The shuttle bus from Namport arrived on humming nullgravs, and the latest group of spacers needing groundside medical attention came off. Llannat threw her bags into the luggage compartment and climbed onto the bus. The morning was wet and cloudy, but not at the moment raining; she looked out at the low grey sky and the heavy green-and-brown landscape, and wondered if Master Ransome was behind this latest development.
It doesn’t feel like his work, though … the general-assignment desk and the high-pri orders. That reads a lot more like the Space Force trying to be subtle about something.
Halfway to Namport the rain started again, streaking the bus windows. By the time she reached the Space Force shuttle field, the rain had become a solid downpour—an appropriate good-bye to the planet, she decided, and one unlikely to foster a state of false nostalgia.
Llannat ignored the rain, since only newcomers tried to keep dry, and put her large bag onto the cargo handler for RSF Istrafel. She kept hold of the folder and the carrybag, and went into the main building to wait for a shuttle to orbit. By midmorning one was announced, and before the sun had made its meridian passage she was aboard Istrafel and heading for hyper.
Halfway across the Republic, on Kiin-Aloq in the Ontimi sector, Captain Natanel Tyche, SFPI, was also in receipt of a new set of orders. Unlike some of the orders Tyche had gotten in the course of his career, these proved upon inspection to be quite simple.
He was to take an entire company of planetary infantry, fully armed with a war loadout, and make contact with RSF Selsyn-bilai, currently in hyper and bound for the Infabede sector. Once aboard the Selsyn, he was to take custody—discreetly!—of Warrant Officer Gamelan Bandur and Clerk/Comptech First Class Ennys Pardu, then contact Space Force Headquarters on Galcen for further instructions.
Tyche wondered what Gamelan Bandur and Ennys Pardu had done. Can’t be anything obvious, he thought. Galcen wouldn’t get involved in local stuff. Espionage, maybe—but why send a whole combat company just to make an arrest?
He shook his head, realizing that he might not ever know the answer to his questions. In terms of clearance and access he would outrank even the commanding officer of the Selsyn. In practical terms, however, that rank meant nothing—not when the entire evolution was classified at such a rarefield level.
That’s what you get for deciding on the diplomatic/ military career path, he told himself. It’s “go there” and “do that” and never hear the whole story on anything.
He walked on down to the Infantry barracks to confer with the commander there. The commander was doing paperwork in his office when Tyche knocked on the open door and strolled in.
“Hello, Ehlin.”
“’Lo, Tyche.” The Infantry commander regarded him warily. “What brings you here?”
The two men knew each other, but without being more than casual acquaintances. They saw one another in the officers’ club from time to time, and they at least nominally served in the same outfit—Tyche wore the uniform of the Republic’s Planetary Infantry when he wore a uniform at all. But since he was usually seen in mufti, and since he tended to be missing for weeks at a time and never talked in the club about anything more controversial than sports and gardening, the rumor on base was that he was in Active Measures.
“I’ve got an exercise coming up,” Tyche said to Ehlin, “and I’m going to need a company of your best. Who’s up?”
“Third of the Seventh is on deck.”
“I’ll take them. Can you add a heavy-weapons platoon, suitable for shipboard actions?”
Ehlin looked startled and a little curious. “Shipboard actions … what are you planning?”
“Sorry,” Tyche said. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Just thought I’d ask,” said Ehlin, without surprise. “I suppose you can’t tell me where or for how long either?”
“That’s right. This is going to be a live-fire exercise, though, so have ’em fully armed, armored, and charged.”
“Right.”
“Thanks.” Tyche passed over a sheet of printout flimsy. “Here’s a copy of my authorization, just so you can keep your files up to date.”
They saluted, and Tyche left. The moment he was gone, the barracks commander punched his comm set. “Have Master Sergeant Onekke step into my office, please.”
While Ehlin was waiting, he punched the order number from the authorization into his desk comp to check on its reality with central files. He wasn’t surprised to see that the orders giving a reinforced company to Captain Natanel Tyche for an undetermined period were entirely genuine.
