“Resource management is not in your brief, Bench specialist.” But that was rude, as well as untrue, and Verlaine backed down fractionally from the claim as soon as he’d made it. “We filled the vacancy with the highest priority, no more, no less. The Ragnarok had been without a Ship’s Surgeon for longer than any other ship in its own, or any equivalent, class.”
The Ragnarok had no equivalent class. It was an experimental ship, black-hull technology, and commanded by a man who had become incapable of exercising battle command, by reason of a critical failure in the command relationship. “Because Captain Lowden goes through Ship’s Surgeons at a pretty good clip. Uses them up, and not in trauma surgery; the Ragnarok is still in test status. Proving cruise. No live fire, no active engagements. It’s a waste of medical resources to post Koscuisko to the Ragnarok.”
Garol heard himself getting disgusted as he spoke. He hadn’t realized he’d cared one way or the other, not really.
“Yes,” Verlaine said; and his tone of voice was flat, unemotional, and completely implacable. “But we must look at the larger environment. The Ragnarok is on a proving cruise, so it tours, and the Judicial resources it carries are more frequently tapped than any other active-duty ship. What is the single most efficient use for a man like Koscuisko, Bench specialist?”
There were too many ways to answer that question, so Garol didn’t try; and Verlaine had clearly not exhausted his thought.
“Ship’s Surgeon, you impact the welfare of a ship’s complement, a single ship’s complement. Ship’s Inquisitor, you materially reinforce the executive power of the Bench by expertly demonstrating the negative consequences of violating the rule of Law. You saw Koscuisko at Rudistal, Bench specialist, you were there — before and after. You tell me. Where does Koscuisko best serve the Judicial order?”
And Verlaine had a point. Koscuisko was a perfectly adequate surgeon, but a brilliant torturer; and after his highly publicized execution of the once-administrator of the Domitt Prison, Koscuisko was well known as someone to fear. Garol wasn’t impressed, even so. It was all just rationalization on Verlaine’s part. Andrej Koscuisko had embarrassed Chilleau Judiciary; Andrej Koscuisko was to be punished.
“You could serve the Judicial order even better by putting Lowden on ice.” Because the Ragnarok’s notorious commander did no good at all for the public trust and confidence in the fairness and objectivity of the Bench and its officers. “And maybe Koscuisko would live to see forty, if you did. Not like the last Ship’s Surgeon we sent to the Ragnarok.”
Suicide was wasteful, and waste was offensive in principle. Ship’s Surgeons were expensive, Ship’s Inquisitors even more so.
“You have more urgent concerns than any Fleet officer’s health and welfare, Bench specialist. If you don’t mind my saying so.” Verlaine had apparently decided to end a conversation whose subject was distasteful. “I’ll hold the mercantile interests off Port Charid for as long as possible. Let me know how it goes and if I can help out in any way.”
Garol took a deep breath, centering himself.
Verlaine had committed an act of petty revenge in Koscuisko’s case, revenge that would be executed at the expense of whoever was unlucky enough to be in Bench custody when Captain Griers Verigson Lowden of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok came looking for diversion and material with which to create an object lesson.
But it was Verlaine’s call, and Verlaine’s responsibility. Nobody had asked Garol’s opinion. He’d said his bit, Verlaine had tolerated the impertinence; it was time to move on.
Garol stood up.
“Thank you for your support, First Secretary.” He could say it without hypocrisy. First Secretary Verlaine had always been an honest player; it was just some of his game that Garol didn’t like. Nothing personal. “I’ll be leaving once I have a chance to review the intelligence reports. Specialist Ivers has agreed to accompany me. We’ll keep you informed.”
Verlaine closed the door behind him, firmly but quietly. Garol latched the door and settled in to work.
The sooner he got out of there the happier he’d be.
He had real problems waiting for him at Port Charid.
###
Walton Agenis sat bolt upright in her bed, her fingers tingling with adrenaline.
Something was wrong.
Stilling her breath with the self-discipline that had yet to desert her even in times of enforced placidity, she listened to the small sounds that the settlement house made in the night. The settlement housing had been built quickly and not over-carefully, and talked to itself as the outside temperature rose and fell and the wind shifted; she had learned to sleep through the creaks and moans and cracks and chirps of the structure that sheltered her family.
Why was she awake?
It was dead black outside; no light shone into the room through the chinks in the shutters. The local utility plant was obviously off-line for the night, and the predawn deliveries had apparently not started rounds; by that token, it was two to four hours before the little yellow sun of Rikavie rose to warm and wake the settlement.
The pounding of her own heart in her ears faded quickly as the energy surge that had jolted her awake subsided.
Walton began to hear things.
There was something clattering at the outside of the house, not loudly, but with too much deliberation for it to be the normal cooling of the plain metal-weave shutters, and it came with a scratching sound so faint she almost doubted she heard it at all.
Turning the bedclothes back, layer upon layer upon themselves, Walton stood up. The floor was cold beneath her bare and bony feet, rug or no rug.
But she knew she heard something.
There were sounds of movement from inside the house as well, the small noise muffled behind the closed door of one of the bedrooms. Walton slept with her door open. She could not bear not to hear what was happening in her own house.
