Hunting Party

by Elizabeth Moon

  “What sort of facilities does it have for off-duty crew?” Heris asked. She knew this was going to cause an explosion, and it did.

  “What do you mean, off-duty crew? The crew goes to Hospitality Bay, as I explained earlier.” Cecelia sounded annoyed.

  “Milady.” That formality should get her attention. Cecelia was susceptible, Heris had discovered, to very severe courtesy. “You have an entirely new set of environmental components, and the run here from Takomin Roads was just long enough to break them in—not long enough for this crew to be what I consider well trained. I want a standing watch aboard—”

  “The Stationmaster won’t like it; everyone sends their crews down to Hospitality Bay, and the ships are secured. What do you think, that rustlers or smugglers or something will come aboard?”

  Heris didn’t answer that, although she thought that leaving a ship uncrewed at a private station made it very easy for smugglers to do what they’d already done to Sweet Delight. She waited. Cecelia was not stupid; she would think of that herself in a few minutes. After a silence, Cecelia’s voice came back, unsubdued but no longer angry.

  “I see. You do think exactly that. And someone did put whatever it was in my scrubbers.” It had now become “my” scrubbers, Heris noted with amusement. At least she knew what scrubbers were. Cecelia went on. “Did you ever find out what that was?”

  “No,” Heris answered. “And I doubt we will, unless it comes to court. My point is that we need a standing watch aboard; if you authorize it, the Stationmaster will agree.”

  “But what about the expense? And the crew expects their vacation at Hospitality Bay—won’t they be angry?”

  “Look—what if a pipe breaks while you’re planetside, and floods dirty goo all over this carpet? You don’t like the lavender plush any more than I do, but imagine the mess. Imagine what your sister would say. As for the crew, that’s my problem; if they’re angry, they’ll be angry with me. Time they earned what you pay them.”

  “You’re determined, aren’t you?” That with a slightly catty edge.

  “Where your safety and the integrity of this ship are concerned, yes,” Heris said.

  * * *

  The Stationmaster required all the weight of Cecelia’s patronage to change his mind. “It is not the usual procedure at all,” he said. “We have that procedure for a reason; we can’t have idle ships’ crews roaming about the Station getting into trouble.”

  “They won’t be,” Heris said. “They’ll be busy learning the new systems recently installed on this ship. During their shipboard rotation, they will have very little time to roam about—and if you insist, I can confine them to the ship, although I would prefer to allow them a moderate amount of time off. Lady Cecelia expressly requested that the crew be thoroughly trained—there had been incidents—” She didn’t specify, and he didn’t ask.

  “Yes, but—we really don’t have facilities . . .”

  “Six individuals at a time aboard,” Heris said. “No more than three offship—”

  “Only three?” the Stationmaster said. Heris smiled to herself. She had won.

  “Yes. They’ll be standing round-the-clock watches, and they have a lot of work to do; I would prefer, because of that, to let them get their meals on the Station, rather than also detail a cook—”

  “Oh . . . I see. Lady Cecelia’s credit line?”

  “Of course: the ship’s account, with a limit—” She had to put a limit, or both the Station vendors and the crew would be likely to cheat.

  “I would suggest thirty a day per person,” the Stationmaster said. She haggled him down to twenty; she had already called up the vendor ads and knew her people could eat well on fifteen.

  Next she had to tell the crew. She did not expect much trouble, and they listened in respectful silence, although she noticed some sideways glances. The new members, who had never been to Hospitality Bay, were glad enough to rotate in and out. Those who were accustomed to idling away a planetary quartile on full pay might have complained, but remembered the departure of the pilot. Heris hoped some of them would decide to quit; she knew she could do better. When she called for volunteers for the first rotation, Sirkin and the newest crew members got their hands up first—exactly what she’d expected. She had planned shorter, more frequent rotations (over the protests of both Cecelia and the Stationmaster) on the grounds that unused skills quickly deteriorated. In fact, there were crew members she didn’t want to leave in the ship too long.

