“You were following her, weren’t you?” asks Mulaghesh.
“Yes,” he says. “And you were following yours.”
“Right. So your daughter…Uh, and Pandey…” Mulaghesh scratches the back of her head.
“They are lovers,” says Sigrud.
“Well, if they weren’t already it sure looks like they’re going to be.”
“No…The familiarity of their movements…They have done this before, many times.”
Mulaghesh holds up her hands. “Okay, please stop. Remember this is your daughter you’re talking about.”
“Why should this discomfort me, to see my daughter doing this?” He looks into the sunset. “Two young people who nearly died last night, embracing life. That was what I saw.”
“With a…With a damned sergeant major in the Saypuri Military? I thought Signe would be into, I don’t know, some astronomically wealthy banker or something. Or at least someone of her own race. A Saypuri courting a Dreyling…I can’t imagine how such a thing would work. He’d need to tie cans on his feet to dance with her.”
“You underestimate her.”
“Maybe. Either way, it’s dangerous.”
“Affairs of the heart often are.”
“Don’t get sentimental with me. There’s a lot that could go wrong here. If either of them is telling the other anything…”
Sigrud thinks about it. “I do not care.”
“You what?”
“I do not care about espionage, about decorum, about security. I worried my daughter had only work in her life, only success or miserable failure. To see her smile in such a manner makes my heart glad.”
“Well, goody for your fucking heart! Pandey was one of my soldiers. I can’t believe he’s…fraternizing with a foreign official in such a manner!”
“Didn’t you sleep with a member of the Bulikov police department?” asks Sigrud.
“That’s beside the point!” snarls Mulaghesh. “The stakes were different then!”
“Were they?” Sigrud scratches his chin. “They are young. Both of them leave soon for uncertain fates. I say let them be humans for as long as circumstances allow. Why is this breach of decorum your concern, when so much else is at risk?”
“And I thought I was getting old and soft. You sound like a cheap novel, Chancellor.” She sighs. “Come on. Help me get my broken ass back to HQ.”
Ask a person what they want most desperately and they will say a child, a home, a fortune, a power, or an influence over their fellow men.
These are all variations on the same thing—a wish for lasting influence, for legacy, for eternity.
We wish to be remembered.
—WRITS OF SAINT PETRENKO, 720
Two days later, three hours before the break of dawn, Mulaghesh—still stiff, still bruised, still aching—reviews the craft that Signe has bobbing beside a small SDC dock.
“So…are we sailing or going on holiday?” she asks.
“I take it you’re no sailor,” says Signe as she makes her preparations. Despite the impending voyage, she’s still dressed the same: same black boots, same scarf, though she is now wearing a life jacket. Mulaghesh tries very hard not to remember the proper young CTO in the state of undress she saw just days ago.
“Maybe not, but I’m not sure how keen I am to get on that thing in the open seas.” She walks the length of the craft. It’s a forty-foot white yacht labeled Bjarnadóttir, which Mulaghesh isn’t going to even attempt to pronounce, and it looks to her eye to be more suited for a jaunt across a still lake than navigating the rocky coastlines of Voortyashtan.
“Don’t doubt it,” says Signe. “I know a Dreyling who sailed one of these fifteen thousand miles single-handedly.”
“If you are talking about old Hj?rvar,” says Sigrud, walking down the dock, “that man sailed slower than a cow gives birth.” He’s still moving gingerly, his right arm still in a sling. Mulaghesh shakes her head: firing a Ponja from an upright position would be like getting hit by a truck. But never was there a person more born to bear punishment than Sigrud.
“Hj?rvar is one of the most accomplished seamen I know of,” says Signe, nettled.
“The reason we all thought Hj?rvar was so slow,” says Sigrud, “is we assumed he kept masturbating in the cockpit instead of sleeping. He was known for that.”
“Anyway,” says Signe, “she is a good vessel, and she’ll take us where we need to go.”
Mulaghesh looks at Sigrud. “Is it a good vessel?”
He holds up a hand and wobbles it back and forth. “It will do.”
Signe scoffs as she carries more supplies on board. Mulaghesh eyes the crate as Signe walks past. “Four riflings, ammunition…and grenades? Why grenades?”
“You’ve not been to the Tooth, General,” Signe says over her shoulder. “I have. And if you think something Divine is awakening in Voortyashtan…I would prefer we be careful.” She slips through the hatch.
Sigrud and Mulaghesh stand on the dock, both slightly bent from their injuries. He says, “Take care of her.”
“I think she’s going to be taking care of me. I don’t know a damn thing about sailing.”
“She may know sailing. But she does not know combat. And she is going to a place that I think could be quite dangerous. We do not even know if Choudhry came back from this Tooth. We do not know what awaits.”
“I’ll try.”
Signe emerges from belowdecks. “We’ve got more shipments coming in shortly. If we want to depart, now’s the time.”
“Ah, hells,” says Mulaghesh. “Here we go….” She steps on board, her hip still complaining.
Signe shoves a second life jacket in her arms. “Wear this. And keep out of the way.”
“Fine, fine,” says Mulaghesh. She sits down before the hatch and slips the jacket on.
Signe turns to face her father, and for a moment Mulaghesh sees how their relationship could have been, had the world been different: Sigrud, tall, proud, stern, standing upon the dock with his arms crossed and the haze of early sunrise behind him; and before him his daughter, young and fierce, confidently balanced on the balls of her feet as the craft bobs up and down. They exchange some wordless moment that is inscrutable to Mulaghesh: perhaps each recognizes the competence of the other, and signals their pride; but then each acknowledges that there is work to do, and they must return to it.
“Safe sailing,” says Sigrud.
“Safe work,” says Signe.
And with that Sigrud bends low, unties the hitch, and throws the line aboard. Signe catches it one-handed, stows it aboard, then walks to the stern and starts the little diesel engine with a single jerk. Then, the engine sputtering and smoking, she guides the little yacht out to the open sea.
She does not look back once at her father. When Mulaghesh looks to shore, Sigrud, too, is walking away without a glance back.
***