by Ian Sales
Ormuz was about to sit, when he saw Captain Plessant, Dai and Tovar enter the bar. He waved and Plessant spotted him. Without changing expression, she angled her route across Min Ven towards the table. Ormuz turned to tell Lotsman, and saw that he had already sat and was deep in conversation with Gotovach. It was some funny story from his past, and she laughed in a low voice. Ormuz dropped into a chair. He noticed the beers before the pilot and the woman and realised he didn’t have a drink. He grimaced, and twisted to look for a waiter—
Plessant stood immediately behind him. She was looking at Lotsman. “Disturbing you, are we?” she asked sardonically.
Lotsman looked up. “Not at all, captain,” he replied. “This is an old friend from Kapuluan. From the Puwit Kali, in fact.”
The woman blushed and looked away. The reaction puzzled Ormuz.
The effect on Plessant, however, was stranger still. She glanced sharply at Gotovach and her gaze narrowed. Abruptly, her face turned expressionless. “Is that so? Perhaps you should introduce us, Lexander.”
“Riz Gotovach. This is my captain, Murily Plessant.”
Gotovach smiled weakly. “Hello.”
“And the others,” continued Lotsman, “are Adril Tovar and Marla Dai.” Each nodded in acknowledgement.
“Don’t mind if we join you, do you?” Plessant said. It did not sound like a request.
Lotsman hurriedly assured her she was welcome. Dai caught a waiter’s attention and a round of drinks was soon on its way.
“Riz works on the tallships,” Lotsman told Plessant. “In security.”
“Which line?” asked Plessant.
“Katut,” the woman replied.
“They don’t visit Kapuluan,” Plessant pointed out.
“I was with Sakoplano, then. But they were cutting back on their routes and they decommissioned a number of tallships.”
Plessant grunted.
Gotovach asked, “What about you? Lex tells me you normally trade out near the rim. What brings you to Ophold?”
“None of your business.”
Ormuz was shocked. The captain seemed to have taken an immediate dislike to Gotovach for no reason. There was nothing about her to justify Plessant’s reaction. Ormuz thought Gotovach very attractive. There was also something… commanding about her. Ormuz was drawn to such women. It was why liked Captain Plessant so much, despite her abrasiveness.
On Rasamra, his one brief romance had been with a department supervisor in Sir Alar dem Tajer’s trading company. Carisa Sabiyiti had been six years older than Ormuz and in the department responsible for supporting the accounting-mechanisms. She wasn’t a Rasamra native, but from Koliya. When Ormuz had learnt she had attended the technum on that world, he had asked her about it. He regretted not being allowed to study there. Ormuz and Sabiyiti had become friends and then lovers. He still missed her.
Ormuz decided to show that he was not as hostile as his captain. He touched Gotovach lightly on the arm. She jerked round in surprise. He apologised for startling her and asked, “I’ve never been to Kapuluan. What’s it like?”
Gotovach arched an eyebrow. “Um,” she said. Her eyes gained a faraway look. “Everyone there lives on islands,” she said. “There’s an enormous archipelago—hundreds of thousands of tiny islands—stretching across the temperate zone. Lungsod, the capital, is one of the biggest. It must be six miles long, and nearly four wide. The starport’s there. The earl lives on Batasan. That’s another island. It’s about thirty minutes by air from Lungsod—”
She broke off. Ormuz was fascinated. Kapuluan sounded like any of the worlds he had visited. He couldn’t wait until they made landfall there.
“Leave her alone, Cas,” Lotsman said. “She doesn’t want to spend all night telling you about a place you’ll never see.”
Ormuz didn’t understand. Their next stop was Kapuluan. Captain Plessant had said so. He said, “But I thought we were—”
Plessant interrupted him: “I don’t pay you to think.”
“Sorry, captain.”
“You have a strange accent,” Dai remarked to Gotovach. “Where are you from originally?”
“A world called Gabaurth. It’s in Reyki province.”
Dai’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a long way from Ophold. Clear across the other side of Gromada and Chiho provinces.”
