Sarah smiled and pa.s.sed me the beans, apparently unaware that I might object to her antisynthetic comments.

"But Earth abandoned Terraneau," Ava said. "They had a fleet of ships circling your planet for four years without ever sending anyone to rescue you."

"We told them not to. El, didn't you tell them to leave us alone." She said this as a statement, not a question. "You told them not to come, isn't that right?"

"Yes, dear," Doctorow said. "I think we are all glad that General Harris decided not to listen."

"Well, of course we are," Sarah admitted, "but that does not mean we would pick clones over humans if it comes to a war. You understand that, don't you, Wayson?"

"Yes," I said. I understood her perfectly.

"G.o.d, I hate that woman," Ava said, as we walked through her front door. I had expected Doctorow to move her in with the girls in the dormitory, but that never happened. She never spent so much as a night in that building.

"I thought you two were old friends," I said.

"Honey, where I come from, she would not be allowed on the sidewalk without a leash and a muzzle!" Ava said. "I could never be friends with that two-faced, antisynthetic b.i.t.c.h. Do you know what she said behind my back? When she found out her husband wanted to put me in the girls' dorm, she told her friends they should set me up in a convenience store and call it a 'home for wayward clones.' "

"How about Doctorow?" I asked. "Is he any better?"

"I don't know how he puts up with her. They're completely different. He's a nice man, and he's honest, and . . ."

"She's honest, too," I said.

"Honestly antisynthetic. Was it always like this for you, Harris? Did people always treat you like that? I don't think anyone knew I was a clone when I first got here. They knew who I was, you know, they'd seen my movies, but then Sarah started telling everyone I was a clone. She's like a one-woman mediaLink. G.o.d, I hate her."

"Do you think she speaks for the rest of the planet?" I asked, knowing that in Ava's experience, Norristown was the rest of the planet. "Who's got more clout, Ellery or Sarah?"

"If it comes down to a fight between Sarah and Ellery, my money is on Ellery," Ava said. But I got the feeling she had told me whom she wanted to win, not who she thought would take the t.i.tle.

I looked around the house. The living room was all done up in bright colors and gla.s.s tile. The home probably came furnished, just move in and put your name on the shingle, with a don't-ask-don't-tell policy when it came to the previous owners. There was a bright square above the fireplace where someone might once have hung a family portrait.

"Did Doctorow give you this house?" I asked.

"I pay the rent by teaching drama cla.s.ses up at the dorms," Ava said, brightening up.

"Should I be worried about the other teachers?"

"Other guys? Wayson Harris is worried about other guys?" Ava laughed. She led me into the kitchen, where she picked out two mugs and made us coffee. "Ellery warned everyone about you. Between Sarah advertising that I am a clone and Ellery scaring the guys off, it gets pretty lonely around here.

"How about you?" she asked. "Any other women I need to know about?" She spoke more softly and came close. I put my hands on her waist and brought her toward me. We hugged, and I swung her gently back and forth. A few moments pa.s.sed before we kissed. Somewhere in her breath, I tasted a trace of the imitation bacon Sarah Doctorow used to flavor her beans, but mostly Ava's breath just smelled like Ava. She kissed me, rubbed her body against mine, and giggled. "Wayson Harris worried about other guys." She laughed and pressed her face against my chest.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought about Freeman and his warning, and I knew that I should call the incident in to Warshaw, but Ava wrapped her right leg around my left thigh, and she reached up and kissed my neck. She kissed me on the lips, and her taste lingered. I did not forget about Freeman, but the run-in just did not seem all that important at the moment. I would be back on the Kamehameha by lunch.

"You know what you said about my never forcing you?" I asked.

"You're not going to need to now," she said.

Sometimes things just work that way.

We went to bed and made love. When we were done, we held each other in the darkness. I felt cool fingers with skin as soft as flower petals probing the wound on my chest. Once she had finished examining my chest, Ava moved her hands to my face, where she ran her fingers along my eyebrow. This touched off a strange kind of search. She felt my thighs, my arms, and my neck. She finished by going over my back, stopping on a spot below the shoulder blade on my left side.

"Find anything interesting?" I asked.

"Yes," she whispered, in a voice as soft and sensuous as the feel of her skin against mine. "This is the worst one." She meant my worst scar. I had three inch-wide stripes across that part of my back.

"How did you get these?" she asked.

"Somebody scratched me," I said.

