The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  Turning in his chair Ferinc stood up quickly, taking Stanoczk’s hand away from his shoulder to kiss Stanoczk’s knuckles in greeting. “Stanoczk. I’m sorry. You startled me.”

  “You should not have been startled,” Stanoczk pointed out. “You should have been waiting for me. Elsewhere. I despair of you, Ferinc. What have you found?”

  Sometimes his gratitude for Stanoczk almost overwhelmed him: Stanoczk’s patience and forbearance, equable temper and genial goodwill. The hand of the Malcontent rested lightly on Ferinc, because it was Stanoczk’s.

  “If it’s Noycannir, she could have done it.” No, wait, that didn’t make much sense. “I’ve found something interesting. It’s proximity, but it’s suggestive.”

  Ferinc nodded at his analysis screen, wanting Stanoczk to see, hoping Stanoczk would find the information interesting. Maybe interesting enough to overlook Ferinc’s lapse in leaving his own reconciler to wait, and wait, and finally come find him. Malcontents were beaten for lesser faults; more or less frequently, as the need and inclination required.

  Stanoczk scanned the screen and raised an eyebrow.

  “What does this mean to me, Ferinc?”

  Stanoczk had to see it. It was that obvious. “Just look how depressing a person she must be. Over the last three years. Five suicides. Five.”

  A Clerk of Court on the Second Circuit; an evidence disposition manager at a sub–court headquarters; a Security troop on detached assignment for debriefing of troops at a Fleet station under the Second Judge’s aegis. A third–level communications specialist at Chilleau Judiciary.

  And his favorite: a documents release controller at Fontailloe Judiciary itself, where the First Judge presided. That one had been carefully investigated at the time, because of the sensitive nature of the dead woman’s job. Everything had cleared. Ferinc didn’t think they’d looked hard or long enough.

  “Ferinc, despair is more bitter a pain than many can bear. Surely you know this.” But Stanoczk was still looking at the screen; the cross–tracking, the time elapsed between a personal contact with Mergau Noycannir and the unfortunate death of an officer of the Court by her own hand. “None of them murdered?”

  That was the question, of course. In one instance at least, the cause of death had been recorded as due to an overdose of a recreational drug; there had been a record left. The drug had been of such exceptional purity that a pharmacy audit of the Court’s administratively attached medical personnel had been conducted. There had been no findings, and the investigators had left it at that.

  There was no recorded curiosity about the chemical signature of whatever batch the drug had come from, and Ferinc thought that was a shame, because he was almost ready to convince himself that such a trace would have led far away from the actual site of the incident and back to Chilleau Judiciary.

  Maybe the trace had been done. Maybe it had led back to Chilleau Judiciary. Maybe the investigators had assumed a political assassination, and elected for prudence over justice.

  “The pattern intrigues, Ferinc,” Stanoczk admitted. Ferinc had been confident that it would.

  What would one have to do if one set out to accomplish the unthinkable, and subvert the justice of the Bench? Bench warrants did not come out of nowhere. They had to be validated and cross–validated at every step of the process of issue; at any given time, somebody knew where it had come from and where it would be going.

  And the further along the process of issue moved, the fewer obvious questions were likely to be asked about the integrity of the validations that the warrant had collected.

  When a man came before the Court to argue in the face of the grieving widower’s tears that he was guilty of manslaughter, but not murder, for the death of the security guard during an attempted robbery by cause of temporary intoxication depriving him of the use of his reason, it rarely occurred to anyone to ask whether the security guard was dead.

  “There is a flaw in the argument, of course,” Ferinc pointed out, as Stanoczk frowned over the data. “I am starting from a supposition. So I may be entirely mistaken. But why is it worth so much to her to know exactly where Koscuisko is?”

  Stanoczk nodded, but Ferinc hadn’t asked a question in a form that Stanoczk could answer with a nod. “I think we need to prefer the question, Ferinc. And also. I have sent the Malcontent’s thula to Chelatring Side.”

