I slipped on my spare blouse and fastened the b.u.t.tons. Turning to Ava, I smiled and said, "See, good as new."

Ava brought up a finger, pointed at me, then poked it hard into my chest. When I winced, she asked, "How can you stand living like this?"

"He wasn't trying to kill me," I said. "If Freeman wanted to kill me . . ."

Doctorow finished the thought, "You'd already be dead. I had that feeling, as well. How do you know he won't come back to finish the job next time?" He thought for a moment, then added, "What did he mean when he said 'you broke the rules'?"

Doctorow did not know about my plans. Ava had some idea, but she did not know about our stealing three self-broadcasting battleships. This was not the time to tell them.

"It's a long story," I said. It was the best I could come up with. I was never any good at politics, words did not come naturally.

As he turned his car into the driveway of a two-story home, Doctorow said, "Ava, I'm afraid your boyfriend is keeping secrets from us."

Her boyfriend? I thought to myself. The evening was looking up.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN.

Opening his front door, Doctorow said, "Whatever you do, Harris, don't tell Sarah about what happened at the airstrip. She's a bit on the delicate side, you wouldn't want to worry her." He winked as he said this, and Ava giggled, then Doctorow swung the door open, and bellowed, "We're home, dear."

A voice called out from deep in the house, "No need to shout, El. I heard you coming up the driveway." "El" must have been short for Ellery.

"Sorry we're late, dear. Somebody a.s.sa.s.sinated Captain Harris as he came off his plane," Doctorow called.

"Should I remove his place from the table?" the woman called back. She came out of the kitchen, smiled at me, and said, "General Harris, you're looking well for a man who was just a.s.sa.s.sinated."

Sarah Doctorow was considerably wider along the bottom than she was across the top, giving her body a pyramid shape. Her bottom was so wide it looked like she'd stuffed bed pillows inside her pants. She was less heavy around the stomach, and her girth continued to taper as it reached her notably flat chest and sunken shoulders. She had a lovely round face with laugh lines around the eyes and a little girl's smile. Her face was a patchwork of colors, with spruce-colored eyes, ruby red lips that looked freshly painted, and cerulean makeup above her eyes. She wore her long, red hair in a simple ponytail.

I liked Sarah Doctorow the moment I saw her, but the romance did not last. She moved around the room like a human whirlwind, kissing her husband on the cheek, shaking my hand, then pecking Ava on the cheek and giving her a hug.

She turned to me, and said, "General Harris, you must be famished. I understand being shot takes a lot out of you." And then, without pausing to breathe, she turned to Ava, and said, "Ava darling, why don't you come help me in the kitchen? You can tell me all about that awful a.s.sa.s.sination." And just like that, Ava and Mrs. Doctorow vanished around the corner.

"Watch this," Doctorow whispered, then he cupped his hands like an actor pretending to yell, and called, "Can I help in the kitchen?"

The offer earned him a giggle from Ava and a belly laugh from Sarah. Ava said something about Doctorow being a good husband, to which Sarah replied, "Don't you believe it for a moment, sweetie."

"I had a word with Lieutenant Mars. He says a planetwide mediaLink will be up in the next week or two. We should be able to contact every city on Terraneau."

Mars was the top dog in the Corps of Engineers. He commanded the crews that built Outer Bliss and refurbished Fort Sebastian. I was not aware of how far he had gotten with the mediaLink. I was not keen on the idea of Doctorow sending flights around the planet.

"Do you have working media stations?" I asked, making a mental note to contact Mars as soon as I got back to the fleet. I would tell him to slow it down on the media equipment.

"No, but we should be able to throw something together. Perhaps you have some broadcast equipment you could loan us," Doctorow said.

"I'm sure we can find something," I told Doctorow, knowing full well that we did have equipment we could give him and that I would not give it to him. Maybe I was cut out for politics after all.

"Would you like a drink?" Doctorow had a large wet bar stocked with enough bottles to run an officers' club for a night. He might have been a big drinker, but I had the feeling the booze was here for his political friends and rivals.

"Got any juice?" I asked.

"Powdered milk and powdered juice," Doctorow said. "Fresh food is still in short supply."

"I'll make it simple," I said. "Give me whatever you're drinking."

He poured me a tumbler, and I took it without looking to see what it was.

We went out to the patio and sat in the languid night air. Doctorow's house sat on a ridge overlooking Norristown. From the back porch, I could look out into the heart of the city, with its newly lit populated areas and its unlit badlands. In the center of everything, the three skysc.r.a.pers stood like sparkling columns.

"They have the elevators working in the dorms," Doctorow said, tracing the line of my sight.

"Does that mean people are living on the upper floors now?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? It's hotter than blazes up there. We haven't got the air-conditioning running yet."

I tried my drink. It was a liqueur, something that tasted a lot like coffee. I did not like it.

We sat on some metal furniture and stared out across town for several seconds. Finally, Doctorow broke the silence. "There's a nasty rumor going around these days that you are planning to start a war with the Unified Authority, General," he said. "Is that what Freeman meant by 'breaking the rules'?"

I thought about playing innocent or just plain denying everything, but there was too much to hide. "Something like that," I said, feeling uncomfortable. "Care to share how you heard about it?"

"It doesn't matter how I heard it."

"It may not matter to you," I said. "To me, it's a breach of security . . . a bad one."

"Do you plan on involving my planet in your war?"