"Scratched you?" she asked, unable to hide her giggle. "Somebody scratched you? Poor baby."

I did not tell her he was a Navy SEAL clone genetically developed to have daggerlike fingers. Instead, I just said, "Yeah, poor me."

"Ted told me you were the toughest man in the Marines," Ava said.

"Nice of him," I said.

"Have you ever been shot?" she asked.

"Besides today?" I asked.

"Today doesn't count. You said he used blanks."

"He used simmies. They're not blanks. Blanks just make noise."

"I mean shot with bullets?"

"No, I have never been shot," I admitted.

"Really?" She seemed surprised. I wanted to tell her that being shot in real life was nothing like being shot in the movies. On the battlefield, you got it in the gut or the head and you died. Maybe you got shot in the arm or the leg, and the limb never worked right again. In the movies, heroes get shot and still manage to save the day. In real war, Marines get shot and never fully recover.

"Have you ever been stabbed?" she asked.

"I got scratched real bad," I said. The SEAL who put those scars on my back had dug so deep that he cut through muscle and damaged organs, but I felt no desire to tell her that. This conversation irritated me.

"You were in all of those big battles, and you never got shot? You know what, Harris? I think Ted was wrong about you," she said. She probably wanted to sound playful, this being an after-s.e.x conversation. To me, though, she sounded childish. "I don't think you're the toughest man in the Marines. I think you're the luckiest."

There was just enough light in the room for me to see her hair, her face, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. There was not a man in the Corps who would have disagreed with her about my luck at that moment, not even Ted Mooreland.

I fell asleep after that. I did not remember my dream when I woke up; but whatever I dreamed, it left me feeling small, worried . . . unlucky.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.

Knowing that I needed to report my run-in with Freeman as soon as possible, I woke up early the next morning and flew back to Outer Bliss. I had one final interrogation to conduct.

I went to the guardhouse and told the officer in charge whom I wanted to see. He had two of his men take me to the interrogation room, where I waited for fifteen minutes before there was a knock on the door.

"Enter," I said.

The guards led Admiral Thorne into the room, and I dismissed them. Thorne and I would be alone for this private conversation; not even Warshaw would listen in on this one.

Thorne came in, looking solemn and dignified. His time in the relocation camp had not treated him kindly. He had lost weight. His posture seemed stiff, which actually added to his air of dignity. I expected him to call me Captain Harris, but he surprised me.

"Good morning, General," he said as he entered, and he gave me a smart salute.

I returned the salute.

"So, what brings the commandant of the Scutum-Crux Marines to Bliss on the Plateau?" he asked.

"Bliss on the Plateau? Is that what they're calling it?"

"That's what the inmates are calling it."

"I have a few questions," I said. I motioned to the table, and we took our seats.

"Questions for me? I'm not sure what I can tell you, General. I am well aware of the war. Admiral George and Senior Chief Fahey aren't keeping confidences. I suppose you know that."

I nodded. "I'm beginning to figure that out." I could feel the tension building already. "How about you, Admiral? Do you keep confidences?"

"I am at this moment," Thorne said. "I have not told anyone but you about the harnesses I found on the carriers."

The harnesses-I had almost forgotten about them. Someone had b.o.o.by-trapped the fighter carriers in the fleet to prevent them from leaving the s.p.a.ce around Terraneau. Even if broadcast engines were installed on the carriers, we could not use them. The harnesses were designed to detect the electrical buildup needed to power a broadcast. They would make the engines explode. Admiral Thorne had showed me the harness on the Kamehameha the day I arrived.

I still had not told Warshaw about the harnesses. There was no need to mention them until we figured out how to install the broadcast engines on smaller ships.

"We need to talk about those," I said.

Showing me those harnesses had been an act of sedition on Thorne's part. As I considered it, he had indeed shown that his loyalty was to the fleet and not the Unified Authority. Someone was feeding information back to Earth, but I did not think it was Thorne.

"I was a.s.sa.s.sinated last night," I said. "Admiral Brocius sent me a message by way of a sniper and a round of simunition."

Thorne laughed. "Let you know that you were not untouchable, did he?"

"How did he do that?" I asked.

"Are you asking how he landed a sniper on Terraneau?" Thorne asked, leaning back in his chair, his fingers forming a church and steeple. "It sounds as if someone ran your blockade."

"He shouldn't have been able to get through," I said. "We have a fleet surrounding this planet."

