"He's not even an officer," George said, but he didn't move.
Ronnie stiffened in the midst of a yawn. A rhythmic noise flicked the edge of his hearing. Like someone walking, but walking with an intentionally odd gait. A few steps, a pause: a few more steps, a pause. The sound of steps—the swish of leaves, the soft pad of foot—varied in number but not duration. Despite his fear, Ronnie grinned to himself. They'd been warned about that mistake. . . . He'd done it himself, counting to himself as he tried to move stealthily, he'd put four or five or three steps into the same interval, thus making the sound as periodic as a pendulum. This person varied his pause intervals, but not the walking ones. Ronnie reached out to touch George in case he hadn't heard. The walker might come within reach, if they were lucky.
Ronnie's mind drifted. It had been, he thought, an impossibly bad day, and it had started far too early. Yet he didn't feel as bad as he should; he knew that, and knew, in some distant corner of his mind, that it had something to do with the bump on his head. He wasn't tracking right; he wasn't feeling what he should feel, whatever that was. The long, hot afternoon after the girls left, when Petris tried to figure out what to do with them, where to put them, when the others tested Petris's command, wanting to kill them, wanting to leave them anywhere and get away safely themselves. . . . It had been hell, but a hell from which he felt somewhat remote. As long as he didn't have to talk, as long as he didn't have to do anything, the others could do what they wanted.
Chapter Fifteen
"We cannot do this alone." Heris put into that all the command voice she'd ever had. Cecelia merely looked exasperated.
"We've been over that. I don't want to bother Bunny."
"Lady Cecelia." The formality got through; Cecelia actually focussed on her. "Do you remember why I lost my commission?"
"Yes, but what's that—"
"This is exactly the same thing. If we go off, the two of us—you with no military experience whatever—with no proper intelligence, no backup, no plan—that is exactly as stupid, in the same way, as what Lepescu proposed. It is frankly suicidal, and I will not cooperate."
Cecelia stared at her. "I thought we settled it; I thought you agreed."
"In anger, yes. At the thought of getting Lepescu's neck between my hands, yes. But I have no right to risk you and your nephew and the others to serve my vengeance. We don't know what we're facing; we don't know what shape they're in; we won't have backup or medical assistance—and if we get killed, what about the youngsters?"
For a moment, Heris thought Cecelia would explode; she turned red, then pale, then stood rigidly still. And finally shook herself slightly and let out a sharp huff of air. "I suppose you're right. That's why I came to you; you have the military background. So—you want me to tell Bunny?"
"I think we should both go. He may want confirmation from Sirkin up in Sweet Delight—and besides, I still want to be part of the row."
"Fine." With no more argument, Cecelia called Michaels over. "Michaels, Captain Serrano feels that we should not go alone on this." Heris noticed that Michaels relaxed slightly; he had had more sense than either of them, but not the courage to say so.
"Yes, milady?"
"I'm going to tell Lord Thornbuckle; this will mean telling him that you knew Bubbles took the flitter." Heris had not thought about that—how much trouble would he be in? Not much, she hoped.
"I don't think you should tell anyone else about this," Lady Cecelia went on, as if Michaels were a child to be lectured. "I'm sure you'll be hearing from his lordship very shortly."
"Yes, milady."
"All right," Cecelia said. "Now we have to find Bunny before that damned hunt starts. We're lucky Stone Lodge is at this end of the settlement."
The others were mounted, ready to set out, the hounds swirling around the horses' legs. Heris was sure that only Cecelia could have gotten Bunny off his horse and into the hall of Stone Lodge so quietly and quickly.
"What is it?" he asked, the moment the door had shut out the sound of milling hooves and human chatter. Cecelia explained, giving as clear an account as Heris herself could have done: her discovery that the young people were missing, Michaels's report of where they had gone, and the beacon data and data from Sweet Delight which indicated that they were on an island near Bandon. Then she mentioned the uninvited guests, the intruders that Heris suspected might be hunting illegally. Lord Thornbuckle looked at Heris.
"You know this person?" Heris thought she had not heard anyone pronounce "person" with that intonation before; just so did seniors at the Academy refer to incoming cadets.
"Yes, I do," she said. "He cost me my commission; he has a bad reputation—but the relevant point is that he is here without your invitation."
"Yes . . . I see that. Just a moment." He went out the door, leaving Heris and Cecelia staring at one another. In moments, he was back inside. "I told Clem to take over the hunt today; no sense in having them hounding us, as it were. Buttons has already ridden out with the blue hunt; I'll have him brought back—" As he spoke, his fingers tapped on his personal comunit. Heris had seen him only at the hunt, or at leisure after dinner; he had always seemed friendly enough, but not particularly decisive except when some fool rode too close to the hounds. The nickname Bunny had fit him well enough, the long slightly foolish face, the quick movements of his head at dinner, on the lookout for unpleasantness. Now, though, she saw someone used to command responding to an emergency, someone for whom a title made more sense than a nickname.