“You know your astrography,” Gotovach said dryly.
“How did you end up out here?”
“Riz,” put in Lotsman, “was in the Navy.”
“What branch?” asked Plessant.
“When I mustered out, I was a petty officer reporting to the divisions lieutenant aboard a destroyer.”
“What’s a divisions lieutenant?” asked Ormuz.
Gotovach turned to him and smiled. “She handles all the personnel administration. Promotions, training, certification, that sort of thing. She’s also responsible for overseeing the rateds’ pay. The ship’s paymaster—that’s a section master reporting to the divisions lieutenant—actually controls the money, though.”
“So what did you do for this lieutenant?”
She shrugged. “I was just a clerk. It wasn’t very exciting.”
“Quite a leap to security,” observed Dai.
“The lines like ex-Navy in security positions,” Gotovach explained. “We’re well-trained.” She gave a faint, almost apologetic, smile.
“Have you ever fought in a space battle?” Ormuz asked. He understood the need for a personnel branch in an organisation as large as the Imperial Navy but it didn’t sound very glamorous. “Did you ever fight the Baal?”
Gotovach let out a low laugh. “The Baal? No one’s seen them for twelve hundred years. They say Edkar I bombed them back to the Stone Age. The only Baal worlds I saw in the Boundary Fleet were dead, but we didn’t go very far into their territory—”
“So you never saw any?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Were they really monsters?”
Rinharte frowned. “I don’t know. They say they were human once. And they did… things to people that— Well, you wouldn’t want to know.”
Ormuz caught Tovar frowning in surprise but could not understand why. The cargo-master changed the subject:
“Um, what was the name of your ship? If you don’t mind me asking…”
She turned to him. “Not at all. She was, ah, Galaba.”
“A destroyer, isn’t she?” remarked Plessant.
Gotovach blinked and then frowned warily. “She is, yes,” she said slowly. “You’re not ex-Navy yourself, are you?”
Plessant snorted in amusement but didn’t reply.
“No, I thought not,” said Gotovach. She gazed thoughtfully at her bottle of beer. As if coming to a decision, she lifted her head. “I should leave,” she said. “I have to meet someone.” She rose to her feet and directed a regretful smile at Lotsman. “It was nice running into you again, Lex.”
She left the table. Lotsman scrambled to his feet and caught up with her before she reached the bar’s exit. They had a brief conversation. Ormuz watched Gotovach shake her head and then reluctantly nod. Lotsman touched her briefly on the upper arm and strode back towards the table. He dropped back into his chair, reached for his drink, took a deep swig and then let out a self-satisfied “Ah.”
Plessant rounded on the pilot. “Who in corruption was she?” she demanded harshly. “And don’t give me that guff about ‘an old friend’.”
Lotsman smiled beatifically. “I’ve absolutely no idea,” he said.
Ormuz glanced at the ship’s pilot in surprise. Lotsman had treated Gotovach as if she were someone he knew, so what could he mean?
“You’ve never been on the Puwit Kali,” Plessant said flatly.
Lotsman grinned. “Ah, but I could have been. Data-freighter crews go there every time they make landfall on Kapuluan.” He chuckled. “And if I were, it’s likely I’d be in no state to remember who I’d met. Sh
e chose well, I thought.”
Ormuz turned to Tovar. “What’s the Puwit Kali?” he asked quietly.
The cargo-master appeared faintly embarrassed. “It’s a street in Lungsod, the capital of Kapuluan. It’s famous for its bars. They say every vice is available on the Puwit Kali.”
“That was no Reykan accent, either,” said Plessant.
Dai spoke up: “More Lisanï than anything else. She could have picked it up in the Navy. But there was something odd about the way she spoke.”
“She knew the Baal used to be human,” Tovar put in. “They don’t put that in prole history books.”
Lotsman shrugged. “She served in the Boundary Fleet. Who knows what the Navy tells them out there?”
“Not that,” replied the cargo-master, shaking his head.
