A Matter of Oaths

by Helen S. Wright

  Joshim leafed through the record. “He was with Avannya for six years,” he noted. “Could you afford to carry him?”

  “We couldn’t get rid of him.” Rafe shrugged. “He’s got influence somewhere. The Three tried twice to get him reassigned but he clung like a limpet. It was a surprise when he moved on voluntarily.” He scowled. “Two days before our last trip, into a cushy berth on a passenger carrier. I’m surprised he left it.”

  “Maybe he found somebody with more influence than he has,” Joshim suggested. “You recommend we don’t take him?”

  “Not if you can avoid it.” Rafe leaned forward and picked up his alcad. “If you can’t avoid it, you can always put him in the Commander’s team. That would encourage him to move on again.”

  “I heard that,” Rallya said from the doorway behind Joshim.

  “You were meant to, ma’am.” Rafe stood up with his alcad. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”

  “The apprentices’ training session?” Rallya asked.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You surprise me.” Rallya stepped out of Rafe’s way. “You should have come with us for that drink. Captain Sajan was full of useful information.”

  “Be careful, ma’am,” Rafe warned. “Much sharper and you’ll cut yourself.”

  “I’ll bear it in mind, son,” Rallya promised.

  Rafe turned in the doorway to stare at her. “I may not know whose son I am, ma’am, but I do know whose son I’m not.”

  The anger in his voice was plain and unexpected; until that moment Joshim had thought this was just another of the mock battles that gave the web-room such pleasure. Rallya too was taken aback; she paused for a fraction of a second before responding.

  “I’ll bear that in mind too, Rafe.”

  He turned on his heel and left. Rallya watched him leave, then gave a little nod as if she had learned something worth knowing. “Who am I going to encourage to leave?” she asked.

  “What in hell was that about?” Joshim demanded. Emperors, if Rallya had not backed down…

  “Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”

  “A new junior. Elanis. Used to be on Avannya.” He held out the record to her. “Arriving this afternoon.”

  “Another ghost from Rafe’s past,” Rallya mused. “Must be his day for them.”

  “Another?”

  “There was a Captain at the conference who knew his father. Apparently the likeness is startling.” She chuckled. “Yes, I know. I shouldn’t have pushed him so hard. But the results were interesting, weren’t they?”

  You old fraud. You were as surprised as I was, Joshim accused her silently. “It would have been even more interesting if he’d hit you,” he growled.

  “Shall I call him back? You can hold his tunic.” Rallya took the record that Joshim was still holding and dropped it on the table. “What’s wrong with him? Besides the fact that Rafe doesn’t like him?”

  Joshim made himself swallow his first answer. Rallya had never made him lose his temper and she would not do so now. “He’s lazy. And he relies on influence instead of ability,” he said levelly.

  “Aristo?” Rallya demanded.

  “Look for yourself.” Joshim stood up. “Rafe will be working with me for the rest of the day.”

  “To protect him from me?” Rallya asked in amusement.

  “To protect you from him,” Joshim flung back, and walked out leaving Rallya still looking for a response.

  * * *

  Rafe sat on the rim of his web-position, listening to Churi and Magred talking in the changing-room about him. They had already agreed that he was a darling in the web-room but a stickler in the web; now they were discussing whose lover he would become and when. Magred’s opinion was that it had already happened, with Joshim, and Churi favoured the Commander, at some indeterminate point in the future. Very indeterminate and far future, Rafe felt like telling him; he contented himself with a yelled reminder that the Webmaster would be arriving soon. There was a sudden silence, followed shortly afterwards by the fully clothed emergence of two very junior juniors wondering how much, if anything, he had overheard. He smiled at them, sphinx-like, and let them go still wondering.

  The shub beneath his feet was warm and inviting. He wished he could slip back in, to wait for Joshim and Elanis, but it would be a bad example to set: apparently webbing alone. He swung around through ninety degrees and stretched out along the edge of the web, closing his eyes and relying on his ears to warn him of somebody coming up the riser.

