It was going to be close.
The lead ships in the Fleet Interrogations Group convoy — three ships, out of twenty — were altering trajectory, but not on approach to Port Charid: on a course to bypass Rikavie entirely and head for some target as yet unidentified. In the Shawl of Rikavie, perhaps.
Garol knew better.
“Hail the Fleet convoy, please.” The communications master was on his boards; by the swiftness of his reply he had anticipated Garol’s request.
“Your channel is open, Bench specialist, skein in braid. Stand by for the commander, Third Fleet Interrogations Group, coming on line. Now.”
Garol meant to leave no doubt in the commander’s mind as to who was in charge at Port Charid. So he spoke first. “This is Bench intelligence specialist Garol Vogel, on detail by instruction from Chilleau Judiciary. Why have your leaders changed course, please.”
It annoyed Fleet when they were in the position of answering, rather than asking, the questions. That was all right. Garol didn’t need them cooperative. He just needed them at Port Charid, rather than chasing out after ships on their way to the entrance of the Sillume vector.
The leading edges of the Langsarik fleet had begun their vector spins, their sensor traces distorting with the activity.
“Third Fleet Interrogations Group commander Minrodie, Bench specialist. We see a suspicious population movement in flight from Port Charid for the Sillume vector. The possibility exists that they are Langsariks. There is no response to lawful requests to stand down and return to Port Charid for interview. Pursuit is required to resolve questions about identity and motivation.”
Yes, as he’d thought. Minrodie had done the analysis; Garol couldn’t fault her reasoning. He was just going to have to be unreasonable. “Commander Minrodie. Does your Brief extend to conduct of search and seizure of commercial shipping? Abort your pursuit and make your scheduled orbitals at Port Charid. Acknowledge compliance.”
No, her Brief did not authorize any such interference with trade. It was a formality, perhaps. But it was all Garol had to go on.
At the plotter scan to the right of the map wall Garol thought he saw the first of the Langsarik ships drop off the scope.
But the three ships from the Fleet convoy were making good progress and gaining on the tail end of the escaping Langsariks. A ship pursued by another of similar size accelerating in too-near pursuit could not make a vector transit; the perturbation in trajectory created by such pursuit made a correct calculation impossible. He had to call the Fleet convoy ships off.
“Request your confirmation that subject ships are civil transports engaged in the lawful conduct of Bench-sanctioned trade, Bench specialist.”
Minrodie wasn’t giving in. Garol didn’t blame her for it, though he had to force her compliance any way he could.
“I affirm that to my personal knowledge subject ships are all commercial hulls en route to the Sillume vector, so directed by me in response to instruction received from First Secretary Verlaine, Chilleau Judiciary. Abort your pursuit. You are exceeding the terms of your Brief.”
Not as if that ever stopped Fleet.
But Minrodie’s conviction did seem to falter. The three pursuit ships had not swerved from their intercept course, but none of the other ships in the convoy showed any signs of joining the chase. Yet.
Three more of the Langsarik ships were gone, including the first of the freighters. Some Langsariks had escaped, then, but Garol needed them all to be out of there, because the Langsariks were going to need each other in order to survive. Not only that — but the last of the freighters, the last of the ships, the freighter that had been the last to clear Port Charid, that was the ship carrying Walton Agenis.
“Failure to respond to a lawful request to stand to is a violation of Bench commercial procedure and within Fleet’s Brief to enforce,” Minrodie insisted.
Her three pursuit ships were gaining on the Langsarik fleet.
“And when a Fleet commerce-control group is posted at Port Charid it will duly enforce the commercial codes, that will be its charter. It is not your charter. You are not a Fleet commerce-control group, and you have been ordered to Port Charid. You will proceed to Port Charid. Any harassment on your part of commercial hulls can be expected to generate adverse notice at the highest level of authority.”
He was beginning to sound desperate.
