“So I gather,” she replied ruefully.
“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen many examples recently.” He ambled into the workspace, clad in borrowed Levi’s and a white T-shirt. To Amanda’s eye he displayed no overt indication of his semi-incarceration in the hold section. The pirate king looked as tanned and fit as ever.
His marine escort shouldered through the doorway behind him and Harconan
grimaced mildly. “I’m beginning to know what a tugboat feels like, however.”
Amanda hesitated for a moment, then spoke to the guard. “It’s all right, corporal. Take a break for five. I’ve got the watch.”
It occurred to Amanda that, over the past couple of weeks since Harconan’s coming aboard, she’d never been alone with the man. Whether by sheer happenstance or unconscious instinct, she wasn’t sure. If it was the latter, it was a hoodoo she intended to break.
“As you wish, ma’am,” the Marine replied formally, eyeing Harconan for one last suspicious moment before taking his leave, the closing click of the soundproofed door isolating them from the soft duty clamor of the CinC block.
“I wish I was actually as formidable as that gentleman seems to think I am,” Harconan commented.
“You are, that’s the problem,” Amanda said, returning her attention to the hardcopy charts she was studying.
“Compliments graciously accepted,” Harconan replied, crossing to the chart table. “You still use something as archaic as paper on this technological marvel you
call the Shenandoah Galaxy?”
“Oh, is that where we are?”
“Have it your way,” he sighed. “But really, why do you bother with these old-fashioned things when you can pull
a chart up on one of these wall screens with a push of a button?”
“Because these wall screens can break down,” Amanda replied patiently. “And because I simply like to use them. They help me think.”
“Ah! I’ve always known you were more anachronistic than you let on. If you had your
true choice, it would be back to cutlasses and carronades – and you’d lust for the command of a ship of the line.”
Amanda suppressed her smile. “A good sloop of war actually, but that’s the difference between us, isn’t it? I know I live in the twenty-first century. I don’t try and live out my fantasies or force my fantasies on other people.”
Harconan lifted an eyebrow. “Touché. First blood, well drawn.”
Amanda sighed and stopped working with the chart. “That wasn’t really necessary, I guess. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. As it turns out, you’re right. ‘Here and now’ cannot be denied, much to my regret.” He studied her quizzically. “What about you, Amanda? What do you regret?”
“Many things,” she replied quietly. “Among other things, that you ever started this.”
“Again we are in agreement on a point. But you already knew that. You also know
that’s not what I mean.”
Amanda started to pick up a pencil but hesitated. “Well, what do you mean?”
“I mean this is the first time we’ve been alone together since I’ve come aboard your extraordinary vessel, whatever it’s called. A status quo I suspect you’ve been working very hard to maintain. But, since you’ve elected to come out of hiding for the moment …”
“I haven’t been hiding!” But with the exclamation came the realization and acknowledgement that she had been doing just that, avoiding this particular confrontation.
“Be that as it may,” he continued blandly, “since I now have the chance, I’d like to assuage both my curiosity and my masculine ego with a question. Do you
regret what we, albeit briefly, had?”
Amanda stacked ice into her voice. “We never had anything, Makara. At least nothing that ever mattered.”
Harconan crossed his arms and leaned back against the edge of the chart table,
rolling his eyes elaborately toward the overhead. “Amanda, you’re one of the most honorable and trustworthy people I’ve ever known, save in one critical area. In anything to do with yourself, you
are a flagrant liar.”
Amanda slammed the pencil down. “And you are one arrogant asshole!”
He nodded. “Quite so, my dear,” he said, keeping his voce low. “But at least I’m willing to confess to it. You, on the other hand, don’t have the guts to admit you’re a liar. Not even to yourself.”
His words jolted through her like a taser shot, striking harder than mere words should. She heard an angry yip of denial and realized she was making it, her arm whipping back and then up, not in a slap but in an infuriated damaging blow, her knuckles aimed at Harconan’s vulnerable throat.
He’d been waiting for it. His hard sailor’s hand closed around her wrist, braking the punch before it could land. “The fact is that Captain Amanda Garrett thoroughly enjoyed losing control of
herself. That, just for a little while, back on Pulau Piri and at Crab’s Claw, this officer and lady had a marvelous time being a pirate’s slave girl.”
The cry of denial was torn out of her just as she tore her hand out of his grip.
“That is what you really regret, isn’t it Amanda?” Harconan continued with a remorseless smile. “That and the fact that you can’t hide it from me. It’s a piece of you that I possess and that you can never get back, not even when
President Kediri stands me up in front of his firing squad.”
Something broke inside her and, to her shame, it manifested in a hot silent gush
of tears. “All right, all right! I’m a liar! Are you satisfied now?”
“Yes, I am.” The Raja Samudra reached into the back pocket of his dungarees and removed a
clean white folded handkerchief. Very gently, he patted her tears away. “My dearest Amanda, the lies we tell ourselves are frequently the most corrosive.
If you can own up to yourself, I will truly become an irrelevancy and you will
be able to go on with your life – and with your big protective bull of an admiral.”
She finished wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. How in hell could Makara
have known about the decision she’d already made about Elliot? “What about that piece of me you’re taking away?”
He smiled down at her. “Since you’ll be bearing off a large, bleeding chunk of my soul as well, I consider it fair
exchange. Please, my queen, we both recognize that what has been is all that
will ever be. Accept those memories as a momentary, pleasant insanity. Don’t muck them up with guilt.”
Oddly enough, Amanda felt the presences of Arkady and Elliot in the room with
them, along with that of another who had passed through her life long before.
She took a deliberate breath, releasing it slowly – and something that had slightly warped snapped back into perspective. She was
wondering what words she should say next when there came a quiet rap on the
briefing room door. The handle turned and Christine Rendino peered cautiously
into the briefing room. “Uh, may I come in?”
“Of course, Chris,” Amanda replied, her voice perfectly level. “We were just discussing recent events and what may happen next.” Which, on consideration, was only the perfect truth.
“Oh.” The Intel looked relieved. “What have you come up with?” she asked, joining them at the chart table.
“You may expect desperation,” Harconan replied, turning to the deployed charts, his own voice not hinting at
anything beyond professionalism. “I have had a degree of exposure to Merpati Ketalaman. I can tell you that he
gives the impression of being a man very much in control of himself. In
reality, however, I suspect he is a man who is merely afraid of not being in
control.” He glanced in Amanda’s direction and one eye flicked in the briefest of winks. “But this makes him brittle. When the load grows too great on such an individual,
they break. The aftermath is usually impetuous.”
“So we can expect a Hail Mary play out of Ketalaman?” Amanda said, a slight edge to her voice.
