You have no idea how many lives he could ruin, even in a couple of days! And what do you mean, practice asking for things nicely? You wouldn’t-”
I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence, but I didn’t have to. Val knew exactly what I meant, and his grin showed it.
“Make you behave yourself?” he asked with a chuckle, really enjoying himself. “Have you been thinking of me as the sort who would pass up an opportunity like this? Would you pass it up?”
I opened my mouth, started stuttering, then quickly regained control of myself. The whole thing was so ridiculous it had gotten to me for a minute, just ,as though he really meant what he was saying.
“Val, we’re on an assignment,” I said with an attempt at a smile. “If you try to play catch-up games now, you’ll be putting both our necks on the line. As soon as this assignment is over you can do anything you like to get even with me, and you’ll have every right, but not now, not while we’re working. You can see that, can’t you?”
“Of course I can see your point,” he said with an agreeable nod, giving me a smile of his own. “Game-playing under fire is always a dangerous pastime, one I avoid whenever possible. But that doesn’t have anything to do with our current situation. The age you register is a fact, as solid as the fact that you’ve already named me your guardian. What could be more natural than my making you behave yourself, just as I would if you really were not yet seventeen years old? Show me how that jeopardizes the assignment and I won’t do it, but first you have to show me.”
“It jeopardizes the assignment-by restricting me,” I said, still refusing to believe he meant what he had said. “I have to be free to move around on Xanadu as the situation demands, following Radman’s trail to wherever he is. I can’t find him by tagging obediently along behind my ‘uncle’.”
“But that’s exactly what you have to do,” he said, his tone reasonable. “You and I may know you’re not seventeen, but to everyone else around here, that’s exactly what you are. How do you plan on making it not necessary to tag along after me? You’ve been declared a minor; how do you plan: on getting it undeclared?”
I just sat there with my feet under me in the light-gold chair, staring at him in silence, finally knowing the meaning of the strange look he’d been giving me. It was, a lot like the look I’d seen in his eyes when he’d kept me in bed during that time while the wound in my side healed, and he’d done it “for my own good.” There would have been very little chance of arguing with him then even if the Bellna presence hadn’t been in control; his eyes said “no” at the same time his mouth did, no uncertainty, no lack of confidence. He had decided to do that to me again, I could see, and the thought upset me more than I would have believed possible.
“Don’t think you have me in a corner, because you don’t,” I said after the silence. “If I can’t think my way out of this, I’ll-I’ll-”
“End up being a good little girl, or passing on the assignment,” he finished for me, a thing he’d been doing a lot lately. “While you’re thinking, I’ll order up some lunch for us. That’s just about what Station time is now, and it’s been much too long since we had our last lunch on the liner. It’s usually easier to think on a full stomach.”
“I’m not hungry,” I told him, unfolding my feet to stand abruptly out of the chair. “And I prefer doing my thinking in private.” I turned away from him and went toward my bedroom, keeping myself from hurrying despite the weight of his eyes on my back. I entered the room and closed the door quietly behind me, walked over to the double-double bed and picked up a pillow, then threw the pillow as hard as I could toward the door to my bathroom. The room was done all in pale blue and silver, normally cool and soothing colors, but nothing short of knock-out gas could have calmed me down right then. No-.
matter how furious the idea made me, there was no getting around it: if I couldn’t think my way out of the box, I was smack up against the choices Val had mentioned. I turned back to the bed and threw myself down across- it, then set my mind to deep-think searching.
