PART TWO
Hunting
December 3133February 3134
12
Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals
Offshore Drilling Station #47
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
December 3133; dry season
Sixteen 120-count boxes of latex examining gloves. Another Friday night in sickbay, Ian Murchison thought as he entered the number into his data pad and closed the supply cabinet door. In some ways his situation had changed radically since the Steel Wolves' takeover of Balfour-Douglas #47; in others, however, it remained much the same. He was still functioning as a medic, still patching up those individuals who happened to fall ill or injure themselves out here on the rig. But now he had a double cord around one wrist, and a new status to go with it: Bondsman to Galaxy Commander Anastasia Kerensky.
He wasn't certain why she had spared him, when the Steel Wolves had killed all the other drilling station personnel, either in the battle or afterward. For all he knew, she'd wanted a pet, and liked the idea of one who wasn't afraid. He would have been afraid, he thought, if he could have taken the time away from checking the bodies of the station team, but once Anastasia Kerensky had found him, there'd been no point in cowering when it looked like she was going to kill him whether he cowered or not.
Now he was mostly bored. The Steel Wolves had proved to be a disgustingly healthy lot, and if it weren't for their habit of fighting each other on a regular basis, often for reasons Murchison found frankly incomprehensible, he wouldn't have had any injuries to tend either. Today had brought him a broken wrist and a knife wound, both from the same altercation. Murchison had wanted to write up an aggressive-incident report form, but everybody involved had seemed to regard the affair as settled.
He'd written up the form anyway after they left. Habit and routine were wonderful things.
Now he was reduced to inventorying medical supplies for his entertainment. He wondered if his position as a Bondsman-in which, as he'd had it explained to him, his value to the Galaxy Commander derived from his medical expertise-extended to requisitioning replacements for expended stock. He gave an inward shrug. He could always ask. After that, it would be up to Anastasia Kerensky what the Wolves did with the request.
He'd barely begun working on the list when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside his office, and recognized the Galaxy Commander's distinctive tread. Speak of the devil, Murchison thought, and he enters without bothering to knock. Or she does, in this case.
Anastasia Kerensky could not have been back long from her mainland expedition, but she had already changed out of her plundered hiking gear and into her favored black leathers. She had also returned her hair color to its previous glossy black with deep red highlights. Murchison smiled to himself at the speed of the reversal. Life as a mousy brunette had clearly not suited Kerensky's temperament at all.
"Bondsman Murchison," she said, as soon the office door had closed behind her.
He got to his feet. He wasn't certain what the customary etiquette was for their relative positions, but it never hurt to pay the standard respect to authority until instructed otherwise. Besides, being within arm's reach of Anastasia Kerensky gave him a "be ready to move out of the way in a hurry" feeling, and keeping on his feet helped him to deal with it.
"Galaxy Commander," he replied.
"I trust that the good health of the station continued in my absence?"
"Aye. No illnesses, only minor accidents, only one fight." He extracted the aggressive-incident report form from his desk and handed it over. "Warriors Jex and Zane."
"That Trial has been coming for some time," she said, with no visible surprise, and scanned the report. "Nothing permanently disabling-good. Who won?"
"Not my place to ask, ma'am. So I didn't."
He heard a snort of suppressed laughter, and struggled against the urge to shudder- Kerensky's good humor was as frightening as the rest of her. Eyes bright with what Murchison sincerely hoped was amusement, she said, "A Clan Wolf medic would have at least been curious."
Amusement or not, he was damned if he was going to grovel. "We are who we are, Galaxy Commander."
"True," she said. "You, for example, are discreet and conscientious. You are also my Bondsman." She indicated the pair of cords around Murchison's wrist. "Do you understand what those mean?"
"Not completely."
"Then I will explain. These are a symbol of your probationary status. When both of them are cut, you are no longer isorla -part of the spoils of war- butabtakha -an adopted member of the Clan. In the old days, mind, your situation would not be so fortunate; it was only Warriors who could become abtakha. But the Steel Wolves move with the times- so your present status is not necessarily a permanent one."
