Life settled down into routine after that, but there wasn’t much of the boredom you’d expect. Val took to joining me in morning loosening-up exercises, but he didn’t know enough to join me in afternoon fighting practice and I wasn’t about to teach him. In the afternoons we took turns in the exercise room, and he didn’t offer to teach me what he was doing either.
I continued to eat the syntho any time I wanted a quick snack, but Val cooked every time he was hungry, which seemed more often than it should be. I know he had to keep that big body of his fueled, but how you can eat that much in such confined spaces is a complete mystery to me. We shared dinner every ship night, and I was well prepared for the time he decided to “teach me how to cook. ” My attitude was
“gamely willing” when we started the lesson, but it didn’t take long before I managed to burn myself on the cooker, in the process destroying the’ simple meal it was cooking. I cursed out the cooker and my own “clumsiness” without once blaming Val, and that was the end of the lessons.
There were times when we didn’t say a word to each other, but there were also times when we talked about ourselves. Val didn’t say much about himself except for the fact that he’d been at Dameron’s outpost for about three Absari years, had worked in the field for a while, moved into heading his own team, then accepted the job as Dameron’s second. He was so vague about his family and life before that that I decided not to press him; we all have things in our past we’d rather not discuss. From other things he said I gathered his family was to some degree important on their home world, and maybe that was the trouble. If he’d done something to embarrass them he would have had to leave, and something like that was none of my business.
The trip out had been endless, but I awoke one day to discover that some time during the ship “night” we had moved into communication range-or, at least, into communication range with my department. We had barely entered the fringes of Federation space and were still a good hop, skip and a jump away from what might be considered inhabited space, but triangulation showed that one of our souped up, highly classified comm boosters wasn’t too far ahead. I can’t imagine what sort of thinking went into anchoring those boosters at countless points on the edges of nowhere, but I didn’t have to have their raison d’etre in order to use one. I sent out a pulse on my departmental frequency, established it for repeat, then went to get a cup of coffee. The relaying would take a while, but once they locked onto me we’d have a two-way with no lag.
About fifteen or twenty minutes passed before I got a double-pulse echo, and then a lock-on decrease in static. I cut my own pulse just as the double cut out, and then there was nothing but the hum of the open connect. The silence said they were waiting for me to identify myself, so I recited a string of code numbers designed to tell them who I was, then waited for a reply. It wasn’t long in coming.
“Please repeat series,” a familiar voice said. “Reverification necessary.”
I repeated the series and added, “That’s the last repeat you get, Jerry. I don’t need practice in pronouncing numbers.”
“Diana!” the voice exclaimed, “It is you! Where the hell have you been? We wrote you off two months ago.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I told him, stretching into long comfort in the pilot’s seat. “It’s only been about six months altogether.”
“I should have known better.” Jerry laughed. “It would take more than Radman to put you away permanently.”
“Yeah, well he almost made it,” I answered, no longer amused. “You’d better record if you’re not doing so already. I have a report that’s going to shake everyone in sight. And if you’re not alone, clear everyone else out. This report goes straight to Ringer, and is guaranteed to burn anyone not authorized to hear it.”
“Recording,” he acknowledged, sounding curious. “Should I put my fingers in my ears?”
“It would not hurt, my boy,” I laughed, “it would not hurt. Report beginning.” I started from the time I woke up outward bound, continued through to the present, and finished up with, “Valdon and I have recalculated the date of the conference, and everything is ready to be turned over to whoever has to get it. I refuse to attempt any conclusions as to the Confederacy’s aims, but I must point out that they would still be unknown to us if I’d had a fatal accident before I could lift off. As for Radman, I claim a priority on him. I’d like to finish my business with him before Valdon and I take on any other assignment. End of report.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a minute, then Jerry’s voice came through again, sounding shaken.
“I should have taken your advice and put my fingers in my ears,” he muttered. “I’ll get this to Ringer, but if he’s anything like me, he won’t believe a word of it. I’m leaving the frequency open so Ringer can talk to you. Out for now.”
