The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  There had been a Kospodar thula in the shipyards where she had landed. The Arakcheyek shipyards had built them on Bench contract. How could there be Kospodar thulas in private hands? In Koscuisko’s hands? Such wealth could not have been gained legally. She would have to call for an investigation. Later. Once she had become Queen of the Bench.

  The great hall was the size of a maintenance hangar in stone, whose floors were carpeted with knotted wool, lighted by great windows and large fixtures in the ceiling; and it was full of people — a small crowd at the far end, people in chairs, more people standing. One person stood up as her escort neared.

  The head Security man bowed. “Special envoy from Chilleau Judiciary,” the man said. He didn’t sound very respectful, to Mergau; he sounded in fact as though he didn’t exactly believe her. He should know better, Mergau told herself. He would in time. She would see to it, but for now she was so close to her prize that she could almost taste the fear and despair that she would have from Koscuisko. Soon. Very soon.

  The man who had risen to his feet was looking at her with an amused expression on his face. The chair beside him had emptied. “I’m not expecting any such honor,” he said. “Who is this person?”

  It was time to take control of this. Mergau stepped forward. “I am Clerk of Court at Chilleau Judiciary.” Who was he to ask? “I hold the Writ in whose support the Writ of the Koscuisko prince is to be annexed, on direction.”

  The tall man shook his head. “I am the Koscuisko prince,” he said; there was a note of mild amusement in his voice that Mergau found hateful. “I hold no such Writ. You seek my son, Dame Noycannir.” Gesturing with his hand, he waited; and Andrej Koscuisko stepped forward from behind him.

  Andrej Koscuisko. In his shirtsleeves, and looking at her with wary confusion. How she hated him. How she had waited for this moment.

  “This man.” She pointed. “You. Andrej Koscuisko. You are required to come to Chilleau Judiciary to pursue the investigation into the death of your Captain and the subsequent discovery of mutinous conspiracy, on board of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok. Under the provisions of Bench disciplinary codes, your Writ is annexed for the duration of the investigation. I should like to leave immediately, if you please. There is not a moment to waste.”

  Koscuisko looked confused. But he was alone; he had no choice. “I don’t know that the Captain is dead,” he said, but it was a weak attempt. He might think that he was challenging her, standing there in the middle of a target range with his arms folded. But he could not deny her evidence. “Still less that there is any such mutiny, Dame. If Chilleau Judiciary truly means to annex my Writ, I am very much surprised.”

  Whether he were surprised or not was not material. He would learn soon enough not to take such a tone with her if he did not wish to suffer the consequences.

  Mergau advanced on Koscuisko where he stood, past Koscuisko’s father, to confront him face–to–face. There were security troops at this house, but she had brought Fleet resources with her, and Koscuisko would have no choice but to go with her once she had made her case.

  Where were Koscuisko’s own Security, the Security he would have brought with him from the Ragnarok, his Security slaves? She wanted those people. She wanted to make Koscuisko kill them one by one, in fearful agony; and that would be the start of Koscuisko’s punishment. But just the start. They were bond–involuntary; they could not disobey a direct legal order. Koscuisko would be forced to give the order. They would even subdue Koscuisko himself if she said the word.

  “You force me to a disagreeable display.” She meant there to be no chance of misunderstanding. They would all see. Koscuisko would be left entirely without recourse. “Since you insist. Here is the Record. You of all people understand the implications of this evidence.”

  Putting the Record down on the empty seat of the chair that Koscuisko’s father had vacated, she set the Record to scroll through her evidence. The space between the chair and the far wall had been cleared; Koscuisko had apparently been showing off his combat skills of one sort or another. The images that the Record projected were clear and sharply focused in the air.

  Murat Spodinne. Taller Archops, Lek Kerenko.

  Smish Smath. Current assignment Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, skill class code mission engineer Wolnadi prime. Suspicion of conspiracy to commit illegal and insurrectionary acts. Confession as accused and execution in due form.

