Angel of Destruction

by Susan R. Matthews

The statement had been taken only days after the Okidan Yards had been raided and its crew left for dead. Feraltz’s statement had been taken at Port Charid while Feraltz had been waiting for transport to the private hospital here at Nisherre, and thus given while Feraltz had been surrounded by Langsariks — figuratively if not literally, the Langsarik labor force having relatively few technically proficient medical practitioners to spare from the clinic in the settlement for hire out to the port.

  So in a sense Feraltz’s continued survival argued against any Langsarik involvement in the Okidan raid: if Feraltz had been in a position to give credible evidence against Langsariks, to positively implicate Langsariks, the Langsariks in danger had had perfectly good opportunities to silence him before his evidence went anywhere.

  And they hadn’t.

  So Feraltz wasn’t and couldn’t, and therefore hadn’t needed to be silenced. Unless Feraltz’s prior association with Langsariks, a detail Garol had found buried in the intelligence analysis, hinted at collusion; but if there was collusion, surely they would have managed a way to arrange Feraltz’s survival without the risky cover of the physical injuries Feraltz had sustained?

  “Without reference to your earlier testimony.” Garol knew he could challenge that testimony, which had not been taken under appropriate controls, potential drug interactions compromising quality of evidence, and so forth. And he would, if he needed to; but first he needed to be sure of the facts. To the extent that there were facts. To the extent that objective truths even existed. “How about telling me what you remember that could be used to identify the raiders. Don’t worry about anything you said before, for now. Just talk to me.”

  Feraltz let his leg rest, frowning. “That’s probably the problem right there, Bench specialist. I don’t have much to offer. I was in the dock-master’s office doing inventory audit for the tax assessment, and I heard her talking to them on the comms, but I don’t remember anything the least unusual about the conversation. I only barely remember hearing her talking to them at all.“

  He probably hadn’t been paying attention. Dock-masters talked to inbound freighters all the time. A Langsarik accent was one of the more subtle ones — as if a Langsarik wouldn’t have disguised his or her voice anyway. As if any pirate wouldn’t have done that, out of baseline prudence.

  As if Langsariks could have come up with a ship to mount a raid in the first place: unfortunately fifteen years of successful commerce raiding had created a belief in the public mind that the Langsariks could work miracles before breakfast, when it came to their ships.

  “She went out, she shut the door; I remember thinking she might have some unrecorded transaction going with the freighter. And it’s none of my business; I audit to the record, there are specialists who audit for unrecorded transactions. So I minded my own business.”

  It had just been bad luck for Feraltz that he’d even been there in the first place. But inventory audit was supposed to be unannounced, and the raiders wouldn’t have expected him to be in the dock-master’s office.

  “I heard the door, it was pushed open with a crash. Startled me. There were three men, and the dock-master. She made a break for the master communications panel. They shot her. Into pieces.”

  The surprise of finding the dock-master’s office occupied would explain it; otherwise, it would have been hard to understand the dock-master getting away from her escort, even for a short dash across the room. They’d probably meant to force her to open her safe room. If so, the death she’d won by resisting might well have been one infinitely to be preferred to the manner in which she might have died — except that Langsariks had never gone for torture in any big way. Nor massacre, come to that.

  “And I think they were wearing that color, the yellow-pink. Langsarik colors. What is it called? Rose gold. It’s a familiar color, Bench specialist, I should tell you that I spent some time as the guest of the Langsarik fleet, when I was younger.” Garol made a mental note; Feraltz’s candid confession simplified things a bit. “But that doesn’t make them Langsariks. I could wear a Bench intelligence specialist’s uniform if I wanted, but it wouldn’t make me a Bench intelligence specialist.”

  No, it would make him a criminal. It was against the law to wear a uniform to which one was not legally entitled — or bound, in the case of the bond-involuntaries. The point was well taken, all the same.

  “What do you remember about their appearance apart from the color of their clothing?” Garol prompted. “Anybody you may have thought you recognized, for instance. Cut of the garment. Hair color. Size and shape. Accent.”

