Beginnings-eARC

by David Weber

  She groggily awoke to a flashing light from a missed call and her stateroom terminal chiming politely to announce a call originating at Burdette Cathedral. She dragged on a clean uniform and answered.

  A deacon in a cassock heavy with embroidery bowed his head and intoned a welcome at her. “Blessings child of God. May the Tester grant you ease in your toils and strengthen your protector.” Noah sat beside the older man with wide-eyed intensity.

  The deacon was vaguely familiar to Claire as one of the lay ministers she'd spent her youth avoiding for their tendency to attempt to fix other people's lives without pausing to understand them. Her cousin's respectfully straight posture could only mean that this was his latest replacement father figure. He'd done worse before. She tried to process why they might be calling her.

  “Good night. Good morning?” Claire blinked at them.

  The deacon nudged Noah.

  “Hi Claire-Claire, it's afternoon.”

  The deacon elbowed him again.

  “And you've got to come home now.”

  Her mind was mush. “Huh?”

  “Your repentance,” the deacon prompted.

  “Claire,” Noah flushed. “Look, I'm really sorry. I should of not made you go do stuff with the Navy. I know you hate it, and it was wrong, and I should never have made you do any of it, especially all that time at the Manticore Academy. So I did, you know, a confession and it's okay for you to come home now.”

  “I what?”

  The deacon nodded approvingly at Noah. To Claire, he added, “Young miss, your protector has informed you of his will to retract permission for work outside the home. You will be returning to your family on the next available shuttle.”

  Dazed, Claire shook her head.

  The deacon sighed and closed his eyes. “Merciful Tester. Defend our hearts in these dark times from the scourges of greed and iniquity. Teach us to root and sustain ourselves in the tranquility of the home. Bless this daughter before you. Gentle her hardened heart and open it to Your true glory.” He took a breath and Claire hoped he was done.

  He wasn't. “Let the scales fall from her eyes that she might see the sins of Your people. That she might know her own sin and seek restoration into Your holy presence. That she might recognize the iniquity of our leaders, which has led to this holy vengeance.”

  Noah peeked one eye open. The spit dried in her mouth as Claire tried to find the words.

  “Tester, grant her the wholeness of heart to turn away from the footsteps of harlotry traveled by her departed cousins.” Noah exchanged a horrified look with her at the mention of Mary and Lucy as whores. They just danced. Really. They just danced naked for money from lonely men not used to being without their wives.

  The deacon continued his prayer. “Forgive her sins of pride and envy. Forgive her as her family has forgiven her. Return this, Your daughter, to her home and to the bosom of her family.”

  Speechless, she flicked the power switch off on the console, disconnecting the call.

  Cecelie sat on the other side of the room wide-eyed.

  * * *

  Claire went to CIC to think and found Lieutenant Loyd running Blackbird attack recordings from the shuttle logs and what little the surviving sensors had captured. There was nothing in them but missiles and death. Treacherous tears welled up. Emotions would be the excuse for kicking her out of the Service, Claire was sure. Now that there was no Blackbird, the Grayson space industry might well be in a recession for a generation. She'd have to go back to Burdette Steading. Claire choked back vomit. How had she grown so cold that all these people were dead and she was still mourning her own silly dreams?

  Lieutenant Loyd looked up and froze the recording, beckoning her to sit down.

  Claire used the tissues that now claimed a permanent pocket in her skinsuit but left the space sickness bag in its pocket. “I've got a problem, Sir.”

  That got a dark laugh from Lieutenant Loyd.

  Claire found herself smiling back at the ridiculousness of having just one problem when the entire Grayson Space Navy equipment and weapons supply system had been torn to shreds, her star nation had been brutally attacked by who knew who, and at least half the civilian populace was screaming for blood without recognizing that no one knew who to go kill.

  “It's a family problem,” she said.

  That sobered up Lieutenant Loyd quick enough. “Lockhart didn't—” He choked on the words and it took Claire a few moments to fill in the assumptions.