  The Record broadcast the official language of confession and condemnation, but Koscuisko was not listening. “Explain to me, Noycannir,” Koscuisko said. “How can Verlaine have sent you to bring me back to Chilleau Judiciary for whatever purpose. Having previously sent Specialist Ivers to me with fully executed documents for relief of Writ?”

  Taller Archops. Skill class code weaponer Wolnadi four, current assignment Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder of senior Command Branch officer, insurrectionary assassination in the first tier. Confession as accused and execution in due form.

  Noycannir stared. What was Koscuisko talking about? Relief of Writ? Verlaine would never do that. Verlaine hated Koscuisko as much as she did; Koscuisko had disdained and humiliated Verlaine personally and professionally before Fleet and the public alike, at Port Burkhayden. And if anyone had heard hints of a relief of Writ, someone would have told her about it. There would have been gossip.

  “You confuse me, Koscuisko, and I suspect you seek to evade your sworn duty. No matter. We will clear it up soon enough once we arrive at Chilleau Judiciary. I trust your kit is packed. Be so good as to summon your Security and we can be on our way.”

  Murat Spodinne. Confession denied at the Eighth Level, obtained at the Ninth Level under the provisions of emergency legal code subsection suspicion of mutiny. Conspiracy to commit murder and mutinous intent. Conspiracy to undermine the Judicial order. Confession as accused and execution in due form.

  The pre–interrogation pictures, the identity validation shots, were focused a few eighth’s distance from the chair, displayed in a format large enough for the assembled crowd to see them. Mergau was taking no chances.

  But Koscuisko was not moving.

  “Tell her that,” Koscuisko said, and pointed. Mergau’s vision blurred with fury: Bench specialist Jils Ivers. That bitch. Ivers had never liked her; she would say anything Koscuisko wanted her to, just to discountenance Mergau. “Tell her that the documents she carries are illusory. I’m waiting.”

  “No, I’m waiting, Koscuisko.” She didn’t care what any eight Bench specialists said. Bench specialists supported the Bench. They would have to defer to her, now, because she had the power to shake the entire Jurisdiction to its foundation, and she would. “Aren’t you listening? You know these people, How can you pretend to deny the evidence of your own senses?”

  Mergau could destroy it all with a single word: forgery. Bench specialists weren’t stupid. If they wanted to save their skins and protect their privileges, they would learn quickly enough to take their orders from her.

  Lek Kerenko. Skill class code primary helm navigator Wolnadi three, current assignment Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder and mutiny by indirection, failure to refer incriminating evidence to proper authorities. Expiration without confession of a Bond.

  Koscuisko started to speak, but he was forestalled.

  “I know that person.” It was a young woman’s voice. Mergau turned her head, startled, shocked; there was a young woman standing beside Koscuisko’s father, and she was pointing. “We saw him at dinner last night, very handsome. He’s Sarvaw.”

  “The Serene Proximity is right,” Koscuisko said, pointing at the image displayed large behind him, holding out one hand with an expansive and contemptuous gesture. “Lek isn’t dead. And hasn’t confessed any such thing, because it isn’t true. Nor are Smish or Murat or Taller. Noycannir. What have you done?”

  How could he ask such a thing?

  Was he so stupid that he c
ould not understand that she, and she alone, had dared to forge the Record?

  Then a Security troop stepped out of the crowd that was gathered there watching, and bowed; and the impact of what Koscuisko had said hit home. The Malcontent had lied to her. Koscuisko had switched Security teams.

  She’d forged the Record for nothing: these people were alive. They were worse than alive. They were here. They were visibly present for everybody to see, so everybody knew. After everything that she had done. Everybody knew that this was not a true Record. Andrej Koscuisko would not come with her to Chilleau Judiciary.

  “Mister Stildyne,” Koscuisko said. “Secure this supposed Record, if you please. House–master Jepson. If you would assist my people in taking Dame Noycannir into custody — ”

  With a scream of frustrated rage that had been building for nine years Mergau drew her glasknife and sprang at him, hearing his cry of startled agony as the knife went home and shattered in his body. Flooding the wound with neurotoxin. Incapacitating him — if not killing him outright — and she had another glasknife.