  Yuellin Lord Buhklir. The name woke no echo, nor did he expect it to; if it had, he would have distrusted it as wishful thinking. His father, or brother, or merely somebody who shared his particular genetic mix: it did not matter. As Rafell, he had no connection with the man and he never would. If some belly-kick of fate took him back into the New Empire, he would not have any memory of the encounter with Sajan; he would be identity-wiped again. Insurance against an Oath-breaker deliberately recrossing the Disputed Zone. Effective insurance.

  He sighed, wondering what the Commander had learned from Sajan, and when he would find out. Not about the Outsiders: the safety of Bhattya might depend on his, or somebody else’s, correct interpretation of that information; Rallya was too good a Commander not to know that. But anything she had learned about Buhklir, she would keep to herself until she found a use for it, and that use would be against Rafe. Emperors knew how she had amused herself before he had joined Bhattya. Was there a forty-year-long succession of webbers with whom she had played like a cat with small prey, or was he unique, because she thought he was uniquely vulnerable?

  He had given her reason to question that earlier, and it was too late to doubt the wisdom or otherwise of that moment of anger. He smiled, briefly amused that she might think he had been upset by what Sajan had revealed, angered by her method rather than her intent. She would learn eventually. I will not lie down to be walked over, he promised her silently. Because others saw fit to play god with my life, that does not give you the right. I am not your toy, nor a pawn to prove your power. Push me too hard and it will become very clear. Did you think I was angry today? You have never seen me angry, Commander.

  He took a deep breath. In ten years he had never lost his temper any further than he had with Rallya, and that only rarely. How then did he know that he could, and that it was something for others to fear? Nothing but skills and impersonal knowledge survived identity-wipe; it could not be personal memory that told him. More wishful thinking? Or a near-human race-memory? He shrugged. Another thing he would never know, and he could not fret over every one of those, or even over any of them. If he did, he would spend his life in a bottle of jack.

  A whisper of air blowing across his damp skin told him the riser was in use. He sat up as Joshim stepped out, smiling a greeting which Rafe returned.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.” Joshim moved aside for Elanis. “You two know each other.”

  “Yes, it’s a reunion.” Elanis looked around avidly. “I’m impressed. It makes Avannya look tiny, doesn’t it, Rafe?” he commented.

  “The changing room is through here.” Joshim steered him in the right direction and out of sight. Rafe got to his feet and moved to prepare one of the dry-web positions; Joshim would want a calibration sequence first. He had just finished when Elanis reappeared.

  “The Webmaster said you’re to do a calibration sequence,” the junior announced.

  “The Webmaster asked if you’d do a calibration sequence, please,” Joshim called out.

  Elanis glared as he removed his web-bands. “Are you a real First this time, or is it still brevet?” he asked more quietly.

  “Does it make a difference?” Rafe asked mildly. “And whichever it is, you still ought to check those contacts before you use them.”

  “I assumed you had.” He made a perfunctory check. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”

  “That’s reassuring to know.” You cannot like everyone you web
with, Rafe told himself strictly, starting the calibration sequence. You only need to trust them. It was unfortunate that Elanis did not inspire trust either.

  Elanis’ performance in the web had not improved in the near-year since Rafe had last worked with him. It took Joshim less than an hour to reach an assessment of his abilities, and only five minutes to tell it to him afterwards. Rafe lingered out of hearing until Joshim had finished, and Elanis had dressed hastily and departed. He had enough experience of Elanis’ character to know that he would blame Rafe for Joshim’ opinion, just as he had blamed Rafe for every unfavourable opinion of him since Rafe had been promoted into the Third’s berth that Elanis had expected to get; Rafe had no intention of being the target for his immediate spite.

  The Webmaster was taking a leisurely shower when Rafe finally went through to the shower-room.

  “Was he the Webmaster’s lover on Avannya?” he asked, moving aside for Rafe.

  “No.” Rafe grinned maliciously. “Although he wanted to be, for the privileges he thought it would get him. He wasn’t anybody’s lover, not for very long. Things he learned across the pillow were all around the web-room the following day.”

  “You speak from experience?”

  “No. Observation. That’s another of the things he has against me.”

