“If you’d warned me about your agreement with Cage, I’d never have done it. Not that I did much anyway. I just …”
“No!” Donnell held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t pretend this just happened naturally. We’ve worked together for decades. I know all your tactics, and exactly how good you are at manipulating people.”
Machico sighed. “I didn’t set up what happened on the roof, or Julien shouting his head off about Blaze giving him orders, but I admit I arranged for the vote this morning. I knew this was our best ever chance of getting a female officer. The divisions would see your daughter as being a special case, they’d already accepted her being in charge of the off-worlders, but there’d still be a huge risk in you proposing her as an officer. If the division leaders voted against it, you’d suffer an embarrassing public defeat.”
He shrugged. “The big advantage of me doing this while you were … indisposed, was that a failure wouldn’t damage your position. You could genuinely claim complete ignorance of the whole thing. Say that you’d never intended Blaze to be a proper officer in the first place, and blame me for making a stupid mistake.”
Machico paused for a second. “I suppose we could still try that. It would annoy the divisions who’ve voted in favour, but …”
“Cage wouldn’t be satisfied with me saying it was a mistake,” said Donnell. “He’d demand to marry Blaze and become my deputy right away.”
A wave of panic hit me. Machico had sent everyone else off hunting and fishing, and then spent the whole morning getting Donnell in a fit state for conversation. While he was doing that, I’d taken the off-worlders downstairs so they could eat breakfast. I was used to just having soup for breakfast, but instead we’d had the meals saved from last night and kept hot in a stasis box. I’d forced myself to eat despite my stomach being in turmoil from stress, but now I wished I hadn’t. I was in danger of being sick on Donnell’s carpet.
“You can’t make Cage deputy alliance leader,” said Machico. “If you do, then Cage just has to find a discreet way to murder you, and he automatically inherits your position.”
“I’m well aware of that,” snapped Donnell, “but nothing less will placate him now. Cage is bound to think I planned this whole sequence of events. Deliberately lied to him to make him think he’d got what he wanted, hid in my room so it looked as if nothing could possibly happen, then caught him off guard by getting you to push the division leaders into a vote on Blaze becoming an officer. With all the divisions having private conferences in their own areas, he had no opportunity to talk to his puppets and tell them how to vote.”
Donnell groaned. “I wanted to delay a confrontation with Cage until the spring, but there’s no hope of that now. He’ll be furious, and his logical next move is an alliance leadership challenge. Chaos knows, the strain of leading the alliance is wearing me out, I’d love to hand over the burden to any reasonable leader candidate, but can you imagine the sort of things Cage would do if he took power?”
I could imagine exactly the sort of things Cage would do if he took power. One of them would be to roast me on a spit over the cooking fire.
Donnell wandered over to kick the waste bin. “Cage winning a leadership challenge would be a nightmare, and him losing could be even worse. He’s not the type of man to accept defeat quietly. He’d try to get his two division leader puppets fighting on his side, and once two of the divisions are fighting the other three, then we’re all doomed. Whichever side wins the battle is just going to starve to death.”
He turned to face us again. “I’ll have to go for the simple, direct solution. Wait for the hunting groups to get back, and shoot Cage.”
I gave him a shocked look.
“You can’t do that, Sean,” said Machico, in the pitying voice of someone addressing a particularly stupid child. “You know you haven’t held the leadership of this alliance all these years because you wear a gun on your arm, but because people trust you to treat them fairly. The second you shoot Cage, all that trust would be destroyed.”
“I’ve shot people before,” said Donnell. “I know the last time was years ago, but …”
“That wasn’t just years ago,” interrupted Machico, “it was in a hostage situation where the lives of children were in danger. Everyone agreed your action was perfectly justified. Shooting Cage in cold blood, without a trial or obvious reason, would be completely different. People wouldn’t know which of them you’d decide to shoot next. Even the Resistance’s faith in you would be shaken. You’d instantly change from being a trusted leader to a feared dictator.”
“I’d have to step down as alliance leader afterwards,” said Donnell, “but it would be worth it.”
Machico shook his head. “Even by your standards, that’s a ridiculous plan.”
Donnell glared at him. “It’s not ridiculous.”
“It’s totally ridiculous,” said Machico. “If Kasim was still here to take over as leader, then your idea might be worth considering as a last desperate resort, but Kasim’s dead and you haven’t got another established successor in place. The alliance would fall apart without you, and the fighting would start anyway.”
“What else can I do?” demanded Donnell. “I can’t call general justice against Cage without any evidence.”
“You can talk to Major,” said Machico. “We know Cage is blackmailing him. Whatever Cage is planning, he’ll be counting on Major supporting him. You use your skill with words, and your famous charm, to talk Major into turning against his master.”
“That’s easier said than done,” said Donnell. “Cage is holding a huge threat over Major’s head.”
“True, but remember that Major got his nickname because he likes barking orders at other people,” said Machico. “He won’t like having to obey orders from Cage. You promise Major you’ll help keep his secret, flatter his ego, tell him how much you admire him.”
