Mertone looked up, opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly. Hoste held out his hand for the folder and Mertone gave it back without a word. Hoste took the folder, sealed it with his thumb, and thrust it into the waiting drawer.
“So do you want to explain this little episode to RyKirt, Cal? Or do you want me to do it? Or do you want to find yourself a new billet?”
Chapter Twelve
Aeolis Station
in Mars orbit, Sol
Ensign Loralynn Kennakris, the gold bars on her shoulders not yet forty-eight hours old, stood in the departure terminal of Aeolis Station, waiting for the call to embark on the transport LSS Sardis and resisting the urge to kick the large massy duffle bag at her feet which, aside from her dress uniforms, contained everything she owned. She blamed Ensign Weber, leaning against a stanchion about five meters away, who had been doing exactly that for at least the last twenty minutes.
In Kris’s opinion, rhythmically kicking one’s baggage was beneath the dignity of a newly commissioned ensign, but Weber had been disappointed in his hope for a combat posting. He’d dropped out of the pilot program during basic flight, tried for EW, and was now destined for the CEF Command Logistics Directorate, posting to Weyland Station out in Eltanin Sector. He’d already been ribbed mercilessly over it—Weber, where’s my socks? Weber, you call this food? and the old favorite: Weber, don’t get your panties in a bunch, they come by the gross—so if anyone had a right to kick their baggage, she supposed he did. But she still wished he’d stop.
It didn’t help that she’d spent the last two of those almost forty-eight hours right here, next to the terminal where, a year ago, she’d passed under the sign that read: Through this Portal shall pass the Future Guardians of Mankind’s Freedom. She stood here with another twelve hundred and forty-one of those guardians, future no longer, on their way to war—the first class commissioned directly into combat since before Kris was born.
That year had been tumultuous, but it was the hours since graduation that oppressed her now, an odd kaleidoscope of feelings, memories, impressions; so new yet so difficult to sort. The ceremony itself: marching in silently; the valedictory brief, somber, businesslike—nothing grandiose or stirring—and the archaic words of the oath: I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; followed by the stilted phrases of the dire warning: Neither you nor any of you shall fail in your duty as you will answer the contrary at your peril, which now took on a new, more terrible and urgent meaning. Her class falling out at the command of Sergeant Major Yu—his last command to them—stepping smartly back one pace, facing about and throwing their caps with a cheer; the caps sailing, sailing, in the native Martian gravity—and the cheer echoing oddly, thinly off the towering Academy façade in the cold, dry, unstirring air. No guests (that being deemed unfair to colonials whose families could not be expected to make the journey), only the instructors and the Commandant standing in silent ranks. Then mounting the Academy steps one last time to receive their first salute from Sergeant Major Yu; Yu’s unexpected and contra-protocol wink as she handed him the ritual coin while he saluted her and offered his congratulations. Then the long walk up the marble ramp, not to a month of liberty but to receive their deployment orders from a starchy senior lieutenant in full dress.
Most of all, searching for Huron, not seeing him; learning he had been ordered away to take over LSS Trafalgar’s new recon wing; missing him, being privately surprised and embarrassed at how much. Then unfolding her orders, delivered in a square white wrapper, and feeling her heart lurch even though she knew it had been discussed—indeed almost privately promised (Admiralty promises often just so much hot air)—but there it was in beautiful, objective, undeniable print: You are hereby directed and required to report immediately to the post of flight officer, CEF 135th Reconnaissance Wing, LSS Trafalgar. LCDR Rafael L. Huron V commanding.
Her xel beeped again, louder. It had been beeping for not quite fifty minutes: a page from the station porter’s office. A page she’d been ignoring because the porter’s office was deep in the guts of the station, six minutes one way, her xel said, and it was certainly a mistake. With her departure imminent—it had been listed as imminent for ninety minutes now—she didn’t want to negotiate the tube system just to confirm the mistake and have to hurry back, suffering the wry looks of her officers if her boarding group was called in her absence.
She knew it was a mistake because the porter’s office primarily handled physical mail, a mode of correspondence employed by the well-to-do on special occasions and by the government for certain formal notices. Some of her fellow ensigns had been getting graduation cards from their families this way, a few on genuine paper, but she had no family and no real friends besides Baz, who was standing just a few meters away, so it was inconceivable that she should be sent a card, and the Navy did not speak to persons of so little consequence as a new ensign by such means. It was possible—barely—that Huron had sent her something, but a personal communication of that sort from her new commanding officer would be stretching the limits of propriety to near breaking, and it was unlikely even Huron would go so far. In any event, she’d be reporting to him shortly.
She thumbed the alert off for the fifth time and looked up to see a porter hurrying through the crowd, heading straight for her. Kris, most unwilling to be made game of in front of so many former classmates, watched the porter’s undeviating course with an ever more forbidding expression until the porter, a young woman, stopped in front of her and touched her cap.
“Ensign Kennakris?” Kris nodded. “Ensign Loralynn Kennakris?” the porter asked with particular emphasis. Kris nodded again. “Letter for you, ma’am.”
