Warhorse by Timothy Zahn Read Free Book Online

finding common ground.”
    â€œThere may not be any common ground on this one. Sir.”
    â€œThere’s always common ground,” Roman said bluntly. “And it can always be found if someone’s willing to search for it. Always .”
    He watched the other’s profile, saw the stiffness and anger fade. “Understood, sir,” he muttered. He glanced over at Roman, and a tentative smile brushed his lips. “In this case, I take it, that someone is you?”
    A half-crew’s worth of human beings: thoroughly— perhaps even violently—polarized in their feelings for or against Tampies…who would be making up the other half of the crew. “Perhaps,” he said. “Peacemaker is certainly one of the two possible roles I’ve been cast for here.”
    The lieutenant frowned. “What’s the other?”
    Roman grimaced. “Scapegoat.”
    The woman was tall and slender, in her mid-forties, with graying dark hair, piercing eyes, and an air of confidence about her as she glided easily to the center of Roman’s office. “Lieutenant Erin Kennedy, Captain,” she identified herself. “Reporting for preflight interview as ordered.”
    â€œWelcome aboard, Lieutenant,” Roman nodded to her. “Or should I say ‘Commander’?”
    Her eyebrows twitched. “ ‘Lieutenant’ will be fine, sir,” she said. “I was told that the reduction in rank wouldn’t be mentioned in my file.”
    â€œIt wasn’t,” Roman told her. “It happens that one of my friends served on a ship where you were exec some years back, and your name stuck with me.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I presume the demotion was voluntary?”
    â€œYes, sir,” she said. “I was originally slated to be Amity ’s exec, but at the last minute I was bounced—one faction of the Senate battling with another, I gather, and my supporters lost. That left me the choice of either accepting a demotion to second officer or not coming at all.”
    â€œI see.” Roman eyed her thoughtfully. “And riding with the Amity was that important to you?”
    â€œYes, sir,” she nodded. “But not for the reason everyone else signed on.”
    â€œYou don’t particularly care one way or the other about Tampies.” It was a statement, not a question. Kennedy’s psych profile had put her almost dead-center neutral on her feelings about Tampies, a glaring anomaly among Amity ’s emotion-churned majority.
    She shrugged, an infinitesimal movement of her shoulders. “Not really, sir. Though it might be more accurate to just say that I know enough for the things I like and the things I dislike to balance out.”
    In many ways an echo of Roman’s own feelings about the aliens. Fleetingly, he wished Kennedy hadn’t lost in her bid to be Amity ’s exec. “You see yourself as a peacemaker between the Pros and Antis, then?” he probed gently.
    She smiled faintly. “And get shot at by both sides? Not me, sir. Actually, the main reason I wanted to come was for the hands-on experience of flying a space horse. With commercial shipping companies already experimenting with space horse-and-Tampy rentals, this looks to be the direction interstar travel is going.”
    â€œPerhaps.” Or perhaps not; the handful of companies who had actually tried hiring space horses instead of using Mitsuushi-equipped ships had indeed raked in substantial profits…and had lost customer goodwill in roughly equal measure in the process. At the moment it was considered a toss-up as to the direction the private-sector experiment would ultimately go.
    Just one more burden, Roman thought sourly, resting on his and Amity ’s shoulders. “Space horse experience, at any rate, I think I can safely guarantee you. Have you had a chance to look through our voyage plan yet?”
    â€œOf course,