She looked at him as though expecting a reaction. His mind caught on two words- probably the ones she'd meant him to notice. "Not necessarily?"
"Complete a task for me successfully, and I will cut one of the cords."
For a long moment, Ian Murchison said nothing. He had to remind himself that Anastasia Kerensky was dangerous in the extreme even without her Steel Wolves to back her up-capable of killing him where he stood if she needed to, or if she thought it might be amusing. But she respected fearlessness and appreciated honesty, and those qualities had kept him alive so far. "Are you making me an offer, Galaxy Commander?"
"Are you trying to negotiate with me, Bondsman?"
Her smile was dangerous enough to make anyone hesitate. But there was no backing down now. "No, ma'am. But not all jobs are the same. If I knew that I couldn't do one, I'd turn it down and wait for another."
"Even though there might never be another?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. "Are you that afraid of failure?"
"Not of failure, Galaxy Commander."
There was another long pause, during which Anastasia Kerensky regarded him with a steady, considering expression, and he wondered if she had decided to kill him out of hand, anyway. At last, however, her expression changed from consideration to grudging approval.
"You are a stubborn and stiff-necked bastard, Bondsman Murchison. If I can make a Wolf Clansman out of you, you will fit in well."
He supposed it was meant as a compliment. "If you say so, ma'am."
"I say so." He couldn't tell if the faint sound she made then was a private laugh or a resigned sigh. "Very well, Bondsman Murchison. I will tell you what task I have for you, and you will tell me yes or no. But one thing"-she held up her right hand, and now it had a knife in it-"if the answer is no, you will not speak of this conversation elsewhere, on pain of death. Are we clear?"
"We're clear, ma'am." He watched the knife go away. "What is it that you want me to do?"
"I want you to find me a man." She paced restlessly the few steps across the width of his small office and back again, and he took note. This was something that disturbed her more than she wanted to say outright. "Or a woman. I do not know. But this-person-if he or she exists-has been in contact with Jacob Bannson."
"Bannson Universal Unlimited? That Bannson?"
"Yes."
"I thought The Republic had clipped his wings a while back. Told him to stay in Prefecture IV and keep out of trouble."
Anastasia Kerensky's lip curled. "As you may have noticed, not everybody is playing by The Republic's rules any longer. I do not; neither does Jacob Bannson. But that does not make us natural allies, no matter what he may think."
"I can see that, Galaxy Commander."
"Do you? Excellent. Then you can see why I do not want one of my Wolves in his employ. A divided loyalty is never good."
"No, ma'am," said Murchison dryly, then wondered if he had gone too far. Anastasia Kerensky was not so unsubtle that she would fail to notice irony.
To his relief, she laughed. "You would know, Bondsman. So I ask you: Is this a task you can accept?"
"If I were a soldier," he said slowly, thinking aloud,
"I would have to say no. I would have oaths and responsibilities that took precedence. But I'm not a soldier. I'm a medic, and all the oaths I've ever sworn have had to do with that; and you aren't asking me to break any of those."
Anastasia Kerensky remained silent, letting him work it out, and he continued, "If you wanted me to find someone who was spying for Northwind, I'd have to say no; this is my homeworld and I have a duty to it, even if I am a medic and not a soldier. And then you really would have to kill me, so it's just as well you aren't asking me to do anything like that."
"Just as well," she agreed. She sounded more amused, he thought, than angry. "Go on, Bondsman."
"But Jacob Bannson is no friend of Northwind's that I ever heard of," he said, "and I never swore any oaths to Bannson Universal Unlimited. I'll hunt your spy for you, Galaxy Commander."
13
Balfour-Douglas Petrochemicals Offshore Drilling Station #47
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
December 3133; dry season
When the Steel Wolves took over the offshore drilling rig, Anastasia Kerensky claimed as her own the living quarters of the station manager-who, being dead, made no objection. She disliked being separated from her DropShips, but the Wolves needed an operational headquarters nearer to the continent.
