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“He’s terribly handsome,” Clown says. “Good teeth too.”
“I suppose you could always cut in,” I say.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to seem desperate.”
“Jove forbid,” Victra says.
“I think I’ll cut in.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” she says. “But you should bow first. To be polite.”
“Oh. Then it’s settled. I’ll go right now.” He pours another glass of wine. “After another drink.”
I take the wine from him and push him on his way. Holiday appears in the doorframe to watch Clown’s awkward interruption. He’s bowing to Pebble and sweeping back his hand dramatically. “Oh, hell. He actually did it.” Victra snorts champagne through her nose. “You should do the same with Mustang. Think she’s trying to steal my husband away. Husband. That’s a weird word.”
“It’s a weird world.”
“Isn’t it, though. Wife. Who’d have thought?”
I look her up and down. “On you, it seems to fit.” I put my arm around her. “It seems to fit perfectly.” She smiles radiantly.
“Sir,” Holiday says, coming up to us.
“Holiday, come to have a drink?” I glance over at her, smile dying when I see the expression that marks her face. Something has happened. “What is it?”
She motions me away from Victra.
“It’s the Jackal,” she says quietly so as not to spoil the mood. “He’s on the com for you. Direct link.”
“What’s the delay?” I ask.
“Six seconds.”
On the dance floor, Sevro’s spinning with Mustang clumsily, laughing because neither knows the dance the Reds around them perform. Her hair is dark from sweat on her temples, her eyes alight with the joy of the moment. None of them feel the sudden dread in me, in the world beyond. I don’t want them to. Not tonight.
He sits in a simple chair in the center of my circular training room wearing a coat of white with a gold lion to either side of his high collar. The stars above his glowing hologram are cold stains of light through the duroglass dome. This room was built to train for war and so it is here that I will grant my enemy an audience. I will not let him pervert this ship where Roque lived and where my friends celebrate by seeing or being anyplace else.
Even though he’s millions of kilometers away, I can nearly smell the pencil-shaving scent of him. Hear the vast silence with which he fills rooms as I stand before his digital image. It’s so lifelike if it did not glow I would think him here. The background behind him is blurred. He watches me enter the room. No smile on his face. No false pleasantness, but I can tell he’s amused. His silver stylus spins in his one hand. The only sign of his agitation.
“Hello, Reaper. How are the festivities?” I try not to let my discomfort show. Of course he knows of the wedding. He has spies in our fleet. How close they are to me, I cannot tell. But I don’t let the thought spread malignantly through me. If he could reach out and hurt us here, he already would have.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“You called me last time. I thought I should return the favor, particularly considering the message I sent of your uncle. Did you receive it?” I say nothing. “After all, when you arrive at Mars the cannons will speak for us. We may never see each other again. Strange, isn’t that? Did you see Roque before he died?”
“I did.”
“And did he weep for your forgiveness?”
“No.”
The Jackal frowns. “I thought he would. It’s easy to fool a romantic. To think he was right there when I took his girl. You went running by in the hall screaming Tactus’s name, and he looked up in confusion. I pushed a sliver of Quinn’s skull deeper into her brain with my scalpel. I thought about letting her live with brain damage. But the thought of her drooling everywhere made me sick. You think he still would have loved her if she drooled?”
There’s a sound at the door, out of the camera’s capture range. Mustang’s followed me from the wedding. Taking in the scene, she watches quietly. I should turn off the holo. Leave this creature to himself, but I can’t seem to part with him. The same curiosity that brought me here now anchors me to this spot.
“Roque wasn’t perfect, but he cared about Gold. He cared about humanity. He had something he would die for. And that makes him a better man than most,” I say.
“It’s easy to forgive the dead,” the Jackal replies. “I’d know.” A tiny spasm of humanity moves across his lips. He may never say it, but the very tone of his voice tells me he is not without regret. I know he wanted his father’s approval. But could it actually be that he misses the man? That he’s forgiven his father in death and now mourns him?