  The two halves of that did not quite connect, but they came close enough together that Ferinc could draw the bridge between them. Andrej Koscuisko would arrive at Chelatring Side within five days’ time to be present as his father gave the Autocrat’s Proxy the wishes of the Koscuisko familial corporation as regarding the Selection of a new First Judge.

  The Second Judge was scheduled to announce her candidacy within the next ten days. Now that Verlaine had bought Koscuisko off, there was little doubt that Koscuisko would support the Second Judge.

  It was the Malcontent’s mission to maximize the concessions that the Combine could demand in return for its support, before Chilleau Judiciary realized that it would win its bid — and no longer needed to purchase the support of member worlds.

  “I could tell Noycannir that Koscuisko stays at home,” Ferinc suggested. “There’s no telling but that I might be marked for a convenient suicide myself, in the near future. I can feel no particular sense of obligation, with that in mind.”

  Grinning, Stanoczk shook his head. “There is no such word as suicide in the Malcontent’s vocabulary, Ferinc. No. We will fulfill our contract. We do not yet know that her motive is sinister. And . . . ”

  Ferinc waited. Stanoczk seemed to reconsider what he was about to say. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he continued.

  “And she is at Pesadie Training Command, and expected to remain there. Those deaths, they have all occurred after she had been physically present. But you will see to it that the thula is ready should we need to bring news with speed. And open up the Gallery for me, Ferinc. I want to take your Stildyne on a tour.”

  Ferinc paled. He couldn’t help himself. “What business does Stildyne have with the Malcontent?” Even as he asked it he knew the answers, both of them. He knew. And it wasn’t his to ask. Stanoczk put a hand to Ferinc’s shoulder kindly, but didn’t answer; Stanoczk changed the subject, instead.

  “You have spoken to the lady?” Yes, several days ago. He hadn’t seen Stanoczk since. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d had permission to see Marana, but not to create a disturbance in the garden and arouse the wrath of Andrej Koscuisko himself.

  “She knows where her duty lies. And accepts it.” Willingly, he could have added, except that he wasn’t sure how willing that acceptance was. Or how willing he might be that Marana could turn her back on him, and seek the embrace of her lord. “I’m going to miss Anton. Worse than poison.”

  Not the best choice of phrases, considering the several drug–accomplished deaths — murders, or suicides — that he had just been reviewing. But the point was made. Why did Stanoczk shake his head, as if in wonder?

  “What has happened to you, Ferinc?” Stanoczk asked. “You speak as a man with no feeling about the other man, in your life.”

  What did that mean? Koscuisko? “Did you talk to Koscuisko about me?”

  Now Stanoczk snorted in apparent disgust. “Egoist. Have I nothing better to discuss with my own cousin? As though he could be bothered about you, with other issues on his mind.”

  That was true. Koscuisko had given Stanoczk the Bench warrant on the same day that Ferinc had given Anton’s wheat–fish to Marana and fled. Perhaps Koscuisko had been distracted when he’d seen Stanoczk.

  “I only wondered. I am forbidden to see Anton until he’s had a chance to consult with you and ensure that you know what sort of a depraved creature I am. The sooner you and he have that discussion, the sooner I may seek for visitation rights.”

  Stanoczk gave him a shove that sent him staggering, but it was pure affection on Stanoczk’s part. Ferinc could smell it. “Visitation? And rig
hts! You are Malcontent, Ferinc, or at least we have pretended that you may someday be a Malcontent in fact, and you can speak such a word? You are impossible, Shut up. Get out. Go to Chelatring Side.”

  He’d forgotten.

  “Visitation privileges?” he asked meekly, with a grin he could not quite repress and a sharp eye out for Stanoczk’s boot. Stanoczk was quick with his feet, when he was provoked. “Opportunities, options, avenues, potential approaches — ”

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Stanoczk cried, almost helpless with laughter. “May all Saints witness what I have to do, to treat with such a donkey. Out. Get out. Go. And I will meet you.”

  Stanoczk was right. Something was changed. He had seen Andrej Koscuisko, and lived. Open up the Gallery, for Stildyne’s benefit?

