CHAPTER TWO
“Actually, Gregory, you should be surprised,” my father said as he stirred extra cream into his coffee. “I haven’t been with the agency very long. Not officially, anyway.”
“Long enough for a full briefing, though,” I pointed out, looking around the cozy meeting room as I took a sip from my cola. Kinneman had followed my father’s somewhat melodramatic entrance by kicking the three of us out of his office and sending us here, having apparently gotten whatever reaction from me that he’d been looking for. At least he’d had the decency to stock the room with drinks and a reasonable selection of snackage.
Though as we left he’d warned us to keep our reunion brief, with an underlying hint that he wasn’t through with us yet.
And so of course my father had now gone with his favorite gambit of picking up on an unfinished conversational thread from several minutes earlier, a technique designed to disconcert people who weren’t familiar with it.
Fortunately, I was.
“Because I note the general didn’t lay any restrictions on us about our conversation,” I continued. “That tells me you’re cleared to know anything Selene and I can tell you.” I cocked my head. “Though I presume it doesn’t go the other direction?”
“Not at the moment,” my father confirmed. “Maybe later.” He smiled at Selene. “My apologies, Selene, at our dereliction of hostly duties. I’m Nicholas Roarke, Gregory’s father. I’m pleased to finally meet you.”
“And I you,” Selene said, her nostrils and eyelashes working the air. Probably establishing a baseline for my father should she need to read his emotions at some future date.
I wished her luck with that one. As far as I’d ever been able to establish, my father didn’t have a baseline.
“Though I must admit to some surprise at your appearance,” Selene continued. “From the way Gregory speaks of you, I assumed you’d passed on.”
“Did you, now,” my father said with an air of private amusement. “Let me guess. He quotes me often enough, probably dredging up some of the aphorisms I like to use, but otherwise never speaks of me?”
Selene’s eyes flicked to me. “Yes.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not offended,” he assured her. “And no, it’s not you, or even him. It’s me. You see, for the first few years of Gregory’s life he was mostly ashamed of me. In the years since then…” He paused, his half smile slipping a bit. “Let’s just say he still isn’t completely sure.”
Selene looked at me again, and I could see her trying to sift through the tangle of emotional scents I was undoubtedly broadcasting. “At least now you’re somewhat more legit,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows, the smile reestablishing itself. “Only somewhat?” he asked in a mock wounded tone.
“You seem to be high on Kinneman’s list of minions,” I said. “That raises a few question marks. No offense.”
“None taken,” he assured me. “On the other hand, you know as well as I do that I don’t necessarily get to choose who I work with. I also understand you didn’t always get along with Admiral Sir Graym-Barker when you were working with him, either.”
“Not always,” I conceded. “But mostly.”
“I’m sure it looked that way from your side of the table,” he said. “From the agency’s point of view, though, I have to tell you there’s a certain range of opinion as to how much you were working for the admiral and how much you were working against him.”
“I think that’s a bit harsh,” I said, feeling a fresh tightness in my throat. There were a lot of topics I didn’t want to discuss with my father, especially not in a conversation I assumed as a matter of course was being monitored. But there was something in his expression and tone that made me want to explain myself, a subtle challenge-and-hook he’d spent decades perfecting.
Plus, if Graym-Barker and Kinneman were listening, this might be a good time to clear up any lingering doubts about me. “I never fought him on anything of importance,” I said. “Mostly it was a clash of personalities. As a high-ranking military man, he’s used to giving and getting orders, all bundled neatly inside the strict and well-defined military way of doing things. Naturally, he was equally used to expecting everyone around him to do the same.”
“And you’re the polar opposite?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” I hedged. “But…look. You saw how my school-age assortment of odd jobs came and went. I do know how to follow rules and instructions. For one thing, I’ve got a very high regard for the laws of physics.”
“And the law of averages?”
“That, too,” I agreed. “And I’m okay with most of the Commonwealth’s laws. It’s just that when someone tells me to do something I need to see some reason and logic behind it. If I don’t, I usually go with what I see as the spirit of the order.”
“Whereas military people are obsessed with the precise and specific words involved?” he suggested.
I felt my lip twitch. “Something like that. You disapprove, I’m sure.”
“Not as much as you might think,” he assured me. “It’s really not a bad rule of thumb in general. What happens if there isn’t any discernable spirit?”
“Then I go with whatever benefits Selene and me,” I said. “Survival of the family, clan, and neighborhood. It’s kind of built into us humans.”
“It is indeed,” he agreed. “And if all of that is still a wash?”
“Then I do what’s best for the universe at large, I guess,” I said. “Assuming I can figure out what that is.”
“Mm.” My father pursed his lips, looking once at Selene and then back at me. “And yet, despite your admittedly casual approach to authority, you feel you should have been taken more deeply into the agency’s confidence instead of being kept at arm’s length?”
I took a careful breath. This was another of his favorite gambits, one I’d played through a hundred times with him. He would throw out a challenge to something I’d said or implied and force me to defend myself. “Our value to the Icarus Group isn’t predicated on how well I follow orders,” I said. “It’s a matter of how clearly I can see the bigger picture and anticipate the consequences of various possible actions.”
“Such as?”
“Such as keeping our hands off the Fidelio Gemini portal,” I said. “Earth—hell, the whole Commonwealth—could have ended up on the wrong end of a Patth transport embargo.”
“There’s also Maijo,” Selene offered.
“Exactly—case in point,” I said, pouncing on the cue. “A couple of months ago, Maijo blindly obeyed an order that left us hanging on Alainn. The direct result of that was that Kinneman lost any chance of getting his hands on the damaged portal he somehow thinks Selene and I could have gotten for him.”
“Yes, I’ve spoken with Maijo,” my father said thoughtfully. “He disagreed with that order, if it helps any.”
“But he still followed it,” I pointed out. “Which isn’t to say I necessarily blame him. If that helps any.”
“Not really,” my father said, giving me a wry smile. “Regardless, General Kinneman is now in charge of the agency. If you want to continue on here, you need to accept that and figure out how to work the change with a minimum of friction. As I always say, A subordinate needs the boss to be happy if he wants to get the job done.”
“Funny,” I said, giving him an exaggerated frown. “I remember that one being, A subordinate needs the boss to think he’s happy if he wants to get the job done.”
My father shrugged. “Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to, as they say,” he said. “Either way, the bottom line is to get the job done. What do you know about the DeepSix B33?”
Yet another of his standard tricks: an abrupt switch of topic. I knew that one, too. “It’s a high-end atmosphere bioprobe,” I said. “Bigger and a lot fancier than the ones we usually carry aboard the Ruth, with considerably more range and a phased transponder lock for better grav-beam acquisition. It can go deeper into a planetary atmosphere, stay down longer, and bring back a bigger sample. They’re also horrendously expensive. Why, are you thinking that buying a couple of them for us will make Kinneman happy?”
“Yes,” he said. “And no.” He stood up, his genial half smile back in place. “Come on. It’s time to introduce you to the rest of Project Needle.”