Chapter 81: Equivalence

  Rudy flopped onto the bed and stared up at the bland, arching ceiling of the tourist trap he and Chloe lodged in. He wondered if the Feds had frozen his private account, and if he dared to try to withdraw marks from it to get a better hotel. Hell, it might actually work. He'd disappeared months ago. The Feds probably thought Stephan had killed him – or hoped to track the nob mobster if Stephan leaned on him to cough up a ransom.

  Fat chance!

  Rudy grinned. “Just like old times, eh, Clo?”

  “Except you actually get a bed this time,” Chloe said. “And we have to have separate rooms.”

  “Didn't you want separate rooms last time?”

  “That's the other thing that's different.”

  Rudy glanced over at her. For a wonder, she was actually smiling. “You drunk or something?”

  “No.” She leaned against the wall – the far wall, since her oh-so-precious silvery parasite vetoed getting any closer to him – and sighed. “Just trying not to think because I figure we're going to realize how crazy this whole thing is.”

  “What's crazy? We get that slick Imperial Guard mecha fixed up and get it looking a little less obvious, I enter the tournament under an assumed name, I win, and then you and me pay Madame President a visit and demand your dad's release.”

  “She'll never pardon him,” Chloe said. “She can't, can she? They'd have no way to get me then.”

  “Nope. But unless you know another way to get closer to the president than any Animus Hunter can, it's your best shot to persuade her.”

  Chloe took a sudden interest in her feet. “Yeah.”

  “Remember who the bad guys are here, Clo. They started it.”

  “And we finish it?”

  “That's the hope,” Rudy said.

  “Rudy...”

  “Yeah, Clo?”

  “What if we're wrong?”

  He frowned. “About what?”

  “About who the bad guys are,” Chloe said. “The Federal Senate is supposed to work for everybody. We're just trying to help ourselves. It seems kind of selfish. Of me, anyway. You're helping me, and that isn't selfish at all.”

  “I don't know if I'd go that far,” Rudy said.

  “Still claiming you want equivalent exchange, Rudy?” Chloe met his eyes. “You're not even going to ask for your brother's pardon, are you?”

  Rudy didn't answer at first. Intellectually, he knew there was no point. The Senate risked a whole lot by letting Jack Hughes go. They all but guaranteed another civil war if they let Otto Abeir Algreil go. If there was a chance, however minuscule, he could spring Chloe's dad without her having to use force, didn't he have to take it?

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  Even if it meant leaving his brother to be executed?

  At times like these, Rudy really could have used Chloe's hand on his shoulder and her face right by his. Remind him what he was risking his neck for.

  He closed his eyes and imagined what couldn't be the case. Not for now.

  “No,” he said, “I'm not going to ask for Otto's pardon.”

  “That's not fair, Rudy,” Chloe said. “It's not right. He's your family.”

  “He's guilty as hell,” Rudy said, “and he played his hand so badly, he probably figures he deserves what he's gonna get.”

  “But the war started because –”

  “Because Otto had a freaking fission cannon hidden in a civilian arcology and decided to start poking holes in the Reformer,” Rudy said. “Remember what you said about being the bad guy, Clo? Well Otto is. He picked the fight, even if looking for you made the Feds pick a time. He... he deserves what he gets.”

  “You told me you cared about him, Rudy.”

  Rudy extended a hand toward her. He opened his eyes to watch her shy away from the field that threatened to devour her erinyes. “You see that? That's because of Otto, remember. He made me this way. He didn't do the surgery, but he damn well paid for it. Mine, and the nob's whose nerve centers got ripped out for my sake.”

  Chloe paled.

  “Otto thought I was a failure because I didn't have any psychic powers.” He laughed bitterly. “If he'd had any idea what I could actually do, he'd have liked me even better than if I'd been the artificial nob he planned for.”

  “But you care about him anyway,” Chloe said quietly.

  “Yes, dammit.” Rudy pried himself off the bed. “I care about him anyway. But he's a bastard, he did everything he's been accused of, and just 'cause the Feds are at least as bad or worse doesn't mean I'm going to risk the best chance we've got to save your dad to try and get Otto a pardon he doesn't deserve.”

  Dammit.

  “Rudy...”

  “It's my call, Chloe. Hell, Otto even told me so.”

  She frowned. “What? When?”

  “Ferrill's recording, when we found out Otto and your dad were on trial,” Rudy said. “Otto said something to the camera. I had my suit's computer read his lips. He told me, 'The company is yours now, Rudy, if you can take it.'”

  Something about those words stuck in Rudy's head. A plan emerged from them, or at least the germ of one. It was a crazy plan and a dangerous one and he was glad when Chloe interrupted his train of thought.

  She said, “This isn't about the company.”

  “It's still my decision.”

  “You're trying to protect me again. You're giving up too much.”

  “And you,” Rudy said, “need to get over that hangup. I'm sorry about what happened to your mother, Chloe. From the sounds of it, she was a nice lady. But just because she made the choice she did and she and the battlecruiser's crew got the worst of it, doesn't mean it wasn't her choice. And this is mine.”

  “I know,” Chloe said. “But you shouldn't make it.”

  “I have no chance to save Otto,” Rudy said. “I have a little chance to save your dad. If nothing else, Clo, why waste that chance asking for something impossible? I could walk into the Senate Chamber and ask to be made Emperor and have a better shot than I would of getting Otto released.”

  “Where is the equivalence, Rudy?”

  “Huh?”

  Chloe met his eyes. Her stratosphere blues shimmered from the tears she'd just blinked away when she thought about her Imperial mother's death. “Where is the equivalence in all this, Rudy? You risk your life and honor for me time and time again, and when you go before the Senate with a chance to save your brother, or at least your company, you spend it on my dad? How can that possibly be anything like fair?”

  “Haven't you heard, Clo?”

  She cocked her head.

  “All's fair,” Rudy said, “in love and war.”