I don’t know exactly how many hours went by, but enough of them passed to allow me to know just where I stood-or, in that case, lay. Calling the situation bleak would be like calling a feather light, an unnecessary redundancy that was as angry-making as an intimate caress from a strange hand in the midst of a crowd. I’d spent some time considering whether it would be possible to do anything illegally, and had come to the reluctant decision that risking it on Xanadu wouldn’t be the smartest of moves. If I really had to I could get down to the planet without Val, but Xanadu’s security set-up specialized in catching those attempting to barge in without invitation. If they managed to get their hands on me, the fact that I could pay my way would not alter the fact that I’d been caught in an illegality, and was therefore, according to their laws, a criminal. Criminals on Xanadu were not treated with patience and understanding; they were very quickly tried, convicted and sentenced, the penalty involving the criminal, in various unpleasant ways, in Pleasure Sphere doings. That kind of thing would very likely get me closer to Radman, but not in a position where I would be able to do anything about him. I turned on my back in frustration, searching the blue and silver ceiling for answers, but wherever they were hiding, the ceiling wasn’t it.
“Have you come up with any strokes of genius yet?” a calm, deep voice asked, drawing my eyes to the now-open door. Val stood there, in the same red-orange shirt and black pants he’d worn earlier, and he didn’t seem very worried.
“I’ve had one or two thoughts,” I agreed, determined not to let him see me squirm. “The primary point that came to me is only a belief, but it has a lot going for it. If I refuse to go along with your fun time, if I simply go ahead and do things my own way no matter what age everyone thinks I am, what can you do about it? You won’t simply sit back and put your feet up, refusing to do the job, because you know as well as I do how badly it needs doing. If I had to bet on it, Val, I’d bet that you have as much of a need to get on with it as I do. ”
“You are bright,” he conceded with a faint grip, leaving the doorway to come and stand over me next to the bed. He folded his arms across his chest in a casual way, and looked down at me with amusement.
“The only thing you haven’t taken into account is my own thinking on the subject. You’re right in believing I want to see Radman get his just as much as you do, but you forget that you’re the only one in the known universe who considers me helpless. If you decide you’re too good to pay back some of what you owe, I’ll leave you hereon the Station and go after Radman alone.”
I know my jaw dropped open then, but I just couldn’t help it. He couldn’t possibly be serious, but he did seem to be. I sat up fast, and looked up at him.
“You couldn’t possibly mean that!” I got out in a rush, struggling to keep some control over myself.
“You can’t go after Radman alone, you don’t even know what he looks like! And you don’t know Xanadu! And if you think I’d stay on this Station, you’re crazy!”
“I don’t have to know what Radman looks like,” he answered with that damnable calm he seemed to be trying to soothe me with. “There are people on Xanadu who do know what he looks like, and they should be easy to find. As far as the planet itself goes, there seem to be a lot of people who don’t know it, so many that the Station has an information clip on it available for viewing. I’ll have a lot of company not knowing that world.” He unfolded his arms and sat down next to me, then smoothed some hair back from my eyes. “And this Station also has a special baby-sitting service, designed to take care of the minor children of those who go down to the planet. The clip explained how gently they treat the older children, especially the ones who are angry enough at being left behind to try following their parents.
Maximum security detention facilities could learn something from their methods. ”
I knocked his hand away from me with a snarl and turned my back on him, so furious I could barely think straight. How nice that he’d spent the past few hours so profitably, viewing clips that I’d taught him how to view! I hadn’t known about that damned baby-sitting service, and the thought that I could be subject to such a thing was more than I could accept. I didn’t want to be less than seventeen, and I wasn’t!
“If you want to take over this assignment, there’s a specified way to do it,” I told him in a tone without inflection, still turned away. “Whether or not you like it, I do outrank you, just as I outrank everyone who isn’t a Special Agent. If you want to be assignment leader, you have to face me.”
He shifted silently in place for a minute, then said, “What do you mean, a specified way of taking over the assignment? Isn’t the highest ranking agent automatically the leader of an assignment?”
“No,” I answered shortly, keeping my eyes on the far wall, my legs folded in front of me. “The best fighter in the group is entitled to lead it, which is only right since most teams are combat groups. The one with the highest rank is usually also the best fighter, but not always; and even if he is, any member of the group is entitled to challenge him as long as the challenge doesn’t jeopardize the assignment. This room is more than big enough, so we can start any time you feel up it. ”
“I get the impression you’ve been challenged before,” he observed, curiously. “How many times have you lost?”