  Joshim laughed. “I suspect he’s planning his way into my bed. Any advice on how to avoid it?”

  Rafe took the tie out of his hair and shook the curls down. “I suspect he’d be lucky to make it through the cabin door.”

  “True. Although it isn’t so difficult for the right person.”

  Rafe stepped into the spray to give himself time to think. There had been enough warning of this in the speculative looks that Joshim had been giving him since he joined the ship. He ought to have a response prepared; what he had was a hollowness between heart and groin, both of which were responding without words. He was not a virgin; there had been nights of curiosity and comfort with other webbers, but always single nights, sharing nothing except the hours of pleasure. There had never been any commitment, no exchange of pasts and promise of futures, because Rafe had no past that he dared to offer. But with Joshim, who already knew? The prospect unexpectedly frightened him.

  “Is this such a surprise, Rafe?” Joshim set his hands lightly on Rafe’s shoulders and bent forward to kiss him. Rafe had a moment of déjà vu that shook him as much as his physical reaction—green eyes beneath black hair, parted lips bending to kiss him. He trembled. Joshim released him at once and stepped back.

  “Sorry, Rafe. I thought…”

  Rafe took his hands and pulled him back under the spray, standing on tiptoe with his hands on Joshim’s hips to reach his mouth. They kissed, broke apart for breath and kissed again as fiercely. Joshim called a halt at last, holding Rafe firmly at arm’s length with one hand and switching off the spray with the other.

  “Dry, dressed, and down to my cabin? As Webmaster, I have to set a good example, and what will happen in this shower if we don’t leave it soon is not something I want the juniors to emulate

  * * *

  Rafe was a playful lover, his lips laughing as often as kissing and in as many ways, but now he was lying beside Joshim in the prolonged, easy silence that had followed their first loving, his face against Joshim’s shoulder, one leg bent over Joshim’s thigh. Joshim traced a mischievous finger along his back. Rafe sighed in unabashed pleasure and turned his head just enough to nip the lobe of Joshim’s ear. Joshim moved without haste until he could see Rafe’s face and stroke the fine sheen of silky grey hair on his belly that merged into the diamond of brown curls at his groin. Rafe gasped and rolled onto his back, reaching urgently for Joshim. Joshim held his wrists gently and ran his tongue up the sensitive under-surface of each arm before releasing them and setting his tongue to trace descending circles through the grey down of Rafe’s belly. Rafe moaned in eager anticipation and Joshim paused to look up at his face.

  “Did you say something?” he teased.

  Rafe said something that showed scant respect for Joshim’s rank. Joshim tutted and settled himself lower between Rafe’s thighs. Playful and delightfully noisy, he amended as Rafe answered to his lips and tongue. The final yell would have woken the whole ship were it not for the soundproofing of the cabins.

  He lay with his head on Rafe’s thighs afterwards, listening to his breathing move into the even cadence of sleep. Rafe had a rare gift for knowing when words were needed, and when silence was right; he was a comfortable person to be silent with, and if he fell asleep without words, it was because he trusted Joshim to know what might have been said.

  He had a gift too for enjoying himself, for drawing every drop of pleasure out of a moment before moving to the next. Joshim smiled at the memory. There had been no haste when they closed the cabin door behind them. A slow undressing, each savouring the initial revelation of the other’s body outside the discipline of the web, exploring with the eyes before they touched. A gentle embrace, kissing with none of their earlier urgency, moving to the bed, searching for the words and the caresses that brought response, building a language to be shared between them: “This?” “Yes.” “And this?” “Oh, please, yes!”

  Joshim slipped off the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeper, and said his evening prayers in front of the Arura in the niche behind his desk. Late, but then they often were, and he could not believe in a deity who required stopwatch accuracy, any more than he really believed in a deity who would hear his prayers. Prayer was a reaffirmation of belief; the Arura was a visible symbol of that belief; a deity, or thousands of them, were only other symbols, necessary because his mind was too limited to comprehend the reality behind them. How many reincarnations would it take before he progressed beyond the need for those particular symbols? He stroked the curves of the Arura, thinking that he would keep one even when he no longer needed it, amused by his sudden, unusual introspection. There is a reason for every question, but not necessarily an answer, he reminded himself as he lay down beside Rafe to sleep.