  By the time they docked—without incident: the peculiar-looking Station turned out to be well designed where it mattered—Heris had the roster settled, and enough work planned to keep the standing watch alert. She had scattered her new and most trusted crew among each rotation . . . and hoped that would keep any remaining smuggler-agents from doing whatever they might otherwise do. Then it was time to pack her own kit, and prepare to accompany Lady Cecelia’s entourage to the planet.

  * * *

  “You were right,” Heris said to her employer, as she came out of the droptube into the central area of the Station. “I don’t believe it.” The ornamental object in the middle had as many eye-teasing impossibilities as the station itself, and in addition offered the appearance of a stream of water flowing merrily uphill. That alone wouldn’t have been upsetting: everyone had seen inverse fountains or ridden inverse scare rides, since the invention of small artifical gravity generators. But this one flowed uphill without a substrate, burbling from one visible guide channel to another through the empty air. “It’s a holo, right?”

  “No—it’s real, in its own way. You can put your hand into it and find out.” Cecelia looked entirely too pleased with herself. Heris argued with her mind, and her stomach, and did not put her hand into the water. She was not going to ask how the illusion had been accomplished. Cecelia grinned. “I can tell you won’t ask, so I’ll give you a hint: Spirlin membrane.”

  Heris was very glad she hadn’t put her hand in; it could have been embarrassing. Spirlin membranes, suspended in water, increased surface tension dramatically. They were also highly adherent to human skin, which often reacted with the Spirlin chemistry by fluorescing for days after the contact.

  “I . . . see.” Heris looked around. This area of the Station seemed to consist of gardens designed to the same weird standards as the Station itself and the fountain. Steps, low walls, terraces with seating arrangements that argued visually with each other—that seemed determined to flow from angular to curved, and back to angular, or, in some cases, to suggest by forced perspective the incorrect size or distance. Planters suspended at unnerving angles, all full of strange plants pruned to look like something else. When she looked up, Heris found herself staring into the canopy of another garden, looking down onto the heads of people walking along—she swayed, disoriented for a moment. Cecelia grabbed her arm.

  “That one is a holo. I should have warned you—sorry. Almost no one looks up.”

  After that, Heris had no idea what kind of shuttle they would find in the bay . . . but although it was more luxurious than commercial or military models, it looked much the same on the outside, and brought them to the surface safely. Lady Cecelia’s party had it to themselves; Lady Cecelia and Heris in the forward compartment, the young people in the main compartment, and Lady Cecelia’s maid and a few other servants in the aft section. Once well down in the atmosphere, the cabin steward served a full dinner; by the time they landed, shortly before sunset, Heris had almost reconciled herself to being a passenger.

  Chapter Nine

  “We hoped you’d be here for the first day, Lady Cecelia,” said the gnarled little man at the entrance to the stable block. They had walked down from the Main House—which Heris had barely seen the night before, after the drive from the shuttle-port—to a set of buildings that looked as large as the house. Pale yellow stone, trimmed with gray stone around windows and doors; a wide, high arch with metal gates folded back . . .

  “Things happen,” said Cecelia. �
�Here—I want you to know Heris Serrano, my guest this year. She’s a novice at hunting, but she’s developing a decent seat.”

  “Pleased, mum,” the man said. Heris felt herself under inspection of some sort, though she wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Apparently she passed, for his thin mouth widened to a smile. “Go on in—he’ll be waitin’ for you.”

  “Now you’ll see,” said Cecelia as they came out of the arched entrance into a wide bricked walk that lay between the rows of stalls and a low-fenced dirt enclosure. Beyond was another archway, across which Heris saw a horse and rider move at a trot in yet another enclosure.

  “Lady Cecelia!” It was clear from the rearrangement of wrinkles that this man’s face seldom found such a smile. Lean, tanned, upright, brisk—this had to be the “Neil” who supervised all the training and the assignment of riders. “About time—I’ve held back two good prospects for you.” He glanced at Heris, and dismissed her, waving for someone to bring a horse forward. Cecelia interrupted him.

  “First—meet Heris Serrano. She’s my guest this year, and I’ve been giving her preliminary instruction on the simulator—”

  He looked at Heris again, this time with attention, and then back at Cecelia. “With full programming?”

