The Far Side of The Stars

by David Drake

  Adele caught movement from the corner of her eye. These servants didn't need to be geniuses to understand "Stay out of the room until I call you," which she'd already had to repeat twice since her initial briefing. "I told you—" she said, looking up in irritation.

  Enrique Pansuela had come back. He'd watched her for half an hour initially, then given the servants directions to do whatever Lady Mundy said and to her relief gone off to his own occupations. "Oh," Adele said. "I'm sorry, Pansuela, I thought . . ."

  She let her voice trail off. "I thought you were a servant," was the honest truth, but it probably wouldn't be politic to say. She sneezed instead, a natural consequence of the work she'd been doing, and well timed for a change.

  "Don't bother getting up," her host said with a little gesture. Adele blinked, amazed that he'd thought she was going to. She'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor for hours, so it wouldn't be a quick process. "I just came over to see how you've been getting on."

  He cleared his throat. "I haven't been able to get to sleep, you see."

  Adele nodded, understanding more than she'd been told. Pansuela had been under the influence of something when he greeted them this afternoon—yesterday afternoon, by now—but he apparently hadn't taken any more of his drug of choice since the Princess Cecile's arrival. She supposed she should praise her host for fighting his addiction instead of sneering within herself at somebody weak enough to become addicted in the first place . . . but so long as she kept it within her, not even Pansuela himself had a right to complain about her attitude.

  "Yes, well," she said aloud. She decided to get up after all; now that she was back in the world outside her own head, she realized that she really ought to move. "I've found John Tsetzes in the guest book, that was easy enough."

  She gestured to the leather-bound volume on the table she'd had brought in. Finding the page hadn't been as easy as she implied—well, it wouldn't have been easy for somebody else. The ink and the pages—which were some sort of leather, perhaps fish bladder—had turned an identical sepia tone in the sixty-one standard years since they'd been created. She'd scanned the sheets into her data unit, sharpened the contrast, and then let the processor do the sorting, managing the job in a reasonable hour or so.

  In place of the original muted lighting, a battery-powered lantern which Hogg had found for her flooded the room with hard illumination. He said it came off the bow of a fishing vessel where it'd been used as a night lure. Pansuela winced, though whether from the glare or the disorder it threw into high relief Adele couldn't judge.

  "He signed using the name Ion Porphyrogenitus, commanding the yacht Nicator," she explained, "but the timing was right and he gave his homeworld as Novy Sverdlovsk. Since then I've been looking for your uncle's catalogue of the collection, hoping that there'll be some reference to provenance as well—at least for the accessions within his own lifetime. Your Uncle Manuel would've been an adult sixty-one years ago, wouldn't he?"

  Pansuela rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. "What?" he said. "Yes, I suppose so. In his thirties, I believe."

  He scanned the room; it was emptier than it'd probably been in a generation but it was a jumble by any reasonable standards. Pansuela swivelled—he still stood in the doorway—and looked down the hall in both directions and returned his attention to Adele.

  "I wonder," he said unexpectedly, "what might have happened if I'd grown up differently. If I'd gone off-planet, I mean. I almost did, when I was eighteen. A Kostroman merchantman landed. They'd been damaged in a fight with pirates and needed repair. They'd lost some crew as well. The captain stayed with us while they were fitting new antennas. He offered to take me as a trainee officer."

  Adele looked at Pansuela and tried to imagine him as a spacer, as a starship officer. She shook her head unconsciously. He had the intelligence and probably the education, but with the best will in the world she couldn't pretend he had a backbone. Though perhaps the drugs had leached it out of him. . . .

  Pansuela gave her a bitter smile. "Do you ever wonder how things might have been different in your life, mistress?" he said.

  How much did he know about her? And of course the answer was, "Nothing whatever."

  "No, I do not," Adele said, bending backwards to loosen muscles that'd tightened during the past several hours of her hunching forward. "There was one major . . . crux point, I suppose you could call it, in my life. Occasionally I wonder what it would've been like had that developed otherwise—"

  Had the Mundys and all their close associates not been slaughtered in the Proscriptions which she'd escaped by being off Cinnabar at the time.