"Blockades are for stopping fleets and convoys, General. Your ships weren't looking for a five- or ten-man s.p.a.cecraft. If he came in a Johnston or Cessna, he might even slip past your ships."

"Without us spotting him on radar?"

"He would need to find a significant hole in your coverage," Thorne said. "Blocking off an entire planet isn't as easy as guarding a prison camp, not even with a fleet as big as yours."

"I figured that much out," I said. In truth, I had flown small craft through a few nets during the Mogat War. Using a small self-broadcasting ship, I had broadcasted in millions of miles away from well-guarded destinations so that no one would detect the anomaly from my ship, then flown in under the radar. I was not running active blockades, though, just entering guarded areas.

"How did the a.s.sa.s.sin know where to find me?" I asked. "The guy knew when and where I was."

Ray Freeman was a dangerous and resourceful man, more resourceful than any man I had ever known, but even he had his limits. He could not read minds or predict the future.

"Good question," Thorne agreed. He continued leaning back in his chair, flexing his fingers, the stiff expression on his face a mask hiding his emotion. I could not tell if he hated me or liked me, not that it mattered.

"You know you have a significant breach in your command structure. You do know that, don't you?" Thorne asked. "I knew you were coming to Bliss on the Plateau five days ago, Senior Chief Fahey told me."

"Fahey?" I asked. "How the speck does he know so much?" I could feel my frustration mounting.

"Sometimes you surprise me, Harris. He knows because he has friends on the Washington who keep him briefed."

I hit my boiling point. "Briefed? What do you mean 'briefed'? Are you telling me I have officers in my fleet who just ring him up and tell him our plans?" I knew the answer even as I asked. I let Hollingsworth take Fahey to the brig instead of Thomer. Hollingsworth was loyal to me, but he'd had s.e.x with Fahey. He might well do small favors for Fahey if he thought they were harmless. He might, for instance, have let Fahey's friends know he'd been sent to Outer Bliss.

"Everything points back to Fahey," I said. He was the one who had set up the blockade around Terraneau. He might have built blind spots into it. He could even have sent that information back to Admiral Brocius. When natural-borns transferred back to Earth, they transferred out through the Washington-Fahey's ship. He could have sent messages with them or anyone else on the transports. h.e.l.l, he had plenty of opportunity to ride out to the U.A. ships himself.

"So was Fahey working for you?" I asked. "Was he your spy?"

"My spy? General, why would I spy on the fleet? I wanted to stay out here," Thorne said.

"But you promoted him to senior chief right before the transfers started. If he's been playing Mata Hari with my officers, you were the one who placed him where he could catch the right information."

"It wasn't me. That promotion came straight from Navy Headquarters . . . in the Pentagon. General Harris, I think you have your leak."

"Obviously," I said.

"No, hear me out. The guards practically let Fahey run this place. Half the men guarding this camp are sailors from the Washington, and they let him call his friends all the time. What if he used a predetermined frequency? What if he wanted you to put him here so he could get information out?"

I rolled that question around in my mind. If half the guards in the camp were from the Washington, Fahey might have picked them himself. The two guards who came in with Fahey were probably from the Washington. I got the feeling that Fahey and those men may have been joined at the hip a time or two.

I pounded my fist into the table. "d.a.m.n it!" I yelled. Fahey had outmaneuvered me again and again. He'd floated enough information for Ray Freeman, possibly the most dangerous man in the galaxy, to take a shot at me. "d.a.m.n it," I repeated more quietly.

"The Navy doesn't operate like the Marines. You're dealing with sailors now, and you can't make them act like Marines. Their world is a lot more sophisticated, and the parts don't fit together as neatly," Thorne said.

"Yeah, well, Gary Warshaw sure as h.e.l.l agrees with you. He says I'm not fit to command a fleet."

"He's one to talk," Thorne said. "He's the other half of your problems."

"What do you think of Lilburn Franks?" I asked.

"He'd be a good choice for a second-in-command. At least he knows his way around a bridge, but he's a bit too aggressive. He understands naval strategy, but he hasn't seen what happens when things go wrong."

"Any other recommendations?" I asked. Thorne knew the SC Fleet better than any man alive.

Thorne sat up and went through the litany of NCOs I had available to me. I watched him closely as he spoke. The man looked old, but life still coursed through his veins. He didn't know it, but he was auditioning. Watching him speak, I decided that he still had a few good years in him. I could see it in his face.