He was afraid it wasn’t going to work after all. Agenis’s freighter might be able to outrun the Fleet ships, but he couldn’t risk finding out. If the Fleet ships got really annoyed, they could fire on the freighter. The Langsarik fleet needed its Flag Captain. Garol could not afford to contemplate what it would mean if Agenis were taken — Agenis, and her beautiful niece Modice, and her very capable nephew Shires, and even Kazmer Daigule, a basically decent man even if his grasp of Bench commercial codes was a little on the questionable side.
One of the ships among the fleeing Langsariks faltered.
It was a very small craft, the smallest on scan, so small in fact that it might well have escaped attention had it not started to transmit. A courier. A bomb ship? A decoy?
The acerbic tones of Cousin Stanoczk’s strongly accented voice cracked over the comms, and Garol had to rub his chin briskly with his hand to cover a smile of relief and gratitude. Cousin Stanoczk. Intervening just as things were near critical, to hold the Fleet pursuit up just enough.
“This is a privately registered courier ship with diplomatic papers for the Dolgorukij Combine, what is the meaning of this outrage?”
Cousin Stanoczk, Garol noted, could do “outrage” with the best of them. There was a confused babble of circuit overrides and half-finished questions from the Fleet side of the communications; then Commander Minrodie was back.
“Transmit your clear codes, if you please. Confirmation of identity in progress.”
The three pursuit ships slowed. The last Langsarik freighter was almost close enough to start its vector spin. Garol had to pay conscious attention to not holding his breath.
“Clear codes on transmit. You have not explained. The Combine will protest this arbitrary intervention in private business in the strongest possible terms unless we are permitted to continue on our way unmolested. Immediately.”
Half the Langsarik fleet was away.
If Stanoczk could hold those three pursuit ships for just a while longer, it would be too late for them to ever catch up — and a pure waste of energy to even try. Not to mention the associated loss of face to go all-out in pursuit of a ship and not catch it. Fleet hated that. Bad for their image.
“We confirm identity and diplomatic immunity.” Commander Minrodie sounded clearly reluctant to admit the fact, though. “On behalf of my command I apologize for the pursuit my ships executed on my direct orders. You are clear to go. — Abort pursuit.”
It had to be difficult to see an enemy running away and not give chase; but Stanoczk had successfully interrupted the momentum of the pursuit, and Minrodie apparently knew when the balance of situational factors turned against her.
“Specialist Vogel,” Commander Minrodie said, “I look forward to seeing you on our arrival. I’ll want to hear all about the instructions of First Secretary Verlaine. I didn’t know Combine diplomatic ships took direction from Chilleau Judiciary.”
Or anywhere. She was quite right. She knew very well that something was wrong with the picture that she was seeing.
“At your convenience, Commander. Vogel away, here.”
The communications line cut out, but the message on the scanning screens told him everything he needed to know.
Langsarik ships vanishing into the Sillume vector. The last of the ships just about ready to start vector spins; the Fleet convoy still steady for Port Charid, the three ships that had gone forward in pursuit turning back to rejoin their formation.
And then there was the tiny blip, the almost invisible trace, the surprising presence of Cousin Stanoczk in the train of the Langsarik fleet.
What was the Malc
ontent doing on his way to the Sillume vector?
Garol sat down.
Feraltz.
He’d been too busy worrying about Langsariks to check in on the ringleader of the false Langsariks. Stanoczk had to have left Port Charid in a hurry, in order to have gotten to where he was now. He’d sent Daigule to the freighter with the Langsariks. But had it been simply because of sympathy for Daigule’s situation?
Or had there been something else going on as well?
“Son of a bitch,” Garol said to himself. Half-infuriated; half-admiring.
If Stanoczk had taken Fisner Feraltz out from under the very nose of a Bench specialist — there would be merry Hell to pay at Chilleau Judiciary when the First Secretary found out that Garol had mislaid his most valuable prisoner.
It didn’t matter.
Stanoczk had been where Garol needed him, when Garol had needed him there — to protect the rear guard of the Langsarik fleet and see Walton Agenis safe to the vector.