  He had a lot of work to do. He needed to get his reply through to Noycannir at Pesadie, still pretending that she was at Chilleau. And then he needed to bestir himself and get into the mountains, to the Koscuisko’s stronghold at Chelatring Side on the breast of mighty Dasidar himself, to see to it that the thula — a Kospodar thula, one of only twenty–seven ever made, the fastest ship of its size or any larger under Jurisdiction — was ready to serve the Malcontent’s purpose. Whatever that would turn out to be.

  He had faced Andrej Koscuisko, and Koscuisko had been angry at him, and he had not fallen to his knees and begged for mercy. The peace of the Malcontent was his at last.

  He could even share his reconciler, without too much distress; and hope that Stildyne might find a share of that peace, in the Gallery.

  ###

  There was no signal at the door, and yet it opened.

  Admiral Brecinn looked up from her desk with surprised displeasure: who dared enter her office without signaling?

  More to the point, who could? The door had been secured —

  Mergau Noycannir. Standing there in the now–open doorway with a flat–file docket under one arm. Brecinn could not read Noycannir’s expression; the office was dim by choice and the light coming through from the corridor beyond put Noycannir’s face into shadow.

  “I beg your pardon, Admiral,” Noycannir said. She certainly sounded confused and apologetic. “They told me you weren’t in. I meant to leave a message.”

  An important message, no doubt, or else she wouldn’t have forced the door’s secures to leave it on Brecinn’s desk. Brecinn smoothed her involuntary grimace of irritation away with an effort. “Come in, Dame. Close the door.”

  Yes, she’d had her people say that she was unavailable — especially to Noycannir. Noycannir might ask questions that Brecinn wasn’t interested in having to avoid just at the moment. It had been five days since the Ragnarok had left for resupply at Laynock. Brecinn had told Laynock to expect the Ragnarok, and ensure that its resupply contained every surplussed ration and expired supply set they could get rid of.

  It was an opportunity to take the garbage away and shut ap Rhiannon up at the same time. The redirected stores might not be very exciting in terms of market value, but what was the sense in wasting an opportunity? She hadn’t heard back from Laynock. The Ragnarok was evidently dawdling.

  Noycannir approached the desk, but didn’t sit. Just as well — Brecinn hadn’t invited her. “I wanted to let you know,” Noycannir said. “I feel I should make a short visit to Chilleau Judiciary to see what’s become of that warrant. It must be caught up in processing somewhere. We haven’t received it, have we?”

  It was not surprising that the Bench warrant for those troops had not come back from Chilleau. She hadn’t requested one yet. She needed the official report from the preliminary assessment team; she hadn’t gotten it. The Ragnarok was not merely dawdling, but dragging its feet, and there hadn’t been a sound out of the assessment team for days. That was the only thing that stopped her from sending a corvette after them: if something was wrong, she would have heard something.

  Could ap Rhiannon have detected the leak, and plugged it?

  Possible, if improbable. For that to happen, ap Rhiannon would need the cooperation of Ship’s Primes, and Ship’s Primes were very unlikely to cooperate with any one mere junior officer, especially one as abrasive as ap Rhiannon. Besides which, even with the cooperation of Ship’s Primes, ap Rhiannon could not plug every leak.

  “No, we haven’t gotten our warrant approved. Thank you, Dame Noycannir.” The Ragnarok would be back soon; there was a natural limit to how long they could make a simple supply run last. She’d see to it that the report was suitably back–dated, and make a stink about Chilleau Judiciary’s loss of an important Fleet disciplinary document.

  It would remind Chilleau of Pesadie’s importance to the successful transition of the Bench to its new First Judge . . . because Chilleau could not afford to treat the investigation into the death of Cowil Brem, a Command Branch officer, with anything less than the utmost discretion.

  So it wouldn’t matter, in the end, that ap Rhiannon was dragging her feet on her report. Brecinn would have names and a warrant. Ap Rhiannon would have only the extra demerit marked against her name in the intangible register of Fleet and reasonable people everywhere. “I appreciate your assistance in this matter. When will you return?”

