Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Silvie grinned. ‘A punch-phrase. But Uncle Andrei’s people have gone into it very carefully, you know – the monkeys should thrive here, and the ecosystem can certainly support them.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Alex, ‘if you’re satisfied of that, with your knowledge and your confidence in their expertise, I don’t see a problem.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she smiled. ‘It’s good to have consensus.’ Then she flashed him another grin. ‘Ready?’ she asked, with her hands back on the controls, and predicted, ‘You are going to love this…’

  Three quarters of an hour later, when she took him back to the landing platform, Alex’s head was still full of the wonders of Serenity’s oceans. Silvie had taken him right round the planet, as she put it, ‘the pretty way’. The pretty way had included a supersonic slalom through a chain of volcanic vents spewing superheated columns of water, a leaping flight which had arced them straight over a volcanic island, and surfing on the tidal surge. They had been heading straight for a beach at such speed that Alex had hung on to his seat and yelled – then Silvie whipped them back into aerial mode at the very last moment before the huge wave would have smashed them onto the rocks. He was laughing as he called out thanks to her, waving her off as she flitted off again to continue her explorations.

  ‘As you were, Mr Tomaas,’ he said, as Nyge jumped up from his seat on the shuttle and stood to attention, academy-style, at his CO’s arrival. ‘I’ll pilot,’ he added, taking the controls – as much fun as it had been, he felt that he’d had enough of being piloted for one day. Then, as they got flight control clearance and he lifted off, he asked the cadet, ‘Did you write up your profile of the Director’s office?’

  ‘Yes sir.’ Said Nyge. He hadn’t wasted his time while he was waiting, but had caught up on at least some of the startling amount of paperwork accumulating on his to-do list. The profile which the captain had tasked him with, obviously, had gone right to the top. Since he was obviously being asked to produce it, he explained, ‘I filed it to your desk, sir.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Alex said. ‘But give me a verbal report.’

  Nyge had not expected that, but after a few moments to collect his thoughts, told the skipper what he’d noticed and what conclusions he had drawn from it. By the time he’d finished they were heading in towards the frigate.

  ‘Good,’ Alex said. ‘Well done. Good catch when you were spotted evaluating his desk. You’ll learn how to quarter a room so it isn’t obvious you’re looking around, and indirect observational techniques, but you didn’t miss anything of importance and you held your cover even when challenged. You have a natural affinity for Intelligence work, Mr Tomaas.’

  Nyge felt a little faint. Typically, his initial reaction was to feel pretty sure that the skipper was joking, even perhaps setting him up with false praise in order to slaughter him with crushing sarcasm. There’d been an instructor at the academy rather inclined to do that. He could hardly bring himself to believe that the skipper was serious.

  ‘Sir?’ he ventured.

  Alex looked over at him, and grinned.

  ‘Anyone,’ he said, ‘who can successfully conceal the fact that they are worried and unhappy from Lt Lucas for all that time, living in such close contact with her, has very definitely got a natural talent for cover skills. She’s still trying to figure out how she didn’t see it. So either she was being lamentably careless in her pastoral responsibilities or you, Mr Tomaas, are very, very good at cover ops. Since I know for a fact that Lt Lucas is very far from careless in any responsibility, I had no doubt it was the latter. And so it is, since you have just completed a covert observation assignment of a kind that field agents do all the time. With training, you will learn how to be more subtle about it and not write things down at the time, but the raw talent is there and that is not something that can be acquired through training. I don’t have it, myself,’ he added, conversationally. ‘Observational skills, yes, but my cover abilities are, to quote my field instructor, abysmal. I only have one cover…’ he adopted the stern icy formal manner for a moment. ‘Attempts to dress me up as a tourist and get me to mingle unobtrusively with liner passengers did not, to put it mildly, go well.’ He paused for a moment, saw the suppressed mirth on the cadet’s face as Nyge tried to imagine the skipper in holiday clothing, trying to look natural amongst a crowd of tourists. ‘People took pictures,’ he said.