So long as the Langsarik fleet was safely away, he could face even Stanoczk’s underhanded dealing with forbearance and equanimity.
They had done it.
The Langsariks were free.
He had actively aided and abetted the successful escape of the Langsariks from the custody of the Bench and the orderly conduct of the Judicial process. He had willfully and deliberately sent the Langsariks out from under Jurisdiction altogether, in flagrant violation of the rule of Law.
It was the first time he had ever acknowledged any higher priority than that to which he had dedicated his life since he had left his home system and sworn his oath of service to the Bench.
But if the rule of Law was not the greatest good, after all that he had done in his life to uphold it —
If he had not done right to have discarded a lifetime’s devotion to the rule of Law, there was no future for him anywhere.
Afterword
Garol Vogel sat quietly in the midmorning light of a street-side cafe in a small port halfway between one Judiciary’s administrative center and another’s, watching the steam rise from a cup of pressure-extracted bean tea.
Life was good, at least for a moment.
Nobody knew where he was or how to reach him; he was as close to off duty as he could remember ever being. The air was crisp and cool; the spicy fragrance rising from his cup was a pleasure no less intense for being simple.
A dark shape passed across the face of the morning sun, a shape that brought with it a fragrance that Garol seemed to remember. The Malcontent Cousin Stanoczk had laundered his clothing with soap mixed with powdered piros resin, from the scent of it; at least that was the most likely explanation for it, in Garol’s mind.
“You’re blocking my light,” Garol said.
Nobody was supposed to know where he was. But since his experiences at Port Charid, Garol knew better than to believe that this was a coincidence.
“Yes, thank you.” Cousin Stanoczk pulled a wire chair clear of an adjacent table and sat down. “I don’t mind if I do join you. What are you drinking?”
And wasn’t Cousin Stanoczk in a good mood. Garol was still making up his mind whether he was going to yield to irritation or decline to give Stanoczk even so much honor as that.
“It’s good.” Tossing off his cup of bean tea — a little too hot, but pain helped him focus — Garol waved for the server, “You should try it. It’ll put hair on your chest.”
The server was prompt with two servings. Cousin Stanoczk recoiled with exaggerated timidity from the cup that the server set down in front of him. “I didn’t know you cared. But you’re not my type.”
Garol had taken one hit of bean tea already; this would be his second. Three was his limit, when it was pressure-extracted. He had to give himself time to sneak up on this next one. “Shut up. You’re disgusting.”
Stanoczk laughed and took up his cup of bean tea with a gesture too absentminded to be that of a man who was unused to the beverage. “While you, on the other hand, are the man of the octave. Single-handedly clearing the vermin out of Port Charid. Elderly people safe to carry large sums of cash money, children frolic in the streets, grown men sleep more easily at night.”
If only it had been that simple.
First Secretary Verlaine was still trying to decide whether he was more relieved than outraged, or the other way around.
As far as public relations went, it had come off. The Langsarik settlement had been removed from Port Charid, and it was really nobody’s business where the Langsariks had actually gone. The raids had stopped, after all; that was all that people really cared about.
As far as the private man was concerned, though, Garol was resigned to waiting for a while before the First Secretary came around to Garol’s way of looking at things.
“I’ve been meaning to speak to you about that.” It hadn’t been very high on his list of priorities, no. But it had unquestionably been in the back of Garol’s mind. “You took something I wanted. I don’t want it back. But I do want its evidence.”
Stanoczk breathed deeply of his bean tea, his dark eyes hooded. Playing for time, obviously.
“Fisner has been badly damaged for a very long time.”
Garol could take that in several ways. But Stanoczk seemed perfectly serious.
“It takes time to build trust, and he will be most useful to us when he grows willing to share the information he possesses. But there is something I am free to tell you.”
It wasn’t as if Garol had honestly expected any different.