Her new quarters had other advantages as well. The manager had liked his luxury, or at least as much as he could get of it on an oil rig. The cabin had an extra-wide bed instead of a narrow ship's bunk, and a private bath almost as big as the bed. Nobody had to worry about a shortage of bathing and drinking water here; the drilling rig had an entire ocean of salt water to distill it from. At the end of a long day-which this one had certainly been-she appreciated the chance to fill the enormous tub with hot water and bath soap, and lie there soaking until the all the tension ebbed away.
Anastasia relaxed in her bath, thinking of her agreement with Ian Murchison. She had not lied when she said that the medic would make an excellent Wolf; she approved of the way he refused to allow himself to be afraid. And good medics were always an asset to any force.
She took a sip from the heavy crystal tumbler sitting on the wide edge of the tub. That was another advantage to her current quarters: the former occupant had liked good liquor, and had kept his cabinet supplied with an excellent private stock. Not the Terran vodka she preferred when she could get it, but local brews-and Northwind, she had decided, would be a planet worth taking for its distilleries alone. The amber whiskey had a taste like knives and burning embers, and a label in a language she didn't recognize; she would remember it, though, when they left this place and had all of Northwind to plunder.
Footsteps in the main cabin interrupted her thoughts. A loaded slug-pistol lay on the rim of the tub next to the whiskey; she had the weapon in her hand and aimed before the door swung all the way open.
At the sight of the newcomer, she relaxed a little. It was Nicholas Darwin, whose undeniably handsome presence was yet another advantage to having her private quarters on the oil rig's managerial level. She did not lower the pistol, however, but smiled at him over it.
"If you had been an enemy, I would have killed you as soon as you came through the door."
"If I had been an enemy," he replied, also smiling, "I would have waited on the other side and killed you when you came out."
She laughed, not putting down the pistol. "But since you are not an enemy, waiting is too difficult for you?"
"The sight of a Galaxy Commander armed and dangerous in her bath is too rare a privilege not to be taken advantage of."
"See an advantage and take it." She rose smoothly from the tub, the slug-pistol in her hand. It was a move that could have been awkward, and Anastasia was vain enough to be pleased with herself that it wasn't. And the effect on Nicholas Darwin of bath-water and soap bubbles sluicing off her naked body as she stood was all that could be desired. "I like the way you think. Bring the whiskey and come with me to bed."
She stepped past him. He followed; when she turned, she saw he had brought a bath towel with him, as well as the whiskey bottle and the empty tumbler.
She raised an eyebrow. "Why the towel?"
He set the bottle and the glass on her bedside table, and unfolded the towel. "Mutually beneficial tactical maneuver," he explained. "You get to not have soapy water soaking into the bedsheets, and I get to touch you all over."
"Good plan." She set the slug-pistol down on the bedside table next to the whiskey. "I like it."
She liked it, as matters turned out, very much indeed. It was fortunate that nobody still living berthed on this level except for the medic, Ian Murchison, and that his room was at the opposite, or low-status, end of the managerial corridor. That put him too far away to hear most noises, and as for what he might overhear anyway . . . well, he was not likely to talk.
Some time later, she lay happily exhausted with her head on Nicholas Darwin's shoulder, watching the play of light and color on the cabin's ceiling, relaxing into a brief pleasant moment free of rank or position or struggle for power. Such moments never lasted long, but one of the good things about taking a regular bed partner was the fact that they came at all.
There was a picture on the ceiling, a changeable electronic flat poster, glowing dimly in the low ambient light. She inferred from its presence that the late manager's taste for luxury didn't include sex, or he would have had a mirror there instead-or at least pictures of an inspirational variety, rather than shifting landscape views.
She said so aloud, lazily and already half asleep. Darwin chuckled.