"Sir, the other thing—" She interrupted him cautiously; he raised an eyebrow but nodded for her to speak. "There must be someone in this household working with them—whoever they are. Someone to give warning if you're headed that way, at least."
He nodded. "And it can't be Michaels, because he knew about Bubbles and whoever was there didn't."
"We hope." Lady Cecelia looked grim. "They haven't called in; their flitter's not at a regular field—"
"Which island?" Lord Thornbuckle asked. "Could your ship make that out?" He called up a map which displayed on the hall wall as thin green lines.
"That one," Heris said, pointing.
"Bubbles's favorite," he said. "The children camped there many summers; she knows every meter of that island. I wonder if she's just camping and hiding out."
"If it weren't for the unauthorized shuttle, and the fact that Lepescu is on Bandon—" Cecelia began.
"We hope on Bandon, and not on this island," Heris put in, tapping the map again.
"Yes. We must assume he is, and that he's up to no good." His focus shifted to her, completely. "You were formerly an officer in the Regular Space Service, isn't that right, Captain Serrano?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then please give me the advantage of your professional assessment. What are we facing here, and what is your recommendation?"
Heris felt like a junior officer caught out at an admiralty briefing. "We are presently lacking important information," she began. "We know, or rather strongly suspect, that Admiral Lepescu is on Bandon. The shuttlecraft that landed him could have held as many as fifty individuals, but since it came from a chartered yacht, it is reasonable to suppose that it did not. That it was configured for luxury work, with a maximum of perhaps ten. We do not know how many such shuttle flights have been made to and from Bandon, or the number of people on each. However, it's reasonable to assume that an actual invasion force is unlikely."
"Why, Captain?"
"Both practical reasons and the character of Admiral Lepescu, sir. Practically, invading an inhabited planet is difficult, and one like this would require complicity of too many of your employees. You have four orbiting Stations, additional navigation and communications satellites, and a high-tech population scattered around the planet. An invader would have to gain control of communications to prevent an alarm being sent. Your own militia would have to be suborned or defeated in battle, and from what I've heard of your militia, they're loyal and tough, and very well equippe
d. Right now, you have thousands of legitimate guests, and their crews and servants—and it might be easier to sneak onplanet in the confusion, but it certainly would not be easier to deal with so many . . ." She struggled for a word that expressed what she meant without rudeness.
"Difficult individuals?" suggested Lord Thornbuckle, with a smile.
"Yes, sir. And as well as practicality there's the matter of Lepescu. He's not a man to involve himself in something that blatant; his tastes run otherwise."
"Ummm. You said he cost you your commission?"
"Yes, he did." When Lord Thornbuckle's expression did not change, Heris realized she was going to have to say more. Anger roughened her voice.
"He considers war a noble sport, sir. He considers that putting troops in impossible situations is sporting; his expression is 'see what they're made of.' Until recently, the only way he could do this was by risking his own ship, but two years ago he attained flag rank and was given command of a battle group. You are no doubt aware of the Cavinatto action. In that conflict, he ordered my ship, and the ground forces under my command, to make a frontal attack on a strongly defended lunar complex. The defense could have been breached another way—in fact, several other ways, which I and other captains presented as alternatives. But he insisted that it must be done the one way likely to fail—even the battlecomps said so—and certain to cost the most lives."
"Is that legal?" asked Lord Thornbuckle.
"Perfectly," Heris said. "An admiral's fitness for command is judged afterwards, by results. He is not obliged to take advice from anyone but his own commander, and our group was operating far from anyone more senior. It was something Lepescu had worked toward for years."
"Did his order to you risk the whole operation?"
"No. Most of the group would attack the main objective, and while his orders for that were not what I'd have given, they weren't as reckless. Our diversionary action was important, but it need not have been suicidal."
"Did this admiral have a grudge against you before? It seems he must have. . . ."
"I'm not sure." In her own mind she was sure, but she would not condemn even Lepescu on the basis of her personal belief. "I had not anticipated anything like this. But the point is, that in the event I did not obey his very plain orders. My ship and forces attacked the lunar complex, and gained control of it, but I didn't do it his way." At the change in his expression, Heris nodded grimly. "That's right: I deliberately disobeyed the order of a lawful superior, in combat status. Grounds for court-martial; in fact, that's what I expected. I knew exactly how serious it was; my family's been Service for generations, after all. I had evidence, I thought, that would protect my crew at least, and that seemed better to me than losing several thousand of them because Admiral Lepescu enjoyed 'a good fight.' There was even a chance that a court might see it my way—small, but there it was."
"And then what?"
"Then I was offered the chance to resign my commission, in exchange for immunity for my officers and crew, or a court-martial for all. The scan data had disappeared; accidents happen in combat. I had some junior officers whose careers would be cut short forever by a court-martial now, even if they won . . . the stigma never really goes away. And some hotheads in the crew would, I knew, convict themselves if they got before a court; there are always people who can't keep quiet even to save themselves. So I resigned."
"You didn't tell me all that," Cecelia said. "Not about what he wanted you to do."