He supposed it was petty of him to grudge Cousin Stanoczk his one source, when the Bench held ten. There was probably nothing he could really do about it anyway; unless he wanted to make an issue out of it — and Garol was fresh out of the energy required to take on ancient and entrenched secret services one-handed.
Maybe next year.
“Let’s hear it.”
Stanoczk had finished his bean tea and was running his ring finger around the rim to pick up the last traces of his drink. Disgusting. “Yes. I’m to invite you to a hand-fasting. It is not to be a traditional ceremony, because it is a mixed marriage. The bride is Langsarik, and her accepted suitor is Sarvaw.”
Stanoczk had heard news?
“Where do we send our heartfelt expressions of goodwill?”
Stanoczk shook his head. “The happy couple haven’t quite settled on a permanent address. But I’m to assure you that you’ll always be welcome with the family.”
Cousin Stanoczk had heard from Walton Agenis. Or at least from someone who had heard from Walton Agenis. Garol took a moment to observe the pain in his heart, mildly surprised at its intensity. He was usually better than this at losing people that he loved, but maybe that was the problem. She wasn’t lost. She was waiting for him in Gonebeyond space . . . or if she wasn’t waiting, she was there, and he could go.
But would not.
“Lost your new man, then.” That’d be more than one of them with explaining to do. Not as if it was any of his business.
Stanoczk just shrugged. “Him? He’d never have worked out. No. I undervalue him. He could have been brilliant, but he would have been miserable. That’s not the way we do business.”
This was interesting. “Exactly how is it that you do, er, business, then?” Garol had been a little unclear on that, from the beginning.
“Simple exchange of absolutes.” Stanoczk had waved for the server to come back and bring more bean tea. Two more. Both of which he gathered to himself; Garol hadn’t touched his second cup yet. “You give me everything. I give you anything.”
Well, that told Garol exactly nothing. “So what did you get?”
Stanoczk flashed him a quick look, and for a moment Garol wondered if he’d actually managed to take Cousin Stanoczk by surprise. It was hard to tell. Maybe Stanoczk was just offended.
“It is myself and the Saint between, Garol Aphon.”
If not actually offended, emphatically standing on his dignity and his Dolgorukij s
yntax. So much for that.
“Thanks for stopping anyway,” Garol said, as graciously as possible. “We’ll do it again. Feel free to drop in any old time.”
It was good to know that the Langsarik fleet had survived at least this long on the other side. They were resilient. They would make it work.
Kazmer Daigule and Modice Agenis. Like wedding a heavy mover to a racing shallop; but they had history between them, from what little Garol had ever been able to observe. Daigule had a good heart and strong will to carry it forward. Modice could do worse.
Garol couldn’t imagine it could get any better for Daigule, marrying the spectacular beauty that he adored — smart and strong and brave, as well as beautiful. Almost too much for any one man.
Stanoczk slurped his bean tea hastily, one cup after the other, as he rose. “Right, Vogel. Same to you. Feel free to call on us if you need us. Any consular post or higher. Tell them that Cousin Stanoczk is looking for you, and they’ll do the rest.”
Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
And surely there was more than one man named Stanoczk in service to the Malcontent. It was a relatively common name. At least among Dolgorukij.
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Stanoczk left without paying.
But that was a signal, from someone like Cousin Stanoczk. He’d meant it when he’d said that Garol could call on him. And the price of a few cups of bean tea was as nothing compared to the value of the news that Cousin Stanoczk had brought him.
Langsariks safe, Modice to be married, and there was communication taking place between Gonebeyond space and worlds under Jurisdiction, however private and secretive.
Agenis had escaped.
The Bench had been saved from a shameful stain in its honor, a corrosive miscarriage of justice that could only have contributed to the increasing instability that bedeviled all of Jurisdiction space.
The First Secretary would come around, or he wouldn’t.
It was only rarely that Garol had a chance to take pride in having made a decision, without it being tempered with regret for the consequences, the outcome of his actions.
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