Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 77
“Fair enough,” Aden said. “What kind of business is Papa having you do on Acheron?”
“Our contracts with Hanzo are running short. He sent me to get better terms for graphene composites. And use our Alon contract as leverage.”
“And how is that working out?”
“They don’t want to concede that we’re not coming to them as beggars anymore. But they’ll come around. It’s a seller’s market right now. And they can’t afford for us to take their Alon quota and sell it to their competitors. Which we will if they make us, even if it costs us our top graphene supplier.”
She shook her head. Then she tapped the compad that was built into the table in front of her.
“But I don’t want to use our time to bore you with corporate theater. Trust me, I’ve had a hard enough time staying awake through it this morning. Do you want to order some food while we’re here? It’ll look a little strange if we don’t.”
“Sure,” he said, and looked at his own order compad, then selected one of the lunch packages. “You sound like you like that stuff just about as much as I did.”
“The thing is that I sort of do,” she said. “It’s like a strategy board game. Once you get used to it, it’s really easy to make people commit to the moves you want them to do. The key is to let them think they had the idea first.” She laughed and covered her face with her hands for a moment. “Oh, gods. That’s exactly the obnoxious sort of thing Papa would say, isn’t it?”
He’s had you to himself for so long, Aden thought. It would be a wonder if his ways hadn’t influenced yours at all.
“Have you heard from Mama lately?” he asked, partly out of curiosity and partly to steer the conversation into a new direction. “I tried to follow the family news when I was in the Blackguards, but she just dropped off the Mnemosyne a few years after I left. I only read the PR release about the divorce after everything was done.”
“I was already at boarding school,” she said. “Came home one summer, and Papa said Mama had left and gone back to Oceana. I asked her about that, later. She was a little drunk and pissed off at Papa for some reason. More pissed off than usual, I mean. She said he told her to leave and never speak to any of us again if she wanted to keep being financially secure. I never told him about that. On the chance she was telling the truth.”
“And she moved to Hades.”
Solveig nodded.
“She said she wants to spend her retirement account where the gravity is always low and the drinks are always cheap.”
They both laughed.
“She took her old name back. Jansen,” she continued. “I can give you her node address if you want to get in touch. She still thinks you’re probably dead. Everyone did.”
“I’m a Jansen now, too.” Aden took out his ID pass and showed it to her. She looked at the card and turned it around between her fingers.
“Oceanian,” she said. “Just like Mama’s.”
“It’s a fake,” he admitted. “A good fake. But a fake. I couldn’t come back and be on the same planet with Papa again.”
She put the card down on the table between them.
“I think I have earned the right to know why, Aden,” she said. “The reason why you left. The real reason. And Papa sure as hells won’t tell me. Not even after a bottle of his Rhodian whisky. Every other year or so, I’ll try, and he’ll shut me out for a month.”
Their food arrived through the serving port next to the table. The automated kitchen conveyor slid two trays in front of them, both with precise arrangements of food on little plates and bowls. Aden considered her request while they each picked up their eating utensils and prepared to begin their meal.
“Why do you think that is, Solveig?”
His sister shrugged.
“Knowing Papa? Because he fears it’ll make me think less of him.”
“And what if I told you that it will? Would you still want to know?”
“The truth is the truth,” she said without hesitation. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about it. Or how I might feel about it. Of course I would want to know.”
Aden sat back and looked at his sister in silence for a few moments. She returned his gaze evenly. If he had been in her place for so long, he would have asked the same questions and given the same answers. She was an adult now, and her relationship with their father was her business. He decided that if she wanted the truth, he had no reason to keep it from her.
“I met a girl,” he said. “I know he told you that much.”
“He said he didn’t approve of her, and you got mad and left.”
“That’s what he’s been telling you for all these years,” Aden said, his anger stirring in his chest.
“More or less.”
“How very Papa,” he said. “He never tells you the whole truth of a thing. Just the part he thinks you need to know. Told from the angle that makes him look the best.”
He looked at his plate and shook his head.
“Her name was Astrid. I can’t even show you an image of her because I lost all my access to Aden Ragnar’s stuff when I became Aden Robertson. But I’m sure you know how to dig around if you really want to know.”
He picked up his utensils and began to eat his lunch, just so he could give his hands something to do other than tear his napkin into progressively smaller bits under the table. She followed suit, and they ate in silence for a few moments. He had already forgotten what he’d ordered.