"The war has already begun, but I didn't start it," I said. "The Unified Authority is phasing clones and obsolete fleets out of its military. They didn't send us here to free Terraneau, they sent us here for target practice."

Doctorow whistled. "Wow. I don't know what to say." He thought about what I had said, and finally asked, "What happened? I mean, clones . . . they were the heart of the military."

"A couple of generals blamed clones for all of the losses against the aliens."

"There was always deep-seated prejudice among the officers I knew. I won't say it made sense, but it was always there . . . always there," Doctorow said.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

"What did your friend mean when he said you broke the rules?"

"We captured three of their self-broadcasting ships."

"Were those ships attacking you?"

"The Navy was using them to bring clones in and ship natural-borns back to Earth."

"So, they came on a peaceful mission," Doctorow said.

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"You fired on those ships?" Doctorow asked.

"h.e.l.l, we had to do something, or we would all be trapped right now. We hijacked . . . commandeered three self-broadcasting battleships. Now, maybe we will be able to defend ourselves."

"Have they asked for their ships back?"

I nodded.

"Are you going to return them?"

"I can't imagine why I would," I said.

"It sounds to me like you've started yourself a war."

"To us, it's a war. We're fighting for our survival. To them, it's a military exercise," I said.

"Just make sure you keep your war off my planet," Doctorow said, all of his former good humor missing from his voice.

"That's why we wanted the self-broadcasting ships. We want to take the fight to them."

"What do you think they'll call your war back on Earth? The Clone Rebellion? The Clone Uprising?" Doctorow finished his drink and placed the gla.s.s on the little table by his seat.

"I prefer the Enlisted Man's War," I said. "My men tend to keel over when they hear they're clones."

"I don't want you pulling my planet into your war," Doctorow said.

"We have a five-hundred-ship fleet orbiting this planet. The Earth Fleet is down to somewhere in the neighborhood of forty self-broadcasting ships."

"Forty ships that you know about," Doctorow corrected.

I went on as if I had not heard him. "We have a blockade around your planet. You and your people are safe."

Doctorow heard this and laughed. "Safe? Your friend with the rifle not only managed to run your blockade, he knew how to find you and put a bullet in your chest."

"Simunition," I said.

"What?"

"He used simunition, not a live round."

"You're missing my point, Harris. You weren't even able to protect yourself. You're in over your head. That's my point." Doctorow had raised his voice so that he nearly shouted the words.

Sarah came out to the patio. "How are you boys getting on?" she asked, pretending she had not heard us.

"It appears General Harris here has plunged us into another war," Doctorow snapped.

"Well, that's fine then," Sarah said, the smile never faltering from her face. I wondered if she even heard him. "Now, you boys come in before our dinner gets cold."

The Doctorows' dining room was a long and narrow rectangle with a small table surrounded by large empty s.p.a.ces on either end. When I mentioned this to Ava, she laughed and said that the table could be extended to fill the room.

"The first time I came here, Sarah hosted a dinner party for twenty guests," Ava said. "We all sat at the same table." Ava sat to my right. Ellery sat across the table, glaring at me.

The Doctorows ate like people living in a war zone. Sarah had worked wonders with rice and beans and canned meats, but I got better food on the Kamehameha.

Ava and Sarah talked about movies. They chatted like sisters, Sarah asking questions about stars and Ava dishing up insider gossip that might well have been old news three years ago. Not that it mattered to Sarah-her planet had been cut off from movies and movie stars since the day the Mogats destroyed the Broadcast Network.

Doctorow and I traded a few questions, but we mostly listened in on the women. When we spoke, we talked about galactic wars; Ava and Sarah chatted about movie stars and gossip. Their conversation was more interesting than ours.

When Ava and Sarah finally hit a lull in their conversation, I commented that watching them converse, I would have guessed that they had known each other their entire lives, they might even have been sisters.

"We're new-old friends," Sarah explained. "We have Ava up to the house every weekend."

"Really?"

"Well, sure. You asked El to look after her," Sarah said.

"I appreciate it," I said, not sure what else to say.

"We've loved having her. I did not know what to expect when El first told me about Ava, her being a movie star and all," Sarah said. "A war hero and a movie star-my goodness, you two are going to be the life of the party wherever you go."

Ava smiled and gave my hand a squeeze.

We ate and chatted amiably, then Sarah changed the tenor of the evening. "You know, Wayson . . . Is it all right if I call you Wayson? General Harris just sounds so full of starch."

Ava chipped in, "I call him Harris."

"Wayson is fine," I said.

"You really are a hero. You saved the planet. I mean, I heard all about you chasing away the aliens with so very few men-absolutely amazing, like a miracle or something."

"Thank you," I said, feeling a little embarra.s.sed.

She gushed on about my heroism, but then she said, "Who are you going to war with now?"

"He declared war on the Unified Authority," Doctorow said.

"But we are part of the Unified Authority," Sarah said, clearly confused.

"On Earth," Doctorow said.

"Oh, on Earth," Sarah said. She sounded impressed. "You better keep the fighting away from Terraneau."

"We'll keep you safe," I said, thinking that Doctorow must have rehea.r.s.ed the entire night with his wife.

"See, now, Wayson, you're not listening to me. I have no doubt you will keep us safe, but that is not what I am telling you. What I am trying to say is that given a choice, the people on this planet are surely going to support Earth over a bunch of clones."