There was nothing else after that but the hum of the open connect, so I went to the galley, got another cup of coffee, then retraced my steps to the control room. Val had been puttering in the galley as usual, paying no attention to what I did in the control room, but the glance he gave me showed he knew something was up. He didn’t ask any more questions about what I was up to than I’d asked about his past; when it was time for him to know, he knew I’d tell him.
As usual, Ringer didn’t waste any time. Five minutes after the minimum time needed to listen to my report, his voice came through the speaker.
“Diana, are you there?” he demanded without any preamble, his voice its usual growl.
“I’m here, Ringer,” I answered with a faint smile I couldn’t help. If I’d never heard Ringer’s voice again, I would have missed it.
“I’ve learned never to expect the normal from you, but this is more than ever I would have expected,” he said with a grin. “Have you ever heard the ancient saying about someone who falls into an unusually filled barrel, and comes out with an improbable smell?”
“I’ve heard it, Ringer, but the smell hasn’t been established yet,” I said as I sipped at my coffee. “What do you think of their proposal?”
“I’m with you,” he growled. “I’ll leave the conclusion-drawing to Federation artists trained for it. As soon as I’m finished with you, I’ll get through to some people I know and dump it in their laps. By the way, you didn’t go into any detail about how Radman grabbed you. Did you fall asleep on the job?” ‘
“Not bloody likely,” I snorted. “How many ears are there in the room with you?”
“Just my own,” he said suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because Radman was waiting for me with open arms,” I told him. “What does that sound like to you?”
“It sounds like a sellout,” he said after briefly cursing with feeling. “Do you have any idea who?”
“Not the slightest,” I assured him. “If I did, they’d be on the top of my list instead of Radman. I hope you haven’t sent anyone else after him. I’d hate to think I missed out.”
“I was going to, but the Council withdrew the warrant until we could find out what happened to you,”
Ringer said, the faintest bit hesitant over the tone I’d used. “You know the Council doesn’t believe in wasting agents. If something stopped you, they wanted to find out what it was before sending anyone else in.”
“Good for them,” I nodded in satisfaction. “They may be learning to use their heads. Where is he now?”
“Don’t start resetting your course just yet,” he ordered, with a hint of annoyance. “You’ve got a piece of paper for me, remember?”
“Oh, yes, that.” I sighed and sat back again. “Okay, where do you want it?”
“Head for Faraway Station,” he decided after a minute of silent consideration. “You can make it in a few days, and so can I. You’ll give me what you’re carrying, and I’ll give you a couple of sets of identity papers. How do you think your new partner will work out?”
“He shouldn’t be too bad at all-on the easy stuff,” I answered, remembering my promise to Dameron.
“You’ll flip out when you see what he can do, and we can have a contest to see which of us gets to believe it first. When you leave for Faraway, bring along some essentials for me from my apartment; you know what I’ll need. And make sure that warrant is back in effect, I don’t want to run into any static about operating under a cancelled instrument. And when we get to Faraway, you can buy Val some clothes. If I gave you his measurements now, you’d never believe them.”
“If he put up with you for two months and is still in one piece, I already know what his measurements have to be,” Ringer came back with a dig in his voice that made me grin. “Any other orders, ma’am, any other little thing I can do for you?”
“Nothing I can think of right now,” I drawled, knowing the drawl would irritate him. “Didn’t you miss me, Ringer?”
“I certainly did,” he answered, and I could almost see the gleam in his eyes. “One day soon I hope to tell you exactly how much.”
“I haven’t done a damned thing you can cite me for and you know it,” I came back with a laugh, remembering again how much I enjoyed prodding him. “Even I can’t break any regs from way out here.”
“If there’s a way, you’ll find it,” he returned with the sort of dryness I seem to inspire. “If you think of anything else I ought to know, save it until we both get to Faraway.”