Ari Rosselin-Metadi had bought the writing paper and the antique pen while he was waiting on Mandeyn for RSF Fezrisond to make orbit. Given his sister’s adventures in Embrig’s port quarter, he’d stayed away from the bars and gaming houses along the Strip, and had gone decorously shopping for stationery instead. After all, he’d promised Llannat that he would keep in touch, and courtesy demanded something more private than a voice chip and less ephemeral than a sheet of printout flimsy.
He didn’t have a chance to use the writing materials for some time. The Fezrisond came out of hyper in Mandeyn nearspace not long after he’d made the purchase, and he’d had to scramble to get back to the port in time to claim a seat on one of the shuttles to orbit. After that, he’d been busy reporting in and relieving the former head of the Fezzy’s medical department—who was planning, or so she said, to retire to the countryside and take up spider farming—and generally settling into his new position of responsibility.
There were adjustments, of course, he wrote to Llannat in the Maraghite script he’d learned during his fostering. On both sides. And for a while I was getting up early and staying up late and having nightmares about filing systems and emergency response times in between. But things are calming down, finally, and I have a few minutes to myself once in a while.
He looked up at the overhead in his quarters and wondered what he should write next. Privacy was always a consideration; bulk mail was harder to tamper with in some ways than voice chips or compressed-text, but easier in others. And while Maraghite script was enough to keep out casual eavesdroppers, it wouldn’t deter anybody who was serious about learning what the oldest of the Commanding General’s offspring had to say.
The Fezzy’s a good ship, he wrote after some thought. Not as relaxed a junior officers’ wardroom here as we used to have back on Nammerin, though. It probably has something to do with RSF Fezrisond being Admiral Vallant’s flagship. That might keep things from getting too casual.
The chronometer-alarm in his desk comp beeped at him, and he put the letter aside unfinished. Time now to get into his dress uniform, instead of his working coverall, and report to the admiral’s office for his long-delayed official welcome-aboard interview with the man in charge of the Infabede sector.
Fortunately for the fit and symmetry of Ari’s uniform, the heavy blaster and its holster now reposed in the Fezzy’s weapons locker. On reporting aboard, he’d been told that the Form 8845 (“officer’s personal weapons, permission to carry”) in his permanent file was superseded by the admiral’s standing order prohibiting officers from carrying sidearms.
Ari had been glad enough to hand over a weapon that tended to make him even more conspicuous than his size alone usually did. He’d followed the standing order without demurral, while reflecting with some inner amusement that it was a good thing his baby sister had never shown much enthusiasm for the Space Force. Beka carried a blaster on her hip and a dagger up her sleeve and her ship had guns, and she would probably start a small war rather than give up any one of them.
The interview with Admiral Vallant took place in the admiral’s office, a locked room at the end of a maze of corridors. Ari, who hadn’t yet succeeded in memorizing Fezrisond’s deck plan, found himself twice caught in dead ends before reaching his goal.
Not good enough, he thought. Emergencies can happen absolutely anywhere. The head of the medical department needs to know where
everything is before the trouble starts.
Resolving to spend his free time after dinner in a closer study of the ship’s internal layout, he palmed the security plate by the side of the closed door. A spy-eye on a flexible rod emerged from a recess above the door, and the synthesized voice of an annunciator intoned, “Please state your name, rank, and business.”
“Ari Rosselin-Metadi, lieutenant commander, interview with the admiral,” Ari told the annunciator.
He omitted the salute and the formal phrases that he would have used in speaking to Admiral Vallant directly. The spy-eye and the annunciator were nothing but screening devices, and not themselves his superiors in any way. If the annunciator had employed some version of Vallant’s own speaking voice, the question would have become somewhat more complicated—but this one still used the bland, sexless tones that had come with it from the factory.