  “What I use myself. She’s a novice, but she’s solid as far as she goes. She’s taking meter jumps now, but it’s only sim; she needs practice before she goes out in the field. . . .”

  “And you don’t want me to treat her like a boneheaded kid who thinks he can ride because he once stuck on a horse at a gallop, is that it? Did you think I couldn’t recognize maturity?”

  “No—but I want her to have a good experience. And I want you to supervise, not one of your assistants, unless you’ve got better than last time.”

  “No . . . they go away when they get too good.” His eyes measured Heris again. “Of course . . . size doesn’t matter, and all that, but I’d think to start her on something reasonable. Sixteen?”

  “Fine.”

  “She has to show me in the ring that she has the basics, but I’ll shift her to the outside course right away.”

  “Thanks, Neil.”

  “No problem.” He was still staring at Heris as if she had sprouted scales, then he nodded sharply and called, “Bring me the bay mare in seventeen; size sixteen saddle, and the eggbutt snaffle.” To Heris he said, “If Lady Cecelia says you’re a promising novice, I’ll believe it, and that mare will give you the chance to show it. Honest, can jump, but not fast enough for the field. If you suit, you can use her here until you qualify.” Then, to Cecelia, “Now watch this.”

  A thin girl led up a horse that looked enormous to Heris; it was a brown so dark it looked black except in clear sun. Cecelia nodded. “Is that what you got with the Buccinator sperm?”

  “Yep. Off the Cullross mares. Two of ’em; the other’s a liver chestnut. This one’s five, and before you say anything I know I didn’t show him to you last year. . . . Milord said not to, because it’s a surprise. Want to try him?”

  Heris could see the flush on Cecelia’s cheek, the delight and eagerness that made her almost girlish.

  “Of course. . . .” She was up in a flash, rising lightly to the hand that gave her a leg up. Heris had, by this time, seen her employer on many horses in the training cubes; she thought she knew how that long, lanky body, almost too stiff at times on the ground, would look astride. Cecelia looked better—as if she and the horse had fused into one.

  “Here, sir.” That was someone else, with a smaller brown horse for Heris. The man nodded at her, and she mounted without waiting for assistance.

  “Come on, the both of you,” he said. “You’ll need to warm up inside anyway.”

  Heris, on her first live horse since her time in the Academy, found that coordinating the movement of legs and hands while the horse actually walked—walked toward something—was harder than she expected. She liked the higher viewpoint, but wanted to spend it looking around, not steering. Ahead of her, on the dark horse, Cecelia seemed to be having no problems. Heris lined up behind her and hoped her horse would follow calmly while she tried to remember all the lessons.

  The inner training area, a walled oblong, offered fewer distractions. They walked to the right; Neil moved to the center, watching. Heris began to relax, letting her body discover the difference between the simulation and reality. It still felt strange. This was not a mechanical device, or an electronic image: this was an animal, a live thing, that smelled like an animal and felt (when she dared touch the neck) like an animal. The horse blew, a long slobbering breath, and Heris felt that in her legs.

  Simulations work, she told herself. They’re effective training tools; you learned to pilot a ship off simulators; of course you can ride this animal. The animal was slowing down, she realized, because she wasn’t giving enough signal with her legs. The simulation tended to keep a pace more easily; Cecelia had mentioned that some horses required more leg pressure. Heris increased it, and the horse’s head came up (just like the VR image!) and it walked faster. Mare. The man had said mare, and mares were females . . . so she walked faster.

  “Reverse,” Neil said. Almost before she thought, Heris had shortened one rein, shifted her legs slightly and the mare was turning smoothly to reverse directions. It worked. Of course it had worked in the simulator, but it worked on a real horse, too. She felt better. Maybe everything would work on the real horse. She looked over at Cecelia, across the circle. Her employer did not look anywhere near her actual age on that horse; she could have been Heris’s age or even younger.

  “Pick up a nice trot, now,” Neil said.