  But Feraltz frowned, with apparent perplexity. “I’m sorry, Bench specialist. I didn’t recognize anybody. They were all men, I think. I remember the color very vividly. But about the people themselves — not much.”

  Disappointing; but predictable. Feraltz had only seen them moments before he was shot, and then only under conditions of deep emotional shock and horror.

  The Bench couldn’t pin a Langsarik crime on the settlement on the basis of this evidence. Feraltz knew Langsariks, had lived with Langsariks, and refused to say that they were Langsariks; but the strength of the evidence went both ways. Maybe he was protecting someone.

  And yet Garol couldn’t discount the implications.

  Maybe the raiders wore Langsarik colors in order to divert suspicion to a visible target in the event that they were seen. It would be a coup for Langsariks to manage a raid from quarantine; unfortunately, the Langsariks had proved — time and again — that they were capable of almost anything.

  And therefore maybe the raiders wore Langsarik colors because they were Langsariks, and that was the only clothing they had.

  That was the simplest — and therefore most obvious, if unlikely — explanation; and Garol did not look forward to taking this intelligence to Chilleau Judiciary.

  It was his duty. He didn’t have to like it.

  The only way he was going to be able to determine whether or not there was a problem with the amnesty agreement was to go to Port Charid and see for himself. If nothing else, the public-relations angle had to be carefully managed, and he could best decide how to handle that on-site.

  “Are you willing to do a pharmaceutical investigation?” Garol asked, because he had a duty to ask. Sometimes the right drugs could pull up a previously un-retrieved detail from memory; but drugs were also frequently responsible for the spontaneous generation of false memories, or for complete misinterpretation of imperfectly understood information.

  It took a real expert to hope to tell the difference, especially in circumstances where the subject witness might have ulterior motives that affected what and how much he remembered.

  Garol wasn’t particularly interested in risking the survival of the Langsarik settlement on a point of interpretation; so he was just as glad when Feraltz shook his head, rejecting the suggestion. Reluctantly. But absolutely.

  “I’m sworn to Abstain, Bench specialist, and it’s hard enough that I have to take all of this medicine, even though the priest insists on it. I’ll do a drug inquiry if you come back with an Ecclesiastical Exception, of course I will. But I really don’t want to. I’m sure I’ve already told you everything I remember.”

  The Dolgorukij church administration would make allowances for the requirements of Bench process, even for zealots like Abstainers. But zealots hated to compromise, on Ecclesiastical Exception or any other grounds. This young man had already suffered; Garol was quite willing to forgo a step that might only produce ambiguous or flawed evidence for which there was no pressing immediate need — at least for the time being.

  If there were problems on Charid, he would find out about them his own way; too much potentially ambiguous information too soon would only seriously constrain his freedom of action.

  “Let’s not worry about that for now. Time enough later if we need corroborative evidence,” Garol reassured Feraltz, who seemed to relax gratefully. “I’ll be going, Feraltz. Thanks. for your time. And ke
ep up with your therapy. It’s the best thing for a complete recovery.”

  He should talk.

  But maybe giving lip service to the acknowledged but disregarded truth would balance out his own personal and admittedly flamboyant disobedience of doctor’s orders, and help even everything out in the end.

  He was going to have to go to Chilleau Judiciary and talk to the Second Judge’s First Secretary, Sindha Verlaine; that could be as unpleasant as rehabilitation therapy, so maybe that would count on the credit side of his personal register, too.

  It was worth hoping for.

  Garol set his mind firmly on that encouraging but unlikely idea and left Feraltz to exercise in peace.

  ###

  Kazmer Daigule strolled casually through the narrow lanes of Port Charid’s warehouse district with his hands deep in the worn pockets of his old coat, trying to guess how long it would take for the early-morning sun to warm the air at street level. It would be mid-morning before the shadows began to lift, as far as he could tell; these lanes were only wide enough to admit a small transport mover, and the warehouses themselves towered to the skies.

  At least that was the impression from ground level, and the effect seemed to have a discouraging impact on the relatively few people Kazmer could see coming and going in the streets. Maybe they were all just minding their business; Kazmer could approve of that.