“You want me to tell Major that I admire him?” Donnell repeated, in tones of revulsion.
“You say whatever it takes to make him change sides,” said Machico.
“You’ll be telling me to kiss him next!” Donnell’s voice had got quieter during the discussion, but now he was shouting again. “I had this situation under control until you wrecked everything.”
“That wasn’t my fault,” said Machico. “You should have told me you’d made that agreement with Cage.”
“I was going to tell you everything last night, but then we found out about Tad being webbed and …” Donnell waved his arm in a despairing gesture. “You should have asked me before leaping into making Blaze an officer, but we both know why you didn’t. You already knew I’d say no.”
I suddenly swapped from panicking to being as angry as they were. I found myself on my feet, with furious words spilling out of my mouth. “Of course you’d say no. Sean Donnelly wouldn’t want a mere useless girl as an officer!”
Donnell gave me a startled look. “I didn’t mean it that way, Blaze.”
“Didn’t you?” I demanded. “When my brother arrived in New York, he was only sixteen. You were still happy to make him an officer straight away, trust him with all the Resistance secrets, even teach him how to hardwire portals.”
There was a moment of sick silence before I plunged on, finally saying all the things I’d never said in six long years. “The minute he knew how to do that, Seamus portalled to America Off-world and made a deal with the off-worlders. He came back to plant a bomb in the main New York portal relay centre, and then portalled off again before it exploded and took out every portal in the city.”
I had to pause an instant to breathe. “And after Seamus had gone, you ignored me! Chaos weeping, I did all I could to please you, but you ignored me for six years! I thought things were finally different now, that you actually had a genuine shred of feeling for me after all, but I was wrong. I’ve done everything you asked of me, even agreed to a fake engagement with a loathsome man who terrifies me, but it’s still unthinkable that you’d make me a
n officer.”
I glared at Donnell. “Why is that exactly? Because I’m a girl, because you think I’ll turn traitor like my brother, or because you believe Ice is my real father, not you?”
I stopped talking, horrified. Oh chaos, oh chaos, oh chaos. What had I done? What had I said? This was just like the argument I’d had with Donnell after my brother left. I’d screamed words in anger then and never been able to take them back. Now I’d done it for the second time. I buried my face in my hands, trying to blot out the whole universe.
Chapter Twenty
I stood there, my hands still covering my eyes, feeling the warm wetness of tears against my palms. I could hear Donnell speaking, his voice seeming oddly distant.
“Machico, did you set this up to happen? Because if you did then I swear I’ll kill you.”
“I didn’t,” said Machico. “I’d no idea that Blaze thought …”
“Get out of this room, Machico,” said Donnell. “Get out right now!”
A ludicrous thought hit me. It was the chair that had made me say those things. It really was cursed.
I heard the door open and shut. Machico had gone, and I was alone with Donnell. There was a long silence before I took my hands away from my face and opened my eyes to look at him. I’d expected him to be angry, but instead he looked pale and uncertain.
I was suddenly, weirdly calm. Cage was going to try to take the alliance leadership. I’d just screamed in fury at Donnell and said the unsayable. I had nothing to lose now because things couldn’t get any worse. “Please answer my questions.”
Donnell ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “Seamus left me a note when he left. He hated me for abandoning him as a child. He blamed me for your mother dying in London. He said that it made sense not to risk her going through a hardwired portal when she was expecting a baby, but I could have brought all three of you to New York a few months later, and then she’d still be alive.”
He sighed. “I understood why Seamus blamed me for your mother’s death, because I felt the same way. Then I tried talking to you, and you screamed that you hated me even more than Seamus did, and I understood that as well. Ever since then, I’ve been so scared to talk to you about London, or your mother, or your brother, that I’ve hardly dared to speak to you at all.”
Those words startled me. For six years, I’d been afraid to speak to Donnell. I’d never considered that he might be afraid to speak to me as well.
“I hoped you’d approach me,” said Donnell. “Give me the chance to patch things up between us. When that didn’t happen, I decided I’d have to do something myself, but kept losing my nerve and delaying things, making the same mistake with you as I did with your mother. Weeks turned into months and years, and the wall between us seemed to keep getting higher.”
He paused. “Can we please sit down and try to talk calmly about this?”
I nodded, and we both sat down. I was struggling to absorb his words and deal with the whirlpool of emotions that came with them.
“Do you still hate me?” asked Donnell.
“No.” I rubbed my moist eyes with the back of my hand. “I didn’t hate you back then either. I know I shouted that during the argument after my brother left. I shouted lots of things, but I didn’t mean any of them. I was so hurt and angry at everything that had happened. The firestorm had taken my mother and my home. My brother had gone off to a new world, and left me behind in an alien place full of strangers. I was overwhelmed by the situation, and I was hitting out blindly.”
I made a sound that was a mixture of a groan and a sob. “I did exactly the same thing just now, didn’t I? I was overwhelmed by worries about Cage, so I started hitting out at you.”