"Maybe he didn't need them." When he was relaxed, his dialect slipped downward out of true Clan precision into the looser speech of Tigress's non-Clan community-a reminder that he was freeborn, the product of random genetic mingling, and not carefully bred from the Clan's DNA stock and brought to life in the iron wombs. "Or maybe he got turned on by landscapes."
"It takes all kinds, I suppose."
She lay there watching the images cycle overhead: waves caught in the moment of crashing onto a sunlit beach; vast rolling fields of tall grain awaiting the harvest; a gray stone castle cupped in a mountain valley.
"I like that picture," she said. She was growing sleepier now, relaxing against Nicholas Darwin's side, lulled by the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. "The castle."
"I read a story about it in a magazine, while we were stuck playing tourist in Fort Barrett. It belongs to the little Countess, the one who rides the Hatchetman 'Mech."
She yawned. "I want one just like it someday."
"Take Northwind, and you can have that one."
"And see if the little Countess has a mirror overher bed." She smiled at the thought, and still smiling, drifted off to sleep.
14
Fort Barrett
Oilfields Coast
Northwind
December 3133; dry season
It didn't take long for Will Elliot to settle in to life as a Sergeant. The amount of work was about the same, but now it wasn't enough simply that he himself not screw up. He had to make certain that ten or more other people didn't screw up either. Truth to tell, he didn't find it all that hard. He'd been doing much the same thing with Jock Gordon and Lexa McIntosh ever since basic training.
Will had feared, in fact, that his promotion, and the distance that it would put between him and his two best friends, would result in their inevitable estrangement. His worries, however, proved unnecessary. To their own surprise as much as anyone else's, Jock and Lexa also made Sergeant shortly after Will's own elevation in rank.
Lexa in particular had contemplated her new stripes with foreboding. "That proves it," she said.
"Something bad is going to happen."
"What makes you say that?" asked Jock.
"Because, otherwise, who in their right mind would ever have promoted the likes of us? I'm the bad girl of Barra Station, and you-let's just say that when your mother was filling out the order form, she didn't check the box for the
extra-brainy option."
Will frowned at them both. "You made it through Red Ledge Pass, and you made it through the battle on the plains. As far as the new recruits are concerned, you're old and brave and very, very wise.
Don't disillusion them."
Within a fortnight, however, the early-morning routine at Fort Barrett was broken by a small VTOL craft setting down on the headquarters pad, and Will began to suspect that Lexa had spoken the truth. The arrival of visitors at headquarters was not in itself ominous; people came and went all the time, even here at the restful end of nowhere.
But an hour or so later, a heavy cargo-lift VTOL came over, its tarp-shrouded burden dangling beneath, and landed on the fort's main pad-which would not have been unusual either, except that the timing was all wrong for any of the regular milk runs from New Lanark. And an off-schedule cargo arrival, especially in conjunction with an important visitor, was bound to mean something special.
How special, Will soon discovered. He was heading past the main pad, on his return from taking the morning muster reports to headquarters and bringing back the daily staff briefing, when he saw that the VTOL's heavy cargo was now uncovered and mobile: a Koshi BattleMech, with hunched back, bulky arms and forward-thrust cockpit, standing on the pad while its pilot took it through the bends and stretches of what was probably a posttransport checkout routine.
Will paused to watch. It looked from the outside as though the 'Mech was engaging in a stately series of mechanical calisthenics, bending and flexing its metal-and-myomer limbs, testing the balance and stability of its twenty-five-ton bulk. The long flight from New Lanark must have been a strain on both the 'Mech and on the VTOL carrying it; only because the Koshi was one of the lightest 'Mechs would the aircraft have been able to lift with it at all.
The last time Will had seen that Koshi was at Red Ledge Pass, when the Highlander infantry held up the Steel Wolves' armored column for thirty-six hours, buying time for the Countess of Northwind and Paladin Ezekiel Crow to organize the main defense. The rider of the Koshi had been heart and brain of that holding action, always there to back up the beleaguered infantry where the action was thickest, dealing out death to the Wolves' infantry when they threatened to overrun Highlander positions.
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