  Nyge gave a strangled croak, tried to turn it into a cough and guffawed helplessly. ‘Oh, beg pardon, sir,’ he said, though he could see that the skipper had meant him to laugh.

  ‘Relax, Mr Tomaas,’ Alex said, bringing the shuttle in to dock. ‘You’re not at the Academy now.’

  Nyge was about to say ‘yes sir’, then stopped himself.

  ‘Yes, skipper.’ As they got up and he stood aside, the Fleet tradition being that a skipper was last off their ship and the first back on, Nyge found the confidence to venture, ‘I’m… not unhappy now, skipper.’

  Alex gave him a warm look. ‘I know that,’ he said, and then the airlock opened and he walked aboard, greeting Buzz who was there with a handshake and an ‘All right, dear boy?’

  They were home.

  Ten

  Andrei Delaney came to tea later that day. It was just as Alex had anticipated, a swarm of people coming aboard and decontaminating and risk-assessing his ship as if it was a grime-encrusted wreck. Following hard on their heels were the legal people, ensuring that everyone understood that violating Mr Delaney’s privacy by attempting to take any holos of him would be prosecuted as a criminal breach of restraining orders. Security people prowled about, scowling at scanners and muttering coded jargon at one another. Along with them came the catering team. Mr Delaney, to their horror, had expressed a desire to sample shipboard catering, but they would still test everything thoroughly and have their own refreshments available, too, as they knew very well how he would react to the kind of thing served on a frigate. And just as they took over the galley, the medical team was inspecting and taking charge of sickbay. Mr Delaney had a qualified doctor carrying a full medical kit with him at all times, anyway, but they also ensured that there were suitable hospital facilities never more than five minutes away, and had their own people there, just in case. Other aides appeared to discuss etiquette – do not attempt to touch Mr Delaney, do not contradict Mr Delaney, do not discuss any political issue with Mr Delaney – while the advance valet team clucked and fussed over setting up appropriate facilities. A new word entered the Heron’s vocabulary – CaRS, meaning a Comfort and Refresh Station where Mr Delaney could use a lavatory and have his grooming refreshed. They brought aboard clean outfits for him, in sterile bags, in case he wanted to change.

  All this, Alex knew, was absolutely normal – the human bow-wave which preceded Andrei Delaney everywhere he went. Quite often, in fact, they made all these preparations at a venue they thought he was going to visit, but then he didn’t after all.

  At least today there wasn’t the anti-climax of them having gone through all that prep for nothing. Bang on time, Andrei Delaney arrived at the main airlock. He was accompanied by his usual retinue, and by his son. Davie was wearing a suit of pearly silk with hand-carved buttons. His skin had the burnished look of expensive grooming, his nails were immaculate and his hair was tousled in that very special way that only the efforts of top-class stylists could achieve. Papa, Alex recognised, was making a point – my son. It hardly needed the arm around Davie’s shoulders, really.

  To Alex’s delight, though, Andrei Delaney himself was wearing a cloak. Bull had said he did, but Alex had not been entirely sure that he could be serious. There it was, though. A glowing white silk suit with sapphire and ruby clasps on the tunic, and a cloak.

  It was big. It was red. Actually it was redder than red. If asked to identify the colour Alex would have gone with ‘screaming scarlet’. It too was silk, slightly weighted at the hem so that it swung and swirled as Papa moved. It would have been a ludicrous garment anywhere, but
was downright dangerous aboard a starship. Somehow, though, Andrei Delaney carried it off – his great height, bulk and charisma made the cloak an expression of his flamboyant personality rather than an absurdity.

  He took it off in the airlock, though, flinging it to a valet with a laughing remark about freefall safety regs and a teasing look at Davie.

  Things went much as Alex had expected after that, too. He took Andrei Delaney on a brief tour of the ship, taking him to just those areas he’d said he’d like to see… the command deck, Alex’s own quarters, the wardroom and the interdeck lounge.

  The command deck got a hearty guffaw: ‘It’s so cute!’

  Alex’s quarters got a horrified look: ‘Surely they can do better for you than this?’