“So what did you really feel about me when you arrived in New York?” asked Donnell. “What had your mother told you about me? My relationship with Keira was always explosive, especially the ending, so I expect it was bad.”
“She never told me anything about you at all,” I said. “She told me stories about her childhood, and I think she discussed you with Seamus sometimes, but she never mentioned your name to me. Other people told me my father was the living legend the London Resistance talked about, the man who wrote Anthem to Earth. One of them gave me an old picture of you, so I knew you looked very like Seamus, but you seemed more like a myth than a real person.”
“Ouch. That totally damns me as a father.” Donnell shook his head. “There’s one thing I’ve never understood. Why didn’t Seamus take you with him? It was clear the two of you were devoted to each other. Seamus made a deal with the off-worlders who hated us for delaying the colonization of their worlds. He told them we were still able to use portals by hardwiring them, and agreed to plant a bomb in the New York portal relay centre in exchange for a place for himself on one of the new worlds. Why didn’t he insist on a place for you as well?”
“He did insist on a place for me,” I said, “but I refused to go with him.”
Donnell gave me a startled look. “You knew what Seamus was going to do?”
“I didn’t know anything about the bomb. After Seamus made his deal with the off-worlders, he came back to see me. He said that he hated New York, and he’d arranged for us to go to a new and better world called Pyrrhus. I should have realized the off-worlders wouldn’t give us places on a new world without getting something in exchange, but I was too stupid to think of that. All I cared about was the fact that Seamus was leaving and I’d never see him again.”
“But if Seamus asked you to go with him, why did you refuse?”
I stared at Donnell in disbelief. “Isn’t it obvious? I’d have gone with Seamus to anywhere on this planet, but I’d never leave Earth.”
There was a long pause before Donnell started talking again. “As for me thinking you’re Ice’s daughter, not mine … I don’t know who suggested that to you, but they clearly never knew what things were like between me and Keira. Our relationship was a disaster, but a magnificent disaster, and there could never be anyone else for either of us. I’ve never doubted you were my daughter. Not for a second.”
I sat in silence for a moment, letting the reassuringly fierce sincerity in his voice sink into my brain and chase away the doubts.
“Years ago, I settled on your eighteenth birthday as the time when I’d have to gamble everything and talk to you,” continued Donnell. “I’d made every possible mistake with your brother. Trying to impose my dreams on him the second he arrived here. I never stopped to think that Seamus was only sixteen and devastated by grief for his mother.”
He waved his hands. “I knew I mustn’t repeat my mistakes with you, Blaze. I had to let you make your own free choice about your future, rather than force my own wishes on you. My plan was to talk to you on your eighteenth birthday, and offer you all the possible options for your future. If you wanted to become an officer, and possibly succeed me as alliance leader one day, then I’d support you. If you wanted to stay in the background as an ordinary member of the Resistance, I’d support that too. I discussed it with Machico and Kasim, and they agreed it was as close to sensible as any of my ideas ever were.”
I gave a bewildered shake of my head. “We talked on my birthday, but you didn’t say a word about me becoming an officer.”
“I got as far as discussing having to find a new deputy leader, tried asking you what you thought about my newer officers, but you didn’t give me a hint of whether you were interested in becoming one yourself or not.”
I blinked. “You discussed your officers with me to see if I’d suggest becoming an officer myself?”
“Yes, but you said nothing. I decided not to push the issue further because the off-worlders’ arrival had complicated the situation. I had a conversation with Machico the next morning, and told him that I was going to delay raising the officer issue with you until the spring.”
He waved his hands. “When I said to Machico that he knew I’d say no to him trying to make you an officer, I was referring to tha
t conversation. Machico knew that Kasim’s death had weakened my position, the alliance was in a discontented mood, and appointing our first female officer was bound to stir up trouble. I still can’t believe that Machico went ahead with it behind my back.”
“You’re right. It makes no sense at all. Can we get Machico back in here now, please? I’d like to ask him some questions.”
Donnell gave me a puzzled look. “If that’s what you want. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He stood up and headed out of the door. I was alone in Donnell’s rooms for the first time ever. I stood up, looked down at my cursed chair, and across at the one Machico had been sitting in. This was totally childish, but …
The chairs were too heavy for me to lift, but I could drag them across the floor. It only took a minute to swap them over. I was innocently sitting in my new chair again well before Donnell and Machico came back into the room. When they arrived, I noticed Machico had a red swelling round his right eye, but that didn’t stop him giving a confused look at his chair. I spoke before he had time to ask how it had magically changed colour.
“Why?”
“What?” Machico instantly responded.
“You carefully set things up for me to be Donnell’s first female officer. I can understand you wanting me to lead the way for your wife and daughters to become officers, but why do it at a time like this instead of waiting until the spring? You must realize that getting me confirmed as an officer is only the first battle in what will be a long war. Those division men opposed to having female officers will grab every chance to stir up trouble and refuse to accept my orders, and there’ll be huge arguments over whether I can use a bow or lead hunting groups.”
Machico smiled. “You’re much more intelligent than your father.”