Plessant turned and stared across at the entrance to Min Ven. Gotovach was not in sight. “She was trying to pick you up?” she asked Lotsman, her back to him.
Lotsman grimaced. “I thought that at first, but… No, I don’t think she was. She claimed she knew me. She knew my name, for sure.”
“So who is she?” Plessant hunched her shoulders. In a faraway voice, she added, “There are two— no, three possibilities…” She spun back to face Lotsman. “She could be working with that dead Housecarl from Darrus. Stay away from her. That’s an order.”
“What possibilities?” demanded Dai.
Plessant chopped a hand in the air. “Not here.”
“I liked her,” Lotsman said. “I don’t think she’s a threat.”
Ormuz was thoroughly confused. Threat? What was going on? First, a regimental officer attacked them in Amwadina… And now the rest of the crew were behaving as if Riz Gotovach were some sort of spy.
“We’re having dinner tomorrow night,” Lotsman added. “I just arranged it.”
“No!” Plessant was adamant. “Stay away from her.”
“I can look after myself… captain.”
“I’ve seen her before,” Ormuz found himself saying. “I think.”
All four turned to him, surprise on the faces of Lotsman, Tovar and Dai, and suspicion on the captain’s.
“I’m not sure,” he added. “Something about her tonight was different. Her hair. I don’t think it was that colour before.”
“Where?” demanded Plessant. “Where have you seen her before?”
“I don’t know.” Ormuz felt foolish.
“On Darrus?”
Ormuz shrugged. “Maybe.”
Lotsman shook his head. “Cas was with Adril and me every time we went into Amwadina. If she was there, we’d have spotted her.” He waggled his eyebrows comically. “I know I would have done.”
“Not on Rasamra, surely,” Plessant said.
“No, not on Rasamra.” Ormuz sat back and gazed glumly at his bottle of beer. He could feel their eyes on him. He should have kept his mouth shut. Yet he did know Gotovach from somewhere. His life was a series of explorations of the strange and new interspersed by periods of the utterly familiar, so it was easy enough for Ormuz to order his memories. He remembered each of his landfalls on various worlds, and what had occurred during those visits. He recalled each planet with a pristine clarity which made it seem fresh and recent. The shipboard weeks of travel, however, were blurred and indistinct. Nothing happened in the toposphere. Divine Providence did not alter. His days were spent in routine. Nothing stood out, no peg on which to hang a memory existed during those numberless days of topologic travel. The only vivid spots amongst them were—
As if prompted by the thought, a memory of Gotovach popped into his mind. He coloured.
“What?” demanded Plessant.
Ormuz said nothing. He gazed down at his lap.
“Have you remembered? I want to know.”
“I was mistaken,” he said quietly. “It was someone else.”
Tovar said something very strange: “Was it another of your dreams?”
Ormuz jerked his head up and glared at the cargo-master.
Plessant directed a sharp look at Tovar and then leaned forward, fastening her gaze on Ormuz. “What’s this?”
“Cas told me,” Tovar explained,” that he dreamt we should buy the agricultural protocols.”
“That means nothing,” snapped Plessant. “He probably saw a list of available cargoes the night before.”
This explanation had plainly never occurred to Tovar. He frowned sheepishly.
“Is that where you think you saw her?” Plessant asked Ormuz.
The memory sat clear in his mind. A woman with black hair. There was nothing dream-like now about the image. Yet he had forgotten it on waking all the same. Except… Hovering just beyond perception, the looming presence of more information tantalised. He sensed a universe of knowledge lurking in the shadows of his mind but he could not think how to access it. Snippets would make the journey to his waking consciousness of their own accord, provoking him with hints, déjà vu and vague feelings of familiarity and disquiet.
More images swam into focus: Inspector Finesz; a fat man in fine clothes; an official document, in which the only phrases he could discern were “chamber of the heart” and “narrow double-edged blade of military-grade steel” and “right-handed”; a coat of arms featuring a pair of intertwined flowers…
“She had black hair before,” he said.