  The wardroom got mild surprise, ‘That’s not actually too bad,’ until Mr Delaney realised that the wardroom was not for Davie’s sole use but shared with thirty other people, at which he was lost for words, utterly appalled.

  At least the interdeck lounge, when he saw the other guests and the buffet waiting for him, got a satisfied hand-clap, ‘Ah, tea!’

  Bull came to the rescue. He was here as a fellow guest, as one of the few people in the system on the approved list provided by Mr Delaney’s aides. Mr Delaney had been aboard the Eagle on a previous occasion, though only for a fleeting visit much like this one.

  ‘I believe that you will find these to your liking, sir,’ he suggested, directing Andrei’s attention to a dish of savouries.

  ‘Ah – Bull!’ Andrei greeted him with a bellow of recognition. ‘How are you?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘No news on the Solaran front yet.’ It was a statement, not a question. Andrei might not be the first to know when Solarans returned, but it would be a safe bet that he’d know about it before the League President.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Bull said sadly. His ship was one of those specially equipped for carrying Solarans. He was one of the luckier ones since he at least had been tasked to escort the Heron and had something exodiplomatic to do, but most of his colleagues were just hanging around at X-bases, waiting forlornly for the Solarans to come back. If they came back.

  With Bull’s help, though, this phase of the visit passed off relatively well. Oti, indeed, was an unexpected hit. She had been made Shareholder Aware earlier that day when she’d wondered why Davie’s father was travelling on an Acko ship and Davie himself had enlightened her. She’d had a bit of a wobbly moment over that – it was pretty high impact information for an ordinary League citizen, after all – but Davie had assured her that there was nothing sinister about it. She’d known, after all, that Davie and his family had significant corporate holdings. Davie himself owned, amongst other things, ISiS Corps and their League-wide chain of deep space stations. Acko was his father’s primary holding, his particular corporate baby, the means by which he supported the development of system infrastructure which had been a core factor in the League’s growth from the very beginning.

  Oti had, though, been relieved to be told that the company she worked for did not belong to Mr Delaney or any other of the Founding Families.

  ‘We don’t own everything, you know!’ Davie had said, with a laugh.

  Invited to come to tea and meet Davie’s father herself, Oti had demurred, at first, but had allowed herself to be persuaded. So she’d turned up in her smartest day-wear, thinking that at most she would be briefly introduced, perhaps exchange a few words with the great man, and retire from the Presence.

  In the event, Andrei was greatly taken with her – asked what she was doing on the ship, Oti started to explain about the SEP which had kept turning itself on and manufacturing random products. Andrei was amused. Then she told him about the discovery that it was being triggered by sound, and Andrei was intrigued.

  ‘And the really mystifying thing,’ she told him, ‘is that it doesn’t work now – the sound trigger. It hasn’t worked since we came sublight. So it’s obviously a combination of the sound with some aspect of superlight conditions, but lord, what, and where to start…’

  Andrei had some surprisingly intelligent questions, though no more idea as to a solution than Oti did, herself.

  ‘You should come over to the Entrepus,’ he told her, with a keenly interested look. ‘We could talk about it properly.’

  ‘Papa.’ Davie understood, as his father did not, that Oti was perfectly oblivious to the fact that the wealthiest man in the League was attempting to pick her up. Andrei could have the company of the most stunningly beautiful people any time he liked. But he liked women who were interesting, as satisfying to the intellect as they were to the eye. Oti, physically attractive and intelligent, was just his type. Or would have been, if she’d been the slightest bit interested in him. ‘Come on,’ Davie put his arm through his father’s and drew him away, with a mischievous glance at Oti. ‘It’s time,’ he said.

  ‘Oh… Davie-Boy…’ Andrei pulled back against the direction Davie was leading him in, but Davie, much smaller, was also much stronger, and his father was compelled to keep going. ‘I really don’t think…’

  ‘You promised,’ Davie reminded him.

  ‘I promised I’d try, but…’

  ‘Come on.’ Davie was insistent. ‘You can do it, Papa. Trust me.’ He paused and looked compellingly into his father’s face. ‘Trust,’ he said, ‘me.’