“Twice in the last nine years,” I answered, finally turning to look at him. “Once when I was too badly wounded to know what I was doing and needed to be challenged, and once when I went up against a brother hyper-A who happened to be better than me that day. The next time we faced each other / won, and after that we took turns as assignment leader when we happened to work together. And no, I haven’t had that many challenges over the years. Everyone I know but you is bright enough to keep from antagonizing a Special Agent. But the fact that I have been beaten should give you some confidence, so, let’s get at it. If you want to be big boss all that badly, you just might make it.”
I started to swing my legs toward the side of the bed so that I could get to my feet, but Val’s arm came up, blocking the swing. The look on his face was amused, but somehow it was different amusement than the one he’d been showing earlier.
“I never said I wanted to be big boss.” A lie if I ever heard one. “And even if I did, you know I won’t fight a female. I appreciate the offer, but it isn’t necessary. There’s no reason you can’t handle the boss-work-as long as you do it my way.”
“Your way!” I burst out, vocalized frustration mixing with total confusion. “Why does everything have to be your way? And how the hell am I supposed to direct an operation while trotting along in your shadow?”
“You’ll figure something out,” he said with a lot of assurance and a widening grin, reaching a hand to my hair again. “You’re good at that kind of thing. And why shouldn’t I want everything done my way? You don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with the attitude when it’s you doing the wanting.”
“Would you have done this if you didn’t have what to get even for?” I asked straight out, knocking his hand away again. “And don’t hedge. I want a straight answer,”
“Probably not,” he admitted without hesitation, then made the statement more positive. “Definitely not. I don’t usually take advantage of other people’s bad luck-unless they’ve earned it. Would you like to try denying that you’ve earned it?”
“What good would it do me?” I asked in disgust, gesturing my opinion of such a waste of time. “The game is supposed to teach you to watch your backside at all times, which in turn helps to keep you alive.
If you ignore the lesson and get mad instead, you’re the one who loses out. Would you like to deny you’re more alert now than before we started the trip?”
“I don’t need to be beaten over the head to learn to be alert,” he snorted with a ridicule I had half expected, leaning down to one elbow on the ice blue cover. “And especially not by the woman I’m enjoying in bed. If no one ever taught you how unfair it is taking advantage in a situation like that, you’re about to finally learn the lesson. And now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to know what your choice is. ”
I stared at him in silence for a minute, and if looks could kill I would have had a body to dispose of. His grin returned, tempting me to tell him what to do with himself and then try Xanadu on my own, but the assignment was too important. If the only way I could get it done was his way, I’d have to do it his way.
“My choice,” I echoed, still staring at his grin. “If I really did have a choice, you wouldn’t be enjoying yourself so much. But I really do think you’re entitled to fair warning, Val: I don’t like being hustled, and I usually make a point of getting even. That doesn’t bother you, does it?”
“As long as you’re giving me fair warning, of course not,” he said laughing softly. “I’ll just return the favor with my own warning: if I don’t like the way you get even, you won’t like what happens to you.
Are you ready for the ground rules of our new association?”
He was still enjoying himself so much that I could have cheerfully loosened his teeth, but I didn’t have that option. I shifted on the ice blue bed cover in frustration, trying to ignore all the roiling inside me, then grabbed a fistful of the silk and nodded reluctantly.
“Sure you’re ready.” He laughed, looking at the expression on my face. “Someone would think you were bracing yourself for the onset of torture. Just how painful do you expect behaving yourself is going to be?”
“With your definition of it?” I asked with a grimace. “Very. Just get on with it.”
“There’s isn’t much to get on with,” he answered with a shrug, then leaned back off his elbow to tuck his hands behind his head. “If there’s something that has to be done, you’ll tell me about it and I’ll decide which of us does it. If I decide there’s something that has to be done, you’ll do it without argument.
That’s simple enough, isn’t it?”
“Simple’s the right word,” I muttered, feeling an enormous urge to put my face in my hands and have hysterics. “And you expect that to work.”