Kris’s brows furrowed as the porter held out a pad for Kris to sign. She signed and pressed her thumb over the signature. The pad approved her biometrics and the porter unsealed her satchel, produced a white envelope and handed it over. Kris took it and felt the texture. Real paper. Her name was written across the front of the envelope in a feminine hand and it was sealed with a gold wafer.
“Who’s this from?”
The porter consulted a manifest. “A Ms. Rathor. Earth. Return address care of . . .” She hesitated, screwing her young face into a frown. “Care of one of the agencies. Can’t tell which. That’s a generic government drop box”—showing Kris the address.
Mariwen?
Kris mumbled something, took out her xel and mechanically stroked off a tip for the porter, who smiled, made a reply Kris couldn’t hear over the blood rushing in her ears, touched her cap again and left. Kris stared off at nothing and willed her knees not to shake.
The boarding claxon made her jump as her group number scrolled across the display, called out at the same time by a hieratic voice over the PA system. She bent, unzipped a pocket on the duffle, slid the envelope inside, sealed it, shouldered the heavy bag and took her place in line.
* * *
Lights out; the dim red glow of the dark-lamp in the berth showing three sleeping forms. The portly senior warrant officer in the lower bunk across from her, his slow, brutish snoring mixing oddly with the soft, almost feline purr of the young lieutenant-jg in the upper bunk, another flight officer and an absurdly pretty girl, slight with shoulder-length black hair, pure Asian features and improbably long lashes that quivered as she dreamed. Basmartin in the bunk above hers, sleeping with the log-like imperturbably she remembered; he was the only other member of their graduating class accepted into Trafalgar’s new recon wing.
Two days out now, en route to Epona in Cygnus Sector. Seven days, sixteen hours more if they made good time, but probably longer—Sardis was no flyer. Kris rolled slowly onto her side and sat up. The warrant officer snored on; the pretty lieutenant stirred. Kris froze, unconsciously holding her breath at the sound of a murmured name. The lieutenant rolled over, fractious for a moment, plucking at the coverlet with a delicate hand with painted nails—not strictly regulation that—before settling more deeply into her bunk with a dainty sigh.
The moon has set, and the Pleiades;
Midnight is gone,
the hours wear by,
and here I lie alone; alone . . .
# # #
Epilogue
The Riverlands, Mare Nemeton
Nedaema, Pleiades Sector
“Why coots?” asked Trin Wesselby as she distributed another handful of popcorn across the crowd of squabbling waterfowl that had collected under the limestone bridge to dispute over the bounty raining down from six meters up. She looked out over the Riverlands, the artful maze of serpentine waterways that divided Nedaema’s capital, its parks crowded with silver oak and red gum trees, willows lining the banks and a sprinkling of small islands decorated with Japanese maples, their leaves all flame-colored at this time of year. Beyond, Nedaema’s primary was just setting and, due to its spectrum and the unique chemistry of Nedaema’s upper atmosphere, pouring streams of pure molten gold over the clouds mounded low on the horizon. The light also rendered the limestone of the bridge on which they were standing a rich lemon yellow, and the whole scene looked decidedly unreal. Which was no doubt what the designers intended. Except for the coots.
“Coots?” asked Nick Taliaferro, loafing beside her and studying the round little birds, all a sort of muddled grayish-black with a white eye stripe. He’d always rather liked their drab, commonplace appearance—a note of charming mundanity in this beautifully contrived watercolor landscape. It was revealing, he thought, of a note of sly humor that Nedaemans all too often lacked. Trin, though, didn’t seem to agree.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can understand those trumpeter swans”—pointing to a troupe gliding majestically across the gilded water, their plumage every shade of blue from the richest peacock or deepest indigo to a shade of Prussian that was almost black—“even though I think they’re a little gaudy. But I just don’t get the coots. Why go to all the trouble to import coots?”
Nick smiled as Trin dipped into her plastic bag and scattered more manna from heaven to the teeming supplicants circling below. A flock of teal pintail ducks from the other side of the bridge were beginning to notice, and to Nick, they looked like they were getting ready to rumble.
“I dunno,” he answered, watching with mild anticipation. The coots could probably hold their own against the pintails, but if those Beaufort’s geese just coming out from behind that island over there got into the action, it was all over. The swans, he knew, would hold aloof, the whole business being beneath them. “I sorta like coots.”
“They always look so annoyed,” Trin said. She’d noticed the pintails too, who were launching a reconnaissance in force. “There’s just no pleasing a coot.”
Nick laughed and it startled all the birds below. Both sides backed off, anxious at this new development. Trin dumped what popcorn she had left into the disputed territory.
“Sounds like half the people I’ve worked with,” he said, watching the white puffs spiral down.
“Only half?” Trin wadded the empty bag only to realize she didn’t have a pocket to stow it in. She was wearing a pencil skirt today, fashionably short with a kick pleat, a tailored jacket with wide shoulders and a stand collar with cobalt-nickel fittings, along with a pair of moderate heels. It was not her usual look and it was deficient in the article of pockets. Nick couldn’t decide if it made her look like an attorney or a hit-lady. Maybe both.
He grinned and held out a hand. “I’ve been fortunate in my acquaintance.”