  Andrei gave in.

  ‘All right…’ he sighed, and turned, addressing the retinue which had automatically kept station on him like small ships in convoy formation around their flagship. ‘I will not,’ he said, ‘be needing you. Stay here.’

  It wasn’t wholly unexpected. Davie had prepared the ground for the world-shattering idea that he and his father might leave the interdeck together, alone.

  It had taken some time to get that concept across. Alone meant just the core escort – security, medic, one valet attendant, the absolute minimum who were with Mr Delaney round the clock, even while he slept. Alone without anyone at all in attendance was just not a possibility in their mental universe. But there it was. Davie-Boy, Andrei had said, would be all the security and assistance he might need for a five minute venture out into the wild unknown.

  Even so, Davie did have to keep pulling him gently but firmly towards the door, while the retinue stood about looking terrified or bereft.

  ‘I’m just taking Papa for a little walk,’ Davie told Alex, who was watching this with his usual social deadpan.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Alex, as if there was nothing at all unusual going on, here. In fact he understood very well. Davie had told him what an astonishing experience it had been for him to shake off his retinue and come to the Heron by himself; the first time in his life he had ever been without the constant presence of minders and attendants. He had felt, he said, like an eagle-chick pecking out of its egg, fluttering and faltering but feeling his wings for the very first time.

  Davie wanted his father to have that experience too. But he obviously understood that pulling his father out of that lifelong cocoon might produce more panic than enjoyment, like a form of agoraphobia. So this was the first step, made in controlled conditions with the retinue right there if needed.

  ‘We’ll go to engineering,’ Davie told him. ‘It’s only one deck down. Kate’s there. You know you want to meet Kate.’

  Andrei made a rumbling noise indicative of the fact that he did want to meet little Katie Naos, but that in his universe people he wanted to meet were brought to see him, not the other way around. Then, without looking round, he clicked the fingers of his free hand in Alex’s direction – an imperative gesture conveying that he wanted the captain to go with them. ‘Ow!’ In the next moment he was reacting to the sharp poke in the ribs which Davie had given him for that.

  ‘Papa!’ The tone was both scolding and mortified, and a flicker of remorse crossed Andrei’s face as he realised that, in the stress of the moment, he had forgotten Davie’s careful training in the matter of Fourth’s etiquette and not showing him up in front o
f his friends.

  Andrei didn’t apologise. Apologising would be post-graduate in skills he was only mastering at kindergarten level. But he did turn to Alex and adopt a manner of elaborate courtesy.

  ‘Would you be so kind,’ he requested, ‘as to accompany us, Alex.’

  ‘Certainly, sir,’ said Alex, and walked quietly behind them, secretly amused that Mr Delaney had chosen him, of all people, to provide the rear-guard he evidently felt he needed.

  It took them less than a minute to get to engineering. It should have been very quiet, there, with the mix cores shut down and flooded with coolant. This afternoon, though, there was work going on with rivet guns going off like crackerjacks. Every time they went off with a cracking bang there was a faint echo from the other end of engineering; Crack-ack.

  Kate Naos was on the control platform, hands on hips, having a conversation with one of the people up on the scaffolding above her. It was apparent that some kind of construction was in progress, with a platform being suspended some four metres over the control deck and a ladder fixed between it and an extension to the control deck itself. Kate was wearing the yellow t-shirt and chinos which signified that she was currently on Second Irregulars time – not a look which went well with her vibrant red hair, but she was obviously enjoying herself. The discussion, before she saw the three of them approaching, was apparently about who should make the tea.

  ‘Hey, Kate.’ Davie hailed her cheerfully. ‘Come and meet my Dad – Papa, Kate. Kate, Papa.’

  ‘Hello,’ Kate obviously knew not to offer to shake hands, but her smile was friendly. ‘Nice to meet you, sir.’

  ‘And lovely to meet you,’ Andrei said, though he was looking at her with an appalled expression, ‘But what are you wearing, child?’