her, and still did.

  After a time during which he had frankly hoped she might wash out of the Academy and be sent home, he had married the cousin who was third heir: Lorena, who was still his wife today. They had produced the one child that Narsatian couples were encouraged to have, and now their grandchild was old enough for university.

  And far from disliking Katy because she had been first in Johnnie’s bed and in his heart, Reen still told their cousin from time to time how glad she was that Katy had refused the role that Reen had stepped into with such happiness.

  Ivan Romanov was past seventy now, but in excellent health and in superb physical condition. Even today a farmer worked hard, that was still the nature of that life in spite of all technology could do to make the land more productive. Reen had worked beside him through all these years, so now she was slimmer than Katy (who had always fought against her body’s determination to thicken, and who was finding that battle more difficult than ever now that she was no longer setting the example in physical training for all the people who until seven months ago had reported to her).

  “Linc and I will be visiting you later in the winter, I hope, Johnnie,” Romanova said now, and leaned toward the holoscreen as if that could bring her closer to the beloved face within it. “Right now we’ve inherited a house guest who needs a quiet place to rest. I’d rather not tell you anything about her, not even her name; and I’d rather you and Reen kept her presence quiet once she’s joined you. Oh, Johnnie, I can’t think of anyone except you and Reen that I’d dare to ask for this!”

  “In other words you think it’s possible you may be asking us to do something dangerous.” Not exactly the smartest thing to say on comm, even on Narsai where privacy was respected; but then Johnnie was no military officer, he was a farmer. But he continued without pausing, “I’m glad you know you can ask us, Katy. Whoever your house guest is, send her along. We’ll expect her.”

  “Thank you, Johnnie. Give Reen my love, I don’t have time to ask you to put her on right now.” Romanova ended the transmission, and nodded to Casey. The two of them spoke and gestured to each other like any normal couple, the only time they confined their communications to their mental link was when they needed privacy in the presence of others. She said, “I’m ready for George now,” in a crisp tone that she often used when she was getting ready to deal with something unpleasant as quickly and as efficiently as she could.

  Her former mate’s image replaced her beloved cousin’s in the holoscreen. He was annoyed at having been made to wait, and with her he didn’t try to conceal that aggravation. “Katy! What in hell’s going on down there that’s so important? I thought you and Casey were retired now, so you can’t get away with telling me you had the defense minister on comm.”

  “No, it was someone more important than Fothingill. I was talking to Johnnie,” Romanova said, deciding that there was no reason she should dissemble about that fact. “What do you want, George? It’s months until I can have my next visit with Maddy. And where are you, anyway?” The second question came when she realized he had spoken as though he were in orbit above Narsai, and not light years away on Kesra.

  “I’m aboard the Archangel, practically over your head,” George Fralick said with plain satisfaction. “I’ve got Maddy with me. Katy, I’m on my way to Terra and I’ve got no idea when I’ll be free to go back home to Kesra. P’Tara died just before we left, K’lor went back to his birth-house that same day, and there was no one else I wanted to leave our daughter with. You always said you wanted me to let her visit you here—so I guess now’s your chance.”

  At this moment Catherine Romanova soundly blessed the fact that her first husband did not have her second mate’s ability to read her thoughts and her feelings. She could and did allow her face to register nothing but the simple surprise, and the mixture of suspicion and pleasure, that Fralick would be expecting from her after that announcement. She said sharply just what she knew he would be anticipating: “George, I’m not putting Linc out of our home. Not even for Maddy. That’s what you said I’d ha
ve to do before you’d even consider allowing her to visit with me here, and I meant it when I said no deal. If I’d been willing to let you blackmail me with her, I’d have done it thirteen years ago when she was a baby and you thought you could make me stay married to you by taking custody of her away from me.”

  Oh, gods, why now? When on any day for the past seven months, this offer would have seemed like years of prayers and dreams at last coming true?

  Fralick scowled. Like so many other superb politicians and diplomats, the face he showed to his immediate family was not always the one his public saw. He said reluctantly, “Well…she’s old enough to understand now, I think, why you’re sleeping in the same room with him. And I would rather leave her with you than with anyone else, Katy, with things the way they are right now. Then if anything goes down politically, she won’t be on one world and you on another and me on still a third. At least she’ll have one parent, if the worst happens.”

  So that was it, even George thought that war might be coming. Romanova forbade herself to shiver, and she gave up the privilege of reminding him that long ago when they had faced each other in that alien court on Kesra he had claimed a girl-child wasn’t safe on Narsai. He had backed that claim by citing Katy’s own liaison with her cousin Ivan, starting on her thirteenth birthday as was usual with landed Narsatian women and ending only when she had “fled to safety on Terra” as George had chosen to paint the start of her military career; and he had pointed out that under Terran laws, Ivan Romanov would have been executed for the rape of a minor.

  It hadn’t been like that, but of course no out-worlder really could understand something so essentially Narsatian. She hadn’t been running away from Johnnie, or even from sharing Johnnie’s bed. That hadn’t been offensive to her! Not that it had been especially pleasurable either, of course, in those years while she was still just a girl and her partner was a grown man; but it had been expected by everyone who loved her, after the first time or two it hadn’t been a painful thing, and she had enjoyed knowing that her body had the capacity to give her beloved Johnnie so much delight. There had been a sense of power in it for young Katy, and she had regretted giving that up somewhat more than she had regretted knowing she would never be Johnnie’s full partner in the management and primary ownership of the Romanov farm.