She was beginning to think she might know what was going on. She picked up the truncheon she kept on the floor beside her bed for self-defense; she didn’t like weapons that could be deployed at distance, not for protection of her own hearth. Accidents happened. Anyone close enough to hit with a truncheon was too close to be mistaken for an enemy rather than simply some imprudent young person who had made a mistake.
The shrill squeak of a shutter being raised on its track sounded clearly in the dark stillness: Walton grinned to herself.
Modice’s room.
And there was conversation. The hissing sounds of whispered sibilants was clear enough; there was the pattern of language, but the sounds themselves could not be parsed into meaning.
Silent on bare feet, Walton crept down the hall to where her older sister’s only daughter had her narrow bed. She heard no alarm in the drift of whispered words, no threat — no particular passion of any kind.
This sort of thing had happened more than once before. Was it Modice’s fault? She was an utterly unspoiled beauty, and so sweet-spirited that she seemed to arouse as much fraternal as any other passion in the hearts of her admirers.
Here.
If Walton paused and listened very carefully, she could almost locate the source of the whispering as at the window; so maybe Modice hadn’t let him in, whoever he was. Yet. This time.
The door was not quite latched. None of the doors hung true on their cheap hinges. Walton eased down on the lever carefully and pushed, wondering whether those very hinges would betray her before she could make a really dramatic entrance.
Who was at the window?
Walton could hear Modice, though she still couldn’t quite make out the words. Modice’s tone of voice was all surprise and perplexed joy; there was no alarm nor any uncertainty there. Whoever it was inspired no fear of any sort in Modice’s nineteen-year-old heart. But Modice was fearless.
“ — for a cargo. Of course I agreed. I haven’t seen you in more than two years.”
Walton frowned.
On the resource side of the status sheet, t
o judge by the sound of the voice the man who was explaining — excusing — his presence so blithely to Modice was at the window, yes, but on the other side of it yet. He was not in the room with her sister’s daughter. Modice was in no danger of finding herself overcome by instinct, let alone violence, or at least not yet.
On the draw-down side was the fact that Walton thought she recognized that voice.
Modice said something, and stifled a giggle. Walton listened carefully to the man’s reply, her suspicions mounting moment by moment.
“Forget you, never, Modice. There isn’t anyone like you under Jurisdiction, and I’ve never been to Gonebeyond space. I’d have come to see you sooner if I’d had a decent chance.”
That Sarvaw mercantile pilot.
What had his name been?
Kazmer. Kazmer Daigule.
The friend of her older brother’s oldest son, Hilton, a big lumbering barge of a man with sufficient calm quiet charisma to have almost seriously disturbed Modice’s psychological equilibrium, not too many years ago.
Modice was clearly not very disturbed right now; her voice had strengthened from a whisper to a murmur, and Walton could hear what she was saying even though Modice clearly had her back to the room, talking out the window.
“If you had the interest, you’d have come sooner. But it’s nice to see you. And Hilton will be sorry he missed you. Hilton likes you, Kaz.”
There was no venom to her scolding, but no childish uncertainty, either. Walton listened to her with pride and wonder: if only Modice’s mother was alive, to hear how her daughter had grown. Modice seemed clearly confident of her ability to hold her own with a man several years her elder. She had learned well, during the years that the Langsariks had lived as a fleet-borne community. She took after Walton herself a bit, maybe; or maybe it was just the result of having been beautiful all her life, Walton admitted to herself, reluctantly. Modice couldn’t have learned that from her aunt Walton.
“Oh, there are those in your family who don’t like me at all, Modice.” Daigule seemed to be teasing, but his tone of voice was ambiguous — was that genuine regret that she heard? “Your aunt doesn’t care for me a bit. She told me so. Well, she told Hilton.”
She would have to see his expression and his body language to decide for sure. For that she would have to be able to see into the room, to spy as well as eavesdrop.
“Aunt Walton is just a little overprotective. That’s all.”
Walton didn’t know if she wanted to hear this. Raising Modice hadn’t been her idea; she had neither expected nor been prepared to take responsibility for the child that Modice had been when her parents had been killed. She knew she hadn’t done as good a job as a real mother could have, would have done. But if she withdrew — to avoid hearing scornful words from Modice — she would be leaving the situation unresolved; and she would not be able to close the door quietly enough to avoid alerting Modice to the fact that someone had been listening.
“She’s no such thing.” Given her suspicions about Daigule’s designs on Modice, it certainly felt odd to hear him, of all people, come to her defense. “She just means to see you properly married to someone who shares your own culture. Sometimes I think she forgets that you and I have already been to bed together.”
Walton tightened her grip on her truncheon. Been to bed together, was it? She’d give him “been to bed together,” all over his foolish skull. Been to bed together. How dare he?
“Kazmer, no joking. That was serious. You know very well it was the only way to hide you. Shame on you.”
That Sarvaw had been fully clothed at the time. At least from the waist down, a certain degree of bareness being necessary to carry the deception off. The soldiers had been too busy trying not to stare at the blinding perfection of Modice’s flawless shoulders to think too deeply on the potential correspondences between the person of interest they were hunting for and the apparently naked young man in her niece’s bed.