Trin looked sidelong at him and noted the grin and the proffered hand. She’d been about to stuff the crumpled bag in her purse—a distasteful idea since she extremely disliked cluttering her purse. At present it held only her xel, her wallet, some keys, and a compact flechette pistol with two spare clips in the outer pocket. Besides, there were still a good many popcorn hulls in the bag. She handed it over and he put it in the thigh pocket of the baggy dun cargo pants he wore. The left thigh pocket, opposite the one that held the one-eleven STYG automatic. She wondered where he was carrying his back-up piece today; she’d detected nothing under his loose, open-necked flower-print shirt. Probably a crotch holster, she thought.
And that grin had been very like a leer. But she found she didn’t mind that so much.
“So what’s the next move?” Nick asked. Trin shook her head. Down below, the coots and pintails seemed to have agreed on some sort of détente and were cautiously hovering around the margins of the bounty. “Just hang out here,” he suggested, “watch the sunsets and bombard coots who will never be pleased with popcorn for the rest of whatever?”
“You’ve made worse suggestions.” Trin sighed and turned her back on the spectacular sunset, just starting to fade and getting that peculiar neon-green tint that was characteristic of Nedaema’s skies, resting her elbows on the ornate wrought-iron scrollwork that topped the bridge’s meter-high railing. “What about you? Any thoughts?”
Nick leaned forward, a posture that was almost the exact compliment of Trin’s. “Retirement.”
“Retirement?” Trin tried but failed to keep the surprise and dismay out of her voice.
“Sure. Lots to be said for retirement.” Nick looked out into the fading light. The pale disk of Telos was just starting to show. “No one cares if you forget to shave. You can wear loud shirts . . . belch—scratch. It’s almost expected.”
“You’re not even eighty yet. What would you do with yourself?”
“I thought maybe I’d take up fishing.”
“Fishing. . .”
“Yep.” He watched the gathering dark. At this latitude it came on surprisingly fast. “Sport fishing. Go after the big bastards—the ones that put up a real fight.”
“Nick . . . we’re dealing with a mole here.” Spoken very quietly, almost under her breath. CID had detected Lessing on Halith Evandor barely two months after his ‘death’—that was unusually fast, and Trin suspected that either Lessing, or more likely Admiral Heydrich, was thumbing his nose at them. Reading between the lines, Trin had caught some indications that made her suspect a short and unhappy life for Mr. Defector Lessing.
The news had leaked, and with the revelation that a grand senator’s most senior staff member had been a Halith mole, much of the public frustration over the course of the war was given vent. A hastily assembled special commission, chaired by the Senior Secretary of the Plenary Council, looked into the matter and proclaimed that Lessing had acted alone. That finding was supported by a slew of immature writings, recovered mainly from his college days, showing a dewy-eyed young imperialist besotted with thoughts of a ‘New Rome’ burgeoning in the bosom of Orion. CID concurred. Trin didn’t.
It was entirely too tidy for her tastes and important questions were not being addressed. There were still figures apparently involved with the Alecto Initiative whose connection with Lessing was obscure. And there was the question of insurance—Nick’s investigations had not turned up any.
What he had turned up was an impressive collection of pornography, a passion Lessing appeared to share with another, to judge from a decades’ long correspondence of embarrassingly trite and undeniably graphic love letters to “my dear companion” and “the sweet well of my affections” and “Sweet Jordie,” or sometimes just plain “Pickwick.” Pickwick’s replies were often alluded to but rarely preserv
ed; nevertheless, there was no doubt as to the nature of the relationship or who occupied the driver’s seat. The relationship seemed to be physical, at least at one point, but more usually carried on virtually via the shared collection, which included quite the number of illegal feelies.
Add what it might to the understanding of Lessing’s personality and the motivations behind his treachery (and that was significant), it was useless as insurance. He’d either been very clever or very stupid. There was a certain naiveté about the letters, an increasingly frequent need for reassurance very much at odds with the hard-nosed political operator Lessing had been in public—almost, Trin thought, a puppet’s adoration for its master. Now Lessing’s strings were cut, but the guiding hand still hovered out there somewhere, manipulating how many other puppets?
“At least two, I’d say. And some mole-lets hanging about in odd corners here and there.” Nick reached into a shirt pocket and took out a folded piece of hardcopy. “Made some notes on the best places to go sport fishing. Just in case—y’know—you’re interested.” He handed the plaspaper over.
Trin unfolded it gingerly. The page was crammed with tiny, precise writing. “You handwrote this?”
“I think you’re rubbing off on me.”
She reached out and gave his thick shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks, Nick.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Certainly not.” She slid the sheet in with the spare ammo clips. “Say, would you like to get some dinner? I’m feeling generous tonight.”
He winked at her. “Do I have to change?”
She smiled back. “There’s no dress code at the place I have in mind.” Then took out her xel and summoned her car.
“Sounds like a plan.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt and his teeth showed a gleam in his heavily creased, broad face. Trin’s groundcar glided up to the end of the bridge and waited there, purring almost silently on its skirts. She checked her authentication bots and relaxed perceptibly as they all showed green.
Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks Page 56