  “Oh no. Not a pregnancy kind of family problem. A teenage head-of-household met the wrong new father figure kind of family problem.” Claire clenched her fists.

  Lieutenant Loyd cocked his head to the side, clearly baffled.

  Claire repressed a sigh. People didn't understand how much the rule of law could suck when they'd never lived on the bottom of it. She explained about how Noah had signed the initial authorization for her to work for the Academy stint and about the pay transfers.

  His eyebrows rose.

  With a blush, Claire admitted to hiding the pay bump that came with a promotion to ensign. And, she summarized the Burdette Steading altar call for a return to pious family values that had led to Noah's intent to revoke Claire's authorization to work.

  Lieutenant Loyd's eyebrows stayed up. After a lengthy pause the sum total of his response was, “Wow.” He shook his head and repeated himself, “Wow.”

  Claire felt compelled to point out, “You did say I was supposed to tell you about problems as they came up. That that was what department heads were for.”

  Lieutenant Loyd snorted. “Remind me never to say stuff like that again.” He shook his head. “I've got no idea . . .” Then he stilled. “Oh, yeah, that'll work. You've heard what our latest orders are right?”

  Claire rubbed her forehead vaguely remembering a navigation brief for the transit to Grayson, but she'd been given a day without watch to catch up on sleep and lost track of what the ship was doing.

  Her department head shrugged. “I'm sure the wardroom gossip has it by now. The VIP we are picking up on Grayson is Michael Mayhew. We're taking his staff to Manticore. With the attack and all, I guess the Protector prefers to have him travel in a warship rather their usual yacht.”

  Loyd broke off the conversation for a few moments to monitor Manasseh's final approach into orbit around Grayson,

  Once they were in a stable orbit, Commander Greentree's voice rang over the ship's announcing system. “Manasseh, We're about to bring aboard a very important member of the Mayhew family. Please welcome him and support his staff as you would the Protector himself. I'm sure you'll do me proud.

  “We've been attacked, and you all know how much we've been hurt. The Protector is sending his brother to Queen Elizabeth to plan this new war, and he chose the Manasseh to get him there. Grayson and Manticore have some enemies out there due a full measure of retribution. This is the first step in delivering it.”

  The crew in CIC burst into spontaneous applause.

  The usual ceremony of shuttles and personnel transfer went off flawlessly. Only Mayhew and a few staff members came onboard. The rest of his staff were still on Grayson engaged in last minute preparations for the trip and would embark on later shuttles after the Manasseh's crew had rearranged workstations and berthing assignments to make room on the warship for the elite passengers.

  From the craning necks at the nearby consoles, Claire realized that the official party was actually touring the ship with Commander Greentree leading them around and introducing the crew rather than going directly to their cabins. The CO performed the introductions naming every spacer in CIC, and the tour stopped. Michael Mayhew chatted with several petty officers eager shake his hand, so that one day they could tell grandchildren that they had actually met a Mayhew.

  Mayhew worked his way around with polished elegance staying just long enough with each spacer to exchange a few words but not so long that any appeared uncomfortable in his company.

  Claire was read
y with a fake smile when he reached out to shake her hand.

  “Ensign Lecroix,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you. Commander Greentree speaks highly of your work in the recovery efforts.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Then he dropped the conversational grenade. “So tell me about your cousin, Noah.”

  She looked from him to the CO to her department head. Word traveled fast.

  “Sir, my cousin is my head-of-household in Burdette. He signed an Authorization to Work Outside the Home when I entered Saganami, but he's been talked into revoking it.”

  “So I heard. And does Steadholder Burdette generally feel he can undermine obligated service to Grayson in a time of war?”

  “Sir, it was just my cousin and, well, a churchman who seems to be telling him what to do. The steadholder wasn't involved at all.”

  “They're his laws.” Mayhew said with the set of his jaw implying he held the steadholder personally responsible for their legal application. He looked at her for another moment, then inhaled sharply. “Would you be good enough to accompany me to the wardroom, Ensign?”