“Read you ten and zero, O mighty leader,” I acknowledged, but despite the irreverence it so happened I agreed with him completely. Not knowing where the original leak about my assignment had come from meant I couldn’t leave any meaningful messages to be passed on to Ringer by anyone else. There were certain people, like Jerry and his brothers and sisters in communications, who had been rendered incapable of betraying anything that passed through their hands and minds, but voluntary conditioning of that sort wasn’t required of everyone who worked for the department. Our people would find the leak eventually, but until they did I would be talking to no one but the man I worked for.
Ringer and I took turns at sign-off, then he broke the connect, which brought the static back. I flipped off the communicator and was about to get out of the pilot’s seat, when a glance over my shoulder showed me an unexpected sight. Val stood leaning against the bulkhead right next to the entry, his arms folded, his ears all but flapping. It seemed the galley had at last lost its fascination, and I couldn’t help but wonder at the coincidence of the timing.
“Having fun?” I asked, turning the seat around so that I could look directly at him. “Hear anything you’d like to write home to mother about?”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, if that’s what you’re implying,” he answered, looking not the least bit ashamed or guilty. “We’re supposed to be partners, and partners share things, especially contact with the home base. I assumed you simply forgot to invite me, and went ahead and invited myself.”
His black eyes showed a good part of the annoyance he seemed to be feeling, an annoyance which was, by my way of looking at things, wholly unjustified.
“It won’t be your home base until you get your first assignment,” I pointed out, raising my mug to my lips for a sip of what was left. “Until then it’s my home base, and I would have appreciated some privacy.”
“For all the highly classified things you had to discuss,” he said with a nod, prying himself off the bulkhead to walk to the co-pilot’s seat and fold down into it. “Things I know nothing about, like the experience you had on Tildor, and the proposed conference between our people, and the trouble you had with Radman-and the sort of assignments I’m to be given.”
So that was it. Val didn’t like the idea of being given nothing but “easy ones,” and that was just too bad.
“What about the assignments you’ll be given?” I asked with full openness, looking at him over my mug rim. “What sort of assignments did you expect to get?”
“I expected to get what my partner got,” he growled, not about to let himself be soothed. “Is that what you’ll be doing, Diana? The ‘easy’ ones?”
“If they come my way, you won’t find me turning my nose up at them.” I shrugged. “If you spend too much time with your life constantly on the line, you get to the point where you’re too tired or too bored to put out maximum effort. After that you find yourself intimately involved in final sort of happenings, the kind that take you out of the game for keeps. What’s your departmental rating, Val?”
“I don’t understand,” he said, surprised at the unexpected question. “How could I know my rating in a department I haven’t even officially joined yet?”
“Well, you seemed to know what sort of assignments you should be given,” I pointed out. “If you don’t know what rating you are, how do you know what an ‘easy’ one consists of?”
His face took on a frustrated look, an awareness of the way he was being backed into a corner without knowing how to get out of it again. He shifted in annoyance in the seat, his eyes not at all pleased with me, and then he found a corner to hang argument on.
“You said you’d take the easy ones ‘if’ they came your way,” he countered, the feral look firmly planted in his eyes. “You obviously don’t expect them to come your way, but you want them to come mine.”
“I’ve spent twelve years proving what I can do,” I pointed out. “I started learning what I was up against when I was eighteen standard years old, and the twelve years show how well I learned those lessons. I’m a Special Agent, Val, and in my frame of reference ‘easy’ means anything that isn’t automatically considered certain death. You better believe I’ll take an easy one if it comes my way, but there are too many assignments that aren’t easy-and not enough Special Agents to do them. If you prove to my people you can do what I do, they’ll be more than happy to change your designation. Why you would want it changed I can’t imagine, but you have to give them a chance to evaluate you.”
His sharp, annoyed movements in the seat showed he was still struggling against the box I had him in, but sweet reason has it all over driving argument when you want to nail someone good. “They can evaluate me all they like while we’re working together,” he said at last, his tone announcing that that was the sole concession he was willing to make. “Partners are two people who work together, and that’s the reason I came here with you: to be your partner. What’s an orbital station?”