  Noycannir frowned slightly, as if in thought. “Well, that naturally depends on what the problem with the warrant might be, Admiral. It could take days. Shall we say — back in nine days, to get to work?”

  Brecinn stood up. “Well, good travel,” she said, extending her hand. “And good hunting. I hope I don’t need to tell you how important your effort is to our readiness as we stand by to support the Judge at Chilleau.” She wouldn’t say “Second Judge,” and it was too soon to say “First Judge.” Noycannir would take her point. “Nor how deeply we all appreciate your energetic pursuit of mutually productive goals.”

  Noycannir’s smile was a little cynical, but Brecinn didn’t mind. “Just as you say, Admiral. I’ll see you in nine days’ time or less, then.”

  Well, it would probably be longer than that, but Noycannir didn’t yet know that she would be staying to see the new request for a Bench warrant through channels. That was all right, too. Noycannir would be expecting to profit for her intervention. Let her work for her profit.

  And ap Rhiannon just dug herself deeper into her own oubliette day by day by day. There would be a reckoning. Admiral Brecinn was not a vengeful woman, but ap Rhiannon’s intransigence was an insult to Fleet itself. Fleet would settle with Jennet ap Rhiannon.

  And the Ragnarok would be transferred from a draw on resources to a source of tremendous profit, once the new First Judge cancelled the program and forgot all about the ship’s existence.

  ###

  “With Security as well, Dame?” courier ship captain Gonkalen asked, reading the documentation that Mergau had presented. “With respect, it seems a little odd to take Security to Chilleau Judiciary.”

  Gonkalen looked a little uncertain, but Mergau was sure of her documentation. She hadn’t spent all of the past several days creating her forged Record. She’d found time to ensure that she’d be able to get what she wanted when she was ready to make her move.

  “Can’t be too careful in uncertain times, Gonkalen, and Chilleau Judiciary’s own resources are probably fully deployed just at present. It’s a mark of thoughtfulness on the Admiral’s part, really. Is there a problem?”

  No. There was no problem, not unless this Gonkalen meant to argue with Fleet Admiral Sandri Brecinn about her disposition of her own resources. He passed the dispatch order back to her, and bowed. “Of course not, Dame. When do you wish to leave?”

  “How soon can we leave?” She knew the correct answer to that question; she had chosen this ship with care. A fast courier, with transport for a Security team, and a storage area that could be secured. That was for Koscuisko. He would board the courier as a Bench officer on detached assignment; he would arrive at Chilleau Judiciary her prisoner, her slave.

  Gonkalen shrugged. “At your convenience, Dame. There is a
Security team on standby at all times.”

  That was the right answer, fortunately for Gonkalen. Mergau nodded. “Here are my effects, Ship Captain. I’d like to leave immediately, if you please.”

  Once they’d cleared Pesadie, they would start to spin for vector transit — but not for Chilleau. Gonkalen would be surprised, but she’d be his superior officer by virtue of Admiral Brecinn’s delegated authority. It would be a secret mission. There would be no questions asked; or at least none answered.

  Azanry, in the Dolgorukij Combine, and Koscuisko would be at the old fortress known to the locals as Chelatring Side. She had the flight plan. She had the administrative clearance codes, for use when the time came. Her appearance would be sudden, unannounced, surprising. He didn’t have a chance.

  “As you direct, Dame Noycannir. Within the hour.”

  By the time it occurred to Brecinn to wonder where she was, she would be on her way to Chilleau Judiciary with a prize under lock and key that would render her position unassailable for the rest of her life.

  ###

  Silboomie Station experienced a fair level of activity during a given shift, but a visit from one of the big battlewagons in the cruiser–killer class was unusual enough to be an event. They’d had a day or two to anticipate it, as well; once the loading drills had started to pool into the supply set to be ready for the gaining ship’s barge, it had been clear that the size of the ship was to be extraordinary.

  That the ship was not only a cruiser–killer class warship, but an experimental model — a test bed for the still developmental and controversial black–hull technology — had only added excitement upon interest. Half the station was out upon the dispatch apron, high above the loading area, to watch the slow descent of the ship’s barge down to the loading level.