Shadow of Freedom

Helga chuckled and shook her head, and Helen turned back to Gervais.

“But however gracious and diplomatic our Helga’s become, Gwen, I have to say I’ve nurtured a few suspicions about just how you happen to have time free to invite me to dinner. Especially when you could have been spending that time doing…something else.”

She let her eyes flip sideways to Helga for a moment, and both of the others chuckled. Then Gervais’ expression sobered.

“Unfortunately, you’ve got a point,” he said. He waved the waiter aside, pulled out her chair, and held it. “And I’m not going to try to pretend this is the purely social occasion I’d prefer for it to be. Both of us really are glad to see you, though.”

“I know.”

Helen allowed him to seat her, despite the difference in their ranks, then turned and accepted the menu from the waiter and gave him her initial drink order. She watched him disappear before she turned her attention back to Gervais.

“I know you’re glad to see me,” she repeated. “And I’m pretty sure I know who suggested you and I have a little talk. All the same, I don’t expect the conversation to do wonders for my appetite.”

“It wasn’t Admiral Gold Peak, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Gervais replied, and she shook her head.

“Didn’t think it was. She’s a pretty direct person, and she’s had the opportunity to talk to me about it herself if she wanted to. For that matter, she probably would’ve gone through Sir Aivars if she was the one asking the questions. Same for Captain Lecter. Nobody on Admiral Khumalo’s staff, on the other hand, really knows me or enjoys the opportunity to just slip questions into a casual conversation. Which leaves us with ‘the usual suspects,’ doesn’t it?”

“I guess it does.” Gervais leaned back in his chair, regarding her across the table. “Frankly, though, I think the reason they asked me to talk to you about it was that they figured it’d be less stressful for you. Less of a formal inquisition, you might say.”

Helen snorted, but it made at least some sense. And she supposed she was grateful they were trying to avoid stepping on her feelings.

“All right, then,” she said, “as Duchess Harrington would say, ‘let’s be about it.’” She smiled tightly. “What certain unnamed senior parties would like to know is whether or not I think there’s any truth in the reports that my father and his lunatic terrorist cronies were responsible for detonating multiple nuclear devices—probably with the Star Empire’s knowledge and direct connivance—in the town of Green Pines. Nuclear devices which, according to the Mesan authorities, killed thousands of people, and one of which was detonated in the middle of a crowded park on a Saturday morning, incinerating every child present. Is that about the gist of it?”

Gervais winced internally. Helen Zilwicki had one of the sturdiest personalities he’d ever met, and that acid tone was very unlike her.

“More or less.” He sighed. “That’s not exactly the way anyone put it, of course. And I don’t think it’s the way anyone would describe it if they were asked to. What I think they’re really interested in is any insight you might give them as to why the Mesans might’ve gone about it the way they did. Claiming your father was involved, I mean.”

“I’d think that was pretty obvious!” Helen planted her forearms on the table and leaned forward over them. “Daddy’s been a pain in their ass ever since Manpower kidnapped me in Old Chicago when I was thirteen. Trust me, you do not want my dad pissed at you—not the way that pissed him off—and having him get together with Cathy Montaigne only made bad even worse from Mesa’s perspective. Then there was that little business on Torch. You remember—the one where my sister wound up queen of a planet populated by liberated slaves, every single one of whom hates Mesa and Manpower on a—you should pardon the expression—genetic level? If there’s anyone in the entire galaxy whose reputation they’d like to blacken more than his, I don’t know who it might be! And if you throw in the opportunity to saddle Torch with responsibility for something like this, and then claim Daddy’s involvement means the Star Empire was behind it, as well, it can only get even better from their viewpoint. Just look how they’re using it to undercut our credibility when we claim they’ve been involved in everything that’s been going on out here in the Quadrant! Obviously we’ve invented all those nasty, untruthful allegations out of whole cloth as another prong of whatever iniquitous plot we’ve hatched against them! Doesn’t the fact that we’re enabling Ballroom terrorists to nuke their civilian population prove we’re only targeting them as a way to distract all right-thinking Sollies’ attention from our own evil, imperialist agenda?”