“Why… why … hello,” she said helplessly.
“Draw your blinds,” he ordered. “I’d as soon not be glimpsed from beneath.”
She stared. Her backbone pringled. “Are you in trouble, Gabe?”
“Not officially—yet.”
“I’d no idea you were on Aeneas. Why didn’t you call?”
“Calls can be monitored. Now cover those windows, will you?”
She obeyed. Stewart removed his outer garments. “It’s good to see you again,” she ventured.
“You may not think that after I’ve spoken my piece.” He unbent a little. “Though maybe you will. I recall you as bold lass, in your quiet way. And I don’t suppose Firstlin’ of Ilion made you his girl for nothin’.”
“Do you have news of Ivar?” she cried. ” ‘Fraid not. I was hopin’ you would. . . . Well, let’s talk.”
He refused wine but let her brew a pot of tea. Meanwhile he sat, puffed his pipe, exchanged accounts of everything that had happened since the revolution erupted. He had gone outsystem, in McCormac’s hastily assembled Intelligence corps, and admitted ruefully that meanwhile the war was lost in his own bailiwick. As far as he could discover, upon being returned after the defeat, some Terran agent had not only managed to rescue the Admiral’s wife from Snelund—a priceless bargaining counter, no doubt—but while on Dido had hijacked a patriot vessel whose computer held the latest codes…. “I got wonderin’ about possibility of organizin’ Didonians to help fight on, as guerrillas or even as navy personnel. At last I hitched ride to Aeneas and looked up my friend—m-m, never mind his name; he’s of University too, on a secondary campus. Through him, I soon got involved in resistance movement.”
“There is one?”
He regarded her somberly. “You ask that, Ivar Frederiksen’s bride to be?”
“I was never consulted.” She put teapot and cups on a table between them, sank to the edge of a chair opposite his, and stared at the fingers wrestling in her lap. “He— It was crazy impulse, what he did. Wasn’t it?”
“Maybe then. Not any longer. Of course, your dear Commissioner Desai would prefer you believe that.”
Tatiana braced herself and met his look. “Granted,” she said, “I’ve seen Desai several times. I’ve passed on his remarks to people I know—not endorsin’ them, simply passin’ them on. Is that why I’m ostracized? Surely University folk should agree we can’t have too much data input.”
“I’ve queried around about you,” Stewart replied. “It’s curious kind of tension. Outsider like me can maybe identify it better than those who’re bein’ racked. On one hand, you are Ivar Frederiksen’s girl. It could be dangerous gettin’ near you, because he may return any day. That makes cowardly types ride clear of you. Then certain others— Well, you do have mana. I can’t think of better word for it. They sense you’re big medicine, because of bein’ his chosen, and it makes them vaguely uncomfortable. They aren’t used to that sort of thing in their neat, scientifically ordered lives. So they find excuses to themselves for postponin’ any resumption of former close relations with you.
“On other hand”—he trailed a slow streamer of smoke—”you are, to speak blunt, lettin’ yourself be used by enemy. You may think you’re relayin’ Desai’s words for whatever those’re worth as information. But mere fact that you will receive him, will talk civilly with him, means you lack full commitment And this gets you shunned by those who have it. Cut off, you don’t know how many already do. Well, they are many. And number grows day by day.”
He leaned forward. “When I’d figured how matters stand, I had to come see you, Tatiana. My guess is, Desai’s half persuaded you to try wheedlin’ Frederiksen into surrender, if and when you two get back in touch. Well, you mustn’t. At very least, hold apart from Impies.” Starkly: “Freedom movement’s at point where we can start makin’ examples of collaborators. I know you’d never be one, consciously. Don’t let yon Desai bastard snare you.”
“But,” she stammered in her bewilderment, “but what do you mean to do? What can you hope for? And Ivar— he’s nothin’ but young man who got carried away—fugitive, completely powerless, if, if, if he’s still alive at all—”