  Trotting felt completely different from the simulator. She was off balance at first, and she sensed Neil’s disapproval. It took her an entire circuit of the ring to figure out what was wrong; her ship-trained sense of balance had worked on the simulator because it wasn’t going anywhere relative to the ship—but the horse was going somewhere on the ground. If she leaned forward a bit more—she experimented—suddenly the movement felt right. Cecelia was right—it could feel like dancing.

  With that experience to draw on, she was prepared for the difference in the feel of the canter, and compensated within a few bounds. The rush of cold air on her face was exhilarating; she didn’t want to stop.

  “She’ll do,” Neil said to Cecelia. Then, to Heris, “All right, Captain—back to a walk now, and bring ’er in to the center. You can watch Lady Cecelia.” Heris slowed, remembering to brace her back, and guided the mare to near Neil. Cecelia’s horse was walking again. Heris tried to notice the things she’d been taught to notice, but what struck her most was the horse’s size. Even from up here, it looked big. When Heris had settled the mare in a halt, Cecelia nudged her mount to a trot. She hadn’t waited for Neil’s signal, Heris noticed. Watching the big horse trot, she wondered why Cecelia hadn’t overtaken her. It moved so much faster. . . . Cecelia slowed it again; its neck arched and its steps shortened. Then it stretched, then compressed again. Heris was fascinated.

  “Let’s try you both on a few fences,” Neil said. He led the way out of that ring into another, where four small jumps were set up. “You first,” he said to Heris. “Just pick up a trot and take the little white one.”

  Heris collected the mare, pushed her into a trot, and approached the first jump. It seemed to stay in place while she moved, while the simulator had given the illusion of the jump shifting toward her. Even as she thought this, the mare rose to the jump, and Heris leaned into it. It felt the same, though. She turned the mare around, awaiting orders.

  “Now try these two,” Neil said. That, too, went smoothly; she felt steady and safe, but she knew the jumps were small. At Neil’s command, she trotted over all four, then cantered over a pair—an in-and-out, he called it. He yelled, and several husky youths appeared and moved the jumps around. Again she jumped, first at a trot, and then a canter; first one way, then the other, as the fence crew changed distances and heights. Neil said nothing a
bout her performance until it was over, when he called her to him. “Lady Cecelia’s right,” he said. “You’re a solid novice. We’ll see later what you do in the open. Walk ’er in circles down there—” He pointed to the far end of the enclosure.

  Now it was Lady Cecelia’s turn. The big dark horse poured over the jumps at a trot, hardly seeming to lift itself. The jumps were raised, the distances changed. Cecelia had explained the reasons, but even the simulator had not made it clear to Heris just what these changes demanded from a live animal. She watched the dark horse arch, lifting its knees high, as the jumps came up; she watched it compress and lengthen as the jumps were placed closer together or farther apart. And Cecelia, whom she had once considered a rich old eccentric . . . Cecelia flowed with the horse, a part of it.

  When they were through, they walked back up to the house together. Cecelia had told Neil she would come back later to ride the other horse. “Now I want to be sure Heris is settled,” she said. “She needs to meet a few people, learn where things are.”

  “Of course,” Neil said. “But give me a call just before you come down.”

  Now Heris looked around her, more at ease than before. Like the house itself, all the surrounding buildings were either built of stone or faced with it. Most had stone or tile roofs as well. It looked remarkably like the cube of Old Earth Europe.

  “I suppose it’s like the old parts of the Academy,” she said, turning to watch someone ride along a narrow cobble street lined with stone buildings. “Nostalgia or something . . .”

  “And economy here,” Cecelia said. “You have to remember when this was settled—a bare two centuries ago. Bunny’s ancestors had money, yes, but it was far cheaper to import workers to build with local stone, than to import an entire factory to create conventional materials. I suspect that the first ones simply copied designs from old books—and then it began to look Old Earthish, and if someone teased them . . . well, that would have done it. They’d have insisted it was intentional.” She walked around a circular tub planted with brilliant red flowers. “Of course it had all the usual comforts from the beginning; they didn’t start out to build historical reproductions.”