  * * *

  A face. A succession of faces, or were they all the same face? They flashed in and out of focus, mouthing snatches of speech that were sounds, not words. Rafe tried desperately to cling to one of them, any one of them, to hear what was said, to see the face clearly. The effort drove the dream away and he was lying in the dark with nothing left.

  A dim light came on, making him blink, and there was a face looking down on him. He struggled to put a name to it, knowing that he knew one, not knowing what it was. He squeezed his eyes shut and swore in frustration.

  “Rafe?”

  The voice triggered memory. Joshim. Rafe opened his eyes again and tried his own voice. “Sorry. Nightmare.” He sat up and rested his chin on his knees. “Did I wake you?”

  “Yes.” It was not a complaint. Joshim put his arm across Rafe’s shoulders and squeezed briefly. “Tell me?”

  Rafe shrugged. “I wish I could. There isn’t anything to tell. Nothing I can remember,” he added sardonically.

  “Your father?” Joshim guessed.

  “The Commander told you?”

  “She mentioned it.”

  “There’s no proof that he is my father. Or anything else to me. And if you’d asked me before I went to sleep, I would have said it didn’t bother me at all.” Rafe smiled with difficulty. “Obviously, I would have been wrong. Something must have triggered that nightmare.”

  “How often do you have them?”

  “Not often, now.” Rafe sighed. “Immediately after I was wiped, they came every night. Now, it’s once or twice a year, with the occasional bad patch.” He rubbed his cheek against the hand on his shoulder. “You’re honoured. You’re only the second person who’s ever been woken by one.”

  “Oh? What sort of company am I in?”

  “One of Avannya’s juniors. She was in the web when we hit the EMP-mine.”

  “I’m sorry. Was she special to you?”

  “We only spent
the one night together. She was a nice kid, though.” Rafe shook his head in remembered grief. “About Churi’s age, and as plump. Working her way through every cabin in the ship, the way they do when they’ve just got their webs. Making up for lost time as an apprentice and eager to find out about the fringe benefits of their new nervous system. Hell, the way I probably behaved when I first got my web.”

  “Churi been in your bed yet?” Joshim teased deliberately.

  “No.” Rafe accepted the diversion gratefully, determined to enlarge on it. “He thinks the Commander is in possession, or will be soon. Magred has better powers of observation. She was backing you.” He turned to face Joshim completely, slipping one arm around his waist and tracing the linked circles of the tattoo on his left breast with the fingers of the other hand. “Ready to go back to sleep?”

  “You have another idea?”

  Rafe grinned mischievously and straddled Joshim. “I do,” he promised deep in his throat. “Lie there and I’ll show you.”

  Conversation at the office of

  Councillor Danriya Lady Carher

  “The agent is in place, with explicit instructions to cover every contingency. If all goes well, the problem will be solved by the end of the year.”

  “You said that last year too.”

  “This time the matter will be handled by the agent in person. He is in no doubt about the consequences of another failure.”

  227/5043

  ARAMAS ZONE, OLD EMPIRE

  Rallya dropped into the seat that Elanis had just vacated in front of the web-monitor, perfectly aware that he had only risen to collect a cup of alcad. The monitor showed no unusual activity, just two web-teams in the last hour of another uneventful shift. Vidar was nominally in the key-position, with Rafe as second, but they had switched roles for this shift. Good practice for both teams, and halfway to the convoy’s destination without incident, everybody needed a little variety to keep them sharp.

  The small screen to one side of the web-monitor showed a mass-scan of the convoy, the cargoships as fat, lumbering blips and the patrolships as smaller blips tied to the speed of the cargoships by invisible chains. The cargoships were complacent; Noromi spent his whole time exhorting them to make better speed, without results. Having passed safely through the system’s major jump point, the obvious place for an Outsider attack, the cargoship Threes had given a collective sigh of relief and dropped their speed, to settle happily around the optimum of their mass-speed cost curves for the run down to the settlements on the inner planets.