The door slid open. Ari stepped through, ducking as usual out of force of habit to avoid bumping his head. Admiral Vallant—a small, dapper man with dark eyes, his black hair tending to silver at the temples—sat waiting at the desk inside. Ari drew himself up to his full height.
“Lieutenant Commander Ari Rosselin-Metadi, reporting as ordered, sir.”
“At ease,” said the admiral. He gestured at the tiny office’s other chair. “And please do sit down.”
Ari sat. Vallant was definitely a short man; even sitting, Ari was more than head and shoulders taller, and the admiral was plainly aware of the fact. The awareness made Ari nervous; his size had gotten him into trouble before with small men who took the mere fact of it as a threat and decided to attack him first. He’d learned a number of ways to deal with situations like that, but he didn’t know how well any of them would work if the other party involved was an admiral.
But Vallant was smiling at him cordially. “So, Rosselin-Metadi—how do you like Fezrisond now that you’ve been aboard her for a while?”
“She’s a big ship,” Ari said. “I’m still learning my way around. But the medical department is first-rate, I can tell you that much already.”
Vallant looked at him sharply. “You came here from Nammerin, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, this isn’t a muddy dirtside station—this is a flagship, and things are different here. My people have nothing less than the best, and I expect nothing less than the best from them in return. Do you understand what I’m driving at, Rosselin-Metadi?”
“I think so, sir.”
“Good.” There was a long pause. When Valiant spoke again, his voice was thoughtful. “‘Rosselin-Metadi’ … not exactly a name one expects to find in the medical service.”
This, too, was a reaction Ari had learned to anticipate a long time ago. “No, sir,” he said.
“Why did you choose it, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
Of course you can ask, Ari commented silently. You’re an admiral. You can ask anything you please. And you might even get a true answer sometimes.
Aloud he said, “I picked the medical service because I wanted more of a challenge.”
“‘More of a challenge’?”
“Yes, sir. Breaking things is easy. Putting them back together again is harder.”
“I see.” Vallant regarded Ari for a moment as if he were going to ask a further question. In the end, however, he said nothing except, “You can go now, Rosselin-Metadi.”
Ari went.
Back in his cabin, the letter to Llannat Hyfid remained unfinished. Without bothering to change out of his dress uniform, Ari took out the paper and the pen and added another paragraph.
I’ve finally met Admiral Vallant, he wrote. He was welcoming enough, but I wish you could meet him too.
There, Ari thought. I hope that says enough without saying too much.
IV.
GALCEN: PRIME BASE HYPERSPACE TRANSIT: WARHAMMER
LLANNAT HYFID had passed through the massive spaceport complex at Galcen Prime only twice before in her life: once as a medical service ensign on her way to training at the Retreat; and three years later as an Adept bound for Nammerin. Both times she’d had to cross between the vaulted halls and concourses of the civilian side, with their links to the planetary transport grid, and the less elegant sprawl of Space Force’s Prime Base. She hadn’t cared for the civilian aspect of the port—no one who’d been brought up on the Selvauran world of Maraghai, where human settlements were sparse and few, was likely to find Prime’s overcrowded grandeur congenial—and she was glad that this time she wouldn’t have to make the switch.
Here’s hoping they’ve got room for me in the BOQ, she thought as she collected her carrybag from RSF Istrafel’s shuttle and started across the tarmac toward the Space Force ground-to-orbit terminal. If they’re full up and I’m going to be stationed here for a while, I’ll have to find an apartment somewhere in the city. It’ll probably cost the world to rent, even if I do get a housing allowance, and I’ll have to waste more time and money getting to and from base. Maybe there’s an auxiliary Guildhouse in Prime somewhere, but staying there wouldn’t be a good idea. Somebody might start wondering about the Prof’s staff, and then I’d have to answer more questions than I really want to … .
“Mistress Hyfid?”
The speaker was a clerk/comptech second class. He saluted—rather uncertainly, as if he wasn’t sure where an Adept in an unmarked medical service uniform rated in the Space Force’s grand scheme of things—and held out a plain brown envelope.