Or if they had made up their own minds about what was going on, their insufferable tyrant of a junior officer had arrived at no such conclusion, and nobody had bothered to disabuse him of a notion that he had clearly felt to be near sacred on account of having been his.
“Come on, Derchie, I’m only joking, it’s just you and me. I didn’t mean any harm by it, who else can I talk to? And I’m here to tell you that any man who got to share a bed with you, and didn’t want to talk it up, would have to be crazy.”
“No jokes!” Modice sounded exasperated; she had raised her voice, but quickly dropped it again. “We’re in settlement now. We have to maintain appearances. If my aunt so much as caught you here, she’d call my cousins to beat you. And if you can’t at least respect my feelings, I’ll call for her, I’m warning you.”
That was a good idea, too, Walton thought. The one about calling Modice’s cousins to run Daigule off. How had he gotten past the perimeter watch? She’d have something to say to the night security tomorrow morning at debriefing.
Still, Daigule hadn’t done anything to deserve a beating — yet. And cousins could get overenthusiastic where they thought the honor of a girl-cousin was involved.
“I’m sorry, Derchie. I didn’t come to quarrel.” It seemed that Daigule finally realized that he’d overstepped the boundaries of Modice’s maidenly modesty. It had been three years. Modice had been much younger, so much so that Walton doubted Daigule had fully realized the potential damage his lighthearted flirting might inflict. Modice had always looked older than she actually was; her beauty surrounded her with an aura of knowledge and power that was easy to mistake for that of an adult woman.
“It’s all right, Kazmer, we’re friends. But it hurts my feelings when you make fun of me. Nobody knows about that but family.” No, they’d kept the secret of Kazmer’s escape, to avoid compromise. And to spare Modice the teasing. “Still. You should go now. Come in the daytime if you want to visit me. Bring a present for my aunt.”
Walton held her breath.
Was Modice giving Daigule permission to court her?
Or was she just pointing out the awkwardness of coming to a young woman’s window in the middle of the night?
“I did bring a present for you,” Daigule said. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing that might embarrass you. Unless you have some bizarre objection to really tasteless patterns.”
Modice almost succeeded in stifling an apparently involuntary shriek of thrilled horror, so that it came out a squeak. “Kazmer. It’s awful. What is it?”
Walton listened eagerly for the answer.
“For your hair, Modice. Head scarf. Or a handkerchief. Rolled for a fabric belt, I don’t know. Can be used to dust small and not easily breakable objects. Put this on first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.”
Well, it clearly wasn’t an intimate garment, or something that would have been otherwise improper between friends. Walton relaxed a bit.
“Go away, Kazmer,” Modice said, her voice soft with what sounded like affection. “And don’t come back unless it’s to the front door. In the daytime.”
Where Walton could be waiting — with reinforcements, if necessary. Now that she knew that there was the possibility that Daigule would visit.
“By your command, beautiful Modice. Give my regards to your family. My respects to your aunt. No. Wait. Better hold off on that for a day or two. Give me time to get out of system. Good night.”
Walton had to smile.
It was a shame Daigule was so unsuitable for a Langsarik household. He already knew them so well.
But he wasn’t suitable for a Langsarik household — because he wasn’t a Langsarik.
Walton heard the shutters click against one another as Modice closed her window. She pulled the bedroom door back shut, carefully matching her movements to the sounds Modice was making in order to mask anything that might draw attention to herself.
Modice had carried the mission on her own, and hadn’t needed backup af
ter all.
How long would it be before Modice told her about Daigule’s visit?
Would Modice tell her?
The only way to find that out was to wait and see; and that could be done just as well or better from the comfort of one’s own bed as standing barefoot in a dark hall.
Her feet were cold.
Modice might decide to visit the bathroom before she went back to sleep. The hall had to be empty in case that happened.
Satisfied with Modice’s handling of her midnight suitor, Walton Agenis went back to bed.
Chapter Three
Kazmer Daigule stood close behind the Langsarik raid leader in the dock-master’s office at the Tyrell Yards, keeping his head down and his eyes lowered. Between the visored cap pulled low over his brow and the artificial beard that covered most of the rest of his face there was little chance of anybody being able to recognize him later; but he was taking no chances.
“Sorry to make you wait,” the Tyrell Yards’ dock-master said to the raid leader, keying her transmit. “We just can’t be too careful these days. Have you heard about what happened at Okidan?”
If Kazmer tilted his head just a bit and squinted hard he could see the message the dock-master sent scrolling across the capture unit. Request confirmation, freighter on scheduled load-out from Port Charid to receiving office in Tweniva. Tyrell Yards. Please authenticate as follows.
This was the tricky part.
There was a small courier shuttle in the vehicle transport bay of the freighter Kazmer had piloted from Port Charid to the Tyrell Yards, here in the Shawl of Rikavie. On board that shuttle was an illegal communications intercept board, and the woman working that board had to intercept the dock-master’s signal and match it with precision and delicacy in order to ensure that it was fully damped — effectively canceled out — before it could reach Charid.
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