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A pause, then Fusilli said, “Then you intend to move forward.” He didn’t sound as if he was very happy about it.
I nodded. “That’s always been my intention.”
Fusilli’s eyebrows crawled for his hairline. “No disrespect intended, but with what, exactly? We barely have enough people and materiel as it is.”
“I’m aware of that. But stagnation simply buys more time for our enemies, and those who would take advantage of others’ weakness.”
Measho said, “Isn’t that what we’re doing to people already?”
He said it without sarcasm or reproof. “Yes,” I said, without hesitation. Well, all right; I did hesitate long enough to allow the Old Master to butt in, only he didn’t. So I plowed on. “Except we’re in the right. I’m not taking back anything that isn’t rightfully the Combine’s.” A lawyer could probably poke a million holes in that, but Measho isn’t a lawyer and neither am I.
I dismissed everyone a short time later, but Fusilli lingered. I saw those keen blue eyes of his snap toward the Old Master then back at me. “Tai-sho, you know I would never openly oppose you in front of the others. But you aren’t serious, are you? This moving forward …intellectually, I understand. But face reality. We’d be seriously compromised if anyone decided to attack on multiple fronts.”
Well, first off, he was lying. Fusilli’s opposed me a lot in front of other people. Some commanders wouldn’t tolerate that. I do because he’s a damned good intelligence officer. But I don’t trust him the way I trust Andre. (Although, how much do I really trust Andre? This much: Crawford doesn’t know a thing about McCain and Drexel’s mission to Junction. Come to think of it, neither does Toni. I don’t completely trust anyone but the Old Master. Probably why I sleep with a pistol under my pillow, and my katana unsheathed in its stand.)
“We’ll take all comers. Are you having second thoughts, Sho-sa Fusilli?”
The tips of his ears flamed. “You know that’s not the issue.”
“No? Then why bring it up? Is there someone out there, mobilizing to strike us? Or are you in the dark again?”
He blinked, and I knew I’d struck a nerve. I’d meant to. Lately, O5P hasn’t exactly been a font of information. Crawford’s too busy with his command duties, so I let him off the hook. Fusilli doesn’t have an excuse, and sometimes I have the feeling that he knows way more than he lets on.
He said, “With all due respect, the best agents have their limitations. Without ready access to JumpShips and with no communications, my net can only be so wide.”
“So you’re saying nothing’s happening in the Combine.”
“I didn’t say that. The information I have so far isn’t that interesting, that’s all.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“Of course.” Fusilli ticked items off on his fingers. “One: Theodore Kurita’s left his post on New Samarkand. No one knows where or why. On the other hand, no one really cares. Theodore’s as much a null as his father. Two: The coordinator doesn’t seem to care about us one way or the other. Three: Only Tai-shu Sakamoto openly disagrees with the coordinator, and his fighters have stepped up their forays into Prefecture I.”
I was intrigued. Sakamoto’s a hothead; always has been, always will be. I’ve never met the man, but I know him by reputation. He’s samurai all right, but the kind that gives samurai a bad name: brutal, narcissistic, relentless; the ronin kind who used to walk around old Terra hacking up peasants and raping their wives. Sure, they ruled, but with an iron fist, not honor. “What about the coordinator? Does he sanction the raids?”
Fusilli shrugged. “He’s silent. Nothing new. So either he doesn’t care…”
“Or he’s giving Sakamoto tacit assent.” Well, now, that was interesting. Certainly, I’ve done a tad more than initiate petty skirmishes. Maybe the coordinator’s silence was a nod to keep going?
The next moment, I was cursing myself. Looking to the coordinator solved nothing, like waiting for your father to pat you on the head. “Do you think Sakamoto’s pla
Fusilli thought, then shook his head. “I haven’t a clue. The problem is, I’m way out here and he’s way over there. It’s this damn outage. I might as well be blind and deaf. But if I could get closer to the action, I might be able to give you something.”
He had a point, and maybe I felt bad—poking him in the eye with that snipe about his lack of information. Whatever doubts I have about Fusilli, and I’ve got plenty just because, they’re probably no more or less than Andre has about Toni. Maybe I need to cut Fusilli some slack, give him the tools he says he needs for his job.
So I gave him a mission: find out Sakamoto’s intentions. The only drawback is that, without communications and considering how tight our funding is, he’ll only report back when there’s something really big. I’ll just have to trust that he knows what that something is. But before he left, he did a very curious thing. He’d already bowed and turned on his heel, then looked back. “Tai-sho, Prefecture I’s hell and gone. It’ll take forever to get word back and forth. So if I see an opportunity to act on my own, perhaps plant a few seeds of disinformation, may I…?”
Now that was new. I shook my head. “Fusilli, I appreciate your good intentions, I do. But anything done to Sakamoto comes from me? Understood?”
From the way those baby blues shuttered? He understood. He just didn’t like it. I can appreciate that. But I’ve kept O5P in the dark about some things. Fusilli has no idea what Andre’s orders are, and vice versa. A necessary evil. It only pays to let the left hand know what the right is doing some of the time because given half a chance, people will always disappoint and surprise the hell out of you.
That’s something I understand pretty damn well. Way back when, Otome-san told me a lot about my father—stuff I didn’t know. Like, and this floored me, Akira Tormark was an O5P spy who’d married twice, divorced once and had other kids. Sons? Daughters? Otome-san didn’t know. And then my father was just …gone. But to where? Who the hell knows?
Thinking about that brings back that horrible night: my father holding Kan Otome’s blood-smeared katana, Uncle Kan’s sightless eyes starting from their sockets. And then that strange young man by my father’s side, and not only what he said but how he said it: “Is that her ?” As if he knew, or had known of, me but never seen me and… as if I should know him.
Ugh. Just felt as if someone walked over my grave. Anyway, can’t think about that now. Got to look ahead and pray that the coordinator wakes up and realizes that he, too, stands to lose a great deal. His empire. His identity. And all of us, his children.
I wonder if Toni will understand. I wonder how much she’ll hate me.
When I was leaving the Old Master finally stirred. “A bitter lesson, Musume : A leader tends to the needs of the whole, not the benefit of the one.”
As if he’d read my mind.