“In your dream?” scoffed Plessant.
“In my dream: Riz, she had black hair. But it wasn’t like she was there in person.” He smiled ruefully. “Well, there in the dream I mean. It was a… No, not a photograph, a drawing of some kind.”
“When did you have this dream?” the captain asked.
“After we left Darrus.”
“What else do you remember?”
“A dead body lying in a street. A picture of a man. He was a prole: you could see the escutcheon on his collar. And there was a fat man too. He had really expensive clothes on. A coat of arms—”
“What did it look like?” asked Dai.
“A red fish— No, red flowers, forming a sort of arch.” Ormuz scowled in concentration. “No, both of them. I could see both of them. The man in the photo wore the red fish.”
“Neither of those mean anything to me,” said Plessant. She sat back and crossed her arms tightly across her bosom in disgust.
Tovar and Dai, however, were fascinated. Lotsman looked on in amusement.
“Who was this fat man?” asked Tovar. “What did he look like?”
“He wasn’t really fat. He was sort of barrel-shaped. Like a wrestler. But his clothes were the sort you see worn by high-ranking nobles on the melodramas. He had wavy brown hair and bushy eyebrows. He was about fifty years old, maybe older.”
“He could be anybody,” said Dai sadly. “He could be completely made-up.”
The cargo-master shook his head at Dai’s defeatism. “Was he wearing any jewellery? Could you see that much? Any rings or anything like that?”
“No, no rings.”
“What about a sword? If he was a noble, he’d be wearing a sword.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“His face: what did that look like?”
“He had a sort of square-shaped head, with fleshy lips and a thin, slightly hooked nose. There was a small scar on his cheek, just under his eye—”
Plessant straightened. “That sounds like someone I know…” she said darkly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A dull thud echoed throughout Divine Providence and jerked Plessant awake. For a confused moment, she lay in her bunk. Her mind churned sluggishly through possible causes for the strange noise. She scrambled out of her bunk. There were no possible causes for the strange noise. Yanking on ship-coveralls, she left the captain’s cabin in the bow and stepped barefooted into the wardroom. Thin smoke drifted lazily around the ladder leading up to the control cupola. From the hatch into the spinal gangway. The acid reek of scorched metal came to Plessant’s nostri
ls. She halted, frowned.
She followed the scribble of smoke with her gaze. Through the hatch—
She stood there, stunned by the sight that greeted her. Four black-clad figures were standing by the airlock’s inner hatch. All were masked and armed. Two of the intruders, swords held at the ready, turned to Plessant—
She stepped forward and hit the control-mechanism. The hatch slid shut, sealing off the wardroom and cutting off her view. Quickly, she punched in the code that would lock it. She scrambled up the ladder beside her. She had no real plan in mind. She needed to know what was happening and the control cupola gave her access to all the data-freighter’s systems. She felt slow, stupid, not yet fully awake. The bewitching dust of sleep still lodged in the nooks and crannies of her mind, dampening her emotions and lending her surroundings a disconcerting flatness.
She dropped into the captain’s chair and powered it forwards to fit snugly at her station. The hard physical sensation of backside on seat, of the chair’s contoured back and sides, shocked the last of sleep’s after-effects from her.
There were intruders aboard her ship. Armed intruders.
She had to tell the rest of the crew. She hastily configured the ship’s pipe to call only the crew’s cabins. Explanations—what were they doing on her ship?—could wait.
“Wake up!” she yelled into the ship’s pipe. “Intruders aboard!”
Dai was the first to respond. “Is this some kind of joke?” asked her sleep-thickened voice from the console. “Intruders?”
“No, it’s not a bloody joke!” snapped Plessant. “Four men with swords have just broke in through the outer airlock hatch. You think I’d joke about something like that?”
Dai swore, loudly and fluently.
“Captain?” It was Tovar. He sounded worried.
“What?”
“What do they want?”
“If I knew that—” She broke off. Corruption! Casimir. Were they after him? Hukom had warned her that the Serpent’s men were close.