  "—but I find it's like trying to look through a brick wall. It's a completely pointless exercise, so I don't do it."

  Adele cleared her throat and glanced down at the pile she'd been working through. She said, "Well, I'd better get back—"

  Somebody shouted in mad fury, his voice echoing down the hallway like the roar of a balked predator. Metal hammered on wood.

  "What on—" Pansuela said.

  A heavy electromotive pistol cracked. The slug hit metal with a bell note and the splintering of wood.

  "That's from the guest wing!" Pansuela said. His mouth dropped open. The servants in the hallway had exchanged brief glances and vanished in the opposite direction from the shooting.

  Adele stepped to the doorway. Her left hand was in her pocket.

  * * *

  Daniel had eaten well, drunk very well, and thereafter exercised with an enthusiasm appropriate to a fit young man who took pride in good workmanship. Even so the first shouting brought him to his feet out of a dreamless sleep. He didn't know what was going on or even where he was, but he knew something was wrong and that made it the business of Lieutenant Daniel Leary.

  God in heaven, it was dark! They'd had a candle lantern that burned with a pinkish flame. The girl, whatever her name was—Margolla?—thought it was romantic and Daniel was happy with whatever a girl thought was romantic. It'd burned out, though, and the course of the evening he'd kicked heaven knew where the trousers he'd laid neatly over the bunk's footboard when he took them off.

  He groped on the floor, still disoriented—it was dark as six feet up a hog's bum!—and grabbed a handful of the silky synthetic fabric as the girl said, "Dannie, what's happening?" and somebody started banging on a door just down the hallway.

  The girl—her name was Margolla—switched on a bedlamp. She was leaning toward him. Her breasts were firm, full, and shapely—enticing under most circumstances but right now of less interest to Daniel than the fact that Bloody hell, I've got my trousers on backwards!

  "Daniel, where are you going?" Margolla said on a rising note. Daniel jerked the door open.

  Electric sconces at either corner illuminated the hall with wan sufficiency. Father Rosario stood at the door of the next suite down. His wide hat had fallen off and lay like a soup dish on the floor beside him. As Daniel stepped into the hallway, the priest put the muzzle of his gleaming pistol against the lock-plate and fired.

  The brilliant white flash of oxidizing aluminum lit the hallway. The pellet hit the lock a clanging hammerblow that blew it out of the panel. The doorpanel swung inward.

  "Hey!" Daniel shouted, waving his arms as he started forward. He didn't have strong feelings about Count Klimov as a person, but the Count was a Sissie, a member with Daniel of a family bound tighter than mere genetics could do. "Drop it!"

  Father Rosario turned, bringing up the pistol. Daniel, ten feet away, saw the tiny black hole of the muzzle and threw himself sideways.

  The first slug missed, blasting a divot from the wainscoting before it ricocheted off the concrete core with a spiteful howl. Recoil lifted the barrel so the priest's next two shots smacked into the ceiling.

  Daniel'd squinted as he rolled, but the flashes still left vivid afterimages quivering across his retinas. He saw Count Klimov, a gangling ghost of a man, lunge out of his room and sprint down the hall in the other direction
.

  Father Rosario turned, aiming through the doorway again. He was blinking, blinded by his own shots, but he caught motion from the corner of his eye and blasted twice more down the corridor just as the Count disappeared around the corner. The priest started after him, waving the pistol and screaming.

  Bloody hell, it sounded like a whole stadium of people screaming, including Margolla bawling, "Dannie, don't do it!" Daniel launched himself in a flying tackle that would've smashed the priest to the floor hard enough to jar his teeth loose, let alone his gun—except that Flora Pansuela, darker and more rounded than the Count but just as naked, ran into the hallway just at the wrong moment. Daniel crashed into her, knocking Flora into the doorjamb and slewing himself into the opposite wall. For all her softness, the lady was a solid weight.

  Daniel rose to his feet again like a sprinter launching himself from the blocks. He'd never lost forward motion, just channeled it at the cost of some bruises. He'd feel them in the morning but they didn't slow him tonight.