  Then something caught his eye.

  Didn’t he know that man —

  Kazmer had seen the familiar figure approach, but so far as he could tell he hadn’t been remarked upon for his own part. This could be good. Looking around him quickly, Kazmer located the nearest doorway and ducked into the shallow alcove the doorway offered for concealment, then waited.

  Moments passed.

  Then the man crossed in front of him, and Kazmer knew him all right. Tall and thin, big-boned, almost gangly, with a fine sharp expression of quick intelligence and lively wit — and big ears that stood out from his head, though perhaps it took a friend to notice. Frowning, just now, and apparently sunk so deep in thought that he didn’t so much as look up until Kazmer spoke.

  “Hilton Shires, as I live and breathe. What brings you into Port Charid, Hilton?”

  Kazmer stepped out of the alcove and extended his hand in greeting, but it seemed that the surprise he’d given Hilton was unpleasantly complete. It took Hilton a moment to respond.

  “Kazmer. Hey. Long time, how’ve you been?”

  Well, it hadn’t been all that very long a time. Not really. He’d taken his leave of the Langsariks well ahead of their rendezvous with the Jurisdiction fleet, and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a Langsarik since. Two years, maybe.

  “I’ve got no complaints.” Kazmer took a step or two down the street, to encourage Hilton to walk with him; but Hilton wasn’t moving. Maybe Hilton was annoyed at Kazmer for getting the drop on him, which would be a little oversensitive on Hilton’s part. It was Kazmer who owed his life to Hilton, and not the other way around. “You?”

  “Life is changed.” Hilton made the obvious point so blandly that it was almost as though the fact had just occurred to him. “Not like old times at all, Kazmer. What brings you to Port Charid?”

  “I’ve been called in on a transport job.” By Hilton’s people, as a matter of fact. As if he didn’t know, him with his Langsarik colors showing beneath the sober collar of a new if inexpensive work shirt. But maybe he had gotten cautious, in his old age; or it could as easily be that Hilton felt they were too vulnerable to eavesdropping, out in the street like this. They’d be a lot less obvious if they were walking together, Kazmer told himself; but Hilton had a stubborn streak. “From what I’ve heard there’s been more than one of that sort of thing through Port Charid lately.”

  But what could Langsariks need cargo transport for? The Langsariks’ property had been impounded by the Bench, along with the Langsarik hulls — as a very practical means of assuring good behavior by removing the means of any independent behaviors at all.

  The only transport a Langsarik could get would be illegal and surreptitious by definition. So the only need that Langsariks could have for a mercantile pilot to transport cargo was to move contraband, and Kazmer and Hilton both knew it.

  Which only made Hilton’s resolute play at oblivious ignorance all the more irritating. “Well, traffic is picking up. That’s true. Plenty of work to go around.” And Hilton actually leaned his back up against the external wall of the warehouse that fronted on the street, folding his arms across his chest as he did so. Those were his racing thermals that Hilton was wearing with his new work shirt, Kazmer noted. Somewhat the worse for wear, too, but Hilton had always been hard on his racing thermals. A demon for speed, land-borne, airborne, space-borne. “Still. Isn’t this a little out of the way?”

  Yes, it was. “I’m a free agent, and I thought it sounded interesting.” He wouldn’t have come so far on a job offer for anyone but Hilton’s people — let alone for a job offer that involved contraband. He was trying to get away from contraband. The least Hilton could do was acknowledge the debt, even if it was obliquely. “Are you on your way to anywhere in particular yourself?”

  Of course he was. Hilton was there for the same reason Kazmer was; Kazmer was sure of it. Hilton, however, shook his head, and lied.

  “Not really. There isn’t much to do out in the settlement, though, and I got a pass. So I thought I’d come down to watch the shuttle traffic, kind of get away from it all for a bit.”

  Now Kazmer was annoyed, and beginning to think about being insulted. Prudence was one thing, but Hilton was taking this whole secrecy bit a little too far. And if that was the way Hilton was going to be, Kazmer would not keep him any longer.