  She was a dead woman here and now.

  Yet if she could not have the vengeance that she sought she could still take Koscuisko down to death with her, and die happy at last.

  ###

  Listening in horror to the insane claims that Noycannir made, Andrej Koscuisko clutched at whispered voices in the wind to find an anchor and hold fast. If he was swept away he would be lost.

  Evidence of mutiny on board of the Ragnarok, and he had seen no such evidence, but it was all too likely to be true. The ship had been treated shabbily by Fleet all along, but it had gotten worse with Lowden gone. There could be mutiny, and it was his duty to root it out and punish it.

  These were his people. He couldn’t quite grasp what it was that was wrong with the evidence that he was hearing, but he knew that those were his people, and it was up to him to execute the vengeance of the Bench. Tenth Level Command Termination. His own people.

  People to whom he owed his life, if not his soul. He couldn’t think. He took hold of the first thing that occurred to him and threw it at Noycannir as hard as he could manage to push her away and shut her up.

  “How can Verlaine have sent you to bring me back to Chilleau Judiciary, having previously sent fully executed documents for relief of Writ?”

  He could no longer be made to punish people, any people, let alone the Ragnarok’s crew. He was separated from the crew of the Ragnarok by Judicial decree. Jils Ivers had the documents. They had not been transmitted, no, but she had them and they were fully executed. But did that still mean that his people were to be tortured, even if he was not to be the person who did it?

  How could he bear to let any ordinary butcher mutilate the bodies of people to whom he owed so much in love and duty and good lordship?

  Noycannir simply sneered. “We will clear it up soon enough once we arrive at Chilleau Judiciary. Be so kind as to summon your Security and we can be on our way.”

  Andrej’s panic deepened. Could it have been some kind of a joke on Verlaine’s part, after all? No. It could not have been a joke. Verlaine had sent Jils Ivers. Not even the First Secretary would dare deploy a Bench specialist on a mission of petty vengeance, just to make a spiteful joke. Raising his hand to point at Ivers in the crowd, Andrej struggled to keep his voice level; if he should show Noycannir the slightest trace of weakness he was lost, he was certain of it.

  “Tell her that.” He could hardly choke out the words; because it could be true, it could be a plot for revenge. It was even possible that Ivers was in on the scheme. “Tell her that the documents she carries are illusory. I’m waiting.”

  No. It could not be possible. Not a Bench specialist. If a Bench specialist was in on a plot on Verlaine’s part to hold out false hope of escape and freedom — only to take it all away at the last minute — then there was truly no justice left under Jurisdiction; and the entire galaxy was damned.

  “No, I’m waiting. How can you deny the evidence of your own senses?” And yet Ivers did not speak. Was she as stunned by the enormity of Verlaine’s betrayal as he was? Or — was it possible —

  “I know that person,” Zsuzsa said, and her clear voice cut through a fog in Andrej’s mind. “He’s Sarvaw.”

  What?

  Noycannir’s evidence. It was the crew of the Wolnadi that had been involved in the training accident, yes. Jennet ap Rhiannon had sent these people home with him to keep them from the Bench. The crew on Record were here, alive and well.

  “The Serene Proximity is right.” There was more wrong here than any possible joke on Verlaine’s part. “Lek isn’t dead. Nor are Smish or Murat or Taller. Noycannir. What have you done?”

  She had brought a Record with her, or at least it looked like a Record to Andrej, and he should know. It carried the counterseals, it showed the codes, it seemed genuine. But if the Record were genuine — then Noycannir had forged evidence.

  The rule of Law depended upon the sanctity of evidence.

  Oh, this was astounding treachery, and if Chilleau Judiciary were behind it, Chilleau Judiciary had to be destroyed. But if it was just one mad woman, it had to be exposed without mercy and without delay.

  Andrej decided. “Mister Stildyne.” This was far beyond any personal considerations; he had to take this Record into custody, and place it in evidence. “Secure the Record, if you please. House–master Jepson. If you would assist my people — ”

  He never finished his thought.