  Rosario stumbled on the hem of his long robe, triggering another shot into the floor. It caromed into the ceiling, then back to punch a hole in the door of the thankfully unoccupied room at the end of the hallway.

  The priest stopped at the corner and pointed his weapon down the intersecting hall. Daniel caught him around the shoulders and crushed him against the opposite wall. He thought he heard bones crack, and he bloody well hoped he heard bones crack. The pistol bounced away harmlessly.

  Father Rosario crumpled to the floor. Daniel fell on top of him, breathing through his mouth and suddenly queasy from the adrenaline he hadn't burned out of his system. He glanced down the hall through blobs of purple and orange flickering across his retinas. Count Klimov had tripped on a pile of boxes and was crawling on all fours toward the lighted doorway where Enrique Pansuela stood with a shocked expression.

  Adele, her face still as marble, lifted the muzzle of the pistol on which she'd been taking up trigger-pressure. She breathed out, then slipped the weapon away in her pocket.

  Daniel managed to rise to his hands and knees. He patted the priest on the back. "You may not be ready to thank me now, Rosario old boy," he said through dry lips. "But I just saved your worthless life!"

  CHAPTER 16

  Adele looked at the sky as Daniel and the Chief Engineer made a final inspection of the thrusters. She wasn't a weather expert, but . . .

  She glanced at Hogg, standing beside her on the quay alongside the Princess Cecile. He nodded gloomily. "Aye, be coming down like a cow pissing on a flat rock before long," he said, answering the unspoken question. "God knows what it'll be like to take off in."

  Adele frowned, thinking back. She had to restrain herself from getting out the data unit. "We've taken off in the rain before," she said, frowning deeper. "I don't recall it making any difference, did it?"

  "Yeah, well," Hogg said. "We'll see."

  The Pansuelas' open car splashed toward the harbor, flanked by the rainbows its tires cast up. The Klimovs, warned by Vesey on the bridge, appeared in the main hatch to await their visitors. The Count had been adamant about getting out of Pansuela House immediately after the shooting. Valentina had come back to the ship with him, though she'd exhibited more amusement than concern.

  "He could've got his head shot clean off," Hogg said, glowering at the Count but obviously referring to Daniel. "And for what? For some wog who thinks he's something!"

  He glared at Adele in outrage. "What I know, mistress, is when two guys have a problem about a girl, then the job of everybloodybody else is to keep outa the way and let 'em settle it! Right?"

  "You'd have done the same thing if Daniel instead of the Count had been at risk, Hogg," Adele said in a neutral tone. She wasn't willing to have her silence read as assent, but neither did she want to argue with Hogg in his present mood. At least now she knew why he was so angry.

  Hogg flashed her a slight, hard smile. "Aye, I would, mistress," he said, his tone minutely lighter. "But you and I will be a lot older before we see Daniel Leary crawling on his belly to get out of a fight, eh?"

  The idea was so incongruous that Adele chuckled. "Yes, there's that," she said.

  The Pansuelas were coming down the path, followed by a servant carrying a small box under a piece of damask. The Klimovs started across the boarding bridge to meet them on the quay. Somebody representing the ship ought to be present also. . . .

  "Besides which," Hogg said venomously, "nothing more was going to happen to the Count if the young master'd just let things take their course. That so-called priest was going to be sporting a third eyehole before he got another shot off, right?"

  "Yes," said Adele, "he was. But that didn't happen."

  She cleared her throat. "Daniel is busy under the ship and it doesn't look like Mr. Chewning is going to appear," she said. Though it wasn't the duty of a junior warrant officer, she knew the crew expected Signals Officer Mundy to deputize for the captain when necessary in any sort of social setting. "I suppose I'll join our employers."

  Adele thought about the night before as she walked to the foot of the boarding bridge where the two parties would meet. She'd killed in the past, and due to the life she now lived—by her own choice—she would very likely kill again. That was part of what she was.

  But at the point she stopped caring that she killed, she'd be another creature like Tovera. There'd be an Adele Mundy who was intelligent and cultured, but who was no longer human and who'd never regain her soul.