  Claire was so dumbfounded—not to mention flustered—as she was ushered up to the wardroom that she almost missed the introduction that the silver-haired woman trailing Mayhew was Elsabeta Greentree, the commander's wife and a member of Michael Mayhew's legal counsel. It seemed ridiculous that the Protector's own brother could worry himself with her problems, especially at a time like this, but Mayhew and Elsabeta proceeded to pepper her with questions about Noah, the Bedlam family, and the Burdette Steading legal system.

  Claire had answers about the first two and didn't want to share them. For the third, she didn't know, but it hardly mattered. Michael Mayhew and Elsabeta between them drew statutes and rulings from their legal libraries quite without needing any input or encouragement from Claire.

  Cecelie Rustin's curly blond head popped around the corner of the wardroom just long enough to see the group, smile beatifically, and vanish. Claire nailed her roommate as the tattler. The Navy was quite as bad as a family at planning your life without consulting you.

  Claire rubbed her eyes to block out images of Lucy's and Mary's faces, superimposed on the corpses found by her shuttle team and ghosting around the wardroom, as Elsabeta plotted stratagems to not only cut off Noah but to charge the family to repay Claire's past wages under some loose historical claim that an officer was legally a gentleman. Gentlemen were not dependents of one another under Burdette law, and thus the withdrawals from Claire's bank account were invalid.

  Mayhew looked skeptical.

  The other members of the diplomatic party had arrayed themselves around the wardroom, likely doing the work actually needed for the visit to Manticore.

  Claire coughed and drew the whole room's attention. “Excuse me, I'm sure that my own little problems aren't worth, I mean, the alliance with Manticore and all is so much more important.” Claire swallowed, and, uncertain of quite the right address, stuck with military courtesies. “Sir, Ma'am, I would like to try to reach Lord Burdette, if I might.” Commander Greentree had taken care of Lockhart well enough once he was actually told. What if her Lord Steadholder just didn't really know what his laws were doing? Claire crushed the small part of her mind that insisted that if Lord Burdette didn't know then he was too much of an idiot to respond to reason.

  Mayhew rubbed his lips concealing a small smile as his eyes lit. Claire rather wondered if she had totally botched the honorific for the Protector's brother. “Sir” was such a useful catchall for military people whose titles you didn't quite know.

  “Master Mayhew,” she tried again, “My Lord Steadholder did nominate me to Saganami Island and all. It seems only fair to, well, give him a chance to fix things. I mean, it's his job.”

  The small smile broken loose, flickering around the corners of Mayhew's mouth.

  This time the conversation actually expanded to include Claire. Elsabeta wanted to see Noah served with papers first, but Mayhew recommended the legal suit be held in reserve. Claire held out for a call to Burdette Steading to request to be put on Lord Burdette's schedule once the Manasseh returned from Manticore. Claire ruthlessly planned to borrow the cost of the call from Rustin. It was the least her roommate could do after airing Bedlam dirty laundry so publicly.

  Commander Greentree offered his office for an immediate call. Elsabeta offered to write a script of legal talking points for it.

  Thankfully the space was too small for the whole staff to follow along. Only Claire and Mayhew sat in front of the screen, with Commander Greentree and Elsabeta to the side off-screen watching as Michael Mayhew typed in a private code and reached the Burdette Steading without a single one of the usual screeners or automated recordings asking the nature of their business with Lord Burdette.

  Steadholder Burdette's third wife answered immediately. She looked surprised to see Michael Mayhew but smiled broadly at Claire chattering about how nice proper skirts looked on a woman in uniform.

  Claire thanked her and thanked her again for the gift of the uniforms. The heavy material soaked the sweat from her hands without darkening the fabric.

  An older woman with a decidedly pinched set to her lips, who Claire recognized as one of Steadholder Burdette's mothers, joined the screen. She made a short acknowledgement of Michael Mayhew and then skewered Claire with a frigid glare.

  “Miss Lecroix,” said the dowager. In Burdette, there had never been any acceptance that a military rank could replace the primacy of miss or madam in a woman's titling, Claire recalled. “Explain to me, if you please, why it is that months have passed since you received the gift of proper uniforms from my daughters-in-law and not a one of them has yet to receive a thank you.” The dowager lady steadholder's pink glossed lips disappeared in a creased line with whitened edges as she glared.