"It didn't seem relevant," Heris said. The rest of it boiled up in her mind—what Lepescu had said to her and about her: Coward. Stupid bitch. Typical woman, only good to lay and lie. And more, that she would never tell anyone. Who could understand?
"So I judge from your report," Lord Thornbuckle said, "that Admiral Lepescu is more likely to put someone else in danger than to risk his own hide?"
Heris struggled to be fair. "He's not a coward, sir; he had a name for boldness when he commanded his own ship. But he's also ambitious in politics and society. He would enjoy hunting here under your nose, but he would not chance making such a powerful enemy by attempting open invasion."
"What about taking hostages?"
"Possibly. Especially if he found himself in a trap."
"Do you think he's the head of whatever is going on?"
"I don't know. He has other hunting friends—" Quickly, she told him about the club she'd heard of, and the rumors about it.
"And you would recommend?"
"Taking in enough force to make resistance futile—and there's the problem of surprise and collusion. If they find out you're coming in, they might get the shuttle off, and the yacht—"
"Not if their crew's in the Bay," Lord Thornbuckle said. "That'll be easy enough to find out; it's on a routine report." All this time, he had been tapping out orders on his personal comunit. "There's a Crown Minister here—Pathin Divisti—but I hate to involve the Crown if we can avoid it. And he's here for hunting; he brought no staff."
Heris hoped her face didn't reveal her reaction. She thought of Crown Ministers as a particularly bloated form of bureaucratic incompetence, whose internal struggles for power resulted in unexpected budget changes for the Services.
The door chimed; a servant Heris had hardly noticed opened it to a militia squad, uniformed and armed. Lord Thornbuckle smiled at Heris.
"Captain Serrano, if you'd brief my Captain Sigind while I get some more information—"
Heris stepped outside; the hunt had ridden off some time before, and she could just hear the hounds giving tongue somewhere in the distance. Captain Sigind was a lean, tough man a decade younger than she, whose expression hardly wavered when he saw he was to be briefed by an older woman in hunting attire. Heris laid out the situation as far as she knew it, and he nodded.
"I know Bandon, of course, and something of the other islands. Haven't been there in a couple of years, but here's the layout." He pulled out a map display and flicked through the file. Bandon came up in a standard military format, with topo lines and color-codings for vegetation types. "The landing field's here—with shuttle extension into these woods. When they expanded the field, they cleared a little place at the lodge itself for small flitters—right here. It's grass, not paving. It'd be real handy if we knew how many were at the lodge, and how many on this other island—"
"All I know about is one shuttle load, and I don't even know if it was troop-fitted or civilian," Heris said.
"Ah. You're military?" His pale eyes were shrewd, wary.
"I was. Regular Space Service."
"Any ground combat experience?"
"No, not myself. That's—"
"Why you didn't rush into this like a damn fool. Smart." His brisk nod approved. "But you see our problem. . . ."
"Of course. You need to know how many they are, what their resources are, and which of Lord Thornbuckle's employees are on their side."
"The outrange supervisor, for one," he said. "I'm sure of that, because it's his responsibility to know who's on which settlement, and when. They'd have needed his codes to get the Bandon beacon functioning for the shuttle."
"And someone at that Station," Heris said. "Where the charter yacht that launched the shuttle came from, because I understand that the use of private shuttles isn't permitted."
"Right. But back to you—you say this man Lepescu is part of some sporting club? Most sportsmen have self-imposed limits on the weaponry they'll use—or is he a trophy hunter type?"
"I don't know," Heris said. The door opened, and Lord Thornbuckle came out. The bony face she had once considered amiable but weak now looked anything but amiable.
"Complete shuttle records for the past thirty days," he said. "The same station where that charter's berthed has launched twice its normal quota of shuttles. Cargo and supplies, most of them were said to be, for Bandon lodge. We don't land supplies for Bandon there very often, not offworld supplies. Certainly not at this season. One of my comsats recorded the same conversation your o
fficer picked up, Captain Serrano—as well as these—" He handed over strips of hard copy, which Heris glanced at. She could not read that fast, and he was still talking.
"I've relieved the Stationmaster there, and put old Haugan in charge—I know he's loyal, at least. Suspended all shuttle flights, and all communications, with the explanation of power problems on the Station. If I understand correctly, there are fewer than twenty people who've taken shuttles like the one Lepescu was on. All but one have returned to the Station. You were right, Captain Serrano, that they were fitted for civilian luxury use, with a total capacity of ten passengers—and carried less. Here are the latest satellite images of Bandon and the adjacent islands—there's some cloud interference, apparently a storm overnight—"
Heris and the militia captain leaned over them. Three shots of Bandon, five minutes apart, and two of each adjacent island. They looked at the Bandon pictures first. One atmospheric shuttle stood on the end of the runway; no other vehicles were near it. Three flitters were parked on an apron off to one side in two pictures, and only two in the third and last. A tiny blob the captain identified as an electric groundcar moved along the narrow driveway between the landing field and the lodge. Comparing the three pictures, they could tell that it had left the lodge for the field—and then a flitter had taken off.
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