  She wasn't sure that those close to her, even Daniel, would recognize the difference; but she herself would know . . . and Tovera would know, looking into Adele's eyes and seeing a mirror.

  "Lady Mundy," Enrique Pansuela said when he at last noticed Adele. He was drugged again, walking stiffly and talking with a complete lack of affect. His addiction allowed him to function with his normal intelligence, but he showed no more emotion than the concrete quay.

  "Patron," Adele said, nodding crisply. It's by his choice, just as I carry a gun by my choice. The sight gave her a twinge of sadness nonetheless. "Lady Pansuela."

  Flora acknowledged with a toss of her head; makeup couldn't hide the bruise on her right cheekbone. Her hair was teased high onto a series of combs, hand-carved from some opalescent material. Fish scales? Or perhaps bones? Something to look up as soon as Adele could with propriety bring out her data unit.

  The Klimovs reached the quay, Valentina leading the Count. She offered Enrique her hand while eyeing his wife with cool amusement. Enrique touched the Klimovna's fingertips and dipped his head in a scant bow, seemingly oblivious of any emotional currents.

  Count Klimov cleared his throat. He kept his eyes on the concrete except for quick glances at the others around him, the way a mouse might look from its hole to a roomful of people.

  "You'll be returning to Todos Santos?" Enrique asked with bland friendliness. He glanced at the sky without any sign of concern that he'd be riding back to his house in an open car.

  "No, Captain Leary has suggested a planet called Morzanga," Klimov said to his boots of tooled leather. "It's not on the way to anything, but time isn't of concern to us. His uncle found the wreckage of a starship there which the Captain now thinks might be John Tsetzes' yacht. Since we know Tsetzes passed this way, from the buckle."

  "Yes, you'd explained your interest in this John Tsetzes," Enrique said. "We'd like to give you a present. Flora dear, will you make the presentation?"

  His wife colored under her dark skin. "No, you do it," she said, looking away from everyone.

  "As you please, dear one," Enrique said. "Ector, bring the gift forward."

  The servant stepped between the Pansuelas. Enrique flicked off the damask and opened the box, still in the servant's hands.

  Count Klimov began to tremble; Valentina laughed. Adele leaned forward, expecting to see John Tsetzes' belt buckle. Instead the box held the pistol Father Rosario had been using. Now that she had time to examine it, she realized it was of plati
num with the Novy Sverdlovsk flag picked out in gold on the receiver.

  "I hope this will make amends for the difficulties of last night," Enrique said. "It seemed a suitable gift, all things considered."

  "No," said the Count in a choked voice. "No, no, you keep it."

  "On the contrary, Georgi, dear one," said the Klimovna. She took the pistol from the box, pursing her lips at its unexpected weight. "I think this is a wonderful gift. And think of the story we'll have to tell when we return home."

  She looked at Enrique and bowed. "I wish there were something we could give you in exchange," she said. Her eyes turned minusculely to lock on Flora. "But perhaps my husband already has, darling . . . ?"

  Thunder rolled. Daniel called something cheerful. The spacers holding the lines pulled his inflatable raft toward the quay.

  Adele looked at the two couples. She said nothing and showed nothing. But she was glad the Princess Cecile would be lifting from Tegeli very soon.

  CHAPTER 17

  While the Princess Cecile continued to orbit eighty miles above Morzanga, Daniel locked the frozen image of the village adjacent to their intended landing place on his display, then increased the magnification to where he could see the poles supporting the individual houses. A central circle contained about half the fifty-eight dwellings, and the remainder straggled away into the jungle in several directions.

  Natives walked among the houses and tended fish weirs in the broad, mud-brown river nearby. A border of jungle concealed the village from anyone in the channel, but the weirs were a dead giveaway to its presence.

  "According to Commander Bergen's logs, he landed the RCS Granite in the slough just east of this village," Daniel said. Ships, even exploration vessels like the Granite, didn't land in moving water if they could avoid it. Besides, landing directly in the river would destroy the weirs and very possibly incinerate some fishermen as well, not a good way to make friends of the locals. "It doesn't appear to have changed in the twenty-seven years since the Granite landed. Now, you'll notice here—"