Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 78

“We met in Arendal, when I was just out of the university. I was twenty-four; she was twenty-one. It took us all of a week together to know that we were meant for each other. I still figured we shouldn’t rush things. So we waited six months.”

“And you brought her home and told Papa,” Solveig said. “I think I know how that one went over with him.”

“Actually, we got married before we left for home,” he said, and he saw her do a little sympathetic wince.

“I know. I know. I shouldn’t have gone over his head and put him in front of accomplished circumstances like that. But I figured it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

“Oh, no,” Solveig said.

Aden nodded.

“He was polite to her. But it was that icy kind of polite he does with people he loathes. You know what I mean. So we went to the guest quarters to stay for the weekend, and he had me called to the house a little while later, by myself. I figured that would be the part where he’d yell at me a little. Maybe a lot. But then he’d get over it and accept it, eventually. And he would see how good she was for me.”

He shook his head at the memory of his own youthful naivete.

“He told me there was no way she could have the family name. Said that she would be entitled to half of my share of Ragnar. Then he claimed that’s what she had in mind for me all along. I stood my ground. Told him she was his daughter-in-law now, whether he liked it or not. And he said, ‘We’ll just have to see about that.’”

“He told you to annul the marriage,” Solveig said. “And . . . wait. You told him to go to all the hells, and then he went to her and offered her a stack of money to annul it from her end.”

“You do know him better than anyone else,” Aden said. “She told him to keep his money. He doubled the offer. Then he tripled it. Astrid said she’d not take his money even if he sat there all night and increased his multipliers exponentially. So we left.”

“And then what happened?”

He hadn’t allowed the memory close to the surface of his consciousness in a long time, and when he did, it hurt as much as ever, undulled by the passage of time. He could tell from the sudden concern on Solveig’s face that he wasn’t able to keep the grief out of his own expression.

“What happened? She died, that’s what happened.”

She looked at him, crestfallen.

“We went to Sandvik and got a hotel room for the night,” he continued in a soft voice. “I didn’t want to make Papa extend hospitality against his will. The next day, I sent her back to Arendal on the vactrain. Figured I should make one more gesture of goodwill and go home to see Papa by myself before I left. And her transit pod from the vactrain station in Arendal crashed into a maintenance divider on the city interchange. At a hundred kilometers per hour.”

“Gods,” Solveig said.

“The police said it blew both the collision avoidance sensor and the safety interlock at the same time somehow. The pod never even hit the brakes. From what I know, it usually stops a pod on the spot when either of those things are disabled. Astrid had some improbably bad luck that day.”

“And you think Papa did it,” Solveig said slowly. “That he had your new wife killed because he didn’t want you to stay married to her.”

“It could have been just really bad luck. People die in accidents all the time, Solveig. I know that. But ask yourself the same question I did after it happened.”

“Could he do it,” Solveig said, her voice almost a whisper.

“With all that you know about Papa, can you say you’re absolutely certain that he would never be able to do such a thing?”

She didn’t reply. Instead, she just looked at him, her internal turmoil evident on her face.

“I can’t tell you how I know, but I do,” he continued. “Maybe it was the way he said, ‘We’ll just have to see about that’ when I left that night. Maybe it was the timing. Or the improbability of those safety features failing at the same time, in just the right rental pod. Maybe it’s all of those factors when you combine them.”

He sighed and let his shoulders drop.

“But I knew that once I had answered that question for myself, I would never be able to stand in the same room with him again without thinking about what he may have done to Astrid. And I would always be only two drinks away from a life sentence. For him or me.”

Aden took a slow, deliberate breath and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This is the first time we’ve been in the same room in seventeen years. I wanted this to be a pleasant thing. Not to kill all the joy in the room forever.”

Solveig shook her head.

“Don’t be sorry. I asked you, after all. I insisted.”

She reached out and put her hand over his.

“I’m glad I finally know the whole story. Because now I can understand why you would leave. I always felt that you had left me behind. That you walked away from me for no good reason. And now I don’t have to be angry with you for that anymore. And that does make me happy. Because I never want to feel anger when I think of you.”

He felt a relief he hadn’t known he’d needed, and it was so sudden and profound that it brought tears to his eyes. He used his napkin to wipe them away, and when he looked at Solveig, he saw that she was dabbing away at her own eyes. They looked at each other and laughed, in that cathartic way people laugh when some