  Claire thought of hiding behind the disaster of Blackbird, but in exasperation just told the truth. “I didn't have the funds to have them hemmed let alone send back a letter.”

  The dowager lady steadholder's lips made a reappearance, and the other two daughter-in-laws' faces showed at the edges of the screen as well. Apparently the Burdette Lady Steadholders had arrived in mass to hear what Claire had to say.

  Tester only knew if anyone had even been sent to tell Steadholder Burdette himself about the call at all. The dowager shut down the babble of questions with one sharp look and patted her divan to have all three of her son's wives join her.

  With significantly more concern, the dowager asked, “Has your father passed recently then, dear?”

  Claire laughed. “Oh no, Dad passed on when I was nine and Mother didn't recover so well without him. I was raised by my aunts on my mother's side. Anyway, on the Bedlam side we've never had much success with pregnancies, especially for boys. Our head-of-household is my cousin, Noah.” Claire automatically edited to leave out the family predilection for unmarried pregnancies.

  The dowager seemed to recognize Claire's meaning without her needing to spell it out.

  The dowager asked, “That wouldn't be the Noah Bedlam who created the civil disturbance a few years back by trying to run a watercraft on the aquaculture ponds, would it?”

  Claire watched the eye contact between the steadholder ladies as they acknowledged to each other exactly which family the Bedlams were and quite pointedly did not ask who Noah's father was. It would have been on the paperwork for the arrest warrant. “Father: unknown.”

  She just closed her eyes.

  “There was a wrecked boat involved. I wasn't privy to the details since I was at Saganami Island at the time. I just know that it took ten months for the account with my midshipwoman pay to show a positive balance. After that I learned to ask the bank not to permit overdrafts. There was some sort of fine, I assume?”

  “A large one,” the dowager acknowledged. “The pond was contaminated. Apparently he'd tried the boat on an open stream first and the hijinks with the pond-farm was in response to family concerns for
his health if he kept trying to boat on our planet's toxic natural waters.” The dowager shrugged. “I just know that my boy said he blamed his mother's nagging when the judge asked him why he did it.”

  Claire couldn't help but snort a laugh. “I suppose that was true.” Gripping her skirts to keep her hands from shaking, she tried to refocus the discussion. “Do you think you could arrange for me to speak to Lord Burdette sometime, Ma'am? I'd like to request to be made legally independent. Noah would like me to resign from the Service, you see, and this isn't really the time. I have a service obligation for my schooling.” And there was Blackbird. “And we're likely at war with someone.”

  The dowager was shaking her head. “We can't allow that. I'm sorry dear but it would set a horrid precedent.” She shifted her gaze. “Don't give me that look Lord Mayhew. We have two applications for legal independence already from Miss Lucy Bedlam and Miss Mary Bedlam. Their applications say they are working as artisans, but not six weeks ago Miss Mary made a most apologetic confession that they are actually, er—”

  “Strippers.” Claire said. “They used to dance at a men's club called Birdies. I couldn't find their bodies.”

  The Burdette ladies gaped at her, even the dowager.

  Mayhew recovered first patting Claire's knotted fist lightly, “I'm sorry for your loss.”

  Claire released the skirts and rubbed one temple. “Yes, I'll especially miss Lucy. Noah did like the money they earned, but he liked to think the club was paying them to waitress and they were just doing the other because they wanted to instead of because it was the only reason the club hired women at all.” She focused on the Burdette ladies. “They worked on Blackbird.”

  “Would you like to see your cousin charged with whore-mongering? I do believe that is outlawed in every steading of Grayson.” Mayhew folded his hands lightly and glanced from Claire to the dowager and back.

  Claire blanched. She wasn't sure what the sentence for that offense was, but it would tear the family apart to see Noah in a prison somewhere. Or executed. Defaming the dignity of a woman through forced prostitution could be a capital offense.