  “I see. Well, enjoy yourself, Hilton. Give my regards to your family, all right?”

  Hilton’s family.

  There was a thought.

  So long as Hilton was here in Port Charid maybe Kazmer would have a chance to get out to the settlement and see sweet little Cousin Modice.

  Hilton had warned him — if only half-seriously — never to let him catch Kazmer in bed with his little girl-cousin ever again; and him knowing what the joke was, because it had been Hilton’s idea. It hadn’t taken Kazmer long to develop a crush on Modice, true, but he’d known from the start that there was no real future in it.

  Modice’s guardian — the Flag Captain of the Langsarik fleet herself — had let him know that Sarvaw mercantile pilots didn’t figure into any Langsarik domestic equations that she was willing to consider for her niece. She’d done it gently and with humor, but the message had been clear enough.

  Fine.

  Hilton wouldn’t catch him.

  Modice was a grown girl, or close enough to it to make up her own mind. By now, anyway. It had been three years since the bed incident.

  “Sure thing,” said Hilton. “Maybe I’ll see you around. Before you go. Where are you staying?”

  Kazmer was tired of the game. “Just in, actually, I don’t know yet. I’ll be in touch. Nice to see you, Hilton.”

  He was on his way to meet with Hilton’s people in a common meal-room two streets over, right now.

  But if Hilton genuinely didn’t know where he was, there was no danger of Hilton guessing that he had gone out afterward to see Modice.

  That would pay Hilton out for being so excessively cagey with him in the street. Pleased with this thought, Kazmer went on to his meeting with his prospective employers in good humor once again.

  ###

  Hilton Shires lingered on the pavement, leaning as casually as he could manage against the exterior wall of a featureless warehouse building, watching Kazmer Daigule’s back as he lumbered out of sight.

  Of all the bad luck, rotten luck, disgusting luck, unfair luck.

  No, he had nothing against Sarvaw mercantile pilots, not in so many words. Kazmer was his friend; he’d saved Kazmer’s life — or at least it had been his stratagem that had saved Kazmer’s life — and there was l
ittle that endeared one man to another quite so strongly as the sense of being benefactor to a peer.

  It was true that Kazmer had shown signs of getting sweet on Modice, but that was hardly Kazmer’s fault; Modice had that sort of effect on a lot of people. And the provocation had been more extreme than usual, what with their first meeting being in such potentially compromising circumstances.

  But mercantile pilot Kazmer Daigule was one of the last people Hilton had expected to see in Port Charid that morning, and the surprise rendered the awkwardness all the more unpleasant.

  He’d made up his mind to take action. They were a displaced people on probation; and while the Bench provided well enough for them to evade public outrage and avoid creating discord from extremes of want, the Bench did not provide for them generously, in any sense.

  Hilton’s parents had grown old at war, serving with the Langsarik fleet. The cold season was coming on in the settlement, and the weary bones of retired warriors creaked in the chill wind that blew from the south-southwest. He was young and fit and could labor; and also he had destroyed the latest in a long line of speed machines, and needed the wherewithal to buy another.

  But he wasn’t about to admit to Kazmer, of all people, that Hilton Shires was looking for a job. Kazmer knew him as a lieutenant in the Langsarik fleet, a man of acknowledged capability, authority, daring. Kazmer still had space transport, and no Fleet directive to restrict him from using it. Hilton was grounded and flightless, emasculated, powerless.

  He had swallowed a good deal of humiliation over the past two years, as the necessary price of purchasing their lives and eventual freedom from a vengeful Bench; but there were limits to how low he could tolerate forcing himself to bend, and confessing his sorry estate to Kazmer was right down there near rock bottom.

  It was almost enough to put him off his enterprise altogether: but Kazmer was gone, and the weather was still slowly but surely on its way toward wintertime. The Combine Factor in Port Charid — a big, brash, bearded man named Shiron Madlev — had been a friend to the Langsarik settlement in too many quiet subtle ways to deserve rude behavior from Hilton. Accepting Madlev’s offer of a job interview and then canceling at a moment’s notice would be an entirely gratuitous slap in the face.