  He had not been looking at Noycannir; it was a mistake. She was on him like the weight of blind remorse, she stabbed him with a knife that seemed to explode within his flesh into a fireball of anguish. Below his right shoulder, toward his side, missing the upper lobe of his lung if he was lucky, why did it hurt so much?

  He was going to die. The sharp blow that his head took when he hit the ground settled his wits back into his consciousness, somehow, and Andrej knew that he had moments at best.

  Her attack had taken them all by surprise. The room was full of people. Stildyne had been at the back of the crowd with Security, and prudently so; Stildyne would have moved Andrej’s Security to the back of the room the moment he had realized that Noycannir had brought Fleet Security resources, just in case those troops had come to arrest Andrej’s team. House security was on the other side of his father and his sister Zsuzsa. It would take seconds for any of them to intervene. He did not have seconds to spare.

  Neurotoxin. The knife had carried veniwerk poison. The tissue of his body would start to dissolve within moments. Andrej rolled away from Noycannir, onto his left side, avoiding the pressure on his wounded side by instinct — but the move crippled him, because he had only the one good arm with which to defend himself, and now he was lying on top of it.

  She swung at him savagely with another knife in her hand, and as Andrej ducked away from the threat he wondered how she had got them past the weapons scan. Glass knife. They would want to revise their search protocols. He rolled away from her and she rolled after him.

  Andrej pulled away across the floor as best he could with one half of his body searing with agonizing pain, digging his left elbow against the floor for traction, straining with his neck bent and his head down. Trying to get away. Hoping against hope to win enough time to let his people react, and save him, but it all happened so quickly, and he knew it was only the adrenaline surge of pain and terror that made it seem as long to him.

  He heard a sound. Noycannir crouched over him with her weapon raised to strike. The sound had been steel hitting stone. Emandisan steel, he knew it by the ringing of it, the stone of the floor. The mother–knife had slipped its catch and loosed itself and fallen. How could that have happened? He had no time to wonder about it.

  The knife had fallen from the gaping neck of his blouse and followed the line of his arm down onto the floor at his elbow. He swept it into his hand with an awkward scraping grab of desperation and sank it into Noycannir’s chest as deeply as he could m
anage, twisting away from her glasknife — which shattered against the stone floor and spread its poison. Rolling over and on top of Noycannir’s body, using his own weight to press the blade home because he had no strength left with which to stab.

  The hilt of the knife was hot now in his hand, and slippery. It seemed to resonate. Was it the sound of his own screaming? Was he maybe dead?

  Not dead enough.

  The rest of the world had caught up with him at last, but it was too late. They took him by the shoulders to move him from where he lay, and Andrej shrieked in agony, and passed out.

  ###

  Coming to himself again after some unknown while Andrej opened his eyes, which declined to focus. He couldn’t raise his head to shield his eyes from the bright lights that surrounded him; someone held a big broken gnarl–knuckled hand up carefully between him and the direct glare of the floodlights, and Andrej recognized Stildyne.

  After a moment Andrej raised his left hand — inefficiently, but a man could only do as much as he could do — and gestured for Stildyne to come down to him. He wasn’t quite sure where he was, on a gurney or on the floor, but he knew by the dazed fog in his mind that he was doped to the lips before and the dorsal fins behind, and he could guess that they were flushing the wound in which Noycannir’s glasknife had shattered for all they were worth.

  “Record,” Andrej croaked. It didn’t come out very promisingly, but this was Stildyne. Stildyne was accustomed to making sense out of the muttered and incoherent ravings of drunken Dolgorukij — how different could this be?

  Stildyne dripped a little stream of fluid into Andrej’s mouth and waited. Andrej tried again. “Record.”

  This time it came out almost normally. Stildyne nodded solemnly, with what looked like a smile of grim amusement on his face — though it was a little difficult to tell, against the brilliant halo of the emergency lights behind Stildyne’s head.