“Orders, ma’am.”
Llannat stared at the envelope in confusion. Orders? But I already have my orders.
Just the same, she reflected, standing on the tarmac with her mouth open wasn’t going to clear up the situation. She’d better say something before the CC/2 decided that her mind wasn’t tracking. She set her carrybag down on the pavement and returned the salute.
“Thank you, Petty Officer,” she said, and took the envelope.
The sheet of flimsy inside carried the same identifier as the orders that had brought her to Galcen. The subject line beneath the identifier read “ORDMOD”; the modification that followed changed her destination from General Assignment, Prime, to a berth on RSF Naversey (CS-1124), “for duty as assigned.”
Something funny is definitely going on, she thought. A CS is a fast courier … they put hotshot pilots on those, not med service Adepts.
Still puzzled, she picked up her carrybag and headed into the shuttle terminal. Somewhere on one of the flat-displays along the terminal walls was a listing that would tell her in what part of Prime Base Naversey was docked; or—if the courier ship wasn’t in port—which of the available ships could take her to wherever Naversey happened to be.
Look on the bright side, Llannat told herself. You may not have to go apartment-hunting in downtown Prime after all.
Beka Rosselin-Metadi was dreaming.
She knew she was dreaming; she’d been a free-spacer for almost ten Standard years, and captain of her own ship for nearly three, and she hadn’t been home to Galcen since she was seventeen. So if she was standing in the reception room of her family’s house in the Northern Uplands and wearing a gown of sea-foam green, this had to be a dream. Memory alone had never been so vivid, although she’d remembered this night often during the years since.
She wore her yellow hair in elaborate braids high on her head, and carried a long knife in a sheath up her sleeve. The weight of a blaster on her hip pulled at her belt, and the sea-green dress swirled around it with a sound like the breathing of a ship’s ventilation system.
In the entryway behind her, the front door slid open and closed again. Perada Rosselin, Domina of Lost Entibor and Councilor for Entibor-in-Exile and the Colonies Beyond, came into the reception room. She had on a plain gown of black moire spidersilk, and in her ice-blond hair she wore the unadorned tiara of twisted iron wire that was all the Magewar had left of the regalia of House Rosselin.
“You did very well tonight,” the Domina said. “Your father
and I are quite proud of you.”
Beka-in-the-dream scowled. “My feet hurt.” She kicked off the narrow green satin slippers. They hit the floor, first one and then the other, with a faint slap-slap. “I hate standing in receiving lines.”
“Receiving lines are a necessary evil,” said the Domina. “I know you didn’t have the time to dance much, but you’ll get plenty of chances from now on.”
“Dancing.” Beka-in-the-dream made the word sound like an obscenity. “With Dadda. With Ari. With Owen, unless he’s gone off by himself to listen to the grass grow or something. With two or three of Dadda’s friends from the Space Force and a couple of your friends from the Council and a handpicked junior officer from a good family who’s so scared of Dadda that he can barely think.”
The headlong rush of words left her out of breath. She inhaled with a gulp, and continued before the Domina could say anything. “With Councilor Tarveet. Mother, why did you have to invite him to my party?”
In her dream, she heard the Domina sigh, and saw the worry line between her mother’s finely arched brows. She didn’t remember noticing either one the first time, when all this had really happened.
“You may not like Tarveet—”
“I don’t!”
“—nevertheless, he controls an important bloc of votes, and I can’t afford to offend him.”
“But you don’t even like him!”
The Domina pressed her lips together. “I don’t have to like him,” she said after several seconds had passed. “I do have to work with him.”
“Well, I’m not going to work with him.” Beka-in-the-dream folded her arms across her chest and made a face. “He makes me feel like a slug crawled on me. When I was six he patted me on the head and said that I was ‘sweet,’ and now that I’m officially all grown up he pats me on the arm and tells me that I’m ‘charming’—and I’ve killed better men than him without even stopping to look back.”
Starpilot's Grave: Book Two of Mageworlds Page 16